Bible Review

There is no obvious Jesus figure in the catacomb paintings, perhaps because in Roman custom funeral meals were celebrated by the friends of the deceased; the deceased was thought to be present at these meals but invisible. Later images of the Last Supper are quite similar to the catacomb images, however, although they show 13 diners, including an obvious Jesus in the center. See, for example, the late-fifth-century Last Supper mosaic from the church of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna (see last supper mosaic).

See Snyder’s summary, including his identification of the scene with both the multiplication of the loaves and fishes and a funeral meal, in Ante Pacem, pp. 64–65.

See Victor Saxer, Morts, martyrs, reliques en afrique chrétienne aux premiers siècles (Paris: Beauchesne, 1980).

There are very helpful illustrations of these items, along with a fairly complete biography, in Graydon Snyder, Ante Pacem (Macon, GA: Mercer Univ. Press, 1985), pp. 82–92.

The literature on this subject is vast. See, however, Richard Krautheimer, “Mensa-Coemeterium-Martyium,” in Studies in Early Christian, Medieval and Renaissance Art (New York: New York Univ. Press, 1969), pp. 35–58.

Tertullian (De Corona) refers to the tradition of Christians making offerings for the dead as birthday honors.

Passio of Ss. Perpetua and Felicitas 11, from the Vision of Saturus, trans. Herbert R. Musurillo, in Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature, ed. Elizabeth A. Petroff (New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1986), p. 74.