"Popes Clement VII., Paul V.. Urban V., and Pius IV. have granted numerous privileges to this abbatial church. Those who visit its seven principal altars obtain indulgences like those acquired before the seven altars of St. Peter's church at Rome.
"Charles VI., Louis XI., Francis I., Charles IX., Louis XIII., and Louis XIV., kings of France, have, in praying, passed through these holy catacombs. It is here that in all public calamities a pious population has constantly resorted to implore the powerful intercession of the holy protectors of this antique and religious city."
There is hung on the walls of the crypts a curious bas-relief of the youthful Saviour, which is supposed to date from the Carlovingian age. He is in an aureola, ovoidal in form, pointed at its two extremities. Without, in the angles, are the emblems of the four evangelists. Around the head of our Saviour is a _nimbus_ in the form of a cross, on which are graven the letters _Alpha_ and _Omega_. This bas-relief was evidently the centre of an extensive work. The youthfulness of the features of Christ gives a presumption in favor of its antiquity. { 108} He is often found on many Christian sarcophagi, and in many of the paintings of the catacombs at Rome, with a youthful face. M. Didron says that, from the third to the tenth century, Christ is oftener represented young and beardless, but his face, young at first, grows older from century to century, as Christianity advances in age. The ancient Christian monuments at Rome, Aries, and elsewhere represent Christ with a young and pleasing face.
Many non-Catholics do not like these representations of our Saviour at all. The old Puritans were so opposed even to a cross that, in 1634, they cut out the holy emblem from St. George's flag; but there is now a great reaction in this respect. We pray it may grow still stronger. We find many of these representations of our Saviour, which must date from the beginning of Christianity. The Emperor Alexander Severus, who ascended the throne A.D. 222, had placed in his _Lararium_ a statue of Christ, but we are not told how he is depicted. The Sudario of Veronica, the portrait attributed to St. Luke, the statue raised in the city of Paneas by the grateful _Hémorroïsse_, whether genuine or not, belong to the earliest ages, and prove, says M. Didron, that the Son of God was represented by painters and sculptors from the dawn of Christianity.