Baptism is also portrayed in a more literal representation. Both spoke of baptism into Christ, and therefore into eternal life. Baptism fresco in the Catacomb of Callistus.

However, the earliest known representations reflect the roman shepherd in style, pose and attributes, the assimilation, within fifty years, of the closely allied personage of Orpheus would indicate either that a Christian ...

As for the charge of idolatry this representative of humanitas was not seen as an idol but rather as a symbol. In Christian literature God's love was portrayed in the symbol of the shepherd of the psalms while Christ ...

Mithras hunting. Fresco in the Mithraeum reconstructed in the Yale University Art Gallery.

The portion of that Palace which was the basilica was turned into a church. Fresco of the Lateran Basilica as found in a fresco in San Martino Ai Monti.

The simplest answer to the source of early Christian iconography is in the iconographic vocabulary available in the secular Roman world. Christian iconography, drawn from contemporary cultural images was useful to the ...

The problems of iconographical perception and practice are obvious. John presumes a portrait is of an idol. Lycomedes is not apologetic but insists that what he has done is proper; he is but showing love and reverence for ...

Fresco of Adam and Eve in the catacomb of Pietro e Marcellino.

The Christian saw in the resurrection of Lazarus the promise of his own resurrection and oneself as a citizen of the heavenly Jerusalem. The heavenly Jerusalem, four square, fresco from the tomb of the Aurelii.

Pagan iconography and roman style weave in and out of one another. In so solidly an Old Testament symbol as that of Noah, we find him saved from the flood in an ark.