(1899-1903); E. Ferrero, L'Arc d'Auguste à Suse (1901); E.
Petersen (and others), Die Marcussäule (1896).
For Roman portraits Bernoulli's Römische Ikonographie (4 vols., 1882-94) gives abundant material but little aesthetic criticism. Many of the finest portraits are included in Arndt-Bruckmann's series of Griechische und römische Porträts, and Brunn-Bruckmann's Denkmäler griechisch-römischer Skulptur contain reproductions of several Roman reliefs. The monuments collected by T. Schreiber under the title of Hellenistische Reliefbilder (1894) are largely of Roman date.
For Roman painting we have as yet no handbook; W. Helbig's Untersuchungen über die campanische Wandmalerei (1873) are still of great value, though the theory advanced is overstated. His Campaniens Wandgemälde (1868) gives a catalogue raisonné of Pompeian paintings, and has been supplemented by A. Sogliano, Le pitture murali Campane (1879). Those since discovered are described in the Notizie degli Scavi. A. Mau's Geschichte der Wandmalerei is also indispensable. Hermann-Bruckmann, Denkmäler der Malerei des Alterthums (1907-), will give reproductions, partly in colour, of all important specimens of ancient painting. Le Nozze Aldobrandine, &c., by B. Nogara (1907), contains both coloured and photographic reproductions of the paintings preserved in the Vatican library. For the Fayūm portraits see G. Ebers, Antike Porträts (Leipzig, 1893); F. Petrie, Hawara, ch. vii.; and C. Edgar, Catalogue des antiquités du musée du Caire, “Graeco-Egyptian Coffins,” p. xi. ff. On the technique of ancient painting Otto Donner von Richter's introduction to Helbig's Campaniens Wandgemälde should be consulted. P. Girard's sketch of ancient painting (La Peinture antique, n.d.) is slight. For the bibliography of mosaics see that article (especially Gauckler in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités, s.v. “Musivum Opus”); for work in gold and silver see the article Plate. For gem-engraving, A. Furtwängler's Die antiken Gemmen (3 vols., 1900) is the standard work. The history of Roman pottery is summarized by H. B. Walters, History of Ancient Pottery, vol. ii. 430 ff.; the most important works are J. Déchelette, Les Vases ornés de la Gaule romaine (1904), and H. Dragendorff's articles on “Terra sigillata” in the Bonner Jahrbücher.
Sections on Roman art will be found in general handbooks, such as Springer-Michaelis, Handbuch der Kunstgeschichte (6th ed., 1904); L. von Sybel, Weltgeschichte der Kunst (2nd ed., 1902); and C. Gurlitt, Geschichte der Kunst, vol. i. (1902).
- (H. S. J.)
ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH, the name generally given to that great branch of the Christian Church which acknowledges the pope, or bishop of Rome, as its head, and holds as an article of faith that communion with and submission to the authority of the see of Rome is essential to effective membership of the Catholic Church as founded by Christ. This belief is based upon the commission given by Christ to Peter as “prince of, the apostles,” “Feed my sheep” (John xxi. 15-17); the saying, “Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven” (Matt. xvi. 18, 19). The authority thus conferred upon St Peter is held by Roman Catholics to be permanently vested in the bishop of Rome, as successor to Peter, first bishop of the imperial see. As such, the pope is regarded as “vicar of Christ, head of the bishops, and supreme governor of the whole Catholic Church of whom the whole world is the territory or diocese.” His peculiar powers as pope he exercises immediately on election. Thus he may grant indulgences, issue censures, give dispensations, canonize saints, institute bishops, create cardinals—in short, perform all the acts of his jurisdiction, even though he be no more than a layman; but by custom certain of his more solemn acts are postponed till after the ceremony of his coronation, from which his pontificate is officially dated. To exercise the actus ordinis of a priest or bishop, however, he must, if not already in orders, be specially ordained and consecrated. Hence his office is a dignity, not of order, but of jurisdiction (see Papacy and Pope).
The most distinctive characteristic of the Roman Catholic Church, at least as contrasted with the various Protestant communions, is its vigorous insistence on the principle of ecclesiastical authority. Of this authority the pope is regarded as the centre and source, so far as the interpretation of the Divine Will to the world is concerned in matters of faith and morals. His pronouncements are held to be infallible when he defines a doctrine concerning faith or morals ex cathedra to be held by the universal church (see Infallibility and Vatican Council).
The government of the Roman Catholic Church being centred at Rome, an elaborate organization has been developed there for the administration of its affairs. At the head of this is the college of cardinals, who are the princes and senators of the Church, the counsellors of the pope, and his vicars in the functions of the pontificate. By those of them who are members of the various Congregations and other offices of the Curia the greater part of the government of the Church is directed. (For accounts of the organization of the Roman Curia. the reader is referred to the articles Cardinal and Curia Romana.) The characteristic note of the Roman Curia is its intense conservatism and its slowness to move, whether in approving or condemning new developments of opinion or action. This is explained by the nature of its organization and by the tradition on which it is based. For, just as the Roman Church as a whole preserves in the spiritual sphere Roman Empire, the spirit and much of the organization of the the so the administration of the Curia carries on tradition of Roman government, with its reverence for precedent and its practice of deciding questions, not on their supposed abstract merits, but in accordance with the rules of law as defined in the codes or by previous decisions. Thus the genius of Rome remains, as it always has been, administrative rather than speculative. The great dogmas of the Christian Church were shaped by the interplay of the subtle wits of the theologians of the Oriental Churches. The new dogmas promulgated by the Holy See from time to time have been the outcome of the slow growth of ages, built up from precedent to precedent, and only defined at last when the accumulated weight of evidence in their favour, or the necessity for precise definition to meet the contradictions of heretics, seemed to demand a decision. This temper and the process in which it finds expression are well illustrated in the case of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception (q.v.) and in the authorization given to the cult of the Sacred Heart (q.v.).
This conservative spirit and extreme reverence for authority pervades the whole Roman Catholic Church in exact proportion to the degree of effective control which the see of Rome has succeeded in obtaining over its branches in various countries. To pretend to an independent judgment in questions of faith or morals is for a Roman Catholic to commit treason against his Church; and even in the wide sphere of questions lying beyond the dogmas defined as de fide a too curious discussion is discouraged, if not condemned. As opposed to the critical and analytical tendencies of the modern world, then, the Roman Catholic Church assumes the function of the champion of moral and intellectual discipline, an attitude defined, in its extremest expression, by Pius IX.'s Syllabus of 1864 (see Syllabus), and the famous encyclical Pascendi of Pius X. in 1907. The development of this attitude, known—in so far as it depends on the full pretensions of the Papacy—as Ultramontanism, since the definition of the Roman Catholic Church by the council of Trent in 1564, will be found sketched in the historical section attached to this article. The earlier history, which is that of the Latin Church of the West, will be found in the articles Papacy, Church History and Reformation.
Under the supreme authority of the pope the Roman Catholic Church is governed and served by an elaborate hierarchy. This, so far as its potestates ordinis are concerned, is divided into seven orders: the three “major orders” of bishops and priests, deacons, and subdeacons (bishops and priests forming two degrees of the ordo sacerdotium), and the four “minor orders” of acolytes, exorcists, readers, and door-keepers. These various orders do not derive their potestas ordinis from the pope, but from God, in virtue of their direct ministerial succession from the apostles.[1] So far as jurisdiction is concerned, however, those
- ↑ Thus sacraments administered by validly ordained or consecrated priests and bishops are regarded as valid, even when those who administer them are heretics or schismatics.
