LUCERNE. - As regards the typology and use of lamps: v. ILLUMINAZIONE NELLE CHIESE ANTICHE.
Sometimes the lamp took on a symbolic meaning. Thus, for example, in some inscriptions the lighted lamp has been represented, as in the epitaph of a certain Ianuaria (cf. G. B. De Rossi, Roma sotterranea, III, Rome 1877, p. 353 and pls. 27-29 no. 22) and in two tombs in Pamphilus (cf. E. Josi, Il cimitero di Panfilo, in Riv. di arch. crist., 3 [1926], p. 79 and fig. 13, p. 89 and fig. 18). In the first and third examples the lamp expresses, according to G. B. De Rossi, the soul that presents itself to Christ carrying the lighted lamp, as in the Gospel parable of the ten virgins, or else the desire that the soul praemia lucis habeat (cf. G. B. De Rossi, Inscr. Christ., I, Rome 1857-61, no. 412); in the second example it is the signum of the name of the deceased Lucernius.
On a marble slab of the Cimitero Maggiore the deceased is scratched as an orant between her two patron saints, the one on the right holding in her hand a lighted lamp. G. B. De Rossi explained the scene with the vision narrated in the Acta of the African martyrs of 259 Lucius and Montanus, in which it is said that Christ is lucerna pedibus nostris et qui est sermo scilicet Dei (Una visione narrata dai martiri africani del III sec. e un graffito simbolico trovato nel cimitero Ostriano, in Bull. d'arch. crist., 3rd series, 5 [1880], p. 67 and pl. III).