The Open court . dove of gilt silver for receiving theEucharist. From the Catacombs. (AfterF. X. Kraus.) Lamp From the the anagram of Christ, [XP)and the Ai2. The custom of having a grave underneath the altar gave riseto the establishment of the crypt, which is never missing in anyRoman Catholic cathedral of the Middle Ages. 756 THE OPEN COURT. The earliest products of Christian art, such as we find in theCatacombs, are mere imitations of classical motifs. Dr. FrancisXavier Kraus, when speaking of early Christian painting, says: The ornamental system is, upon the

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The Open court . dove of gilt silver for receiving theEucharist. From the Catacombs. (AfterF. X. Kraus.) Lamp From the the anagram of Christ, [XP)and the Ai2. The custom of having a grave underneath the altar gave riseto the establishment of the crypt, which is never missing in anyRoman Catholic cathedral of the Middle Ages. 756 THE OPEN COURT. The earliest products of Christian art, such as we find in theCatacombs, are mere imitations of classical motifs. Dr. FrancisXavier Kraus, when speaking of early Christian painting, says: The ornamental system is, upon the whole, the same as in the contempo-raneous pagan paintings. We find wreaths, cornucopias, vines, birds and otheranimals. In addition we find the seasons represented as youthful virgins and alsogenii. Even the dolphins and tritons of profane art are not missing. All thesethings were as natural and conventional in Greco-Roman ornamentation as the let-ters of the alphabet and the words of the language. Thus, we can

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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade188, booksubjectreligion, bookyear1887