<P> During the persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire , Christian art was necessarily and deliberately furtive and ambiguous , using imagery that was shared with pagan culture but had a special meaning for Christians . The earliest surviving Christian art comes from the late 2nd to early 4th centuries on the walls of Christian tombs in the catacombs of Rome . From literary evidence , there may well have been panel icons which , like almost all classical painting , have disappeared . Initially Jesus was represented indirectly by pictogram symbols such as the Ichthys ( fish ) , peacock , Lamb of God , or an anchor ( the Labarum or Chi - Rho was a later development ) . Later personified symbols were used , including Jonah , whose three days in the belly of the whale pre-figured the interval between the death and resurrection of Jesus , Daniel in the lion 's den , or Orpheus ' charming the animals . The image of `` The Good Shepherd '' , a beardless youth in pastoral scenes collecting sheep , was the most common of these images , and was probably not understood as a portrait of the historical Jesus . These images bear some resemblance to depictions of kouros figures in Greco - Roman art . The `` almost total absence from Christian monuments of the period of persecutions of the plain , unadorned cross '' except in the disguised form of the anchor , is notable . The Cross , symbolizing Jesus ' crucifixion on a cross , was not represented explicitly for several centuries , possibly because crucifixion was a punishment meted out to common criminals , but also because literary sources noted that it was a symbol recognised as specifically Christian , as the sign of the cross was made by Christians from very early on . </P>
where were the earliest examples of christian art discovered
on the walls of Christian tombs in the catacombs of Rome