It was long before the most audacious hand dared to represent in painting or sculpture the omnipotent Jehovah or the infinite Spirit, who sustain and pervade the universe. M. Emeric David says that the French artists of the ninth century had first the “happy boldness”--_heureuse hardiesse_--to depict the Eternal Father under human form.[605] M. Didron asserts that it was not till the twelfth century that the Divine Being was personally represented,[606] being previously invariably indicated by the symbol of a hand, or by the divine name written in a triangle surrounded by a circle. Previous at least to the earlier of these dates, the work of creation and other acts popularly regarded as proper to the Father are always represented as performed by the Son, “who is the image of the invisible God,” “by 358 whom also he made the worlds.”[607] Christ is also painted as commanding Noah to build the ark, as conversing with Abraham, and as speaking to Moses out of the burning bush. He is frequently represented also in the gigantic frescoes of the Byzantine cupolas clothed with awful majesty and bearing the title Ο ΠΑΝΤΟΚΡΑΤΩΡ, the Almighty; but the addition of the letters |IC XC|, the contraction for Jesus Christ, assure us that it is not the Father but the Son who is meant. But the literal conception of the age was not content with a symbolical indication of the Deity. By degrees the arm as well as the hand was portrayed, and art, gradually growing bolder, attempted the representation of that face which inspiration declares no man can see and live. But at first it is the face alone that is shown.[608] Then, with progressive daring, the bust and upper part of the body are painted as reaching forth from the clouds, and finally the entire figure appears under various aspects and in different characters. The Almighty is represented armed with sword and bow, as the God of battles; as crowned, like a king or emperor;[609] and finally, as Pope, wearing the pontifical tiara and vestments. In the following example from a stained-glass window of the sixteenth century, at Troyes, in France, the everlasting Father, throned in glory, crowned with a quintuple tiara and robed in alb and tunic, supports a cross on 359 which hangs the lifeless body of the Divine Son. [Illustration: Fig. 108.--God the Father as Pope.] The omnipotent Jehovah is sometimes portrayed as “the Ancient of Days,” under the form of a feeble old man bowed down by the weight of years, and fain to seek support by leaning heavily on a staff, or reposing on a couch after the labours of creation.[610] The treatment becomes more and more rude, even to the borders of the grotesque,[611] 360 and the conception becomes mean, coarse, and vulgar, till all the Divine departs and only human feebleness and imbecility remain, indicating at once the degradation of taste, decline of piety, and corruption of doctrine.