The Catholic World, Vol. 25, April 1877 to September 1877Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 25, April 1877 to September 1877
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
We pass on to another of the Biblical stories mentioned by several of
the Fathers as typical of baptism; and we will select as our specimen of
it a painting that was executed about the very time that Tertullian was
writing his treatise on that sacrament. It is to be seen more than once
on the walls of a series of chambers which open out of a gallery in the
Catacomb of San Callisto, not far from the papal crypt. The first figure
that greets us from the wall on the left-hand side as we enter these
chambers is Moses striking the rock and the water gushing forth. Are we
to look upon this as a mere historic souvenir of the Jewish legislator,
or are we to see in it a reference to Christian baptism? The artist in
the present instance does not allow us to doubt. Side by side with it he
has painted a fisherman, and we need not be reminded who it was that
compared the work of the Christian apostle to that of fishermen; and
immediately he adds, with still greater plainness of speech, a youth
standing in the water, whilst a man pours water over his head. Finally,
he fills the very little space that remains on the wall with the picture
of a paralytic carrying his bed, and it would be easy to show that the
Fathers recognized in the pool of Bethsaida, to which place this history
belongs, a type of the healing waters of baptism. Was it possible for
the Christian artist to set forth the sacrament more unequivocally?
There is no legend to interpret the painting, but surely this is not
needed. The mystery is veiled, indeed, from all who were uninstructed;
but it was perfectly intelligible to all the baptized; it was veiled
under types and symbols taken partly from the Old Law and partly from
common life.
We need hardly say that this same figure of Moses striking the rock
occurs in scores of other places throughout the Catacombs; but we have
selected this particular specimen, both because it appears with a more
copious _entourage_ of other symbols determining its sense beyond all
dispute, and also because it is here brought, as we shall presently see,
into immediate proximity with the other sacrament, to which it is a
necessary gate of introduction—the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. But
before we pass on to examine the symbols of the Holy Eucharist, let us
first inquire whether there is anything further about baptism to be
gleaned from the Catacombs—not now from their paintings, but from their
inscriptions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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