times there was a vessel of the same form as the paten made for holding the sacred chrism; it was called the chrismal paten" (p. 172). These patens were made of glass, gold, and silver. Anastasius Bibliothecarius († 879), in his "Liber Pontificalis, Vita Sylvestri," founded on earlier records, gives a long list of the patens, that is plates for the communion table, possessed by the early churches. Among those given by Constantine were "a silver chrismal paten enclosed in gold, weighing five pounds, seven gold patens, each weighing thirty pounds." And Augustine. says: "We have very many utensils and vessels made of metals of this description [gold and silver] for the purpose of celebrating the sacraments, which, being consecrated by these ministrations, are called holy." Dionysius, after describing the solemn and mysterious services in the consecration of the bread and wine, adds: "But there is another perfecting service that is of the same rank; our leaders name it the perfecting of chrism." "Our divine leaders ordained this as of the same rank and same operation with the sacred perfecting of the eucharist." The chrism was consecrated by the bishop; was then thought to convey the Holy Spirit; was kept with great care in the most sacred vessels, and was treated with the same reverence that was shown to the consecrated bread and wine. The use of the diskos remains in the Greek Church.2

The diskos in the mosaic is held with its convex side to the beholder, in accord with the teaching everywhere at that time in the churches, that the chrism must be kept from the sight of the unbaptized; or, as Dionysius says, "As its contemplation is above the reach of the many, 1 On Psalm cxiii. (cxiv.) 6; see also Sozomen († 439), Hist. Eccl., Bk. vii. 21; Evagrius († 560), Hist. Eccl., Bk. vi. 21; Pseudo-Athanasius, Migne, Gk. Patr., Vol. xxviii. 953, says: "The diskos represents the Holy Spirit"; Sophronius of Jerusalem († 638), Comm. Liturg., 5; Joannes Moschus († 600), Pratum Spirituale, Chap. xxv.

* Bjerring, Offices of the Oriental Church, N. Y., 1884.

they [our leaders] reverently conceal it; and, by hierarchical direction, it is kept from the gaze of the multitude."

In Garucci's splendid volumes it is easy to trace the decline and fall of this fine representation of baptism as then observed. In two centuries after its date, when the ampulla had become the accredited repository of the chrism, there are pictures of the baptism of the Saviour, with the dove turning the ampulla upon the Saviour's head. And so ad infera.

It may well be asked, If immersion and unction with chrism conveying the Holy Spirit are to be represented in picture, how could this be done better than in the San Giovanni mosaic? The very fact that this picture has remained the pattern of similar representations to the present day is a testimony to its high artistic value and power. Until something better for this purpose has been invented, this mosaic will continue to be regarded as the great masterpiece.

There are other facts most important for the judgment of this mosaic. The faces of the Saviour and John are Greek, not Roman. Both the Saviour and John have long hair falling on the shoulders; that was Greek custom, not Roman. As this is the first well-authenticated portrait of the Saviour by an accomplished artist, its influence is shown to the present day in the vicious, unhistorical representation of the Son of David as a long-haired Greek. It is certain that Jesus did not wear his hair long, for it was utterly dishonorable in his day and country to let the hair grow long, and it was forbidden to Greek Christians. Paul, writing to the Greek church of Corinth, says: "Doth not nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a dishonor to him?" Yet for fourteen centuries men have gone on representing Jesus in a fashion that was not his, and that would have dishonored him among Jews and all believers on him in his age. Not only is Jesus represented

in this mosaic as a long-haired Greek, but as a Greek of the delicate, luxurious class of the court at Byzantium, and this John is a minister of that class. And so the faces of the twelve apostles surrounding this mosaic tell of Greek court life. They are neither Jew nor Roman. There is not a single line of vigor, determination, power, in any of these faces. A hundred years at Byzantium, the mælstrom of oriental and western luxury beyond anything we know at present, had brought the court circles, as we learn from many writers, to just such effeminancy as is seen in the numerous mosaics and paintings of this date in Ravenna.

Honorius and Galla Placidia were the children of Theodosius the Great, born in the purple and reared at Constantinople, and always looking to Constantinople for help and instruction. Ravenna, safe on the land side by its vast swamps, was open to the Adriatic and, by its ships, to Constantinople. In this small city for fifty years was gathered the court.of the Western Empire. Its power and prestige, its luxuries and dress, were derived from the far richer, stronger Eastern Empire. It was a Greek court residing in an Italian city. From Byzantium came the architects that built, and the artists that adorned with painting and mosaic, the interior of these numerous churches. The form of the buildings, the character of the decorations, the faces, the dress, the pose, are all Greek, pure Greek; as far from Italian or Roman, as Honorius and Galla Placidia and the bishops of Ravenna were from favor to Italy or Rome. So that it is at Ravenna alone, according to all the learned in Byzantine art, that the earliest and best specimens of that art can be seen. The earliest and best of Byzantine art in Ravenna is the mosaic we have studied.1

1 Rahn, Ravenna, Leipzig, 1869; Richter, Mosaiken von Ravenna, Wien, 1878; Bayet, Recherches pour Servir à l'Histoire de la Peinture et de la Sculpture Chrétiennes en Orient, etc., Paris, 1879; Bayet, L'Art Byzantin, Paris, n. d. (1884); Diehl, Ravenne, Paris, 1886.

The Greek Church of the present day holds to the absolute necessity of trine immersion and of the unction with chrism in baptism.1 The Greek Church has always held these as essential parts of baptism. It has never believed that sprinkling or pouring were valid baptism. None of its symbols, therefore, can be interpreted as representing sprinkling or pouring as baptism. Now, one of the common tokens given at baptism in Greece itself is a represen tation of the baptism of the Saviour by John very similar to that in the mosaic of San Giovanni, as one can see in the accompanying half-tone copy. The striking difference is in the diskos which is turned with its concave side to us and from which there flows a stream upon the head of the Saviour. But this stream is, as we know by the teaching of all Greek authors from the earliest days of Christianity to the last Greek creeds, not water, but the miracle-working chrism whose source is the dove descending from the clouds.

For the reasons stated in this article we believe that literature, history, and archæology agree that there has been but one form of the typically cleansing bath, immersion, prescribed in the Old Testament, observed by the Jews, by John the Baptist, by the apostles, and faithfully kept by all Christian churches for many centuries after Christ.

1 Orthodox Confession of the Catholic and Apostolic Eastern Church, Quest. 102 ff.