DEVELOPEMENTS   OF   KATIONALISM.  217

According  to  mediseval  or  even  to  modern  ideas,  we
should  have  imagined  that  an  art  growing  up  under
such  circumstances  would  have  assumed  a  singularly
sombre  and  severe  tone,  and  this  expectation  would
be  greatly  heightened  if  we  remembered  the  violence
of  the  persecution.  The  very  altar-tomb  around
which  the  Christian  painter  scattered  his  ornaments
with  most  profusion  was  often  associated  with  the
memory  of  sufferings  of  the  most  horrible  and  varied
character,  and  at  the  same  time  with  displays  of
heroic  constancy  that  might  well  have  invited  the
talents  of  the  artist.  Passions,  too,  were  roused  to
the  highest  point,  and  it  would  seem  but  natural  that
the  great  and  terrible  scenes  of  Christian  vengeance
should  be  depicted.  Yet  nothing  of  this  kind  appears
in  the  Catacombs.  With  two  doubtful  exceptions,  one
at  least  being  of  the  very  latest  period,  there  are
no  representations  of  martyrdoms.1  Daniel  un-
harmed amid  the  lions,  the  unaccomplished  sacrifice

It  was  also  connected  with  the  passage  in  the  Revelation  about  the
souls  that  were  beneath  the  altar  of  God.  In  most  early  churches
there  was  a  subterranean  chapel  below  the  high  altar,  as  a  me-
morial of  the  Catacombs.  A  decree  of  the  Second  Council  of
Nice  (A.D.  787)  forbade  the  consecration  of  any  church  without
relics.
