PALMA. - By their blood the martyrs merit from Christ the prize of eternal life, and therefore in the apocalyptic division they carry the palm (Rev. 7:9).
Tertullian sees them with the triumphal garment, the palmata vestis (Apol., I); palms and crowns passed into Christian iconography and epigraphy, and so Damasus will say of the martyrs Protus and Hyacinth: hic victor meruit palmam, prior ille coronam (A. Ferrua, Epigrammata Damasiana, Vatican City 1942, p. 192); Gordian is called martyr Christi quem palma coronat (G. B. De Rossi, Inscr. Chr., II, Rome 1887, p. 64,15). Prudentius sings of Vincent: palmam tulisti (Peristephanon, V, 539). As in the games the palm was offered to the victor, so too it will be given to the Christian who in life has been victorious over the devil and the passions (St. Gregory, Dial., III, 26). With this meaning it is found engraved in sepulchral inscriptions from as early as the end of the 2nd century or the beginning of the 3rd. In many contorniate medallions, in gaming tables, in fragments of terra sigillata, in clay lamps and in Christian inscriptions of the 4th-6th centuries and even in a consular diptych, the monogram E or also S frequently recurs, explained by Fr. L. Bruzza and by G. B. De Rossi as palma feliciter, and by P. Arcangeli as palma elea (Dell'interpretazione del monogramma E, Rome 1879). H. L. Marrou found its exact explanation to be palma et laurus, studying an inscription of the year 363, now in the Lateran Museum (G. B. De Rossi, Inscr. Christ., I, Rome 1857-61, no. 159), in which the said monogram is found represented together with the crown and the signum Christi; it signifies the supreme reward: palma et laurus.
Bibliography
Enrico Josi