Where Christian Art Begins; 3rd to 6th centuries

Michie · Jan 12, 2025

A fresh 2025 start for The Sacred Images Project

Back to the beginning and looking ahead

The Samaritan Woman at the Well, Catacombs of Via Latina, Rome by Roman

Samaritan woman at the well. Wall fresco, Catacombs of Via Latina, Rome. 4th c.

The year is AD 250. Across the sprawling Roman Empire, gilded statues of Jupiter and Mars glint in the midday sun, their watchful gazes presiding over cities, from Deva (Chester, UK) to Berenice, Egypt, that pulse with commerce, politics, and pagan rituals. At the empire’s heart, Rome has been transformed by the early emperors into a magnificent city of marble and supreme power. Yet beneath this grand façade lies a world of fear and uncertainty.

The empire is reeling. Plagues have swept through the population, famine threatens the provinces, and barbarian incursions press against the frontiers. Emperors rise and fall with dizzying speed, each claiming the favour of the gods to legitimize their rule. Amid this turmoil, a small but growing movement gathers in quiet corners: Christians, worshipping a crucified Jewish carpenter and itinerant preacher from Judea - who openly and bizarrely claimed, to the fury of his own religious leadership - to be the one and only God, through whom and for whom all things were made.

For these believers - increasingly from higher classes - faith is both a source of hope and a dangerous liability. Violent and bloody persecutions flare under rulers like Decius and Valerian, whose edicts demand public sacrifices to the Roman gods, a test of loyalty to the Romans’ deified state. Refusal marks Christians as traitors, exposing them to imprisonment, confiscation of property, torture and gruesome execution.

Continued below.