ll analogy between this
art and the creations of pagan antiquity. In Hellenic paganism, we
behold the triumph of humanity. The human form in its most ideal beauty
is the type of all things divine. Christianity starts at once with the
peremptory condition of a renunciation of individual beauty and
strength. Christianity counted sensual beauty as nothing: she regarded
the mind alone. She permits the human form only as the incorporation of
some hidden thought divine. In the one instance, the _form_ was all in
all; in the other, it is the _expression_. The heathen delighted in
naked bodies, for every single part might convey the sensation of
beauty. The face sufficed for Christian art, as solely expressive of
divine beauty. And since the adopted Jewish custom excludes nudity in
life, it must needs die in art. In the new order of things, sculpture is
lost, and painting is better adapted to the narrow limits of early
Christian art.

Upon the question whether this fear of the world, as exhibited in the
rejection of the world's material forms, be truly the character of real
Christianity, Professor Kinkel answers with a decided negative. He
rather favours the opinion of those who hold the fear and hate of the
world which distinguished the early Christian ages, to have been founded
on an erroneous comprehension of the doctrine and example of the great
Founder, who, as far as we are able to learn, facilitated the creation
of real art. The misconception, so fatal to the civilising influence of
art, M. Kinkel, explains by reminding us of the fears of idolatry, so
justly entertained by Christianity in its first existence, of the
oppression and persecution which the early church experienced, and of
the natural desire entertained by the oppressed, to be as little like
the oppressors as possible.

The extreme opinions, however, could not last. They began with the fury
of persecution, and they died with it. An earnest admiration of the
beautiful is implanted deeply in the soul of man for noble purposes,
which Providence will not suffer to be thwarted. Mistaken notions of
duty, religious zeal maddened by oppression, for a time clouded the
faculty amongst the early Christians, but it soon burst forth again.
Faint at first in its appearance, it gained strength with every passing
lustre; and however sweeping the condemnation pronounced by early
believers against vain signs and images expressive of the objects of
this fleeting world, the vo