After the death of Jesus Christ, the preaching of Christian ideas fell on the shoulders of the disciples of the First Century. In its initial phase, this evangelizing action was restricted to the perimeter of the Judea region, where Jesus himself would have carried out the vast majority of his preaching. However, over time, the action of the disciples proved to be effective and determined the dissemination of Christian values to other parts of the Roman Empire.
persecution of Christians
For the Roman leaders, the spread of christianity it was a serious threat to the values and interests of the empire. The monotheistic belief was contrary to the pantheon of Roman deities, among which the cult of the emperor of Rome stood out. At the same time, the concept of freedom prevented many slaves from submitting to the government imposition that legitimated their subordinate position.
Thus, Christians began to be persecuted in various ways. They were publicly tortured, thrown into the frenzy of violent animals, impaled, crucified and even burned alive. To redeem and pray for their martyrs, Christians began to bury them in the calls
catacombs. These functioned as underground tombs where Christians could sing songs and paint images that manifested their religious confession.Development of artistic expressions
These chants functioned as prayers pronounced in a prosodic rhythm and without any kind of accompanying musical instrument. According to some researchers, this type of singing, more commonly known as “psalmody” (in reference to the book of Psalms) was brought by St. Peter in the early years of the Christian Era. Later, Christian music would be known as plainsong or cantus planus, having as main mark its light melodic variation.
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THE painting elaborated inside the catacombs, it was surrounded by a symbology that indicated the strong discretion of Christian worship at that time. The most recurrent symbol was the crucifix, which recalled the willingness of Jesus to die for the salvation of men. The anchor meant the ideal of salvation. Fish was quite common, as the Greek variation of the term ("ichtys") was the same as the initials of the phrase "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour."
The development of this type of artistic expression ended up allowing the execution of increasingly complex scenes. Some scenes from the biblical text began to take over the wall of the catacombs. However, the image most represented was that of Jesus Christ himself. Most of the time, Christianity's greatest example was symbolized as a shepherd among the sheep. Such allegory mentioned the constant importance that the evangelizing action had among Christians.
This initial phase of the primitive art it wasn't dominated by any specific artist. Most representations found were performed by anonymous people who wanted to express their beliefs. The lack of technical knowledge prior to the conception of such works marked this initial phase of Christian art with simple and rather crude forms.
*Image credits: photogolfer / Shutterstock
By Rainer Sousa
Graduated in History
Brazil School Team
Would you like to reference this text in a school or academic work? Look:
SOUSA, Rainer Gonçalves. "Primitive Christian Art: The Catacomb Phase"; Brazil School. Available in: https://brasilescola.uol.com.br/historiag/arte-crista.htm. Accessed on June 27, 2021.
