religious Art of later times. Few of them are of much worth in a
purely artistic view. The paintings of the catacombs are rarely to
be compared, in point of beauty, with the pictures from Pompeii,--
although some of them at least were contemporary works. The artistic
skill which created them is of a lower order. But their interest
arises mainly from the sentiment which they imperfectly embody, and
their chief value is in the light which they throw upon early
Christian faith and religious doctrine. They were designed not so
much for the delight of the eye and the gratification of the fancy,
as for stimulating affectionate imaginations, and affording lessons,
easily understood, of faith, hope, and love. They were to give
consolation in sorrow, and to suggest sources of strength in trial.
"The Art of the first three centuries is entirely subordinate,--
restrained partly by persecution and poverty, partly by a high
spirituality, which cared more about preaching than painting."

With the uncertain means afforded by the internal character of these
mural pictures, or by their position in the catacombs, it is
impossible to fix with definiteness the period at which the
Christians began to ornament the walls of their burial-places. It
was probably, however, as early as the beginning of the second
century; and the greater number of the most important pictures which
have thus far been discovered within the subterranean cemeteries
were probably executed before Christianity had become the
established religion of the empire. After that time the decline in
painting, as in faith, was rapid; formality took the place of
simplicity; and in the course of the fourth and fifth centuries the
native fire of Art sank, till nothing was left of it but a few dying
embers, which the workmen from the East, who brought in the stiff
conventionalisms of Byzantine Art, were unfit and unable to rekindle.