Note 144 — PART III EPITAPHS AND INSCRIPTIONS FOUND IN THE CATACOMBS

Dean Stanley (Christian Institutions) calls attention to the curious fact that the popular religion of the first two centuries, as shown in the catacomb witnesses, ran, in some particulars, in different channels from the contemporary writers whose reliquiæ have been preserved, and also from the paintings and writers of a later period; for instance, the “Good Shepherd” is very little alluded to even by the writers of the second and third and fourth centuries; e.g. Irenæus and Justin, Athanasius and Cyprian. If we come down much later, scarcely any notices of the “Shepherd” occur in the Summa of Thomas Aquinas; none in the Tridentine Catechism; none in the Anglican Thirty-nine Articles; none in the Westminster Confession.