for their name and profession, the famous monogram of Christ, [Symbol] the hieroglyphic, not only of his name, but of his cross, succeeded to it, and came, indeed, into far more general use than that which the fish had ever attained.  The monogram is hardly to be found before the time of Constantine, and, as it is very frequently met with in the inscriptions from the catacombs, it affords an easy means, in the absence of a more specific date, for determining a period earlier than which any special inscription bearing it cannot have originated.  Its use spread rapidly during the fourth century.  It “became,” says Gibbon, with one of his amusing sneers, “extremely fashionable in the Christian world.”  The story of the vision of Constantine was connected with it, and the Labarum displayed its form in the front of the imperial army.  It was thus not merely the emblem of Christ, but that also of the conversion of the Emperor and of the fatal victory of the Church.

It is a remarkable fact, and one which none of the recent Romanist authorities attempt to controvert, that the undoubted earlier inscriptions afford no evidence of any of the peculiar doctrines of the Roman Church.  There is no reference to the doctrine of the Trinity to be found among them; nothing is to be derived from them in support of the worship of the Virgin; her name even is not met with on any monument of the first three centuries; and none of the inscriptions of this period give any sign of the prevalence of the worship of saints.  There is no support of the claim of the Roman Church to supremacy, and no reference to the claim of the Popes to be the Vicars of Christ.  As the third century advances to its close, we find the simple and crude beginning of that change in Christian faith which developed afterward into the broad idea of the intercessory power of the saints.  Among the earlier inscriptions prayers to God or to Christ are sometimes met with, generally in short exclamatory expressions concerning the dead.  Thus we find at first such words as these:—­

  AMERIMNVS
  RVFINAE COIV
  GI CARISSIME
  BENEMEREN
  TI SPIRITVM
  TVVM DEVS
  REFRIGERET

  Amerimnus to his dearest wife Rufina well-
  deserving.  May God refresh thy spirit!

And, in still further development,—­

[Greek:  AUR.  AIANOS PAPHLAGON THEOU DOULOS PISTOS EKOIMNON EN EIPNIN MINSON AUTOU O THEOS EIS TOUS AIONAS]

  Aurelius Aelianus, a Paphlagonian, faithful
  servant of God.  He sleeps in peace.  Remember
  him, O God, forever!

Again, two sons ask for their mother,—­

  DOMINE NE QVANDO
  ADVMBRETVR SPIRITVS
  VENERES

  O Lord, let not the spirit of Venus be shadowed
  at any time!

From such petitions as these we come by a natural transition to such as are addressed to the dead themselves, as being members of the same communion with the living, and uniting in prayers with those they had left on earth and for their sake.