he's not an old fuddy-duddy like asclepius, the god of healing.hat's extraordinary is he would either have his hand or even a wand on the person he's healing. now, nothing that i know of in the entire greco-roman world ever shows asclepius with his hand on somebody he's healing. jesus is an asclepius who makes house calls. i think this is one of the great things that helps this spread. jesus is not shown as a transcendental being, he's down there in the mud of human history with his hand on people's heads. >> narrator: the art of the catacombs also illustrates the christians' attempts to integrate into greco-roman society. >> as christianity moved out of the jewish sphere into the more pagan sphere, then all sorts of pagan ideas and all sorts of pagan themes and images and pictures start pouring into christianity. >> we have this figure of the shepherd with the sheep draped over his shoulders. we, now, may tend to think of that as reflecting the gospel stories of jesus-- of the lost sheep or jesus as the good shepherd from the gospel of john. in p