Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 29.djvu/358

30:J NOTICES OF ARCHJIOLOGICAL rUBLICATIONS. les auciens. Aristote, Scneque, Pline, Elicn, et, apres eiix, les ecrivains Chretiens oat assigues a ce i)oissou. lis rcpreseiitent le dauphin comme rami de I'humme, et lui attribuent uue solHcitude toute particuUere pour ses restes niortels. L'antiiiuite chretieiuie so plait a cnregistrer des faits qui vienneut a I'appui de cette ingenieuse et touchantc theorie. Pour m'en tenir a un seul, je cite les actes de S. Lucicu on il est dit quo le corps de ce martyr, precipite dans la mer, eu fut retire par ui daujihiu qui le titms]>orta sur le rivage, afin qu'il put rccevoir les luMineui-s de la sepulture. Le poisson ou monstre quelconque qui accueillit Jonas au moment oh il dtait sacrifie li la secuiite de I'equipage, le sauva des perils de la mer et, apres inie hospitalite de trois joui*s et de trois units, lo dejjosa sur la plage, joue u son egard le role d'un aftectueux dauphin, et c'est a quoi, si je ne m'abuse, I'artiste a voidu faire allusion." Hence the adoption of the dolphin by Christians at an early period, as shown on the sarcophagus of Petronilla, on tombs in the cemetery of Domitelln, and elsewhere. Lanips and coronas of gi>ld, ornamented with that figure, were suspended in churches in the fourth centuiy ; Con- stantine gave such to his Basilica. Another curious and unique repre- sentation on the Saumur lamp is that of the worm sent by (Jod to gnaw the root of the plant, and which is seen beneath the figure of Jonas. The Abbe Martigny suggests that this lamp may be of the latter half of the f(jurth centuiy of our era. The emblem of Jonas wears on monuments from the second to the fourth century, as shown by Dc Rossi. The leafy shade is sometimes represented as a bower or cradle and some- times as a branch of a fruit-bearing wild gourd, the cucurhita or coloquinte — KoXo;^ir^7 — probably the plant still to be seen growing ujion the sandy hills of the Philistine shore. St. Jerome, on the contrary, in translating, defined it as the ivy, heilera, while St. Augustin maintained that it was the riirurliita ; hence arose a discussion among the faithful in Africa. On the lamp imder consideration the latter jilant is rudely represented as trained on a trellis, whence the Abbe Martigny infei-s that the lamp was made anterior to St. Jerome's vei"sion of the history, given in 384, which sj)rcad rapidly, and was more generally adopted by the Western Churches. The Western artists accoixlingly altered their representations of the subject, as may be seen on sarcophagi of the fifth and later centuries in Italy and Caul, instance one in the museum at Aries, ]mb- lished by Millin ; on the other hand the catacombs of Rome ofler no example of the iNy-shaded bower, their ])ainte<l and sculptural decoratina l)eing of an earlier jK-riod. It may, therefi>re, be surmised that the pcojdo of the locality in which this lamj) was discovered had been coji- verted to the faith as early ius the fourth century, an inference sui)ported liy the fact that the material of tlie lamp is sinular to that of other antique jtottcry foim<l at Siuanur, in the vicinity of which place a pottery would seem to have existed, ami among the fragments of which ci>inH of the sons of Constantine wvw found. We know that some jjart of liurgundy wa.s converted to Christianity by S. Henignus and otliei-s in the second centuiy, and it is not unreaHonalde to presume that Saunnir was not isolated from thoir influence.