the "Volto Santo" in the
Vatican, as fanciful as the old youthful Roman type of the Good
Shepherd? There can be no doubt that in some provinces of the East,
like Palestine, Syria, and Phoenicia, the oral traditions about the
personal appearance of the Saviour were kept for many generations. It
is also probable that the tradition was confirmed by some work of art,
like the celebrated group of Paneas (Banias). With regard to this,
Eusebius says that the woman with the issue of blood, grateful to the
Saviour for her cure (Mark v., 25-34), caused a statue, representing
Him in the act of performing the miracle, to be set up in front of her
house; that it still existed when he wrote, and was held in great
veneration throughout Palestine and the whole East. Sozomenos adds
that Julian the Apostate substituted his own statue for it, but that
the imperial image was struck by lightning. This excited the wrath of
the pagans to such an extent that they destroyed the group of Christ
and the Woman, which Julian had caused to be removed. Cassiodorus,
Rufinus, Kedrenos, and Malala, assert that the head was saved from
destruction. It has been suggested that the group did not represent
the woman at the feet of the Saviour, but a conquered province
kneeling before the Roman emperor and addressing him as her Saviour
([Greek: SOTERI]). But this explanation seems more ingenious than
probable, because it implies that Christians, Eusebius included, had
mistaken the portrait of a Roman conqueror for that of

Christ, which would have been so different in type, dress, and
attitude. At all events, the belief that the group of Banias was a
genuine likeness was general in the fourth century. Eusebius
contributed to make it known in the Western world; and to this
diffusion we probably owe the second type of the Saviour's
physiognomy, the bearded face, the large impressive eyes, the hair
parted in the middle, and falling in locks on the shoulders.[169]

To this type belongs the bust discovered four years ago in the "locus
ad catacumbas." According to an ingenious hypothesis of Bottari,
adopted by de Rossi, the Paneas group is represented on the Lateran
sarcophagus, engraved by Roller in the second volume of his
"Catacombs," plate 58.

[Illustration: Landslip in the Cemetery of Cyriaca.]

THE CEMETERY OF CYRIACA. This, the principal cemetery of the Via
Tiburtina, was excavated in the hill above the basilica of S. Lorenzo
fuori le Mura. It is the