Dining in Heaven

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Dusty skeletons in burial niches once lined the narrow passageways that lead into the Catacomb of Callistus, the earliest official cemetery of the Christian community in Rome. Deep underground, in the oldest part of the catacomb, the austere passageways open onto a number of subterranean burial chambers, including six elaborate cubicles whose whitewashed walls are enlivened with large, brilliant paintings and decorative trim. Scene after scene—of Jonah being swallowed and then spat up by the whale, of baptisms and of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead—hints at the Christian promise of redemption, rebirth and resurrection, an appropriate subject for a burial chamber.

On one chamber wall appears a less readily identified scene: Seven youths gather around a table, enjoying a convivial meal. One of the most common scenes in early 033Christian funerary art, the banquet is repeated in several other chambers of the Callistus catacomb and in numerous other Christian catacomb paintings and sarcophagus reliefs. Who are these youths? And why are they depicted so frequently?

I believe these paintings may be the earliest Christian images of Paradise, and thus are the most explicit illustrations of Christian expectations of God’s promise to believers. But the images are so enigmatic that we must look at many sources—archaeological evidence of early church funerary practices, biblical and other early Christian texts, and contemporaneous pagan art—to try to understand precisely what the Callistus banquet paintings represent.

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Constructed in the early third century, the catacomb is named for Pope Callistus (217–222), who, while still a deacon, greatly enlarged the cemetery and sanctioned it as the resting place of bishops. All the third-century popes, excepting Callistus himself, are buried there. The paintings that adorn the tombs of these elite early Christians are among the oldest known Christian images, dating to the early third century C.E.

In the Callistus banquet paintings, seven (sometimes five) figures recline in Roman fashion around a semicircular table laden with two platters, each of which bears a large fish. Seven large wicker baskets, brimming with loaves of bread, stand on the floor beside the table. In an adjacent painting, a man dressed in a traditional philosopher’s tunic (which leaves the right shoulder bare) stretches his hands over a fish and a loaf of bread set on a finely carved three-legged table. On the opposite side of this table, a praying woman, called an orant (from the Latin for “praying”), raises her arms above her head, palms forward.

In an adjacent chamber of the catacomb two paintings on opposite walls depict fish, a basket of loaves and what may be a small flask of wine. Art 035historians believe that these two images, dating to about 200 C.E., originally flanked yet another banquet scene, which was destroyed when a new grave was cut into the wall.¹

Slight variations distinguish the main banquet scenes painted in the Roman catacombs: Sometimes the spread includes cups of wine; the number of fish may vary by one or two. Occasionally the bread appears as individual round loaves placed directly on the table and marked with the cross-shaped letter chi, but more often it comes in baskets. Often the bread appears in batches of five or seven loaves, but sometimes we see six, eight or ten loaves. Sometimes five youths, rather than seven, attend the meal. In a banquet painting in Rome’s Catacomb of Priscilla, what appears to be a woman at one end of the table makes a gesture as if breaking a loaf of bread.²

These paintings have inspired countless interpretations. Many scholars have suggested that the scenes of feasting depict actual liturgical meals, such as the sacramental consecration of bread and wine in the Eucharist, or the more informal agape supper.³ Based on this interpretation, the chambers with banquet scenes in the Callistus catacomb have come to be known as the Sacrament Chambers.

But the group of seven diners is far too small to depict the numbers who would have gathered for the Eucharist. By the third century C.E., the eucharistic liturgy was quite formal and included the whole community—not just a handful of members reclining on couches.⁴ Moreover, although early Eucharists may have included fish along with the bread, wine and other foods depicted on catacomb walls, no concrete literary evidence supports such a theory. Tertullian (c. 160–240), a Christian writer who lived for a time in Rome, claims the followers of Marcion, the founder of an ultimately rejected Christian sect, considered fish “the more sacred diet.” But Tertullian never suggests that Christians actually substituted fish for eucharistic bread and wine—although it seems he would have remarked on such a practice.⁵ The epitaph of Abercius, a late-second-century bishop of Hieropolis, in Asia Minor, has also sometimes been cited as evidence for the use of fish as a eucharistic food. Describing his travels to Rome as a disciple of the “pure shepherd,” Abercius wrote: “The faith preceded me everywhere and provided food for me, everywhere the fish from the spring, mighty and pure, whom the pure virgin caught and gave to the friends to eat always, having sweet wine, giving mixed wine 036with bread.” Although this enigmatic passage does seem to refer to the fish as a symbol of Jesus, it provides no convincing evidence that early Christians commonly included fish in their eucharistic meal.

Because most catacomb paintings depict biblical stories, other scholars have tried to identify the paintings with particular New Testament narratives. Some insist that the scenes depict the Last Supper (Matthew 26:26–29; Mark 14:16–25; Luke 22:14–38; John 13:1–30). But clearly, these images, which regularly depict seven diners rather than the twelve apostles and Jesus, and which prominently feature fish rather than bread and wine, cannot represent the Last Supper.⁶

The narratives of Jesus feeding the multitudes (Matthew 14:13–21, 15:32–39; Mark 6:30–44, 8:1–10, 14–20; Luke 9:10–17) have also been suggested as the textual source for the paintings. In these stories, thousands of men (and unspecified numbers of women and children) gather on the shore of the Sea of Galilee to hear Jesus teaching. As night falls, the disciples tell Jesus to “send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.” But Jesus instructs his disciples, “You give them something to eat.” He asks the disciples to gather whatever food they can find. In the accounts in Mark, Matthew and Luke, the disciples come up with five or seven loaves (depending on the gospel passage) and two fish—clearly not enough to feed those present. After instructing the people to sit on the grass, Jesus took the scant bread and fish, “looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled” (Mark 6:41–42). After the meal, seven or twelve baskets full of fish and bread were leftover.

Granted, the baskets of bread and the number of loaves of bread (usually five or seven) and of fish (usually two) in the catacomb paintings may recall these miracle stories. But otherwise our paintings of seven men around a table (albeit at a plenteous meal) fail to conform to the biblical account of a tremendous crowd eating beside the sea.⁷ Further, we do have early Christian catacomb paintings and sarcophagi 037reliefs that clearly depict Jesus multiplying the bread. These images usually show Jesus standing and pointing a wand toward baskets of bread at his feet—none of which is found in our feast scenes.

The various interpretations of the catacomb banquet scenes as either the Last Supper or the Feeding of the Multitudes neglect one crucial detail: the location of the paintings, on dimly lit walls deep inside Rome’s Christian catacombs. While these paintings may well illustrate (at least to a degree) a biblical event, they must first be understood as funerary art.

Indeed, the catacomb banquet paintings have roots in earlier and contemporaneous Greek and Roman funerary iconography.⁸

Christians adopted—and adapted—many artistic motifs from the surrounding pagan culture and used them to communicate similar, yet slightly modified, religious messages. Classical types that found their way into the canon of Christian images include the philosopher, who served as a model for Job; Endymion (the beloved of the moon goddess, he slept eternally), who was reinterpreted as Jonah reclining under his gourd vine; and Orpheus, who in Jewish as well as Christian art became David, taming the animals with his music.^a

The Christian banquet scenes derive from pagan Roman prototypes, which also appeared on sarcophagi and on catacomb walls. The Roman images are of two basic types: The first depicts the deceased reclining on a couch (kline) in front of a three-legged table laden with loaves of bread, cups of wine, and sometimes a variety of other foods. Another diner—often the widow of the deceased—may appear seated on a straight chair. Servants commonly stand in the foreground. The second, less common type generally shows seven or five diners, formally dressed in tunics or togas, enjoying a meal of bread, wine, fish and, occasionally, a joint of meat. The semicircular (sigma-shaped) table, called a stibadium, is usually draped with a striped tablecloth and appears quite similar to those in the Christian images.⁹ Christian artists borrowed primarily from the latter tradition.¹⁰

The pagan banquet images very likely reflected the deceased’s past domestic comfort, as symbolized by the sumptuous feast. They are very much of this world (although they may hint at the desire to attend similar banquets in Paradise).

Christian banquet images, however, more likely illustrate future heavenly banquets, since expectations of the afterlife were far more significant to Christians and were much better developed than pagan thinking on the matter.¹¹ Christians believed in the promise of the resurrection of the dead and particularly in the resurrection of the body at the end of time. According to Christian tradition, the end 038time may be inaugurated with a heavenly banquet. In the gospel accounts of the Last Supper, Jesus implies that he will share a banquet meal with his apostles in the heavenly kingdom: “I tell you that I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink of it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29).

Early Christians expressed their hopes for the afterlife in touchingly simple ways, often speaking of the dead as sleeping “in peace” or “living with Christ and the saints.” They carved and painted references to their baptisms—the sacrament that promised them eternal life—on the walls and ceilings of their tombs and sarcophagi.^b Rare nonbiblical literary descriptions of how early Christians envisioned that afterlife come primarily from martyrs’ visions of a restored primordial Garden populated by radiantly happy saints and angels: “And while we were carried by those four angels,” one account from about 200 C.E. reads, “we came upon a great open space which was like as it might be a garden, having rose-trees and all kinds of flowers…”¹² Nothing so specifically paradisiacal appears in the art of the early Christians, with one possible exception—the banqueters at a post-resurrectional meal.

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Archaeological evidence indicates that banquets played a significant role in both Christian and pagan funerary practices. Like many other ancient people, Romans (both pagan and Christian) held banquets near the graves of dead relatives—on the day of the funeral, at the end of a nine-day mourning period, on special days established for honoring ancestors or on the departed one’s birthday. Among Christians, this custom was extended from family members to other special dead within the Christian community, such as saints and martyrs. The meals were held on the anniversary of their death (which was understood as a sort of rebirth by martyrdom) rather than their birth. Such meals were distinct from either Eucharists or agape meals.¹³

Underneath the church of San Sebastiano, in Rome, archaeologists have found the remains of a mid-third-century banquet hall beside a complex of pagan and Christian catacombs and mausoleums dating from the second century. Called a triclia, the roofed shelter had an open loggia, or columned porch, that protected the diners as they ate. Inscriptions reading “Peter and Paul, pray for me,” which were found in an adjacent shrine (dated as early as 260 C.E.), indicate that the shelter may have been built to serve the faithful who 048came to feast in honor of Saints Peter and Paul.¹⁴

Roman catacombs from both the pagan and Christian eras had special chambers designed to accommodate the refrigeria (memorial) meals. These chambers had benches for diners, chairs (probably for the deceased’s soul), sarcophagi with depressions in their lids for food and tubes for pouring libations, and tablelike structures (called mensae) with depressions for various kinds of foods.¹⁵ This practice derives from earlier Roman tradition, in which a chair and food were set apart for the deceased, who was thought to be present at the meal. From the shape of the depressions carved into the tables, and from ancient art and texts, we know that wine, bread, cakes, oil, fruit and eggs were offered.¹⁶ Some of these depressions are, in fact, fish shaped, evidence that fish were served on these occasions too.

The use of the Christian catacombs for these commemorative meals, rather than for regular worship or the celebration of the Eucharist, is confirmed by the records of church officials who tried to curb graveside dining because it was too close to pagan practice and often got a bit out of hand.¹⁷

It remains unclear whether Christian Romans, like pagan Romans, believed the dead were actually present at the meal in some way or whether they believed their meal would symbolically refresh the deceased, who was either in Hades awaiting the general resurrection or in Paradise at a parallel banquet. Several Christian epitaphs wishing the deceased a good “refreshment” (refrigerium) have been found in the triclia at San Sebastiano; these suggest that the family and friends of the deceased have held a meal on his behalf, but they do not help to clarify the case.¹⁸

The paintings on the catacomb walls may well have illustrated the banquets in Paradise, which were symbolized by the earthly banquets held beside the tombs. Nevertheless, the possibility of a biblical reference cannot be entirely dismissed, as the Bible does mention heavenly banquets. For example, at a meal at the home of a Pharisee, one dinner guest tells Jesus, “Blessed is anyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” (Luke 14:15). As we have already noted, Jesus himself says, “I will never again drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the kingdom of God” (Mark 14:25 and parallels).

But I believe one of Jesus’ post-resurrectional meals with his disciples is the closest parallel.¹⁹ According to the Gospel of John (21:12–21), after Jesus’ death he “showed himself again to the disciples” as they were returning home after an unsuccessful night of fishing on the Sea of Galilee. The disciples failed to recognize Jesus when he called to them from the shore: “Children, you have no fish, have you?” He instructed the disciples to cast their net again. When they did, “they were not able to haul it in because there were so many fish.” The disciples then realized it was Jesus who had called to them. When they arrived on shore, they found fish cooking over a charcoal fire and loaves of bread. “Come and have breakfast,” Jesus invited them. According to John, seven disciples were present: “Simon Peter, Thomas called the Twin, Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee [that is, James and John] and two others.” Could the paintings of seven men dining on fish and bread illustrate this meal offered by a resurrected Jesus?²⁰

The fourth-century church father Augustine made an important Christological point of this story: “The fish roasted is a figure of Christ’s suffering; and he himself is also the bread that comes down from heaven.”²¹

The sepulchral setting of these banquet images—painted on the walls of the catacombs of Rome and carved on the sides of marble sarcophagi—is an appropriate context for scenes of the breakfast shared by seven disciples following Jesus’ death. At the same time, the context connects these images with pagan and Christian funerary banquets.

I believe that the Christian banquet paintings portray a combination of the post-resurrectional meal described in John 21, a meal in Paradise granted to the baptized, and an actual funerary banquet held in honor of the deceased. By drawing on biblical imagery, early Christian visions of the afterlife, and Christian and pre-Christian funerary practices, these symbolic paintings presented an extremely rich, layered meaning to those third- and fourth-century Christians who came to the catacombs to bury and honor their dead.

Dusty skeletons in burial niches once lined the narrow passageways that lead into the Catacomb of Callistus, the earliest official cemetery of the Christian community in Rome. Deep underground, in the oldest part of the catacomb, the austere passageways open onto a number of subterranean burial chambers, including six elaborate cubicles whose whitewashed walls are enlivened with large, brilliant paintings and decorative trim. Scene after scene—of Jonah being swallowed and then spat up by the whale, of baptisms and of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead—hints at the Christian promise of redemption, rebirth and resurrection, an appropriate subject for […]