ABSTRACT
We have seen that up to the time of Constantine, during the first three centuries of the Christian Church, the chief Christian writers show either a disapproval of any making of images-Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria-or at any rate a disapproval of images of' Christ, while the archaeological evidence proves that, if a large number of Christians did not object to their sepulchres being decorated with Biblical scenes, they did at any rate shrink from making portraits of Christ or depicting the events of the Passion. There is no allusion, I believe, in Christian literature to a crucifix-a detached cross with the human figure upon it-before the seventh century. But beside the utterances of Christian writers and the remains of early Christian art we have to consider the early Christian regulations promulgated by assemblies or put together in books of Church Order. In our last lectures we glanced at pronouncements in two of these collections which seemed to make the very handicraft of a painter or sculptor incompatible with Church membership, but we saw that such pronouncements might be understood as referring only to the makers of pagan pictures and images. It has also to be recognized that the regulations contained in these documents may reflect the* ideas of a local church or a particular group, not those of the Church as a whole.
