From Rabbi To Son of God

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We turn our attention now to an exploration of the advent of religious images in Christian churches. We have already taken note of the images found in a church in Dura-Europos from about the year 241. Clearly, the imagery there is Christian and its use in the church must have had the approval of the local church authorities. Its the earliest example discovered so far of an early Christian church decorated with religious images. Dura-Europos was on the frontier border of the Roman empire and so we can probably guess that the images in this house-church were inspired by those found in house-churches in more metropolitan, sophisticated centers. It is about this time that the first Christian images in the catacombs outside Rome appeared. About 70 years later, Christianity was legalized by Constantine. The images [21] at Dura-Europo are strictly narratives of Jesus miracles, or metaphoric symbols (e.g. the Good Shepherd) and are very similar to the kind of narrative scenes and symbols found in the catacombs. The rendering, however, is more primitive. We can assume then that, generally, the Christian images used in the first churches were probably symbolic (e.g. grapes), metaphors (e.g. a shepherd), and narrative scenes (e.g. Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead) and therefore of the same genre of what we find in the catacombs. There are very few other extant examples of church images from the earliest periods up to about the middle of the 4th century. Either the churches themselves have disappeared or the original images that decorated the walls and ceilings have been replaced by later creations. What we do know comes from the little that has survived in other buildings used for religious purposes and from contemporary written descriptions, as well as drawings made by artists before the original works were re1
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21
The Healing of the Paralytic (L) and The Walking on the Water ( R); frescoes from the baptistery of the housechurch at Dura-Europos, ca. 231/2. These frescoes are similar in narrative imagery and somewhat similar in artistic style to those in the catacombs. We can probably assume that most other housechurches were similarly decorated but with probably more sophisticated renderings appearing in larger urban centers of the empire.

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Santa Costanza, Rome. Portions of vault mosaics in ambulatory. ca. 350 The images in these mosaics are not specifically Christian but are common decorative themes popular in Roman culture. There does not appear to be any theological statement being made by their use except that sometimes certain images seem to support Christian sensibilities.

placed. One of the best surviving examples from the early period comes from a building that was not originally a church at all. Although consecrated as a church in 1256, the Church of Santa Costanza [22] in Rome began as a mausoleum for Constantine's daughter, Constantia (also known as Constantina or Costanza), who died in 354. Recent investigation suggests that it may have been used as a baptistery after its use as a mausoleum, but before its consecration as a church. The plan is circular, borrowing from a tradition of pre-Christian funerary architecture. It was built about 100 years after the church at Dura-Europos. Its circular ambulatory, or walk-way that surrounds the center space where an altar is now situated, is the only part of the building that has the original decoration a continuous mosaic on the ambulatory ceiling featuring cherubs, plants, animals, birds, and pastoral scenes; nothing particularly or obviously Christian. All of these images could have been just as easily used to decorate any building. A drawing of what had been the decoration on the inside of the dome over the central area shows similar decoration to that found in the ambulatory except for some rather small framed areas depicting narrative scenes from the life of Christ. The narrative scenes of Christ in the dome decoration are along the same lines as what can be seen in Dura-Europo except that the identifiable Christian scenes here, interestingly, play a much smaller role overall than in the earlier church. So, we are left with an unclear picture of just how church decoration developed during this early period. By the end of the 4th century, however, we get a much clearer picture. The decorative pastoral and genre scenes, and flora and fauna images subside in importance and programs of large scale Christian images come to the fore. Beginning in the mid to late 4th century we can also detect a new development in the subject matter of Christian art. There appears on the walls and ceilings of some churches what is sometimes referred to as dogmatic imagery; not narrative images but images meant to visually present a theological concept or dogma. Narrative images continued to be employed, of course, but gaining in importance are such ideas as representations of Christ giving the law to the apostles Peter and Paul [24], the Enthronement of Christ [23], and images suggesting Christ as the universal Lord of the universe [25]. With this development comes also the establishment of an obvious hierarchical program which determined the
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23
Christ Enthroned Between Saints Peter and Paul and The Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) Adored by Four Saints (below, in the same fresco). Wall painting in the Catacomb of Saints Peter and Marcellinus, Rome. 4th century

24
The Law Giver, apse mosaic in Santa Costanza, Rome, shows Christ standing on a rock and delivering the Law to Peter and Paul.

preferred location of categories of images in the church building. Dogmatic images often occupied the most important place in the church the back wall of the apse, just behind and over the altar. Why this development of dogmatically themed images? In, Jesus Through the Centuries, Jaroslav Pelikan described and explained the shift from the earliest view of Jesus as a miracle working Jewish rabbi (a teacher, prophet, and savior of a suffering Israel and a suffering humanity), into the turning point in history (Israels triumphant prophet, priest, and king, and the Son of God, the Second Person of the Trinity, and the giver of the new law). The appearance of dogmatic images in the churches is a visual culmination to the theological debates raging since at least the middle of the second century. As a result, to the depiction of Jesus mission emphasizing the deeds of his life on earth were added those that illustrate his powerful, divine stature and the radical change his life brings into history.1 We also see representations that affirm that Jesus was the fulfillment of the hope of Israel and that the authoritative interpretation and spread of the Gospel was given by Christ to the apostles and their successors. These doctrines were a response to early heresies such as those of Marcion who declared that Christianity was distinct from and in opposition to Judaism. He rejected the entire Hebrew Bible, and declared that the God of the Hebrew Bible was a lesser demiurge, who had created the earth, but was (de facto) the source of evil.2 Gnosticism was also an early heresy rejected and condemned by the Church with the correct doctrine presented in both creeds and dogmatic imagery. The gnostics held (too simply stated here, I fear) that salvation was the result of a special or secret knowledge granted to only a few. The Church answered with the doctrine of apostolic succession which holds that Jesus taught all that was necessary for salvation to the apostles and they, in turn, have handed down that knowledge to their successors, the bishops, who teach all that is necessary for salvation. There is no other special or secret knowledge. In addition to all this was the final determination of a canon of writings to comprise the new testament.
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25
Christ in Majesty, apse mosaic in Santa Prudenziana, Rome. ca. 400

26
Fresco from the catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter, Rome, from the beginning of the 4th c.

27
San Viatal, Ravenna, Italy. View into apse. Mosaic completed ca. 547

An example of dogmatic imagery from this period is the apse mosaic in the church of Santa Pudenziana [25], in Rome. Christ is enthroned, a reference to his Lordship and to his divine authority to teach the new law. He extends his right hand in a gesture of teaching or benediction. Preeminent among the authoritative gathering of apostles are Peter and Paul, the unchallenged leaders of the church. The female figures behind each are personifications of the gentile churches (Paul) and the Jewish churches (Peter) In the sky above the figures are the images of the four winged creatures described in the book of Revelation; the man, lion, ox, and eagle. Contrast the mosaic with a fresco [26] scene depicting the encounter of Jesus with the woman with a hemorrhage. The rabbi has felt his curative powers tapped into by the womans faith. The mage is meant to symbolize the divine and saving power of Christ to heal the whole man. The fresco is a simple narrative. It does not offer us a complex, multi leveled doctrinal agenda as the mosaic does. Another dogmatically themed mosaic [27] this one from a much later period (ca. 547) depicts a young beardless Christ sitting astride a blue globe symbolic of the earth or universe; Christ is Lord of all creation. He is attended to by two angels: the one on the right receives offerings and the one on the left who conveys honors bestowed by Christ. Angels, often represented in scripture as messengers of God, here introduce
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an element of distance between Christ and man, and are suggestive of his divine as well as human nature.

So far in our review of the images used to decorate the interiors of the early Christian churches, we have not seen any images that would seem to elicit devotion or veneration from the viewer. They merely inform the viewer of certain truths, facts, stories, or dogmas of the Christian faith. The artists who created these works and the church authorities who would have had to approved them clearly did not conceive these as images that would be worshipped in any sense that could come close to the pagan worship of images so strongly mocked and denounced by early Christian apologists. In a later chapter we will examine a development that seems to come dangerously close to just what the apologists criticized. But first, in the next chapter, we will take a look at how the early Christians came to represent the God who, after all, is invisible; the God who cannot be seen face to face.
Jaroslav Pelikan, Jesus Through the Centuries, (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1985) 2 Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Marcionism, 17:31 12 June 2008, 9:44 1 July 2008, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcionism>
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