Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

FOUNDATION OF THE ROMAN CHURCH 37embodied in colour or in stone as to the part whichPeter had taken in founding the great See wherein hewould deposit his jurisdiction: but that jurisdictionitself is indicated in the rod, the symbol of divinepower, given in these paintings and sculptures tothree persons alone, the Incarnate God Himself, Moseswho prefigured Him, and Peter who followed Him.And the work accomplished is conveyed under theimage of Moses striking the rock with a fulness and pregnancyof meaning such as reminds us of our Lord's ownparables, for it would require a great space adequatelyto develop the thoughts suggested by the representationof Peter discharging to the new people of God functionswhich corresponded to those discharged by Moses whenhe led the typical nation through the desert.At least we may fitly exhibit some of the truth conveyedby this speaking symbol, and so elucidate theidea which the Christian artists of the third, fourth,and fifth centuries intended to portray. It is theeasier because in their delineation of Scripturalscenes "they did not treat them either accurately asfacts of history, or freely as subjects of the imagination,but strictly with a view to their spiritual meaning."2 The transit of the Jewish people from theirslavery in Egypt through the wilderness to theirpromised possession is the type of the Christian peoplei See Roma Sotterrancce (Northcote and Brownlow), pp. 286-289,and also pp. 302, 303, for a description of the remarkable sarcophagusin the Lateran Museum, wherein to three groups above representingour Lord with the rod of power changing the water into wine,multiplying the loaves, and raising Lazarus from the dead, thereappear three answering groups below, of Peter bearing the rodapprehended by Herod's soldiers, and striking the rock. The sameauthors remark that the parallel event in the life of St. Paul, hisimprisonment and deliverance at Philippi, is nowhere representedin early Christian art (p. 288).2 Northcote and Brownlow, p. 240.