a
certain Firmia Victoria, from one of the early Christian cemeteries of
Rome. On it appears a ship riding the waves, and in the background a
four-storied tower from which rises a flame, the lighthouse marking the
final port toward which the vessel bends its course.8
Of
the few designs engraved upon Gracco-Roman rings which were permitted
to the early Christians, the dove, as has been noted, symbolized the
Holy Spirit; a fish became a Christian symbol because the Greek word
for fish (ichthus) gave the initial letters of Iesus Christos,
Theou huios, Soter (Jesus Christ, The Son of God, the Saviour). An
anchor, or the representation of a fisherman, recalls to mind the
Fisherman's Ring of the Roman pontiff.
The fish symbol appears on an engraved Gnostic gem bearing
the head of Christ surrounded with the Greek letters of his name. This
offers one of the types current in the third and fourth Christian
centuries. We have the testimony of St. Augustine that the diversity of
types in his time was very great, and that no record remained of what
Christ's physical appearance really was.9 The oldest
portrait is believed to be that on the ceiling of a chapel in the
cemetery of St. Calixtus at Rome, and the type presented here is that
which has persisted essentially to the present day.
The
ring of the Christian martyr Saturus was a precious memorial of his
death for the faith. When he had already received his death-blow, he
took off his ring and moistening it with the blood that was flowing
8 Raoul Rochette, " Tableau des Catacombes de Rome," Paris, 1837, pp. 235, 2S6.
9
S. Augustini, " De trinitate," lib. viii, cap. 5, 6. Figured in Raoul
Rochette, " Tableau des Catacombes de Rome," Paris, 1837, title page.
