REPRESENTATION IN RELIGION

NUMEN BOOK SERIES

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY
OF RELIGIONS

EDITED BY

WJ. HANEGRAAFF

VOLUME LXXXIX

' ' 6 8 ‫' ל־‬

REPRESENTATION
IN
RELIGION
Studies in Honor of Moshe Barasch

EDITED BY

J A N A S S M A N N

AND

A L B E R T I. B A U M G A R T E N

' / 6 8 ‫י >י‬

BRILL
LEIDEN · BOSTON · KÖLN
2001
 Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-Einheitsaufiiahme
Representation in religion : studies in honour of Moshe Barasch / ed.
by J a n Assmann and Albert I. Baumgarten. - Leiden ; Boston; Köln :
Brill 2000
(Studies in the history of religions ; Vol. 89)
ISBN 90-04—11939-6

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Introduction
J . ASSMANN ix

T h e Idol in the Icon: S o m e Ambiguities

M . BARASCH 1

T w o Kinds of Representation in Greek Religious Art

M . FINKELBERG 27

T h e T r u t h of Images: Cicero a n d V a r r o on Image W o r s h i p

H . C A N C I K AND H . C A N C I K - L I N D E M A I E R 43

Portraits, Likenesses a n d Looking Glasses: S o m e Literary

a n d Philosophical Reflections on Representation a n d Art in
Medieval India
P. GRANOFF 63

Indian Image-Worship a n d its Discontents

R . H . DAVIS 107

T h e 'Iconic' a n d 'Aniconic' B u d d h a Visualization in Medieval

Chinese Buddhism
K . SHINOHARA 133

Jewish Artists a n d the Representation of G o d

H . KÜNZL F 149

Jewish Art a n d 'Iconoclasm': T h e Case of Sepphoris

B. KÜHNEL 161

Literarische u n d visuelle H e r m e n e u t i k oder die Unmöglichkeit

der Ikone Gottes
A . R . E . AGUS 181

T o r a h : Between Presence and Representation of the Divine in

Jewish Mysticism
M . IDEL 197
Representations of the Jewish Body in M o d e r n Times: Forms
of H e r o Worship
R.I. COHEN 237

M o n u m e n t a l Mockery: Sacred Regality and Dramatic

Representation in Early M o d e r n England
J . R . SIEMON 277

Pictures versus Letters: William Warburton J s Theory of

Grammatological Iconoclasm
J . ASSMANN 297

T h e Roots of M o d e r n Iconoclasm
A . BESANÇON 313

T h e Absent Artist
P . SPRINGER 321

Iconoclasm on the 20th Century Musical Stage (Schönberg,

Henze and Glass)
W . - D . HARTWICH 331

Index of Names and Subjects 345

Contributors 361
 J A N ASSMANN

W h e n in 1996, after the conference on "Apocalyptic T i m e " , we were

discussing a topic for the 1997 conference to be held in Heidelberg,
we found out that we were united not so much around a c o m m o n
theme but around a c o m m o n friend. We unanimously agreed that
the topic we were looking for should fit into two frames at once: the
frame of "religious anthropology" which is or rather was the general
project of the J a c o b T a u b e s Minerva Center for Religious Anthropol-
ogy at Bar Ilan University ( 1993-2000), and the frame of the wide-
ranging interests of Moshe Barasch, whom we wanted to honor with
this conference. Moshe Barasch has been influential in building up
the T a u b e s Center; he was a friend of J a c o b Taubes in whose
memory this center was founded and he was from the beginning its
good spirit. Most of all, of course, Moshe Barasch is an outstanding
scholar, who won the Israel prize in 1995, got elected member of the
Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities in 1996 and is
internationally recognized as one of the leading representatives of his
field, the History of Art—reasons enough, therefore, to organize a
conference in his honor. Some of Barasch's admirers such as Carlo
Ginzburg and Hans Belting attended the conference for that reason
only and felt unable to contribute a paper to the present volume. W e
did not realize at that time that the proceedings of the conference
may appear around the date of Barasch's 80th birthday and that this
happy coincidence would turn our publication into a real Festschrift.
H a d we intended this at the beginning, we would have written to a
wide circle of Barasch's friends, colleagues and students asking them
to contribute instead of organizing a conference, to which invitation
was restricted; thus, the full range of Barasch's friends, colleagues and
students is not represented here. This history also explains why this
volume is both dedicated to Moshe Barasch and starts with a paper of
his own which he read at that conference. Barasch, it is true, never
"reads papers" at conferences but speaks without a manuscript, but if
the topic interests him he rarely resists the temptation of collecting his
thoughts into a written essay. In this case, he did not resist and, thus,
contributed to his own Festschrift which is only natural, because he not
only inspired our search for a suitable topic but also our discussions at
the Wissenschaftsforum at Heidelberg in such a way that it became very
obvious for all of us that he not only was but remained our teacher
without whose contribution and protection this collection of papers
should not come to light.
I would like to insert here, before passing on to explaining the
importance of Moshe Barasch and the topic which we finally chose
for our discussions with him, a word of gratitude for our hosts at
Heidelberg, the president of the Wissenschaftsforum, Professor Dr. Dr.
Michael Welker and Dr. Theresa Reiter, its generous and competent
director who made our stay at Heidelberg both comfortable and in-
tellectually and socially stimulating. T h e Stiftung Universität Heidelberg
contributed a substantial sum of money to the notoriously restricted
budget of the late T a u b e s Center which allowed us to enlarge the
circle of invited speakers. This is not the place for a "necrologue" of
the J a c o b T a u b e s Minerva Center for Religious Anthropology, which
is being closed by decision of Bar Ilan University in the very days
when these lines are written. T h e r e have been three more confer-
ences, the last one, again at the Wissenschaftsforum, on the topic " H o w
to C o m p a r e Religions" (February 2000), awaiting publication and
preventing us from indulging too m u c h in a "sense of an ending".
T h e T a u b e s Minerva Center had kindled a light and it is not the first
time that a light is extinguished. Work will go on as does Enlighten-
ment.
Famous as he is in his chosen field of Art History, some biographi-
cal notes about Moshe Barasch may not seem totally pointless in a
publication primarily addressing historians of religion. Moshe
Barasch was born in Czernowitz (Rumania, now Ukraine; formerly
one of the most important centers ofJewish culture) in a family living
there for three generations. His grandfather introduced him into the
traditions of Hasidism, his father, an engaged Zionist, into the tradi-
tion of Haskala, the Jewish Enlightenment. As a painter, he was a
prodigal child and at the age of 12 had his works exhibited in
Czernowitz, Prague and Boston, besides being vividly interested al-
ready at that early time in the history, theory and philosophy of art.
A sponsor in New York m a d e it possible for him to visit the important
European museums and libraries until World W a r II put an end to
these studies. Even Barasch's underground activities in the Ghetto at
Czernowitz were remotely connected with art. As a m e m b e r of
Haggana, the Jewish military organization which became the origin
of the Israeli army, he belonged to Briha ("flight"), an organization
helping fugitives to leave the country. Barasch's j o b was to fake pass-
ports, at which he was so successful that none of his artifacts was ever
discovered. Instead, the police rejected the only real passport that was
ever produced during those years at the border because it did not
meet the high standards of perfection set by Barasch's passports.
 Moshe and Berta Barasch came to Israel in 1948, where he took
an active part in the war of liberation. After his leave from the army
in 1949, he taught art and philosophy in several kibbutzim and
started lecturing and publishing in various scholarly societies and
journals. In the 50s, Barasch was able to resume his studies at the
W a r b u r g Institute in London and in Princeton at the Institute of
Advanced Studies with Erwin Panofsky, to w h o m he stayed related in
a close friendship. Later when he was asked to become Panofsky's
successor he stayed faithful to his tasks in Israel which began at a very
modest scale in 1956, when he was asked to teach a course at the
Hebrew University. Only two years later, however, he was trusted
with the foundation of a department for the History of Art at the
same university. This became the model for similar departments
which now exist at every university in Israel. Moreover, by his nu-
merous publications in Hebrew, Barasch has for the first time laid the
terminological foundations in modern H e b r e w for a professional dis-
course in his field, and by his many lectures and essays has promoted
art and aesthetics to the rank of much debated topics in the intellec-
tual life of modern Israel.
At the same time, the internationality of scholarship is one of
Barasch's most important principles. His students had to be ac-
quainted with the major European languages and he helped them,
wherever possible, to a fellowship to continue their study abroad. H e
himself taught and is still teaching as a visiting professor at various
universities in the USA such as New York (NYU), Cornell, Yale,
Harvard and research institutes such as the Institute of Advanced
Studies at Princeton and the Getty Research Center at Los Angeles.
H e published eleven of his books in English and one even in G e r m a n .
In terms of the history of science, Moshe Barasch belongs within
the W a r b u r g tradition and is certainly its most prominent contempo-
rary representative. This school has systematically blurred the disci-
plinary fences and distinctions between art and philosophy, religious
and social history, cultural anthropology and literary studies. Art is
seen not as an autonomous aesthetic province of culture but rather as
"symbolical form" a m o n g other symbolical forms constituting the
general semantics of a given society, culture or period. A work of art
is studied, in all its details of composition, color, iconographie theme
etc. as the result, and the "physiognomic" expression as it were of all
its technical, social, intellectual and spiritual contexts and conditions
in a way that opens new perspectives on religious backgrounds, philo-
sophical debates, social structures or movements and cultural
changes. Just some titles of his major works in the English language
show the range of his research and of what he would call his "curios-
ity": Gestures of Despair in Medieval and Early Renaissance Art. New York
1976; Light and Color in Italian Renaissance Theory of Art. New York 1978,
2nd ed. 1980; Theories of Art from Plato to Winckelmann, New York 1985.
2nd ed. 1986, pb ed. 1985: Spanish Madrid 1991; Modem Theories of
Art I. From Winckelmann to Baudelaire. New York 1990, p b New York
1991; Modem Theories of Art II, From Impressionism to Kandinsky, New
York 1998; Giotto and the Language of Gesture. Cambridge 1987, 2nd ed.
1988, p b ed. 1990; Imago Hominis: Studies in the History of Art, Vienna-
New York 1991. American ed. New York 1994; The Language of Art,
New York 1995; Blindness, London 2000.
T h e book which set us on the track of "Iconoclasm" is perhaps the
most famous a m o n g his English publications: Icon: Studies in the History
of an Idea, New York 1992. T h e reason why we finally exchanged the
title "iconoclasm" for the more general term "representation" is com-
plex and has to do with the 2nd c o m m a n d m e n t itself. Since the 2nd
c o m m a n d m e n t , the Biblical prohibition of images, does not play a
central role in any of the papers assembled in this volume, a short
reminder may not be out of place here. T h e 2nd c o m m a n d m e n t
occurs twice in the Bible:
Thou shalt not make for thyself any carven idol, or any likeness of any
thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath or that is in
the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down to them, nor serve
them: for I, the LORD thy God am a jealous God, punishing the iniquity
of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of
those that hate me; but showing mercy to thousands of generations of
those that love me, and keep my commandments." (Ex. 20:4-6; trans.
Koren Bible)
Lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image, the simili-
tude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, The likeness of any
beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the
air, The likeness of any thing that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of
any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth:
And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the
sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest
be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God
hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.
But the LORD hath taken you, and brought you forth out of the iron
furnace, even out of Egypt, to be unto him a people of inheritance, as ye
are this day." (Dtn. 5:8-10; trans. King James' version)
T h e 2nd c o m m a n d m e n t is prohibiting the making not of images, but
of idols. Not the general term "selem" is used which corresponds to
English "image" and which is used in Gen 1:26 (man the "image" of
God), but more specific terms such as "graven image" or "cast im-
age" which imply the notions not only of making but especially of
worshipping. Not "iconicity" is the point, but worship. T h e "making"
of such an image is considered and condemned as an act of worship.
W h a t is so harmful about images that their production arouses God's
jealousy and incurs terrible punishment? W e must read this com-
m a n d m e n t in the light of the first one with which it is fused in the
Catholic and Lutheran traditions: T h o u shalt have no other gods
before me. T h e 2nd c o m m a n d m e n t is a commentary on the first.
Having "other gods" means making images, and vice-versa. Making
images arouses God's jealousy, because it means worshipping images,
and worshipping images means having other gods besides the true
and only one. Every image of any celestial, terrestrial or aquatic being
turns automatically into a rival god. Generally speaking, depicting the
world means adoring it, images are made for worship or, rather, the
making of an image constitutes already an act of worship. T h e prohi-
bition of making images is a prohibition of worshipping the world by
sculptural or pictorial representation.
It is important to note that the Second C o m m a n d m e n t is origi-
nally not about the non-representability of G o d and the essential
inadequacy of images in ensuring divine presence. T h e philosophical
idea of transcendence is not involved in the prohibition of images. It
is not their inadequacy, but their very efficiency which makes them
unacceptable in the eyes of God. Icons are prohibited because they
tend to be worshipped, and their worship is put on the same footing
with the worship of the heavenly bodies; independently of any ques-
tions of representation and meaning, images turn in the very act of
being worshipped into foreign gods in the same way as the heavenly
bodies which God has allotted to "all nations", that is, the pagans for
objects of worship. T h e images do not "represent" God or gods but
"are" or "become" other gods.
This is shown by the story of the Golden Calf (Ex. 32), which is not
only about the making of an image and the result of that making, but
also about the consequences which an image necessarily entails. T h e
story of the Golden Calf is about an image that was meant to repre-
sent God, not other gods, but that turned into another god seducing
the people to pagan worship against their original intentions. W h e n
Moses stayed so long on Mt. Sinai that the people feared he might
never return they bade Aaron to fill the void by making them "God(s)
(Elohim) who will go before us". T h e idea was to replace the vanished
representative of god by a representation of god; not of Moses and
not of some other gods, but of the same god Moses had been repre-
senting. This supposed functional equivalence of prophet and image
is very important; it constitutes the error the people were committing.
Aaron collected all the gold the people were wearing and threw it
into the fire, melted it and formed it into a calf. And they said:
"These be thy god(s) (elœ elohekha) who brought thee up out of the land
of Egypt." T h e heresy lies in the use of the demonstrative pronoun.
T o point to something visible saying "this is your god" is precisely
what is categorically forbidden by the 2nd c o m m a n d m e n t . G o d is
who H e is and cannot be represented nor demonstrated.
If we ask for what M a x W e b e r calls the "subjective meaning" of an
action, Aaron and the people acted in perfecdy good will. They did
not m e a n to turn away from J a h w e , their god, and to address them-
selves to an image of Baal or the Apis bull. T h e accusation should not
be apostasy but a mistake in divine representation, in the means to
assure divine presence and communication. But the subjective mean-
ing is not what counts here. Whatever they intended, "this thing
became a sin", to quote 1 Kings 30, where the same error is reported
of King J e r o b e a m . H e made two golden calves setting up the one in
Beth-El and the other in D a n saying: "Behold thy gods, Ο Israel,
which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." T h e sin of making
images lies not in any original intentions but in the consequences, in
what images lead to, in the temptation they exert on the h u m a n
heart.
Taken together, these two passages, the 2nd c o m m a n d m e n t and
the story of the Golden Calf, define the meaning of idolatry as the
quintessential expression of "false religion" or "paganism" both in the
sense of false worship, that is, worshipping false gods instead of the only
true one, and in the sense of false forms of worship, that is, worshipping
God in forms that go astray and that, instead of assuring His presence,
destroy the presence G o d Himself concedes. T h e y destroy divine
presence because they impose a presence and power of their own.
T h e 2nd c o m m a n d m e n t forbids the worship of the world instead
of its creator. T h e so called dominium terrae, the exhortation that m a n
should rule over the earth goes in the same direction. It is not an
invitation to exploit the world but only a warning against worship-
ping it. T h e worship of images is a worship of the cosmos or, to use a
word coined in the 18th c., "cosmotheism". Images are not mimetic
reduplications of visible reality but vessels of the invisible, intra-mun-
dane powers that animate the world from within.
In the view of the iconoclasts, images idolize the world and blind
the eyes for looking beyond the world and focusing on the creator.
Instead of establishing a contact, images block the communication
with god whose presence can only be felt, to quote Stefan George,
like "air from other planets blowing". For the "idolaters", the divine
is not like air from other planets blowing, but the very air that is
blowing in this world and that makes it an abode habitable for both
men and gods. T o the iconoclasts, this being-entirely-at-home in the
world appears like blind entanglement. Idolatry means Weltverstrìck-
ung, entanglement within the world, addiction to the visible and the
material.
In order to better understand what is meant by "idolatry" and
what the second c o m m a n d m e n t is prohibiting, we have to reconstruct
the opposite maxim which the second c o m m a n d m e n t is opposing, the
c o m m a n d m e n t or maxim of the "iconists". This maxim, of course, is
not "make as many idols and images as you possibly can of all you see
in the sky, on earth and in the water", but, rather, "worship every-
thing divine wherever you feel its manifestations, do not neglect any
of the divine powers you feel operative in the establishment and
maintenance of order, in the cosmos and in society as well as in your
own soul and body; never forget that you depend on this whole world
surrounding you and that this world needs to be maintained by con-
stant care lest it would turn uninhabitable and people become stran-
gers in a world no longer animated by divine life and order; maintain
the world in its divine animatedness by incessant efforts of imagina-
tion and articulation—iconic, verbal and dramatic." Something like
this seems to be the iconists maxim and it is understood that this
support and maintenance of cosmic life and order can only be effec-
tuated by means of a symbolic articulation of these powers that ani-
mate the world from within and from above. T h e making of images
is to be seen as an important aspect of this constant concern of sym-
bolic articulation which is not a reduplication of reality but a
visibilisation of order.
W h a t the cult of images is about is most explicitly stated in an
Egyptian text which was only written in the 3rd c. C E in view of
rising Christianity: the hermetic treatise Asclepius. This texts devotes
several chapters to the statues "ensouled and conscious, filled with
spirit and doing great deeds, statues that foreknow the future and
predict it by lots, by prophecy, by dreams and by many other means;
statues, that make people ill and cure them, bringing them pain and
pleasure as each deserves." (ch. 24) Images are not dead matter but
are vessels of divine presence. T h e y provide an interface between the
divine and the h u m a n worlds, between heaven and earth. " D o you
not know", the text continues, "that Egypt is an image of heaven or,
to be more precise, that everything governed and moved in heaven
came down to Egypt and was transferred there? If truth be told, our
land is the temple of the whole world". Images are the means of
bringing the divine down and making it dwell in Egypt. Images, in
the eyes of those who believe in them (let us call them "iconists")
achieve precisely what they prevent in the eyes of the "aniconists":
making G o d dwell a m o n g the people and ensuring sacred communi-
cation. Images and sacred animals are media of divine presence
which they conceive of as a kind of animation. Iconoclasm would
bereave the world of this divine animation and would turn it into
mere inanimate matter, doomed to pollution and decomposition. T h e
hermetic treatise continues by giving a vivid description of what it
calls "the old age of the world" (senectus mundi). It does not mention
the cult of images, because this theme constitutes the overall context
and has been dealt with extensively in the preceding chapter:
divinity will return from earth to heaven and Egypt will be abandoned.
The land that was the seat of reverence will be widowed by the powers
and left destitute of their presence...
Then this most holy land, seat of shrines and temples, will be filled
completely with tombs and corpses...
a torrent of blood will fill the Nile to the banks and pollute the divine
waters
Whoever survives will be recognized as an Egyptian only by his lan-
guage; in his actions he will seem a foreigner.
In their weariness the people ofthat time will find the world nothing to
wonder at or to worship. This universe—a good thing that never had nor
has nor will have its better will be endangered. People will find it op-
pressive and scorn it. They will not cherish this entire world... a glorious
construction, a bounty composed of images in multiform variety, a mul-
tiform accumulation taken as a single thing
No one will look up to heaven. The reverent will be thought mad, the
irreverent wise. Whoever dedicates himself to reverence of mind will find
himself facing a capital penalty. They will establish new laws, new justice.
Nothing holy, nothing reverent nor worthy of heaven or heavenly beings
‫׳‬ will be heard of or believed in the mind.
How mournful when the gods withdraw from mankind! Then neither
will the earth stand firm nor the sea be sailable; stars will not cross
heaven nor will the course of the stars stand firm in heaven. Every divine
voice will grow mute in enforced silence. The fruits of the earth will rot;
the soil will no more be fertile; and the very air will droop in gloomy
lethargy.
Such will be the old age of the world: irreverence, disorder and disre-
gard for everything good. (Asclepius 24-26 ed. Nock-Festugière, Corpus
Hermeticum, Collection Budé, Paris 1960, 326-329, with omissions)
T h e second c o m m a n d m e n t is or comes to be directed against this
form of cosmotheism and to insist on the radical alterity and tran-
scendence of God. Instead of making h u m a n s feel at home in the
world, it strives at estranging them from this world. "I am a stranger
on this earth", we read in a late Psalm dating from Hellenistic times,
which continues " D o not hide thy T o r a h from m e " (Ps. 119.19).
W h a t is important to establish and to maintain on earth is not "or-
der" but God's will or justice, and God's will (justice) does not belong
to the powers of this world, but has to be drawn from another source
which is the T o r a h : "do not hide thy T o r a h from me".
T h e conflict between these two positions is still applicable to our
modern or postmodern situation. Shall we insist on the radical
alterity, if not of God, then, e.g., of art which should be felt like "air
from other planets blowing", shall we continue feeling like strangers
in a world of pure worldliness, shall we, after the death of God,
refrain from worshipping anything at all?
O r should we, on the contrary, turn towards the world and insist
on the necessity of its symbolic articulation, should we again develop
a sensitivity of maintenance, care and attention with regard to nature,
to the dynamics and regularities of social, political, individual life,
should we cultivate and cherish the images and any forms of pictorial,
musical, verbal, architectural, logical, mathematical representations
and articulations that make these hidden powers, connections, flows
and energies visible, treatable, approachable and processable? W e
will never be able to unlearn the lesson that the prohibition of making
images keeps teaching us for more than two millennia: that humans
are never entirely at home in this world and are bound to "advance
in intellectuality" as Sigmund Freud has called it. But, even though
not being entirely at home in this world, we are committed to i t - and
there is something in the "cosmothcistic" idea of maintenance that is
still—or rather again and more and more—important in our time.
Moshe Barasch, in his book Icon. Studies in the History of an Idea, has
shown that the aesthetic aspect of representational art was never an
issue in the debates between iconoclasts and iconodules. T h e images
were rejected and defended, not for their aesthetic value but for their
power either to create or to destroy a link between man and god. But
he has also shown that the biblical prohibition of images with its
concept of iconic power implies an aesthetic theory of its own. It takes
art seriously in recognizing the aspect of worship in the act of making
images and the aspect of mystical power in the act of looking at them.
T h e rejection of images is not about "iconicity" in the sense of the
capacity of replicating the visible, but about power in the sense of
making the unvisible visible.
 T H E I D O L IN T H E I C O N : S O M E A M B I G U I T I E S

M O S H E BARASCH

It is a strange fact that during the great iconoclastic debates, that so

profoundly shook the institutions and intellectual foundations of Eu-
rope, no precise definition of what an icon is, and what are its essen-
tial characteristics, was ever proposed. This is particularly remarkable
since the iconoclastic upheavals produced a large harvest of literary
records, both theoretical and non-theoretical. As we know, there were
flagrant contradictions in the attitudes to the icon, but apparentiy no
serious doubts arose as to what an icon is. Even such a systematic
mind as J o h n of Damascus (who influenced Thomas Aquinas and
should be considered as an ancestor of Scholasticism) attempts a defi-
nition of "image" in general, and while he uses the Greek term eikon,
he does not have the icon in our sense in mind. Obviously, then, no
need was felt for a formal definition. Both the iconoclasts and the
iconodules had a clear notion, and a mental image, of the icon. T h e y
must have known what the qualities are that make a carved or
painted image into an icon. Some questions arising with regard to
one of such qualities are the subject matter of my presentation.
Several qualities are characteristic of the typical, classic icon of the
divine. O n e of these qualities seems to be a perfect internal consist-
ency, the total absence of any ambiguity or internal tensions in the
sacred image. T h e clear, transparently consistent nature of the icon
creates in the spectator the impression of a full manifestation of the
being depicted in the image he looks at. Mikhail Bakhtin spoke in an
interesting essay (Speech Genres & Other IMe Essays [Austin, Texas,
1986], pp. 132 ff.) of a kind of statement he called "proclamatory."
T h e proclamatory statement, "with its indisputability, uncondition-
ality," does not tolerate equivocality. W e may apply Bakhtin's cat-
egory to our subject. T h e icon is a proclamatory pictorial statement,
and therefore it must be of a perfectly unequivocal nature.
This also holds true for the spectator's attitude to the holy image.
As any other artistic "genre," the icon, too, shapes the audience's
reaction. Genres, we have been told, create in the spectator, or in the
reader, expectations of a distinct direction, and these expectations
may be decisive in the understanding of what he looks at. (E. D.
Hirsch, Jr., Validity in Interpretation [New Haven and London, 1967])
Every spectator about to look at an icon expects that the sacred
image will manifest the intrinsic wholeness and coherence of the fig-
ure or scene it represents. Similar expectations emerge from the ap-
proach to what may be called a political icon. Looking at the image
of an emperor, perhaps no less than at the icon of a god, the ancient
spectator knew what to expect, and he was not left in doubt as to
what he saw (S.R.F. Price, Rituals and Power: The Roman Imperial Cult in
Asia Minor [Cambridge, 1984], pp. 170 If.).
An icon, then, has to be clear. It is clear when it is free from
ambiguity, when, if I may use such metaphor, it has only one single
level of meaning. T h e main obstacle to the icon's clarity, and the
spectator's understanding of it, is not so much an insufficient articula-
tion, but mainly ambiguity. W h e n the spectator remains in doubt as
to who or what is represented in a cult image, when the face or the
figure he sees can be read both as those of the "true" and of the
"false" god, the image cannot be valid as an icon. But can an image
belonging to the class of icons not have more than just one level of
meanings?
Classic icons, displaying the transparent coherence typical for the
genre, emerged mainly from homogeneous cultures. T h o u g h a fully
homogeneous culture does not exist, as I need hardly stress, some
periods or cultures are more unified than others. In such periods, the
artists creating the images and the audiences for w h o m they are ere-
ated are to a large extent drawing from the same sources and tradi-
tions, and share the same beliefs and mental images. In homogeneous
cultures, ambiguities in the reading of images are less likely to arise,
and icons are more intelligible, than in cultures that lack homogene-
ity. Audiences are able to assimilate the images to a high degree. It is
in these conditions that the famous dictum that "images are the script
of the illiterate" could have emerged. W h e t h e r or not that often re-
peated sentence correctly represents the historical reality (that is,
whether or not the illiterate audience did indeed understand the im-
ages), there was no imputing of a different, opposed identity to a holy
figure, especially to a divine image, or to a sacred scene. T h e
unimpeded readability of the icon reflects an underlying stratum of
beliefs and mental images c o m m o n to the makers and spectators of
icons.
A classic example of an icon that emerged f r o m a largely homoge-
neous culture (or a culture consciously striving at unity and homoge-
neity, at least in certain respects) is the one created by thirteenth
century religious art in western Europe. T h e imagery of High Gothic
cathedrals may be filled with a variety of tendencies in style, as has
often been said, yet it is dominated by the attempt to erect a compre-
hensive visual system, and to arrive at images of Christ, and of many
saints, that are of a distinct, "final" clarity. Manifestatio, it has been
said, "elucidation or clarification, is ... the first controlling principle
of Early and High Scholasticism" and of Gothic art. (Erwin Panofsky,
Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism [Latrobe, Penn., 1951], pp. 30 if.)
T h e Beau Dieu of thirteenth century French cathedrals is a striking
example. T h e appearance of this figure, so it seems, leaves no room
for doubts or ambiguities in understanding.
Important parts of the iconic imagery of Europe, however, were
created, or reached final shape, in times and societies that were split
and divided; sometimes they are the very opposite of homogeneous
cultures. T h e student of icons will note that in these societies there is
not a single dominant religion that imposes on the mental life a high
degree of unity. Several religions exist next to each other, usually in
strife and struggle. T h e records of the intellectual and emotional life
of such times, the literature and the works of art created in them, are
often more equivocal than those shaped in what we have called ho-
mogeneous societies. Now, are the conditions prevailing in such peri-
ods, mainly the close interweaving of conflicting beliefs, reflected in
the icons then produced, and are the way they were read different
from those c o m m o n in homogenic cultures? Moreover, do the reli-
gious struggles, and especially the altercations of the victorious reli-
gion with the one that is ultimately defeated, leave some traces in the
icons themselves?
In the present essay I shall concentrate on some aspects of the
shape, the reading, and the afterlife of icons produced in non-homo-
geneous cultures. My material will be drawn from the religious im-
agery in late Hellenism and the transitional period between Antiquity
and the Middle Ages. Originally I had hoped to be able to deal also
with the religious attitude to icons in some of the heretic movements
in the western Middle Ages, but the limits of a paper do not allow me
to venture into this fascinating land with all its temptations.
Without in any way attempting to outline the attitude to sacred
images in "non-homogeneous" periods, that were so often times of
upheaval and profound historical change, I should only point out one
seemingly paradox characteristic. This paradox is particularly mani-
fest in the religious life of the time that produced the icons that will
serve as my examples. O n the one hand, some inherited distinctions,
traditionally considered crucial in the domain of religious beliefs, ritu-
als, and visual symbols, seem to crumble away, and mental images
are transferred from one denomination to another. O n the other
hand, however, the sacred image as such does not become a matter of
minor significance. In those periods, symbols and inherited sacred
images were a matter of utmost importance to believers. People be-
longing to a specific faith often fanatically stuck to the details of a
 Figure 1. The New Paphos Mosaic in Cyprus.

sacred image, whether they used it as amulets or worshipped it in

rituals as an icon of the divine. I shall attempt to approach this
complex, and sometimes contradictory, interaction of a fanatically
orthodox sticking to symbols, and the transfer of some holy images
from one belief to another, by a discussion of a few select examples.
T o m a n y of the questions that arise in such an investigation an-
swers cannot readily be given. Religious struggles were carried out
not only in the field of the spoken and written word, but also in the
domain of images, and here, as the student of iconoclasm knows well,
censorship could be very thorough. It is unavoidable, therefore, that a
great deal of what I shall have to say is speculative, at least to some
degree. Yet questions should be fully formulated even if we do not
have satisfactory answers. T h e objection that very little that is fully
reliable can be known about our problems is no reason to disregard
them altogether.

A Late Hellenistic Mosaic

In the early 1980's a magnificient late antique mosaic was excavated
in New Paphos in Cyprus (Wiktor Daszewski, Dionysos der Erlöser
[Mainz, 1985]). This mosaic, a work of the fifth century A.D., is sur-
prisingly well preserved. Of the six panels of which it consists, two are
devoted to Dionysos. We are here concerned only with the panel that
shows Dionysos as a child (Fig. 1). T h e composition of this panel
consists of two halves. T h e right half shows Hermes who, majestically
seated on a (hardly visible) chair or throne, holds the infant Dionysos
on his lap. Hermes's position has an explicit air of solemnity; he is
presenting the infant to the world. A cluster of allegorical figures
surrounds this central group, each of the figures identified by a clearly
legible inscription. In the left part of the panel, a female figure (a
nymph?) is kneeling in the foreground, next to a round tub, while
another w o m a n is pouring something (probably a liquid) into it.
Here, too, allegorical figures, identified by inscriptions, surround the
two female figures. In the present discussion we shall concentrate on
the group in the right half only.
T h e modern spectator, familiar with countless representations of
the stories told in the Gospels, instantly perceives the basic affinity of
the " p a g a n " scenes represented in the Cyprus mosaic with the Chris-
tian subject of the Adoration of the Magi. Were it not for the small
wings attached to Hermes's head, we would, in fact, take his figure
for that of the Virgin, and read the whole scene as an Adoration of
Christ by the Magi. Such a m o d e r n spectator might only wonder
about who are the figures, identified by inscriptions, that surround
the central group. These figures differ in identity and general expres-
sion from the kings who came from distant lands to worship the new
born redeemer. As we know, the Adoration of the Magi emerged in
the earliest stages of Christian lore, perhaps two centuries before the
Cyprus mosaic was produced, and soon achieved a kind of canonic
formulation and wide distribution. Already the oldest Christian repre-
sentation of the subject, the Adoration of the Magi in the C a t a c o m b of
S. Pietro and Marcellino in R o m e (Fig. 2), probably of the late third
century A.D., presents the core of the scene as a definitely articulated
composition that persisted for more than a millennium without essen-
tial change. (Hugo Kehrer, Die Heiligen Drei Könige in Literatur und Kunst,
II [Leipzig, 1909; reprinted Hildesheim-New York, 1976] fig. 1). T h e
many renderings of the same scene that have come down to us show
how c o m m o n this particular image was in the early Christian world.
T h e subject was especially frequent in the Christian imagery of the
countries at the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and N e a r East-
ern Christian art was more prolific in the rendering and articulation
of the Adoration of the Magi than in any other region. M o d e r n
scholarship has distinguished a specific "Syrian type" of the subject,
and has been able to describe its development and its impact on the
painting of the Middle Ages. (Kehrer, pp. 26 f f , 81 f f ) T o understand
 Figure 2. The Adoration of the Magi in the Catacomb of
S. Pietro and Marcellino, Rome.

the wide distribution of the motif, it may be worth mentioning that

the Adoration of the Magi was a theme that attracted the interest of
the makers and buyers of precious objects that pilgrims carried home
from their pilgrimages to the holy places. Such objects, that would
today probably be labeled as precious tourist wares, may have con-
veyed something of the authority invested in them by their origin in
the "holy places." We may be sure that, then as in all ages, reverence
as well as wide interest was assured to these pieces. A famous example
of such objects are the ampullae of Monza, on which the Adoration
of the Magi is represented. T h e r e were, of course, some variations
and differences between the various types of representing the scene,
but the basic compositional type is the same all of them. In all varia-
tions, it should be stressed, the composition and particularly the cen-
tral group of the Adoration of the Magi (the Virgin presenting the
Christ child) remains always surprisingly close to what we see in the
Dionysos mosaic in Cyprus.
I have mentioned these facts, well known to every student of an-
cient and medieval art, in order to stress the obvious: that the patrons
and makers of the Cyprus mosaic as well as the audiences for whom
it was m a d e must have been aware of the Christian subject, of its
compositional pattern and of its connotations. T h e similarity in com-
position and the affinity in expression of the Dionysos scene in the
New Paphos mosaic and the then c o m m o n image of the Adoration of
the Magi cannot be a matter of chance. This becomes particularly
manifest when we recall that there was a classic tradition of represent-
ing the birth of Dionysus that preceded the impact of Christian im-
agery. Hermes bringing, or offering, the newborn Dionysus to the
nymphs was represented in Naples (Fig. 3). Here the nude Hermes
dramatically hastens to bring the baby-Dionysus to the nymphs, his
fast movement emphasized by the billowing drapery. Another exam-
pie is the cover of a sarcophagus, now in Madrid. T h e birth and
childhood of Dionysus is here rendered in several scenes. In the mid-
die scene the actual birth (from Zeus's thigh) is rendered. T o the right
of this group, in the same scene, we see once again the nude Hermes
 Figure 4. The Μαάήά Sarcophagus.

running with the newborn Dionysus towards the nymphs (Fig. 4). W e
cannot go here into the iconography of Hermes carrying the newborn
Dionysus in classical art. I should only stress that the earlier represen-
tadons mentioned are all of a narrative nature; none of them has the
character of an icon. T h e mosaic in New Paphos clearly marks a
break with the tradition of this motif in classical art. Here Hermes is
not rushing, but majestically seated; he is not nude, but wears ample
garments; the newborn Dionysus is not a helpless baby carried by
Hermes in his arms, but an upright sitting child, solemnly raising his
hands in a gesture of speech and benediction. Clearly the Cyprus
mosaic is guided by an artistic and religious tradition different from
the one that influenced the narrative representations. In fifth century
Cyprus, then, pagan artists and audiences were obviously familiar
with the Christian image.
T o grasp what such pagan adjustment to the Christian model may
have really meant, it will be useful to recall some of the conditions
that prevailed at the time and areas in which both the Cyprus mosa-
ics and the many representations of the Adoration of the Magi were
produced. W e are speaking of the centuries after Constantine's con-
version, when pagan religions became first endangered and then ac-
tually oppressed. T w o events may be mentioned as indicating the
limits of the time span in the intellectual and religious life and Strug-
gies in the eastern Mediterranean we have here in mind. T h e first
event is the forced closing down of the Sarapeum in Gaza, in 391, by
the Christian governor; the second is Justinian's order of A.D. 529,
closing down the Platonic Academy in Athens. During this historical
period, roughly a century and a half, the area we have in mind,
extending from Syria to Greece, was the scene of intense religious
conflicts, carried on both on the level of theological speculation and
on that of ritual practice, both with great emotional intensity. A pro-
found, often orthodox, adherence of the different religious groups to
their inherited rituals, to the cult objects, and to the more or less
firmly articulated mental imagery of the respective faiths, recorded in
the pictorial motifs known from the art of the period, were emotion-
ally highly charged. It is this emotional intensity of the various reli-
gious faiths that poses a central problem to the proper understanding
of the mosaic. We should further remind that Cyprus, placed be-
tween the great centers, between G a z a and Athens, was necessarily
also the stage for parts of the conflict. T h e mosaic from New Paphos,
produced in the period discussed, must be seen against this conflict.
For the present investigation, two features of the intellectual, reli-
gious, and emotional conditions of this period are of particular signifi-
cance. O n e is the close interaction of the different groups that I have
already mentioned, the familiarity of one group with the beliefs and
symbols of the other denominations. This intertwining produced the
particular atmosphere that is characteristic of the period. T h e other is
the tenacity by which many of the groups clung to the original faith,
and the resulting struggles, that were often fierce and cruel.
T h e first point—the interaction of different religious groups, living
in close proximity to, often within, each other in many countries of
the Near East—is too well known to require restating. I shall, there-
fore, only make a brief remark about the second point, the tenacious
adherence of followers of different " p a g a n " religions to their original
faith. W e know that the "Christianization of the R o m a n Empire,"
particularly in the eastern parts, was a struggle that extended over
centuries, and continued much longer than we used to believe. (Pierre
Chuvin, A Chronicle of the Last Pagans [Cambridge, Mass., 1990; origi-
nal French Paris, 1990]). Even if some Christian historians at the
time, such as Evagrius and J o h n of Ephesus, probably exaggerated
the numbers of people continuing their pagan religious cults (the
latter reports that he discovered many thousands of pagans in one
region, and fifteen hundered temples and shrines), it seems certain
that two or three centuries after the Christian religion became offi-
daily accepted such rituals were still widespread. ( J.P.N. Land,
Johannes, Bischof von Ephesus: Der erste syrische Kirchenhistoriker [Leyden,
1856]) Despite fifth-century legislation against pagan cults and their
actual persecution, pagan festivals were still celebrated in Edessa in
the late fifth century. At the end of the sixth century sacrifices to Zeus
were here still offered. (Glenn Bowersock, Hellenism in Late Antiquity
[Ann Arbor, Mich., 1990], pp. 35 ff.) Although clinging to pagan
faith, and particularly the celebrating of prohibited pagan rituals, was
a dangerous activity, especially in the last stages of Antiquity (Chuvin,
pp. 131 ff.), these faiths did not disappear. T h e tenacity of clinging to
these religions show how important both the faith and the ritual were
to these believers. W e know very little about the role images have
played in these clandestine pagan rituals. We may be sure, however,
that they must have formed part of the pagan world at the period
when the Cyprus mosaic was created.
Now I come back to the original question concerning the Cyprus
mosaic. In view of these intense religious struggles between the "pa-
g a n " and Christian religions and the tenacious adherence, in the face
of persecutions, to the inherited faith, how should we understand the
similarity or affinity of the Dionysos mosaic in New Paphos and the
contemporary scenes of the Adoration of the Magi? Let us try and
imagine a spectator, living in Cyprus or one of the N e a r Eastern
countries, looking at the Cyprus mosaic shortly after it was produced.
Such a spectator would, of course, immediately have identified the
affinity to the Christian image of the Adoration of the Magi. At a first
glance, our spectator might well have believed that he is looking at a
Christian image representing the Virgin rather than Hermes. Only
the figures around the central group, that do not easily fit into the
Christian image, may have finally convinced him that what he sees is
the rendering of a Greek mythological scene rather than of a Chris-
tian story. Now, what would our imaginary spectator have made of
the similarity between the two scenes, the pagan and the Christian?
In describing and explaining such cross-denominational similari-
ties, present-day historians of art often employ the notion of "influ-
ences." W h a t is usually meant by this term is that the older work or
motif served as a model for the new one. T h e artist who shaped the
later work, so it is imagined, transplants, as it were, subconsciously or
even with full awareness, the formal motifs and composition from one
complex of subjects (and their connotations) to another. While in our
research we cannot do without the assumption of "influence," the
 concept as such is more problematic than may appear at first glance.
In using it, particularly for the study of pre-modern art, we should try
to see clearly what it implies
In the context of historical investigation, "influence" is of course a
modern concept. It tacitly makes several assumptions, and at least
two of them are significant for our present subject. T h e first assump-
tion is that the feature that exerts the influence, the form or motif
taken over, can be detached from its original context without tinging
the work to which it is now applied, the work influenced, with the
contents for which it was created in the first place. Secondly, in the
concept of influences, as handled by modern art historians, it is some-
how assumed that both the artist who produces the work and the
audience for which it is produced, are mainly concerned with formal
values. They either do not know from where a pattern, a configura-
tion is taken, or they do not mind what the origin is. In such cases,
the form may said to be "neutral" with regard to former connota-
tions.
But do these assumptions apply to the art of earlier periods? This
would be the case only when the configuration transplanted from one
cultural or religious context to another is indeed "neutral," that is,
free of emotional charge. However, when a form, a configuration, a
composition impressed themselves u p o n collective memory as part of
a certain theme, particularly as belonging to a certain religion, it
cannot be considered as neutral. In such a case the transfer of the
form or motif is not a matter of little concern. T h e very fact that it
now appears in a new context carries a message that the knowing
spectator will certainly discern.
After this brief digression, let us now return to our imaginary
spectator looking at the Dionysos mosaic in New Paphos. We have
already said that he will have identified the affinity of the Dionysos
mosaic and the Adoration of the Magi. In an interesting study, Glenn
Bowersock has pointed out that influences between paganism and
Christianity in the fifth century A.D. were really "a two-way street."
W e all have been brought up on the idea (certainly correct in its
major lines) that Christianity borrowed its central models and major
means of expression from the great cultures it termed "pagan/ 5 and
violently fought. We should recall, however, that in late Antiquity,
particularly since the fourth century, Christianity also influenced the
pagan culture and beliefs, that still vigorously persisted. Thus, in
some parts of the central piece of Greek literature in the fifth century,
Nonnos's Dionysiaca, the god Dionysus is endowed with a soterio-
logical character that is altogether alien to this god in earlier times,
but shows basic affinities to Christian thought. (Bowersock, p. 44) T h e
Christian impact on paganism, then, could penetrate to central areas
of religion. Making the ancient G o d of vine a redeemer clearly be-
trays the impact of Christianty. Angels also are moved closely to the
divinity, something alien to Greek culture, but appearing in pagan
late Antiquity. (Bowersock, pp. 19 if.) Julian the Apostate introduced
into his pagan temples elements of the Christian ritual he learned in
his youth.
T h e scene in the Cyprus mosaics showing Dionysos sitting on the
lap of Hermes, or being presented by Hermes to the world as Christ
is presented to the world by the Virgin, should be understood in the
same direction. As the Christian R e d e e m e r - G o d was assimilated into
Dionysiac religion, was "paganized," as it were, by turning Dionysos
into a redeemer figure, so—we would suggest—the Adoration of the
Magi was incorporated into late antique pagan art by making baby-
Dionysos sit on the lap of Hermes.
Such appropriation of the Christian motif by the maker of a pagan
icon, especially in the atmosphere of tension I have tried to outline,
cannot be a matter of a merely formal "influence." O n e wonders,
however, what were the motives, at this particular period and area,
for taking over a model from the other religion. Was it the desire to
assimilate into one's own religion those features of the Christian belief
that seemed so attractive to many people, or was it a distinct attempt
to usurp the Christian motif and to show that the old religion, the
pagan, is superior to the new one, and that the pagan legacy shines
through the Christian images?
As I see it, the Dionysos mosaic intends to suggest that the Chris-
tian image is now subordinated to what they hoped will be the re-
newed and finally victorious religion. T o be sure, this is not done in a
"proclamatory" way; it is a d u m b r a t e d rather clandestinely. In the
Cyprus mosaic this subordination is expressed in two ways. O n e way
is the explicit change in the identity of the central figures: instead of
Christ it is the Dionysos child who is presented to the world, instead
of the Virgin it is Hermes who offers the divine child for adoration. It
is a simple replacing of one god by another. This particular meaning
of the change—that the god of one religion is replaced by that of
another—comes into being, or exists, only if the spectator remembers
the former scene. Only in a two-layered reading, when you see the
suppressed Christian model together with the new pagan rendering,
does the image disclose that it is meant as a triumphal m o n u m e n t of
paganism.
T h e other way of intimating that the symbol of the Christian reli-
gion is incorporated in, and overcome by the pagan faith may be the
surrounding of the central group of the seated figure holding up the
child for adoration, that is, the motif derived from the Christian
Adoration, by a wreath of figures of a distinct pagan character, iden-
tified as mythological figures by the inscriptions. This enclosing or
clasping of the "holy" group by pagan figures, the embedding of the
originally Christian group into the new context, is a kind of insinua-
tion of the victory of one's own faith. T h e understanding of what this
surrounding means, and hence the meaning of the whole scene in its
new context, also depends on a simultaneous experience of the mosa-
ic's two layers, the original Christian and the new pagan. It is, if you
wish, a kind of palimpsestic reading of the work. Only in such a
reading does the borrowing and transformation of the Christian motif
of the Adoration become a manifestation of the pagans' belief in the
victory of their religion.

An Icon of God's Hand

M y next example, an amply ornamented cross, illustrates another
attempt, of an altogether different nature, to overcome the "other"
religion in the field of images. T h e cross we are now considering
forms part of a decorative relief on one of the decorated faces of the
episcopal cathedra in the Cathedral of Torcello. (Fig. 5) So far as I
know, the Torcello cathedra, and the cross carved on it, have not
been studied in detail, and hence no precise date and provenance
have been established. For reasons of style, into which I need not go
here, it is obvious that the cross is a product of the early medieval
period. We do not know exacdy where the cathedra was produced
and where its ornaments were carved. It is obvious, however, that the
original model from which the decoration was derived must have
been a work from the transitional period between late Antiquity and
the early Middle Ages. In the center of the Torcello cross a medallion
is carved, and in this medallion a raised hand, in the well known
position of the benedictio latina, is represented. T o the hand's right side
a double disc representing the sun is carved, to its left, a siclde that
depicts the moon. In the lower half of the framed field, to both sides
of the cross, two prominent configurations are seen. Although they
suggest trees or vegetation of some kind, they emerge from pedestals
which explicidy demonstrate that they are not parts of nature but
artefacts, similar in shape to the base of columns. These two trees (or
plants) bend towards the cross. In the upper part of the relief the cross
is flanked by two round floral patterns. In the present essay we are
concerned mainly with what is shown inside the medallion placed in
the center of the cross,—the raised hand, flanked by the images of
sun and moon.
Figure 5. The Relieffromthe episcopal cathedra in the Cathedral of Torcello.
 Before trying to analyze the image carved in the center of the
Torcello cross, we should briefly recall something of the early history
and theological context of the cross in general. T h e history of the
cross, though complex, cannot here be retold. I should only remind
that the cross was adored and worshipped as a sacred symbol and
object in its own right, that is, even without the figure of the crucified
Christ. T h e symbol came to stand for the idea (and the person), the
cross for Christ. T h e Kreuzesfrömmigkeit, the devotion to the cross,
flourished particularly in the final stages of late Antiquity and during
the early Middle Ages; it was especially widespread in the Near East,
from which in all likelihood the model of the Torcello Cross origi-
nated. In the popular beliefs of late Antiquity, especially in the N e a r
East, the cross was endowed with a mysterious vitality; it was imag-
ined as a living being. T h e cross on which Christ was crucified, we
read in some apocryphical texts, was walking by itself. (The Gospel
According to Peter, chs. 39-41) It was described as speaking with a voice,
"sweet and kind and truly of G o d " (Acts of John, 98).
It is natural that the adoration of the cross and its transformation
into a miraculous being was also expressed in artefacts of various
kinds. Perhaps the most impressive type of such artefacts are the
monumental crosses erected in the period of transition from Antiq-
uity to the Middle Ages. T h e diffusion of such monuments through-
out Europe is an important p h e n o m e n o n of the culture of the period.
T h e erection of monumental crosses reached its climax in the British
isles. (Arthur Kingsley-Porter, The Crosses and Culture of Ireland [New
Haven, 1931], reprinted) Hundreds of such monuments can still be
seen in situ. But as self-contained objects, not only crosses of a m o n u -
mental size were known. Also as small scale objects and as decora-
tions, crosses were c o m m o n in a multitude of forms. O n e of them
were the crosses inserted into particularly important pieces of furni-
ture. A m o n g them is probably the cross in the cathedra in Torcello.
In many of these crosses, whether of monumental or of small size,
the center, where the four arms meet, is particularly emphasized and
richly decorated. Frequently this decoration of the center assumes the
shape of a medallion. T h e most famous a m o n g the crosses decorated
in this way is the Lothair Cross; bearing in its center a precious
R o m a n cameo. So far as I know, there was no established icono-
graphic tradition that determined, more or less rigidly, what should
be shown in the center of the cross. However, a distinct tendency can
be discerned to place at this central point of the cross an emblem of
authority, an image that evokes the idea of rulership and world domi-
nance. T h e Lothair Cross itself is a good example. It is not just a
piece of precious jewelry that was inserted into the center of the cross,
 Figure 6.
The Lothair Cross.

it is the image of the wreathed ruler of the empire holding the figure
of victory in his hand. (Fig. 6) T h e cameo, then, carries an imperial
message, and transforms the cross as a whole into a triumphal monu-
ment. In large scale crosses, or even in those of a smaller size, where
precious cameos could not be inserted, the idea of power and ruling
the world was often expressed in the reliefs carved in the center. A
typical example is the monumental Cross of Muiredach in Ireland, a
work of the tenth century. T h e face of the cross is covered with
representations of scenes from the Last J u d g e m e n t (probably a m o n g
the earliest representations of this subject) and in the center, the
dominating figure of Christ, holding the accepted symbols of author-
ity; he appears as a powerful, triumphant ruler rather than as a con-
siderate judge. At least in the early Middle Ages, the image in the
center of the cross was often intended to convey the sense of rulership
and domination.
 Keeping this tradition in mind, we naturally ask how the image of
the raised hand in the center of the Torcello cross should be under-
stood? This image of the hand has the concise and, as it were, "final"
formulation, the expression of solmenity, and the air of timelessness
(the absence of any movement) that are the characteristic features of
the icon. Was the carver who shaped this hand following some articu-
late models? Were there icons in the shape of a hand?
T h e ancient world, perhaps particularly the period of late Antiq-
uity, was familiar with mainly two types of images of the isolated
hand, and in expressive character as well as in function they were
altogether different from each other. O n e type of images of the de-
tached hand (as well as of other parts of the body) are votive gifts,
objects offered to the gods and deposited in many temples and sane-
tuaries. Votive gifts, as one knows, often were representations of sick
organs for which one asked the gods for cure. (F.T. van Straten,
"Gifts for the Gods," in H.S. Versnel, ed., Faith, Hope and Worship:
Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World [Leiden, 1981], pp. 65-
151) T h e monuments of the other type were cult images, objects of
adoration and worship. As objects of worship, these monuments rep-
resenting a hand also carried, at least implicitly, a message of some
kind; they proclaimed something to the believers. T h e hand in the
center of the Torcello Cross has profound affinities with the second
type of a detached hand.
T h e artistic character of the two types of hand image differs as
radically as do their aims and origins. As a votive gift, the hand is not
meant to be understood as an abbreviation of the whole figure; nor is
it the concise, compressed formulation of a gesture. From its very
beginning the votive gift was intended to portray a single organ, the
one that hurt and which one hoped will be healed. (Strangely enough,
hands seem to have been relatively rare a m o n g those votive render-
ings.) T h e votive hand, as well votive representations of the other
organs that were more frequently represented (such as ears, legs, fe-
male breasts, etc.) do not have a distinct expressive character of their
own; they do not even evoke the sense of pain. In style and expression
they may said to be "neutral."
T h e other type is altogether different. 111 posture of the hand, in
the precisely established configuration of the fingers, and in general
expression, the hands of the second type are distinct from those be-
longing to the votive gifts. Usually the h a n d as a cult object has the
character of authority, and thus it often strikes the spectator as com-
plete, a whole being. It is of such a hand that we say that it is speaking
or pointing, and we thus endow it with an intention that makes sense
only in a whole being, and thus make it a pars pro toto, it stands for a
 Figure 7.
The Sabazius Hand.

whole figure. A m o n g the best known forms of representing the iso-

lated h a n d as a cult object (or for use in other contexts of religious
belie!) in late Antiquity is the "Sabazius H a n d . " These objects, usu-
ally of small size, often served as amulets for various purposes, as
apotropaic signs, etc. In the Sabazius H a n d the fingers are here held
in what came to be known as the benedictio latina. T h e hand, both
palm and fingers, are covered with, and surrounded by, creatures
that were believed to be endowed with healing or protecting powers,
such as the snake and the lizard (Fig. 7). M o d e r n scholars have inter-
preted the Sabazios H a n d as a speaking hand; it indicates, one be-
lieved, the pronouncing of the benediction or of the magic formula that
protects and saves. (H.P. L ' O r a n g e , Studies on the Iconography of Cosmic
Kingship in the Ancient World [Oslo, 1953]). T h e particular configuration
of the fingers would indeed suggest that this is a speaking gesture,
known as such from R o m a n art. Whatever else the isolated hand may
mean, says L ' O r a n g e (pp. 184 if), it expresses first of all that some-
thing is spoken. Franz C u m o n t (Le symbolisme funeraire des Romains
[Paris, 1942], p. 442, note 3) understands the h a n d of Sabazius as
"une incantation rituelle ou, pour mieux dire, magique." While the
idea of power always remains in the background of a cultic H a n d ,
explicitly the hand thus rendered is an image of speaking.
W e are here not so much concerned with the precise condition
that the Sabazius H a n d represents (speaking or just raised) as with
icon-character of the image. O n e notes first that the Sabazius H a n d is
fully detached from any narrative context or frame. It does not form
part of a story, and hence it is also not expected to change in position.
It is also does not convey the sense of being a fragment of a body (as
do the votive hands), and the spectator will not look for, or even
imagine, an arm to which the hand belongs, and a figure of which it
forms part. As if to stress this complete detachment from external
context, the H a n d is usually placed on an elaborate pedestal, made
up of several rings, that totally separate it from any organic continu-
ity. N o votive hand, we recall, is ever placed on a pedestal. In style
and expression, then, the H a n d of Sabazius has the nature of an icon.
We can conclude this brief comment by the simple statement that,
as an icon, the hand was an essential part of the mental and material
imagery of late antique pagan culture, particularly of its religion.
In early Christian imagery we know of a closely related motif,—
God's H a n d . It is often represented as it emerges from clouds, from
the rainbow, or from other configurations that indicate the sky. In the
last stages of Antiquity the H a n d of G o d was popular also in Chris-
dan artefacts. It is found in a variety of media, such as medals (e.g. a
medal in the Kunsthistorisches M u s e u m in Vienna) and primarily in
illuminated manuscripts. 111 these Christian versions the H a n d of G o d
should, in fact, be read as a visual formula of speech.
But can the isolated H a n d of G o d in early Christian art be consid-
ered as an icon? In a precise sense of the term, I believe, it is not an
icon. So far as I know, in Christian imagery it never appears as
completely self-enclosed, and altogether detached from any narrative
context. Even if it is relatively isolated in form, it performs actions
that are essential to the narrative represented in the composition:
thus, it crowns the king (in the Vienna medal God's H a n d reaches
down from heaven, holding a wreath that is to be placed on the head
of the emperor Constantine) (Fig. 8), it addresses the devil (in the
eighth century J o b manuscript in the Vatican [Vat. Grec. 749] where
the divine H a n d points at the Diabolos at the opposite corner of the
page) (Fig. 9), it directs the events (in the sixth century mosaic in Beth
Alpha representing the Sacrifice of Isaac). In other words, though in
form it may be partiy self contained, or even set off from the rest of
the image by a frame, it is in fact part and parcel of the whole story.
For this reason, I think that, in a precise sense of the term, God's
H a n d in Christian art is usually not an image in itself, and cannot be
considered as an icon.
W e now come back to our object, the Torcello Cross. Is the iso-
lated h a n d within the medallion an icon? In expressive nature, in its
concise articulation, and in the solemnity of the posture, the h a n d in
the Torcello cross does display the qualities of an icon. While I would
not dare to establish a specific derivation, say from an individual
model, I think it is obvious that in general nature it shows a particu-
larly close affinity to the icon of the type of the Sabazius H a n d . In this

Figure 8. The Vienna medal of the emperor Constantine.

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Figure 9. The 8th century Job manuscript in the Vatican [Vat. Grec. 749].
context it is interesting to note that the Torcello h a n d is not a frag-
ment, in the sense as are the votive hands), it is self enclosed in
precisely the same m a n n e r as is the Sabazius H a n d : a kind of artificial
pedestal ring sets it off from the rest of the field. Moreover, though
this cannot be firmly established, the spectator gets the impression
that this isolated h a n d is placed on some kind of m o u n d , thus forming
a m o n u m e n t , but at the same time also making it a cult object.
T h e complex of ideas and emotions the Torcello H a n d conveys
also seems to continue meanings that traditionally were linked with
the pagan cult image of the isolated hand. Whatever the specific
explanation, the cult m o n u m e n t has always been perceived as a sug-
gestion of power. In this sense the prophet Ezekiel describes God's
H a n d (10:8) in the vision of the divine chariot. In the pagan religions
of late Antiquity the isolated h a n d became an emblem of supernatu-
ral might, the power to heal and protect (as in apotropaic "hands" on
the walls and doors of houses). Even in altogether secular contexts,
political and military, we also find the isolated raised h a n d as a con-
eise image of power and authority. In the military signa of the R o m a n
legion the isolated raised h a n d is frequent; here it is the symbol of
sheer might. Keeping all this in mind we come back to the question,
how it was possible for Christians in the early Middle Ages to take
over this well known " p a g a n " cult motif and symbol, and place it in
the middle of the cross?
As we know, the answer commonly given or taken for granted is
that the artists as well as their audiences "took over" the language of
motifs and forms inherited from the great pagan past. While nobody
would deny that Christian art did indeed take over motifs and formu-
lae of expression from the culture ("pagan," as they termed it) in
which it grew. T h e question, however, is how in that period a Chris-
tian would have understood that an explicidy pagan motif, the iso-
lated raised hand, was accepted by their own art, and inserted into
the center of the cross. Taking over and using an image known to
everybody as the symbol of the "false" god or of the oppressing power
cannot simply be considered as a neutral act. T h e very fact that these
pagan emblems appear in Christian icons (regardless of what they
specifically meant) must have been understood as a message. It is
difficult to believe that in an age of fanatic religious struggle, the
believers in one religion (Christianity) would use without any concern
a central image of another religion with which it was fighting a fierce
and sustained battle. T h e presence of the h a n d of the "pagan" god
has, I believe, to be understood in a more complex way than by
simply assuming the taking over of a formal tradition.
 O n e possible explanation of this combination the isolated h a n d
in a cross—is to assume that the Christian artist and his patrons were
fully aware of what the symbols originally meant, and by the insertion
of the hand into the cross wanted to proclaim the victory of Christi-
anity over paganism. T h e audience, one has to assume, did in fact
understand this proclamation, or intuitively perceive its message.
W h a t the pagans did in the mosaic of Cyprus with the Christian
model of the Adoration of the Magi, the Christians did with the
isolated raised hand, an important cultic symbol of the pagan world.
T h e r e is, however, a difference between the two ways. T h e assimila-
tion of a motif, as we see it in the Cyprus mosaic, perhaps requires
less explicit awareness than the incorporation of an almost un-
changed "alien" symbol into one's own icon. T h e latter, I suggest,
cannot be accomplished without a full recognition both of what the
incorporated symbol originally stood for, and what the incorporation
itself means. By making a well known pagan symbol part of the cross,
the cross really becomes a m o n u m e n t of victory, a veritable tropeum
cruris.
If my reading of God's H a n d in the Torcello Cross is correct, it
would constitute an interesting development of a typical R o m a n art
form, the trophy. As is well known, Hellenistic commanders had the
custom of building trophies (tropaea) out of captured weapons and
armour. But while they left it, as a piled display of captured arms,
right on the battlefield, R o m a n emperors later erected permanent
monuments to their victories, and incorporated in these monuments
representations of such "trophies" as a symbolic motif. A m o n g the
most famous is the so-called "Germanic T r o p h y " of Domitian, of A.D.
83, now on the balustrade of the capitol in Rome. (Fig. 10) Now, if
the H a n d in the Torcello Cross does really refer to, or evoke, the
Sabazius H a n d , or similar monuments, it is not only a transformation
of the pagan image into a Christian symbol (the h a n d of Sabazius
into the h a n d of Christ), but it is also enframed and enclosed by the
cross. T h e Torcello Cross is, then, a kind of m o n u m e n t to a victory.
However that may be, once again the basic condition of the audi-
ence's perception of the work should be stressed. T h e spectator could
have understood the meaning of the H a n d and the whole Cross only
if he identified the isolated hand also as a pagan cult image (or origi-
nally connected with pagan cult), and saw that it was now enclosed
in, and thus subordinated to, the structure of the cross. Identifying the
idol within the icon is the condition of understanding the latter, but it
also endows it, that is, the cross as a whole with a new meaning.
Figure 10. "Germanic Trophy" of Domitian.
 Some Conclusions
T w o monuments, even if they are rich in connotations and bear
witness to important trends of the times in which they were created,
cannot provide a basis for the drawing of any final conclusions.
However, even from such slim foundations as we have presented we
can attempt some reflections that go beyond the individual works of
art actually discussed. Thus, when we ask what our monuments may
tell us about the problem of the icon in general, several points
emerge.
W h a t can be learnt even from two monuments only is, first, that
there are icons that have more than just one layer of meaning. We
have already conjured up in our mind an imaginary spectator,
whether pagan or Christian, who reads the images differently, at least
at first glance. However we may judge the likelihood of such a spec-
tator actually occurring and behaving as we have suggested, the very
fact that we can imagine him shows that the emblems of two faiths do
indeed appear in the same icon, and can both have some claim to be
considered. In this context it is of significance that in the works we
have seen (and in the many other works belonging to similar types)
the emblem of the "other" religion, of the rejected faith, so far as it
can be identified, is not deformed and distorted. In the period from
which we took our examples, the image of the other, the "false,"
religion (whichever it may be) does not become, or has not yet be-
come, a diabolic figure. W h e n later in the Middle Ages the opponent
of the "true" god assumes a demonic, Satanic shape, it is shown as a
distorted, ugly and repulsive figure or as a wretched little devil trod-
den underfoot; the original powerful tendency to make the icon fully
consistent and conveying only one single meaning is again prevalent.
W h a t the images discussed further show us is that within the icons
themselves the battle between the gods, the struggle between different
faiths, continues in many subtle ways. O n e of them is the multiple-
level icon. This is not to say that the gods of the clashing religions are
given equal significance. O n the contrary, both in the icons made for
a pagan or a Christian public the principle of controlling hierarchy
prevails. But it is only within the multiple-level icon that the symbol
of one's own religion becomes a true sign of victory, that of the
defeated religion, a real trophy.
A final conclusion concerns the spectator's part. T h e attitude of
the believer to icon, as it has been understood by the public and
interpreted by the authorities in the course of centuries, resembles the
attitude to a revelation. You bow, you worship, and if you are asked,
you may participate in the suffering of the divine or holy figure por-
trayed. But in all these cases, it is taken for granted, that you accept
the icon as it is. An icon, then, is something that is "given," it does not
depend on the spectator. T h e type of the multiple-layered sacred
image shows that the icon, too, depends on the spectator reading it,
identifying its levels, and grasping the relationship between them.
T h e portrayal of the idol within the icon enlarges the scope and the
intrinsic scale of the icon both as an art form and as a religious
monument.
 T W O K I N D S O F R E P R E S E N T A T I O N IN
G R E E K R E L I G I O U S ART*

M A R G A L I T FINKELBERG

The god is sitting on a throne; he is made of gold and ivory. There is a

wreath on his head like twigs and leaves of olive; in his right hand he is
holding a Victory of gold and ivory with a ribbon and a wreath on her
head; in the god's left hand is a staff in blossom with every kind of
precious metal, and the bird perching on this staff is Zeus's eagle. The
god's sandals are gold and so is his cloak, and the cloak is inlaid with
animals and flowering lilies. The throne is finely worked with gold and
gems, and with ebony and with ivory.
These are the opening words of a long and detailed description of one
of the most famous cult statues of classical antiquity, Zeus at Olympia
by Pheidias the Athenian (5th century B.C.), written by Pausanias in
his Guide to Greece in the 2nd century A.D. (Fig. I).1 According to
Strabo, the sculptor's model was Zeus of the Iliad, and more specifi-
cally, the following verses from Book 1 : "So the son of Cronus spoke,
and he nodded his dark brows. T h e lord god's immortal hair
streamed forward from his deathless head, and he shook the heights
of Olympus." 2 Quintilian said of this statue that its beauty, together
with that of another Pheidias masterpiece, Athene Parthenos on the
acropolis of Athens, added something to traditional religion: "to such
a degree the majesty of this work was equal to that of the godhead." 3
Dio Chrysostom said that Pheidias' Zeus had the power to bring

* This paper took its final form as a result of my participation in the Heidelberg
conference. I am especially indebted to Hildegard Cancik and Phyllis Granoff with
whom the topics of this paper were most productively discussed.
1 Paus. 5.11.1-2. Here and elsewhere, I use the Penguin translation of Pausanias
by Peter Levi.
2
II. I. 528-30. Tr. M. Hammond. See Str. 8.3.30 p. 354; cf. Dio Chrys. 12.25-26.
That this tradition existed even before Strabo and Dio Chrysostom follows from
Polyb.30.10.6: "Lucius Aemilius, when he saw Pheidias' Zeus at Olympia, was over-
whelmed, and praised Pheidias as the only sculptor who had been able to represent
Homer's Zeus." Aemilius Paulus was a Roman general who visited Greece in 167
B.C.
!
Quint. Inst. 12.10.9 ... cuius pulchrìtud0 adiecuse aliquid etiam receptae religioni videtur;
adeo maiestas opens deum aequavit.
 Figure 1. The /(eus of Pheidias as reconstructed by Fr. Adler (1892).

peace to a troubled soul, while Pausanias himself wrote: "I know the
recorded measurements of the height and breadth of Zeus at Olym-
pia, but I find myself unable to c o m m e n d the measures since the
measurements they give fall a long way short of the impression (doxa)
this statue has created in those who see it." 4

4
Dio Chrys. 12.50-52; Paus. 5.11.9.
 T W O KINDS OF REPRESENTATION IN GREEK RELIGIOUS ART 2G

Such were the feelings aroused by Pheidias' Zeus in ancient spec-

tators. This is not to say, however, that the temple of Zeus with its
celebrated statue was also the place where the focus of the
Panhellenic cult of Olympian Zeus was to be found. T o prove this, it
is enough to turn to the description of the great altar outside the
temple:
The altar of Olympian Zeus is just about equidistant from the Pelopion
and the sanctuary of Hera, but it lies rather forward than either of
them It is built from the ash of the thighs of victims sacrificed to Zeus
... in the altar at Olympia the first step, which is called the outer circle,
is a hundred and twenty-five feet round, and the circumference of the
next step above it is thirty-two feet: the entire height of the altar is as high
as twenty-two feet. The tradition is to sacrifice victims in the lower area,
the outer circle, then they take up the thighs to the topmost point of the
altar, and burn them. Flights of stone steps lead up to the outer circle
from both sides, and even virgin girls, and in the same way women, are
allowed up to the circle, at times when they are not excluded from Olym-
pia: but only men may climb up from here to the top of the altar. There
are private sacrifices to Zeus and daily Elean sacrifices even outside the
time of the festival, and every year, observing the nineteenth day of the
month Elaphios, the prophets bring the ash from the council-house, pud-
die it with Alpheius water and plaster the altar with it. And the ash must
never be muddied with any other water, etc.‫י‬
This dissociation of the altar, where the religious action as such was
concentrated, from the temple with the statue of the god inside it was
not unique to the cult of Zeus at Olympia. In fact, this was the
standard Greek practice from the m o m e n t when the monumental
temple first came into existence in the early archaic period. As
J . N . Coldstream put it, "And then, suddenly, in the great dawn after
the Dark Age in the eighth century B.C., the free-standing temple
emerges as a new architectural form. But this does not mean that
religious worship then went indoors. O n the contrary, the open-air
altar in most places remained the focus of the cult." 6
What, then, was the function of the god's statue treasured within
the temple?‫ ׳‬Note that, besides the great statue of Zeus inside the

5
Paus. 5.13.8-11.
‫ יי‬Coldstream, "Greek Temples," in Easterling and Muir, 68.
‫ ׳‬Cf. Robertson, "Greek Art and Religion," in: Easterling and Muir, 159-60:
"Certainly when monumental temple-architecture develops, the altar for sacrifice
and public ritual ... lies outside, in the temenos (enclosed sacred area), often opposite
the east end of the temple where the entrance normally was. The central feature of
the temple-interior is now a statue of the deity, and the building seems primarily
conceived as a more or less richly adorned casket to hold that treasure."
temple, Olympia abounded in statues of the god dedicated as public
or private offerings all over the sacred precinct. Thus, for example,
there was "a Zeus on a bronze base given by the people of Corinth,
the work of Mousus, whoever Mousus was... a statue of Zeus
crowned apparently with a wreath of flowers, with a thunderbolt in
his right hand by Ascarus of Thebes, who was taught by Canachus of
Sicyon," and so on. 8 W e can learn of the intended purpose of these
statues from the inscription on the statue of Zeus twelve feet high
which was erected by the Laconians on the right side of the great
temple: "Zeus Lord son of Cronus Olympian / accept this beautiful
statue: bless the Laconians'". 9 This compares well with the following:
... even the god himself bore witness to the art (techne) of Pheidias: when
the statue was completely finished, Pheidias prayed to the god to make a
sign if the work pleased him, and immediately a flash of lightning struck
the pavement at the place where the bronze urn was still standing in my
time. 10
Pheidias' Zeus was meant to please the god in exactiy the same way
as the more modest statue of Zeus dedicated by the Laconians. T h a t
is to say, the attitude expressed in the case of the great temple-statue
of Zeus does not differ in essence from that displayed towards the
other images of the god dedicated as offerings (anathemata) all over the
sacred precinct of Olympia. N o n e of them was regarded as the direct
object of religious worship, and the same holds tue of the images
offered to Greek gods in other sanctuaries, notably those of Apollo in
Delphi. 1 1
T h e fact that the statues of gods dedicated both inside and outside
the temple were regarded as offerings to the deity rather than as cult
statues in the strict sense of the word is often overlooked. Thus, in his
otherwise admirable survey of Greek religious art Martin Robertson,
although admitting that the representations of gods dedicated as of-
ferings could not function as objects of cult proper, draws a sharp
distinction between these representations and those supplied by what
he calls "cult statues proper:" " . . . these representations of deities,
being bracketed with the other offered images, are thought of more as
simply images, objects of pleasure to the deity, 'works of art' even, less

8
Paus. 5.24.1.
9
Paus. 5.24.3. As Peter Levi notes in his commentary, this couplet was found by
the excavators of Olympia. It is inscribed on a round base of bluish grey
Peloponnesian marble and can be dated between 500 and 492 B.C. See Pausanias,
Guide to Greece, vol. 2, 270 n. 235.
10
Paus. 5.11.9.
11
O n Delphi see e.g. Paus. 10.9.1-2, 10.10.1-2, 10.13.6-7.
fully embodiments of the godhead than the cult-statues worshipped
within the temples."1·‫ '־‬It is, however, highly questionable whether
such a distinction ever existed in the mind of the ancient spectator.
T h e following passage from Strabo's Geography (1st century A.D.),
again referring to Pheidias' Zeus at Olympia, is especially illuminât-
ing in this connection:
The temple was adorned by its numerous offerings (anathemata), which
were dedicated there from all parts of Greece. Among these was Zeus of
beaten gold dedicated by Cypselus the tyrant of Corinth. But the greatest
of these was the statue of Zeus made by Pheidias of Athens, son of
Charmides; it was made of ivory, etc. 13
Although Pheidias' statue is indisputably the "greatest" a m o n g the
images of Zeus dedicated at Olympia, this does not alter the fact that
it was envisaged as only one a m o n g m a n y offerings (anathemata) to the
god.
Now if a private offering, say the Zeus of gold dedicated by
Cypselus, was obviously meant to reflect not only the piety of the
dedicator but also his or her 1 1 prestige and wealth, it is evident that a
public offering, the category to which the great statues inside the
Greek temples invariably belonged, would reflect the piety, political
prestige and wealth of the body that dedicated it. As it happens, this
kind of dedication was the exclusive prerogative of the Greek city-
state. This is why the people of Elis paid honours not only to Pheidias
himself, the creator of the Zeus at Olympia, but also to the Messenian
sculptor D a m o p h o n who repaired the statue in the 2nd century B . C . 1 ‫' ׳‬
Similarly, although it was to Pythaian Apollo at T h o r n a x that the
Lydian ruler Croesus sent his gold as a present, the people of Sparta
decided to use it for decorating the statue of Apollo at Amyclae,
because Amyclae rather than T h o r n a x was the centre of the Spartan
cult of Apollo."' But it is the case of the statue which stood within the
temple of Zeus in the city of Megara that is the most illuminating in
this connection. This is its story as told by Pausanias:

12
"Greek Art and Religion," 169. However, elsewhere Robertson finds it difficult
to draw a significant distinction between the colossal marble statue of Apollo dedi-
cated by the people of Naxos in Delos, which stood outside the temple, and the "cult-
statue" inside it. See ibid., 165-66.
13
Str. 8.3.30 p. 353. Tr. H. L.Jones, with slight changes.
14
The famous courtesan Phryne dedicated at Delphi the gilded image of herself
made by Praxiteles, who was one of her lovers, see Paus. 10.15.1, cf. 9.27.5.
15
Paus. 4.31.6.
16
Paus. 3.10.8; cf. Hdt. 1. 69.
 The statue of Zeus was not finished when the Peloponnesian war broke
out, and in ravaging the country year by year from sea and land, making
havoc of private houses as well as public possessions, Athens reduced
Megara to the last degree of weakness. The statue of Zeus has a face of
ivory and gold, the rest is clay and plaster. They say it was made by
Theocosmus, a local workman, but that Pheidias worked with him. 17
T h e condition of the statue reflects the history of the state of Megara,
from its great ambition to rival Athens to the much more modest
proportions to which it was reduced in the course of the
Peloponnesian war. T h e great temple-statue dedicated by the Greek
city-state functioned as materialization of the state's self-image: this is
why the statues erected by Greek cities so often appear on their
coinage. Small wonder, then, that the cities of ancient Greece com-
peted with one another to obtain the most prestigious masters and the
most costly materials for their communal dedications.
It seems, therefore, that the status of the great statue inside the
Greek temple cannot be taken separately from the status of the tem-
pie itself, and not only because the origins of both should be traced to
the emergence of the Greek city-state in the early 8th century B . C . 1 8 It
was first and foremost the needs and the ambitions of the state rather
than the cult purposes as such that both the temple and its statue
were designed to serve. Both therefore were the vehicles of what was
aptly defined by Martin Nilsson as "civic religion." 19

2
This does not mean, however, that in ancient Greece there were no
images which acted as embodiments of the deity and accordingly as
the direct objects of the cult. C o m p a r e the following:
This is the reason why they [sc. the Spartans] bloody the altar with
human blood. They used to slaughter a human sacrifice chosen by draw-
ing lots; Lycurgus substituted the whipping of fully grown boys, and the
altar still gets its fill of human blood. The priestess with the idol (xoanon)
stands beside them; the idol is small and light, except that if ever the
scourgers pull their strokes because of a boy's beauty or his rank, then the

17
Paus. 1.40.4.
18
O n the linkage between the Greek temple and the Greek city-state see de
Polignac, Culls, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City-State.
19
See Nilsson, A History of Greek Religion, 224-62. Cf. also Robertson, "Greek Art
and Religion," 158: "Religion in Greece had of course other manifestations (per-
sonal, ecstatic, mysdc) ..., but it was in the service of religion in its public, civic
character that Greek artists were primarily employed."
 woman finds the idol heavy and hard to carry; she blames the scourgers
and says they are hurting her: such a taste for human blood has survived
in that statue from the time of the Taurian sacrifices.20
This is the description of the cult of Artemis Orthia, one of the
central Spartan cults, the sacred image of which was claimed to be
the same as that stolen centuries ago by Artemis' priestess Iphigeneia
and her brother Orestes from remote T a u r i a (Crimea). Obviously,
this was not the kind of effect either Pheidias' Zeus or Polyclitus'
H e r a at the Argive Heraeon or, for that matter, the Amyclaean
Apollo around whom the Spartan cult of Apollo was concentrated
were meant or indeed were ever able to produce. 2 1 Yet, not conspicu-
ous for beauty or workmanship or precious materials, the wooden
idol of Arthemis Orthia was obviously considered as both the focus
and the active participant of the cult.
T h a t the contrast between the two kinds of statues as outlined
above is not occasional can be seen by comparing the two statues of
Athene on the acropolis of Athens, Pheidias' Athene Parthenos in the
Parthenon on the one hand and the ancient wooden statue of Athene
Polias in the Erechtheion on the other.
The statue is made of ivory and gold. She has a sphinx on the middle of
her helmet, and griffins worked on either side of it... the statue of Athene
stands upright in an ankle-length tunic with the head of Medusa carved
in ivory on her breast. She has a Victory about eight feet high, and a
spear in her hand and a shield at her feet, and a snake beside the shield;
the snake might be Erichthonius. The plinth of the statue is carved with
the birth of Pandora.
But the holiest of all the images which was universally recognized for
many years before the Athenians came together out of their country
towns, is Athene's statue on what is now the acropolis, though then it was
the whole city. Rumour says it fell from heaven.... Callimachus made a
golden lamp for the goddess. They fill this lamp with oil, and then wait
for the same day in the following year, and all that time the oil is enough
to feed the lamp though it shines perpetually night and day.22

20
Paus. 3.16.10-11.
21
O n Hera see Paus. 2.17.4: "The statue of Hera is enthroned and very big, made
of gold and ivory by Polyclitus. She wears a diadem worked with Graces and Sea-
sons; in one hand she holds a sceptre, in the other a pomegranate" etc. The
Amyclaean Apollo was an archaic bronze statue famous for the magnificent carvings
on its throne, the work of Bathycles of Magnesia in Asia Minor; for the description
see Paus. 3.18.9—19.5.
22
Paus. 1.24.5-7; 1.26.6-7.
T r u e , Athene Parthenos was celebrated all over the ancient world for
its beauty and fine workmanship 2 5 but, like Zeus at Olympia, this
masterpiece of the greatest Athenian sculptor was not endowed with
magic powers even remotely comparable to those emanating from its
more ancient counterpart. Pheidias' Athene was nothing more than a
magnificent offering of the city of Athens to its patron goddess: but it
was the other Athene, the one that was believed to have fallen from
heaven, that was universally recognized as "the holiest of all the im-
ages." It was this Athene who on a certain day every year was taken
to the nearest shore to be bathed in the sea; it is in her temple that the
sacred olive-tree, the symbol of the city of Athens, grew, and the
sacred snake of the goddess dwelt; and it was this Athene again whose
priestess presided over the mysterious Athenian festival of carrying
the holy objects. As Nilsson put it, "Pheidias' statue of Athena in the
Parthenon was a show-piece; the real tutelary goddess of Athens was
the old olive-wood image in the 'old temple' (the Erechtheion), which
was said to have fallen down from heaven." 2 4
"However much the picture of Greek religion," Walter Burkert
wrote, "was thereafter defined by the temple and the statue of the
god, for the living cult they were and remained more a side-show
than a centre." 2 ' In fact, there is ample evidence to the effect that, as
distinct from other ancient civilizations, the Greeks firmly distin-
guished between two different categories of religious images, of which
only one could be considered as embracing the cult images in the
proper sense of the word. Like the statues of Artemis Orthia and
Athene Polias, these were the ancient statues whose origins had often
been miraculous or exotic, and, again like these two, they were en-
dowed with magic powers. Thus, the wooden idol in the temple of
Dionysus at the city of Argos and the statue of Dionysus at Patrae,
reportedly the work of the god Hephaestus, were believed to have
been brought from abroad by the Greeks coming home from Troy;
the statues of the Dioscuri at Amyclae were said to have been discov-
ered after the mysterious disappearance of the virgin girl in whose
room the gods stayed for a night; and the wooden idols of Phallic

23
See the ancient sources adduced under pulchritude ("beauty") in Pollitt, The An-
cient View of Greek Art, 187-88, esp. Pliny, NH 34.54: "[Pheidias made] an Athena of
such outstanding beauty that it got the cognomen 'the Fair O n e ' " (Pollitt's translation).
24
Nilsson, Greek Piety, 11. On a similar contrast between Polyclitus'
chryselephantine Hera at the Argive Heraeon (see above, n. 21) and the ancient
pear-wood image of the goddess see Paus. 2.17.4-5.
25
Burkert, Greek Religion, 91.
Dionysus worshipped at M e t h u m n a e on Lesbos and of Apollo wor-
shipped at Epidelion in the southern Peloponnese were drawn from
the sea.21' O n e could well go m a d merely by looking at one of these
statues: this is what happened to the Spartans who first found the
statue of Artemis Orthia and to Eurypylus, the founder of the cult of
Dionysus at Patrae, when he first saw the statue of the god. 2 / These
statues could inflict punishment on those who displeased them: both
Mithridates' general Menophanes, whose soldiers threw the wooden
idol of Apollo into the sea when they were looting Delos, and
Mithridates himself, were punished by the god; the statue of Dionysus
inflicted disease and insanity on the inhabitants of Calydon; Black
Demeter of Phigalia, whose statue was that of a w o m a n with a horse's
head, punished the people for not giving her a new statue instead of
the ancient one that was burnt; Gaius and Nero were punished for
taking the ancient statue of Eros to R o m e from Thespiae, and so
on. 2 8 But these statues could also endow a person with supernatural
abilities: " T h e Magnesians on the river Lethaios have a place called
the Tunnels, where Apollo has a grotto ... the statue of Apollo is
extremely ancient and gives you physical powers of every kind; men
consecrated to it leap from precipitous cliffs and high rocks, they pull
up giant trees by the roots, and travel with loads on the narrowest
footpaths." 2 9 T h e olive-wood idols of the goddesses D a m i a and
Auxesia, worshipped in Epidaurus, Aegina, and Troezen, were be-
lieved to bring fertility to the land, and so on. 3 0
It was the statues of this kind that were looked after as if they were
living beings and, like Artemis Orthia and Athene Polias, these were
the statues that stood in the focus of the cult. Quite often, they played
the central part in the re-enactment of sacred stories, an inseparable
part of many Greek cults. This, according to Herodotus, is how the
Aeginetans behaved after carrying off from Epidaurus the holy
wooden images of D a m i a and Auxesia: "This done, they fixed a
worship for the images, which consisted in part of sacrifices, in part of
female satiric choruses; while at the same time they appointed certain
men to furnish the choruses, ten for each goddess Holy rites of a
similar kind were in use also a m o n g the Epidaurians, and likewise
another sort of holy rites, whereof it is not lawful to speak." And

26
Paus. 2.23.1; 7.19.7; 3.16.3; 10.19.3; 3.23.2-4.
27
Paus. 3.16.9; 7.19.7.
28
Paus. 3.23.2-5; 7.21.1-2; 8.42.5-7; 9.27.1-4.
29
Paus. 10.32.6.
30
Hdt. 5.82-83; Paus. 2.30.4.
Pausanias added seven hundred years later: "I have seen these statues
and sacrificed to them with the same rites as are used for sacrifices at
Eleusis." 31 T h e statues of the gods Apollo and Artemis participated in
the re-enactment of the sacred story connected with the foundation of
the sanctuary of Persuasion at Sicyon; the wooden statue of Artemis
participated in the Achaean festival of Artemis of the Lake; certain
wooden figures played the central part in the Boeotian Daidala, a
festival in the course of which the marriage of Zeus and H e r a was
being re-enacted, and so on. 3 2
T h e y were not always anthropomorphic. T h e most ancient cult
image of H e r a on Samos was just an unpolished plank; the statue of
Dionysus C a d m u s in Thebes was in fact a wooden log decked out in
bronze; and the god most worshipped at Chaeroneia in Boeotia was
the staff supposedly m a d e by Hephaestus: "It has no public temple,
but the priest in each year keeps the staff in his house. Sacrifices are
offered every day, and it has a table full of every kind of meat and
sweet-cake. 33 '‫ י‬T h e statue of Fallen Zeus at Gythion in the southern
Peloponnese was nothing but a rough stone; the people of Pharae in
Achaea worshipped stone blocks, "calling each one by the n a m e of a
god;" the statues of the Graces worshipped by the people of
O r c h o m e n u s were rocks which they believed had fallen from heaven;
the people of Delphi poured oil on the stone which they believed was
given to Cronus instead of the child Zeus, and at every festival offered
it unspun wool. 3 4 It seems that even in Pausanias' time the worship of
stones was sufficiently widespread to bring him to the following gen-
eralization: " T h e r e was an early period when the people of Greece
paid divine honours to natural stones instead of statues." 3 5
Moreover, in apparent contradiction to their function as represen-
tational artefacts, many a statue participating in Greek cults was not
meant to be generally seen at all. Thus, "in the acropolis of Phlious is
a grove of cypresses and a very holy sanctuary, ages old. T h e most
ancient Phliasian authorities call the goddess it belongs to Ganymeda,
but later they call her H e b e . . . T h e y have no secret statue and no
visible one either (άγαλμα δέ ούτε έν άπορρήτψ φυλάσσουσιν ούδέν ούτε
εστίν έν φανερφ δεικνύμενον), though they do have a sacred legend
(Ιερός... λόγος) to explain why." "Inside the ring-wall on the left is the

31
Hdt. 83; Paus. 2.30.4.
32
Paus. 2.7.7-8; 7.20.8; 9.3.2-7.
33
Callim. Fr. 100; Paus. 9.12.4; 9.40.11-12.
34
Paus. 3.22.1; 7.22.4; 9.38.1; 10.25.6.
35
Paus. 7.22.4; on a similar generalization prompted by the anieonic wooden
Hera on Samos see Callim. Fr. 100.
shrine of Palaimon [in Corinth] which has statues of Poseidon,
Leukothea, and Palaimon himself. T h e r e is another also, called the
Holy place (άδυτον), with a way down to it underground, where they
say Palaimon is hidden (κεκρύφθαι)." " T h e shrine of the Fates and
Demeter and the Maid [in Corinth] have no statues on show (ού
φανερά έχουσι τά αγάλματα)." "Sicyon has other statues which are
secret (άλλα δε αγάλματα έν άπορρήτω Σικυωνίοις έστί)." " T h e wooden
idol of Thetis [in Sparta] is kept hidden (έν άπορρήτω φυλάσσουσι)."
" [Amphicleia] ... T h e most interesting thing is they celebrate myste-
rious rites to Dionysus ... there is no entry to the holy place and no
visible statue (ουδέ έν φανερω σφισιν άγαλμα)." 36
Thus, as the consistent terminology used by Pausanias points out,
it was habitual to divide the images of gods into such that are visible
to all (έν φανερω, φανερά είναι) and such that are kept hidden (έν
άπορρήτω είναι, φυλάττεσθαι, κεκρύφθαι). Statues of the latter category
could be seen only by special people or on special occasions. Thus,
a m o n g the statues of Dionysus, of Apollo, and of Isis kept in Phlious,
"the statue of Dionysos is visible to everyone and so is that of Apollo,
but only priests are allowed to see the one of Isis;" in the sanctuary of
Demeter at Hermione there are "relatively late" statues of Athene
and Demeter, "but no man, Hermioneian or foreigner, is allowed to
see the one they most worship, and no one knows what it looks like
except for the priestesses," and the same holds good for the sanctuary
of Eileithuia in the same city; the temple of Dionysus at Bryseai in
Sparta had two statues of the god, one in the open air and the other
within the temple: "only women are allowed to see the statue inside
the temple; and all the ceremonies of sacrifice are performed in secret
(έν άπορρήτω) by women;" at Aigion in Achaea, which had a shrine of
Athene and a sacred grove of Hera, two marble statues of Athene
were visible to all, "but no one is allowed to see Hera's statue except
women serving as priestesses," and no one but the priests was allowed
to see the statue of Salvation in the same city; only a person who
consulted the oracle of Trophonius at Lebadeia was allowed to see
the statue reportedly made by the legendary Daedalus; and few pen-
etrated the innermost part of the temple in Delphi where another
statue of Apollo stood, made of gold. 37
Similarly, the "secret" statues of Dionysus worshipped at Sicyon
were shown to the general public only once a year, on the night when
the great festival of Dionysus was celebrated, and the same applies to

36
Paus. 2.13.3-4; 2.2.1; 2.4.7; 2.7.5; 3.14.5; 10.33.11.
37
Paus. 2.13.7; 2.35.8; 2.35.11; 3.20.3; 7.23.9; 7.24.3; 9.39.8; 10.24.5.
the statues in the temple of Dionysus the Liberator at Thebes; the
wooden idol of the goddess Eurynome, "like a w o m a n down to the
buttocks, but below that like a fish," worshipped at Phigalia in
Arcadia, was on show only once a year, again during the festival, and
was missed by Pausanias because of this; the same reason prevented
him from seeing the statue of Artemis at Hyampolis, where the shrine
was opened only twice a year; however, he was lucky enough to
arrive in Thebes exactly on the day of the year when the statue of
Mother Dindymene could be seen, and one may wonder whether
Pausanias' proud remark "I myself saw it," relating to the most an-
cient wooden image of H e r a in the Argive Heraeon, could have been
prompted by similar circumstances. 3 8
W h a t concept of representation could make no provision for the
image of a god as an object of general contemplation? Obviously, one
that saw in the image the living presence of the god. It is at this point
that the contrast between these statues and those dedicated as offer-
ings, whose being on show justified their very existence, is at its clear-
est. Imagine indeed that all the effort and all the outlay lavished by a
city or a private person on a statue commissioned from a Pheidias or
a Policlitus should culminate in hiding this statue away from the
public eye! In this connection it is characteristic that another unique
feature of Greek religious art, the artists' habit of signing their works,
also belongs exclusively to the latter kind of religious representation.
"Pheidias the son of Charmides from Athens has made m e " was
written below the feet of Zeus at Olympia. 3 '‫ י‬But it was the ancient
wooden idols rather than the works of famous masters that were
regarded as the embodiments of the godhead. As Pausanias puts it,
" T h e works of Daedalus are rather clumsy to look at, but they have a
very strong sense of something divine." 4 0

It can be concluded, therefore, that in ancient Greece there were

images of gods which functioned as cult objects proper but were not
intended as objects of contemplation: in fact, notwithstanding their
representational character, not a few of these images were not meant

38
Paus. 2.7.5; 9.16.6; 8.41.5-6; 10.35.7; 9.25.3; 2.17.5.
39
Paus. 5.10.2. Robertson, "Greek Art and Religion," 178, correctly sees in this
feature of Greek art the sign of the artists' emancipation, of "their consciousness of
their work as existing in and for itself, apart from the cause its creation serves."
40
Paus. 2.4.5.
to be generally seen. O n the other hand, there were images especially
designed as objects of contemplation but which, at the same time,
were not regarded as cult objects proper. T h e former were for the
most part ancient wooden idols that had served as cult statues from
time immemorial, whereas the latter only appeared with the emer-
gence of the city-state in the early archaic period and were meant to
serve its needs. It is in relation to this latter group that the attitude of
treating religious images as objects of art, or perhaps even the very
concept of the object of art, developed.
C o m p a r e indeed the following. " T h e statue of Aphrodite in the
Gardens is by Alcamenes and a m o n g the best sights of Athens (έν
ολίγοις θέας άξιον)." "For those who prefer things artfully made (σύν
τέχνη πεποιημένα) to antiquities, there are things to see like Cleiotas'
helmeted man, who has silver finger-nails." " T h e r e is no statue of any
skill (άγαλμα ... σύν τέχνη) on the island [Psyttaleia], only some
wooden idols of Pan which are more like objets trouvés (ώς έκαστον
έτυχε ξόανα πεποιημένα)." " . . . a Placable Zeus and Ancestral Artemis
[at Sicyon] made without the slightest skill at all (συν τέχνη
πεποιημένα ούδεμιφ): Zeus is like a pyramid and Artemis is like a pillar
. . . " " T h e r e is [at Hermione] a shrine of Aphrodite of the Deep Sea
and the H a r b o u r at the same time, and a white stone statue of great
size and fine workmanship (επί τη τέχνη θέας άξιον)." "It is not [at
Amyclae] the work of Bathycles, but antique and made without art-
istry (ού σύν τέχνη πεποιημένον); apart from the face and the tips of its
feet and hands it looks just like a bronze pillar." "In Hera's temple [at
Olympia] there is a statue of Zeus, and Hera's statue is seated on a
throne: he stands beside her, bearded and helmeted. These are works
of a simple art (έργα... άπλα)." "You would gasp at the Heracleion at
Erythrae too, and Athene's temple at Priene, the first for its antiquity,
the second for its statue." " T h e statue of Athene [at Aliphera] is in
bronze, by Hypatodorus, and worth seeing for its size and work-
manship (και ές την τέχνην)." " T h e r e is no statue [in Heracles' shrine
at Olmous] you could call a work of art (οντος ούχι άγάλματος σύν
τέχνη), but one of the ancient kind in rough stone," etc. 41
T h e key-word in all these references to the statues of gods dis-
persed all over Greece is "art", techne. Art indeed is the chief if not the
only criterion with which Pausanias approaches the images of gods
made by masters both old and new. This is not to say that such
treatment of religious images, the closest parallel to which is the atti-

41
Paus. 1.19.2; 1.24.3; 1.36.2; 2.9.6; 2.34.11; 3.19.2; 5.17.1; 7.5.5; 8.26.7; 9.24.3.
tude to art developed during the Italian Renaissance, was idiosyn-
cratic to Pausanias or characteristic only of his age. 42 "Yet we can
certainly also assert, ‫ יי‬Martin Robertson wrote, "that Pheidias was
already a conscious, sophisticated artist who knowingly created works
of art for a public, however limited, which appreciated them as such,
although the prime overt motive for their creation was undoubtedly
not aesthetic but religious.... T h r o u g h the archaic and classical peri-
ods and into the Hellenistic, one can watch this aesthetic approach
strengthening, though art never becomes the independent, self-sufli-
cient pursuit that it is today." 4 3
This does not mean of course that images of Greek gods, even if
they served the purposes of the state or were contemplated as objects
of art in their own right, were not treated as religious objects. As we
learn from Pausanias' enumeration of all the altars to gods within the
sacred precinct of Olympia, although the temple of Zeus was not the
focus of the cult, there nevertheless was an altar in this temple on
which the local priests offered daily sacrifices: " T h e y sacrifice first to
the Hearth goddess, then to Olympian Zeus at the altar inside the
temple, thirdly ...", and so on. 4 4 Note also that in his description of
the votive offerings at Olympia Pausanias is consistent in distinguish-
ing between the representations of Zeus and those featuring other
subjects: while the former are regarded as dedicated "out of divine
reverence" (τιμή τη πρός τό θείον), the dedicators of the latter were
presumably guided "by their self-complacence" (τη δε ές αυτούς
χάριτι). 45 Yet, a religion as it certainly was, this was a religion that
made no provision for direct identification of the religious representa-
tion with its prototype. It was this dissociation of the image from its
prototype that allowed for the development of both a more elevated
idea of the divine and a concept of representation which treated the
image as an object of art with its own raison d'être. This idea of the
divine and concept of representation underlie the words of Plotinus
on the Zeus at Olympia: " W h e n Pheidias made the Zeus, he did not
use any model that could be perceived by the senses, but rather he
formed a conception of what Zeus would be like if he chose to reveal
himself to our eyes." 46

42
O n Pausanias' individual tastes in art see Arafat, "Pausanias' Attitude to Antiq-
uities," 387-409.
43
"Greek Art and Religion," 156-57.
44
Paus. 5.14.4.
45
Paus. 5.25.1 Cf. 5.21.1.
46
Enneads 5.8.1. Tr. J . J . Pollitt. Cf. Cic. Orat. 8-9. For this concept of representa-
tion see also Finkelberg, The Birth of Literary Fiction, pp. 111-121.
 BIBLIOGRAPHY
"Two K I N D S OF R E P R E S E N T A T I O N IN R E L I G I O U S A R T "

K.W. Arafat, "Pausanias' Attitude to Antiquities," The Annual of the British

School at Athens 87 (1992) 387-409.
W. Burkert, Greek Religion. Tr. J. Raffan (Cambridge, Massachusetts:
Harvard University Press, 1985).
J.N. Coldstream, "Greek Temples: Why and Where?" in Easterling and
Muir, 67-97.
P.E. Easterling and J. V. Muir, eds., Greek Religion and Society (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985).
M a r g a l i t Finkelberg, The Birth of Literary Fiction in Ancient Greece ( O x f o r d :
Clarendon Press1, 1998).
Martin Persson Nilsson, A History of Greek Religion. Tr. F. J. Fielden (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1925).
Martin Persson Nilsson, Greek Piety. Tr. Herbert Jennings Rose (New York:
Norton Library, 1969).
Pausanias, Guide to Greece, 2 vols., translated with an introduction by Peter
Levi (Penguin Classics; Hammondsworth: Penguin Books, 1971).
Francois d e Polignac, Cults, Territory, and the Origins of the Greek City-State.
Tr. J. Lloyd (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press,
1995).
J J . Pollitt, The Ancient View of Greek Art. Criticism, History, and Terminology (Yale
Publications in the History of Art, 26; New Haven and London: Yale
University Press, 1974).
Martin Robertson, "Greek Art and Religion," in Easterling and Muir, 155-
90.
 T H E T R U T H O F IMAGES.
CICERO AND VARRO O N IMAGE WORSHIP

H U B E R T C A N C I K AND H I L D E G A R D CANCIK-LINDEMAIER

1 M. Terentius Varro, antiquitates rerum divinarum (50/47 b.c.e.)

1.1 vera simulacra—mysteria doctrinae

1.1.1 M. Terentius Varro, in his 16 books on R o m a n religion, 1 has
dealt twice with the worship of images, first systematically and, sec-
ond, when explaining special deities. 2 His fundamental thesis, as out-
lined in the first book, runs as follows: 3
"Of these who are (really) gods (sc. not deified men), the states do not
have the true images, because the true God has neither sex nor age nor
well defined parts of a body."

eorum qui sint dii non habeant civitates vera simulacra quod verus deus nec sexum
habeat nec aetatem nec definita corporis membra.

This is a general philosophical statement on state religion. It is part of

Varro's 'threefold theology' (theologia tripertita). This theology distin-
guishes three types of R o m a n religion: myth (theologia fabularìs), philo-
sophical reasoning, called "natural theology" (theologia naturalis), and
the religious practice of the states (theologia civilis). Image worship is a
legitimate part of public religion in the cities: thus the argument of
theologia civilis. These images, however, do not represent "the true

1
Quotations of Varro are given, if not otherwise indicated, with reference to the
fragment number of Cardauns' edition and the passage in the author who has pre-
served the text—mostly Augustine.
‫ ־‬We may suppose that there arc in the 'system' of Roman religion further places
where cult images could be dealt with, such as in Varro's books V and VI on
sanctuaries (de sacettis; de sacris aedibus—cf. frg.70 Car.) or book XI on consecrations (de
consecrationibus). But in the fragments preserved from these books there is no hint to
image worship.
3
Varro in Augustine, Civ. 4,27 = Ant(, frgs. 7. 9 (Agahd) = Appendix V to Varro,
Antt. I (Car.): eorum qui sint dii non habeant civitates vera simulacra quod verus deus nec sexum
habeat nec aetatem nec definiki corporis membra.—Cardauns attributes this passage to
Varro's Logistoricus Curio, de cultu deorum. But Augustine explicitly states that Varro
had the same passage "also" (etiatri) in his Antt.—For the passages from Augustine's De
civitate dei we adopted the English translations by W.M. Green in LCL, with slight
modifications.
god", 4 as is demonstrated by the (philosophical) natural theology: 5 the
true god is the invisible soul of the world. But the masses, V a r r o
proceeds, should not know the illuminating criticism of traditional
images: 6 In late republican R o m a n religion, images have one mean-
ing for the uneducated and another for the intellectual élite. T h e
statue of Jupiter represents royal power and the perfect beauty of
adult m a n h o o d ; for the illuminated beholder it is the divine mind
which moves and governs the world. 7
This theory about the truth of images might have been quite com-
m o n in the late republic. 8 T h e doctrine of the threefold theology
(theologia tripartita), part of which is Varro's argument on image wor-
ship, had been taught to the R o m a n s by the great pontiff Mucius
Scaevola, an influential religious authority. 9 Varro himself is not an
isolated philosopher, but belongs to the intellectual establishment. His
theological work is dedicated to another famous pontifex maximus,
C. Iulius Caesar.

1.1.2 Varro's statement on the truth of images in state religion is part

of a rich and complex theological argument. It combines elements
from Stoic and Platonic philosophy with R o m a n history, myth and
cult.
In the introduction (praeloqui) to the last book of this summa theo-
logiae, entitled: " O n some special gods" (de dis selectis), Varro reflects
upon truth in fiction.10

4
Augustine's phrase verus deus sounds Christian, cf. Minucius Felix 19,13:
Socraticus Xenophon jorman dei veri negat viden posse.
5
Varro in Augustine, Civ. 4,31 = Antt. I frg.13 (Car.); cf. XVI frg.225 (Car.).
Terminology and argument are Stoic; for Stoic physical allegories cf. e.g. Cicero, ND
2,24,63-2,28,72.
6
Cf. Varro, Antt. I frg.21 (Augustine, Civ. 4,31).
7
Augustine, Civ. 4.31 = Varro, Antt. I frg.13 (Car.).
8
Cf. e.g. the great pontiff Cotta's refutation of Epicurean anthropomorphism
(Cicero, ND 1,27,76-29,80); the human form of gods appears 'natural' to people,
because it is suggested to them by works of art; ibid. 1,29,81.
9
It is commonly assumed that this was Quintus Mucius Scaevola, pontifex since
115 B.C.E., consul in 95, pontifex maximus since 89, and killed in 82. Cf. Lieberg, "Die
,theologia tripertita"', p. 71, n. 50, with reference to Boyancé, Théologie de Varron, and
Cardauns, Logistoricus.—Varro, de lingua Latina 5,83, quotes an etymology of pontifex by
Quintus Mucius Scaevola: pontufex maximus. Varro's immediate source is not known,
cf. Geffcken, Bilderstreit, 295 ff.
10
Varro, Antt. XVI frg.225 (Car.; Augustine, Civ. 7,5): (a) Antiques simulacra deorum
et insignia omatusquefinxisse,quae cum oculis animadvertissent hi, qui adissent doctûnae mystma,
passent animam mundi ac partes eius, id est deos veros, animo videre; (b) quorum qui simulacra
specie hominis fecerunt, hoc videri secutos, quod mortalium animus qui est in corpore humano,
simillimus est inmortalis animi; (c) tamquam si vasa ponerentur causa notandorum deorum et in
 (a) the ancients designed the images of gods and their attributes and
ornaments so that people who have approached the mysteries of doc-
trine, when they notice these fictions with their eyes, can see with their
mind the soul of the world and its parts, that is, the true gods;"
(b) those (the artists) who made the images of these (gods) in human form
appear to have been guided by the thought that the mind of the
mortals which is in the human body is very much like the immortal
mind;1‫־‬
(c) it is as if vessels were set up to denote the gods, and as if in the temple
of Liber (Dionysus) a wine jar were placed to denote wine; (according
to the rule) that the container stands for the thing contained; 13
(d) thus by means of an image which has human form the rational soul is
signified, since in this (image), like in a vessel, that nature (of a rational
soul) is known to be contained, of which they wish to imply that god
or the gods consist.
T h e "mysteries of doctrine" which make one see the rational soul of
the world in the image of an anthropomorphic god, is Stoic theology
combined with sceptic Platonism. 1 4 T h e comparison of the image of
god with a vessel in a temple integrates prudently "symbols and
a d o r n m e n t " of statues into the argument. T h e double metonymy
emphasizes the transcending energy which is inherent in religions as
systems of signs. T h e wine j a r signifies the wine—according to the
rule: that which contains signifies that which is contained; and the
wine signifies the god—according to the rule that the gift signifies the
giver. T h e god again signifies—or should we say 'represents'—a part
of the anima mundi. His image, therefore, is a "true image". T h e criti-
cism of images does not lead to an act of iconoclasm. T h e impossibil-
ity of true representation becomes the necessity of interpretation;
interpretatio simulacrì, therefore, is one of Varro's methods of presenting,
in the last book of his summa theologiae Romanorum, the twelve most
important gods, beginning with Ianus and ending as is appropriate
with Vesta. 1 1

Liberi aede oenophorum sisteretur, quod significant vinum, per id quod continet id quod continetur,
(d) lia per simulacrum, quod formam haberet humanam, significare animam rationalem, quod eo
velut vase natura ista soleat contineri, cuius naturae deum volunt esse vel deos.
11
"Soul of the world" in Stoicism: see e.g. S VF I frgs. 530. 532 (Kleanthes, in:
Cicero, ND 1,14,37).
12
Cf. Cicero, ND 1,18,46-47; 1,27,76: .... quod nulla in alia figura (quam hominis)
domicilium mentis esse possit—Epicurean doctrine; for Stoic criticism see ibid. 2,17,45;
cf. Diogenes Laertius 7,147 = S P F I I frg.1021: the god is not anthropomorphic; there
is—to our knowledge—no evidence for the conception that anthropomorphism signi-
fies the connection of human and divine mind in Stoic theology.
13
Cf. Auctor ad Herennium 4,23,43; Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 8,6,24; Isidor
1,37,8: per id quod continet id quod continetur ostendit, ut ,theatra plaudunt' (i.e. the public).
14
Cf. Varro, Antt. XVI frgs. 226-228.
‫ יי‬Cf. Cicero, ND 2,67: et precatio et sacrificatio extrema.
1.2 sine simulacro-interpretatio simulacri
1.2.1 T h e mysteries of natural theology are supported by historical
arguments. In his most remarkable summary of the history of R o m a n
religion, V a r r o stresses the purity of its origins: 16
(a) The old Romans have worshipped the gods for more than one hun-
dred and seventy years without an image [sine simulacro).
(b) If this usage had continued to our own day the gods would be ob-
served with greater purity. 17
(c) In support of his opinion he (sc. Varro) adduces, among other things,
the testimony of the Jewish people.
(d) ... (Varro says) that those who first set up images of the gods for the
people, took away fear from their states and added error . . . .
" O n e hundred and seventy years" from the foundation of R o m e (753
B.C.E., Varronian era) bring us down to the Tarquinian dynasty.
T h e y were Greeks from Etruria who planned and built the temple of
the Capitoline triad. T h e y introduced artists like Volca to R o m e who
fabricated terracotta cult images in the Etruscan style. Varro may still
have seen them, for they were destroyed only by the fire of 83 B . C . E .
King N u m a , in contrast to the Tarquinians, had constituted the Ro-
m a n state religion without images: 1 8
(under Numa) for the Romans religion did not yet consist in images or
temples. ... At that time the artists of the Greeks and the Etruscans had
not yet inundated the city with their fabrications of images.
T h u s Varro proposes the ancient aniconic cult of Jupiter Capitolinus
to which—according to h i m — t h e Jewish people still adhere as a
paradigm of Rome's better origins. 19
(Jupiter) is worshipped by those who worship one god only without an
image, but he is called by another name"‫"—׳‬Jupiter is the god of the
Jews.

16
Varro, Antt. I fig. 18 (Car.), in: Augustine, Civ. 4,31:
(a) Dicit etiam antiques Romanos plus annos centum et septuaginta deos sine simulacro coluisse, (b)
Quod si adhuc, inquit, mansisset, castius dii observarentur. (c) Cui sententiae suae testem adhibet
inter cetera etiam gentem Iudaeam. (d) Nec dubitat eum locum ita concludere ut dicat, qui primi
simulacra deorum populis posuerunt, eos civitatibus suis et metum dempsisse et errorem addidisse,
prudenter existimans deos facile posse in simulacrorum stoliditate contemni.
17
Cf. Augustine, Civ. 7,5: castiusque deos sine simulacris (plural!) veteres observasse
Romanos.
18
Varro, Antt. I frg.38 (Tertullian, Apologeticum 25,12); cf. Plutarch, Numa 8;
Diogenes Laertios 8,1,2; Arnobius, Adversus nationes 6,11; Dionysius of Halicarnassus,
1,14,2.
19
Varro Antt. I figs. 15-16.
This is the most intimate and positive connection of R o m a n and
Jewish religion we know of. Varro rightly remarks that the invisibility
of god increases the fear. A tangible image restricts boundless fears.

1.2.2 Jupiter is the highest god as is evidenced by his name: "king of

all gods and goddesses", his sceptre and the high position of his tern-
pie.211 Interpretation of images, myths and cult reinforces the results of
etymology and natural theology. This is the proposal of the last books
of Varro's great theology: de dis selectis?1
In this book I shall write on the public gods of the Roman people, gods
to whom they have dedicated houses and whom they have signified by
the adornment with several images (signis). I shall write, however, as
Xenophanes of Colophon does; I will set down what I think (putem) but
will not strictly affirm.
His sceptical method is supported by the n a m e of the first critic of
Greek anthropomorphism, Xenophanes (6th/5th century B . C . E . ) .
V a r r o interprets the image of Ianus with his two or four faces (bi-
frons/ quadrì-fr0ns):22 this means 'orient and occident' or the four parts
of the world and thus points to the world as a whole. T h e image of
Saturnus has a sickle; his name points to sowing, the sickle to harvest-
ing; he is the god of agriculture. 2 3 Mercurius has wings at his head
and feet: 24 this "signifies" that our talk runs swiftly through the air.
Apollo has arrows: 2 1 they mean the beams of the sun, because Apollo
is the sun.

1.2.3 Natural theology, then, justifies radical criticism of the public

image cult. Its consequence, however, is not iconoclasm, but interpre-
tation of the images by means of the same natural theology. T h u s the
philosopher is satisfied intellectually, his position over and against the
uneducated multitude is reinforced, and his religious practice is rec-
onciled with the conventional worship of images.
In order to attain his goal as a reformer of R o m a n religion,2*'
V a r r o integrates mythical and cultic, philosophical and historical,
philological and iconographie elements into an ample, ambitious but

20
Varro, Antt. I frg. 14, in: Augustine, Civ. 4,9.
21
Varro, Antt. XVI frg.228 in: Augustine, Civ. 7,17.
22
Varro, Antt. XVI frgs.232-234; 230.
23
Varro, Antt. XVI frgs.239-247.
24
Ibid, frg.250.
25
Ibid, frg.251.
26
Cf. Cancik, Rome as Sacred Landscape.
coherent system which can properly be conceived of as a R o m a n
theology of image worship.

1.3 Vano's Mystical Theology

1.3.1 Varro's concept of the deity is (a) R o m a n , closely connected to

the cults of the city of R o m e , (b) universal, and (c) mystical, as is to be
demonstrated in the case of the Capitoline triad.
As already mentioned the Capitoline Jupiter is, as image and myth,
the king of all gods and goddesses; the "sign" of which is his sceptre
and the ruling position of the Capitol on top of the hill. 2 ‫ ׳‬H e can,
however, be worshipped under other names, too; thus the Jews call
him Iao. 2 8 In reality he is the "soul" of the world which he "governs
by movement and reason". 2 9 T h e other gods are the limbs, parts,
powers of the one god: he himself is all; the one and the whole is the
same."
T h e cosmological speculation refers Jupiter to the ether and Iuno
to the air. 31 T h e religious-historical narrative expounds the founda-
tion of the Capitoline cult through king Tarquinius and the "territo-
rial" connection of J u p i t e r to the cults of Mars, Terminus and
Iuventus, previously established on the Capitoline hill. 32 This histori-
cal episode, indeed, offers a starting-point for mystical theology, since
Tarquinius had been initiated in the mysteries of Samothrace. T h u s
the cult of the Capitoline triad acquires a new geographical, historical
and speculative profundity.

1.3.2 Varro's mythico-historical construction is transmitted by the

neoplatonist scholar and theologian Macrobius (about 400 O . E . ) . 3 3
Tarquinius, son of Demaratus of Corinth, is said to have been mysd-
cally taught in the cults of Samothrace, that Minerva is the highest
peak of the ether, Jupiter the middle ether, but Iuno the lower air and
the earth. T h e cosmological speculation turns out to become anthro-

27
Antt. I frg.14.
28
Ibid, frgs.15-17.
29
Ibid, frg.13.
30
Ibid, frg.27; ibid. frg.II (from the Logistoricus Curio, with reference to Valerius
Soranus).
31
Ibid, frg.28.
32
Ibid. frgs.40-42.
33
Macrobius, Saturnalia 3,4,6 f f , presumably from Varro, probably from Antt.;
within this passage the second book of Varro's antiquitates rerum humanarum is explicidy
quoted, by name and dde.—Cf. Servius auctus on Vergil, Aeneid 1,378 and 2,296.
The constitution of the text by Cardauns, Antt. X V frg.205, is not quite clear.
pological, cultic and historical. These are the gods through which we
breathe (penitus spiramus), and possess body (terra) and reason (Minerva).
T h a t is why Tarquinius is said to have united them on the Capitol in
one sacred area and under the same roof. T h e gods, however,
through which we breathe inwardly (penitus), are called Penates.
Tarquinius, then, had been taught in Samothrace about these
Penates; their cult, indeed, had already been brought from
Samothrace to Phrygia (Troia) by D a r d a n u s and, later on, by Aeneas
to Italy. Macrobius says, that Vergil alludes to these doctrines in
different passages of the Aeneid, as in the verse cum sociis natoque
Penatibus et magnis dis—"with the companions, the son, with the
Penates and the great gods" (Aeneid 3,12). T h e title of "Great gods"
signifies, he says, the deities of Samothrace (θεοι μεγάλοι).
T h e names of sources mentioned by Macrobius show how in-
tensely the R o m a n Penates were under discussion for half a millen-
nium; Nigidius Figulus ("Upon the gods", book 19), Cornelius Labeo
and Hyginus, who both wrote " U p o n the Penates"; Cassius Hemina,
the historiographer, and, of course, Varro. W e can by no means put
forth all the arguments and associations which Varro gathered for the
theological interpretation of the Capitoline triad, which is the central
cult of the R o m a n republic, but we should like to emphasize the
personal commitment that appears to penetrate all this scholarly
speculation. Varro has dealt with the mysteries of Samothrace in
various works. 34 It is quite within the bounds of probability that he
himself had been initiated in "the famous mysteries of the
Samothracians" (frg.206).

2 M. Tullius Cicero, De signis (Verr. II 4)

2.1 Iconoclasm and Desacralization of Statues in Sicily

2 . 1 . 1 In the year 70 B.C.E. a great iconoclasm raged over Sicily, a
R o m a n province then for two hundred years already. T h e Sicilians
turned over the statues of their former governor which, shortly be-
fore, they had been forced to erect in his honour. Although for the
Greeks monuments of this kind "are consecrated by a certain reli-
gious taboo" especially when erected in temples, they now pulled

34
a) Antt. II, in Macrobius, Saturnalia 3,4,7; b) Antt. X V frg.206: Samothracum nobilia
mysteria\ c) De lingua Latina 5,58; d) Curio de cultu deorum (= Antt. I frg.I); e) for the
Eleusinian mysteries see Antt. XVI frg.271.—It is noteworthy that in Cicero, ND
1,42,119 the great pontiff Cotta mentions Eleusis and Samothrace with high respect.
them down by force in the whole province. 3 0 In order to ridicule their
former master, C. Verres, praetor in Sicily for three years (73-70
B.C.E.) they preserved the empty base on the market-place as evidence
that the statue had been hurled down. 3 6
Even the statue of Verres which had been erected in a more sacred
place, namely in a Syracusian temple, immediately in front of the
statue of Sarapis, was destroyed. 3 7 These destructions were either
spontaneous acts of the multitude or formally ordered by decree and
executed in the presence of the municipal authorities. 3 8

2.1.2 T h r o u g h this first act of iconoclasm in R o m a n history which

we know of, the Sicilians repaid their governor for his robberies and
crimes. O n his c o m m a n d , during the years 73 to 70, m a n y cult stat-
ues, sacred objects and instruments [paterae, patellae, turibola, candela-
brum, vasa) had been carried off; sacred places, private and public
ones, in the Greek cities of Italy were deprived of their gods:
Herakles, Eros, Hermes, Artemis, Demeter left the island. T h e y were
deported to Italy to adorn private palaces, suburban villas and gar-
dens in Rome. 3 9 Smaller devotional objects were rearranged in a
special workshop of Verres in Syracusa to fit the higher needs of
luxury (§54).
These activities, which emptied the Greek temples and filled the
rich men's dwellings with art, then, were not an act of iconoclasm
motivated by politics or religion. T h e r e was conclusive evidence that
religious laws were violently broken by R o m a n magistrates, that
hierosylia was committed, a bellum sacrìlegum fought against temples and
cults (§188; cf. §72). It was, however, not a war of religions: the
R o m a n s never attempted to convert people, neither in peace nor in
war. Verres was not driven by an iconoclastic impulse, he had neither
religious nor political reasons: he and his friends were greedy for old
and precious Greek art.

2.1.3 O u r primary source for the fall of Verres' statues and the
desacralization of sacred objects from Greek temples is a great work
of cultural history. Written as a series of accusation speeches, it deals

35
Cicero, Verr. II 2,65,158-160; the Latin terms are: per vim deicere, revellere, evertere
statuam, demotire, sustulisse.
36
Cicero, Verr. II 2,66,160.
,
‫ י‬Ibid.: celebenrimo ac religiosissimo (loco), ante ipsum Serapim, in primo aditu vestibuloque
templi.
Ibid. 67,161: Centuripinorum senatus decrevit populusque lussit.
39
Cf. e.g. Verr. II 4,54,121: nihil in aedibus, nihil in hortis posuit nihil in suburbano (sc.
Marcellus, in contrast to Verres).
with the administration, economy, art and religion of Sicily. M.
Tullius Cicero collected this material when preparing the accusation
against Verres, the former praetor of the island. 40 He already won the
trial for extortion (de repetundis) by his first speech. Nevertheless, he
published all his incriminating evidence, although it was no longer
requested by the court. T h u s we have the classical work on Sicily in
R o m a n times and a rich and unexplored source for image worship,
desacralization and iconoclasm. 41
T h e title given to Cicero's speech by our manuscripts runs: De
signis, literally " O n Signs", that is: " O n Statues". 4 2 Verres, however,
did not only carry off statues of various sizes and materials—bronze,
ivory, m a r b l e — a n d property situations—private, public, sacred, pro-
fane 4 5 —, but also plates, busts, incense bearers, candelabra, and pan-
els. 44
T h e word signum—"sign, statue", as does the Greek analogon
sema,40 points to the complex relationship of words and works of art to
meaning and reality. T h e word signum has profound philosophical
associations, particularly in the dialectic and g r a m m a r of the Stoics. 46
Varro gives the following definition: 1 ‫׳‬
A sign is what presents itself to our perception and simultaneously
presents something apart from itself to our mind.
Cicero, in his speech " O n Signs", does not make any allusion to a
philosophical or theological background. T h e speech is forensic, po-

40
Cicero gives a short history of the "first province": Verr. II 2,1,2-3,8: de provinciae
dignitate, vetustate, utilitate.
41
It is impossible, in this context, to discuss what David Freedberg (The Power of
Images) has called 'response' (including iconoclasm). He rightly emphasizes that the
word 'magical' is rather a label than a concept as regards to the reception of works
of art. Since his approach is art history and psychology of aesthetics and not history
of religion he is, however, not concerned with the specific religious framework of e.g.
Greek or Roman culture and its possibilities of shaping the reception of works of art
within a cultic setting. Freedberg does not deal with Cicero's speeches against Verres.
42
The title is found in Nonius (4./5. century C.E.). On the inscriptions in the
manuscripts of the Verrinne orationes see A. Klotz, preface to his edition (Leipzig:
Teubner 1949).
4i
Cic. Verr. II 4,1,2: neque privati neque publici neque profani neque saeri.
44
II 4,21,46-22,48: patellae, paterae, turibula, sigilla; pictura—tabulae et signa—"panels
and sculpture" (§50; §§55 ff.; §§60 ff.).
4
' Hans Georg Niemeyer, Semata. Über den Sinn griechischer Standbilder (Berichte der
Jungius Gesellschaft 14, Heft 1, Göttingen 1996).
46
Diogenes Laertius 7,62 f.
47
Varro, De lingua Latina (I?) frg. 130 (ed. G. Goetz—Fr. Schoell, p.237,1 f.), in:
Augustine, De dialectica V: signum est quod et se ipsum sensui et praeter se aliquid amimo
ostendit.
litical, not antiquarian nor esoteric theory. T h e public are senators,
knights, R o m a n citizens, and delegations from allied states. 48 O n this
forum philosophical investigations would have been out of place. Spe-
cial knowledge of things Greek was better to be hidden or ridiculed.
Cicero therefore pretends to be an idiota, to have learnt the names of
Praxiteles, Myron, Polycletus just for this process. 49

2.2 Religion, Politics and Art in Cicero, De signis

2.2.1 T h e Chapel of C. Heius Mamertinus at Messana
C. Heius, a rich and noble citizen of Messana, had in his house a
special room or, separately in a courtyard, a chapel for the cult of his
familiy. Almost every day he performed the required rites. 50 This
sacrarium was "very old" [perantiquum), the cult and the cult objects
handed down by the ancestors. 51 In the chapel there were five stat-
52
ues.
— two canephoroi, bronze, said to be from Polycletus;
one Cupido/ Eros, marble, said to be from Praxiteles;
— one Hercules, bronze, said to be from Myron;
— one Bona Fortuna, wood.
In front of Cupido and Hercules there were two altars, probably for
burning incense or putting down flowers and gifts of grain.
This is, of course, an exceptional amassment for a private chapel, 5 3
even in an old and rich province once flourishing with Greek cul-
ture. 5 4 O n e can easily recognize certain gradations of sacredness. T h e

48
Cic. Verr. I 3,7; II 1,1,1; cf. Quintilian, Institutio oratoria 8,6,24 on the severitasfori.
49
Verr. II 4,2,4-3,5.
50
Verr. II 4,8,18: res ilium divinas apud(\) eos deos in suo sacrario prope cotidiano facere.
11
Ibid. §4: a maioribus traditum; §16: a maioribus suis relicta et tradita. For a sacrarium of
Bona Dea on private ground cf. Cicero, Pro Milone 86; in this passage (§§85 if.) the
vices and (criminal) activities of P. Clodius are—like those of Verres—styled as sacri-
lege.
52
M.P. Nilsson, Geschichte der griechischen Religion, vol. 2 (München: Beck 19612)
p. 189 mentions the passages Cic. Verr. II 4,2,3-3,7 and 4,21,46 as evidence for cult
images and objects in private houses; he apparently does not recognize the particular
interest of Cicero's documentation. Cf. also D. G. Orr, "Roman Domestic Religion.
The Evidence of the Household Shrines," ANRWÏÏ 16,2, 1978, 1559-1591.
53
For further examples of special chapels dedicated to the house cult see: G.K.
Boyce, Corpus of the Lararia of Pompai. Memoirs of the American Academy in Rome,
vol. XIV, 1937, nrs. 132; 218; 253; 448; 459; 479; some of these rooms were "fur-
nished with benches for the worshippers" (Boyce, p. 18). Besides the special house
gods (lares, penates) there were also other deities to be found (e.g. nrs. 344; 464; 220;
471).
54
II 4,21,46: credo tum cum Sicilia florebat opibus et copiis magna artificia fuisse in ea
insula.—For a reconstruction of the room see Rossbach, Sacrarium.
canephoroi are only for decoration (ornamenta, §18). T h e wooden image
of Bona Fortuna/ Agathe Tyche has the highest degree of sacredness and
the lowest material value: Verres, consequently, refrained from seiz-
ing it (§7). T h e statue of Cupido has an intermediate position: for a
certain time it had been used as an " o r n a m e n t " on the forum, but
later returned into the chapel (§6). This process of desacralization and
resacralization was possible and tolerable. Sacredness is not a sub-
stance inherent to the statue, but a function in the cultic ensemble:
chapel, altar, other cult images combined with the voluntary act of
"dedication". 5 5
T h e palace of Heius was an "open house"; everybody could "visit"
it every day (§5); the house with its chapel was an " o r n a m e n t " for the
whole city: the private was, to a certain degree, public. T h e visit,
however, was meant for inspecting and enjoying the treasures of art,
not to honour the gods. And there were real treasures: old classical
statues by the most famous artists. T h e y were appreciated as "most
beautiful", they granted pleasure and joy, they were old and made of
precious material with the highest craftsmanship, renowned every-
where. 5 b All R o m a n magistrates and merchants when coming to Sic-
ily visited the house of Heius and its chapel or rather gallery. Verres
carried olf the Canephoroi, Eros, Hercules: is it extortion, robbery or, as
Cicero would want to term it, samlegium, hierosylia—robbery of sacred
objects, which is condemned morally and legally much more se-
verely? T o make the scandal more conspicuous Cicero mentions that
the R o m a n imperator Marcellus, in contrast to Verres, had not
touched the sacred statues of the Syracusians though his very vie-
tory—as Cicero says—had made them "profane". 5 7

:>‫י‬
Cf. the echo of Roman sacral law preserved in a polemical context by Arnobius,
Adversus nationes 6,17: "we (i.e. the Romans) do not state that bronze or gold and silver
or other materials, images are made of, are in themselves gods or religious powers,
but in these we worship and venerate those which the sacral dedication brings into
and causes to dwell in images made by artists and craftsmen"—nam neque nos aera
neque auri argentique materias neque alias, quibus signa confiunt, eas esse per se deos et religiosa
decemimus numina, sed eos in his colimus eosque veneramur quos dedicatio infert sacra et fabrilibus
efficit inhabitare simulacris.
36
T h e Latin terms: pulchenima, delectare, summo artificio, summa nobilitate, visere.
" II 4, 55,122: cum omnia, victoria ilia sua profana fecisset (sc. Marcellus). These words
are difficult to understand. We have evidence that—for a Roman cidzen—the differ-
ent degrees of sacredness were produced only by dedication, which seems to be
limited to Roman territory, as Traianus writes to Pliny (Epist. 10,50): cum solum
peregrinae civitatis capax non sit dedicationis‫׳‬, cf. Dig. 47,12,4 (Paulus): Sepulchra hostium nobis
religiosa non sunt: ideoque lapides inde sublatos in quemlibet usum convertere possumus: non
sepulchri violati actio competit; cf. also Dig. 11,7,36 (Pomponius): Cum loca capta sunt ab
hostibus, omnia desinunt religiosa vel sacra esse, sicut homines liberi in servitutem perveniunt: quod
2.2.2 Diana of Segesta and the M o n u m e n t s of the Cornelii
a) T h e Diana of Segesta was a bronze statue "endowed with the
highest and oldest cult value, executed with singular skill and art".
Although quite large and standing on a high base the goddess could
be discerned by her posture and symbols as virgin and huntress, a
torch in her right h a n d indicating night and netherworld. 5 8
T h e statue has a long and edifying history. T h e Carthaginians had
robbed it, but preserved its sacredness. P. Cornelius Scipio Africanus
had brought it back (146 B.C.E.), restored it solemnly to the people of
Segesta and dedicated it anew (§80: dedicatum). T h e image was wor-
shipped by the citizens and visited by all foreigners (§74):
colebatur a civibus, ab omnibus advenis visebatur.
This well-balanced phrase determines the borderline between religion
and art. W h e n Verres carried the statue off, the citizens escorted their
goddess up to the boundaries of their state. For the last time they
performed the naive and moving rites of bodily care for the image:
anointing, covering with flowers and garlands, burning incense and
spices. T h u s it became evident for all that Verres did not steal a work
of art, but that he publicly committed a sacrilege.
b) T h e base of the statue remained empty. T h e inscription, how-
ever, continued to tell the n a m e of the vanished goddess, the dedica-
tion by Scipio Africanus and his merits for Segesta (§§78-79). Verres,
consequently, had the base demolished. H e added to his sacrilege an
imprudent damnatio memoriae‫׳‬:^
not only was religion violated, but the glory of the deeds of the gallant P.
Africanus, the memory of his virtú, the monument of his victory were
also destroyed.

si ab hac calamitatefiierint liberata, quasi quodam postliminio reversa pristino statui restituuntur. In
cases of war these laws protected Roman officials from committing sacrilege. So it is
argued that the charge of sacrilege Cicero brought against Verres was but a rhetori-
cal device; cf. Margrit Pape, Griechische Kunstwerke aus Kriegsbeute und ihre öffentliche
Aufstellung in Rom, von der Eroberung von Syrakus bis in augusteische Zeit. Diss. Hamburg
1975, p. 36. At Verres' times, however, Sicily was since long a Roman province, not
enemy territory; so we must assume that the sacred places and objects of the inhab-
itants were protected by the Roman government. But the status of the province
according to sacred law may be different from its political status.
58
This combinadon of symbols is rare, cf. Ε. Simon, Artemis/ Diana, in: LIMC
Π, 1984, 792-849.
59
Verr. II 4,35,78; the same argument in §93, concerning the statue of Apollo in
Acragas, resdtuted by Scipio Africanus; Cicero comments: "In the same moment the
people of Acragas lost the benefacdon of Africanus, a domesdc cult, an artistic
ornament of the town, the sign of the victory over Carthago, and the evidence for
their alliance with Rome."—Cf. II 4,39,84-42,92 (Mercury of the Civitas Tyndantana).
T h e destruction of the m o n u m e n t signified an attack against the fam-
ily of the Cornelii Scipiones. They were still the protectors {patroni) of
the people of Segesta. T h e m o n u m e n t reminded the Segestians not
only of P. Africanus, but also of his still-existing gens and of the Ro-
m a n people who had designated him imperator for the war against
Carthago. T o demolish this m o n u m e n t meant an assault on every-
thing it represented: against the patron, the gens Cornelia, and the
dignity of the R o m a n people.
c) Cicero's story about the Diana of Segesta reveals a complex
p h e n o m e n o n . For the citizens of Segesta the statue of the goddess
'represents' the daughter of Leto, the sister of Apollo. She can assist
women in child birth and is a huntress in the woods. T o carry the
statue off is a sacrilege (not an act of iconoclasm).
For the gens Cornelia, the m o n u m e n t is a gift bestowed to their
clients reminding these of their patrons; it represents the glory and
virtue of the family. Its destruction is also a crime against "the maj-
esty of the R o m a n empire". 6 0
For Verres and his friends, 61 the statue is a work of art represent-
ing the young woman u n b o u n d by family ties, not impoverished by
labour or pregnancy.

2.2.3 T h e C a n d e l a b r u m of Antiochus Asiaticus

a) Verres resided as a praetor in Sicily, when Antiochus XIII.
Philadelphus Asiaticus, the last Seleucidian king, met him at Syracusa
on his way back from R o m e to his kingdom in Syria. 62 In his luggage,
Antiochus carried with him besides the usual royal objects, a candela-
b r u m of considerable size, made of gold and precious stones, pro-
duced with perfect skill and taste: 63
"art seemed to vie with sumptuousness"—ars certare videbatur cum copia.
T h e lamp-stand was destined to illuminate Jupiter's cella in the
Capitoline temple. Antiochus had planned to consecrate the candela-
b r u m as a sacred instrument (sacrum supellectile) together with the dedi-

60
Cf. l'en. II 4,41,88: est maiestatis, quod imperi nostn, gtoriae, rerum gestamm monumenta
evertere atque asportare ausus est.
61
Cf. Verr. II 1,22,58: vidit enim eos, qui iudiciorum se dominos dici volebant, harum
cupiditatum esse servos.
62
Cic. Verr. II 4 chs. 27-32.
63
II 4,28,65. For archaeological evidence see A. Testa, Candelabrì e thymiatma
(Monumenti Musei e Gallerie Ponteficie. Museo Gregoriano Etrusco. Cataloghi 2),
Roma 1989 (review in: Gnomon 64 (1992), 736 f.)); H.-U. Cain, Römische
Marmorkandelaber (review in: Gnomon 59 (1987) 662-664).
cation of the temple and the new cult image of Jupiter. 6 4 T h e recon-
strucdon of the temple, however, which had been entirely destroyed
by fire in 83 B.C.E., was not yet finished.65 Therefore the candelabrum
was still in king Antiochus' luggage, when he met Verres at Syracusa.
Verres saw the royal masterpiece, praised it highly and carried it off.
b) T h e lamp-stand is an instrument used in the worship service; it
is called omatus—decoration.66 But it has already been consecrated in
7
the purpose and intention:''
iam mente et cogitatione ... consecratum.
It is not really consecrated, but Cicero narrates the story as if the
intention were as strong as to be almost reality. H e even recites the
solemn formula of dedication, which Antiochus wanted to pro-
nounce:
to give, donate, hallow, consecrate to Jupiter the Best, the Greatest—dare,
donare, dicare, consecrare Iovi O.M.
But still, it was only his "wall" (voluntas) and promise, not yet per-
formed. Cicero, by stressing the intention, transforms a bad theft into
sacrilege.
c) T h e candelabrum is a royal gift, worthy of the new Capitoline
temple, worthy of that citadel of all nations. 6 8 It is also worthy of the
King of Syria, his kingdom, the renowned Seleucid dynasty: 1 ' 9
digna res regno Syrìae regio munere.
It is a " m o n u m e n t " , probably with a dedicational inscription, of the
friendship between Syria and Rome. 7 0 T h e violation of the candela-
b r u m offends the " n a m e of the R o m a n empire" (§68), the 'majesty of
the R o m a n people'.
This argumentation of Cicero reveals or construes, respectively,
the symbolic value of the gift: 1) It represents (a) the status of the
Syrian kingdom and of King Antiochus; (b) the public relations be-
tween R o m e and Syria. 2) It indicates the national and universal

64
Cf. Varro, Antt. XVI frg. 225: simulacra deorum et insignia omatusque.
65
T h e new temple was dedicated in 69 B.C.E. by Q . Lutatius Catulus.
66
Verr. II 4,28,65: ad amplissimi templi ornatum factum. T h e r e is no mention concern-
ing the candelabrum besides Cicero.
67
II 4,29,67; cf. §70; for the consecration formula cf. the dedication of an image of
Diana Augusta in Mactaris, CIL VIII Suppl. 1 nr. 11796.
68
Verr. II 5,72,184: donum regale, dignum tuo putchenimo templo, dignum Capitolio atque
ista arce omnium nationum, dignum regio munere, tibi factum a regibus, tibi dicatum et promissum
.... Cf. II 4,30,68: templi dignitas.
69
Verr. II 4,28,65.
70
II 4,29,67: monumentum suae societatis amicitiaeque.
claims which are inherent in the idea of Jupiter Optimus Maximus,
who resides on the Capitoline hill in R o m e (a) as 'representative' of
the R o m a n people, (b) as "the citadel of all nations".
Cicero, expounding these categories of R o m a n consciousness, reli-
gious and political, incriminates C. Verres and shows himself to be a
respectable and responsible statesman.

2.3 Differentiation, Overlap and Ambivalence of Cult, Art, and Politics

T h r e e examples have been presented from Cicero's speech " O n stat-
ues": the house cult of C. Heius, Diana on P. Scipio's m o n u m e n t at
Segesta, and the lamp-stand of king Antiochus.
In all cases, art, religion, and politics appear clearly differentiated
as autonomous segments of R o m a n culture. Cicero stresses the reli-
gious and political elements in every case in order to unmask Verres'
love for Greek art 1 ‫ ׳‬as war against the gods (sacrilegum bellum) and
violation of the majesty of the R o m a n people.
T h e main categories of his argumentation are as follows: private/
p u b l i c — p r o f a n e / consecrated 7 2 —art/ religion. In the field of beauty
Cicero distinguishes art, craftsmanship, and material value. 7 3 " T o
visit because of beauty, to worship because of religion"—propta
pulchntiidinem visere, propter religionem colere:4‫ ׳‬this is, according to Cicero,
the most frequent approach to images. But one could visit the chapel
of Heius without worshipping the gods of his family. Visitors used to
come to Segesta and look at the image of Diana; there was no obliga-
tion to sacrifice. 75 T h e r e were guides at Syracusa, called mystagogi,
who explained to the visitors the monuments they saw and the 'mys-
tery' of the monuments that could no longer be seen, because Verres
had carried them off. 6 ‫׳‬
T h e r e was an art industry in Sicily, 77 there were experts, 7 8 there
was sightseeing and a market for works of art. Evidently, in the late

'1 Verr. II 4,1,1 : istius, quemadmodum ipse appetlat, studium, ut amici eius, morbum et
insaniam, ut Siculi, latrocinium.
'‫ '־‬Ibid. II 4,1,2; cf. §122: Cum omnia, victoria ilia sua profana fecisset (sc. Marcellus at
Syracusa), see above n.55; II 1,17,46: fanum religiosisdmum of Apollo on the isle of
Delos.
73
ars/ artificium/ pretium [pondus)—II 4,21,46; §124.
74
II 4,57,127; cf. ibid. §4; §74; §130: colere .... visere ... venerari.
75
II 4,34,74; §§127-130.
76
II 4,59,132. For sightseeing in andquity cf. Livius 45,44 (the quaestor L.
Cornelius Scipio shows king Prusia from Bithynia) templa deum urbemque‫׳‬, Luke, Acts
17,23 (Paul visits Athens).
77
Ojficina of Verres at Syracusa: II 4,24,54; §63.
78
II 4,2,4; homo ingeniosus et intelligens, in contrast to idiota.
republic, art is an autonomous sphere, 7 9 although it is intimately con-
nected with religion and politics. W h a t does this art—apart from
religion and politics—represent in this epoch?
Cicero contrasts art with skill and material value: 80 art seemed to
vie with preciousness—ars certare videbatur cum copia. Art is beauty
(pulchHtudo), variety, memory of men often with the patina of old
age, 81 and illuminated by the names of famous artists. 82 Works of art
are an adornment of the house, the temple, the market-place, the
city. 83 "Decoration" (omamentum) can be 'pure' as opposed to luxury
and to 'usefulness'. 8 4 O n the other hand, it implies—as regards to
religion—a gradation of sacredness: Antiochus' lamp-stand is called
"decoration, o r n a m e n t " in contrast to the consecrated image of a
god. A person in the private sphere, for instance, would take care to
have his own image set up not a m o n g the cult images but only amidst
the decorative or votive statues. 85 T h e lamp-stand, however, was
"consecrated", as Cicero puts it, at least by intention.
Cicero makes deliberate use of these different aspects, functions,
and meanings of one and the same object in different situations and
with different persons in order to create or reconstruct paradoxical,
intellectually and emotionally exciting situations. W h e n Verres once
had presented on the forum Romanum an exhibition of works of art
which he had stolen in Asia minor and Greece, there were inciden-
tally delegations from these countries in R o m e . Becoming aware of
the images of gods which Verres had carried off from their temples,
the delegates behaved quite inadequately at this exhibition on the
market-place: they worshipped their gods and wept when they recog-
nized "the other statues and adornments". 8 6

79
Cf. Jucker, Vom Verhältnis der Römer zu bildenden Kunst der Griechen; Drerup,
A usstattungsluxus.
80
Verr. II 4,28,65.—Cf. §46; §124.
81
Art may even be thought to have moral implications as is evident by Pliny the
Elder's reflections about the decline of pictorial art in the introduction of Historia
naturalis book 35.
82
Verr. II 4,2,4; §18; §38: age: §46; variety: §65; memory of history: §123.
8:i
II 4,30,68: Capitolium sic omare, ut templi dignitas impenque nomen desiderat.
84
II 4,44,98; Cicero, Definibus 3,5,19 (Stoic doctrine on human beauty): alia (seil.
membra corporis) nullam ob utilitatem (sect) quasi ad quendam omatum.
85
Suetonius, Vita Tiberii 26: simulacra deorum / ornamenta aedium; cf. Servius ad
Vergil, Georgics 3,16: simulacrum in medio collocatur, alia enim tantum ad omatum pertinent.
86
Verr. II 1,22,59: (legati ex Asia atque Achaia) deorum simulacra ex suis fanis sublata in foro
venerabantur, itemque cetera signa et ornamenta cum cognoscerent ... lacnmantes intuebantur.
 3 Conclusion
Cicero's speech " O n Statues" (De signis; 7 0 / 6 9 B.C.E.) and the frag-
ments of Varro's disquisition on R o m a n religion (Antiquitates rerum
divinarum; 5 0 / 4 7 B.C.E.) are the most important literary texts dealing
with the R o m a n s ' thought on image worship that have come down to
us from Antiquity.
T h e r e is, first of all, the difference of genres to be considered. In
Varro we have the political and natural theology of R o m a n image
worship, the doctrine of vera simulacra and the true god. In Cicero we
have religious practice, political theology, and problems of art, which
had become an autonomous part of R o m a n culture in the late repub-
lie.
Cicero, in his speech, gives no hint that for him, like Varro, the
physical explanation is the fundamental legitimation of image wor-
ship. In his philosophical works, however, Cicero demonstrates that
he has thorough knowledge of the doctrines of the great pontiff
Scaevola and the physical allegories of myths and images which the
Stoic theology had produced. 8 7 Within this framework the image of
Jupiter, for the 'uneducated', represents sovereignty, power, and
beauty; 8 8 for the intellectual élite the same image represents the mind
or the soul of the world which governs all of its parts. But these
interpretations were not to be expounded in a public speech on the
forum, addressed to R o m a n magistrates and the unintelligent masses,
where Cicero, acting as an official persecutor, was expected to act
according to the rules of R o m a n state religion.
T h e two sources, Varro and Cicero, therefore, should be com-
bined; they give us a clear picture of the religious and aesthetic prac-
tice and of theological reasoning in the late Republic.

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K8
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A. Dihle, "Die Theologia tripertita bei Augustin," in H. Cancik e.a., ed.,
Geschichte—Tradition—Reflexion. FS. Martin Hengel ( T ü b i n g e n : M o h r 1996)
vol. II (ed. H. Cancik), 183-202.
G. Lieberg, "Die 'theologia tripertita' in Forschung und Bezeugung," in
ANRWl 4 (Berlin: de Gruyter 1973) 63-115.

IV M. Tullius Cicero
O. Rossbach, "Das Sacrarium des Heius in Messana," RhM 54 (1899) 277-
284.
G. Zimmer, "Republikanisches Kunstverständnis: Cicero gegen Verres," in:
G . H e l l e n k e m p e r Salies e.a., ed., Das Wrack. Der antike Schiffsfund von
Mahdia, 867-873.
id., "Das sacrarium des C. Heius. Kunstraub und Kunstgeschmack in der
späten Republik," Gymnasium 96,6 (1989) 493-520.

Abbreviations
Antt. M . Terentius Varro, Antiquitates rerum divinarum
Car. Β. C a r d a u n s (ed.) M. Terentius Varro. Antiquitates rerum
divinarum
Cic. Marcus Tullius Cicero
Civ. Augustinus, de civitate Dei
jVD Cicero, de natura deorum, ed. by A. St. Pease, Cambridge
1955
S VF Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, coll. by J . v. Arnim, 4 vols.,
Stuttgart: T e u b n e r 1964 ( Ί 9 0 3 if.)
Ven. Verrinae orationes—Cicero's speeches against C. Verres, ed.
G. Peterson, Oxford 1960 ( 2 1917)
 P O R T R A I T S , L I K E N E S S E S A N D L O O K I N G GLASSES:
SOME LITERARY AND PHILOSOPHICAL REFLECTIONS
O N R E P R E S E N T A T I O N A N D A R T IN M E D I E V A L I N D I A

PHYLLIS G R A N O F F

I Introduction: Representational Art in India: Issues and Problems

From a relatively early period in history, Indian sculpture and paint-
ing offered an abundance of representations of all forms of life, hu-
man, divine, animal, plant, and even some categories in between. It is
not surprising, with all of this visual material in evidence, that works
of art were also frequendy mentioned in secular and religious litera-
ture. T h e r e are of course technical treatises on how to paint or sculpt
a proper image; such treatises codified the rules of iconometry and
iconography and discussed the m a n n e r of preparing the artist's mate-
rials. 1 T h e y were directed at a small class of society, those actually
engaged in making art works and the ritual specialists who assisted in
the preparation of materials, cutting stone or felling trees, and who
consecrated religious works when they were completed. Some of
these treatises also addressed would-be patrons of art, detailing how a
patron should treat the artists he had hired. 2 Such texts could also
make lavish claims for the merits to be gained by financing the build-
ing of temples and the erection of images.
Some religious texts on image making or on holy places also in-
eluded a justification of image worship and an account of the origins

' There is considerable scholarship on the technical aspects of Indian art. A good
readable survey of the basic texts is Tarapada Bhattacharyya, The Canons of Indian Art
(Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1953). The Visnudharmottara Purāna has several
important chapters on painting, which have been translated into English and dis-
cussed by Priyabala Shah, (Baroda: Gaekwad's Oriental Series, 130, 137, 1958,
1961). B.N. Goswamy and A.L. Dahmen-Dallapiccola reedited Berthold Laufer's
edition of the Citralaksana of Nagnajit under the tide, An Early Document of Indian Art
(Delhi: Manohar, 1976).
2
I have examined a small Jain text on image making which also deals with the
relationship between patron and artist in "Patrons, Overlords and Artisans: Some
Comments on Religious Donations in Medieval Jainism" Bulletin of the Deccan College
Post-Graduate and Research Institute, 1994-1995, 269-291.
of image making in general or of specific images. 3 These origin ac-
counts were designed to legitimate image worship; in some cases we

3
The Purānic māhātmyas, texts that deal with holy places in Hinduism, most often
talk about the geographical features of the site and less often about the images there.
The Visnudharmottara Purāna is unusual in including in its sections on iconometry and
iconography a discussion on the origins of image worship and a justification of image
worship (3.1; 3.108). This text tells us that the god agrees to take on the form of an
image, since in this age of declining virtue it is difficult for people to see god without
such a concrete aid. Nonetheless, since god has all of his desires fulfilled, he does not
need the worship and offerings of his devotee. Worship of images has its effects on
the devotee, whose mind is purified by the act of devotion. Other religious groups in
India also speculated on the purpose of devotion. The Jains discussed how worship of
the Jina, who was no longer in this world, having entered the state of moksa or
release, could benefit a devotee. In addition the Jina is described as free from passion
and free from all human emotion; how could such a being respond to a devotee's
offerings, be pleased or angered, show favour or otherwise? For the Jain discussions
see J o h n Cort,"The Rite of Veneration ofJina Images" in Donald S. Lopez, Religions
of India in Practice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995) 326-333. See also
M.A. Dhaky, " The Jina image and the Nirgrantha agamic and hymnic imagery" in
Anna Libera Dallapiccola, ed. Shastnc Traditions in Indian Arts (Stuttgart: Steiner
Verlag, 1989) 93-107. This article also discusses some of the early hymns to the Jina.
In this paper I will be considering later material, for example, Hemacandra's
V1tarāgast0tra, 19,3, ed. Chandraprabhasāgar (Sresthi Devacandra Lālbhāi Jaina
Pustakoddhära 95; Bhavnagar, 1949) and the Ceiavandananamahābhāsam of Sāntisūri,
vs 142ff (Bombay: Jinašāsana Ārādhana Trust, 1986). Texts that raise questions
about the legitimacy of image worship often ask the same questions, regardless of
religious affiliation. Thus both the Visnudharmottara and the two Jain texts ask how it
can be appropriate to worship a formless god in an image which gives him a physical
body (Ceiavandana 78ff; Visnudharmottara 3.46.1 ff). T h e Hindu text replies that
god has an embodied form, and the Jain text answers that while the Jina, having
achieved salvation, has no body, one represents him in the physical form he had at
the moment he achieved salvation as a reminder to the devotees of his accomplish-
ment. Hemacandra replies somewhat differently, arguing in chapters 6 and 7 that the
Jina does indeed have a body, although his body is totally different from our own
bodies. O n image worship in Hinduism see Joanne Waghorne and Norman Cutler,
ed. Gods of Flesh, Gods of Stone: The Embodiment of Divinity in India (Chambersburg:
Anima, 1985). See also my own essay, "Halâyudha's Prism: Temples and Worship in
Medieval North India", in V. Desai and D. Mason, Gods, Guardians, and Lovers: Temple
Sculptures from North India (New York: Asia Society, 1993) 66-97. The Jain
Ceiyavandanamahābhāsam also raises objections to the worship of images that are not
known to me from other sources. So, for example, an objection is raised to the
worship of multiple images of t h e j i n a s in a single temple, where in the natural order
of things one image would have to be worshipped before the others, thus causing an
insult to the other tīrthankaras (verses 34-43). Another unusual objection is that the
water used to bathe one tirthankara might fall on a second image; bath water is
considered highly polluting, containing as it does bodily dirt (vs 71-73). None of these
objections attacks the notion of being able to represent the Jina by means of his
image; rather, they assume that the Jina is adequately represented by the image and
that therefore these problems entailed by the worship constitute insults to the Jina
himself. I will comment again on the issue of the Jina's bath water as I conclude my
paper.
learn that god takes many bodies, the image being simply one more
body of a deity of potentially infinite manifestations. 111 other ac-
counts we learn of a pact between devotee and deity, in which the
deity agrees to reside in an image. T h e origin accounts of image
making agree in substance that images are real presences. These ac-
counts form the 'theological background' to the many miracle stories
told in all the Indian religious traditions about special images that
move, breathe, eat, and rescue devotees in danger or otherwise an-
swer their fervent prayers. 4
Beyond the specialized treatises on how to paint or sculpt with
their relatively restricted audience and the religious texts on holy
places and images, which were obviously written to promote image
worship, art works also entered into more general realms of literature.
Portraits, particularly of royalty, are an essential element of m a n y
Sanskrit dramas and some stories in the major secular story collec-
tions. Indeed without portraits there would be major gaps in plot
development for many of the romantic comedies in the corpus of
Sanskrit drama. 3

4
In several panels at the Association for Asian Studies, I explored with a group of
other scholars image miracles in several medieval Asian cultures. See my papers
"The Jina Bleeds: Threat to the Faith in Medieval Jain Stories", and "Divine Delica-
cies" Monks, Images and Miracles in the Contest Between Jainism and Budhdism",
in Richard Davis, ed., Images, Miracles and Authority in Asian Religious Traditions (Boulder,
C O : Westview Press, 1998) 55-94 and 121-14 Γ
5
Sylvain Lévi, Le Theatre Indien (Paris: College de France, 1963)168 gives a list of
Sanskrit dramas that he says all share the same basic plot: a king falls in love with a
princess, usually through her portrait. She is no ordinary princess, however; it has
been predicted that if the king should marry her he would become ruler of the entire
world (cakravartin). After much intrigue, the king succeeds in his romantic quest
despite the objections of his chief queen. Levi lists the following dramas as examples:
the Mālavikāgnimitra of Kā1idāsa, the Ratnāvali and Priyadaršikā of Sri Harsa; the
Karpūramanjarī of Rājašekhara; the Karriasundari of Bilhana, and the Viddhašālabhanjikā,
which is the subject of my present paper.
In addition to these dramas portraits figure in the story collection, the Kathāsaritsāgara.
(See C.H. Tawney, Ocean of Story, vol. IV (Delhi: Motilal, 1968 reprint) 132 and note)
A Jain reworking of the Kathāsaritsāgara story of Naravāhanadatta and the princess at
Karpurapura, the Citrasenapadmāvatīcarita by Buddhavijaya (Lahore: Jain Vidya
Bhavan, 1942), tells of a young prince who falls in love with a statue of a woman on
a pillar in a temple. We learn that the statue is a likeness of the princess Padmāvatī,
whom the prince will eventually meet and marry.
On literary references to portraits see Virginia Saunders, "Portrait Paintings as a
Dramatic Device in Sanskrit Plays "Journal of the American Oriental Society, 39 (1919)
299-302 cited in Rolf Weber, Porträts und Historische Darstellungen in der Miniaturen-
Sammlung des Museums fur Indische Kunst Baiin (Berlin: Museum für Indische Kunst,
1982) 15.
 T h e dramas and stories in which portraits appear concur that a
portrait is an exact likeness of an individual. Indeed it is essential to
the plot that the portrait be so close to the subject that after the hero
has seen a portrait of some w o m a n totally unknown to him, he has no
hesitation in recognizing the young lady when he finally meets her. 6

6
Despite the ample evidence of literature that portraits were representadons of
individuals not "types", it is clear that modern scholars are uncomfortable with
accepting this evidence as proof for the existence of realistic portraiture in pre-
Moghul India. Two factors seem to be involved; the first is the widespread interpre-
tation of Indian art since Kramrisch and Coomaraswamy as dealing with "inner
essences" or "spiritual essences" rather than external realities. The second is the lack
of sufficient extant examples of portraiture, painted or sculpted, that could support
the remarks made in Sanskrit literature. See Weber, Porträts und historische Darstellungen
in der Miniaturensammlung, 16-17 and 33-38. Weber has an interesting discussion on the
notion of likeness in Indian art, pp. 34-36. He concludes that verses taken from
various sources to argue for a concept of naturalism in Indian art have often been
taken out of context and applied uncritically to portraits, and he supports the stand-
ard interpretation of Indian art offered by Kramrisch and Coomaraswamy. He also
argues against accepting literary references as proof of the existence of realistic por-
traits because the actual descriptions of the portraits are themselves so stereotyped,
p. 36.
Juliane Anna Lia Molitor, Portraits in Sechs Fürstenstaaten Rajasthans vom 17. bis zum 20
Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag ,1985) chapter 1, relying heavily on
Coomaraswamy, also tries to argue that attention to physical characteristics is absent
in early portraiture. She cites a section of a play by Bhāsa, the Pratimānātaka, as
evidence for her views. I think in fact that the text says the opposite: that portraits,
even of the deceased, were recognizable likenesses. In Act III, Bharata, brother of the
exiled Rāma, returns to the capital city when he learns that his father, the king, is ill.
He stops by chance at a building, where four images are installed. In fact it is a shrine
to his ancestors and houses the likenesses of his father, who has just died, his grand-
father, great-grandfather and great-great grandfather. Bharata is at first confused as
to the nature of the place in which he finds himself; there is no flag outside, for
example, that would signal that the building is a temple. Nonetheless he assumes that
it is a temple and he enters expecting to find images of some gods. Right away he
realizes that there is something different about the images; while he marvels at the
workmanship of the images, he also notices that they seem remarkably human. T h e
temple priest now sees Bharata and he at once remarks to himself that the young
man looks exacdy like the statues (pratimānām a1pāntarākrtir iva). Already, I think,
we are given an indication that the statues are sufficiendy like the people they repre-
sent in individual details to allow the priest to recognize Bharata as somehow related
to them. T h e priest tells Bharata that these are not gods but kings; in fact they are the
rulers of Ayodhyä. Bharata asks eagerly the name of each king. But in the midst of
the priest's panegyrics, he looks at the statue of his father and becomes distressed and
agitated (paryäkulo bhūtvā). I think that this is Bharata's recognition of the statue,
which he finally looks at closely. He eventually asks the priest if they make statues of
the living or only of the dead. And thus it is that he learns that his father is dead.
(Pratimānātaka, edited Dr. V. Râghavan (Mylapore: Kuppuswāmišāstrî
Samīksāsamiti, 1977) 34-36). Molitor misses Bharata's visual engagement with the
 Even images of the gods were considered to be exact likenesses in
accounts told about making images. In one story preserved in a mod-
ern community of Hindu artisans in South India, we hear how the
god Siva wants his likeness captured, but he keeps appearing in differ-
ent guises, making the task extremely difficult for the artist. O n the
advice of the goddess Kā1ī, the artisan of the gods, Višvakarman, sets
up four mirrors, one at each of the cardinal points. Siva sees his
reflection and is satisfied. T h e best image in this story, the one most
pleasing to the god, is one that captures the god's likeness. 7 A related
Buddhist story tells us of a painter's dilemma; he is unable to capture
the likeness of the Buddha, who then solves the problem by allowing
his shadow to fall on the cloth. All that remains for the painter is to
color it in. 8 T h e J a i n tradition likewise acknowledges that the image
of the J i n a represents him as he was. In a long discussion about the
validity of image worship, the question is raised as to how the J i n a
can be represented in a body when he has achieved liberation and
thus no longer exists in an embodied state. T h e reply is given that the
J i n a is represented in the bodily form that he possessed at the mo-
ment of his liberation. This is done so that worshipers may remember
the J i n a . Here too it is important to note that according to the tradi-
tion, the image is not an abstract symbol, but an exact physical like-
- 9
ness.
Dramas and stories, in addition to telling us that portraits were
made which were taken to be recognizable likenesses of their subject,
give us a glimpse of the uses to which some of these portraits were
put; most often in the dramas portraits are exchanged in an effort to
arrange marriages, and when the subjects are absent portraits may

statue and moment of recogniztion and reads the text to say that Bharata had to be
told the statue was of his father. She further then concluded that the image was not
at all a likeness. In fact I think the actual text tells us in dramadc fashion that the
image was a likeness and that Bharata recognized his father but could not accept
fully the implications of what he was seeing.
I find the evidence of the literature difficult to explain away so easily. In any case
in this paper I shall be exploring how the dramatist as philosopher could play with
the assumption that a portrait was indeed a recognizable likeness of an individual. I
can only conclude that even if there were no such portraits created, they were
certainly conceived in this way by the literary imagination.
' Jan Brouwer, The Makers of the World; Craft and Mind of South Indian Artisans (Delhi:
Oxford University Press 1995) 144.
s
I have discussed this story in my paper, "Divine Delicacies", cited above.
9
See the Ceiavandanamahābhāsam of Siri Samtisūri, vs. 81, cited above.
even stand in for them in a perfecdy valid marriage ceremony. 1 0 In
addition we find mention m a d e of portrait statues of deceased ances-
tors, particularly images of previous kings. 11 O n e of the earliest ac-
counts of the ritual treatment of a portrait statue is the story in the
Mahābhārata, ādipawan, of the young tribal hunter Ekalavya. Ekalavya
had asked the archery master D r o n a to accept him as a student, but
D r o n a refused, because Ekalavya was of too low a caste. U n d a u n t e d ,

10
In the Svapnavāsvadattā of Bhāsa, we hear how the parents of Vāsavadattā had
carried out a marriage ceremony between the portraits of Udayana and Vāsavadattā,
who had already run off together (p. 131 in the edidon of Ganapatišāstrī,
Trivandrum, 1916). T h e same motif appears in a Buddhist story, the Manicūdāvadāna.
See Ratna Handurakande, Manicūdāvadāna (London: Luzac and Company Ltd,
1967) xxxvii. O n the use of a portrait image as a substitute in rituals see my paper,
"Divine Delicacies", cited earlier. See also T . G . Aravamuthan, South Indian Portraits
(London, 1930). O n the use of portraits in marriage negotiations see C. Sivara-
mamurti, The Painter in Ancient India (New Delhi: Abhinav Publications, 1978) 15-18
and Rolf Weber, cited above. T h e ritual use of portaiture is a significant topic for
investigation in its own right; behind it lies the belief that the portrait somehow is the
subject or shares in its vital essence. Stories told of the origin of the first painting of
the Buddha, in which the portrait is quite literally the Buddha's chāyā or shadow, give
evidence of this belief. See my paper, "Divine Delicacies". Chāyā is only one of
several words used for portrait, and in the case of the story of the painting of the
Buddha it seems clear that it retains much of its original connotation. O n shadows as
somehow the essence of the person, see A. Keith, The Religion and Philosophy of the Vedas
and Upanisads (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925) 404.
11
T h e Pratimānātaka of Bhāsa mentions a shrine with statues of deceased kings (see
note 6). T h e connection between image making and funerary practices is a compli-
cated one. I have argued that the origin stories of image making i n j a i n i s m suggest
that the first J i n a images were funerary statues. See my article, "Worship as Com-
memoration: Pilgrimage, Death and Dying in Medieval Jainism" in Bulletin d'Etudes
Indiennes 10 (1992) 181-202. T o the evidence I adduced there might be added the
story told of the first painting in the Citralaksana of Nagnajit (p. 63-72). A Brahmin
whose son has died comes lamenting to the king. T h e king tries to force the god of
death to return the dead boy, but after a fierce battie he is still unsuccessful. Finally
the gods intervene. Brahmā tells the king to paint a likeness of the boy; Brahmā then
infuses it with life and the boy is resurrected. Curiously, this corresponds closely with
a custom among Orissan folk painters, who paint a likeness of a dead individual
leaving out the eyes. They ask the family to give a donation so that they can enliven
the painting and the dead soul can be released. See D. P. Ghosh, Medieval Indian
Painting Eastern School (Delhi: Sandeep Publishers, 1982) 92ff. T h e Buddhist
Pratimālaksana edited by G0pínātha Kavirāj (Princess of Wales Sarasvati Bhavana
Sanskrit Series 48; Benaras: 1933) traces the origin of the Buddha image to a question
by the disciples as to what they will do when the Buddha is away or after he dies
(pp. 1-2). For a similar story from texts in Sri Lanka see Richard F. Gombrich,
"Kosala-Bimba V a n n a n ā " , in Heinz Becher, ed. Buddhism in Ceylon and Studies in
Religious Syncretism in Buddhist Countries (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Rupert, 1978)
281-304.
Ekalaya made a clay portrait statue of D r o n a and fervently wor-
shipped it as his teacher. By worshipping the statue he attained the
skill in archery that he sought. (1. 123. 12-14).
All of the topics I have briefly mentioned here, arguments for and
against image worship; the question of portraiture as recognizable
likeness or general type; the ritual use of portraits, and accounts of the
origin of image making, have been the topic of scholarly discussion
and could well serve as a focal point for continued study. But here I
should like to pursue a particular issue that arises from the notion of
a portrait as an exact likeness that we see in some religious texts and
that lies behind the role assigned to portraits in the Sanskrit drama.
This is the larger question of what the possibility of exact representa-
tion in art implies about the relationship between art and reality and
the very nature of "reality". While scholars have noted the impor-
tance of portraits in Sanskrit plays as plot devices, there has been little
if any attention given to the fact that some Sanskrit dramas used the
possibility of representational art as a starting point for a philosophi-
cal discussion on the very nature of art and reality. In these Sanskrit
dramas the portrait is far more than simply an exact likeness of an
unique individual a n d / o r a device that moves along the sequence of
events that culminates in the hero's marriage to the heroine. A por-
trait becomes a means through which we come to realize certain
fundamental truths about the nature of existence. T h e painted or
sculpted likeness is used by the author of the d r a m a to make a pro-
found statement about the status of the visible world and the relation-
ship of each and everyone of us to one another and to the world
around us. O n e author, Rājašekhara, does this masterfully in his
d r a m a the V1ddhcáālabhafijikā.12 Rājašekhara toys with many of the

12
Sylvain Lévi, Le Theatre Indien, p. 228 dates Rājašekhara between the 8th to the
10th century A.D. Others would place him in the 9th or early 10th century A.D. His
famous treatise on poedcs, the Kāvyamīmārnsā, is edited in the Gaekwad's Oriental
Series 1, (Baroda 1934 )and was translated into French by Nadine Stchoupak and
Louis Renou (Paris: Société Asiatique, 1950). Recently H.J. Tieken has written on
the text, "Style and structure of Räjasekhara's Kāvyamīmāmsā with special reference to
chapter X on the relation between king and poet" in A.W. van den Hoek, D.H.A.
Kolffand M.S. Oort, eds. Ritual, State and History in South Asia: Essays in Honour of J.C.
Heesterman (Leiden: E.J . Brill, 1992) 366-375. T h e Viddhašālabhanjikā has been edited
several times. My page references are to the edition with commentary by Nārāya-
nadīksita (Chowkhambha Prācya Vidyā Granthamā1a 6; Benaras: 1976). I have also
made use of the commentaries of Sundarī and Kamalä, ed. Jatindra Bimal
Chaudhuri, in The Contribution of Women to Sanskrit Literature (Calcutta Oriental Series
30; Calcutta: 1943). The play was translated into English in the Journal of the American
Oriental Society, 27, 1-71. I have not seen the translation.
conventions of the Sanskrit romance and combines them in this play
to make us ask some complicated questions about what is real and
what is illusion.
In romantic dramas the hero often first encounters the heroine in
a setting tinged with varying degrees of unreality. T h u s in the
Karpūramanjarì, a Prakrit d r a m a by Rājašekhara, the king and queen
are enjoying the spring when a magician appears on the scene and
offers to display his skills. H e makes a girl appear, and she is so
beautiful that the king immediately falls in love with her. Eventually,
the king will marry her. 1 5 In Bilhana's Karnasundarī, the king sees a
beautiful girl and at once remembers that she is the very w o m a n he
had dreamt of. H e then also sees her picture on a wall. Eventually
this king, too, will marry his dream girl. 14 In a well-known story from
the mythological texts that also became the subject of dramas, a
young girl, U s ā , \ longs for a husband. T h e goddess Pārvatī tells her
that the m a n who comes and rapes her in her dream will be her
husband. Usā has her d r e a m and then picks out the rapist from a
group of painted portraits. Eventually she finds him and marries
him. 1 5 In the CitrasenapadmāvatīcaHta, a J a i n reworking of a famous
story, a young m a n falls in love with a statue in a temple and seeks
out the w o m a n of w h o m it is a likeness. O t h e r story characters, too,
fall in love with statues. In an account told in the Bhavisyapurāna of the
famous king Prthivírāja, we hear how the king, unable or unwilling to
attend the marriage choice of a princess, had his minister make a gold
likeness of the king. T h e princess rejects all the living suitors who are
present in the marriage assembly and chooses the m a n whose likeness
she sees (Bhavisya 3. 3. 6).
T h e Viddhašālabhanjikā combines all of these motifs: the king will
see the princess Mrgānkāva1ī in what he thinks is a dream; he sees her
painted portrait and her sculpted likeness, and he even sees her from
behind a crystal wall. I would like to argue that in combining as he
does all of these encounters of varying degrees of access to a 'real'

13
The text is edited in the Harvard Oriental Series, vol. IV, by Sten Konow and
translated by Charles Lanman (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1963, reissue).
14
The text is edited by Durgāprasād and Kāšînātha Sarma (Kāvyamā1ā Series 7;
Bombay: Nirnaya Sāgara Press, 1932).
15
T h e story of Usā was told in a number of purānas. O n e of its earliest versions is
in the Harivamša, 107ff. The story was extremely popular and continued to be told
and retold in India. There is even an 18th century Assamese version, the
Kāmakumāraharana of Kavichandra Dvija, edited by Satyendranath Sarma (Jorhat:
Assam Sahitya Sabha, 1962). Wendy Doniger studied the story in her Dreams, Illusions
and Other Realities (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987) 66ff. She gives several purānic
sources which retell the story.
princess, the poet asks us to stop and question their meaning. It is no
longer sufficient for us to nod in familiarity when we hear of the
dream encounter or the king's seeing the princess' portrait. T h e
dream, the portrait are no longer simple plot devices; indeed there
are far too m a n y such encounters for them to advance the plot. T o
the contrary, in their sheer n u m b e r they slow down the course of
action and ask us to refocus our attention, away from the movement
of the plot and onto these encounters themselves.
In this paper, then, I want to look at the Vìddhašālabhanjikā and
what it can tell us of a medieval Indian intellectual's attitudes towards
representation in art. I shall argue that in his conclusion to the play
Rājašekhara asks us to revise the common-sense understanding of
reality and art, in which art may well imitate life, but where we still
recognize that the living prototype is in some way different from the
imitation.' 6 I will further suggest that with the Viddhašālabhanjikā
Rājašekhara belongs to a way of thinking about art and reality in
medieval India that was not represented in books on how to draw or
sculpt or in miracle stories and accounts of famous images and holy
places. Such thinking belonged more properly to the philosopher,
who sought in the unusual power of representational art as a whole a
way to understand the workings of the universe and our relationship
to some ultimate principle. It is important to note that the philoso-
pher did not seek his understanding by contemplating any single
object of art; I do not mean to imply in this paper as many scholars
have done that in Indian art the single art object was necessarily
intended for contemplation or for mediation upon some religious
truth. Nor would I agree with the traditional scholarly interpretation
in which the artist himself is envisioned as also in part a philosopher,
who sought in his art to capture some underlying metaphysical es-
sence behind the p h e n o m e n o n he depicted, rather than someone who
strove primarily to create a likeness of a given subject. 1 ‫ י‬T h e texts on
art objects, on image making and on image miracles, give in fact a

16
Sylvain Lévi, Le Theatre Indien, judged the Viddhašālabhanjikā harshly. He found
the characters in the play stereotyped and completely lacking in interest, and the
plot, full of absurdities and poorly integrated in its various sub-episodes (pp. 247-
248). My own opinion of the play is completely different; I find it a delightful and
brilliant exploradon into the nature of art and reality, and that it needs to be read as
a skillful manipulation of the conventions of the Sanskrit drama and not as a hack-
neyed example of the genre.
‫ ' י‬As noted above, much of the discussion on Indian art from Coomaraswamy and
Kramrisch to the present time has seen in Indian art an attempt to capture ideals and
essences. This scholarship, I believe, has ignored too much of what medieval Indian
authors have had to say about images of deities as concrete and real presences, and
very different impression. In those texts images are not symbols of
gods or some ultimate principles, but gods themselves, or at least the
physical bodies of the gods which the god can be enticed to inhabit.
In turning in this paper to plays and philosophy texts as my pri-
mary source material, I hope to suggest the possibilty that such meta-
physical speculation about the nature of art and reality was primarily
done outside the usual texts that dealt with art or with images and
their worship, and outside the texts that were manuals for artists. I
would further argue that such speculation, ocurring in the realm of
literary or philosophical texts, might in fact have had little to do with

the many appearances in literature of portraits that are individualized likenesses and
not types. See Gregory Schopen, " The Buddha as Owner of Property and Perma-
nent resident in Medieval Indian Monasteries Journal of Indian Philosophy, 18 (1990)
181-219. A text on image making in Buddhism, the Buddhapratimālaksana cited earlier,
really proves Schopen's point, for the text says that images are the rūpa kāya of the
Buddha, that is, they are equivalent to his physical body and not a higher spiritual
reality often called the dharma kāya. The origin stories of images in the Hindu purānas
make the same point. Consider for example the most often used story for the origin
of the Siva linga, in which it is the god's own penis that falls to the earth as the phallic
object of worship.
Just how problematic the "symbolic" understanding of Indian art can become is
clear from even a cursory examination of a major study on iconography, Priyabala
Shah's pioneering work on the Visnudharmottara Purāna (Gaekwad's Oriental Series.
137; Baroda, 1961). In summarizing the chapters that deal with the gods and their
attributes, Shah frequendy introduces such words as "symbolizes" or "represents"
when talking about a god's attributes. In fact the text never uses such words; the text
states that the particular attribute in question is a particular entity in the physical
world. Thus Shah on chapter 52 (p. 146) says that the conch "represents riches and
the noose represents the bondage of the world". The text simply says "Know the
conch to be wealth and the noose to be the bonds of samsāra" (52.14). Again, she
says that Yama's buffalo "represents the unconsciousness of men at the time of death
and staff represents the unfailing death" (p. 148 on chapter 51). Again, the text
simply says "Yama carries in his hand inevitable death" (11) and "His buffalo is to be
known as the confusion that is death". There is an interesting verse that is repeated
at the end of these chapters on the gods: etaddhi tasyäpratimasya rüpam taventam
sarvajaganmayasya/ evamiarìrena jagat samagram sa dhārayatyeva jagatpradhānah (46.19;
47.18; 48.20. "I have told you the form o f t h a t one who is without comparison; he is
made of the entire universe and with this body, that one, who is the chief in the
universe, bears (or carries) the entire universe." T o this text, then, the parts of the
universe form the body and the attributes of god. God's limbs and the objects he
holds are not symbols or representations of elements in the world; they are those
things direcdy. Shah is inconsistent in her handling of these iconography chapters,
sometimes allowing for the equations the text makes and at other times adding
"represents" or "symbolizes".
There have been attempts to redress the balance and move away from
Coomaraswamy's vision of Indian art. See for example Niharranjan Ray, An Approach
to Indian Art (Chandigarh: Punjab University, 1974) and U.P. Shah's review in the
Journal of the Indian Society of Oriental Art, New Series, VIII, 89. Unfortunately they
seem to have had less influence than Coomaraswamy's writings on recent scholars.
how the ordinary worshipper or artist was schooled to confront an
image. T h e concerns of artist and worshipper were addressed in other
ways, in the technical treatises and the purānic texts and stories of
holy sites and special images. T h e dramatist and philosopher could
have their own way of appreciating art, in which they addressed the
larger question of how art relates to reality and what the nature of
representation in art might be.
My quest to study this issue begins in this paper with a considéra-
tion of the Viddhasālabhanjikä, in section II. This is followed by a
discussion of one of the images employed by the dramatist
Rājašekhara to describe the relationship between art and reality, the
relief sculpture. T h u s in section III I explore possible meanings of the
relief sculpture in some related literature, particularly the philosophi-
cal text, the Togaväsistha. In section IV I deal with another striking
image from the Viddhašâlabhanjikä, the reflection on the crystal wall.
Drawing primarily on Buddhist and J a i n texts, with some references
to medieval Hindu material, in this section I discuss medieval Indian
speculation on the body of god as somehow either a reflection or like
a reflection. I examine in this section what such fairly widespread
speculation in a range of religious texts might conceivably tell us
about Räjasekhara's understanding of the relationship between art
and reality in his play. I turn now to the Viddhašālabhanjikä.

Il A dramatist looks at art: Räjasekhara's Viddhašālabhanjikā

T h e plot of the Viddhašālabhanjikä is full of complicated twists and
turns. T h e hero of the play is the king Vidyādharama11a, who already
has a chief queen, Madanāvatr, who is of some independence of
mind. As the play opens we learn that the king's minister is scheming
to get the king married to someone else, a princess n a m e d
Mrgānkāva1f, who is in fact a cousin to the queen. This is all standard
fare for the Sanskrit drama, but the first complication in the plot is
somewhat more unusual. Mrgānkāva1ī, it seems, is the only child of
her parents, and in the absence of a son she has been raised as a boy
and dressed in boy's clothes. As the play opens she is serving at king
Vidyädharamalla's court, where she has been sent as a hostage on her
father's failure to pay the tribute he owed king Vidyādharama11a.
This is our first indication that "reality" is not all that it seems: the
boy at the court is really a girl.
O u r next suspicion is soon aroused when we hear the king tell how
he has had a dream in which a lovely young lady placed a garland
around his neck. W h e n he awoke, the girl was gone, but he had the
garland as tangible evidence of her presence. While in certain
religious texts dreams could leave physical traces and a dream could
be considered as valid an experience as a waking encounter, dramas
normally contrast dreams with the waking state. T h u s King Vidyād-
haramalla asks,
Was this a dream or did I really see her? Or was it some other form of
knowledge partaking of the nature of both dream and waking cognition?
Surely that could explain why I no longer see that lovely woman with
long, darting eyes, and yet this garland clings to my neck.21.
In a similar vein, a king who actually sees an extremely beautiful
w o m a n in the flesh may wonder if what he has seen is a dream. T h u s
another king in another play, the Karnasundan, marvels:
Was it a dream or some display of magic or some other wonder that I
saw this fawn-eyed lady, her body rippling with waves of beauty? Truly
she must be the unique creation of someone skilled in making beautiful
forms, for she cannot in any way be compared to those things to which
we usually compare a beautiful woman, not to a lotus, not to moonlight,
nor to a lotus stalk. [31]
Both of these kings are confused, however, because they naturally
assume that there should be a clear demarcation between waking
experience and dreams, or waking experience and displays of magic.
Later on in the Viddhašālabhanjikä, Act III, we will learn that at least in
the case of King Vidyādharama11a there is a natural explanation for
his confusion. As part of the plot to get the king married to
Mrgānkāva1f one of her friends has told her to worship the G o d of
Love for a good husband. She is led to the sleeping king and mistakes
the handsome mortal for the G o d of Love himself; indeed I think it is
also possible to understand the passage as saying that she mistook the
king for an image of the God of Love. 1 9 T h u s the theme of mistaken
identity and confusion of levels of reality is continued: if Mrgānkāva1i
really threw the garland on the king and the king only thought he was

111
O n the dream as religious experience see my paper, "Longing for the Lord:
Dreams in the Lives of Bengali Vaisnava Devotees", Anandam 3 (1998) 10-33.
19
The text of the V1ddhašālabhanj1kā is potentially ambiguous here; Mrgānkāva1ī's
friend tells her that the God of Love is present in the sleeping chamber. The verb
used is avatarati and can be said of a god who comes down to the world of mortals as
a mortal; it is also said of a god who resides more or less permanently in a place. I
have chosen the second interpretation on the grounds that the verb is in the present
tense, implying that the god is there throughout a period of time, in much the same
way it is said of the Buddha in the vinayas that he dwells in a given place, viharati,
meaning that there is an image of the Buddha at that place (see my paper, "Divine
Delicacies1', cited earlier). Hindu texts also speak of the origins of an image as an
avatāra, which implies that the god comes into the mortal world in that form. If we
dreaming, Mrgānkāva1í also mistook the living king for an image, a
statue of the G o d of Love. From the very beginning of the play, then,
everything is mixed up with everything else. A young girl is at the
court disguised as a boy; the king thinks he dreams when he is awake;
the young girl mistakes a mortal for a god. T h e r e is gender confusion,
confusion of levels of experience, dreaming and waking, and confu-
sion between art and life, the king and a statue of the God of Love.
These various confusions only increase as the play unfolds, making
them the real theme of the play and not any of the actions which they
set in motion.
T h e king next catches a fleeting glimpse of the young girl's face as
she is swinging on a swing in the distance. H e is not quite sure,
however, of the veracity of his perception for two reasons. First, he
falls into doubt, for he is not sure if what he has seen is a h u m a n face,
as beautiful as the moon, or the moon itself. He tells his companion,
the court jester or fool,
Cast your eyes on the wall over there. Think for a moment. What can
that be, a moon without the stain of a deer on its surface and arising like
this at the wrong time, at day instead of night? And yet see how the
Cakora birds that love moon beams follow it to drink its nectar, and how
it casts a pure light, as white as the lush Lavali creeper. [31]
T h e king explains in this verse the source of his doubt. T h e object
acts like the moon, spreading white light, and pleasing the Cakora

understand the passage in the Viddhašālabhanjikā to be speaking of the presence of the

God of Love as an image, then the incident could also be read as an example of
Räjasekhara's skillful transformation of some of the conventions of Sanskrit poetry
and the drama. It is instructive to compare Mrgâiikâvalî's mistake with Sāgārikā's
first encounter with her king in Sri Harsa's play, the Ratnāvali, act I, Bombay, 1918,
p.44. T h e setting in the Ratnāvali is the spring fesdval, and the chief queen, having
offered worship to the God of Love now worships the king. Sāgārikā watches from
behind a bush. She says to herself, "Oh, what an unusual God of Love I see. In my
father's harem we worshipped a painting of the God of Love. Here he is in person!"
If Sāgarikā thinks the king to be the God of Love, she does nonetheless recognize that
he is not a painting! Perhaps the fact that Sri Harsa makes clear the distinction
between the mortal mistaken for a god and the painting, while Räjasekhara's text is
at best ambiguous, is a sufficient indication that Rājašekhara is trying to say some-
thing different here. I was reminded of this incident in the Ratnāvali by David
Shulman's paper, "Embracing the Subject: Harsa's Play within a Play", Journal of
Indian Philosophy 25,1 (1997) 69-89. Shulman's paper is an exciting reading of the
Ratnāvali as a study in selfhood and how the dramatist uses the motifs of impersona-
tion and confusion of identity to dissolve boundaries of the self and explore subjectiv-
ity.
birds, who in Sanskrit poetry drink the drops of nectar that fall from
the moon beams. At the same time this is not the m o m e n t for the
moon to rise; as the verse says it is anavakāša, the improper occasion,
which I have translated to mean that it is day and not night. Finally,
in Sanskrit lore the dark markings on the moon are considered to be
a deer that lives on the moon, and yet this object is totally unblem-
ished. T h e object is both like and unlike the moon.
T h e king then concludes that what he has seen is not the moon but
a h u m a n face:
What can it be? I know—
It must be the face of some woman, a face that is as beautiful as the
moon, gliding in and out of view as she playfully swings. For I can hear
the pleasant jingling of the jewels on a woman's girdle, and see the bees
that gather, drawn to the sweetness of her fragrant breath. I hear singing,
too, and the jangling of jewelry in motion. [32]
But when the king thus finally concludes for himself that he has seen
a young woman's face, he is really no more certain about the reality
of the w o m a n whose face he thinks he has seen. H e moves from
doubt, is it a moon or the face of a beautiful woman, to the question,
was the whole thing from beginning to end just an illusion, an error,
an invalid perception. This is because his companion, the fool, cannot
see anything at all. T h e fool looks and looks but sees only the tips of
the two poles of the swing. 20
W e have moved thus far in Act I from a dream that was not quite
a dream to a perception that may well be an error. T h e problem is
never entirely resolved; the fool does finally see the "moon", but
he remains unconvinced that what they have seen has anything to do
with the king's dream girl. W h e n the king suggests that "its efilulgent
beauty and charm are consistent with (their belonging to) the
lotus-like face of the dream-girl" svapnadrstajanamukhapadmasamvādinī
lāvanyalaksmīh (p. 31), the fool asks for further clarification. W h e n the
king in a burst of poetic enthusiasm says that it is "a luster such as is
possessed by the white reeds in full ripeness", the fool mutters that
young elephants also have tusks of which one could say the same. I
take this to mean that the king has not yet proved his point, namely

20
I am taking the phrase kinnu kkhu edam sacccakam tue jānidam as one unit and as a
question, "Are you sure you've really seen something?" The answer follows, "The
only thing I can see from here are the tops of the two poles of the swing." My text
seems to me to be faulty here, breaking the phrase after edam. T h e Sanskrit gloss also
seems to me wrong, taking the verb as a singular and the plural nominative as a
locative singular. The commentary of Narāyana Dīksita seems to me correct.
that he has seen the girl of his dreams. All he has seen is some white
object; if not the moon, well, then who knows what? Doubt, error or
true perception? T h e questions remain open.
T h e next encounter is with the girl's painted likeness. T h e fool is
pointing out to the king paintings of the king and queen and some of
their servants. T h e king stops him and points out the fool's portrait, at
which the fool becomes irate, and yells that clearly the painter did not
know what the fool looked like. T h e fool offers that his own wife
knows him well, and she says he is the G o d of Love incarnate. T h e
king's reply is quick; the fool is a god, alright, but not the G o d of
Love. H e is one of Siva's crippled servants, all bent over and ugly.
This passage tells us an important fact about these portraits, that I
have suggested earlier is true of portraits in general in Sanskrit dra-
mas, namely that they are recognizable likenesses of the subjects. And
at least in the case of the fool, they are clearly not idealized.
T h e fool changes the subject, pointing out an extremely beautiful
w o m a n in the picture, unique in her beauty. H e uses the word
"apūrua", which can mean both unique and someone or something
"never seen before". T h e king recognizes the w o m a n as the w o m a n
of his dream and replies that indeed he has seen her before. T h e fool
stops to ponder who this young girl might be and decides that it is the
young m a n sent as hostage to the court (namely Mrgānkāva1ī dis-
guised as a boy), w h o m the queen likes to dress as a girl! Now we
have several reversals of reality: Mrgānkāva1f had been brought up as
a boy by her father and sent to the court as a boy. T h e queen thinks
she is disguising this young man's identity and the fool thinks so too,
when really the disguise is the reality. T h e king makes a further
unusual conclusion about the painting; he sees in its technique a clue
to the identity of the painter (verse 35). H e concludes that some
beautiful w o m a n has painted her own likeness. T h e fool agrees, for-
getting that he had decided this was a m a n disguised as a woman; he
cites a popular saying to the effect that the style and form of a paint-
ing reveal the painter just as the way in which a poem is written
reveals the poet.
In this episode Rājašekhara takes us beyond the simple identifica-
tion of the heroine from her portrait that is the stock-in-trade of these
plays. T h e king not only recognizes the w o m a n in the painting as the
w o m a n in his dream; he also understands many other things about
her. H e understands that she is the painter of the portrait, that she is
in actuality a w o m a n (not a boy disguised as a w o m a n as the fool
thinks), and from the way that she is dressed, that she is a virgin. T h e
king's most startiing conclusion is the one I have given first in this list:
the identity of the portrait's subject with the artist. As the king tells us,
 How remarkable it is that in the case of this painting the painted form
should correspond so closely with the actual appearance of the person
who has painted it. I can tell that this is the work of a woman by the way
in which a single line has been employed. [35]
And so it is that I am certain that some young woman, a banner of
victory for the God of Love, has painted her self-portrait.
T h e king seems to conclude from the style of the painting that the
artist is a w o m a n and then he seems to j u m p to the conclusion that
the portrait is a self-portrait. T h a t j u m p , I believe, gives us an impor-
tant clue to understanding Râjasekhara's intention in this play. It
seems to be an intuition on the part of the king, and we will learn
later that his hunch was right. I think that it radically shifts the focus
of the drama. Rājašekhara here deviates from the conventions of
other Sanskrit dramas, in which the hero's seeing the portrait, falling
in love with the likeness and then later picking out the real girl and
marrying her are the dominant plot events. In those other dramas it
is taken for granted that the identity is between painted likeness and
subject; the artist is absent and irrelevant. Rājašekhara adds a new
variable to the equation by introducing the artist. As we move
through the play, from dreams to portraits, to doubtful perceptions
and possible errors, searching for the true object, we have suddenly
been alerted to a new possibility: the real object is the creator and not
the created manifestation. T h e created manifestation corresponds in
its form (and essence) to the creator. I shall return to this again in my
discussion of the philosophy behind the V1ddhaíālabhanj1kā.
T h e play proceeds. T h e king sees yet another portrait of the queen
and the young girl in her retinue. Almost immediately after the king
and fool have seen these two portraits, they see a statue in relief on a
pillar that is clearly of the same woman. This leads the king to con-
elude that the girl really exists somewhere in the world:
After all there was no one who could have been a witness to my dream,
and if she was nothing more than a figment of some artist's imagination,
then how could I have even dreamt of her? No, I think she must truly
exist with her eyes so beautiful that they put to shame the lotus, and it is
because the sculptor has captured their likeness that these long eyes have
been sculpted here. [39]21
In this verse the king asserts the corporeal reality of the young girl he
has seen in various stages of unreality: a dream, a fleeting glimpse
that was possibly an error, two paintings (one of which he is certain is

21
This is a somewhat free rendering of the verse, but I hope that it has captured
the meaning. Sundarl in her commentary refers to a verse in Kâlidâsa's Sakunlalā,
verse 2.9 with a variant reading. 111 the verse in Kā1idāsa, the king is so overcome by
a self-portrait) and now a sculpture. T h e verse also asks us to read the
play not only as the hero's search for a beautiful woman, but as a
man's struggle to understand what is real in this world. If we look
carefully at this sequence, we seem to have before us a catalogue of
items ripe for epistemological inquiry. T h e dream for many Indian
philosophers is the paradigmatic unreal; only slightly less unreal, per-
haps, is perceptual error, which at least grasps the here and now even
if it mistakenly identifies it as something it is not. Paintings in the
world of these plays are somewhat more real; they capture a real
person and are exact likenesses, and as we noted above, they can
even serve as ritual substitutes for a bride and groom in a marriage,
for example. But here, I think, the possibility is raised that an artist
may paint entirely from imagination; the king decides that cannot be
the case with the paintings of his dream-girl, since a subject that was
totally imagined by one person should not be accessible to another,
even in his dreams! As we move to the sculpture we begin to enter a
more solid world of concrete forms. Sculptures are three dimensional
and even more fleshy than paintings; ultimately it is seeing the sculp-
ture that leads the king to his conclusion that there exists a flesh and
blood object of which the sculpture is a likeness. But Rājašekhara
does not want us to stop with this easy conclusion. T h e play must go
on with further errors and confusions that cast into doubt the king's
present hasty assumption that there is a physical reality and there is
an unreality with clearly demarcated boundaries between them.
Next the fool points out another painting of the young woman.
But he then catches himself and says he has been deceived by seeing
so many reflections of the moon- this is the real moon itself! T h e king
is overjoyed and sees the world as made up of nothing but his be-
loved:
Here she is in person, this young girl with such a charming figure. And
here and there are her painted portraits. And look how lovely is that
sculpture of her. It is as if she divided her body into four parts, the better

Sakuntalâ's beauty that he speculates she cannot possibly be an ordinary flesh and
blood creation.
citre nivešya parika1pitasattvay0gā
rüpoccayena manasā vidhinā krtā nu
strīratnasrstir aparā pratibhāti sā me
dhātur vibhutvam anucintya vapušaca tasyāh//
"I think this jewel of a woman must have been created in some unique way, such is
her beauty and such do I imagine the powers of the creator to be. Perhaps he made
her as a painting into which he infused life, or as a purely mental image into which
he infused corporeality."
 to bear the pain caused by the arrows of the God of Love! [42]
Come, let us approach her and gladden our ears with some sweet talk!
But when they approach they bang into a solid surface. T h e y have
been looking at the girl through the intermediary of a shiny crystal
wall. O n e commentary explains that what they are seeing is her re-
flection. 22 T h e r e is still no tangible verification by correct and direct
perception of the girl herself. But I think we need to pause again for
a m o m e n t and see what the king is suggesting about his dream girl
who, he feels certain, is also real, for the verse seems to me to be more
than just a poetic conceit when it says that the girl seems to have
divided herself into m a n y forms in order to make the suffering of
love's pangs lighter. If we combine the king's suggestions thus far we
have the possibility that the real girl is at once the author of her
portraits and capable of manifesting herself in multiple forms. We
shall see when we come to analyze the philosophy that might have
been behind this play that this notion of a single creator capable of
producing multiple forms that really do not differ from it in essence
forms the core of a distinctive school of philosophical thinking in
medieval India.
W e also need, I think, to consider various possible functions of the
crystal wall. Here I consider only one, to return to another below in
section IV. Reflecting surfaces and reflections are important in Indian
philosophical discussions. In classical Vedānta, the mind and the seat
of our notion of personal identity form a reflecting surface which
picks u p the reflection of the soul, thus causing us to think that our
personal self, which we identify with the pronoun, "I", is in fact a
conscious entity and our real self. 23 In standard discussions of error in

22
See the Camatkāratarai1ginī of Sundarî (Calcutta Oriental Series 30; Calcutta,
1943) 72, suvyaktayā samyakpratiphalatayā. The question of whether they see her reflec-
tion or see through the transparent wall is not particularly important yet, but I will
assume later, on the strength of the commentary and other stories of a person in a
crystal house reflected on its walls, that the king and fool here do see her reflection.
There are a number of examples from Sanskrit court poetry in which a lover sees the
inaccessible object of love reflected on a crystal wall. See for one example the Campū
Bharata of Anantakavi, chapter 1, verse 9, in which young women, who have scorned
their lover, see him as he retreats from them reflected in a jewelled wall. They
mistakenly think that he is coming towards them and so no longer feel any regret for
having spurned him. The text is edited by Nārāyana Rāma Ācārya (Bombay:
Nirnaya Sāgara Press, 1950). For the possibility of seeing through glass or crystal see
the Prakaranapancikā of Sā1ikanātha Mišra, edited Pt. A. Subrahmanya Sastri
(Banaras: Banaras Hindu University, 1961) 4.55.
23
A good discussion is to be found in Sankara's Upadešasāhasrì, translated by
Sengaku Mayeda, A Thousand Teachings (Toyko: University of Tokyo Press, 1979). See
the introduction for an overview of Sankara's thought.
Indian philosophy, a chunk of crystal is used as the prime example of
a substance that is often mistaken for something else. T h e crystal
picks up reflections of colour around it and so when a crystal is placed
next to a flower we mistakenly perceive that the crystal is red, when
the redness properly belongs to the flower and not to the crystal. But
perhaps the most intriguing parallel to Räjasekhara's vision of the girl
behind the crystal wall is in a poetic rendering of the Vedānta done
by a late medieval Gujarati poet, Akhā, of the mid 17th century. In
his Gītā, Akhā gives the example of a glass pavilion [kācamandirá) to
teach one of the basic principles of Vedānta, namely that it is an
illusion to make any distinction between the ultimate reality and our-
selves (and anything else in the universe). Akhā describes how when
the sun shines on the glass pavilion it glitters with every color, blue,
yellow, white and black. Akhā then explains that the glass pavilion is
the power of illusion; we see things through that power of illusion and
take what we see to be real. T h e true soul, the ultimate reality, is the
sun that shines above this crystal pavilion of illusion. 24 I would like to
use Akhä's crystal palace as a hint to try to understand the scene in
the Viddhašālabhanjikā. T h e king, it is to be recalled, has just decided
that the girl must be real; that is, that she must exist in the physical
world, outside his own mind (the dream), and indeed outside the
mind of anyone who might have created an imaginary painting of
her. T h e reality of the girl would seem to be negated in this scene,
where the king views her reflection on a crystal wall, with all of its
associations of illusion and unreality. 2 ‫י‬

24
T h e verse is cited in Umāšankar J0šī, GujarāR Sāhityan0 Itihāsa, vol. II
(Ahmedabad: Gujarāt1 Sāhitya Parisad, 1976) 391. T h e verse is actually slightly more
complicated than I have indicated here. Akhā tries with the simile of the glass
pavilion to explain the basic terms of Vedānta: the absolute reality (kawalyasvāmÎ),
illusion (māyā), the individual soul (jīva), and a form that is inbetween absolute reality
and the individual soul, a personal god (īšvara). J0šī interprets the verse to mean that
the individual soul stands inside a veil of illusion as inside a crystal palace. T h e multi-
colored display of the sun that the individual soul experiences is likened to the
personal god, which the individual soul believes is the ultimate real. What is signifi-
cant for the present discussion is that the image seen inside the crystal palace is false.
25
T h e r e is only limited speculation about the ontological status of reflections in
Indian philosophy. T h e topic comes up in Kumärila's Sl0kavārttika, in the section
proving that sound is eternal. T h e example of a reflection of the sun is brought up by
the Mfmamsaka to show that something that is one (the sun) can be perceived to be
many and in many places; therefore it should not be argued that sounds must be
many and impermanent simply because they are perceived in various places and
times. T h e next step in the argument is to offer that the one sun is not seen in many
places; what is seen are real reflections of the sun that are different from the sun itself.
This seems to have been uniquely the Jain position. It is discussed at some length by
 T h e play goes on, and in Act II it continues to toy with the young
giiTs ontological status. First the king and the fool see her and she
vanishes. She is still more of a mirage than a reality. T h e fool re-
counts to the king the various guises in which he has seen her; she was
the girl in his dream; she was the girl of w h o m they had caught a
fleeting glimpse; she metamorphosed into the pillar sculpture and she
is real. She is all of these things at once (p. 72). T h e king adds she is
also the one who has been carved in his mind by the god of love.
With this the king again shifts the perspective; the girl is in reality a
piece of sculpture carved out of his desires. W e shall come back to the
notion of creation as a mental process and reality as a product of the
mind. W e will even find a philosophy text in which this is one of the
dominant images of creation: the world is nothing more than a pano-
ply of sculptures carved onto the surface of the mind.
In Act III Rājašekhara proposes to resolve all of the contradictions
that the play has put before us. We hear that much of the confusion
about Mrgānkāva1í and whether she was a dream or a figment of the
king's imagination, a picture painted from someone else's fantasy or
the painter herself, much of this was deliberately caused by the king's
servants in order to acquaint the king with Mrgā1ikāva1í and ulti-
mately get him to marry her. T h u s a servant had told Mrgā1ikāva1í to
worship the god of love, who was really the king; they had her paint
her portraits and had a sculptor make her likeness; they also had
shown her to the king reflected on the crystal wall. But I think it must
be apparent that this is an insufficient explanation of the complexity
of all of these devices and their role in the play. I believe that the final
denouement of the play itself suggests as much.
In the final scene the queen decides to trick the king and have him
marry the young m a n who has come as a hostage and w h o m she
disguises as a woman, and who we know is really Mrgār1kāva1í. T h e
marriage is held and it is the queen who is tricked, when indeed the
disguise turns out to be the truth. T h e poet concludes with a telling
verse, praising the god who created the world, "whose hands are

Prabhācandra in his Prameyakamalamārlānda pp. 408-409, ed Pt.Mahendra Kumar

Shastri, (Bombay: Nirnaya Sagara Press, 1941) and his Nyāyakumudacandra vol.2,
pp. 450-459, also edited by Pt. Mahendra Kumar Nyāyāchârya (Mānik Chandra
Digambara Jaina Granthamā1ā 39; Bombay, 1941). T h e editor gives references to
the same discussion in Buddhist texts as well. It would seem that all but the Jains
agreed that there was no such thing as a reflection separate from the reflected object
itself. The perception of the moon in the water or the face in the mirror is actually an
error. T h e Jains objected to this and argued that a real object called a reflection is
produced in the water or in the mirror.
forever busy in crafting likenesses [pratimā)."2'‫ י‬Here, it seems to me, is
the message of the play. We are all pratimās, "portraits", sculpted
likenesses, even dream figures, created by an artist-god. If we seemed
at each step of the play to have to reverse our conclusions about
dreams and waking reality, a real person or an image in the mind,
there is a good reason for our confusion and our reversals. T h e dis-
guise is the truth. T h e portrait is the subject. Indeed we are all por-
traits, participants in a life that does not just imitate art but is art. For
we are all portraits, all self-portraits, of a creator god who can dream
us or sculpt us or paint us at will.

Ill Reality as art: a philosophical interpretation of

the Viddhašā1abhanjikā
I have offered what is admittedly an interpretation of Räjasekhara's
play and tried to see in the play a philosophical discussion about art
and reality. In my reading of the play, portraits, whether painted or
sculpted likenesses, are metonyms for the created and visible world as
a whole. As we ponder their status and seek to understand what they
are and what their relationship is to reality, we are really asking a
larger question: what is the very world of which art is thought to be
the reflection (in Sanskrit, pratibimba, pratikrti; shadow or chāyā). I be-
lieve that Rājašekhara was not the only dramatist who asked this
question in his play; Bilhana's Karnasundan of the 11 th century is
closely modeled on the Viddhašālabhanjikā and I think it attempts to
ask and answer the same questions. In the Karnasundan the king
dreams of a beautiful girl and then sees her portrait, which soon
vanishes. We know that the queen, in anger, has erased the drawing,
but the king even wonders if the portrait was real; perhaps he imag-
ined that too! T h e king also sees the girl's reflection on a pillar in the
royal court, not her sculpted likeness, but her reflection. W e thus
have several levels of reality or unreality: a dream, a perception of a
portrait, that may in fact have been a false perception, and a reflec-
tion, standard examples in Indian epistemological discussions for in-
dicators of a lack of substantial reality. But then, at the end of this
play, just as in the Viddhašālabhanjikā, the disguise and the falsehoods
turn out to be the truth and we are somehow led to question our
commonplace assumptions about what is real and what is false. But if

26
The term used for "crafting" in the phrase, pratimāprasāranavidhwyagrau karau is
actually prasārana, which is an unusual word for creation. We will see below that it is
the same word used by the mystic poet Akhā and can tell us much about how the
process of creation is to be understood.
Bilhana asks us to ponder the relationship between false and true, art
and reality, he falls short of Rājašekhara the dramatist as philosopher.
For he misses the point that if the portrait is the subject it is also the
artist. I turn now to the significance of this insight as I propose a
possible source for Räjasekhara's thinking.
Few philosophers, I think, explored the relationship between false-
hood or imitation and reality in as dramatic and immediate a m a n n e r
as Räjasekhara did in his d r a m a . Nonetheless, I think that it is possi-
ble that Räjasekhara was influenced by a particular philosophical
treatise, itself unusual, in that it uses stories to teach philosophy. This
is the Yogavâsistha, a text of many hands, often obscure and until
recendy poorly understood. 2 ‫ ׳‬O n e of the main concerns of the
Yogavâsistha is to show that the world of visible forms derives from a
single source which is its essence and its fundamental reality. This
source of all created forms is the mind, and the text will speak of this
mind as a kind of cosmic mind and as our individual minds. While
doctrines of idealism can also be found in Buddhist texts and in
standard texts of Advaita Vedānta, I have singled out the Yogavâsistha
for a particular reason. O n e of the most frequently used images in the
Yogavâsistha to explain the relationship of the created world, the visible
world of multiplicity, to its single source, the mind, is the image of a
statue sculpted in relief on a pillar. 28
In the first section of the last book of the Yogavâsistha, chapter 46,
we are told that the mind is like a stone and the many manifest forms
are simply šālabhanjikās, so many relief sculptures carved on that
stone. Scholars have often puzzled as to why Räjasekhara chose to
call his play, " T h e Relief Sculpture", since in fact the sculpture is only
a minor prop in the plot. 2 9 I think the question arises because they

27
Walter Slaje, Vom M0ks0pāya-Sāstra zum Yogavâsistha- Mahārāmāyana (Wien:
Verlag der Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1994), has revolutionized
the study of the Yogavâsistha, correlating divergent versions of the text and establishing
an archaeology of the text. His discussion of the dating of the text (p.67) suggests only
rough dates. I am primarily concerned here to establish a connection of ideas rather
than a more specific reliance of the Viddhasaālabhafijikā on the printed version of the
Yogavâsistha, which Slaje convincingly argues is the latest and least reliable text. It
could even be the case that the Viddhašālabhanjikā draws on the complex of ideas in
which the Yogavâsistha grew. I wrote this paper before I had the opportunity to read
Slaje's work; my references are to the printed text of the Nirnaya Sāgara Press.
28 p o r r e f e r e n c e s to some recent scholarship on the Yogavâsistha, see Slaje.
29
T h e title includes the term viddha, which is defined by the Mānas0ttāsa as a type
of representation so close in appearance to its subject that it is like a reflection in a
mirror. As the play makes clear throughout, all the various Mrgānkāva1īs are so alike
as to be indistinguishable from each other. T h e verse is cited by Weber, p. 36, from
C. Sivaramamurti,Chitrasūtra of the Visnudharmottara (New Delhi: Kanak,1978).
have not understood the play; they have read it for the plot, when it
is really a philosophical play. Relief sculpture takes on a special role
in the Y0gavāsistha; it is the world, as the text says,
yadasti tacciti šilāšarìre šālabhanjikä/
yannāsti tacciti šilāšarìre šā labhanjikä//47. 11
Everything that exists is a relief sculpture carved into the stone of con-
sciousness.
Everything that does not exist is a relief sculpture carved into the stone of
consciousness.
T h e image has many implications; just as the relief sculpture is by
nature stone, so is the world of manifest forms really nothing but
consciousness. And since consciousness is both the primordial mate-
rial and the agent of creation, the sculptor, then the sculpted relief is
also the sculptor. We are reminded of the king's firm conviction in
the Viddhašālabhanjikä that the painted portrait was of the same form
and nature as the artist. 30
T h e imagery of the form sculpted out of consciousness has other
implications; if the world shares the nature of consciousness, and
there is no real physical world, then all perceptions of the physical
world, as a physical world apart from the perceiver, are errors. T h e r e
is no difference between a dream, with its mental objects, and any
perception of the external world, now properly understood to consist
of mental objects, too.
T h e r e are several points in the Y0gavāsistha at which a considéra-
tion of the nature of sculpture becomes the means to understand the
greatest philosophical truths. I think that we can see in them at least
parallel ideas to those in Räjasekhara's play, if not his source. For
example, in the Y0gavāsistha the sage Vāsistha tells his pupil R ā m a to
look at a šālagrāma stone, which is a kind of fossilized ammonite with
various patterns on it. a m o n g them the conch and lotus, considered
marks of the god Visnu. T h e šālagrāma had traditionally been re-
garded as sacred to the god Visnu and was itself often considered a

30
This is stated in another way in the text; in the Utpattiprakarana 3.15.2 we are
told,
anutkīr1nawa bhātīva trìjagacchālabhanjikā/
citstambhe naiva sutkīrnā nacotkartätra vidyate
' T h e relief sculpture that is the world is not really carved out of consciousness,
though it appears to be so. It is not carved into the pillar of consciousness, for there
is no ardst who might carve it." T h e commentary of Bhāskarakantha explains, "It
cannot be carved out since it has no real form, and there is no agent to carve it since
there is no duality". Edited Walter Slaje, Bhäskarakantha's M0sk0pāya-tikā: Die Fragmente
des 3 (Utpatti) Prakarana (‫׳‬Graz: EWS Fachverlag, 1995) 224.
form of Visnu. Here Vasistha asks R ā m a to look upon the stone in a
different way. H e is to look on it not as a form of the god, but simply
as a piece of sculpture incised on the stone. T h e stone is solid, without
any interstices. So, Vāsistha tells him, is the primary consciousness
that is the source of this world. T h e primary consciousness is a mass
that knows no distinction within it; it is entirely the same (46. 16).
And the world is like those traces of lotuses and conch shells. All
forms in the world are šālabhanjikās, representations carved in relief, in
the pillared hall that is consciousness (chapter 46). 31
T h e image of consciousness as a stone and creation as pictures
carved onto that stone also appears in the poetry of the late medieval
Gujarati poet, Akhā, w h o m I cited earlier when I examined the scene
in the Viddhašālabhanjikā, in which the king and the fool see the girl
reflected on the crystal wall. Akhā in the Chappā sings this verse:
The Lord Hari is Brahma, the absolute real, bearing all things in himself;
spreading himself out, he creates the world. The various creatures that

31
Buddhist texts could use a related image to explain the nature of ultimate
reality, but I think there is also a fundamental difference between the Buddhist image
and the relief sculpture on the stone of the mind in the Yogavâsistha. In the
Uttaratantra, chapter 4 we are told to imagine the earth as if it were made of smooth
and reflecüve vaidūrya gemstone. The bodies of the gods and their palaces, indeed
the whole world of heaven might be reflected on that jewelled surface and people,
not raelizing that what they are seeing is just a reflection, would be amazed and
worship the gods, and conceive the desire to be reborn as gods. And on the basis of
this they would realize their intention and be born in the realm of the gods. Similarly
we are to understand the appearance of the Buddha in the human world, as a
reflection on the minds of men which have been made pure by religious practice.
"Just as the bodies of the gods could be reflected on the shining surface of the earth,
were it made ofvaidūrya gemstone, so on the surface o f t h a t earth, namely the minds
of everyone in the world, if those minds were made pure, could the body of the lord
of sages (the Buddha) be reflected". (IV.29)
yathaiva vaidū1yamahītale šucau
surendrakāyapratibimbasambhavah/
tathā jagaccittamahītale šucau
munīndrakāyapratibimbasambhavah//29
T h e text is edited by H.S. Prasad (Bibliotheca Indo- Buddhica 79; Delhi: Sri Sat
Guru Publications, 1991).
T h e obvious difference in the two images is that in the Yogavâsistha the mind is the
primordial material out of which the relief sculpture is carved; the relief sculpture
shares in the nature of the stone from which it has been carved. Indeed, the relief
sculpture is a form of the stone. In the Buddhist text, the Buddha as he appears to us
is a reflection, something unreal, and not a creation of our minds, any more than the
reflection of the moon in the water is a product of the water. Its reality is the moon
in the sky and not the surface of the water. Despite this important difference, I was
struck by the fact that both texts use the image of a stone surface in which phenom-
ena appear as a means to point out the true nature of the ultimate reality.
 people the universe, the sages, demons, men, gods, beasts and the dead,
are all etched onto the stone that is Brahma, consciousness. Forms of
illusion, they come and go, while Akhā sings that consciousness is never
destroyed. 4. 17.32
Akhâ's language here is close to both the Y0gavāsistha and Rājašek-
hara. Akhä uses the phrase, "pota pasaryum" to describe the process of
creation. G o d creates by somehow extending himself, stretching him-
self out. In other words the created forms are nothing but manifesta-
tions or forms of the creator-agent. Akhā further tells us that they are
somehow illusory; the only stable reality is Brahma. I believe that
Rājašekhara wants us to come to the same realization as we follow his
play.
Let us now return to Rajasekhara's play, which presented us with
a variety of "forms"; there was the dream-girl, there were two por-
traits, there was the relief sculpture, and there were fleeting percep-
tions, one of which was of the girl reflected on or seen through the
crystal wall. Finally there was the flesh and blood girl, supposedly a
boy disguised as a girl, but really a girl. I have tried to read
Räjasekhara's intricate playing with these various p h e n o m e n a as his
attempt to dramatise a certain philosophical understanding of the
world. In this understanding of the world, ultimately all forms,
painted, sculpted, living, those seen directly and those seen reflected
on a crystal wall, are placed on the same level of reality, if only by the
observation that any attempt to see in any one encounter the "real
thing" is immediately subverted. T h e very fluidity of these different
experiences of the same object, one leading to the next, and the
inherent instability of the forms, the disguise being real, the real being
an image seen reflected on or through a wall, I have argued, tells us

32
Edition of Jesalpura, cited eadier, p. 10. I have expanded the verse in the
translation by glossing Brahma as the absolute real. I believe that Akhā borrows the
imagery of the Y0gavāsistha here, much as Rājašekhara was doing in his play. The
modern editor does not intepret the verse as I have done. I take the compound
brahmašilā as a karmadhāraya, meaning "the stone that is Brahma"; the compound is a
metaphor in which Brahma is equated with a stone. This is exacdy the way in which
the related term cicchilā, "the stone that is consciousness" is to be taken in the
Y0gavāsistha. The modern commentator interprets the term to mean the stone in the
center of the innermost room of the temple which houses the sacred image. He then
understands the verse to mean that just as images of various types of creatures, sages,
et.al. carved around the main image can come and go, but the main image never
changes, so the individual creatures in the universe come and go, while Brahma
remains constant. I prefer my interpretation, which has the precedent of the
Y0gavāsistha and which I think is closer to what the verse actually states. There is no
mention of images around a central stone; it says in fact that the various creatures are
sculptures, "citra" on the stone that is Brahma.
that a simple realist understanding of the world, in which we privilege
what we see and consider of lesser reality mental representations or
artistic creations, was inherently problematic.
But was this all that Räjasekhara wanted to tell us? In bringing
the Yogavâsistha into this discussion I wanted to emphasize that
Râjasekhara's play was not just about questioning the demarcation
between the real and the false, between art and reality. It was also
about the ultimately real. T h e focus of the Yogavâsistha with its stories
of thinking that we are experiencing a real world when we are really
dreaming it, with its imagery of the stone that is consciousness while
the world is sculpted appearances, is ultimately on the source of all
the forms of creation: the single undivided consciousness. I believe
that Räjasekhara is also interested in this question, who or what,
then, is the sculptor if we are all nothing but sculpted or painted
forms? Râjasekhara's final verse tells us, I think, who the artist is; he
is Brahmā, the purānic god of creation.
Räjasekhara I think also tells us more about the mystery of that
creation. In verse 39, it is to be recalled, the king wrestles with the
status of his dream-girl. Is she just a dream figure? O r a product of
someone's imagination? H e decides not, since he believes still in the
fundamental difference between shared reality and the privacy of
fantasy. But as the play unfolds, I argue, we are led to the inevitable
conclusion that our attempts to sort out reality from fantasy are
doomed to fail. After all, the false, the disguise, turns out to be true
in a subversion of normal expectation. If we extend this, I think we
come to this conclusion: reality itself is a fantasy, an artistic créa-
tion. 3 3
But what about the king's problem: the private nature of fantasy as
contrasted with the public, shared nature of reality? Here too we may
turn to the Yogavâsistha for some help. T h e Yogavâsistha is committed
to a doctrine in which we are all relief sculptures on the stone of
consciousness, that is we are all products of consciousness. O n e of the
implications of this image is that we lack physical reality; we are

33
The notions that god is an artist and that reality is his artistic creation are by no
means unique to Räjasekhara or the Yogavâsistha. Texts on poetics often depict the
poet as the true creator, whose imagined world in fact is closer to the ultimate truth
than is the actual physical world, for in the hierarchy of created entities the last stage
of evolution and thus the furthest from reality is the physical, corporeal world. O n
this see my Philosophy and Argument in Late Vedānta: Šri Harsa's Khandanakhandakhādya
(Dordrecht: D.Reidel, 1976) 58 note 1. See also David Shulman, "Sage, Poet and
Hidden Wisdom in Medieval India", in S. Eisenstadt and liana Friedrich Silber, ed.
Cultural Traditions and Worlds of Knowledge: Explorations in the Sociology of Knowledge (Green-
wich, Conn:JAI Press, 1988)109-139. What is unusual about the Viddhašālābhanjikā is
imaginings of some mind. Indeed, we are dream figures. T h e
T0gavāsistha grapples with the issue of the private nature of fantasy as
opposed to a supposedly shared reality. T h e text is filled with stories
about dreams and visions that in fact are shared just as much as
concrete reality is assumed to be shared a m o n g perceivers. 34 T h e
belief that dreams are private and any shared perceptions must be
something fundamentally different and must serve as evidence of a
reality beyond our minds is vigorously contradicted in this text by
numerous stories.
And here I would note a final point of similarity between the
Y0gavāsistha and Räjasekhara's play, which is their use of a dramatic
story to teach a philosophical truth. W e are not only told in the
Y0gavāsistha that the notion that there is a perceiving mind and a
separate, independent perceived object is false; we are not simply told
that the world is a vast dream; we are m a d e to experience these
philosophical truths as we follow the dramatic events of story after
story. Rājašekhara, in his investigation of the relationship between
reality and art, truth and fiction, through the mode of the drama, had
a ready model in the T0gavāsistha.3‫ י‬And as Bilhana's play Karnasundan,

that it deals not with poetry, but with painting and sculpture and the issues of
mimesis and reality raised in the visual arts.The Indian intellectual tradition seems to
have been reluctant to confront direcdy the philosophical issues of representation in
sculpture and painting and eager to discuss poetry. I believe that this is related to
Indian theories of creation in which corporeal reality was the last stage of the creative
process, the furthest removed from the source, ultimate reality. These theories led to
the denigraUon of the visual arts over poetry. While poets were scholars, honored at
the courts, sculptors and painters were mere artisans, often of low caste status.
34
For summaries and analyses of some of these stories see Wendy Doniger
(O'Flaherty) Dreams, Illusions and Other Realities, cited earlier. T h e existence of shared
imaginings or shared mental realities is also asserted in Yogäcära Buddhist texts.
Thus the opening chapters of Vasubandhu's Vimšikāvrtti deal direcdy with possible
objections to the doctrine that there are no external objects of perception and that
everything perceived, whether in dream or in the waking state, is nothing but a
projection of the mind. When an objection is raised that there would then be no
shared experience, the reply is given that this is to be understood as analogous to the
experience of those who dwell in hell or hungry ghosts; while we do not admit that
what they experience exists, they all nonetheless do experience the same visions and
torments. The text is in Stefan Anacker, Seven Works of Vasubandhu, The Buddhist
Psychological Doctor (Delhi: Moülal Banarsidass 1984).
35
As my colleague Robert Brown in the Department of Art History, UCLA,
reminded me, many of the modfs found in the Viddhašālabhanjikä also appeared in a
much earlier text, the Tamil Manimekhalai, translated by Alain Daniélou (Penguin
Paperbacks 1993). In this text, which tells of Manimekhalai's religious quest, the
prince sees Manimekhalai in a crystal pavilion and mistakes her at first for a statue
(p. 18). There are also talking statues and animated paintings, but I believe that the
written shortly after, shows, it also had a following. I would further
argue that the drama, with its inherent confusion of levels of reality,
was a perfect genre in which to explore these issues. 36 T h e Viddhašāla-
bhanjikā may be our first coherent philosophical play in this mode, but
the way had been paved by earlier dramatists, who had all used the
conventions of the dream, the magic show, and the portrait. Bhāsa in
his Svapnavāsavadattā introduces us to a king, who lies down with his
queen and dreams of her. She touches the king, and he is left to
wonder if that was part of his dream or real. And we too can't help
wondering what of our own experience is real and what is just a
dream or if the distinction has any meaning at all.
But if Bhāsa plays with the queen as dream object and the real
queen sleeping beside the dreaming king, Räjasekhara does some-
thing far more intricate; he moves from dream object to portrait to
real w o m a n to reflection on a crystal wall. In this movement may also
be an oblique statement of how we are directly to experience and
conceptualize the god that is the stone from which we are sculpted. I
would like to resume the discussion of the crystal wall, because there
is another way in which crystal and crystal surfaces figure in Indian
religious literature. And if it is even remotely possible that Rājašek-
hara drew upon such a tradition, then his play also offers us a way to
understand how we may direcdy experience the divine; in doing so it
also provides us with a different type of speculation on the nature of
art objects, and in particular of religious images.

IV The Body of God: Seeing God in His Likeness

T h u s far I have tried to read the Viddhašālabhanjikā as a complicated
philosophical journey in which the spectator is led gradually to ques-
tion normal realist assumptions about the nature of the world and

overall message of the text is entirely different from that of the Viddhašālabhanjikā. In
the Manimekhalai the quest is the young woman's; the prince meets an early end as a
just punishment for his refusal to accept Manimekhalai's renunciation of sensual
pleasures. It is almost as if the Manimekhalai offers us a renunciant tradition's use of
common dramatic conventions, while the V1ddhaíālabhanj1kā has developed the same
conventions in another direction, as I would argue, under the influence of the
Yogavâsistha. David Shulman has written eloquendy on the Manimekhalai in a paper he
was kind enough to send me.
36
Such explorations were not limited to the drama, however. I have attempted
briefly in Philosophy and Argument in Late Vedānta: Šrì Harsa's Khandanakhandakhādya
(Dordrecht: D.Reidel, 1976 ) 253-254, n.170 to read the poem, the Naisadhacarita, as
an extended philosophical allegory.
ultimately to conclude that we are all 'relief sculptures' that emerge
from a background of stone, which is consciousness. While this meta-
phor erases the ontological distinction between an art object and that
which it represents, it does not by any means thereby elevate the
status of the sculpted or painted likeness. In fact its main thrust is to
deny equally of all objects their 'objectivity'. T h e discourse of the
Togavâsistha, as we have seen, implies that as relief sculptures formed
out of consciousness, we are really nothing but consciousness, just as
the sculpted form of the w o m a n is really just the stone from which it
is formed. T o work as a metaphor involved in a larger discourse
about the unreality of the objective world, the comparison relies on
commonsense notions of portraits as mere likenesses, that is, as some-
thing other than and lesser than the actual person who is the subject
of the portrait. I would like to suggest that in addition to this major
theme of his play, Räjasekhara's text allows another reading that ties
in with some of this speculation about the nature of portraits and
likenesses, but is in addition connected with debates about images of
deities. T o do this I must first return to the crystal wall.
In my search for the philosophical thought behind the Viddhašāla-
bhanjikā I began from the association of crystal and error. While crys-
tal undoubtedly figures in Indian philosophical discourse on error,
this is not its only association. In a famous Buddhist story, the
Sumāgadhāvadāna, Sumāgadhā, a fervent devotee of the Buddha has
been married into a non-Buddhist family in a place distant from the
normal retreats of the Buddha. S u m ā g a d h ā prays fervendy to the
Buddha that he should come with his monks and take alms in her
home. 3 ‫ י‬She goes u p to the rooftop and offers worship in the direction
in which she knows the Buddha resides. T h e flowers she has offered
are transported to the Buddha, who immediately understands
Sumägadhä's longing. H e and the monks transport themselves to
Sumägadhä's home, flying through the sky. T h e Buddha makes him-
self into eighteen Buddhas (or Buddha images), each one entering one
of the eighteen gateways to the city (78). And then the Buddha turns
Sumägadhä's house into a large reflecting palace. As the text tells us,
" H e made Sumagadhä's house into something composed of the radi-
ance of moonstone jewels" (78). While S u m ā g a d h ā and her family
worship from inside, the rest of the townspeople offer their worship
from outside; they all worship the reflections of the Buddha that fall

" I am summarizing the story from the Avadānakalpalatā of Ksernendra, in which it

is story number 93. The text is edited by P.L. Vaidya (Buddhist Sanskrit Texts Series
23; Darbhanga: Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit
Learning, 1959).
on the walls (79). For them the object of worship is the Buddha's
reflection and not the actual Buddha, who, we might recall, is also
not quite himself. T h e Buddha had, after all, only entered
Sumägadhä's home after he had turned himself into eighteen like-
nesses of himself.
This story raises a n u m b e r of interesting questions, for example,
why are the images reflected on the moonstone walls, and not the
Buddha himself, the appropriate objects of worship for the townspeo-
pie? W h a t if any is the significance of the Buddha turning himself into
his own image before he even enters the town? I believe that other
texts in their discussion of objections to image worship can help us to
see beyond the obvious answers offered by the story itself, for exam-
pie that the townspeople could not fit into the house so they had to
worship from outside or that one Buddha could not enter the town
from every direction and be seen by everyone and so he had to
replicate himself. 58 T h e fact that there is in discussions of the appro-

38
A parallel exists in the Pūrnāvadāna of the Divyāvadāna. Pūrna has built a sandal
wood palace for the Buddha (candanamālah prāsādah) in the remote city of Sūrpāraka.
The Buddha comes to the city and first hesitates about how he should enter the city
gate; he fears that if he chooses one gate over another some people will feel rejected
and so he decides to use his supernatural powers to fly straight into the middle of the
city. This is obviously parallel to the problem the Buddha faced in the story of
Sumāgadhā that led him to create the likenesses of himself. Once inside the sandal
wood palace, the Buddha cannot be seen by those outside. In their eagerness to see
the Buddha the townspeople begin to break down the palace. T h e Buddha then turns
the sandalwood palace into crystal. In the story of Pūrna the storyteller gives a simple
explanation for the crystal palace. I shall try to show below that this is not the only
possible explanation. See D1vyāvadāna, ed. P.L. Vaidya (Buddhist Sanskrit Texts .20;
Darbhanga: Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit
Learning, 1959) 30. Gregory Schopen tells me that there are two similar stories in
the Samghabhedavastu vol. I, p. 197-9 and Vol.11, p. 189 in the edition of Gnoli, in
which the Buddha turns the building he is in into crystal so that he can be seen by
those outside. Crystal structures are not confined to these stories; perhaps the most
famous and intriguing crystal structure is that in which the Buddha resides while in
his mother's womb. The Lalitavistara, a biography of the Buddha, in answer to the
question of how the Buddha, after residing in heaven, could take up residence in the
foul smelling womb of a woman, describes in detail just how the Buddha setded in his
mother's womb. The gods provided for him a square pavilion of jewels and sandal
wood. We are told that the pavilion was so pure that the gods were reflected in it
(p.52). The Buddha's mother could also see the Buddha in her womb, as she could
see her own face in a clear mirror. See the Lalitavistara, chapter 6, edited P.L. Vaidya,
(Darbhanga:Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit
Learning, 1958). I hope to make a detailed study of magical palaces and buildings in
Buddhist literature. It is clear that there are multiple contexts and meanings for the
crystal palace.
priateness of image worship a tendency to describe an image as a
reflection suggests that we may well be dealing in the story of
Sumāgadhā with religious belief as well as narrative coherence. I look
now at some of these discussions that come from the related tradition
of Jainism. 3 9
H e m a c a n d r a , the famous twelfth century J a i n philosopher and
scholar, wrote a hymn to the J i n a for his patron, King Kumārapā1a.
T h e hymn, known as the I^ītarāgast0tra, can be read as an extended
discussion on the suitability of making and worshipping images of the

39
While Jains and Buddhists in their philosophical treatises differed substantially
on the question of what was the nature of a reflection, Buddhists arguing that it was
something unreal and Jains arguing that a reflection is a real transformation of the
reflecting surface, in the world of their stories about images they speak very much the
same language. Thus a painting of the Buddha is described as his reflection, and in
a story of a contest between artists, the best likeness of a subject is created by the
artist who simply polishes the wall surface to a shine, allowing the subject to be
reflected on the smooth surface. For details see my paper, "Divine Delicacies", cited
above. Given this common language I think we are justified in using Jain sources to
illuminate the Buddhist story.
The notion that the Buddha acts by means of replicas of himself, mrmāna kāyas, is
an important concept in many Buddhist texts. I am interpreting the replicated Bud-
dhas in a manner that is exacdy opposite the standard interpretation by modern
scholars and indeed in many traditional texts. In the standard interpretation, the
reflected or created Buddha is false; I am arguing that it is in fact closest to capturing
the essence of ultimate reality. For some discussion of the replicated Buddhas as false
see David Eckel, To See the Buddha (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992)
particularly chapter 4.
Finally, I would mention that the Jains also speak of worshipping the Jina in a
crystal pavilion. A central theme in the biographies of t h e j i n a s is the first preaching
of the Jina after he has reached Enlightenment. The first preaching takes place in a
magical enclosure created by the gods. The Jina enters the enclosure and replicates
himself so that there are four Jinas, one for each of the cardinal points. The Ādipurāna
of Jinasena, chapter 22, has one of the most elaborate descriptions of the
samavasarana, as the preaching assembly is called. Its innermost rampart is made of
crystal. Beyond this wall in each of the four cardinal directions are further walls of
crystal and finally there is a crystal pavilion. The crystal walls in front of the pavilion
reflect all the entities in the universe, as the knowledge of the Omniscient One is said
to do (277). The crystal pavilion itself is likened to a reflection of the ether in the
ether; the ether is often a symbol of the incorporeal absolute. Here the text empha-
sizes the transcendent nature of the pavilion, callling it a reflection of something that
already seems to lack corporeality. Again, all the objects in the universe are said to be
reflected on the walls of the pavilion (288). I hope to study this passage in greater
detail in the future. For some information on the samavasarana see Nalini Balbir, "An
investigation of Textual Sources on the samavasarana ("The Holy Assembly of the
Jina")", in Festschrift Klaus Bruhn, (Reinbek: Verlag für Orientalische Fachpublika-
tionen, 1994) 67-104.
Jina. 4 " In the second chapter H e m a c a n d r a deals with the response to
a c o m m o n J a i n objection to image making: the J i n a , having achieved
release, has no physical body. H o w is it possible, then, to make an
image of the J i n a which is that of a m a n having a body? T h e hymn in
effect replies to such an objection by stressing that the J i n a does
indeed have a body, although his body is unlike the body of normal
h u m a n beings. A little later in the p o e m H e m a c a n d r a will argue that
it is impossible to conceive of a religious teacher who does not have a
body (7. 1) In chapter 7 he will give a n u m b e r of reasons why the
Jina, or even god as conceived by non-Jain religious groups must
have a body. In chapter 2, however, H e m a c a n d r a devotes himself
solely to the body of the J i n a . T h e J i n a has a wondrous body of five
colors; his body is fragrant and is not subject to illness. T h e J i n a never
sweats like normal people, a characteristic he shares in fact with the
Hindu deities. His blood is like milk and no one can see his intake
and excretion of food. 41 But the verse that denies of the J i n a bodily
impurities like sweat is particularly interesting for our discussion of
crystal walls and reflections. It tells us,
How could one even imagine that your body, which is like the reflection
in a mirror, could ever be stained by sweat?
tvayyādaršata1ā1rnapratimāpratirūpake
ksaratsvedavi1matvakathāpi vapusah kutah//4
T h e object of the hymnist's praise,the Jina's body, is not like our
bodies. It is like (pratirūpaka) the reflection (pratimā) on the surface of
a mirror. T h e true J i n a body, then, is removed from gross physicality
in this comparison. Just as the likeness in a mirror does not exhibit
normal body processes and is not subject to the ills of the physical

40
I am using the edition of Chandraprabhasägar (Devacandra Lalbhai Jaina
Pustkoddhara series 95; Bhavnagar, 1949).While the beginning part of the hymn
does not speak direedy of images, it is clear from subsequent chapters that
Hemacandra is indeed speaking of the Jina and his images. Commonly, in the lan-
guage of hymns the image is the Jina. A 1.6th century Jain monk was quite explicit
about this; Samayasundara in a hymn to the Jina Sīta1anātha urges worshippers to
look on the image as the Jina; only fools, he says, would doubt this (Samayasundara-
krti-kusumānjali, ed. Mahopadhyäy Vinayasāgara (Abhaya Jaina Granthamā1a 15;
Calcutta: Nahta Brothers, 1956, p p . 9 9 vs. 11). Throughout his hymns Samaya-
sundara speaks of seeing the Jina, making no distinction between the image and the
Jina. I have written on this in greater detail in my paper, "Medieval Jain Accounts of
Mt. Girnar and Mt. Satrunjaya: Visible and Invisible Sacred Realms", delivered at
the annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March, 1997.
41
On this point see Paul Dundas, "Food and Freedom: the Jaina Sectarian De-
bate on the Nature of the Kevalin", Religions, 15 (1985) 161-198.
body, so the Jina's body, a kind of likeness reflected on a reflecting
surface, is not subject to such impurities.
Another J a i n text which deals specifically with objections to mak-
ing and worshipping images, the Ceiyavandanamahābhāsam of Sāntisūri,
confronts an unusual objection to the worship of images and relies on
much the same answer, that the Jina's body is somehow like a reflec-
tion on a reflecting surface. Most images in temples are part of a large
group of images; temples rarely if ever have only one image. Part of
the worship ceremony is to bathe the images. 4 2 T h e objector argues
that this is improper, since the bath water of one image would fall
onto an adjacent image and bath water, containing bodily dirt, is
highly impure. T h e answer is given that just as water does not sully
the image of a person reflected in a mirror, so the water running off
one image of the J i n a onto another image of the J i n a does not stain it
(verse 73). T h e image of the J i n a is somehow like a reflection, a
comparison that is in fact inherent in all Indian religious traditions
simply from their choice of word for "image". All the religious tradi-
tions of India use the same words to designate reflection and images
for worship (pratibimba). T h e J a i n text gives a further argument that
brings us back to the starting point of this discussion, namely the
problem of whether the J i n a has a body or not. We have seen that
H e m a c a n d r a replied in the affirmative. This author answers in the
negative: If water cannot sully the reflection or likeness of h u m a n
beings, who do have bodies, surely water could not sully the reflection
or likeness of the J i n a who is without a body (76). H e continues by
saying that although the J i n a has no body once he has reached libera-
tion, we make images of the J i n a as he was at the time he achieved his
liberation to remind worshippers of the Jina's greatness (78). 45

42
For information on the ritual of bathing the Jina image see Lawrence Alan
Babb, Absent Lord: Ascetics and Kings in a Jain Ritual Culture (Berkeley: University of
California, 1996) 65-84.
43
Another answer is given by an early Jain author, Kundakunda, who in his
Samayasāra confronts an objection that even hymns of praise (such as Hemacandra's
hymn discussed here) which glorify the Jina's body should not be written, since the
soul is different from the body and it is the soul that is the appropriate object of our
awe. The reply relies on the peculiar Jain notion of different points of view, all of
which are partially true. Kundakunda tells us that from the point of view of common
parlance the soul is identified with characteristics of the body, while from the stand-
point of the absolute truth they are different (verse 26, p.32). The text is edited with
an English translation by A.Chakravarti in the Jnānapīd1a Mūrtideva Granthamā1ā,
English Series 1, (Delhi: J n ā n a Pītha, 1971). With this may be compared the re-
 W h a t I would like to stress from these discussions is the persistence
of the discourse that images that are to be worshipped are either
reflections or are somehow analogous to reflections. 44 Being reflec-
tions, they are purer than ordinary physical bodies; indeed it is in this
belief, I think, that we are to seek to understand the story of the
Buddha making for his devotee a reflecting palace and of the people
worshipping the reflections of the Buddha. 4 5 It was partly an answer
to a major question behind image worship and the appropriateness of
conceptualizing the object of worship as having a body that at least
looks like our own bodies with all their attendant ills. Such beliefs in
the special nature of god's body were expressed in the hymns and
discussions on image worship in a language that refers to reflections
and reflective substances. T o cite another example that illustrates the
universality of this language, the Ādipurāna, a Digambara J a i n text
from South India, of the 9th century c.E., has a long section describ-
ing the first bath given to the J i n a R s a b h a at his birth. T h e god Indra
takes the newborn to Mt. Meru, a paradaisical mountain, where he
deposits the baby on a slab of pure crystal. T h e crystal is likened to
the J i n a body: both are extremely lustrous, fragrant and pure or

peated assertions in the Buddhist Astasāhasrikaprajnāpāramitā that we do not worship

the Buddha because of any special qualities of his body, but what we worship about
him is his marvelous knowledge. The Astasāhāsrika arguments in fact do constitute an
attack on relic worship, putting in its place a cult of the Buddha's word that took the
concrete form of book worship. O n this see Gregory Schopen, "The phrase "sa
prthivrpradešašcaity0bhūt0 bhavet" in the Vajjracchedikā: Notes on the cult of the
book in Mahāyāna", Indo-Iranian Journal 17 (1975) 123-160.
44
See also the stories of images as likenesses or reflections discussed at the begin-
ning of this paper and my paper "Divine Delicacies" cited in note 8.
45
The nature of the Buddha body is a favourite topic in Buddhist scholastic
debate. See Paul Williams, Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (London:
Roudedge 1989), chapter 8. See also Paul J . Griffiths, On Bang Buddha: The Classical
Doctrine of Buddha hood (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1994). Specula-
tion about the nature of images took place in a number of different contexts and
texts, not all of which are mutually compatible. It is worth noting again that a text
specifically devoted to making images, the Buddhapratimālaksana, notes that the discus-
sion of the characteristics of images is a discussion of the characteristics of the physi-
cal body or rūpa kāya of the Buddha. T h e text is edited by Gopînatha Kavirāj (Prince
of Wales Sarasvatï Bhavana Sanskrit Series 48; Bombay: Vidyā Vi1ās Press, 1933)
and the comment on the rūpa kāya appears on p.2 in the commentary. This in fact
agrees closely with the conclusions reached by Gregory Schopen in his study of the
nature of the Buddha who is in the temple, that is, the Buddha image. Schopen
concluded that it was the Buddha himself, his physical presence, and not an abstrac-
tion. See his article,"The Buddha as Owner of Property and Permanent Resident in
Medieval Indian monasteries", m Journal of Indian Philosophy 18 (1990) 181-219. It also
accords well with the Jain material I have introduced in which speculation about the
body of the Jina is in effect an argument about the suitability of image worship.
resplendent. 4 6 Standard Sanskrit practice dictates that the object to
which one compares something must be widely known for the quality
that motivates the comparison in question.
I would like to suggest that these discussions of the J i n a body may
have motivated the actual fashioning of images from crystal, several
examples of which are known from the late medieval period, with
more known from the literary references to them. 4 7 1 would also like
to suggest that the association between crystal/reflections and god's
body may also in some cases reflect a wider range of speculation
about the nature of asceticism and its effects on the h u m a n body. In
a passage in a late medieval Hindu purānic text, the Skanda Purāna,
Brahma Khanda, Dharmāranya Khanda (3. 2. 3), we are told that the gods
once came upon Yama, the God of Death, who was absorbed in
meditation. This is how Yama is described:
šuskasnāyupinaddhāsthisamcayam nišca1ākrtim/
va1mrkikrtikāk0tiš0sitāšesaš0nitam/ / 4
nirmāmsakīkasacayam sphatikopalaniscalam/
áamkhakumdemdutuhinamahāšamkha1asacchriyam//5

He was motionless, a heap of bones that were tied together by dried out
sinews; all of his blood had been sucked out by myriads of insects in the
anthill that had formed around him. He was a pile of bones without flesh

46
Ādipurāna o f j i n a s e n a , ed. Pannalal J a i n (Mūrtidevī J a i n a Granthamā1a 8; Kāšr:
Bhārat1ya J n ā n a p í t h a , 1963) 13.93.
47
For examples see Pratapaditya Pal, The Peaceful Liberators: Jain Art fiom India
(London:Thames and Hudson, 1995) no. 13, and reference to M. C h a n d r a " T h e Art
of Cutting Hardstone Ware in Ancient and Modern India", Journal of the Gujarat
Research Society 1, no.4, (1939) 71-85. T h e comments on the crystal J i n a in Pal suggest
that the use of crystal was an attempt to convey the "pristine nature of the J i n a " .
U.P. Shah, Treasures ofJaina Bhandāras, (Ahmedabad: L.D. Institute, 1978) illustrates
as figure 174 a 17th century crystal image from the collection of the L.D. Institute.
He connects the use of crystal more generally with a desire to make images of
precious materials. H e also notes a reference to a large crystal image in Cambay.
T h e 16th century J a i n monk Samayasundara has a hymn to an image of the J i n a
C a n d r a p r a b h a at Candravāri which he describes as made of pure crystal, shining
brightly like a flame (Samayasundara-krti-kusumānjali, ed. Mahopadhyäy Vinayasāgara
(Abhaya-jaina Granthamā1ā 15; Calcutta: Nahta Brothers, 1956) 96. Buddhist reli-
quaries were often made of crystal. For references to crystal reliquaries in India see
M o d Chandra, " T h e Art of Cutting Hardstone Ware in India", 73. Several examples
from J a p a n have been published in Anne Nishimura Morse and Samuel Crowell
Morse, Object as Insight: Japanese Buddhist Art and Ritual (Katonah, New York: Katonah
Museum of Art, 1996), figures 26-28. In their discussion of figure 26, p. 74, the only
comment about the use of rock crystal is that it allowed the devotee actually to see
the relics. T h e present discussion suggests that there may have been other reasons for
making the relic container, in many ways likened to the body of the Buddha, out of
crystal.
 on them, a motionless crystal rock, with the lustrous beauty of the white
conch, the jasmine blossom, the moon, snow and a human temporal
bone.

It is obvious that the meditating god shares much in c o m m o n with

the J i n a in the hymns we have just examined. T h e meditating god has
no blood and no h u m a n flesh, just as the J i n a is said not to have red
blood or normal h u m a n flesh. Even more interesting in the context of
the present discussion, the meditating god is said to be a motionless
piece of crystal, and he is compared to the standard list of luminous
white objects in the Sanskrit poetic tradition, the moon, a jasmine
flower, snow, and a conch shell. 48 These verses suggest that the spe-
cial body of the J i n a or the Buddha, which was likened to a reflection
of a coarse physical h u m a n body, may in fact be shared by others
who have achieved a high degree of asceticism.
Finally, there are further indications that the comparison of the
body of god to a reflection was both pan-Indian and fairly ancient. In
Kälidäsa's p o e m the Raghuvamsa, celebrating the deeds of the kings in
the line of R ā m a , we are given this description of the descent of the
highest lord Visnu as mortal, namely as R ā m a and his three brothers,
in order to rid the world of the great d e m o n Rāvana:
Vibhaktātmā vibhus tāsām ekah kuksisvanekadhā
uvāsa pratimācandrah prasannānām apām iva/
athāgryamahisí rājnah prasūtisamaye satī
putram t a m o p a h a m 1ebhe naktam jyotir ivausadhih// 10. 66

A n d the highest lord, though one, divided himself into many and dwelt in
their wombs, just as the reflection of the moon appears as many in clear
waters. A n d so the chief queen, when her time came, gave birth to a son
w h o dispelled the darkness as certain herbs give off a light at night to
dispel the dark.

In this passage the poet explains the appearance of the highest god in
h u m a n form by comparing the process of his birth a m o n g mortals
with the process by which the single moon, high above the mortal
world, appears as many in different bodies of water. T h e concrete
appearance of god a m o n g us, whether as the divine king in a mortal

48
T h e list has both šaùkha, conch shell and mahāšankha, which can mean either a
large conch shell or a h u m a n bone. I have taken the second meaning to avoid
repetition. I have also taken the word valmīki or ant hill to mean that an anthill had
grown around the meditating figure, as is common in these descriptions. T h a t this is
the intended meaning is clear from chapter 4, a further description of Yama's aus-
terities in which he is said to be surrounded by a hundred anthills (vs. 30) and to get
up from his anthill when Siva arrives (42). I am using the edition from N a g Publish-
ers, Delhi, 1986.
body, or we may perhaps add, as his likeness in a sculpted image, is in
fact somehow a reflection of the highest lord himself.
T h e Bhāgavata purāna, an important medieval Hindu devotional
text, has a similar image, indirectiy likening the god we worship to a
reflection in a mirror. 111 a verse that has caused some difficulty to the
commentators, we are told that god does not need our worship, since
by definition he has every desire already fulfilled. Nonetheless, wor-
ship offered to god does affect him. T h e image of a mirror reflection
is used to explain just how our worship can please god. Just as when
we dress up and then look in the mirror we see that our reflection has
been made lovelier by our efforts, so our worship affects God, who is
thus likened to the mirror reflection. 49 111 another later Hindu text
devoted to the famous pilgrimage center to Siva at Tiruvannamalai in
South India, the blazing form of the god is likened to a shining mirror
within the heart of sages. 5 0 Jains, Buddhists and Hindus, thus used the
language of reflection to capture somehow the nature of finite repre-
sentations of an infinite divinity.
In concluding this discussion about the crystal body of god, I
would like to add that the questions reviewed here about the suitabil-
ity of worshipping images, and particularly the responses given to
them, can tell us much about the nature of the discussion on images,
at least in certain circles in medieval India. '1 I believe that these
questions and answers in the J a i n texts imply a shift of focus from a
simple conflict between image worshippers and those who reject en-
tirely the worship of images; they no longer stop at asking and an-
swering the problem of how the infinite and formless deity can be
represented in finite form. T h e J a i n questions suggest a further dis-
pute about how to worship images, how to understand their efficacy
and how to conceive of the relationship between the likeness and the

49
Bhāgavatapurāna 7.9.11 (Delhi: Nag Publishers, 1987). The verse reads:
naivātmanah prabhur ayam nijaläbhapürno mānam janād avidusah karuno vrníte/
yadyajjano bhagavate vidadhīte mānam taccātmane pratimukhasya yathā
mukhašríh//
50
Arunācalamāhātmya in the Skanda purāna, 2.5. On the religious significance of the
mirror other than as the body of god see Yael Bentor, O n the Symbolism of the
Mirror in Indo- Tibetan Consecration Rituals", Journal of Indian Philosophy 23, no. 1
(1995) 7-73.
51
While I have focused here on the body of the god as crystal, crystal also figures
in some religious texts as a metaphor for the soul that is totally pure. The soul in its
true nature, or the liberated soul, is likened to a crystal that is not picking up
reflections from colored substances in proximity to it in several Jain texts, most
prominendy those by Kundakunda. For references see W.H.Johnson, Harmless Souls
(Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers, 1995) 18, 130 and 202.
 subject of the image. In Jainism this last point would prove to be
partcularly significant in a debate not about images and the total
rejection of images, but about which specific images one should worship,
Jain or non-Jain, that is to say, J a i n or Hindu. In the hymn of H e m a -
candra referred to above there is a lengthy section in which the poet
emphasizes the uniqueness of the J i n a as the one god worthy of
devotion. In fact it is the particular appearance of the J i n a image that
is used to settle the issue. H e m a c a n d r a tells us that unlike the Hindu
gods, the J i n a does not ride on birds or wild beasts; the J i n a does not
have a wild expression in his eyes nor are his limbs twisted nor is his
face contorted (18. 2). T h e J i n a does not carry weapons like a trident,
spear or discus; the J i n a is not embracing a w o m a n (18. 3-4 ). By
contrast, the J i n a has a peaceful expression on his face and his eyes
betray no trace of passion or hatred (6. 11).
T h e story is told of a famous poet, who was worshipping in a
Hindu temple. A clever J a i n monk has promised to convert him to
Jainism. H e sneaks up behind the poet and recites some fairly con-
ventional verses of praise to the H i n d u gods Siva and Visnu. T h e
verses develop several well known mythological themes, for example
Siva's desire for his wife Pārvatí and his anger at the god of Love;
Visnu's incarnation as R ā m a when he killed a d e m o n who had kid-
napped his wife, and Visnu's erotic sports with his wife, the goddess
Laksmf. W h e n the poet begins to wonder about these Hindu gods
with their lust and their anger, the J a i n monk takes him into a J a i n
temple, where the poet beholds the image of the J i n a , totally calm
and gentle. T h e poet is at once enlightened as to the truth of the J a i n
religion: the one true object of worship is the J i n a , who is beyond all
passion. And the truth about him is conveyed in his likeness. It is in
the image of the deity in the temple that one is brought face to face
with the ultimate. 3 2

W e would seem to have come a considerable distance from Rāja-

šekhara and his d r a m a in this brief examination of some Buddhist
and J a i n understandings of the nature of the Buddha or J i n a body. I
have tried to suggest that particularly in some J a i n texts the J i n a is
thought to have a special body that the worshipper can see direcdy in
the J i n a image; moreover, that body and the image are described as

52
I have translated this story, which is part of the biography of the Jain monk
Bappabhattisūri, in an essay, " Ritual and Biography: T h e Case of Bappabhatdsūri",
in Phyllis Granoif and Koichi Shinohara, Other Selves: Autobiography and Biography in
Cross-Cultural Perspective (Oakville, Ontario: Mosaic Press, 1994) 172-173.
"reflections", while images were even made of reflecting substances
like crystal. This should bring us back to Räjasekhara's drama, to the
girl behind the crystal wall. I would like to argue that this is a highly
complex image. O n one level a reflection is distinguished from the
object reflected and the perception of a reflection as the reflecting
object is an error. T h e moon on the surface of the water is not the
moon in the sky; it is not a real moon at all. O n another level, in
discussions on the nature of image making and the nature of God's
body, the reflected body is considered to be the purest body conceiv-
able; it is the true body of God. 3 3 T h e ultimate real is not only the sun
that shines above the glass pavilion of Akhâ's poetry, catching us in
the dazzling reflections it creates. T h e ultimate real can also be di-
reedy encountered in the reflected body, the likeness seen on or
through the crystal wall. Indeed some poetic passages on the reflected
self suggest that it is only in reflection that the true, non-corporeal self
may in fact be captured. T h u s the Bhusundi Rāmāyana, a sixteenth
century text synthesizing the cult of R ā m a and Krsna, has this verse
in praise of the river Yamunā: 5 4
Kācasphuraddarpanapattikā tvam sunirma1āúgī Yamune vibhāsi/
purasthitāyām nanu yadbhavatyām pašyanti nīrūpam api svarūpam//
108. 23
Ο Yamunä, you are like the flat shining surface of a crystal mirror, with
your very pure body. For when you are in front of them they see their
real self, although it is without corporeal form.
T h e verse plays on the c o m m o n notion that a reflection lacks physical
reality; but instead of concluding that it is therefore false, it does the
opposite and concludes that it is therefore of ultimate reality. T h e
soul, the true form or essence of a h u m a n being, is non-corporeal,
and the presence of the holy river allows a person access to the
highest reality. If we consider as well that the text tells us that the
Y a m u n ā is also a form of the highest god Krsna, who when he saw

53
In Hindu theistic schools this is paralleled by copious descriptions of the God
and his heaven as composed of matter that is other than ordinary matter; it is
luminous and pure, characteristics it shares with reflecting surfaces and reflections.
See for example Râmânuja's Vedārthasamgraha, edited and translated by J.A.B. Van
Buitenen (Poona: Deccan College, 1956) section vii. See also S.K. De, Early History of
the Vaisnava Faith and Movement in Bengal (Calcutta: Firma K.L. Mukhopadhyay, 1961)
288 ff. I have written on some of the purānic descriptions "Heaven on Earth: Tem-
pies and Temple Cities in Medieval India;" Dick van der Meij, ed., India and Beyond
(Leiden: Institute for Asian Studies, 1997) 170-194.
54
Edited B.P Singh (Varanasi: Vishwavidyalaya Prakashan, 1975). On the dating
of the text see Hans Bakker, Ayodhyä (Groningen: Egbert Forster, 1986), I. 140-143.
himself in a mirror turned into a liquid form, (107. 57), then we might
also say that G o d himself is a crystal mirror in which we see our true
selves.
In this second understanding, art is not just a means to approach
reality, a m e t a p h o r that points to the artificiality of all of the objective
world. In the discourse about God's body as reflection, the object of
art, the image of the deity, as image, "pratibimba "or "pratimā", all
terms that designate reflection as well as likeness, captures the very
essence of God's nature. T h e portrait or likeness may be both relief
sculpture and reflection, to return to the metaphors of the
Viddhašālabhanjikā. T h r o u g h art as relief sculpture we may be brought
gradually to an understanding of the nature of reality and through art
as reflection we may be brought face to face with ultimate reality. I
would like to close this paper by suggesting that this too is part of the
message of Räjasekhara's play. T h e girl seen reflected on the surface
of the wall was indeed the real girl, once we come to understand
reality properly. If as Rākašekhara tells us in verse 39, as his play
concludes, G o d is at work making likenesses in the sense of portrait
sculptures, he is at the same time busy casting reflections. I close by
suggesting that these reflections may well be special reflections, reflec-
tions not as falsehoods, but as the true body of G o d in the language
of certain texts on religious images.

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 INDIAN I M A G E - W O R S H I P AND ITS D I S C O N T E N T S

RICHARD H . DAVIS

Hindu India of the early medieval period, roughly 700 to 1200 C.E.,
was a m o n g the most image-saturated of all religious cultures. 1 During
this period the worship of animated icons of the gods, who resided in
monumental temples teeming with divine imagery, was the primary
form of public religiosity in the subcontinent. T e m p l e priests elabo-
rated liturgical procedures of great intricacy for the proper consecra-
tion and respectful treatment of these iconic deities, and rulers of the
time vied with one another in sponsoring ever more ostentatious sa-
cred structures in their own dominions.
By the beginning of the eleventh century the Indian landscape was
covered with myriad temples small and large, each filled with hosts of
divine figures. W h e n the Ghaznavid ruler M a h m u d arrived in the
holy city of M a t h u r a on his military campaign of 1006, he was aston-
ished by the extravagant structures that confronted him there. As the
contemporary court chronicler al-Utbi describes it:
When he came to that place he saw a city, of wonderful fabric and
conception, so that one might say, this is a building of Paradise ... They
had brought immense stones, and had laid a level foundation upon high
stairs. Around it and at its sides they had placed one thousand castles,
built of stone, which they had made idol temples, and had fastened them
well. And in the midst of the city they had built a temple higher than all,
to delineate the beauty and decoration of which the pens of all writers
and the pencils of all painters would be powerless, and would not be able
to attain to the power of fixing their minds upon it and considering it. In
the memoir which the Sultan wrote of this journey he thus declares, that,
if any one should undertake to build a fabric like that he would expend
thereon one hundred thousand packets of a thousand dinars, and would
not complete it in two hundred years, with the assistance of the most
ingenious masters (Reynolds 1858: 454-55).
M a h m u d was no provincial. H e ruled the wealthiest and most expan-
sive polity of the Islamic world of the time. Even so, the great temples

1 This essay expands on a brief discussion in my book, Lives of Indian Images (1997:
44-49). I am indebted to the Jacob Taubes Center for the opportunity to present this
material in Heidelberg. I also presented early versions of the paper at the University
of Virginia, Bard College, and Harvard University. I am grateful to all those audi-
ences for their comments and suggestions.
of medieval India appeared to him, and to many Muslim observers
from the Middle East, as something extraordinary. Islamic authors
decided that India must be the original home, the very source, of all
idolatry in the world. O f course, his amazement did not prevent
M a h m u d from plundering the temples of M a t h u r a and using their
precious materials for the mosque he was constructing in Ghazna.

Embracing the Iconic

If M a h m u d encountered temple Hinduism in its full flower, this had
not always been the case. Earlier in India the dominant forms of
public religion receiving elite patronage were notably aniconic. In-
dia's earliest religious treatises, the Vedas, prescribed an elaborate
program of public fire sacrifices to deities who remained invisible to
their worshippers, and the metaphysical teachings of the Upanisads
emphasized the formlessness and intangibility of the abstract Absolute
they called the brahman. O t h e r teachers advocated renunciation,
where an individual would retreat from society to carry out a regimen
of discipline and austerities, seen as an "interior sacrifice," in order to
gain personal salvation. Religious movements critical of the Vedic
sacrifice, most notably the followers of Mahavira the J i n a and Sakya-
muni the Buddha, also pursued largely renunciatory soteriological
programs in which icons had no place initially, and the earliest monu-
ments of the Buddhists when they began to attract wealthy patrons as
lay followers were burial mounds covering the ashes of the Buddha.
In the Indian landscape of the earliest centuries C.E., insofar as we
can envision it through written texts and archeological remains, one
would have to look carefully to find the modest shrines and small-
scale terra cotta icons that subsisted largely outside the dominant
culture.
This religious dispensation began to change in the early centuries
C.E., when Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains all began to fabricate images
of divine or s u p r a m u n d a n e figures and to worship these icons with
rites of devotion. W e can retrace the gradual Hindu embrace of the
cult of images as a sequence of forms, both physical and liturgical, of
growing size, sophistication, and complexity. Archeologically, the first
humble stone icons of recognizable Hindu gods dated to the Kusana
period (2nd-3rd centuries C.E.) lead through the more confident
sculpted deities and earliest temples built in p e r m a n e n t stone and
brick of the late G u p t a period (5th-6th centuries), to the first imperial-
scale temples constructed by the early medieval dynasties like the
Calukyas and Pallavas (7th-8th centuries), and culminate in the grand
temple programs of the tenth and eleventh century rulers like the
Candellas and the Colas. Likewise with ritual texts, one observes a
dramatic shift in scale from the appendices to the Vedic corpus like
the Visnusmrti (roughly 5th century) which first adumbrate practices of
image-worship, to the later Puranic texts like the Visnudharmottara-
purāna (of the 8th century) which prescribes an elaborate scheme of
temple construction and royal consecration for an imperial Hindu
ruler. From the 8th century on, while Vedic brahmins still received
land-grants to continue performing small domestic Vedic sacrifices, a
much greater proportion of royal and elite resources were redirected
to fabricate and support the grand temples where the high Hindu
gods, Visnu, Siva, and the Goddess, dwelled in their iconic bodies.
T h e rise of image-worship in classical and early medieval India
represents an embrace of the iconic. Wealthy elites and religious spe-
cialists made a positive choice to view this mode of ritual practice as
efficacious and compelling, as worthy of material support and intel-
lectual elaboration. Their choice made temple Hinduism the norma-
tive practice of the public sphere, the most visible form of medieval
Hindu religiosity. 2
T h e premise underlying this essay is that such a shift in religious
practice and patronage would not occur without significant dispute
and debate. As a central visible ritual practice, image worship in
India has always had its discontents. Not only have outsiders holding
very different theological and ontological presuppositions, like the
Islamic Ghaznavids or later Christian missionaries and post-Enlight-
enment Western observers, criticized it variously as polytheism, idola-
try, devil-worship, or degenerate superstition. It has also been
debated and criticized from within, a m o n g schools of thought we
nowadays classify as Hindu. In particular, orthodox brahmins loyal to
the Vedic traditions of aniconic sacrifice and meditation directed to-
wards a formless Absolute fought a long discursive battie against pro-
ponents of divine images throughout the classical and early medieval
periods.
Historians of Indian religion have paid little or no attention to the
dispute over the propriety of images, however, because they have
generally considered image-worship as a popular practice that is in-
choate and irrational, reluctantly adopted and rationalized by the
elite as a concession to the masses. T h e standard scholarly narrative
locates the growth of temple Hinduism in what Peter Brown (1981:
17) would call a "two-tiered model." According to this model, change

2
For some historical aspects of this religious shift, see Dirks 1976 and Inden
1979.
and innovation in religious practice come about through the "con-
tinuous upward pressure" of the "vulgar," and the often reluctant
capitulation of enlightened elites to popular needs. 3 Colonial histori-
ans of Indian religion cast the two-tiered model along racial lines.
Image-worship, they postulated, appeared in medieval India as the
emergence of a suppressed but persistent "Dravidian substratum,"
finally rising to expression within a dominant "Aryan" elite culture.
Such explanations by way of capitulation and racial self-expression
tend to bypass any scholarly exploration of reasoned debate or po-
lemic a m o n g the h u m a n agencies involved in the religious shift.
In this essay I aim to reconstruct some of the Indian debate over
worship of divine icons. Following the suggestion of Heinrich von
Stietencron (1971), I argue that Hindu religious specialists involved
themselves directly in the articulation of the public cult of images,
and that this brought about a split between two groups of specialists:
traditionalists loyal to the aniconic Vedic order and iconodules de-
voted to the new temple gods. As Stietencron observes, real economic
interests were at stake here, but the primary basis of the split was
religious. Between these two orientations ensued a real dispute over
the character of divinity, the possibilities of representation and divine
instantiation, and the relative efficacy of different religious practices.
Here I focus primarily on Hindus discontented with the worship of
images.

The Premises of Hindu Image Worship

Before considering critiques of image worship, it will be useful to
trace briefly the rise of Hindu image worship and to outline some of
the most basic premises upon which the early medieval Hindu prae-
tice rested. 4
In the epic poems Mahabharata and Ramayana and in the early
Puranas, a new form of Hindu theism began to take shape and chal-
lenge earlier religious formations. T h e proponents of the new Hindu
theism advanced two gods in particular, Visnu and Siva, as preemi-

3
Gregory Sehopen (1988-89) employs Brown's term in his study of early Buddha
images, where he demonstrates that monks and nuns, the Buddhist intellectual elite,
involved themselves direcdy in the inception of the image cult. For a cridcal review
of Indological approaches to theistic Hinduism and image-worship, see Inden 1990.
Mitter 1977 provides a full historical account of Western responses to Indian images.
4
See Davis 1997: 15-50 for a basic account of the governing ideas of medieval
Hindu worship. A more in-depth summary of one important medieval Hindu order,
the Saiva siddhanta, may be found in Davis 1991.
nent deities. According to the texts of the new theists, the Highest
G o d (whether Visnu or Siva) has two primary modes of being, for
which they used various antinomies: unmanifest and manifest, form-
less and embodied, undifferentiated and differentiated, without at-
tributes and with attributes. T h e later Vaisnava theologian R a m a n u j a
summarized these contrasting modes as constituting Visnu's tran-
scendence [paratva) and His accessibility (saulabhya). Hindu theists took
it for granted—indeed, they deemed it a necessary feature of God's
supremacy—that the Highest G o d could be simultaneously both.
This represented a significant theological innovation in Indian re-
ligious ideology. Previous Indian formulations of an Absolute, par-
ticularly in the Vedic texts known as the Upanisads, had attempted to
locate and designate a Supreme Something that would reside outside
all worldly limitations. T h e y used a variety of terms for this tran-
scendent, abstract Absolute, but the most c o m m o n term was brahman,
a neuter n o u n that had formerly denoted the religious efficacy of the
words of the Veda. T h e Absolute brahman is beginningless and end-
less, unchanging, pervasive, and limitless. Within the multiplicity of
the empirical world we see around us, the brahman resides unseen yet
unitary. T h e Upanisads and later monist schools of theology devel-
oped a largely negative theological vocabulary to approximate this
abstract Absolute, while also insisting that the brahman ultimately re-
mains inaccessible to our conventional means of knowledge.
Within the formulation of the Upanisads, older gods of the Vedic
sacrificial world like Indra and Agni found themselves demoted. A
warring divinity who had led the other deities of the Vedic pantheon
as chieftain and king, Indra now found himself up against a more
subtle opponent. In comparison to the brahman, the Vedic deities were
conditioned, temporal, finite beings. T h e y might surpass h u m a n s in
their powers and their longevity, and they might reside in heavenly
paradises enjoying their ambrosia and watching the graceful dances
of divine dancing girls, but finally they were also part of the same
fluctuating cycle of existence. Only the brahman, insisted the Upani-
sads, existed truly apart from this cosmic cycle.
As the H i n d u theists began to advance the claims of Visnu and
Siva as the Highest Being, they appropriated the theological vocabu-
lary of the Upanisads, as well as m a n y of the mythical themes of the
older Vedic corpus. Visnu, his votaries proclaimed, is undying, im-
perishable, unalterable, immovable, all-pervading, and incomprehen-
sible. In fact, they repeatedly added, Visnu is the brahman. Yet they
also insisted that the same Absolute Being can repeatedly engage
himself in the world, to accomplish various worldly aims. A m o n g
Vaisnavas, this led to the notion of avatara, Visnu's "crossing d o w n "
into form, or his purposeful incarnation. In a famous passage of the
Bhagavadgita, one of Visnu's h u m a n incarnations explains:
I am indeed unborn. My self is imperishable. I am the Lord of all beings.
Even so, I do enter into the material world, which is mine, and take birth
through my own powers of appearance. Any time the world order be-
comes exhausted and disorder gains the upper hand, then I emanate
myself. Time after time I take birth in order to reestablish the world
order, so that good people may be protected and evil-doers destroyed
(BhG 4.6-8).

T h r o u g h his incarnations Visnu could intervene in worldly affairs

m u c h as the older Vedic deities did. Within Vaisnava texts Visnu
took over m a n y of Indra's functions and characteristics, particularly
his royal and protective aspects. In this changing of the divine guard,
I n d r a a n d the other Vedic deities were again demoted, not just be-
cause they were finite beings, but also because their powers were
insufficient to meet new challenges. In the narratives of the Epics and
Puranas, we often find Visnu incarnating himself precisely to carry
out a task at which Indra has already failed, or to subdue a d e m o n
who has defeated the Vedic gods.
T h e theological conjoining of transcendence and immanence, ab-
solute supremacy and worldly accessibility, proved to be a powerful
position for the new H i n d u theists. Worshippers of Visnu and Siva
could assert absolute status for their respective deities while also de-
voting themselves to engaged divinities who appeared in physical
form. Since Visnu and Siva acted in the world, their votaries could
describe their diverse and often delightful worldly exploits, in theo-
logical narratives we now call "mythology." T h e accessibility of the
gods provided the basis for the growth of devotional movements fo-
cusing around their most attractive a n t h r o p o m o r p h i c aspects. Since
they assumed physical forms, it became possible to see them. T h e
Epics and Puranas are full of visions, where fortunate h u m a n beings
see the gods in a variety of awesome forms. 3 Some Puranas began to
prescribe new kinds of meditation by which advanced practitioners
could create vivid internal images of Visnu and Siva.
T h e conjunction of divine transcendence and accessibility also
provided a new and m o r e compelling basis for the practice of wor-
shipping physical icons. From divine incarnation to divine icon was
not a long step. Notions about icons depend most fundamentally
u p o n ideas about G o d and the possibilities of God's relationship with

5
O n visions in the Epics, see Laine 1989. Likewise in Buddhism during the same
period, vision became an important way of apprehending religious insight, as shown
in Beyer 1977.
material form, and the Hindu theist concept of incarnation already
assumed the possibility of divine corporeality in forms visible to other
humans.
Early medieval liturgical texts most often frame the premises of
image-making and image-worship in terms of the problem of God's
accessibility. In the Vaisnava Paramasamhita, for instance, the divine
interlocutor B r a h m a n poses the question: if Visnu is unconstrained by
form and unlimited in place, time, or shape, as the texts assert, then
how can h u m a n s praise him, meditate on him, or worship him? This
is the issue raised most forcefully by using the negative theological
vocabulary of the Upanisads to characterize Visnu. In the Parama-
samhita Visnu himself responds, " G o d can be worshipped in embod-
ied form only. T h e r e is no worship of one without manifest form (PS
3.3)." From the Hindu theist perspective, then, the monist schools
that insist on a transcendent and unmanifest brahman effectively bar
themselves from worship and other devotional practice.
Theists place themselves in a more propitious position. " T h a n k s to
my benevolence towards all beings," Visnu continues, "there are
manifest images of Visnu meant for ritual purposes. H u m a n s should
construct the Imperishable O n e in h u m a n form and worship Him
with utmost devotion." So an image depicting Visnu in finite anthro-
pomorphic form must be understood also as representing him as the
"Imperishable O n e , " the Absolute. Within the sphere of ritual the
two aspects are united, Visnu adds. "Worship or praise or meditation
offered to the god in an image are offered directly to G o d . " This is
because G o d actually enters into the icon. " T h e Lord descends into
the temples of worthy persons as an act of sympathy, in accord with
their good qualities." Visnu descends into a stone or metal icon,
much as he may incarnate himself in a body of flesh and blood, in a
mood of sympathy and good will, to make himself accessible to his
devotees—even while he also retains his supreme Otherness.
In the Paramasamhita Visnu claims the initiative in prescribing im-
ages and image-worship, and in other narratives of the Puranas the
gods themselves initiate h u m a n s into the practice of worshipping
icons. In the well-known story of Siva and the sages of the Pine Forest
ashram, told with variations in m a n y Puranas, Siva observes a group
of b r a h m i n renouncers engaging in Vedic austerities in their
Himalayan retreat and decides to introduce them to a more effective
m o d e of religious practice. 6 H e appears to them first as a naked, ash-

6
This summary is based on the Kurmapurana version (2.36-37). For a full transla-
tion see Davis 1995: 637-48. On other versions of the same narrative, see O'Flaherty
1981.
smeared beggar, simultaneously repulsive and lascivious. In this
strangely beguiling form he begins to seduce the sages' wives, and the
sages are enraged. T h e y use their powers to curse the beggar but he
is unaffected by their imprecations. Nevertheless he disappears, and
the world begins to go awry. T h e sun fails to shine and the earth
trembles. T h e sages are perplexed and frightened. T h e y ask the god
B r a h m a n what has happened. B r a h m a n explains that they have had
the great fortune to see Siva, the Supreme Being, and the great mis-
fortune to have tried to curse him. H o w can they expiate their error?
H o w can they gain Siva's presence once more, they ask Brahman.
B r a h m a n recommends that the sages begin to worship the Siva linga,
the upright cylindrical "sign" or iconic emblem of Siva. (The word
"linga" also signifies penis, and in some versions of the story Siva
tears off and throws down his own penis when the sages complain of
his sexual pursuit of their wives.) T h e sages return to their ashram,
fabricate a linga, and begin to worship it. After they have followed
B r a h m a n ' s instructions for some time, Siva reappears. H e is pleased
with their new practice, he tells them, and consents to teach them the
higher theological knowledge they seek. So in this exemplary tale of
origins, the sages' worship of the linga leads both to the renewed
presence of G o d and to their acquisition of liberating knowledge.
For the early medieval H i n d u theists, icons gained their primary
value as supports for divine presence. T h e y could be representational.
Sculpted images could approximate the physical appearances of the
gods as they manifest themselves a n d act in the world. Artisan hand-
books and liturgical texts of the period provide extensive, detailed
instructions for fabricating representational images of the gods in
their various iconographie forms. But, as Siva's initiation of linga
worship reminds us, icons need not be anthropomorphic. A part
could serve as synecdoche for the whole. In fact, given the simultane-
ous transcendence and i m m a n e n c e of the High God, image-worship
was most often formulated in métonymie terms. In Saiva ritual, the
abstract, "undifferentitated" linga serves as the primary icon for
Siva's presence. Icons for worship need not even be m a d e by hu-
mans. Found objects, such as smooth linga-shaped stones lying in the
bed of the N a r m a d a River, could be taken as "self-manifesting" icons
of divinity. W h a t was most important was not the visual appearance
of the material object, but the divine presence of which it was the
support.
T h e Sanskrit terms classical and medieval authors used to refer to
icons reflect these several emphases. Some terms [pratima, bimba) de-
note "reflection" or "likeness," pointing to the visual resemblance of
images to the deity represented in an i m m a n e n t aspect. O t h e r terms
(;vigraha, murti) stress that the icons are themselves "bodies" or "forms"
that divine persons inhabit and animate through their presence. Fi-
nally, another common term, area ("object of worship") conveys the
proper location of the icon within interactive devotional ritual. As
Visnu's statement in the Paramasamhita indicates, the primary purpose
for an icon is to enable humans and other sentient beings to worship
God.
T h e incarnation of God in a physical icon entails dedicated atten-
tiveness and proper ritual form on the part of the community of
worshippers. Hindu liturgical texts of the early medieval period
prescribe complex programs by which icons and their temples are to
be fabricated and brought to life through ritual "establishment"
(pratistha), making them fit receptacles for divine presence. O n c e an
icon is established, it then requires a regular cycle of ritual attentions
and services, known as puja. During puja a worshiper first invokes the
god's presence into the icon, then treats the god as a divine guest with
offerings of hospitality, food, entertainment, and praise. Such services
"please" the divinity who has made himself present, say the liturgical
texts. Yet in another sense, the same divine figure also remains tran-
scendentally beyond such emotional responses as being pleased or
displeased (Davis 1991: 159-62).

Exclusions and Inclusions

While we can outline the ideological developments leading to the
medieval Hindu worship of divine icons, the social circumstances
through which this new practice came to flourish are less clear. T h e
most c o m m o n scholarly view, as I have noted, holds that the worship
of images was an inchoate practice of the lower classes or those out-
side the dominant Indo-Aryan order, which gradually percolated up-
wards. According to this two-tiered scenario, the traditional class of
Indo-Aryan religious specialists, the Vedic brahmins, found them-
selves forced by the popularity of the image cults to cater to the
superstitious practices of the masses. In a valuable effort to revise this
view, Heinrich von Stietencron has suggested that we view the rise of
image worship in terms of a schism within the brahmin class. "It was
not merely a question of defence of Brahmanic privileges against a
new group of religious specialists rising from the lower strata of soci-
ety," he writes. " T h e texts rather suggest that the conflict was mainly
within the Brahman class (1977: 126)." T h e shift from Vedic altar to
Hindu temple, from invisible celestials to divine icons, he argues,
"was accompanied by bitter feuds between traditionalists and innova-
tors."
 Some brahmin groups began to involve themselves as religious
specialists in formulating the liturgical practices of the Hindu temples.
In "Changes in the Vedic Priesthood," Ronald Inden (1992) traces
how certain Vedic schools gradually introduced elements of Hindu
theist ideology and iconic practices into later strata of Vedic litera-
ture. For instance, brahmins of the K a t h a school of the Black
Yajurveda reworked their earlier D h a r m a s u t r a into a Vaisnava text,
the Visnusmrti, sometime around the fifth century C.E. T h e revised text
calls upon the male brahmin householder to perform a daily worship
of an image of Visnu, and it advises the brahmin renouncer to visual-
ize and meditate upon Visnu in either transcendent or embodied
form (1992: 567). T h e Baudhayana school, a division of the Taittiriya
order of the Black Yajurveda, added an appendix to their text of
household rites, which provides detailed instructions for installing and
worshipping icons of Visnu, Siva, and other deities as formulated by
that Vedic school. At the same time, brahmins educated in the Vedic
traditions began to introduce elements of Vedic knowledge into tem-
pie practice, as they articulated and elaborated the expanding reli-
gious formation. Select portions of Vedic texts became part of the
Hindu liturgy, and Vedic ritual forms were appropriated and revised
in accord with Hindu theist premises. 7
O t h e r groups and schools, however, remained loyal to the tradi-
tional activities and outlook of the orthodox Vedic brahmin. These
groups saw it as their religious duty to recite and transmit the Veda,
to perform Vedic sacrifice on behalf of themselves and others, and to
expound and elaborate the disciplines of knowledge (such as gram-
mar, Vedic hermeneutics, Vedantic philosophy, and the like) that
grew out of that canon. For the traditionalists, the cult of icons and
the growing religious culture of temple Hinduism could only appear
as a threat. This had an economic dimension, of course, since the two
religious formations competed (along with others, most notably Bud-
dhist and J a i n monks and nuns) for finite sources of material patron-
age. But as Stietencron recognizes, the basis of the conflict between
iconic innovators and aniconic traditionalists was religious. T h e inno-
vators proposed "a change in the concept of god, a shift in moral
values, and a different accessment (sic) of the role of the priest (1977:
126-27)." From the ranks of the Vedic traditionalists came the origi-
nal discontents of Indian image-worship.

' Davis 1988 discusses one example of a Vedic ritual as revised by the theistic
Saiva siddhanta order. On the usage of Vedic materials by later Hindu theists, see
Gonda 1965.
 Already in an early text like the Manusmrti, a Dharmasastra of the
Maitrayani school (another subset of the Black Yajurveda) composed
sometime around the second century C.E., opposition to the
iconodules appears. T h e teachings of M a n u take for their primary
polemical targets the Buddhists and Jains, who are labeled nastikas,
"deniers" of Vedic authority and sacrificial efficacy. In response to
the heterodox critique of the Vedic order, M a n u seeks throughout to
reassert the status of Vedic brahmin householders and Veda-based
ritual practice as the primary h u m a n supports of dharma, the cosmo-
moral order of things. Along the way M a n u also takes note of a new
category of religious specialist, the devalaka, an attendant of images or
temple priest. T h e y should be shunned, advises M a n u .
In his discussion of the monthly ancestral offerings (.sraddha), for
example, M a n u recommends that a good brahmin householder
should be careful whom he invites. Ancestral offerings have much to
do with maintaining the continuity and status of one's lineage, so it
makes sense to restrict from pardcipation those who might detract
from the family purity. M a n u urges his audience to exclude devalakas,
a m o n g many others, from the monthly rites: "Physicians, temple-
priests, sellers of meat, and those who subsist by shop-keeping must
be avoided at sacrifices offered to the gods and to the manes (MS
3.152)." This is just one part of a m u c h larger set of exclusions. Not
only doctors and butchers, but also men with deformed nails or black
teeth, people with one eye, actors, singers, gamblers, drunks, spice-
merchants, and of course nastikas, along with many others, should all
be avoided at ceremonies of ancestral solidarity. Persons with all sorts
of imperfections—physical, moral, ideological, or occupational—
could contaminate the purity of the proceedings. M a n u concludes,
"As a fire of dry grass is unable to consume the offerings and is
quickly extinguished, even so is it with an unlearned Brahmana; sac-
rificial food must not be given to him since it would be offered in
ashes (MS 3.168)."
M a n u ' s later commentator Kulluka provides a more specific ex-
planation for the exclusion of temple priests. Quoting the
Dharmasastra of Devala (now lost), Kulluka defines devalakas as those
who obtain their livelihood from god's treasures (Stietencron 1977:
133). Food offered to the iconic gods ends up in the bellies of the
temple priests. Like physicians, butchers, and merchants, they act for
the sake of profit, says Kulluka, and not for the sake of d h a r m a . More
than this, temple priests can be seen as thieves, appropriating the
pious offerings meant for the gods on their own behalf. Later in the
Manusmrti the greedy priests get their just deserts. " T h a t sinful m a n
who, through covetousness, seizes the property of the gods, or the
property of Brahmanas, feeds in another world on the leavings of
vultures (MS 11.26)."
Hindu theists answered this charge by offering a new theory of
ritual food transactions within puja. W h e n devotees make offerings of
food and a priest places the edibles before the deity embodied in an
icon, God consumes the "subtle portion" of the meal, the "undying"
ambrosia most suited to divine ingestion. W h a t remain on the platter
are the leftovers from God's meal. But unlike ordinary h u m a n left-
overs, which are rendered impure by contact with saliva, God's left-
overs become transfigured through divine contact. N o w they are
prasada, God's "grace" in tangible, edible form, which the priest may
consume for himself and distribute a m o n g the community of wor-
shippers. Far from being robbers of a god's rightful property, the
temple priest becomes from this perspective a co-partner and dis-
tributor of the very substance of divine being. T h e High Gods of the
Hindu theists, who manifest themselves on earth and present them-
selves in icons, are inclusive deities who extend their benefits even
through their spittle.
While M a n u and other Vedic traditionalists sought to exclude the
iconodules from orthodox ceremonial, later Hindu theists followed
the lead of their deities in adopting a more inclusive approach to-
wards their adversaries. But it was an inclusivism imbricated with the
principle of hierarchy. T h e y recognized the Vedas as authoritative
texts, for instance, but of lesser authority than the new liturgical texts,
the Samhitas and Agamas directly promulgated by Visnu or Siva
(Davis 1991: 29-31).
With the great expansion of temple patronage of the eighth and
ninth centuries, the iconodules found themselves in a position to re-
formulate the central ceremonies of Hindu royal authority. O n e text
of this period, the Visnudharmottara Purana (which poses itself as an
"addition" to the Visnusmrti of the K a t h a school), proposes a virtually
complete replacement of the old cycle of Vedic public sacrifices with
a new ritual cycle centered around Visnu (Inden 1992: 572-73). In-
stead of performing a Vedic horse sacrifice to proclaim his imperial
stature, the new model H i n d u king should build an imperial-scale
temple. And when he does so, the Visnudharmottara advises, he should
appoint a group of sixteen priests to perform the installation of the
main Visnu image. O f these, the four chief officiants—the astrologer,
architect, head ritualist, and chief reciter—are all closely associated
with image-worship. A place was made also for the more traditional
Vedic priests within the iconic liturgy, but it was at the bottom of the
hierarchy of sixteen priests. Four priests representing the four Vedas
were assigned the humble task of carrying the water-pots for the
consecration of the new image.

Exegetical Denial
O n e can trace the lines of dispute between the orthodox Vedicists
and the iconodules not only in matters of ritual exclusion and inclu-
sion and the propriety of eating divine leftovers, but also in debates
over the authority of different texts, over the efficacy of different
rituals, over differing degrees of salvation, and the like. T h e most
fundamental areas of dispute between traditionalists and innovators,
however, revolve around the category of divinity itself.
I have argued that temple Hinduism and its iconic forms of liturgy
rest upon a particular understanding of the divine nature of the High-
est G o d as being simultaneously transcendent and accessible. Within
Hinduism the most penetrating critiques of image-worship and its
theological premises have come from two orthodox schools, the
Purva M i m a m s a and the Advaita Vedanta. T h e M i m a m s a school of
Jaimini and his successors view divinity in ritual, functional terms,
and pursue a line of exegetical denial seeking to subvert the grounds
of image-worship. T h e non-dualist Advaitins like Sankara identify the
Absolute solely in abstract and impersonal terms, consider all other
manifestations of divinity as decidedly secondary apparitions, and
take a less radical (but ultimately more effective) stance of hierarchical
demotion towards any practices involving the worship of divinized
icons.
T h e Vedic exegetes of the M i m a m s a school take it as their central
task to examine the nature of dharma, the fundamental cosmo-moral
order of things. For these traditionalist scholars, dharma has already
been set forth authoritatively and completely in the Vedas, and so the
task remaining is a hermeneutical one. If proper h u m a n action fol-
lows directly from the authorless eternal words of the Vedas, then it is
necessary to determine which of the statements in the Vedic texts
have a truly injunctive force, and which are primarily rhetorical.
W h a t emerges most strongly from the Vedas is the c o m m a n d to offer
sacrifice. But even here there is some ambiguity in the texts. W h a t is
the basis for the efficacy of this form of ritual action? W h a t should
motivate humans to perform sacrifices?
In the Purvamimamsasutras (9.1.6-10), Jaimini and his fifth century
commentator Sabara present two views concerning sacrificial effi-
cacy. T h e first is a "preliminary view" [purvapaksa), which is sup-
planted by the correct "conclusive view" (siddhanta). According to the
preliminary view, one should sacrifice to gods such as Indra and
Agni, who are repeatedly mentioned by n a m e as recipients of the
sacrificial offerings in the Vedic texts. These gods are, as Jaimini puts
it, lords of wealth and so one seeks to please them through sacrifice
much as one does a guest in one's home. This view in turn rests on
the assumption that gods have bodies. As Francis Clooney summa-
rizes the position, "Because deities have bodies, ... they are able to
receive and enjoy the materials offered to them in the fire; they will
also have domain over physical goods and thereby be able to com-
pensate those who have gone to the trouble of offering the materials
(1988: 281)." T h e efficacy of sacrifice depends, that is, on divine
forces outside the sacrificial action itself, and the motivation for per-
forming sacrifice is to place oneself in a beneficial exchange relation-
ship with the gods.
Against this preliminary perspective, which may well reflect the
most c o m m o n understanding of Vedic sacrificial intention, Jaimini
and Sabara argue that the efficacy of sacrifice does not require any
outside intervention. Rather, they aver, it results from the inherent
character of the ritual actions themselves. M i m a m s a terms this the
apurva, the "intrinsic self-completion of the sacrifice" (Clooney n.d.:
12). Obedience to the authoritative Vedic injunction to sacrifice in a
certain way is efficacious in itself. This notion of an inhering efficacy
bypasses any divine mediation, and so the sacrificer need not concern
himself with the vagaries of divine pleasure and displeasure.
However, this denial of divine agency also appears to contradict
the contents of the Vedic texts themselves. T h e hymns of the Vedas
repeatedly address the gods as if they have bodies, eat offerings, enjoy
the repast, and reward their sacrificial hosts. Sabara responds that
gods do not have bodies—or at the least, that no authoritative evi-
dence proves that gods are corporeal. If they lack bodies, they cer-
tainly do not need sacrificial offerings, nor can they act on behalf of
their votaries. T o support this position, Sabara subjects a n u m b e r of
Vedic passages that seem to offer evidence of divine bodies to a
higher criticism, and shows that these statements are inconclusive or
figurative. A statement from the Rgveda that "we have taken hold of
Indra's h a n d , " for instance, really means that "we depend on Indra,"
Sabara interprets, and this in turn is only meant as rhetorical rein-
forcement to the c o m m a n d that "we should perform the sacrifice to
Indra."
T h e outcome of Sahara's skeptical hermeneutics was that the only
reliable existence of the gods lay in the sounds (sabda) of their names
or the mantras addressed to them. "Divinity is only sound," was the
M i m a m s a formula. Indra had no necessary existence apart from the
name " I n d r a " and its semantic functions within sacrifice. T h e signi-
fied had collapsed into its signifier, and sound itself was divinized.
Jaimini and Sahara argue explicitly against a theistic way of inter-
preting Vedic sacrifice. Writing in the fifth century, however, Sahara
also observed the growth of Hindu theism and the worship of icons,
and his denial of divine embodiment offers a significant critique of
image-worship. As we have seen, the fundamental premises of temple
Hinduism held that the gods exist as autonomous beings and that
they willingly assume corporeal forms as suits their purposes. By this
view an icon becomes a veritable body for the god. Sahara's radical
denial of divine embodiment subverted the foundation upon which
rested the worship of images.
From a theistic perspective, perhaps the best response to the
M i m a m s a critique was a satirical one. O n e early Saiva text, the
Mrgendragama of roughly the eighth century, begins with the Vedic
god Indra himself coming upon a group of sages who have set up a
Siva linga in their forest ashram and have adopted the new mode of
offering puja to an icon. Indra disguises himself as an ascetic and
demands to know why the sages are not following the Vedic injunc-
tions. Here, it would appear, is the dichotomy between innovating
iconodule sages and a traditionalist Vedic Indra. T h e sages reply that
they are indeed following the Vedas, and they cite Vedic passages
that recommend praising Siva. (They do not add that the Vedic
excerpts say nothing of Siva's linga or of puja) Indra next adopts
Sahara's line of attack. "Your knowledge is wrong," he counters,
"since divinity is only sound (MA vidya 1.7)." Of course, this puts
Indra in the seemingly contradictory position of endorsing a position
that would deny his own bodily existence. T h e sages defend them-
selves with linguistic realism. Words as signifiers must refer to real
things, they reply, since " T h e word 'pot' does not hold water and the
word m o o n ' does not shine (1.12)." It is the same with a word like
Indra, they continue. It is the deity who carries out Indra's divine
activities, not the word "Indra."
Indra, it turns out, is no traditionalist at all, but only wishes to test
the sages' faith. H e is delighted by their vigorous defense of Siva puja,
and of his own corporeal existence as well. H e reveals his true efful-
gent body to the sages and proceeds to give them further instructions
in the proper methods of worshiping Siva and the correct theological
knowledge underlying that worship. So the narrative of the
Mrgendragama uses the chief deity of the Vedas to subvert the interpre-
tive principles of Vedic loyalists, and turns Indra into an acolyte of
Saiva theistic teachings and practices.
 Monist Demotion

A less radical but m o r e effective critique c a m e f r o m the Advaita

V e d a n t a school, especially as set forth in the Brahmasutras of
B a d a r a y a n a and the c o m m e n t a r y on t h e m by the non-dualist phi-
losopher Sankara. If M i m a s a refused on principle to accept the em-
b o d i m e n t of divinity, Advaita used the m o r e familiar Indian
rhetorical strategy of qualified acceptance. Sankara admitted that a
worshipper might indeed a p p r o a c h divinity embodied in a physical
support, but he consigned this to a distinctly lower level of religious
practice than the direct, u n m e d i a t e d realization of oneness with the
transcendent brahman that Advaitins sought.
Sankara was born in southern India in the late seventh or early
eighth century, at a time when temple Hinduism was flourishing
there. 8 His father was a Vedic b r a h m i n of the Taittiriya school, and
Sankara's writings locate themselves firmly within the Vedic lineage,
as " V e d a n t a , ' ‫ י‬a completion of the Vedas. T h e traditional accounts of
Sankara's life portray him as a great philosophical disputant who
defeats all comers in debate, but most especially the adherents of
Buddhism a n d M i m a m s a . F r o m Sankara's own writings, it is clear
that he knew the works of the seventh century Buddhist logician
Dharmakirti and the two m a j o r M i m a m s a authors of the period,
K u m a r i l a and Prabhakara. Indeed, in the hagiographical Sankaradig-
vijaya, Sankara encounters K u m a r i l a just as the great Mimamsika is
immolating himself in a sacrificial fire, a n d shows him the c o m m e n -
tary he has just completed on the Brahmasutras.
Arguing against the M i m a s a position articulated by Sabara,
Sankara insists that gods do have bodies (1vigraha).9 By virtue of their
lordly powers, gods can assume whatever bodies they wish, even nor-
mally inanimate forms such as a blaze of light. Gods can even, he
asserts, assume multiple forms simultaneously, in order to attend
m a n y sacrifices at the same time. Reinterpreting m a n y of the same
Vedic passages that S a b a r a cited, Sankara argues that statements

8
Potter 1981 summarizes what is known of the 'historical' Sankara. See also
Lorenzen 1976 for an interesting discussion of themes in Advaita hagiographical
accounts of Sankara's life. Lorenzen found more than thirty such texts.
9
The key passage here is Sankara's commentary on Badayarana's Brahmasutras
1.3.26-33. I follow Sontheimer 1964: 53-58 in reading this as a direct response to
Sabara. However, Sontheimer takes Sankara's argument here to indicate "full schol-
arly recognition" of the popular beliefs concerning image animation, and fails to
place this within Sankara's larger systematic demotion of image worship. For another
treatment of the position of image worship in Sankara's Advaita, see Venkatarama
Iyer 1964: 195-205.
 enjoining us to sacrifice to gods presuppose that these gods have
distinct bodily forms. "With Vedic injunctions that compel us to offer
oblations to Indra and the other gods, it is necessary that Indra and
the others have their own characteristic forms (.svarupa), for without
such forms it would be impossible for us to produce [or visualize]
Indra and the others in our minds, and without producing them in
the mind it is not possible to give oblations to the gods (BrSBh
1.3.33)." Sankara goes on to deny that this inherent form could be
merely sound, as Mimasa claimed, because the word and its object,
the signifier and the signified, are necessarily distinct from one an-
other.
U p to this point Sankara's argument appears to support the theists.
However, within the larger context of Advaita metaphysics that
Sankara articulates in this and other works, he clearly demotes the
worship of gods in iconic form along with sacrifice as inferior forms of
soteriological practice.
Sankara distinguishes two primary levels of being: the empirical
(vyavahanka-satta) and the supreme (paramarthika-satta). H u m a n s experi-
ence empirical reality as a shared, consistent, a n d largely coherent
mode of being. In this sense the empirical reality is distinct from the
more illusory worlds of dreams and hallucinations, which Sankara
sets apart as a third level of being (pratibhasika-satta). T h e empirical
level is the location of ordinary religious practice. Objects like icons,
rites like sacrifice and image-worship, and emotions like devotion to
the gods all belong to empirical reality. So too do the bodies of the
god. Gods have bodies not only because the Vedas say so, but also
because the gods need to have the experience of transience available
to all corporeal beings, which leads them to become dissatisfied with
the empirical and thus to desire liberation. Only in bodies can gods
join h u m a n s on the path to enlightenment (Clooney 1988: 287).
In contrast to the stronger opposition of Mimamsa, Sankara and
other Advaitins are able on this basis to accept the devotional and
iconic practices of the theists towards their embodied deities, as prag-
m a d e activities appropriate to the empirical level of being. However,
their acceptance is only temporary. Like the theists, Sankara accepts
an Absolute that can be both transcendent and immanent. In its
highest aspect this Absolute brahman is without qualities: formless,
pervasive, undifferentiated, and beyond h u m a n comprehension. T h e
brahman may also take on, or be given, sensible qualities, and in this
respect it becomes accessible to h u m a n s for worship and devotion.
For Sankara, however, only the first of these two levels has full onto-
logical standing. From the empirical point of view, h u m a n s may view
the brahman in i m m a n e n t forms of corporeal divinity or animate im-
age, but this can only be a provisional a n d ultimately misleading
perspective. From the standpoint of the higher knowledge, brahman
can only be formless, undifferentiated, a n d unitary. And the overrid-
ing aim of Advaita teachings is to enable its adherents to leave behind
any limited, pluralistic apprehension of things and attain a
nondualistic realization of the brahman in its unqualified fullness.
By accepting the i m m a n e n t forms of divinity as an aspect of em-
pirical reality while reserving supremacy only for a transcendent
brahman, Advaita metaphysics "removes the sense of ultimacy from
both devotional experience and its object," as Lance Nelson (1993:
65) puts it. From this Sankara develops his own "two-dered model" of
religious practice. Religious acts like offering sacrifices to the gods
a n d worship to divine icons, undertaken in the empirical world for
pragmatic aims, can be accepted and respected as activities directed
towards "engagement" [pravrttì). For realizing the supreme level of
being, however, only the practice of knowledge, classified as a
method of "cessation" (nivrtti), suffices. T h e paths of engagement and
cessation, in turn, correspond to differing h u m a n aptitudes for spir-
itual discipline and insight. For those of lesser capacities, the myriad
religious practices of the empirical level of reality may be useful.
Worshipping an image, according to the Advaitins, might aid in en-
gendering the purity of mind that would enable the worshipper to
enter into the path of knowledge. T h e true aspirant to Advaita reali-
zation, however, will gradually turn from all those material practices
that reinforce a dualistic perspective in favor of the unifying knowl-
edge of oneness.
Sankara's hierarchy of spiritual capacity also has social dimen-
sions, as Nelson (1993: 69-74) observes. Gender, class, and way of life
all may serve as indices of one's ability to follow the d e m a n d i n g path
of monist realization. Only initiated twice-born males are eligible to
study the Vedas, and Veda-study is essential for realizing the higher
brahman. Still more selective, Sankara argues that only renouncers are
fully capable of pursuing the path of knowledge, and that proper
renunciation is the preserve of the b r a h m i n class alone. T h e result is
a soteriological elite:
Saving rare exceptions [concludes Nelson], liberation is available directly
only to male Brahmins who have, through renunciation, taken to the
path of knowledge. Those in the active life have two lesser options. One
is to be satisfied with karma-mukti [gradual liberation] and a wait of count-
less thousands of years until the current world-cycle comes to an end.
The other is to hope for rebirth as a male Brahmin (1993: 74).
 Relocations of the Icon
Sankara's qualified acceptance and ultimate subversion of the
premises of devotional image-worship relate to a striking discrepancy
in the ways subsequent Advaita tradition and Western scholars have
constructed Sankara. Despite the underlying criticism of theistic prae-
tice embedded in Sankara's metaphysics, Advaitins have not chosen
to portray Sankara as opposing the worship of divine icons. In the
many hagiographies of Sankara's life composed by his followers, we
find the great advocate of monist knowledge regularly visiting Hindu
temples, singing hymns of praise to the resident deities, and even
setting up new temples. Likewise, Advaitins ascribe to Sankara's own
authorship numerous devotional works addressed to particular divini-
ties and lengthy guides for ritual practice. According to one tradition,
Sankara founded six schools of worship connected with six popular
Hindu deities. For a philosopher who viewed the paths of devotion
(bhakti) and ritual action (karma) as fundamentally inferior to that of
knowledge (jnana), these might seem surprising efforts. Yet they dem-
onstrate clearly that many later followers of Sankara valued his ac-
ceptance of the surrounding religious culture and its devotional
worship of icons.
If Advaitins accent Sankara's acceptance, modern Western schol-
ars have implicitly chosen to emphasize his philosophical dismissal of
all such practices. Indologists have expended great critical effort over
the past century or more in whittling the mass of works attributed to
Sankara down to a select works of relatively unarguable historical
authenticity—the Brahmasutrabhasya, commentaries on several Upani-
sads, and a very few other works. All the devotional and liturgical
texts ascribed to Sankara are judged as lying beneath the concern of
the great metaphysician. 1 0 This scholarly bifurcation rests upon an-
other two-tiered model. Scholars assume that, as a systematic and
rigorous Advaitin intellectual, Sankara could not have possibly com-
posed devotional or liturgical works, so they must be seen as works of
lesser followers who in effect polluted the pure teachings of the elite
master with the popular practices of medieval temple Hinduism.
Whatever the historical validity of the traditional Advaitin views of
Sankara's life and works, his followers clearly wished to have their
master both ways—as a powerful proponent of knowledge as the sole

10
Potter 1981 offers a summary of scholarly efforts to recover the authentic works
of Sankara, and the principles used to separate authentic from spurious. One may
contrast this with the twenty volume Srirangam Sri Vani Vilas edition of Works of
Sankarachaiya (1910), which includes all sorts of devotional hymns and liturgical
works.
sufficient path to liberation, and as a full participant in the surround-
ing culture of his time. In the Advaita view, Sankara was a compre-
hensive being, a "master of all knowledge," as Madhava's
Sankaradiguijaya puts it. This all-encompassing mastery is best illus-
trated in the famous anecdote of Sankara in the royal harem.
Sankara has just defeated the obstreperous Mimamsika M a n d a n a
Misra in debate, goes the story, and M a n d a n a offers to become his
servant. M a n d a n a ' s wife Bharad, however, demands that Sankara
defeat her as well before her husband can be taken from her. T h e y
debate for seventeen days and nights, to a draw. Finally Bharati has
an inspiration. Since Sankara became a celibate renouncer as a child,
he is unlikely to know anything of the science of sexual desire
(,kamasastra), so she proposes they take up this topic next. Sankara
realizes that if he refuses, his claim to be master of all knowledge will
be compromised. H e asks for a one month recess. Quickly Sankara
locates the body of a recendy deceased ruler, King Amaruku, who
had more than a hundred wives. Sankara enters with his living spirit
into the body of the king. W h e n their sovereign returns to the capital,
all the citizens celebrate his miraculous recovery. After setting the
kingdom back in order, King Amaruku-Sankara retires to the inner
apartments, where he engages himself "in all forms of amorous indul-
gences with these charming and responsive women (1978: 124)." H e
comes to understand the h u m a n joy that sex can bring, yet (the
narrator must remind us) for Sankara "it was only a shadow, a per-
version, of the Brahmic Bliss in which his mind was ever immersed
(124)." So well does he learn his lessons from the palace women that
Sankara even composes a treatise on sexuality, under the n o m de
plume of Amaruku. After his sojourn in the royal body, Sankara
returns to the home of M a n d a n a and Bharati, where the wife ac-
knowledges the renouncer's victory. Sankara's claim to complete
mastery remains unchallenged.
If we invoke Isaiah Berlin's well-known division of philosophical
styles (1953: 1-2), Western scholars have sought to insulate Sankara as
a hedgehog who "knows one thing well." Indeed his monist episte-
mology might be seen as the apogee of hedgehogist ideology.
Sankara's Indian followers, by contrast, have attempted to make of
Sankara a fox who "knows m a n y things." O r rather, more interest-
ingly, they have constructed him as an apparent fox with the soul of
a hedgehog.
We see in the biographical anecdotes and in many of the works
ascribed to Sankara an effort to validate participation within the
practices of empirical reality, and yet also to encompass that partici-
pation within a higher knowledge. So M a d h a v a frames Sankara's
intercourse with the royal courtesans within a hierarchy of bliss:
sexual pleasure is a mere shadow of the joy available through union
with the brahman. T h e same hierarchizing method appears in
Advaitin devotional hymns that turn inward. Starting from the for-
mat and premises of Hindu theism, these hymns seek to relocate the
icon from exterior to interior, from physical deity to mental realiza-
tion. In this way a hymn to the great pilgrimage center (tirtha)
Varanasi concludes by offering an interiorized pilgrimage map:
The lands of Varanasi are my body. The pervasive creator of the three
worlds is the Ganges River that is knowledge.
Gaya is devotion and faith. Prayaga is the discipline of meditating on
the feet of the inner preceptor.
The Lord of Everything, Siva Visvesvara, is the inner self who is wit-
ness in the mind of every person.
So, if all these tirthas reside in my body, what other tirtha need there
be?11
Pilgrimage, actually going to the physical Varanasi, may be a worthy
pursuit for many, but the Advaita hymn attributed to Sankara offers
a superior method of interior pilgrimage.
In " N i r g u n a m a n a s a p u j a " ("mental worship of the Unqualified
One"), Sankara reformulates the worship of the Siva-linga. 12 T h e
format is a colloquy in verse between student a n d teacher, which
begins with the student in a state of perplexity. " H o w can I give
worship," he asks, "to O n e who is without parts, ... and who remains
in a non-dual state? H o w could I invoke the Complete O n e ? W h e r e
could I prepare a seat for O n e who supports everything?" T h e pupil,
in short, cannot reconcile the i m m a n e n t physical acts of iconic wor-
ship with the transcendent characteristics of the Highest O n e as un-
derstood in Advaita. H e proceeds through all the standard actions of
puja—invocation of the deity into an icon, preparation of a seat, offer-
ing of water to rinse the feet, bathing, dressing, feeding, and so on
through the final dismissal of the deity at the end of the service.
" A n d , " he concludes, "what's the use of dismissing the O n e who
remains beyond all boundaries?"
R a t h e r than dismissing the worship of icons as a worthless enter-
prise in light of a superior monist comprehension, the teacher admits

11
'Kasipancaka,' attributed to Sankara, in Works of Sankaracharya, vol. 18, pp, 143-
44. Gaya and Prayaga are two other esteemed tirthas along Ganges, and Visvesvara
is the form of Siva residing in the most prestigious Siva temple in Varanasi. I thank
Archana Sridhar for bringing this poem to my attention.
12
'Nirgunamanasapuja,' attributed to Sankara, in Works of Sankaracharya, vol. 18,
pp. 107-11.
that he performs puja regularly. But, he immediately adds, it is puja
with a difference.
Daily I worship that gem-like linga, the soul (atman),
Enshrined in the heart's inner lotus in the city of Illusion,
Anointing it with waters of pure consciousness from the river of Faith,
And sprinkling it with flowers of meditation, to escape rebirth.
T h e teacher goes on to reformulate puja as an interior act of médita-
tive recognition. H e does invoke Siva, but with a formula that re-
minds him of his underlying unity with the G o d h e a d : "I am the O n e
that remains." At the divine throne, he prepares a reflection on the
self-established Soul. T o bathe the soul-icon, he meditates that all the
worlds are flooded by the water that is the rapture of absorption in
the brahman. Each action of worship becomes an occasion to call to
mind the tenets of Advaita metaphysics.
In his Advaita incarnation, Sankara provides a paradigm for a
distanced, qualified participation in devotional and iconic religious
practices. W e do not find the outright exclusion of temple priests that
appears in M a n u ' s treatise, nor the firm rejection of corporeal divin-
ity of Mimamsa. Rather, Advaitins offer a viewpoint that accepts the
dominant image worship of medieval Hinduism, but at the same time
provides an alternative way of understanding those practices as provi-
sional and limited in ultimate efficacy. T h e y also formulate alterna-
tive interior forms of mental puja that transform the physical activities
of worship from within. For the Advaitins this mental iconoclasm
obviates any need for physical action against icons or overt opposition
to iconic religious practice.
Yet a tension remains. It is possible that participation in the acts of
temple worship might reinforce the dualistic habits of mind that
Advaita philosophy seeks to overturn. So, conjoined with the
hagiographical depictions of Sankara as an active temple devotee, we
hear him reminding himself (and his audience) of the provisionality of
temple practices. O n pilgrimage to the great temple of Siva
Visvesvara at Varanasi, Sankara is said to pray:
Forgive me, kind one, my three great sins.
With this pilgrimage I affront you-
you who are everywhere.
With my contemplation I insult you-
you who are beyond thought.
With this prayer I mock you-
you who are beyond words. 15

13
Quoted in Radhakrishna 1960: 37. I thank Phil Wagoner for this translation,
111 the end, Sankara's self-consuming hymn calls into question the
very premises that have brought it into being.

Further Ramifications
Demoting without directly attacking the worship of images, Sankara
and his Advaitin followers articulated a new channel for discontent
with image worship that would prove resilient indeed. T e m p l e Hin-
duism with its icon-based liturgy would remain the predominant form
of public religious practice in India for centuries, and many adherents
of image worship would seek to answer Sankara's critique. T h e most
esteemed was R a m a n u j a , a Vaisnava theologian of the eleventh cen-
tury who served as pontilf for the most eminent Visnu temple of
southern India. C o m m e n t i n g on many of the same texts that Sankara
employed, R a m a n u j a identified the impersonal brahman as the per-
sonal deity Visnu, and argued for the fundamental importance of
Visnu's physical manifestations. By placing the immanence of the
Absolute on equal ontological footing with its transcendence,
R a m a n u j a reaffirmed image worship as a practice of true knowledge,
not one of illusion. 14
Even so, the nondualist principles and mental iconoclasm advo-
cated by Sankara and other Advaitins entered into a subtie ongoing
dialectic with the physical dualism implicit in the worship of icons,
without ever successfully dislodging it. M a n y of the philosophical syn-
theses and reformulations of temple ritual in medieval south Indian
religious literature, for example, may be seen as attempts to
accomodate the vision of unitary knowledge advanced by Sankara
with the devotional theology underlying image worship. O n e may
also observe the ramifications of this old debate, combined with
M a n u ' s desire to peripheralize brahmins who consorted with temple
icons, in modern disputes over status a m o n g south Indian brahmins.
As the anthropologist Christopher Fuller has described in detail, the
more Vedic "Smarta brahmins" who affiliate themselves with
Sankara's monastic lineage consider the "Adisaiva brahmins" who
perform the rituals of the great Saiva temples of Tamilnad as decid-
edly inferior in knowledge, purity, and brahmanic status (1984: 49-
71). In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when educated

and for bringing to my attention the attribution of this hymn to Sankara. In Davis
1997, I ascribed it to the later South Indian Saiva Advaita philosopher Appaya-
diksita.
14
For a brief treatment of Ramanuja's theology as a response to both Mimamsa
and Advaita positions, see Carman and Narayanan 1989: 34-42.
Indians and Hindu reformers have wished to counter the charge of
Western missionaries and scholarly observers that Hinduism is an
"idolatrous" religion, they have most often responded with some vari-
ation of Sankara's demotion of image worship as a popular practice
acceptable for those of limited understanding, but unsuitable for
those of higher knowledge.
T h e worship of divine icons in shrines great and small remains a
central ritual practice of modern Hinduism, much as it was when
M a h m u d of G h a z n a encountered the fabulous temples of eleventh
century M a t h u r a , and debates over the significance and propriety of
this practice continue as they have from that time.

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W.D. O'Flaherty, Siva: The Erotic Ascetic (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1981).
Paramasamhita. See Krishnaswami Aiyangar.
K.H. Potter, Encyclopedia of Indian Philosophies: Advaita Vedanta up to Sankara and
His Pupils (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).
S. Radhakrishnan, The Brahma Sutra: The Philosophy of Spiritual Life (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1960).
J. Reynolds, tr., 'The Kitab-i-Tamini: Historical Memoirs of the Amir Sabaktagin, and
the Sultan Mahmud of Ghazna (London: Oriental Translation Fund of Great
Britain and Ireland, 1858).
Sankaracarya, Bhagavadgita with Sankarabhasya (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1988).
—, The Works of Sankaracharya, Vol. 18: Stotras (Srirangam: Sri Vani Vilas
Press, 1910).
Sankaradigvijaya. See Tapasyananda.
G. Schopen, "On Monks, Nuns and "Vulgar" Practices: The Introduction
of the Image Cult Into Indian Buddhism," Artibus Asiae 49 (1988-89) 153-
68.
M.K. Shastri, ed, Mrgendragama, Vidyapada and Togapada (Kashmir Series of
Texts and Translations, No. 50; Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press, 1930).
G.-D. Sontheimer, "Religious Endowments in India: The Juristic Personal-
ity of Hindu Deities," Zeitschrift für Vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft 67 (1964)
45-100.
H. von Stietencron, "Orthodox Attitudes Towards Temple Service and
Image Worship in Ancient India,5' Central Asiatic Journal 21 (1977) 126-38.
S. Tapasyananda, tr., Sankara-Dig-Vijaya: The Traditional Lofe of Sri Sankara-
charya by Madhava-Vidyaranya (Madras: Sri Ramakrishna Math, 1978).
G. Thibaut, tr., The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary of Sankaracarya (Sacred
Books of the East; Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1890); 3 vols.
M. Venkatarama Iyer, Advaita Vedanta According to Sankara (Bombay: Asia
Publishing House, 1964).
 T H E ' I C O N I C ' AND ' A N I C O N I C ' B U D D H A VISUALIZA-
T I O N IN M E D I E V A L C H I N E S E B U D D H I S M

K o i C H i SHINOHARA

In this p a p e r I will examine the practice of Buddha visualization

in medieval Chinese Buddhism and examine how the 'iconic' and
'aniconic' understandings of the Buddha intersected in the discussion
of this pracdce. I will focus on the description of this practice in a
scripture called Guan Wuliangshoufo jing ("The Scripture on the Con-
templation of the Buddha of Immesurable Life or Amitāyus," to be
abbreviated as Amitāyus Contemplation Scripture below). 1 Since the Bud-
dha visualization is said to begin with viewing an image in this scrip-
ture, this discussion may also throw some light on the understanding
and use of images in medieval Chinese Buddhism.
Medieval Chinese Buddhists shared a set of general ideas about
the nature of the Buddha's "body", or the reality of the Buddha. 2 In
the final analysis the Buddha is identical with ultimate reality. T h e
Buddha in this sense, designated as the D h a r m a Body ( fashen, dharma-
kāya), transcends all forms, and is thus "aniconic," to use the termi-
nology of this conference. T h o u g h sometimes the m e t a p h o r of empty
space is used to describe this 'aniconic' Buddha, the practice of visu-
alizing the Buddha would not make m u c h sense if the Buddha were
understood only in this way. T h e Buddha also appears to sentient
beings in a variety of 'iconic' forms. T h e Buddha may take the form
of the sentient beings to w h o m he offers salvation (Response Body,
yingshen or huashen, nirmāna-kāya). H e also may appear in a special
form in which the effects of the positive retributions (karma) from
merits accumulated in previous lives are manifested fully (Enjoyment

1
The original text of this scripture is reproduced in the Taishö shinshū daizokyo (T.
364.12:340-346). For English translations of this scripture, see J . Takakusu, The
Amitāyus-dhyāna-sūtra, in Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts (New York: Dover Publications, Inc.,
1969 [1894]) 160-201 and Yamada, Meiji, et al., trans., The Sutra of Contemplation on
the Buddha of Immeasurable Life (translated and annotated by the Ryukoku University
Translation Center, under the direction of Meiji Yamada; Kyoto: Ryukoku Univer-
sity, 1984).
2
For further discussions of the bodies of the Buddha, see Nagao, Gadjin,
Mādhyamika and Y0gacāra: A Study of Mahāyāna Philosophies (trans, by Leslie S.
Kwamura; New York: SUNY Press, 1991) 103-122 and Paul Harrison, "Is the
Dharma-kāya the Real 'Phantom Body' of the Buddha?," Journal of the International
Association for Buddhist Studies, 15 (1992) 45-95.
Body, baoshen, sanbh0ga-kāya). It is these "iconic" bodies of the Buddha
that become the subject of visualization and meditation. Yet, this
practice is not free from instability, since the object of visualization is
generally understood to be ultimately "aniconic". T h e purpose of this
p a p e r is to examine how medieval Chinese Buddhists dealt with this
instability as they developed their divergent understandings of this
practice.

1 The Scripture
T h e origin of the Amitāyus Contemplation Scripture is unclear. It is un-
likely to have existed in India, and while the core of the Scripture
probably first appeared in Central Asia, it is now known in the Chi-
nese translation, which appears to have been a rather free transla-
tion. 3 Thus, though the Scripture is presented as a record of the
Buddha Sâkyamuni's instruction in an Indian setting, the practice of
Buddha visualization that it teaches appears to have taken shape in
Central Asia and China, as Buddhism m a d e its way toward East Asia.
This scripture became very popular in medieval C h i n a as a part of
the scriptural foundation of Pure L a n d Buddhism, along with the two
other Pure Land scriptures, for which Sanskrit originals are known.
T h e popularity of this scripture is attested in part by the large
n u m b e r of commentaries written for it and a n u m b e r of paintings
that were produced in Medieval China, depicting Amitāyus Buddha's
Pure Land and the teachings of this scripture.
T h e teaching of the visualization of Amitāyus Buddha and his
Pure Land is f r a m e d in this scripture by a story. C r o w n prince
Ajātašatru, who became the follower of the heretic Devadatta, impris-
oned his father king Bimbisāra a n d starved him. N o one was allowed
to see the king, except Q u e e n Vaidehl, Ajâtastru's mother, who cov-
ered her body with "honey and ghee mixed with corn-flour"
(Takakusu, p. 162), filled garlands with grape juice, and went to see
the king and in this way provided nourishment to him. T h e king
faced the Vulture Peak, where the Buddha was staying with his disci-
pies, a n d worshipped him, asking his disciple Mahāmaudga1yāyana to
come and confer on him the eight precepts for lay Buddhists.
Mahāmaudga1yāyana came flying like an eagle. T h e Buddha also
sent another disciple Pūrna, who flew over and preached to the king.

3
Fujita, Kötatsu, "The Textual Origins of the Kuan Wu-tiang-shou ching. A Ca-
nonical Scripture of Pure Land Buddhism," Chinese Buddhist Apocrypha (edited by
Robert Buswell; Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1990) 163.
 After 21 days Ajātrašatru asked whether the king was still alive and
was told that the king was healthy and happy. Having been told why
this was so, Ajātašatru flew into rage and was about to kill his mother
with a sword. T h o u g h he was disuaded from doing so by his minister
C a n d r a p r a b h a and the physician Jīvaka, Ajātašatru also imprisoned
his mother.
Confined deep in the palace, Q u e e n Vaidehr prayed to the Bud-
dha, asking for his disciples Mahāmaudgalyāyana and Ā n a n d a to
come and see her. At the Vulture Peak the Buddha learned Vaidehi's
thoughts, and ordered Mauda1yāyana and Ā n a n d a to go to her, flying
in the sky. T h e Buddha himself disappeared from Vulture Peak and
appeared at the king's palace. Having finished praying, the queen
raised her head and saw the Buddha. As she wept, the queen spoke of
the pain of having given birth to this evil son, who had joined
Devadatta's group, and asked the Buddha to describe the land free of
suffering, or the Pure Land, so that she might be reborn there. Re-
jecting the miseries of the life in this world, the queen asked the
Buddha to instruct her on "how to contemplate (guan) a world
wherein all actions are pure." 4
T h e r e u p o n , the Buddha emitted light from between his eyebrows
and illumined innumerable worlds; the light came back to the top of
the Buddha's head and illumined the Pure Lands of many Buddhas.
T h e queen expressed her wish to be reborn in the Pure Land of
Amitābha Buddha, "Buddha of Immeasurable Light", also known as
Amitāyus, "Buddha of Immeasurable Life." W h e n the Buddha
smiled, light came out of his mouth and reached the head of King
Bimbisāra. T h e king saw the Buddha from a distance and as he
worshipped the Buddha, he achieved the status of "Non-returner," or
someone who is destined to achieve salvation in the present life and
not to be reborn again. T h e n , the Buddha began to teach Q u e e n
Vaidehr.
T h e Buddha's teaching centered around the contemplation or
visualization of the Pure Land. With the help of "the power of the
Buddha," VaidehT and future beings will see the Pure Land and
everything in it, as clearly as they see themselves in clear mirrors.
W h e n joy arises in their mind, they immediately attain the "insight
into the non-production of d h a r m a s " (or "the insight that nothing
comes into being and nothing goes out of existence," wusheng faren,
anutpattika-dharma-ksānti) (12:341c22). Thus, in this story the vision of

4
p. 166 in Takakusu's translation.
 the Wesern Pure Land, established by the Buddha Amitābha, results
in the attainment of the insight into the true nature of reality, which
leads to salvation.
Vaidehl, whose mental powers are said to have been limited and
who did not have the divine eye, saw the Pure Land with the help of
the Buddha's power. W h e n the Q u e e n asked how after the disappear-
ance of the Buddha future sentient beings were to see the Buddha
and his Pure Land, the Buddha began his instruction, saying that
sentient beings should concentrate their minds on the Pure Land in
the West.
T h e Buddha explains this contemplation in detail, as a series of
sixteen contemplations (guarì). T h e first six of these are the contempla-
tion of (1) the setting sun in the West, (2) water in the West, (3) the
ground in the Pure Land, (4) the jewel trees, (5) the eight ponds of
merit [all in the Pure Land], (6) the comprehensive contemplation of
the Pure Land [with decorated buildings, deities, musical instru-
ments, and so on].
At this point, as the Buddha turned to the detailed explanation of
the method of removing suffering, Amitāyus Buddha appeared stand-
ing in the sky, accompanied by bodhisattvas Avalokitesvara and
M a h ā s t h ā m a p r ā p t a on either side. Having worshipped Amitāyus
Buddha, Q u e e n Vaidehf, again noting that it was through the Bud-
dha's power (342c20), asked the Buddha Šākyamuni how future sen-
tient beings were to view or contemplate Amitāyus Buddha and the
two attending bodhisattvas. T h e instructions for the subsequent con-
templations (7) to (13) answer this question directly. T h e seventh con-
templation focuses on the lotus flower, which serves as the Buddha's
seat, in the jewel pond of the Pure Land.
T h e eighth contemplation is the visualization of the Buddha's im-
age, along with those of attending bodhisattvas. This practice is de-
scribed as follows: T h e practioner, having closed and opened the
eyes, sees a jewelled image [of Buddha], of the colour of heavenly
gold, sitting on the seat of a lotus flower. T h e n the mind's eye opens,
and the practitioner sees clearly the Pure Land decorated with seven
jewels, with the jewel ground, jewel pond, and lines of jewel trees.
T h e reference to "the mind's eye" at this point suggests that up to this
point, the practioner has been seeing the physical object of the jewel
Buddha, and remembering it as he closes his eyes. W h e n the mind's
eye opens, he sees purely mental images of the Buddha and the Pure
Land. W h a t follows is an account of this 'vision.' T h e trees are cov-
ered by heavenly jewels; these jewel fill the sky.
T h e n the practitioner visualizes the two attendant bodhisattvas,
each sitting on a lotus flower seat to the left and right side of the
Buddha. After this the practioner visualizes the light of the Buddha
and bodhisattvas illuminating the jewel trees of the Pure Land, re-
vealing under each tree three lotus flowers on which a B u d d h a and
two bodhisattvas are seated. T h e practitioner then hears the sound of
flowing water. As the light illumines the jewel trees, different species
of birds sing the sermons of the superior d h a r m a . C o m i n g out of and
then going back into meditative states, the practitioner hears these
sermons, and remembering these sermons h e / s h e can compare them
with the teachings of the Scriptures. T h e practical instruction on the
image contemplation concludes by noting that where the sermons
heard in the meditation agree with the teaching in scriptures, the
practice is called 'crudely seeing the Pure Land.' Those who make
this contemplation are said to remove all sins from previous lives and
attain in the present life the Buddha meditation samādhi (nianfo
sanmei).
T h e ninth contemplation is the visualization of the marks and the
halo of Amitāyus Buddha. T h e career of B u d d h a Amitābha, or
Amitāyus, or more precisely of the bodhisattva D h a r m ā k a r a who
became this Buddha, is described in some detail in another scripture,
called the Larger Pure Land sutra? This description dwells extensively on
the m a n y vows he had m a d e before achieving Buddhahood, specify-
ing the extraordinary features of the Pure Land he was to establish
when he achieved Buddhahood. T h e instruction of the Buddha visu-
alization in the Amitayus Contemplation Scripture presupposes this ac-
count, or one similar to it. In this scripture, the n a m e D h a r m ā k a r a is
mentioned early in the description of the Buddha visualization, at the
end of the section on the Buddha's seat of lotus flower (seventh con-
templation). T h e r e this seat of the Buddha is said to have been ere-
ated by the bodhisattva D h a r m â k a r a ' s vow. T h e Buddha
visualization in the scheme of 16 contemplations appears to be pre-
sented as the visualization of B u d d h a Amitābha or Amitāyus, that
begins with the visualization of his lotus flower seat, then turns to the
visualization of the Buddha image, a n d culminates with the ultimate
visualization of the Amitāyus Buddha himself.
T h e explanation on the ninth visualization begins with a descrip-
tion of Amitāyus Buddha's body: it is of the colour of a special heav-
enly gold; it is extraordinarily tall; the curled white hair between the

5
T h e Chinese translations of this text are reproduced in vol. 12 of Taisho shinshū
daizökyö. For a new translation of Sanskrit and Chinese versions of the sukhāvativyūha
sūtras, see Luis O. Gomez, The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha of Measureless
IJght (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press and Kyoto: Higashi Honganji Shinshū
Ötani-ha, 1996).
eyebrows is c o m p a r e d to five cosmic mountains including Sumeru,
his clear eyes to five oceans put together, and the light coming out of
the hair pore again to Mt. Sumeru. Inside his massive halo are nu-
merous Buddhas (Manifestation Body Buddhas, huafo) accompanied
by innumerable bodhisattvas. T h e B u d d h a Amitāyus is said to have
84,000 primary marks, each of which is accompanied by 84,000 sec-
ondary marks. Each of these secondary marks in turn has 84,000 rays
of light. These lights illumine all the worlds and do not leave aban-
doned any sentient beings engaged in Buddha meditation (nienfo) .
This vision, in which all the Buddhas in all directions are seen, is
called the " B u d d h a meditation samādhi (nianfo sanmeij\ With this
contemplation the practioner sees all of the Buddha bodies; seeing the
Buddha bodies leads to seeing the Buddha's mind, which is the great
compassion that saves all sentient beings. Those who make this con-
templation are reborn in front of the Buddha and attain the insight
into the non-production of all d h a r m a s (wusehengren).
T h e instruction for this contemplation (or visualization) follows.
The practice begins with a focus on one of the distinctive marks of the
Buddha's body: as the practitioner visualizes the white hair between
the eyebrows, all 84,000 primary and secondary marks appear spon-
taneously. T h o s e who see Amitāyus Buddha, also see all of the infi-
nite n u m b e r of Buddhas in the ten directions, and having seen all
these Buddhas receive the prediction for future enlightenment (shouji
or vyākarana) in front of these Buddhas.
T h e tenth and and eleventh contemplations focus on the
bodhisattvas Avalokitesvara and M a h ā s t h ā m a p r ā p t a respectively. In
the twelfth contemplation the practitioners see themselves being re-
born in the Western Pure Land; as the lotus flowers open a light of
five h u n d r e d colours illumines their bodies. In his numerous bodies,
accompanied by the two bodhisattvas, the Buddha Amitāyus is said
to come to those who practice this contemplation. For the thirteenth
contemplation, called 'mixed contemplation', the object of contem-
plation is first given as an image, one zhang and six zhi (about 5
meters) tall, standing on a pond. T h e visualization of this image (of
the eighth visualization) is then compared to the visualization of the
Buddha, endowed with all marks (of the ninth visualization), suggest-
ing that in this contemplation the practitioner moves freely from one
to the other.
T h e last three contemplations are devoted to various visions of
salvation that sentient beings of varying potentials, classified in nine
categories, are to obtain at the time of their death. T h e scripture
closes as the Buddha concluded his sermon by noting that those who
practice these meditations would see the Buddha Amitāyus and the
two bodhisattvas appear, and by listing the merits of this teaching.
T h e Buddha then returned to the Vulture Peak mountain by walking
in space.

2 The Commentaries
Elements of the doctrinal speculation about this Buddha visualization
appear in the scripture itself. Thus, the discussion of the eighth con-
templation begins with a discussion of the relationship between the
Buddha and the mind: the Buddha, as the Dharma-realm Body
('fajieshen), pervades the thoughts in the mind of all sentient beings;
when sentient beings entertain the thought of, or visualize the Bud-
dha, this mind is identical with the Buddha, or the 32 primary marks
and 80 secondary marks representing the Buddha; this mind creates
the Buddha; this mind is the Buddha (12: 343al9-22).
T h e issue of the relationship between the 'aniconic' Buddha as the
ultimate reality itself and the various 'iconic' forms of the Buddha is
addressed directly in the explanation of the 13th contemplation
('mixed visualization'). T h o u g h the body of Amitāyus Buddha is infi-
nite, or beyond all measure, and cannot be grasped by our mind,
because of the power of the vow that this Buddha had made in his
previous life, those who meditate can still see him. Amitābha Buddha
is said to be freely capable of appearing sometimes in a "larger body"
filling the entirety of space and sometimes in "smaller bodies" of one
zhang and six or eight zhi. H e always appears with a golden coloured
body.
T h e object of the Buddha visualization was an important issue in
medieval Chinese commentaries; some commentators conceived it
with a more distincly 'iconistic' bias, while others give more emphasis
to its 'aniconistic' reality. W h e n the relevant passages in the sūtra are
read with "aniconistic" biases, as in later Tiantai commentaries, the
visualization of the Buddha [guanfo) becomes a meditation on the
Buddha as ultimate reality, and in the end becomes simply an exam-
pie of mind contemplation or introspection {guanxin).
T h e medieval Chinese commentarial tradition on the Amitāyus
Contemplation Scripture began with the influential work by Huiyuan of
the Jingyingsi temple (523-92). b Perhaps the best known commentary

6
The original text is reproduced in the Taishā shinshū daizökyä as T. 1749.37:173-
185. For an English translation of this work, see Kenneth K. Tanaka, The Dawn of
Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Doctrine: Ching-ying Hui-yiian's Commentary on the Visualization
Sutra (1990, Albany, N.Y.: SUNY Press).
on this scripture, by the Pure Land leader Shandao (613-81), was
heavily indebted to this commentary, though Shandao also differed
from Huiyuan on a n u m b e r of points.‫ ׳‬Another important commen-
tary, attributed to the founder of the Tiantai tradition Zhiyi (539-98),
is generally believed today to have been a later work (7th century). It
is also clearly heavily indebted to Huiyuan's commentary. 8 These
three commentaries constitute a basic framework in terms of which
the more "iconistic" reading of this scripture in medieval China
(Shandao's commentary) can be compared with the more
"aniconistic" one (the commentary attributed to Zhiyi).

a Huiyuan's commentary
Huiyuan conceives of contemplation of the Buddha on two clearly
distinguished and separated levels, as contemplation of the T r u e
Body of the Buddha and as contemplation of the Response Body
(37:173bl9-cl5). O n the level of the absolute (the T r u e Body), the
practice proceeds from learning from M a h ā y ā n a scriptures about the
D h a r m a Body of the Buddha, and through meditation on it, leads to
removing deluded thought and enlightenment. 9 T h e r e is no room for
the visualization of the 'iconic' Buddha on this level.
O n the level of the relative (Response Body), it proceeds from
learning from M a h ā y ā n a scriptures about numerous Buddhas, medi-
tating on them, either generally on all Buddhas or specifically on a
particular Buddha, and visualizing the Buddha(s) clearly in the mind,

7
Shandao's commentary is reproduced in the Taishö shinshū daizôkyô as T.
1753.37:245-278. T h e commentary is discussed in detail in Julian Pas, Vision of
Sukhāvatī: Shan-Tao's Commentary on the Kuan Wu-Liang-Shou-Fo Ching (1995, Albany,
New York: SUNY Press). T h e relationship between the two commentaries is dis-
cussed in The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Doctrine, 93-107.
8
See Jödoshü daijiten hensan iinkai, Jôdoshû daijiten (1974-1983, Tokyo: Sankibö)
1: 265.
9
According to Huiyuan the contemplation of the True Body (zhenshen) of the
Buddha is discussed in Aksobhya Buddha chapter in the Vimakakīrti nirdeša sūtra:
"To visualize the true form of the body and to visualize the Buddha are the same. I
visualize the Tathāgata that does not come from the previous period, depart for the
subsequent period, or dwell in the present" (173b21-24; réf., Τ 475; 14.554c29-
444a2; transi, from Tanaka, p. 120). Huiyuan makes a secondary distinction within
this category, distinguishing (a) "viewing crudely through unstained faith ("the begin-
ning") from (b) "removing deluded thought" and being "internally in accordance
with the enlightenment" ("the end") (Tanaka, p. 121). T h e pracdce of "viewing
crudely through unstained faith" is further described as "Having learned from
Mahāyana scriptures about the Dharma Body, [the practitioner] focuses the thought
on (one of them) and observes it (173c9)."
to actually seeing, meeting, and worshipping the Buddha by going to
the Buddha land, either by means of a supernatural power or by
being reborn there after death. 1 0
T h e teaching of the Amitāyus Contemplation Scripture is clearly under-
stood as an example of Buddha contemplation on this level, where
the studying of a scripture about a particular Buddha, conceived
'iconistically,' is to lead to a direct vision or encounter with the Bud-
dha, either with the help of a supernatural power or through rebirth
in the Pure Land. 1 1

b Shandao's commentary
Whereas Huiyuan only distinguished between the 'aniconic' T r u e
Body and the 'iconic' Response Body of the Buddha, Shandao distin-
guished two types of 'iconic' body of the Buddha, the Response Body,
in which the Buddha appears in h u m a n form, and the marvellous
and glorious Enjoyment Body in which the Buddha enjoys the results
of the positive karma that he has accumulated in his previous lives.
O n the basis of this distinction Shandao identified the Amitāyus Bud-
dha of the Amitāyus Contemplation Scripture as the Enjoyment Body, not
the Response Body as Huiyuan stated in his commentary. According
to Shandao, Amitāyus Buddha and his Pure Land are the result of
the 48 vows that the bodhisattva D h a r m ā k a r a made before he
achieved Buddhahood. This Buddha and his Pure Land are thus
understood as the karmic effects of D h a r m â k a r a ' s vows, described in
detail in the Larger Pure Land scripture, as we noted above. In insisting
that the object of the contemplation in this scripture is the Enjoyment
Body, Shandao insisted on the reading of the Buddha visualization in

10
This contemplation is said to be discussed in a scripture called Guanfo sameijing.
Again, Huiyuan makes a secondary distinction within this category, distinguishing (a)
"viewing crudely through unstained faith" ("the beginning"), described as "Having
learned from Mahāyana scriptures that innumerable number of Buddhas exist in the
ten directions, [the practitioner] focuses the thought on (one of them) and observes it,
letting it become clear to the mind" (173c5, 6), from (b) "viewing truly", described as
"Going [to the Buddha land] oneself, either by means of a great supernatural power
or through rebirth, [the practitioner] sees the Buddha face-to-face and worships him
(makes offering) ("the end") (173c6,7).
11
Huiyuan makes another distinction within the category of contemplation of the
Response Body, distinguishing (i) contemplation of the Buddhas in general from (ii)
contemplation of a specific Buddha (for example, Amitāyus Buddha and Aksobhya
Buddha). O n the basis of these distinctions, Huiyuan defines the subject matter of the
Scripture as the specific contemplation of Amitāyus Buddha, which is a Response
Body of the Buddha.
the Amitāyus Contemplation Scripture in the context of other Pure Land
scriptures.
Shandao described the 'image contemplation" of the "eighth con-
templation" as the 'provisional form' of Enjoyment Body. " T h e Bud-
dha, fearing that at first his true appearance (zhenrong) might not be
visible, made an image (zhenxiang) available provisionally, so that the
mind could be made to dwell on it in meditation and produce the
vision identical to the B u d d h a " (37: 246c27-28). T h e object of the
ninth contemplation, the T r u e Body (zJienshen), is described as the
'real form.' This visualization proceeds from the previous visualiza-
tion; as the mind gradually frees itself of confused thoughts, the
mind's eye opens, and "crudely" sees the two kinds of unstained
"karmic effects" (e.g., provisional and real). Because the barriers of
ignorance and delusions are removed, the true and real form of the
Pure Land becomes visible (247a3).
This introductory passage does not introduce the issue of the T r u e
Body of the Buddha as the reality that transcends form. 1 2 T h e "true
and real" form (zJ1enshi zhi jingxiang, 247a3) becomes visible when de-
lusions are removed from the mind. T h e effects of the extraordinarily
meritorious vows from the previous life are manifested in Amitāyus as
the Enjoyment Body. T h o u g h this glorious body is distinguished from
the worldly Response Buddha, it is still an 'iconic' manifestation of
the Buddha, clearly distinct from the 'aniconic' D h a r m a Body of the
Buddha.
In Shandao's commentary this 'iconistic' reading of the scriptural
teaching of Buddha visualization is framed within a distinctive under-
standing of different kinds of Buddhist practices. According to
Shandao the first 13 contemplations belong to the category of medi-
tation (ding), while the last three contemplations in fact describe more
general forms of practice (san).13 T h e first 13 contemplations were
taught specifically in response to Q u e e n Vaidehi's request, while the
the last three contemplations represent the teaching that the Buddha
offered on his initiative (270b; 277c; réf., 247a-c). T h e sections for the

12
In the discussion of image contemplation in the main body of the text, Shandao
criticizes concepts such as "the contemplation of the dharma realm of Consciousness
Only" or "the contemplation of the Buddha nature which is pure by its own nature/'
which imply the possibility of contemplation of the absolute reality. According to
Shandao, who compares "the body of dharama realm as suchness" to empty space,
contemplation presupposes provisionally setting up relative characteristics, which the
mind takes as its objects (267b4-13).
13
T h e distinction between these two categories of practice can be traced to
Huiyuan (37: 17811a19-21; b9-l 1). For further details, The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land
Buddhist Doctrine, 97-100; Visions of Sukhāvatī, 224-227.
 14th to 16th contemplations describe how ordinary beings, classified
in nine categories, are to be reborn in the Pure Land. It is in his
commentary on these three sections, particularly on that of the lowest
category who have committed m a n y evil deeds, that Shandao
presents the distinctive emphasis on faith and oral recitation of the
name of Amitābha Buddha; their exclusive practice characterized his
teaching (réf., T.12: 346al5-22; 37: 277b11-19). Thus, in Shandao's
teaching the emphasis shifts in the end from the visualization of
Amitābha Buddha and his Pure Land to the teaching of the oral
recitation of this Buddha's name. 1 4
Shandao learned Pure Land practice from Daochuo (562-645) and
his community in Hsihe (Shanxi province). 1 ‫ י‬Daochuo's Pure Land
community was centered around the Xuanzhungsi temple at Shibi;
this was the temple where T a n l u a n (476-542?) had spent his last years
engaged in Pure Land practices with his followers (50: 470c3-5). Ac-
cording to Tanluan's biography, T a n l u a n turned away from his T a o -
ist search for immortality and became a Pure Land practitioner when
the famous Indian monk Bodhiruci (?-727) gave him the Amitāyus
Contemplation Scripture (470b29-cl). An inscription for T a n l u a n existed
in this temple (593c20). Daochuo converted to Pure Land faith at the
age 48 and inherited Tanluan's legacy at this temple. Daochuo is said
to have ' lectured on the Amitāyus Contemplation Scripture almost 200
times. His biography also mentions that he advocated oral recitation
of the n a m e of the Buddha Amitāyus and used small beans to count
the n u m b e r of recitations (594all-12).
T a n l u a n situated the Pure Land practice within the larger frame-
work of Buddhist doctrines and practices by calling attention to a
distinction between the "difficult" and "easy" paths found in
Kumärajlva's translation of a work attributed to Nāgārjuna (Dašab-
hūmika-vibhāsa-šastra).16 T h e difficult path refers to the quest for saiva-
tion based on one's own power, through conventional means of
Buddhist cultivation; the easy path refers to rebirth in the Pure Land
through the power of the Buddha Amitāyus' vows. T h e former is
compared to the difficulty of walking on the ground, while the latter
is said to be like travelling on a boat on water. In the world filled with
sins and impurities, where the Buddha is absent, the pursuit of saiva-
tion through conventional Buddhist practices is very difficult.

14
Tsukamoto Zenryu, "Jodokyö no Tanjo to taisei," in Bukkyo no Shisô 8 (ed. by
Tsukamoto Zenryü and Umehara Takeshi; 1968, Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten) 171.
15
See Further Biographies of Eminent Monks, T.2060.50: 684a 12.
16
T. 1819.40: 826a28-b2. The original passage in the Dašabhūrnika-vibhāsa-šastra is
found in T.1521.26:40c-41b.
 D a o c h u o began his principal work, Essays on the Pure Land (Anleji,
T.1958), with a discussion of the teaching about the Decline of the
Teaching (mofa), according to which the Buddha's teaching declines
steadily after his death; by the fourth five hundred year period after
the Buddha's death, to which D a o c h u o believed his own time be-
longed, one can no longer safely rely on the wisdom, meditation, or
the study of scripture. T h e appropriate practice for this period is,
according Daochuo, the recitation of the n a m e of the Buddha
Amitāyus.
Shandao's commentry on the Amitāyus Contemplation Scripture was
written from the background of this distinctive tradition of Pure Land
Buddhism. In this tradition, the eschatology of the Decline of the
Teaching led its followers to single-minded and exclusive practice of
the oral recitation of the Buddha Amitäyus' name. O t h e r forms of
more conventional monastic practices, including presumably the visu-
alization of the Pure Land and Buddha Amitāyus taught to Q u e e n
Vaidehā by the Buddha, are given the secondary status (called "mis-
cellaneous practices", 37: 272b 10).
Nevertheless, it may be a mistake to overemphasize this distinction
between visualization and oral recitation. Shandao concludes his
commentary with a remarkable story of dreams. Having decided to
compile this commentary S h a n d a o made a vow in front of a Buddha
image, requesting to have visions of the Pure Land in his dream, and
recited the Shorter Pure Land Scripture three times and the name of the
Amitābha Buddha 30,000 times. In the following night Shandao had
a vision of the Pure Land in a dream. After this vision a monk ap-
peared every night in a dream and instructed him. After the introduc-
tory section of the commentary was completed, the monk stopped
appearing. W h e n Shandao completed the commentary, he again re-
cited the Shorter Pure Land Scripture ten times for seven days, and recited
the n a m e of Amitābha 30,000 times, and practised the visualization
of the Pure Land every night. O n the first three nights, Shandao had
visions, including the vision of the golden coloured Amitābha Buddha
sitting on the golden lotus seat under a jewel tree on the second night,
but the dream visions are said to have stopped after the third night.
This remarkable post-script indicates that Shandao's commentary it-
self was presented as an outcome of a Buddha visualization, or the
vision of the Buddha, similar to the one taught in the Amitāyus Contem-
plation Scripture.
c The Tiantai commentary attributed to 2J1iyi
In the introductory section of this commentary the terms "the Bud-
dha," "contemplation" (guan), and "Amitāyus" in the title of the
Scripture are explained in the light of well-known doctrines: 'the
Buddha' in the light of the "six levels of identification" (liuji); the
'contemplation' in the light of the Tiantai teaching of Threefold Con-
templations; and 'Amitāyus' in the light of the teaching of the T h r e e
Bodies of the Buddha. T h e first two of these doctrines are unique to
the Tiantai School, and by highlighting these doctrines at the outset
the author calls attention to the distinctively Tiantai character of this
commentary (along with its questionable attribution to Zhiyi). In con-
trast to the Pure Land teaching advocated by Tanluan, Daochuo,
and Shandao, which rejected conventional monastic practices in fa-
vour of an exclusive reliance on Amitâbha's vows, the Tiantai teach-
ing attempted to systematize all forms of Buddhist cultivation. Zhiyi's
encyclopedic discussion of the Tiantai teachings (Mohezhiguan, or
" T h e Great Calming and Contemplation", T . 1911) presents a classi-
fication of "four samādhis". Buddha visualization is an important part
of this discussion, particularly in the section on "constantly walking
samādhi" which mentions the the Pratyutpanna-samādhi-sūtra (Panzhou
sammei-jing, T . 417,418) as the principal source for the teaching of this
meditation (46:12a21).
In the highly scholastic discussion of the meaning of the Buddha,
contemplation, and Amitāyus Buddha in the introductory part of the
commentary attributed to Zhiyi the author deliberately rejects the
unambigous separation of the absolute (the transcendent Buddha; the
truth of 'emptiness') and the relative (sentient beings in all stages; the
'provisional' truth). T h e distinction between the absolute and relative
levels of visualization presented in clear-cut terms in Huiyuan's com-
mentary becomes blurred in this synthetic vision; the theistic ten-
dency to understand the Buddha visualization as an encounter
between the transcendent Buddha in his Enjoyment Body and ordi-
nary beings in Shandao's commentary also becomes attenuated. Ulti-
mately, the visualization of the Buddha comes to be subsumed within
the larger framework of a Tiantai system of meditation as the con-
templation of reality as mind.
In commenting on the practice of Buddha visualization, later in
the main body of the commentary, the author of this commentary
explicitly refers to the Pratyutpanna-samdhi-sūtra (37: 192c26). Thus, in
this commenary the teaching of the Amitāyus Contemplation Scripture is
understood as a form of pratyutpanna-samādhi, classified as a "con-
stantly walking samādhi" in Zhiyi's Mohezhiguan. In this larger work,
as he practices the 'constantly walking samādhi,' the practitioner is
told to chant the n a m e of the Buddha Amitābha constantly and visu-
alize this Buddha without pause (46:12b 18-29). In this passage, after
visualizing the 32 primary marks of the Buddha, the practioner is told
to think step by step how the Buddha one visualizes is ultimately
unreal, like the jewels in a dream, or again a beautiful woman one
enjoyed or the delicious food one ate in a dream. T h e images in the
mirror are also mentioned as another example (21c 12-19). T h e dis-
cussion centers around the thesis that it is the mind that produces the
image of the Buddha. In this summary of the pratyutpanna-samādhi the
visualization of the Buddha thus leads to mind contemplation:
"Where there are thoughts in the mind it is the deluded mind, while
having no thoughts is nirvāna" (c23, 24). T h e d h a r m a , or reality,
cannot be shown, or visualized, because what is visualized, or
thought, is ultimately unreal or 'empty'. T h e practice of Buddha visu-
alization as pratyutpanna-samādhì leads to an 'aniconic' mind contem-
plation in the end. Yet, it is worth noting here that the understanding
that the reality is ultimately aniconic is achieved through first visual-
izing the icon of the Buddha with his distinctive marks, and then
through denying their reality.

3 Concluding comments
T h e elaborate speculation about the body of the Buddha destabilized
the old practice of Buddha visualization (Buddhānusmrtì)}' In the ex-
amples briefly reviewed above, medieval Chinese Buddhist thinkers
situated this practice differently in the larger context of Buddhist
practices in general. But we should note that here even in the inter-
pretation that leads from the vision of the Buddha to the realization
that this 'iconic' vision is ultimately 'empty', this realization does not
lead direcdy to anything like iconoclasm. T h e 'iconic' body of the
Buddha still maintains its relative validity.
Despite the kind of devaluing of the meditation on the form of the
Buddha that I have tried to trace, it is difficult to think of iconoclasm
in Chinese Buddhism. In an example from a different stream in Chi-
nese Buddhism, a C h a n or Zen monk Danxia T i a n r a n (739-824) is
said to have burnt a wooden image of the Buddha.

17
For further discussion of the Buddha visualization, see Paul M Harrison,
"Buddhānusmrti in the Pratyutpanna-buddha-sammukhāvastitha-samādhi-sūtra,"
Journal of Indian Philosophy 6 (1978) 35-57; Malcom David Eckel, To See the Buddha:
A Philosopher's Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness (1992, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press).
 Later, when he was at Hnilin temple, it became very cold and he burned
a wooden image to protect himself against it. When someone criticized
him, he said, "I cremated it to get relics." The critic said, "How can a
piece of wood produce relics?" Tianran said, "In that case why do you
criticize me? [I only burnt a piece of wood]" (T. 2061: 50.773b25-27; T.
2076: 51. 310b).
T h e issue here is the relationship between the image and its material.
In many contexts the image is the Buddha for medieval Chinese
Buddhists. Thus, at one level burning the image may be identified
with cremating the Buddha's body, an acceptable and meritorious
deed. Yet, in this story T i a n r a n and his critic end up agreeing that
T i a n r a n only burnt a piece of wood. T h e Buddha that the critic saw
in the image at first and criticized T i a n r a n for burning has simply
evaporated by the end of the story.
Here we may have an example of a more universal issue of the
relationship between the image and its material. 1 8 But I would like to
emphasize that even here the subtle and slippery way in which medi-
eval Chinese Buddhists understood the Buddha's body lies in the
background. As we saw above, in the Amitāyus Contemplation Scriptures
the Buddha visualization moves freely from viewing the image to the
visualization of the eternal Buddha Amitāyus. For Shandao this may
have been the "true and real" form of the Buddha. But in practising
the ptatyutpanna-samādhi the Tiantai monks moved from the visualiza-
tion of the Buddha's marks to the realization that they are 'empty'. In
this story about Tianran, T i a n r a n and his critic moved quickly from
the image to its material (wood), with an obvious message that the
Buddha's body which makes the object an image cannot be identified
with the material. But does this mean that when they first saw the
image as the Buddha both T i a n r a n and critic were deluded and that
only the material is real? T h e Buddha's body remains elusive.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

M o s h e B a r a s c h , Icon: Studies in the History of An Idea. N e w Y o r k , N . Y . : N e w

York University Press. 1992
Eckel, M a l c o m D a v i d , To See the Buddha: A Philosopher's Quest for the Meaning of
Emptiness. Princeton N.J.: Princeton Univesity Press. 1992.
Fujita, Kötatsu, "The Textual Origins of the Kuan Wu-liang-shou ching. A
Canonical Scripture of Pure Land Buddhism," in Chinese Buddhist Apocry-
pha, edited by Robert Buswell. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
1990

IH
See the examples discussed in Moshe Barasch, Icon: Studies in the History of An
Idea. 1992, New York, N.Y.: New York University Press) 53-60.
 Gomez, Luis Ο., The Land of Bliss: The Paradise of the Buddha of Measureless
Light. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press and Kyoto: Higashi Honganji
Shinshū Ötani-ha. 1996.
Harrison, Paul M., "Buddhānusmrti in the Pratyutpanna-buddha-sammuk-
hāvastitha-samādhi-sūtra," Journal of Indian Philosophy 6 (1978) 35-57.
—, "Is the Dharma-kāya the Real 'Phantom Body' of the Buddha?," Journal
of the International Association for Buddhist Studies 15 (1992) 45-95.
Jödoshü daijiten hensan iinkai, Jödoshü daijiten, Tokyo: Sankibö, 1974-1983.
Nagao, Gadjin, Mādhyamika and Togacâra: A Study of Mahāyāna Philosophies,
transi, by Leslie S. Kawamura. New York: SUNY Press. 1991.
Pas, Julian, Vision of Sukhāvatī: Shan-Tao's Commentary on the Kuan Wu-Liang-
Shou-Fo Ching. SUNY Press. 1995.
J. Takakusu, The Amitāyus-dhyāna-sūtra, in Buddhist Mahāyāna Texts. New
York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1969 [1894],
Tanaka, Kenneth K., The Dawn of Chinese Pure Land Buddhist Doctrine: Ching-
ying Huiyiian's Commentary on the Visualization Sutra. Albany: SUNY Press.
1990.
Tsukamoto Zenryū, "Jödokyö no Tanjö to taisei," Bukkyo no Shisā 8, ed. by
Tsukamoto Zenryū and Umehara Takeshi. Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten.
1968.
Yamada, Meiji, et al., trans. The Sütra of Contemplation on the Buddha oflmmeas-
urable Life. Translated and annotated by the Ryukoku University Transla-
tion Center, under the direction of Meiji Yamada. Kyoto: Ryukoku
University. 1984.
 JEWISH ARTISTS AND T H E
REPRESENTATION OF GOD

HANNELORE KÜNZL

1 The Problem
T h e problem of representing G o d is closely connected with the bibli-
cal prohibition of figurative art, expressed in Exodus (20,4) and Deu-
teronomy (5,8). While in the course of time the interpretation of this
law differed and Jewish artists began to represent animals and h u m a n
beings, they always avoided a representation of God. T h a t was con-
sidered idolatry, too close to what was usual in the world of the
Ancient Orient or in classical Greece and R o m e . These Jewish artists
also did not create any art objects for the purpose of worship or
adoration, like pictures of Christian saints. 1
T h e image of G o d was strictly forbidden in all genera of art, espe-
daily in sculpture, as sculpture in general was considered problematic
by the Rabbis. Notwithstanding the total renunciation of an idol or
image of God, the Jewish artist encounters a conflict when s / h e wants
to represent a biblical scene that involves a manifestation of the will
or might of G o d on earth. O n e example might be the aqedah. H o w
can an artist express G o d seizing the sword or knife from A b r a h a m
and sending the ram? Another example is Moses receiving the tablets
of the law. H o w can one represent G o d delivering the tablets to
Moses?

2 Antiquity
As the artist was forced to avoid an image of God, he had to find
other possibilities to show God acting upon h u m a n life on earth. In
antiquity, figurative Jewish art exists in wall paintings, as in the syna-
gogue of Dura-Europos (from the middle of the third century), and in
the numerous mosaic floors of synagogues built in late antiquity and
in the early byzantine era. T h e synagogue of Dura-Europos remains
until today the only known example of wall paintings. It shows bibli-

1
See the provocative recent study, challenging aspects of the prevailing consensus
on the topic, Sacha Stern, "Figurative Art and Halakha in the Mishnaic-Talmudic
Period," Zion 61 (1996) 397-420 (Hebrew) [AIB].
cal scenes and includes a painted niche for the T o r a h scrolls. In the
middle of the upper part of the niche 2 there is a picture of the front of
the temple, with the menorah, lulav and ethrog on the left, and the
aqedah on the right. Above the ram in the tree or bush, A b r a h a m is
standing next to the altar with the bound Isaac and a tent for his
companions. In the upper part of this scene there is a hand coming
out of a cloud. This is not the h a n d of God, because this would mean
representing God in h u m a n form, but it is a symbol for G o d in
heaven (cloud) acting u p o n the world.
W e find the same motif in the mosaic floor of the synagogue in
Beth Alpha from the early sixth century. 3 A b r a h a m ' s companions
flank the composition, with an animal on the left and A b r a h a m at the
altar with Isaac on the right side. Also on the right is the ram caught
in the bush. Above is a h a n d coming out of a cloud, put on a horizon-
tal line that symbolizes the frontier between earth and heaven. T h e
heavenly nature of the realm above the line is indicated by palm
trees, standard symbols of the trees of paradise in antiquity. T h e
cloud with the hand and the beams of light symbolize God, who is in
heaven, but acting in the h u m a n realm.
In contrast to this, the mosaic floor of the synagogue in H a m m a m -
Lif, Tunisia, from the fourth century shows a representation of para-
dise in messianic times. 4 T h e Leviathan and its female companion
occupy the upper part (where the destroyed behemoth and the bird
Ziz must be completed), while the picture below shows a fountain of
the spring of life, along with palm trees and peacocks, the trees and
birds of paradise. But there is no sign or symbol for God: this is
paradise. T h e mosaic is not a representation of a m o m e n t of action,
but of a situation after G o d has acted. Therefore, the artist has no
need for a special motif or symbol for God: G o d is not acting, but has
acted in the past.

3 Middle Ages
T h e motif of the hand with the cloud is also used in the Middle Ages,
but medieval bookpainting offers some other alternatives, such as an
angel or beams of light. T h e aqedah remains a central theme. Artists

2
Carl H. Kraeling, The Synagogue (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956) plate
LI.
3
Eleazar Lipa Sukenik, The Ancient Synagogue of Beth Alpha (Reprint Hildesheim:
Georg Olms, 1975) plate XIX.
4
Ernst Cohn-Wiener, Die jüdische Kunst. Ihre Geschichte von den Anfangen bis zur
Gegenwart (Berlin: Martin Wasserfogel Verlag, 1929) 115 fig. 72.
continue to use the ancient motif of the h a n d coming out of the
cloud, as in the so-called Sarajevo-Haggadah, written and painted in
Spain in the middle of the 14th century.‫ '׳‬Here we have the h a n d and
the clouds above the scene, with A b r a h a m , the altar and Isaac on the
left, and the ram with the tree on the right.
Similarly, the so-called Bird's H e a d Haggadah, a G e r m a n m a n u -
script from about 1300, shows the scene of the m a n n a in the desert,
dominated by two hands coming from heaven and bringing m a n n a
and birds. b In the same H a g g a d a h there is also the scene of Moses
receiving the tablets of the law.‫ ׳‬A h a n d comes out of the clouds
delivering the tablets to Moses, while he gives five tablets to the
people, standing for the five books of the T o r a h .
In contrast to those scenes, a G e r m a n M a c h z o r from the middle of
the 14th century, now in Leipzig, 8 depicts Moses handing the tablets
to the people. This event takes place after Moses has received the
tablets from God. As in the case of the mosaic floor from H a m m a m -
Lif above, G o d has already acted, and is not acting any longer. T h e
artist can therefore do without any symbol or sign for God. Thus, as
in antiquity a sign for G o d is necessary when G o d is acting, but can
be avoided when the results of divine action are represented.
In addition to the motif of the h a n d , an angel is often used as a
sign for representing divine action. O n e example is in the scene of the
aqedah in the manuscript of the Mishneh Torah of Maimonides, written
and painted in the Rhineland in the years 1295/96. 9 An angel is
mentioned in Genesis 22,11, but this did not usually lead to a repre-
sentation of an angel in the scene of the aqedah, but of the hand.
Nevertheless, in the Middle Ages, artists often used the motif of an
angel to represent God's will and might on earth. T h e angel in this
scene has a halo around his head, which is unusual in the Jewish art
tradition, but this motif is found in the so-called golden H a g g a d a h
m a d e in Spain about 1320, 10 in the scene of Moses standing before

5
Haggadah, Spain, 14th c., Sarajevo National Museum.—Eugen Werber, The
Sarajevo Haggadah (Belgrad: Prosveta, 1985) fol. 8 recto.
0
Bird's Head Haggadah, Germany, about 1300. Jerusalem, Israel Museum
MS. 180/57—Ernst Daniel Goldschmidt, H.L.C. Jaffé, Β. Narkiss, The Bird's Head
Haggadah (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Tarshish Books, 1967) fol. 22 verso.
7
See note 6, fol. 23 recto.
8
Machzor, Germany, 14th c.,—Leipzig, University Libr. Inv.-no. B.H. 3
Monumenta Judaica. Cat. Exposition (Cologne 1964) D 22.
9
Mishneh Torah, Germany 1295/96,—Budapest, Hungar. Acad, of Sciences,
Collection Kaufmann, ‫ ־‬Monumenta Judaica. Cat. Exposition (Cologne 1964) plate II.
10
Golden Haggadah, Spain, about 1320,—London, Brit. Libr. Add 27210,-
Bezalel Narkiss, Hebrew Illuminated Manuscripts (Jerusalem: Keter, 1969) plate 8, fol.
10 verso.
the burning bush with an angel. In sum, this angel with huge wings
a n d a halo in the scene of the aqedah in the manuscript of the Mishneh
Torah of Maimonides recalls angels in Christian art. Thus, its appear-
ance in this Jewish text shows the influence of angels in Christian
bookpainting.
T h e motif of the angel can be varied. T h e angel is mentioned in
the Biblical text in the account of the Burning Bush. In the Sarajevo
H a g g a d a h , the angel in this scene is reduced to mere wings, symbol-
izing the angel: Moses is standing before a hill with the sheep and a
bush with red flames and a wing. 11 T h e same scene appears in a
H a g g a d a h m a d e in Castillia about 1300, 12 a manuscript of lower
artistic value. T h e tree is on a hill, surrounded by red flames, while
the wing is an abbreviation for the angel, and the blue sky a symbol
for heaven, for the celestial world of G o d (based on the idea that G o d
is in the sky). It seems that Jewish artists wanted to avoid the imitation
of the c o m m o n Christian shape of an angel with wings and halo, but
used the wing alone and tried to combine it with several motifs for
expressing divinity. T h u s , in the Middle Ages, Jews added to the
repertoire of antiquity by expressing the presence of G o d by means of
an angel, or a wing, a n d the blue sky.
Another new motif developed at this time is the beams of light. In
a miscellany from northern France, from about 1280, we find the
picture of the destruction of Sodom with the caption "this is Sodom
that the angels destroyed." 1 3 T h e two angels are essential to the pic-
ture, as they are mentioned at the beginning of Genesis 19, and they
sent sulfur and fire to destroy the town (19,13 and 19,24). T h e artist
shows the two angels above the town, sending forth beams, like light-
ning in a thunder-storm.
M o r e impressive are the beams used in the Sarajevo H a g g a d a h ,
where the cycle of pictures begins with the creation of world ("read-
ing" from right to left). 14 T h e first picture shows the tohu wabohu, the
primordial chaos. T h e second picture shows the first day of creation:
the division of light and darkness, of day and night. T h e next pictures
illustrate the following days of creation: the earth and water, plants,

" see note 5, fol. 21 verso.

12
Castillian Haggadah, about 1300,- London, Brit. Libr. O R . 2737—Thérèse and
Mendel Metzger, Jewish Life in the Middle Ages (New York: Alpine, 1982) 221, fig. 331,
fol. 68 recto.
13
Miscellaneum, Northern France, about 1280,—London, Brit. Libr. Add. MS:
11639.- Gabrielle Sed-Rajna (ed.), The Hebrew Bible in Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts
(New York: Rizzoli, 1987) 40, fig. 29, fol. 119 recto.
14
See note 5, fol. 1 verso—2 recto.
animals and the first m a n . Golden beams coming from above appear
in these scenes, indicating that G o d — w h o lives in the sky or
heaven—is sending these beams to earth as a symbol of His power of
creation. T h e seventh day is symbolized by a m a n resting on the
Sabbath. T h e beams therefore represent the connection between
above and below, between heaven and earth, between G o d in heaven
and men on earth, and therefore the might or power of G o d in the
world. Divine intervention can be destructive, as in the portrayal of
the annihilation of Sodom, or creative, as in the representations of the
genesis of the world.

4 The Age of the Baroque

T h e next chronological period, from the 16th to the 18th centuries,
offers additional interesting examples for our inquiry. While Jewish
art of this period did not yet produce oil paintings, except for por-
traits of famous rabbis, figurative art is found in book illustrations, in
woodcuts and in engravings. In the 18th century there was a flourish-
ing of bookpaintings, as part of a renaissance of Jewish bookpainting
in Ashkenaz. Most of the examples of this art are found in illustrated
Haggadoth. Those of the 17th century became models for the pic-
tures used in later works of the 18th and 19th centuries.
T h e scene of the aqedah in the Venice H a g g a d a h of 1609 15 is com-
posed in a way absolutely similar to those in the Middle Ages, for the
artist uses the motif of the angel. 111 the 17th and 18th centuries the
scene of Moses receiving the tablets of the law is generally depicted as
taking place on a high mountain, and combined with a central light
that sends two or three rows of beams to the earth. T h a t means that
the medieval idea of beams of light is now put into a new form, as a
central light with beams like the sun.
O n e good example for this is a woodcut belonging to a Sefer
Minhagim printed in Amsterdam in 1 7 2 3 . l b T h e idea of a round disk
of light with concentrically arranged rows of beams is found in the
engravings of Matthäus Merian, m a d e between 1625 and 1628. In
his series of biblical illustrations, Merian shows Moses before the
burning bush, with a central light above as symbol for the divine. 17
Merian's round circle of light contains a triangle, a Christian symbol

15
Haggadah schel Pessach (Venice 1609, reprint Jerusalem 1974) fol. 7 recto.
111
Rachel Wischnitzer-Bernstein, Gestalten und Symbole der jüdischen Kunst (Berlin:
Scholem, 1935) 5, fig. 4.
'‫ י‬Aviva Peled-Carmeli, Illustrated Haggadot of the Eighteenth Century (Jerusalem: Israel
Museum, 1983) 25, fig. 26.
for the trinity. Therefore, the Jewish artist who wants to take over this
concept in the Sefer Minhagim renounces the Christian symbol, and
only shows the round disk of light, without any other motif, as in the
Amsterdam H a g g a d a h from 1712. 18 Alternately, the Jewish artist can
replace the Christian symbol by a H e b r e w text, as in the H a g g a d a h
from Altona in 1739. 19 T h e text "ani elohecha" appears at the upper
edge of the illustration of Moses on the mountain receiving the tablets
of the law.
Accordingly, the motif of the light with the concentric beams can
be used for several different themes, one of which is the scene with
Moses on the mountain. T h e comparison of G o d with light is very
often found in the biblical text, where we find the idea of G o d as
creator of light, and light is a sign for the divine glory, while G o d is
conceived as eternal light. 20 Thus, the motif of light with beams is not
an extraordinary one, and it finds its roots in the text. But in compari-
son with the pictures of the Middle Ages we find something new: it is
the H e b r e w inscription related to God, which appears here as a sym-
bol for G o d replacing the triangle in Christian art.
T h e idea of light as symbol for G o d and His might on earth also
appears in other scenes, as in the picture of King David praying in
the Amsterdam H a g g a d a h of 1712. 21 In this case as well, the round
disk of light with beams leading to the king is filled by a H e b r e w
inscription "ruach ha-Kodesh" and a "shin" for "shaddaF. H e r e too, we
have the combination of a H e b r e w text with the light, the whole
together symbolizing G o d .
Illustrations of the song "Echad mi yodea" in the appendix of the
H a g g a d a h are very useful with regard to our theme. In the 17th and
18th centuries each verse was represented by one picture. T h e picture
for the first verse, for " E c h a d \ that means " o n e " for God, shows once
again the sunlike round disk of light that can be filled by a H e b r e w
text, or with an eye as in the Darmstadt H a g g a d a h of 1733 (the eye
of G o d , expressing the notion that G o d sees both the good and bad
people, is mentioned in the biblical text, hence it has a Biblical ba-
sis).22 T h e second verse of the song, for the n u m b e r "two," focuses on

18
Seder Haggadah schel Pessach (Amsterdam 1712) tide page.
19
Haggadah, painted Altona 1739,—Copenhagen, Royal Library, fol. 16 verso
(facsimile ed. Tel-Aviv 1986).
20
God as creator oflight: Gen 1,3-4; light as symbol for God: Ps 43,3; 104,2; God
as light in the darkness: Ps 112,4; God as fire in the night in messianic time: Isa 4,5;
God as eternal light: Isa 60,19.
21
Seder Haggadah schel Pessach (Amsterdam 1712) fol. 24.
22
Haggadah, painted in Darmstadt 1733 fol. 19 verso,‫ ־‬Jerusalem, Nat.- and
Univ.-Libr. MS Heb 8°983 (facsimile ed. Jerusalem 1985).
 the two tablets of the law. Therefore this text is illustrated either by
the person of Moses on top of the mountain or by the two tablets
themselves, held by a hand coming out of a cloud, the old motif
known since antiquity, as in the H a g g a d a h from Altona in 1739. 23 It
should be noted that the artists of the painted Haggadoth of the 18th
century are known; their Hebrew names indicate that they all were
Jewish.
In this period we find old motifs like the h a n d or the angel, but
also new ones like the new form or shape of the beams now combined
with the round disk of light. Absolutely new is the utilization of the
eye of G o d and the H e b r e w text. This idea is brought to an extreme
in an example from Altona in 1739, where an illustration of the first
verse "Echad " does not exist. T h e artist takes the word itself as a
symbol, and uses it for the title. So the Hebrew text and not a special
sign symbolizes God. This idea seems to be logical, consequent and
even predictable, when we consider that Jewish culture of the era was
mainly based on religious texts.

5 The Modem Era

While the development of the Jewish artist as free-lance artist in
Europe starts in the first half of the 19th century, the painters of the
19th and 20th centuries are mainly interested in themes other than
biblical ones. For example, they paint genre scenes concerning Jewish
contemporary life—the family, Jewish holidays, or the ritual of the
synagogue and so on.
Ephraim Moses Lilien was an important representative of graphic
arts, whose principal work was as an illustrator of Jewish books. H e
was born in Galicia in 1874, and went to Munich at the end of the
19th century, then later on to Berlin. Lilien was a pioneer of modern
Jewish book illustration, especially in the field of symbolism. Between
1908 and 1912 he published three volumes of some illustrated books
of the Bible, while his plan to illustrate and publish the whole Bible
was not completed.
Lilien uses well known motifs, like the beams in his woodcut called
" T h e Sinai". 2 4 H e does not show Moses on top of Mt. Sinai, but he
reduces the scene by showing only the mountain and the celestial
beams. His woodcut uSchabbath" for Genesis 2 5 is very unexpected,

23
See note 19, fol. 32 recto.
24
Ephraim Moses Lilien, Die Bücher der Bibel (vol. 1; Braunschweig: Westermann,
1908) 197.
25
see note 24, 30.
because he uses the Christian form of representing G o d as a m a n
being enthroned, but he covers the face and the upper part of the
body with the huge wings of two angels.
This representation is not a sign of assimilation of the artist, but is
a concession to the Christian reader, as this edition of the Bible in
G e r m a n translation was m a d e for Jews as well as for Christians. Ad-
dressing both audiences simultaneously, Lilien presented Chrisdans
with an image familiar to them, while Jews were not shocked because
of the covering of the body, but the illustration here reaches the limits
of Jewish acceptance.
Another woodcut in this Bible edidon shows the tabernacle and its
implements as described in Exodus. 2 6 W e look into the tent with the
altars, the menorah, the table of showbread and other objects, and—
separated by a curtain—into the Holy of Holies with the ark of the
covenant and the two cherubim on top. Behind the ark with the
cherubim we recognize a huge light with beams in the form of a half
circle. It is known that Lilien was very interested in the Jewish art of
the previous centuries, and so we can assume that he knew the
Haggadoth of the 18th century discussed above. These Haggadoth
must be the source of his use of the motif of the round or half-round
disk of light in the Holy of Holies to express the idea that the Shekhina
resides in this part of the tabernacle, and later on in the temple built
of stone.
Following Lilien, a new interest in Biblical themes or Bible illustra-
tions arose at the beginning of the twentieth century. Because of the
multitude of artists in Europe, the United States and Israel who fol-
lowed his example, I select only two, who became very important in
the twentieth century: J a k o b Steinhardt and M a r c Chagall. J a k o b
Steinhardt, born in Poland in 1887, came to Berlin in the early 20th
century and left G e r m a n y 1933. H e died in Israel in 1968. Steinhardt
became very famous for his woodcuts and won important prizes in
this field. Just before the First World W a r he began to illustrate bib-
lical texts, but most of his woodcuts on those themes originate from
the time after the Second World W a r , including one showing Moses
with the tablets of the law. 27 For the background he uses beams of
light, but neither a mountain, nor a landscape is indicated. Thus, he
reduces the theme to its most important elements—the person of
Moses and the light that appeared on top of the mountain.

26
Ephraim Moses Lilien (cat. Munich 1981) no. 19.
27
Leon Kolb, The Woodcuts of Jacob Steinhardt (San Francisco: Genuart, 1956) figs.
394, 395 and 396. Cf. fig. 397. '
 W e find the same motif in Steinhardt's illustrations of the Book of
J o n a h . As portrayed in an early etching of 1922-23, 28 reworked as a
woodcut in 192 3, 29 the divine order to go to Ninive is expressed by a
powerful beam of light, streaming downwards on a diagonal. T h a t
line determines the scene and seems to crush the person of J o n a h .
Although J o n a h , at first, is not willing to follow this order, the repre-
sentation gives us the impression that G o d Almighty forces him to do
so. In the end of the book, the text presents a demonstration of God's
power and force in the example of the tree that He let flourish and
die. Jonah, finally overwhelmed by God's might, is leaning against
the tree. Steinhardt expresses God's omnipotence by beams of light in
broad white stripes coming from heaven. 3 0 Steinhardt is a very tradi-
tional artist, hence he does not use motifs like the angel, also known
in Christian art. H e employs the motif of the light with broad beams
falling to earth, because this is suitable for a woodcut with effects in
black and white, but without any color.
M a r c Chagall, born in the same year as Steinhardt, 1887, is well
known for his paintings of biblical themes, most of which were ex-
ecuted in the years after the Second World War. Chagall, who died
in 1985, is so famous that there is no need for a description of his life.
He uses well known motifs, such as the h a n d coming out of the cloud.
In his painting, "Moses Receives the Tablets of the Law," one of the
examples of his cycle "biblical message" in Nizza that he painted
between 1954 and 1967, two hands delivering the tablets of the law
to Moses, form a diagonal line. 31 However, Chagall also brings a new
element into the picture, the color that he uses as a symbol. While
graphic art has to renounce colors, the painter uses colors, and
Chagall is the first one to endow a color with a special symbolism. He
employs the color yellow, or white-yellow, to symbolize God or the
divine sphere. Thus, the yellow background of this oil painting indi-
cates the holy act. Here Chagall combines a special motif, the hands,
with a symbolic color.
Another painting of the same cycle, of the aqedah, shows a similar
arrangement. 3 2 H e uses an old motif, the angel, here in a blue part of
the picture symbolizing the universe, while he uses the red color for

28
Ziva Amishai-Maisels, Jacob Skinhardt. Etchings and Lithographs (Tel Aviv: Dvir,
1981) 106, no. 203.
29
See note 27, fig. 104.
30
See note 27, fig. 438.
31
Nizza, Musée, Message Biblique Marc (',hagall (Stuttgart und Zurich: Belser, 1987)
plate 12.
32
see note 31, plate 7.
A b r a h a m , as symbol for the danger, because A b r a h a m is killing his
son, and for the love between father and son. T h e yellow color covers
the body of Isaac, ready to be sacrificed to God. In the interpretation
of Chagall, Isaac is the person most closely connected to G o d and His
will.
Chagall's representations of Moses standing before the burning
bush are also very interesting. In the stained glass window in the
cathedral of Metz, 3 3 from 1962, the divine presence is expressed by a
round disk of light, as in the baroque era. A lithograph of 1966 34
illustrates the same motif, but here the disk is filled by a Hebrew
inscription, the tetragrammaton, again as in the examples of the 18th
century.
In his great oil painting in Nizza, "Moses Before the Burning
Bush," 3 5 Chagall combines the motif of the disk above the bush and
the red flames with an angel in its center and the colors yellow and
red, as symbols for the divine, and for the love between God and
Moses. In this oil painting, he combines the scene with Moses before
the burning bush on the right side with the Exodus on the left side,
where we see a long stream of people divided by a cloud. T h e Egyp-
tians below are sinking into the sea, while the Israelites above are led
by Moses, here shown only by his head in yellow color. This indicates
that Moses is an instrument of divine will, and leading His people out
of bondage. T h e tablets of the law on the left side indicate later events
in the saga.
T h e oil painting "Water in Desert," 3 6 showing Moses bringing
water to the people in the desert, also belongs to the Nizza cycle.
Above the rich scene showing groups of Israelites, there is a yellow
part formed like a rainbow. It is the symbol of G o d helping the
people in the desert. T h e head of Moses reaches into this yellow
sphere, indicating that Moses is doing God's will. This is the same
Moses, to whom G o d revealed Himself before the burning bush.
T h e symbolism of colors is also obvious in Chagall's painting of
N o a h , 3 / who after surviving the deluge is lying on earth. N o a h is
shown in a blue color, a symbol for the universe, expressing the idea
of his numerous descendants, while the country is painted in green as

33
Robert Marteau, The Stained Glass Windows of Chagall 1957-1970 (New York:
Tudor, 1973) 45.
34
Fernand Mourlot, Charles Solier and Julien Cain, Chagall Lithograph (vol. 3,
1962-1968; Monte Carlo: Sauret, 1969) no. 447.
35
See note 31, plate 10.
36
See note 31, plate 11.
37
See note 31, plate 5.
a symbol of fertility. At the end of the story G o d sent a rainbow as a
sign of salvation and of the close tie between God and men. Chagall
combines the white rainbow with a yellow angel as a sign of the
divine element and the red color as a symbol for love between God
and men.
Thus, M a r c Chagall uses motifs well known for a long time, like
the hand or the angel, and the round disk of light, sometimes com-
bined with a Hebrew inscription, but he also brings a new element
into Jewish art, the symbolism of color. While the symbolism of colors
is well known in Christian art, it is not typical of Jewish art. Chagall
employs this element in addition to the other motifs to enlarge the
catalogue of symbols. His symbols are also used in a new way: they
are no longer symbols for divine action, but of a situation after acting,
like in the scene with Noah. T h e act of salvation is finished; the post-
salvation situation is represented in the painting.

6 Conclusion
If we summarize the different means of the visual representation of
God by Jewish artists since antiquity we find: (1) the use of concrete
motifs like the hand, since antiquity, or the angel, since the middle
ages; (2) the motif of the light and its beams, in the Middle Ages as
beams, in later centuries as a round disk of light, in combination with
other motifs like the eye or an inscription in Hebrew. In the art of
Steinhardt it becomes a disk with long and broad stripes of beams; (3)
color as an element to express special spheres or to symbolize the
divine and persons connected very closely with God and the divine
sphere. This means of expression is found only in the 20th century.
This seems to be the general line of development ofJewish symbolism
for the divine from antiquity to modern times.

HANNELORE KÜNZL F

T h e editors and publishers note with great regret the recent death of
Professor Hannelore Künzl.
 JEWISH ART AND 'ICONOCLASM':
T H E CASE O F SEPPHORIS1

BIANCA K Ü H N E L

T h e scarcity of figurai representation in Jewish art is often regarded

as an iconoclastic p h e n o m e n o n . 2 Used in this connection, the term is
clearly not Byzantine Iconoclasm but its generalized, lower case sib-
ling, of no historical specificity. Nevertheless, the association in itself
is highly misleading. Attributing the preference for non-figural motifs
in Jewish art to iconoclasm means evading one of the most basic
differences between Jewish and Christian art, namely that between
their respective attitudes toward the work of art and the process of
creation. Constrained from the beginning by the Second C o m m a n d -
ment, Jewish art never initiated a preoccupation with the relationship
between the work of art and its subject, but solely between the work
of art and its viewer; nor did J u d a i s m admit the classical concept of
G o d in h u m a n form, so that no effort was ever devoted to developing
a theory for or against figurai representation. 3 Further, the use of
iconoclasm to explain anything in Jewish art is not only incorrect and
unsuitable, but also unproductive: while providing an apparently sat-
isfactory explanation for the general lack of figures in Jewish art, it
may distract attention from the actual, specific, local and historical
reasons for the lack or presence of such figures in particular m o n u -
ments. T h e recently uncovered synagogue mosaic in Sepphoris pro-
vides an excellent case in point: púma facie it shows a typical

1
For a recent overview of attitudes towards the image, from Plato to Theodore of
Studion, see Moshe Barasch, Icon: Studies in the History of an Idea (New York: University
Press, 1992). T h e present study is gratefully dedicated to Moshe Barasch.
2
See recendy Charles Barber, "The Truth in Painting: Iconoclasm and Identity
in Early-Medieval Art", Speculum 72/4, 1997 (=Lawrence Nees, ed., Approaches to
Early-Medieval Art, For Ernst Kitzinger on his Eighty-fifth Birthday) 1019-1036. The paper is
trying to proove the existence of a Jewish iconoclasm already at the end of the sixth
century, allegedly manifest in the deliberate destruction of figures in the synagogue
floor mosaic of Na'aran. The argumentation implies the existence of a link between
the sixth-century Jewish mosaic and several seventh century Christian sources, espe-
daily Leontios of Neapolis' Apology.
3
Islam is very similar to Judaism in its attitude towards the work of art. See Oleg
Grabar, "Islam and Iconoclasm," in A. Bryer and J . Herrin, eds., Iconoclasm, Papers
given at the Ninth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, March
1975 (Birmingham: Centre for Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, 1975)
45-52.
*‫ י‬V V·

Figure 1. Sepphoris synagogue, plan of

the mosaicfloor(drawing by Pnina Arad
in Weiss and Netzer, Promise and
Redemption, 14).
iconoclastic p h e n o m e n o n (the replacing of a h u m a n representation of
the sun god by a schematic rendering of the sun), while on closer
examination it appears to have grown out of a particular local con-
juncture of a spiritual and national nature.
T h e unusually oblong, fifth century synagogue situated in the
northern part of the ancient city of Sepphoris and decorated with one
of the most interesting floor mosaics in Galilee, was discovered by
chance in 1993. In M a y 1996 the mosaic, cleaned and restored, was
displayed to the public at the Israel M u s e u m , accompanied by a
bilingual (Hebrew and English) catalogue. 4 T h e importance of the
Sepphoris synagogue mosaic (.Fig.l)5 consists in its being part of a rich
tradition of similar floor mosaics in early Byzantine Palestine, and in
its particularities with regard to the same tradition.
T h e earliest known floor mosaic to display the same iconography
and a similar composition dates from the fourth century and is lo-
cated in H a m m a t Tiberias (Fig.2).G An almost square panel occupied
by a zodiac circle revolving around Sol-Helios in a quadriga, with the
corner triangles occupied by bust personifications of the Seasons,
dominates the composition in both synagogue floors. This square is
accompanied by two rectangles: above, the T e m p l e façade and im-
plements, below, a dedicatory inscription llanked by two lions. These
two rectangles are also present in Sepphoris, although the dedicatory
inscription flanked by four lions was moved to the upper part of the
mosaic, while four more panels were added on either side of the
zodiac circle.
A closer examination of the scenes added in the upper part of the
Sepphoris mosaic, as compared to Hammat-Tiberias, shows that they
are all related to the T e m p l e panel, enriching it in m a n y ways. T h e
third register depicts the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the
service of the Tabernacle, according to Exodus 29 (Fig.3) J T w o epi-

4
Ze'ev Weiss and Ehud Netzer, Promise and Redemption. A Synagogue Mosaic from
Sepphoris Jerusalem: Israel Museum, 1996). See also my "The Synagogue Floor Mo-
saic in Sepphoris: Between Paganism and Christianity," in L.I. Levine and Z. Weiss,
eds., From Dura to Sepphoris, supplement volume of the Journal of Roman Archaeology
(forthcoming 2000).
5
Reproduces the drawing by Pnina Arad with reconstruction of the whole mo-
saic in Weiss and Netzer, Promise and Redemption 14.
6
Moshe Dothan, "The Synagogue at Hammath Tiberias," in L.I. Levine, ed.,
Ancient Synagogues Revealed (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society; Detroit: Wayne State
University Press, 1982) 63-69; id., Hammat-Tiberias: Early Synagogues and the Hellenistic
and Roman Remains, Final Excavation Report (vol. 1, Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society,
1983).
7
Weiss and Netzer, Promise arid Redemption, detail of the plan on page 14.
Figure 3. Sepphoris synagogue, the mosaicfloor,detail (Weiss and Netzer, Promise
and Redemption, detail of the plan on page 14).
sodes of the consecration ceremony are arranged in a symmetrical
composition around the altar with Aaron identified by the golden bell
hanging from the h e m of his robe, in the center. T h e purification
with water is indicated by the basin on the right, and the offering of
the bull is shown on the left. T h e lamb behind the bull is connected
with the left section of the next, fourth panel, where another lamb
appears, together with a two-handled j a r containing oil, according to
the inscription ‫טע‬, a square basket filled with flour (‫)סולח‬, and two
trumpets labelled ‫חצוצרת‬. Weiss correctly linked this first section of the
fourth panel to the panel above and interpreted it, based on Exodus
29:38-44, N u m b e r s 28:1-8, and early midrashim, as a depiction of the
daily offering in the Second Temple. While the Bible cited two lambs,
flour, oil, and wine as components of the daily sacrifice, only the
midrash mentions two trumpets in the same context (Sifrei Zuta,
Beha'alotekha 10:10, interpreting N u m b e r s 10:10). 8 The mosaic es-
tablishes a linkage between the Tabernacle and the T e m p l e ceremo-
nies: the lamb in the upper panel is inscribed ‫אח חכבס אחד‬, while the
inscription in the lower panel is an obvious continuation of the first:
‫ואח חכבט הטני‬, the two together stressing the continuity of the cult and
promising the p e r m a n e n c e of the covenant.
T h e remaining two sections of the fourth b a n d further enhance the
connection T a b e r n a c l e / T e m p l e . T h e Shewbread Table and the two
censers in the central section belong to both Tabernacle and T e m p l e
cult (Tosefta, M e n a h o t 11:15), while the basket with first fruits and
the pigeons, as well as the pair of cymbals below, belong to the
T e m p l e (Mishna, Bikkurim 3:8). 9
In fact, the upper panel of this composition (band 2 on the general
plan Fig.l) which we have called simply the ' T e m p l e panel', is also a
joint representation of the Tabernacle and the T e m p l e through the
combination of implements characteristic of both (such as the menora)
with the four species of the Feast of the Tabernacles (sukkot) eel-
ebrated at the T e m p l e as the main feast of the year, c o m m e m o r a t i n g
the Tabernacle in the desert and the consecration of the Temple.
Thus, in both H a m m a t and Sepphoris, the upper part of the compo-
sition, that situated above the zodiac, is occupied by a joint represen-
tation of the T a b e r n a c l e / T e m p l e , the unity of the two being
expressed by reference to the continuity of the cult.
T h e subject represented in Sepphoris at the opposite end of the
composition, A b r a h a m and Isaac, does not appear in H a m m a t

8
Ibid., 22.
9
Ibid., 24.
 Figure 4. Beth Alpha synagoguefloormosaic, plan.

Tiberias, but is seen later in the same location in the sixth century
floor mosaic of the Beth Alpha synagogue {Fig. 4).10 T h e Beth Alpha
mosaicists depicted two connected episodes, the servants with the ass
and the sacrifice scene (Genesis 22:1-19), on a single panel, with no
dividing frame. In Sepphoris, the same two episodes are framed sepa-
rately and followed by an additional, larger b a n d , introducing a scene
with no parallel in the Palestinian synagogue repertoire, but quite

10
E.L. Sukenik, The Ancient Synagogue of Beth Alpha; An Account of the Excavations
Conducted on Behalf of the Hebrew University, Jerusalem (Jerusalem: The Hebrew Univer-
sity; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1932).
c o m m o n in early Christian iconography elsewhere: the three angels
visiting A b r a h a m and Sarah at Elonei M a m r e (Genesis 18:1-15). As
in the case of the T a b e r n a c l e / T e m p l e episodes added to the emblem-
atic panel of H a m m a t Tiberias, this unique addition in Sepphoris was
meant to enrich and complement a theme, the Akedah, which was
comprehensible also in a more compressed version (as later in Beth
Alpha).
W e can now draw the following conclusions: T h e Sepphoris syna-
gogue mosaic floor displays one of the most popular compositions in
Palestinian Jewish art during the early Byzantine period. T h e floor
mosaics in H a m m a t Tiberias and Beth Alpha are the two significant
extremes in the history of this type of decoration. Although it does
not introduce any new themes to the basic scheme, the Sepphoris
mosaic represents a key m o n u m e n t in understanding the associations
and meanings implied by all the exponents of this type of decoration,
through its additional episodes and variations on the traditional mo-
tifs. T h e representation in Sepphoris plays a mediatory role between
the fourth century H a m m a t Tiberias and the sixth century Beth Al-
p h a mosaics and thus contributes to the reconstitution of the icono-
graphical process pertaining to one of the most basic topics in Jewish
art and history.
T h e joint representation of the T a b e r n a c l e / T e m p l e is the most
frequently and universally depicted theme in early Jewish art, appear-
ing in individual funerary as well as in public official monuments, in
minor and m o n u m e n t a l works, adopted equally by eastern and west-
ern communities. It is, also, one of the topics most discussed in art
historical research. However, agreement has not yet been reached as
to the identity of the representation: scholars have seen it as a depic-
tion of the Ark, the Tabernacle in the desert, the Temple, and even
the T o r a h ark of the later synagogue. T h e excavator of Sepphoris,
Ze'ev Weiss, labels the depiction, safely but not very bravely, as an
"architectural façade, menorahs, and other Jewish symbols"! 11 By
adding four separate cult scenes to the emblematic representation,
three referring to the daily offerings in the T e m p l e and one depicting
the consecration of Aaron to the Tabernacle service, the Sepphoris
mosaic offers support for interpretations that emphasize the connec-
tion and continuity between Tabernacle a n d Temple. 1 2 T h e main

11
Weiss and Netzer, Promise and Redemption 18.
12
Bianca Kühnel, From the Earthly to the Heavenly Jerusalem; Representations of the Heav-
enly City in Christian Art of the First Millennium (Rome,Freiburg,Vienna: Herder Verlag,
1987) 107-111.
 intention of this joint representation, which deliberately annuls the
historical borders between remote and more recent past, could only
have been to imply the future as well. T h e emblematic, architectural
panels in the H a m m a t Tiberias, Sepphoris, Beth Alpha and other
early Byzantine synagogue floor mosaics, actually depict the future
T e m p l e to be restored.
E n h a n c e m e n t of the element of promise is also the intention of the
additions in the lower part of the Sepphoris mosaic. T h e Binding of
Isaac, depicted also in Beth Alpha, marks the place of the Temple,
the place of God's dwelling, but also the principal assurance for the
Jewish people's redemption. Both these aspects, the location of the
‫ שנינה‬and the promise of redemption, are connected to the cult epi-
sodes and motifs evoking the Tabernacle and the T e m p l e at the
opposite end of the mosaic, thus reinforcing their eschatological char-
acter.
T h e most intriguing c o m p o n e n t of all the synagogue mosaics dis-
cussed here is of course the zodiac circle revolving a r o u n d the Sun's
quadriga a n d surrounded by the Four Seasons. T h e consistent ap-
pearance of this motif in Palestinian synagogue mosaics of the early
Byzantine period has given rise to lengthy debates in the scholarly
literature, although more from an archeological and theological than
from an art historical point of view. As with the previously discussed
motifs, the zodiac panel in Sepphoris, too, is accompanied by several
singular features, which contribute to the understanding of the overall
scope and meaning of the mosaic.
T h e most significant change introduced by the Sepphoris mosaic,
even if not as striking as the absence of the Helios personification, is
the presence of the young male figures who accompany most of the
zodiac signs (Fig. 5); however, they are not added to the compartments
occupied by a sign whose symbol already implies a h u m a n figure
(Gemini, Sagittarius, or the young m a n holding a pair of scales for
Libra). T h e figures accompanying the zodiac signs can only be under-
stood as representations of the months, which are also consistently
identified in each c o m p a r t m e n t by inscriptions in H e b r e w establish-
ing the correspondence between the H e b r e w m o n t h and the respec-
tive zodiac sign. T h e joint depiction of personifications of the months
a n d the signs of the zodiac in the specific combinations displayed by
the Sepphoris mosaic is unique, not only a m o n g the Palestinian syna-
gogue mosaics, but also in the long visual history of this category of
motifs.1•5 However, the visual association of the two matches the pre-

13
J . C . Webster, The Labors of the Months in Antique and Medieval Art (Northwestern
University Studies in Humanities 4; Princeton: University Press, 1938).
 Figure 5. Sepphoris synagogue mosaicfloor,detail
(Weiss and Netzer, Promise and Redemption, 26).

occupations of Jewish sources with the correlation between the solar

and the lunar calendars (the first expressed by the pagan zodiac, the
second being the Jewish calendar), and is therefore appropriate to a
Jewish mosaic. 1 4 T h e same association between the zodiac signs and
the names of the H e b r e w months appears later in another Palestinian
synagogue, in Ein Gedi, although only by means of a long inscrip-
tion. 1 ' T h e personifications at Sepphoris are conspicuous in uniform-
ity of depiction and the absence of any hint at changes in weather
conditions or seasonal activities.
T w o full Christian cycles of the twelve months dating to about the
same period as the synagogue mosaics are known in the Beth Shean
valley. Both are floor mosaics, one in a sixth century monastery,

14
Lester J . Ness, Astrology and Judaism in l/ite Antiquity (Diss., Oxford, Ohio: Miami
University, 1990) 269f.
15
Ibid., 259ff.
 Figure 6. Beth Shean monastery, mosaic floor.

Figure 7. Jerusalem, Rockefeller Museum,floormosaic from Beth Shean.

showing the months in a circle around personifications of Sun and
M o o n (Fig. 6), 16 while the other, from the fifth century, now in the
Rockefeller M u s e u m in Jerusalem, shows them in a rectangular
frame, separated by plants (Fig.7)}' While the figures are youthful,
with almost identical physiognomies, their clothes and attributes are
differentiated to suit the characteristics of each month. Moreover, the
attributes indicate more pronouncedly than in R o m a n examples the
rural character of local occupations, suggesting that the R o m a n
model was not automatically copied in early Byzantine Palestine, but
actively understood and applied. These two non-Jewish examples
show that R o m a n representations of the months were known in the
region, their spirit understood, and adapted. This would suggest that
the Sepphoris mosaicists purposefully fused personifications of the
months with the signs of the zodiac; exactly as they consciously re-
placed the figure of Helios with a representation of the sun. These
two m a j o r changes introduced by Jewish artists or programmers into
an already established and well known iconography, must have h a d
good reasons. T o recall the beginning of this article, it is worth point-
ing out that the two major changes introduced by the Sepphoris
mosaic are contradictory from the iconoclastic perspective. Replacing
the usual a n t h r o p o m o r p h i c representation of Helios by an aniconic,
geometrical, and altogether unsuitable representation of the sun in a
chariot carried by four powerful horses can be interpreted as an
iconoclastic feature. O n the other hand, the mosaic is characterized
by plenty of scenes and personages, which are there, as we have seen,
to enrich the composition and stress a message expressed in other
synagogue mosaics in more compressed formulae: personifications of
the months, the apparition of the three angels at M a m r e , the cult
scenes and implements of the Tabernacle and Temple. These fea-
tures alone, which contradict each other from an iconoclastic point of
view, are enough to suggest that iconoclasm is by no means an atti-
tude which can be attributed to the authors of the Sepphoris mosaic.
At this point, let us try to reconstruct the meaning of the zodiac
cycle in the context of the whole mosaic. 1 8 G o o d e n o u g h saw them as

16
G.M. Fitzgerald, A Sixth Century Monastery at Beth-Shean (Scythopolis) (Publications
of the Palestine Section of the University Museum 4 ; Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania, 1939); M. Avi-Yonah, "Mosaic Pavements at El-Hammam, Beisan,"
Quarterly of the Department of Antiquities in Palestine 5 (1936), 26-29.
17
Avi-Yonah, "Mosaic Pavements," I Iff, pls.xiii-xvii.
18
For a recent summary of the various positions on astrology and Jewish art in
modern research see Ness, Astrologγ and Judaism, 163-276.
expressions of Hellenistic mysticism m a d e possible by a collapsing
rabbinical control. 1 9 U r b a c h could accept them only as meaningless
ornament. 2 0 Foerster and Narkiss adopted a cosmological interpreta-
tion, 21 while Avi-Yonah, followed by D o t h a n and Hachlili, argued for
the depiction of a Jewish calendar with a practical purpose. 2 2 It is
hard to believe that the zodiacal compositions on synagogue floor
mosaics really functioned as calendars, as a way to calculate the feasts
in conjunction with inscriptions (also found in synagogues) listing the
corps of priests charged with service in the T e m p l e for one week
twice a year. These lists represented the division of the year into
weeks. However attractive Avi-Yonah's theory may be, it seems more
likely that the zodiac cycles, with or without representations of the
months, as well as the retrospective inscriptions enumerating weekly
lists of services in the vanished Temple, were depicted as
visualizations of hope for the restoration of the Temple. T h e repre-
sentation of sun, moon, stars, zodiac signs, months, seasons may be
understood as the key part of the same program, which is essentially
eschatological. H o w indeed do the three components of our mosaic
connect?

19
E.R. Goodenough, Jewish Symbols in the Greco-Roman Period (vol.2, Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1955) 190-205; id., "Literal Mystery in Hellenistic
Judaism," in E.S. Frerichs and J . Neusner, Goodenough on the History of Religion and on
Judaism (Atlanta,Ga: Scholars Press, 1986).
20
E.E. Urbach, "The Rabbinical Laws ofldolatry in the Second and Third Cen-
turies in the Light of Archaeological and Historical Facts/' Israel Exploration Journal
9.3 (1953), 150-51.
21
G. Foerster, "The Zodiac Wheel in Synagogues and its Iconographical
Sources," Eretz Israel 17 (1985), 380-91; id. "The Zodiac Wheel in Ancient Syna-
gogues and its Position in Jewish Thought and Liturgy," ibid., 18 (1987), 225-34 (both
in Hebrew); B. Narkiss, "Pagan, Christian and Jewish Elements in the Art of the
Ancient Synagogue," in L.I. Levine, The Synagogue in Late Antiquity (Philadelphia:
ASOR, 1987) 183-188. Weiss, in the recent Israel Museum catalogue, applies this
interpretation to the Sepphoris mosaic: Promise and Redemption, 35.
22
M. Avi-Yonah, "The Caesarea Inscription of the Twenty-four Priesdy
Courses," in E.J. Vardman and J.L. Garrett, eds., The Teacher's Yoke: Studies in Memory
of Henry Trantham (Waco,TX: Baylor University Press, 1964); Dothan, Hammat-
Tiberias 5; R. Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of Israel (Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1988); id., "The Zodiac in Ancient Jewish Art," BASOR 228 (1977) 61-77. See
also A.G. Sternberg, The Zodiac of Tiberias (Hebrew) (Tiberias: Tanberg, 1972); G.
Stemberger, "Die Bedeutung des Tierkreises auf Mosaikfussböden spätantiker
Synagogen," Kairos 17 (1975) 23-56.
 Astrology is one of the more consistent elements in post-biblical
Judaism. 2 5 T h e major crisis caused by the loss of the T e m p l e and of
Jerusalem in 70 and 132, the shift undergone by the centers of Jewish
life in Palestine from J u d a e a to Galilee and from the T e m p l e to the
synagogue did not lead to a dramatic change in the astrological ideas
and beliefs which had permeated continually into J u d a i s m since the
second century B.C. T h e Mishna and the two T a l m u d s clearly attest
the continuation of beliefs and symbols found in the earlier
Pseudepigrapha, sometimes polemically, although Jubilees, Enoch,
the Treatise of Shem, the Wisdom of Solomon or the Q p m r a n scrolls
are equally not free of doubts and questions as to the legitimacy and
rightness of astrological beliefs a m o n g Jews. C o m m o n to the earlier
post-biblical (second century B.C. up to second century A.D.) and the
later T a l m u d i c period is the belief that the planets determine one's
personality. In the tractate Shabbat, Babylonian T a l m u d , 156a-b,
R a b b i Y e h u d a and R a b b i H a n i n a bar H a m a agree that the constel-
lations (‫ )מזלות‬influence h u m a n personality, although according to
Rabbi Yehuda it is the constellation of the day, while according to
Rabbi H a n i n a bar H a m a it is the constellation of the hour. In an-
other story from the same tractate, R a b b i H a n i n a bar H a m a and
R a b b i Y o h a n a n bar N a p p a h a debate whether astrology affects the
Jews in particular. H a n i n a believes that 'the stars make us wise, the
stars make us rich, and there is a star for Israel,' while Y o h a n a n
replies 'there is no star for Israel.' 2 4 T h e y finally come to a tacit
agreement that astrology works for humanity in general. In another
story of the same tractate, Shabbat, attributed to Rabbi Y e h u d a ha-
Nassi, we are told that G o d changed the horoscope of A b r a h a m so
that he might beget Isaac. G o d said to A b r a h a m : '...[cease] thy planet
[gazing], for Israel is free from planetary influence. W h a t is thy calcu-
lation? Because Zedek [Jupiter] stands in the West? I will turn it back
and place it in the East.'2‫( י‬my emphasis) T h e next three stories in the
same tractate also illustrate Israel's immunity to planetary influences.
Astrology thus became a way to state that the G o d of Israel runs the
universe.
Not only is G o d master of the universe, he is the Creator. T h e
midrash Pesikta Rabbati 20.2 and 53.2 reminds us that the planets

23
Ness, Astrology and Judaism, passim.
24
James H. Charlesworth, "Jewish Interest in Astrology during the Hellenistic and
Roman Periods, >‫ י‬in W. Haase and H. Temporini, eds., Aufstieg und Niedergang des
römischen Welts (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1987) 931-32.
25
Babylonian Talmud 159b.
and the signs of the zodiac were a m o n g God's first creations. 2 , ' An-
other midrash, Leviticus R a b b a h , 31.9, tells us that the sun and the
m o o n dislike travelling across the sky each day, because 'people b u r n
incense to worship us.' Therefore, each day G o d must order them to
'go forth and shine against their will.' 7 ‫־‬
T h e conclusion taking shape from these quotations is that as long
as astrology did not lead Jews to worship the planets, it was not seen
as an active danger. Avodah Z a r a h in the Babylonian T a l m u d formu-
lates this clearly: ' H u m a n s stupid enough to worship the planets
rather than their Creator will have to answer for it at the J u d g -
ment.' 2 8 Moreover, as long as astrology supported and enriched the
ways and means to stress the absolute power and superiority of the
G o d of Israel, it was welcomed and encouraged. T h e early Byzandne
floor mosaics of the Palestinian synagogues testify to that attitude.
T h e y are certainly not partisan manifestations of some Hellenistic
beliefs c o n d e m n e d by the rabbinic leadership. Quite the contrary: if
only for their location a n d quantity, they have to be considered for
what they are, namely official statements, developing into the fourth,
fifth a n d sixth centuries of rabbinical views formulated in the T a l m u d
during a process which reached a peak in the second and third cen-
turies and was concluded by the fourth. T h e floor mosaics achieved
something that the written sources did not, namely, integrating the
rabbinical views scattered here and there throughout the Mishna and
the T a l m u d into a coherent program. T h e quotadons from the writ-
ten sources cannot explain everything about the synagogue represen-
tations. From them we can only learn that astrology was largely
accepted and practiced a m o n g Jews from the second century B.C.
onward, that it was not only tolerated but even promoted by the
rabbis, who formulated the limits of its acceptability. However, in
order to fully understand the implications of the synagogue mosaic
floors, we have to consider them in the framework of their own, visual
genre.

26
Pesikla Rabbati. Discourses for Feasts, Fasts, and Special Sabbaths, tr. by William G.
Braude (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1968), vol.1, 398-99; vol.2,
886-89.
27
Midrash Rabbah, eds. H. Freedman and M. Simon (vol.4, London: Soncino
Press, 1939) 404. Leviticus Rabbah was probably composed in Palestine during the
fifth century. See Encyclopedia Judaica, vol.11 (Jerusalem, New York: Macmillan,
1971) col. 147.
28
Babylonian Talmud 54b.
 T h e motif of the zodiac circle revolving around a deity is well
rooted in late R o m a n art. 2 9 From the m a n y extant examples, I have
taken one which is closest in medium, composition and date to the
Palestinian mosaics, in order to emphasize the significant differences
introduced by these: a floor mosaic from Münster-Sarnsheim
(Bingen), today in the Landesmuseum Bonn, dated to the third cen-
tury A.D. (Fig.<§).30 T h e earliest known Palestinian example, the fourth
century mosaic in H a m m a t Tiberias (Fig.2), is indeed most similar to
the late R o m a n work. A clear composition with enough space around
the figures to properly emphasize each of them and its relation to its
neighbour and to the whole is a feature shared by both mosaics.
Seasons are added in the synagogue mosaic, as well as inscriptions
giving the H e b r e w names of the zodiac signs. T h e figure of Helios in
H a m m a t shows the same decided expression, the same movement of
the body and head to the right, the same c o m m a n d i n g gesture of the
risen hand, and an even more classical shaping of the body than in
the god in Münster-Sarnsheim.
T h e fifth century Sepphoris mosaic (Fig. 5) shows a more balanced
proportion between the inner medallion and the zodiac circle. T h e
spaces are well filled, the seasons, the zodiac signs associated with
months and stars, one in each frame, are equal in importance to the
central motif, where the sun, the moon, and one big star share the
upper part of the composition, replacing the hegemony of Helios in
the earlier mosaics from Münster-Sarnsheim and H a m m a t Tiberias.
T h e awkwardness of the central medallion, which retains the power-
ful horses 31 from the figurative R o m a n composition in the lower half,
and combines them with a totally aniconic upper half, showing the
sun sending an upright ray directly to the quadriga, is a perfect illus-
tration of the dominant attitude of rabbinical Judaism: the planets
(not the gods of the planets!), the stars, the months and the signs of

29
For a good review and catalogue of zodiac representations see Hans Georg
Gundel, J?0diak0s: Tierkreisbilder im Altertum; kosmische Bezüge und Jenseitsvorstellungen im
antiken Alltagsleben (Kulturgeschichte der antiken Welt, 54; Mainz am Rhein: Philipp
von Zabem, 1992).
30
Ibid., cat.no. 84, pl. 3.
31
According to an ancient Roman tradition, the four horses of Sol's quadriga
were linked to the four seasons and also with the times of the day: 1Huic quoque
quaddgam scribunt, illam ob caussam, quod aut quadripartitis temporum varietatibus ami drculum
peragat; aut quod quadrifido limite did metiatur spatium' (Fulgentius, Mythologiae I, 11 on
Apollo, in: Augustino van Staveren, Auetores Mythographi Latini (Lugdunum
Batavorum: 1742). Quoted after: Harry Bober, An Illustrated Medieval School-Book
of Bede's 'De natura rerum!, Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 19-20 (1956-7) 65-97.
 Figure 8. Bonn, Landesmuseum, ßoor mosaicfromMünster- Samsheim (Bingen).

the zodiac are all ruled by an unseen God, the G o d of Israel. In this
scheme there is no place for hierarchy a m o n g the planets, stars and
signs, since they are all equally objects of God's will. G o d cannot be
visualized, H e is behind this h a r m o n y of the universe (including
heaven a n d earth), present through His creations and work.
 Figure 9. Beth Alpha synagogue, mosaicfloor,detail.

T h e sixth century Beth Alpha zodiac {Fig. 9) may, prima facie, appear as
a retrograde step, since it shows, like the fourth century H a m m a t
Tiberias mosaic, Helios in a quadriga. Although Beth Alpha is closer
to Sepphoris from the compositional point of view and has the moon
and stars beside Helios in the central medallion, like Sepphoris and
unlike H a m m a t Tiberias, it is clear that the figurai depiction of the
sun represents a harking back to the R o m a n roots of the motif. T h e
full implications of this p h e n o m e n o n can only be understood when
the mosaics as a whole are reconsidered.
If we look again at our three synagogue mosaics (Figs. 1,2,4), a
consistent and significant evolution can be traced between the fourth
and sixth centuries, an evolution which touches both iconography
and style. T h e fourth century H a m m a t Tiberias mosaic already has
an axial arrangement which places the zodiac cycle between the
T e m p l e panel and a dedicatory inscription. An association is being
made between God's creation and work in heaven and on earth and
the restoration of the future Temple, depicted as a natural successor
and a cultic synthesis of the Tabernacle in the desert and the Temple
in Jerusalem. In Sepphoris, the same association is made clearer, as if
the emblem of the future T e m p l e needed to be de- and reconstructed
in order to be understood. A whole set of scenes connected with
A b r a h a m and Isaac were added at the opposite end of the mosaic, to
elaborate and enhance the connection between the two subjects de-
picted above, the T e m p l e and the zodiac. Essentially, the two prom-
ises given by G o d to A b r a h a m are depicted at the lower end of the
mosaic, that of Isaac's birth through the apparition of the angels at
M a m r e , and that of his blessing bestowed upon Isaac's descendants,
who will grow 'numerous as the stars of the heaven and the sand on
the seashore.' (Genesis 22: 16-18).
Between the second and fourth centuries, Sepphoris held a promi-
nent position a m o n g the Jewish cities of Galilee. During the third
century it was even the seat of the Sanhédrin and the Patriarch.
Although the Sanhédrin and the Patriarch moved to Tiberias at the
end of the third century, Sepphoris still retained its position as a
center of learning during the fourth century. Great rabbinic sages are
known to have lived in there and archeological remains attest the
existence of m a n y schools and synagogues functioning during the
fourth century. However, apart from the synagogue we are discuss-
ing, there is no clear evidence of Jewish life in Sepphoris for the fifth,
sixth or seventh centuries. T h e synagogue and its floor mosaic are a
remarkable vestige ofJewish life in Sepphoris during the fifth century,
but they give no clue as to the extent of the Jewish presence in the
city. A m o n g more than forty floor mosaics uncovered up to now, only
this one belongs to a securely identified Jewish building and is deco-
rated with a typical Jewish program. O t h e r mosaic inscriptions pro-
vide evidence of the existence of synagogues and a Jewish population
in the city, but the figurative mosaics mostly belong to public build-
ings and display pagan topics, such as Dionysus, Orpheus, or the Nile
festival. Some of them, such as the beautiful Nile mosaic, can be
confidently dated to the fifth century on stylistic grounds. T h e work-
ing hypothesis suggested by this fragmentary but rich evidence, is that
during the fifth century Sepphoris was a city with a strong Hellenistic-
R o m a n cultural background and a Jewish community trying to pre-
serve its own spiritual heritage which had reached a peak more than
a hundred years earlier. T h e whole mosaic denotes a spirit of learning
and teaching. T h e detailed cult scenes in the upper part of the com-
position, with their explicative character based on midrashim, en-
hance this interpretation. T h e use of several scenes to support the
main idea tells us that in Sepphoris we find the beginnings of a well
thought-out program arranged in a compositional axis which was to
 be continued in the sixth century Beth Alpha synagogue. T h e elimi-
nation of the Helios figure, resulting in an awkward image, also bears
the trace of pioneering beginnings. It can be considered as an imme-
diate result of careful reading in the midrashim, o r / a n d of a will to
set up clear barriers against the surrounding , probably dominating
R o m a n culture.
In sixth century Beth Alpha, paganism was no longer a threat.
Therefore Helios' comeback was innocuous. T h e proportion reached
in Sepphoris between central medallion and zodiac circle was kept, as
well as the moon and stars accompanying Helios. T h u s the lack of
hierarchy a m o n g planets, signs of the zodiac, seasons, essential to a
Jewish program wanting to represent God behind these forces of
nature, is perpetuated. T h e Beth Alpha mosaic did not need the
details of the cult to support the message of the emblematic panel
depicting the future Temple, nor was it necessary to elaborate on
God's promise to Abraham. Reducing the compositional axis to a
minimum of three panels achieved a simpler and more concentrated
formulation of the central idea: T h e Old Covenant is still in power,
the place of God's dwelling is M o u n t Moriah and the Temple, God
the master of heaven and earth is also master of history. T h e phases
of Israelite history are prefigured by the phases of the moon. Just as
the moon waxes and wanes over thirty days, so Israel grew more
powerful, then less so over thirty generations. At the end of the cycle
Israel will grow powerful again, just as the moon waxes again. These
last two sentences are a paraphrase of the preface to Pesikta Rabbati
15. 52 Without engaging in detail, not fearing to openly use pagan
symbols (Helios), content with only a rough correspondence between
the zodiac signs and the Jewish months, the Beth Alpha mosaic man-
aged to transmit this message in a most effective way. Effective and
urgent in a specific historical context, for, by the sixth century
Judaism had a different opponent in Galilee than during the fourth
and even the fifth centuries, namely Christianity.
From the fourth through the sixth century Christianity deepened
its roots in Palestine, a process initiated by the Emperor Constantine
in J u d a e a and only slowly spreading towards Galilee. It was only by
the sixth century that Christian communities had grown powerful in
Galilee forming an immediate threat to the Jews there. 3 5 T h e fifth

32
Pesikta Rabbati, tr. Braude, vol.1, p.301-2.
!!
Gustav Kühnel, "Gemeinsame Kunstsprache und rivalisierende Ikonographie:
jüdische und christliche Kunst in Galiläa vom 4.-7. Jahrhundert," Oriens Christianus 79
(1995), 197-223.
century Sepphoris mosaic still showed features directed against the
pagans, thus fitting the immediate preoccupations of its community.
In Beth Alpha a traditional program was updated to face a different
opponent, certainly considered more dangerous, since Christianity
appropriated many of the Jewish notions and symbols, conferring
upon them a totally different meaning and finality. For example,
since the fourth century onward Christians systematically substituted
the Holy Sepulchre for the Temple, heavenly for historical Jerusalem,
and so on. 3 4 T h e laconic, hieratic, emblematic mosaic of Beth Alpha
faces Christianity with a p r o g r a m constructed of typical Jewish sym-
bols, adopted in the meantime by Christians as well, but here stylized
and frozen in a typical iconic way, to enhance the permanence and
finality of its polemical message.
T o conclude let us turn again to the incompatibility between J e w -
ish art and iconoclasm. T h e Sepphoris artists or programmers were
certainly not worried by iconoclastic preoccupations when replacing
the figure of Helios with a diagram of the sun; if they had been, they
would not have introduced the figures representing the labors of the
months along with the zodiac signs. In fact, Jewish art never devel-
oped a doctrine of visual interpretation. It rather seems that what
mosdy preoccupied the authors of the H a m m a t Tiberias, Sepphoris
and Beth Alpha mosaics was to provide a militant, demonstrative
answer to the religious, spiritual and national challenges posed by the
political situation into which the Galilean Jewish communities were
forced during the early Byzantine period. T h e only possible use we
can make of the term iconoclasm in connection with the Palestinian
floor mosaics or Jewish art in general is to observe that Jewish art
seems to be in some sort of p e r m a n e n t state of iconoclasm, since it
developed a multitude of formulae for representing the presence of
G o d through the elements H e masters, or dwells in, or creates, rather
than by representing H i m in h u m a n form. But, do we really need the
term iconoclasm in order to depict one of the most basic characteris-
tics of Jewish art?

34
Bianca Kiihnel, 'Jewish Symbolism of the Temple and the Tabernacle and
Christian Symbolism of the Holy Sepulchre and the Heavenly Tabernacle," Jewish
Art 12/13 (1986/87) 147-168.
 LITERARISCHE UND VISUELLE H E R M E N E U T I K O D E R
DIE U N M Ö G L I C H K E I T D E R I K O N E G O T T E S

AHARON R . E . AGUS

Moshe Barasch widmet sich der Interpretation der Kunst.

Diese Kunst der Interpretation sei ihm gewidmet.

Im Anschluß an eine Aufzählung vorgeblich heidnischer Feiertage in

der Mishna zitiert der T a l m u d folgende Quelle (in meiner Überset-
zung, aus Babylonischer T a l m u d Traktat Avodah Sarah, Folio 11, Seite
b:) ^
R. Jehuda sagte im Namen von Shmuel: Es gibt in Rom einen anderen
Feiertag.
In anderen Manuskripten heißt es:
Sie haben einen anderen Feiertag in Rom.
Bewußt wird die Andersheit derjenigen hervorgehoben, welche die-
sen (anderen) Feiertag begehen. Bereits zu Beginn wird deshalb eine
inhärente Problematik in dieser Quelle aufgedeckt. Der Text verweist
so nicht allein auf einen offenkundigen Konflikt, sondern zeichnet
sich durch einen beinahe häretischen Grundcharakter aus, welcher
auch in anderen Versionen des Texten betont wird: die Anderen
zelebrieren diesen T a g als einen Feiertag, nicht die J u d e n .
Einmal in siebzigJahren bringt man einen gesunden Menschen und man
läßt ihn auf einem hinkenden Menschen reiten. Und man kleidet ihn
(den Oberen) mit den Kleidern Adams. Und man legt auf seinen Kopf
die einbalsamierte Gesichtshaut von R. Ishmael.
Dieser Quelle liegt eine Legende zugrunde, die in nachfolgenden
Texten und religiösen Gedichten als ein Teil der Liturgie des Versöh-
nungstages vollständig zum Ausdruck gelangt. In diesem Kontext
wird R. Ishmael als ein Märtyrer in der Zeit des zweiten Tempels
vorgestellt, dessen schönes Antlitz von seinem Gesicht abgezogen und
einbalsamiert wurde.
Und man hängte um seinen Hals ein Stück Gold, welches vierhundert
sous wog. Und man bedeckte den Markt mit Onyx; und man erklärte vor
ihnen: ‫״‬Alles von dem Herrn ist ein Betrug, der Bruder unseres Herrn ist
ein Verfälscher. Derjenige, der dies gesehen hat, hat es gesehen und
derjenige, der es nicht gesehen hat, hat es nicht gesehen. Was hat der
Betrüger mit seinem Betrug erreicht?" Und sie schließen die Verkü-
 digung so: ‫״‬Wehe dem (dem Oberen, dem Gesunden -A. A.) wenn der
(der Untere, der Hinkende—A. A.) aufsteht."
Zwar handelt es sich bei dieser Quelle um einen literarischen Text.
Aber dieser beschreibt eine plastische Darstellung, so daß durch die
Analyse des literarischen Materials versucht werden soll, die inhären-
te plastische Darstellung sichtbar zu machen. Die unterschiedlichen
Interpretationsprobleme der beiden Darstellungsdimensionen sowie
deren gegenseitige Befruchtung werden hierbei hervorgehoben.
Die Figur des Hinkenden, der eine vollendete, gesunde Person auf
seinen Schultern trägt, erinnert (und so interpretiert dies auch Rashi)
an Genesis 32, Vers 24-31. Als J a k o b zum Land Israel zurückkehrte,
befürchtete er eine gewalttätige Auseinandersetzung mit seinem Bru-
der Esau, da er vernahm, daß ihm Esau mit vierhundert bewaffneten
M ä n n e r n entgegen kam. J a k o b bereitete sich deshalb auf einen Krieg
oder eine Versöhnung vor (er wußte nicht genau, für welches Ereig-
nis).
Und Jakob stand auf in der Nacht und nahm seine beiden Frauen und
die beiden Mägde und seine elf Söhne und zog an die Furt des Jabbok,
nahm sie und führte sie über das Wasser, so daß hinüberkam, was er
hatte, und blieb allein zurück.
Da rang ein Mann mit ihm, bis die Morgenröte anbrach, daß er ihn
nicht übermochte, schlug er ihn auf das Gelenk seiner Hüfte, und das
Gelenk der Hüfte Jakobs wurde über dem Ringen mit ihm verrenkt. Und
er sprach: Laß mich gehen, denn die Morgenröte bricht an. Aber Jakob
antwortete: Ich lasse dich nicht, du segnest mich denn. Er sprach: Wie
heißest du? Er antwortete: Jakob. Er sprach: Du sollst nicht mehr Jakob
heißen, sondern Israel; denn du hast mit Gott und mit Menschen ge-
kämpft und hast gewonnen.

Elohim, in Vers 28, ‫״‬...denn du hast mit Elohim und mit Menschen
gekämpft..." bedeutet im biblischen Hebräisch auch Richter. Ebenso
wäre aber eine Ubersetzung im Sinne Paulus' Begriff ‫״‬die Mächte,
die sind" möglich. In diesem Kontext wird aber weder die Bedeutung
eines Richters noch einer politischen Macht betont. D a n a c h weist der
Text eher mythologische Reste auf, wonach Elohim eine Figur verkör-
pert, welcher übernatürliche Kräfte zugerechnet werden muß. In der
unmittelbaren Bedeutung dieses Textes rang J a k o b mit einer überna-
türlichen Figur, obwohl natürlich der fossilisierte Charakter dieses
Textes offensichtlich bleibt. D e n n letztlich ist nicht gewiß, um welche
Figur es sich hierbei tatsächlich handelt. Die A n n a h m e , daß hiermit
die Figur eines ‫״‬Engels" gemeint sei, führt zu einer Simplifizierung
und Vereinfachung des Textes:
Und Jakob fragte ihn und sprach: Sage doch, wie heißt du? Er aber
sprach: Warum fragst du, wie ich heiße? Und er segnete ihn daselbst.
 Und Jakob nannte die Stätte Pniel denn sprach er, ich habe Gott von
Angesicht gesehen, und doch wurde mein Leben gerettet. Und als er an
Pniel vorüberkam, ging ihm die Sonne auf; und er hinkte an seiner Hüf-
te. Daher essen die Kinder Israels nicht das Muskelstück auf dem Gelenk
der Hüfte bis auf den heutigen Tag, weil er auf den Muskel am Gelenk
der Hüfte Jakobs geschlagen hatte.
In der biblischen Geschichte sind für das hier zu betrachtende T h e -
m a folgende drei Aspekte relevant:
1. Das Ringen Jakobs mit einer übernatürlichen Figur. 2. Die Bedeu-
tung der Existenz dieser übernatürlichen Gestalt selbst. 3. J a k o b als
der Hinkende. Reflektiert m a n den o.g. Text so läßt sich die Schluß-
folgerung ziehen, daß jene obere Figur (auf den Schultern Jakobs
sitzend) die übernatürliche Gestalt ist, mit welcher J a k o b rang. Er
trägt also diese Figur auf seinen Schultern, selbst hinkend. Rashis
Interpretation verweist auf eine andere Quelle, wenn man diese Sze-
ne im Sinne eines Ringens zwischen J a k o b und Esau fassen will.
Diese andere Quelle findet sich in Genesis 25, Vers 22-26. Die Frau
Isaaks wurde schwanger ,
Und die Kinder stießen sich miteinander in ihrem Leib. Da sprach sie:
Wenn mir's so gehen soll, warum bin ich schwanger geworden? Und sie
ging hin, den Herrn befragen. Und der Herr sprach zu ihr: Zwei Völker
sind in deinem Leibe, und zweierlei Volk wird sich scheiden aus deinem
Leibe; und ein Volk wird dem andern überlegen sein, und der Ältere
wird dem Jüngeren dienen. Als nun die Zeit kam, daß sie gebären sollte,
siehe, da waren Zwillinge in ihrem Leibe. Der erste, der herauskam, war
rötlich, ganz rauh wie ein Fell, und sie nannten ihn Esau. Danach kam
heraus sein Bruder, der hielt mit seiner Hand die Ferse des Esau, und sie
nannten ihn Jakob. Sechzig Jahre alt war Isaak, als sie geboren wurden.
In diesem biblischen Kapitel trifft m a n auf einen Text, welcher nicht
vollständig reflektierbare Teile anderer Quellen aufweist. Die Reste
in dem biblischen Kontext verweisen jedoch darauf, daß im Sinne
des biblischen Midrasch sowohl Esau als auch J a k o b ein Volk symbo-
lisieren, deren Entwicklung sich in gegenseitiger Auseinandersetzung
vollzieht. In dieser Konstellation wird immer einer dem anderen in
einem Verhältnis der Macht und Herrschaft gegenüberstehen, wie im
Vers 23 formuliert: ‫״‬...und der Ältere wird dem J ü n g e r e n dienen."
Das Verhältnis drückt deutlich aus, daß einer sich dem anderen un-
terordnen muß. Die biblischcn Verse sind in ihrem ursprünglichen
Kontext nicht m e h r zu interpretieren. Im Sinne der biblischen Heils-
und Erlösungsgeschichte, insofern m a n diese verallgemeinern kann,
sind diese Reste als eine Darstellung der Auseinandersetzung zwi-
sehen Israel und dessen südlichen Nachbarn zu verstehen, die eine
ständige Bedrohung für Israel selbst darstellten. Ein weiterer Aspekt
soll hinzugefügt werden, welcher für die rabbinische Entwicklung
 Bedeutung erlangt sowie für die Samen, die als fossalisierte Reste in
dieser Geschichte eingebettet sind. J a k o b hält die Fersen von Esau
fest, was im biblischen Text ein Ausdruck des Interesses von J a k o b
verdeudicht, als Erstgeborener vor Esau zu gelten. Der biblische
Kontext beschreibt genau diese Entwicklung. J a k o b kauft das Recht
des Erstgeborenen von Esau und damit wird der Ältere dem J ü n g e -
ren dienen. G e m ä ß Genesis 25:26 wird J a k o b so genannt, weil er bei
der Geburt ‫״‬... mit seiner H a n d die Ferse Esaus (hielt)". Laut Esau
selbst aber ‫״‬mit Recht heißt er Jakob, denn er hat mich nun zweimal
hintergangen. Die Erstgeburt hat er mir genommen, und nimmt er
mir auch den Segen." (Genesis 27:36). Wie die verschiedene
midraschische Wortspiele für den N a m e n Jakob, bringt der biblische
Text keine Klarheit. Esau ist zwar der Erstgeborene und wird von
J a k o b zurückgehalten, schließlich besetzt J a k o b durch den Erwerb
des Rechts des Erstgeborenen die Stelle von Esau. Doch wer in dieser
Vertauschung und Verwirrung der Geschichte der Ältere ist und
schließlich wer wem zu dienen hat, bleibt im Ungewissen. Aber gera-
de durch diese Zurückhaltung der Entscheidung und Halten im Un-
gewissen wird die Schönheit dieses Textes bewahrt. Die rabbinische
W a h r u n g und Auslegung der Existenz dieser nicht eindeutigen Reste
schließt jedoch an diesen Punkt der Darstellung an. Dies zeigt der
Text in Bereschit Rabba, Kapitel 63, (Genesis Rabba, T h . Albeck-Ausga-
be, S. 685):
Zwei Völker sind in deinem Leibe. (Genesis 25:23)
Zwei stolze Völker sind in deiner Mitte, der hat Stolz in seiner Welt und
der hat Stolz in seiner Welt, der hat Stolz in seinem Königtum und der
hat Stolz in seinem Königtum. Zwei stolze Völker sind in deiner Mitte
(bedeutet auch) Adrionus (der bekannte und für Israel gefurchtete Kaiser)
also das römische Kaisertum überhaupt als eine unerträgliche Herrschaft
für die Existenz Israels) und überhaupt König Salomon in Israel. (Das
römische Kaisertum repräsentiert die Herrschaft ‫״‬Esaus" über die Welt,
eingeschlossen Israel. Salomon verkörpert die Macht Israels gegenüber
seinen Nachbarn und Feinden.) Zwei gehaßte Völker sind in deiner Mit-
te; Alle Völker hassen Esau (Rom) und alle Völker hassen Israel.
D a n a c h entfalteten die Text zwei Bedeutungen: Nicht allein die Aus-
einandersetzung zwischen Esau (Rom) und J a k o b (Israel) gewinnt an
Relevanz, sondern ebenso deren Abbildung als einer parallelen Er-
scheinung. Dieses wird reflektiert in unserer Szene: Die eine Figur ist
oben und die andere unten, die eine spiegelt die andere Figur im
umgekehrten Machtverhältnis.
Die nachfolgende Quelle befindet sich ebenso in Genesis Rabba,
gleiches Kapitel (Th.- Albeck Ausgabe, S. 686 zu Genesis 25:23 und
 Ein Volk wird dem anderen überlegen sein.
Bis zu diesem Zeitpunkt nannte man sie (die Juden und ihre Nachbarn)
sabbatka we-raáma. Nach der Geburt Esaus und Jakob werden sie Juden
und Römer genannt.
Eine dritte Quelle, welche m a n im Z u s a m m e n h a n g mit den bereits
genannten Texten anführen kann, u m die rabbinische Hermeneutik
der Auseinandersetzung zwischen R o m und Israel zu verstehen, fin-
det sich im Babylonischen T a l m u d , Megillah, Folio 6, Seite a:
Rabbi Jizchak sagte (...) Kaiseria und Jerusalem: Wenn jemand zu dir
sagt: ‫״‬Beide sind zerstört" so glaube es nicht. ‫״‬Beide sind bewohnt";
glaube es nicht. ‫״‬Kaiseria ist zerstört und Jerusalem ist bewohnt"; (oder)
,Jerusalem ist zerstört und Kaiseria ist bewohnt"; glaube es (...).
D a ß beide der Zerstörung unterliegen, ist nicht möglich. Die Ent-
wicklung der Welt erfordert entweder die Existenz Israels oder Roms.
R o m ist notwendig, da es den Inbegriff von Weltherrschaft bedeutet.
Israel bildet das Gegengewicht. R o m repräsentiert für die Rabbiner
das, was Paulus unter dem Begriff ‫״‬die Mächte, die sind" faßt, also
die Herrschaft schlechthin. Dies wird mit einer bösen Herrschaft
gleichgesetzt, welche die Rabbiner als uma nsch ha-risch oder malchut
ha-rischa'a bezeichnen, die böse Nation oder das böse Reich. Im 4. J h .
u. Z. erfährt dieser Begriff eine zunehmende Gleichsetzung mit dem
Christentum, dessen Zentrum der Herrschaft j a von R o m ausging.
Phänomenologisch handelt es sich jedoch u m die gleiche Tatsache—
die sich entwickelnde Kirche füllt die Machtstrukturen des unterge-
gangenen römischen Reiches aus. Im Verständnis der Rabbiner gilt
R o m (Esau) als der Inbegriff der Herrschaft dieser Welt. Der Texte
ermöglicht danach die Entwicklung unserer Szene, wonach die ‫״‬voll-
endete" Gestalt auf den Schultern der ‫״‬hinkenden" sitzt und faßt das
Verhältnis zwischen Esau und J a k o b mit dem denkwürdigen Aus-
blick: ‫ ״‬W e h e dem, wenn der aufsteht." Gerade weil das ganze Ge-
wicht Kaiserias auf Israel ruht, in eschatologischer Zeit wird Israel
aufstehen und dadurch die Legitimation und Herrschaft R o m entzie-
hen. Es ist nicht allein eine andere Form der Herrschaft gemeint,
sondern vielmehr eine qualitativ anderes Verständnis von Herrschaft.
W e n n m a n die Texte in Avodah Sarah vor diesem literarischen Hinter-
grund analysiert, so gelangt m a n zu folgender Schlußfolgerung:
1. Das einbalsamierte Gesicht Rabbi Ismaels, welches die oben sit-
zende Figur in Form einer Maske trägt, symbolisiert gleichsam
eine Enteignung der Identität Jakobs. J a k o b ist derjenige,
welchem das T r a g e n dieses schönen menschlichen Antlitzes zu-
kommt. Doch dies faßt nicht allein eine Enteignung von Schön-
heit, sondern der Identität als Person innerhalb der Herrschaft
Roms.
2. Das Goldstück von vierhundert sous, welches von der oberen Fi-
gur getragen wird, stellt ein Sonnensymbol dar, und drückt
gleichzeitig den römischen Anspruch auf Weltherrschaft aus. In
der christlichen Ikonographie übernimmt schließlich Jesus diese
Einstellung als ‫״‬Kosmokrator".
3. D a ß J a k o b R o m auf seinen Schultern trägt, bildet zugleich die
hierarchische Struktur der Welt und Herrschaft ab. Diese Hierar-
chie wird im Sinne j e n e r O r d n u n g begriffen, die für den Erahlt
der Welt als nötig erachtet wird-nur so hat unser Bild Bestand.
4. Am grundlegensten erscheint jedoch die Schlußfolgerung ‫ ״‬W e h e
dem, wenn der aufsteht." Im Kontext einer literarischen Lesung
dieses Textes entwickelt sich diese Aussage nicht im Laufe der
dargestellten Prozession, sondern diese geschieht in einer ‫״‬escha-
tologischen Zukunft".
Als Resultat dieser Darstellung ergibt sich folgendes. Die visuelle
Auslegung des Textes ist mit einer dynamischen Entwicklung der
Zeit, einschließlich der eschatologischen Zeit verknüpft. Damit wird
das zweite Kapitel in diesem Text eröffnet, der Übergang zu einer
visuellen Lesung. Welche Inhalte könnte eine derartige Lesung ver-
mittein?
Im R a h m e n einer visuellen Lesung gilt es, verschiedene Aspekte
zu berücksichtigen: Zunächst ist eine visuelle Auslegung synchronisch
und nicht diachronisch im eschatologischen Sinn. Eine textuelle Aus-
sage läßt die Schlußfolgerung zu: , J a , dies geschieht jetzt, doch in
einer eschatologischen Zeit wird es sich auf andere Weise vollziehen."
In der plastischen Darstellung existiert nicht die Möglichkeit, den
jetzigen Zeitpunkt und die eschatologische Zeit in einem und demsel-
ben M o m e n t darzustellen. Das Geschehen in der Zukunft ist differen-
ziert von der H a n d l u n g in der Gegenwart. Aus diesem G r u n d
vermag die plastische oder visuelle Lesung dieses Textes die
eschatologische Dimension dieses Textes nicht zu entfalten. O d e r
anders formuliert: In der visuellen Darstellung dieses Textes fällt die
eschatologische Dimension weg. Der Wegfall der eschatologischen
Dimension erfordert so eine andere Interpretation des Satzes: ‫ ״‬W e h e
dem, wenn der aufsteht." Die visuelle Auslegung eines Textes bedeu-
tet danach nicht nur eine visuelle Interpretation dessen, was darge-
stellt wird. Vielmehr müssen die Texte, die wesentlich nicht einen
visuellen Charakter tragen, in die visuelle Interpretation eingeschlos-
sen werden. Dieser Aspekt wird später noch klarer hervortreten.
Es gilt demnach, alle Elemente in die Interpretation einzubezie-
hen, nicht ausschließlich die visuellen. W e n n m a n jedoch erkennt,
daß vorerst nicht eine eschatologische, sondern eher eine synchroni-
sehe, statische Entfaltung vorliegt, so erscheint der ikonische Charak-
ter der Szene viel mehr. Die Israel-Figur ist auf der unteren Seite des
Bildes; das Abbild römischer Macht befindet sich im oberen Bereich,
die ‫״‬vollendete, vollkommene" Figur sitzt auf dem Hinkenden. Ist
damit keine eschatologische Dynamik dargestellt, sondern eine stati-
sehe Darstellung beabsichtigt, so kann dieser Zustand nicht als in
zukünftiger Auflösung begriffen werden. Es beschreibt damit viel-
mehr die herrschende, faktologische Situation, den status quo, kon-
zeptionell ausgedrückt die conditio humana. Der (untere) Mensch ist
entfremdet, wird beherrscht und erfüllt nicht allein die Existenz eines
Untertans. Gleichzeitig schließt dies eine E n t f r e m d u n g von seinem
wahren Sein als Mensch ein. Mit diesem Ausdruck verbindet sich
zugleich eine tiefe Kritik von Herrschaft überhaupt.
In der Neuinterpretation dieses Textes soll ein weiterer rabbini-
scher Text zitiert werden, welcher insbesondere den Aspekt der Ent-
f r e m d u n g tiefgründiger reflektiert. Der Text befindet sich in Genesis
Rabba, Kapitel 63 (Th.-Albeck, ed. S. 697). Es stellt eine Auslegung
von Genesis 25, Vers 30-33 dar und faßt die Szene, in welcher Esau
sein Recht des Erstgeborenen an J a k o b verkauft:
Siehe, ich muß doch sterben, was soll mir denn die Erstgeburt? (Vers 32)
Ich muß doch sterben, weil Nimrod ihn töten wollte. Weil er (Nimrod)
das Kleid von Adam haben wollte. Als Esau das Kleid trug, und hinaus
auf das Feld ging, kamen alle Tiere und die Vögel der Welt, und sammel-
ten sich um ihn.
Was symbolisieren diese Kleider Adams? Die Kleider, welche alle
Tiere der Welt um A d a m herum versammeln, drücken zugleich ein
‫״‬Zuhause-sein" im Kosmos der Natur aus. A d a m der Erste ist in der
Natur aufgehoben, er wird als Teil der Natur und ihrem Z e n t r u m
identifiziert, deshalb kommen alle Tiere zu ihm. Diese W a h r n e h -
m u n g von A d a m verkörpert einen Ausdruck der Herrschaft in der
Welt—in der Welt der N a t u r und damit gleichzeitig in der Welt der
Menschheit, A d a m wird hier zum zentralen Mittelpunkt der Natur,
des Anderen. Nimrod's Interesse am Erwerb dieser Kleider lag des-
halb vor allem sein Interesse an der Weltherrschaft zugrunde. Weil
J a k o b nicht im Besitz dieser Kleider ist, wird ihm ein Zuhause-sein in
der Welt nicht zuteil. Er ist entfremdet. Darin wird das Beispiel eines
midraschischen Verständnisses formuliert, in welchem das Dasein Is-
raels in der Welt ein Dasein der E n t f r e m d u n g ausdrückt. Diesen
Aspekt betrifft das Symbol der Kleidung von Adam, die in der darge-
stellten Szene von der oberen und nicht der unteren Figur getragen
wird. Es ist ein Ausdruck der tiefen E n t f r e m d u n g Jakobs, der unteren,
hinkenden Figur. Als Resultat der Abbildung ergibt sich die Darstel-
lung der conditio humana, als einer Konstellation der Entfremdung—
der hinkende J a k o b als Entfremdeter wird zum Symbol des M e n -
sehen als ein im Zustand der E n t f r e m d u n g überhaupt. Das Entfrem-
det-sein begründet zugleich die andere Seite des menschlichen
Daseins, das der Herrscher: die gefaßte und dargestellte Gestalt ist die
der hierarchischen O r d n u n g . Beide Seiten bedingen einander, Esau
(Rom) übt seine Herrschaft über J a k o b aus, Israel ist entfremdet, die
Identität des Einen ist von dem Anderen abhängig. Dessen Entfrem-
dung bildet schließlich sein Dasein als Mensch, sein (nicht‫ )״‬Zuhause-
sein, seine Existenz-in-der-Welt.
Dies beschreibt die erste Stufe innerhalb einer synchronischen In-
terpretation dieses Textes. Der synchronischen Interpretation und
der Abbildung des Textes als conditio humana, also eines ewig andau-
ernden Zustandes ist noch die W a h r n e h m u n g eines anderen M o m e n -
tes inhärent. Die Bedeutung der oberen Figur kann jetzt erst recht
w a h r g e n o m m e n werden. W e n n m a n die Szene von Jakobs Ringen in
Genesis 32 noch einmal heraufbeschwört, so fragt man: W e r ist in
unserer Auseinandersetzung die obere Figur? Ich selbst verwies auf
die Interpretation der Figur im Sinne eines Übermenschlichen, einer
Kraft, welche die Existenz des Menschen übersteigt. In altchrisdicher
Tradition wird dies in der Figur des Engels gefaßt. Aber diese Schluß-
folgerung reduziert, wie bereits oben angedeutet, die Vieldeutigkeit
und Differenziertheit dieser Auseinandersetzung. Gelangt m a n zu
dem Ergebnis, daß es sich um eine übermenschliche Figur handelt,
dann verkörpert die obere Figur—jeder Kunsthistoriker würde zu-
stimmen—einen Akt des Feierns, es geht j a im T a l m u d um die
Zelebrierung eines Feiertages, ‫״‬es gibt in R o m einen anderen Feier-
tag." (Avodah Sarah ebd.) Die ikonische N a t u r der Figur wird immer
sichtbar, eine göttliche Figur tritt hervor. Dies trifft erst recht zu,
wenn man die obere Figur im Sinne einer übermenschlichen Kraft
(in der Formulierung der R a b b i n e r als saro schel essaw—(den H e r r von
Esau) begreift. Im rabbinischen J u d e n t u m ist die Bedeutung des En-
gels, mal‫ י‬achim noch immer gleichgesetzt mit der Bedeutung des Ge-
sandten, Boten (was die wörtliche Bedeutung der biblischen
Bezeichnung exakt widergibt). Als dieser drückt die Figur des Engels
immer einen Aspekt des göttlichen Willens, eine Art Hypostasierung
von etwas Göttlichem, j a von Gott selbst aus. Deshalb kann diese
Figur tatsächlich mit einer göttlichen Erscheinung, einer Theophanie
identifiziert werden. Verbindet m a n die obere, göttliche Figur mit
den Aussagen der bisher dargestellten Texte und sieht von einer
eschatologischen Dimension und damit der Möglichkeit, etwas ande-
res zu werden ab, so liegt der Schluß nahe, diese Figur als einen
Aspekt des Göttiichen zu interpretieren.
Der folgende Text faßt deshalb die Fähigkeit der Rabbiner, diesen
mythologischen Impuls, einen Rest biblischer Entstehungsgeschichte
wahrzunehmen, um die darin enthaltenen Ansätze fortzuentwickeln.
D e n n in der biblischen Entstehungsgeschichte ist die Figur, welche
mit J a k o b ringt, beinahe in Vergessenheit geraten. Die Rabbiner je-
doch remythologisieren diese Figur und verbinden diese mit einem
neuem Inhalt. Ein Text in Genesis Rabba, Kapitel 78 (Th.-Albeck Aus-
gäbe, S. 920-921, zu Genesis 32:28) macht dies besonders deutlich:
Denn du hast mit Gott und mit Menschen gekämpft, und bist obgelegen.
Du hast gerungen mit den Oberen und konntest gegen sie (du hast gerun-
gen) mit den Unteren und du konntest gegen sie.
Mit dem O b e r e n — d a s ist der Engel: R. C h a m a , der Sohn von R.
C h a n i n a sagte: Das war der saro el esaw—(der H e r r von Esau).
Das ist was (Jakob) sagte zu ihm (Esau) -‫״‬Denn ich sah dein Angesicht
als sehe ich Gottes Angesicht..." (Genesis 33:10)
In welchem Sinn ist dies wie das Gesicht Gottes? Wie das Gesicht
Gottes (P'nei Elohim) din (Gerichtsbarkeit) ist, so war das Gesicht von
Esau din. Eine Auslegung des Midrasch wäre denkbar, welche das
Wort Elohim vereinfachend als ‫״‬Richter" ohne die Assoziation einer
göttlichen Gestalt begreift. Der Ausspruch Jakobs weist dann darauf
hin, daß das Gesicht Esaus das Angesicht des Gesetzes, des Richters
ist. Versetzt m a n diese Aussage jedoch in den Kontext des gesamten
Textes von R. C h a m a , den Sohn von R. Chanina, so wird die Über-
zeugung klar, wonach die oben sitzende Figur in unserer Szene nicht
einfach als Richter begriffen werden kann. Er wird vielmehr auf sei-
nem Standpunkt beharren, daß diese Figur die Existenz des Göttli-
chen oder zumindest einen Aspekt des Göttlichen ausdrückt. Der
Aspekt des Richtens, Gott als ein Gott der O r d n u n g und des Gesetzes
ist gemeint. Das führt uns zu dem Begriff von Herrschaft zurück. Der
Midrasch führt weiter:
Wie das Gesicht Gottes—...und mein Gesicht soll nicht mit leeren Hän-
den gesehen werden. (Übers, ν. Α. Α., der Kontext sind die Pilger nach
Jerusalem an den drei Feiertagen), auch du—dein Gesicht soll nicht mit
leeren Händen gesehen werden." Du hast mit dem Unteren gekämpft
und konntest gegen sie—das ist Esau und sein Heer.
Die (merkwürdige ‫״‬obere") Figur ist also göttlich. Es geht nicht um
den bloßen Aspekt des Richtens, tatsächlich wird der göttliche Aspekt
der Figur hervorgehoben. Mit dieser Erkenntnis endet unsere Lesung
dieses Teiles des Midrasch.
Nachfolgend wird eine andere Auslegung in Genesis Rabba zitiert.
Doch jetzt deutet sich für uns ein Übergang an. Eine erste W a h r n e h -
m u n g der Szene in Avodah Sarah bis zu diesem Punkt ist abgeschlos-
sen, und gleichzeitig wird jedoch der Übergang zu einem weiteren
Element geschaffen. Der Midrasch lautet weiter:
Eine andere Sache: ‫״‬Denn du hast mit Gott gekämpft."^ Du bist derje-
nige, dessen Ikone oben eingraviert ist.
Ein weiterer Text soll angeführt werden, u m diesen neuen Impuls
noch deutlicher herauszustellen. Dieser Text ist in Bereschit Rabba, 82
(zu Genesis 35:9, Th.-Albeck-Ausgabe, S. 978).
R. Isaak eröffnete...Jakob, dessen Ikone eingraviert ist in meinem (=
Gottes) Stuhl...
U n d im folgenden Text gleichlautend:
R. Levi eröffnete...Jakob, dessen Ikone eingraviert ist in meinem (=Got-
tes) Stuhl...
Als Bild entsteht der Thronstuhl Gottes, auf welchem die Ikone von
J a k o b eingraviert ist. Darin spricht sich aus, daß Gott auf (dem Bild)
Jakobs sitzt. J a k o b erfüllt damit die Funktion des Thronstuhls. J a k o b
erscheint also tatsächlich als der Untere, in der in Avodah Sarah be-
schriebenen Doppelfigur. Er trägt auf seinen Schultern eine götdiche
Gestalt, oder zumindest einen göttlichen Aspekt. In Bereschit Rabba,
Kapitel 82 (Th.-Albeck-Ausgabe, S. 983) heißt es deshalb in Anleh-
nung an einen Vers aus Genesis 35, Vers 13:
R. Shimon ben Lakisch sagte: Die Urväter, sie sind der Thronwagen
(Gottes)...
Dies faßt ein außeroderntlich kompliziertes Kapitel und stellt in die-
sem Sinne eine Auslegung der Thronwagenszene in Hesekiel, erstes
Kapitel und Jesaja sechstes Kapitel dar. Doch dies erfordert eine
eigenständige Abhandlung. Wichtig für die nachfolgende Arbeit ist
jedoch die Schlußfolgerung, daß die hinkende Figur eine Art T h r o n -
wagen verkörpert, insofern dieser Gott oder einen Aspekt Gottes auf
seinen Schultern trägt.

Jetzt können die verschiedenen Elemente zusammengefügt werden.

D a ß J a k o b auf seinen Schultern Esau (Rom) trägt, damit also die
dadurch entstehende Hierarchie stützt und deren Basis bildet,
schließt zugleich ein, daß er einen bestimmten Aspekt Gottes unter-
stützt. W a r u m ? M a n kann sagen, daß diese Welt als von Gott ge-
schaffen w a h r g e n o m m e n werden kann nur weil die Welt in einer
O r d n u n g existiert. Die O r d n u n g der Welt drückt wesentlich deren
Götdichkeit aus. Für die R a b b i n e r war jedoch eine solche O r d n u n g
unter den gegebenen politisch-historischen Bedingungen nur hierar-
chisch durch die römische Macht, deren Prinzipien und Gesetzen
gegeben. Die Welt als ein Kosmos, zwar ein böser Kosmos, aber
geordnet, im Sinne einer geschaffenen Welt, war für sie nicht anders
vorstellbar—nicht ohne die eschatologischen Ereignisse. O d e r wie die
Rabbiner es formulieren:
R. Chanina s'gan ha-kohanim sagt: Bete für das Wohlergehen der Regie-
rung, weil ohne die Furcht vor ihnen einer den anderen lebendig ver-
schlingt.
(Mishnah Avot 3:2)

...wie die Fische in dem Meer der Größere den Kleinen verschlingt, so ist
das auch bei den Menschen; ohne die Furcht vor der Regierung der
Größere den Kleineren verschlingt.

(Babylonischer Talmud, Avodah Sarah, 4:1)

Die Legitimation von Herrschaft erklärt sich deshalb im rabbinischen
Verständnis als ein Gegengewicht zu einem Zustand des Chaos und
der Anarchie.
N u r weil J a k o b gezwungen ist, als Untertan eine weltliche O r d -
nung zu tragen, kann deren Existenz als eine göttliche bestehen. Er
trägt auf seinen Schultern die Welt als Kosmos, eine geschaffene,
geordnete Welt und somit auch einen Aspekt Gottes. Andernfalls
könnte Gott nicht in der Rolle des Schöpfers einer kosmischen O r d -
nung, sondern lediglich als G r u n d des Chaos interpretiert werden.
Natürlich bleibt in diesem R a h m e n die Vision einer anderen Art von
Herrschaft unberücksichtigt. Im Verständnis der Rabbiner könnte
eine solche nur eschatologischen Charakter tragen. Es m u ß jedoch
betont werden, daß J a k o b als der Hinkende in der Ikone auftritt, er
ist behindert, unterdrückt. Keineswegs liegt deshalb das Abbild einer
gerechten O r d n u n g vor. Die Notwendigkeit dieser O r d n u n g gegen-
über Chaos und Anarchie kann diese nicht legitimieren, es ist eine
‫״‬hinkende" O r d n u n g . O d e r anders formuliert: Gott ist ungerecht,
weil er auf der tragenden Kraft eines hinkenden Menschen basiert.
J a k o b hinkt, er m u ß den O b e r e n tragen—eine Notwendigkeit für
Gott selbst.
An diesem Punkt entfaltet sich die Stärke der hermeneutischen
Interpretation. Es gibt jetzt in der Auslegung keine Zurückhaltung
mehr, auch die Figur von J a k o b wird so in ihrer tatsächlichen Bedeu-
tung erkannt—in dem Begriff, daß die Ikone Jakobs in dem T h r o n -
stuhl Gottes eingraviert ist. Für eine nachhaltigere Verdeutlichung
dieser Vorstellung gilt ein weiterer Text aus dem Babylonischen Tal-
mud, Ba-wa batra, 58b:
R. Ban'a (ein erez-israelischer amora ?) war bei der Zeichnung Begra-
bungshöhle) Als er zur Begrabungshöhle von Abraham kam, begegnete
 er Eliezer, den Diener Abrahams, welcher am Eingangstor der Höhle
stand. Sagte er: (R. Ban'a) zu ihm (Eliezer) was tut Abraham jetzt? Er
sagte zu ihm: Er liegt in dem Schoß von Sarah und sie streichelt sein
Haar. Er sagte zu ihm: Geh, sage ihm, daß Ban'a am Tor steht. Er sagte
zu ihm: Kommen sie herein, es ist bekannt, daß es in dieser Welt keinen
Drang gibt, (d. h. R. Ban'a ist nicht in Gefahr, in Versuchung zu kom-
men.) (Er ging ein, schaute und ging aus. Als er zur Begrabungshöhle von
Adam kam ist ein Echo herausgegangen die sagte: Du hast in der Gestalt
mein Bildnis geschaut, mein Bildnis selbst sollst du nicht anschauen, (d.
h.-—Du hast Abraham angeschaut, du sollst Adam nicht anschauen—
weil Adam das Bildnis Gottes darstell laut Genesis 1:27 ‫״‬und Gott schuf
den Menschen ihn zum Bilde, zum Bilde Gottes schuf er ihn"). R. Ben'a
sagte: Ich habe auf seine (Adams) zwei Fersen gesehen und sie sehen aus
wie zwei Sonnenräder, (d. h. Größe der zodiakus). Alle angesichts Sarah
sind wie ein Affe angesichts einem Mensch. Sarah angesichts Eva ist wie
ein Affe angesichts einem Mensch. Eva ist wie ein Affe angesichts einem
Mensch. Adam angesichts Gott ist wie ein Affe angesichts eines Men-
sehen.
U n d jetzt folgt ein Text, welcher für uns sehr wichtig ist.
Die Schönheit von Rav Kahana hat etwas von der Schönheit von Rav.
Die Schönheit Ravs hat etwas von der Schönheit von R. Abahu. Die
Schönheit von R. Abahu hat etwas von der Schönheit von unserem
Vater Jakob. Die Schönheit von unserem Vater Jakob hat etwas von der
Schönheit von Adam.
Ähnlich wie im Fall Abrahams im vorhergehenden Text ist die Ge-
stalt Jakobs eine besondere Teilnahme an der Gestalt Adams. J a k o b
nähert sich deshalb der ikonographischen Qualität von Adam an. In
diesem Sinne kann jeder Person eine ikonographische Qualität zuge-
sprochen werden. J a k o b repräsentiert jedoch einen Aspekt, welcher
in unmittelbarer N ä h e zum ikonographischen Charakter Adams
steht. Dieser wiederum verhält sich direkt ikonographisch zu Gott.
Eine erneute Reflexion der Szene in Avodah Sarah führt somit zu
der Erkenntnis, daß der Hinkende, das ganze Gewicht der oberen
Figur tragende Gestalt selbst eine Ikone verkörpert. Nicht nur die
obere Figur drückt damit einen göttlichen Aspekt aus, sondern eben-
so J a k o b , der Hinkende. In der Belebung der Szene aus Avodah Sarah
fungiert dann der Markt, bedeckt mit O n y x als Podium, auf welchem
die doppelte Ikone, J a k o b und Esau (gleich charakterisiert) (beide
stellen einen götdichen Aspekt dar) steht. Eigenüich drückt jeder
Mensch eine Ikone aus; aber J a k o b in seiner Schönheit, welche ge-
m ä ß der Darstellung in Avodah Sarah, in Form des einbalsamierten
Gesichts R. Ishmael ein eines göttlichen Ebenbildes der von ihm
entfremdet ist, um so deutlicher.
In dieser W a h r n e h m u n g einer Ikone—beide Figuren formieren eine
ikonische Gestalt—handelt es sich um die ikonographische Darstel-
lung von zwei Aspekten Gottes, welche in ihrer Verbindung jedoch
eine einzige, gleichfalls Adam, als ein Ebenbild Gottes darstellen. D a
das Sein Gottes als Schöpfer nur angesichts einer geordenten, hierar-
chischen Welt besteht, in welcher J a k o b entfremdet ist und hinkt,
fungiert Gott, oder die ikonische Darstellung Gottes als eine Darstel-
lung von zwei, in S p a n n u n g gesetzten Aspekten Gottes, welche in
ihrer Verbindung jedoch eine Ikone, gleichsam Adam, als ein Eben-
bild Gottes entfalten. D a das Sein Gottes als Schöpfer nur angesichts
einer geordenten, hierarchischen Welt Bestand hat, in welcher J a k o b
entfremdet ist und hinkend die Welt trägt, fungiert Gott oder die
ikonische Darstellung Gottes hier als eine Darstellung des unvollendeten
Gottes. Die Ikone Gottes ist das Abbild eines unvollendeten Gottes, da
seine Einheit auf einer gebrochenen, hinkenden, gedemütigten und
entfremdeten Grundlage basiert. Die ganze Ikone hinkt, Gott selbst
wird in der Form eines Hinkenden, einer unvollendeten Figur wahr-
genommen.
Doch jetzt folgt der entscheidende Gesichtspunkt. Die gesamte
Energie der Ikone konzentriert sich auch in der literarischen Darstel-
lung in dem Satz: ‫ ״‬W e h e dem, wenn der aufsteht." Diese Energie
wiederum kann jetzt eschatologisch entfaltet werden, nicht diachro-
nisch, sondern synchronisch. Vor einer weiterführenden Erläuterung soll
aber zuvor die Aufmerksamkeit auf einen anderer Aspekt gelenkt
werden. Die dargestellte Ikone ist Ergebnis der H a n d l u n g von Nicht-
j u d e n , in R o m errichtet und zelebriert und so nicht von J u d e n er-
dacht. Allein die Nichtjuden tragen deshalb die Verantwortung für
die Errichtung und Wirkung dieser Ikone, welche in ihrer Ungerech-
tigkeit und Falschheit auch eine implizite Wahrheit ausdrückt. D e n
Rabbinern war es so möglich, in der Abbildung gleichzeitig einen
häretischen Gedanken zu formulieren, doch immer imstande, eine
direkte Autorenschaft abzuweisen. Diese Distanz schuf gleicherma-
Ben die Möglichkeit der Aussage von etwas ‫״‬Unmöglichem", eine
Strategie, welche oft zum Beispiel auch in den Psalmen angewendet
wird. D a n a c h sind j a die Frevler der Überzeugung, daß es keinen
Gott gibt. U n d der Psalmist schlußfolgert deshalb, wenn es zutrifft,
m u ß m a n es herausschreien: ‫״‬Es gibt keinen Gott!" Der Psalmist selb
würde nie wagen, eine solche Schlußfolgerung zu ziehen, aber in dem
Verweis, daß die Frevler derart urteilen, drückt er seine eigene un-
endliche Verzweiflung aus—die Lage dieser Welt und seiner Herren
ist ja, in echter Religiosität gesehen, ein Ausdruck der Nichtexistenz
Gottes.
D a die Szene visuell interpretiert wird, ergeben sich folgende Schluß-
folgerungen.
1. Die Ikone Gottes impliziert auch einen Aspekt der Häßlichkeit,
denn die untere Figur ‫״‬hinkt" und ist seiner Schönheit entfrem-
det.
2. Es ist erforderlich, den wahren Gehalt dieser Szene wahrzuneh-
men: Die oben sitzende Figur trägt das, von einem Israeliten
abgezogene und später einbalsamierte Antlitz in Form einer Mas-
ke. Dieser Ikone ist somit auch ein äußerst grausamer Aspekt
inhärent. Die obere Figur lastet auf der Unteren, dessen Gesicht
er der Unteren weggerissen hat. Insbesondere die Darstellung
einer solchen Häßlichkeit in der Ikone würde in der griechischen
Ästhetik keine A u f n a h m e finden und nicht als adäquater
Ausdrück göttiichen Machtanspruchs gewertet. Die rabbinische
Version dagegegen, wenn m a n die visuelle Interpretation von der
Ikone aufgreift, lehnt eine ausschließlich ästhetische Abbildung
Gottes oder gar einen ästhetischen Gott ab (da dieser nicht exi-
stiert oder nicht mit der W a h r n e h m u n g der Realität kongruent
ist). Die römische Porträtkunst zeichnet sich durch eine Einbezie-
hung und A u f n a h m e des Aspekts des Häßlichen in der Darstel-
lung des Schönen aus. Zwar übernehmen römische Künstler die
Formen griechischer Statuen, aber die Porträts erhalten einen
originär römischen Charakter, welche sich auch durch die Dar-
Stellung von ‫״‬Häßlichkeit" im Sinne einer Individualität und da-
mit der Abbildung charakteristischer Merkmale auszeichnen.
Insofern jedoch der Versuch u n t e r n o m m e n wird, die Person in
ihrer Ganzheit abzubilden, ist eine Interpretation des Häßlichen
gar nicht gefordert. Die Darstellung von Häßlichkeit als ein Teil
des Ästhetischen wurde in einem Beitrag von Moshe Barasch im
Kontext der ästhetischen Theorie Augustins interessant aufgegrif-
fen (Augustine and the visual Arts in Ocular Desire, hrsg. v. A. Agus
u . J . Assmann, Akad.-Verlag 1994, S. 77-116). D a n a c h besteht
die Aufgabe der Kunst in der Schaffung eines Kontrastes von
Schönheit und Häßlichkeit, so daß in der S p a n n u n g beider Seiten
der Ausdruck von Schönheit erst entdeckt werden kann. Häßlich-
keit bildet damit ein notwendiges Element vollendeter Schönheit.
Eventuell entstehen vielleicht Augustinus' Überlegungen vor dem
Hintergrund römischer Porträtkunst. Doch die hier bezeichnete
Ikone faßt das Häßliche als ein Eindruck der selbständigen,
künstlerischen Aufgabe.
3. Unsere Ikone bezeichnet ein besonderes Merkmal. Denn es han-
delt sich dabei nicht um eine Form des Häßlichen im Sinne
Augustinus, welche das Schöne erst vollendet, sondern das Häßli-
 che verbleibt und wird in der unversöhnlichen, die Widersprüche
nicht auflösenden Aussage formuliert: ‫ ״‬W e h e dem, wenn der auf-
steht." In der Vollendung dieser ikonischen Darstellung liegt gleichzeitig
deren Zerschellung. Interpretiert m a n diese Aussage synchronisch und
nicht allein visuell, so bedeutet dies, daß die Ikone in ihrer Voll-
endung nicht möglich erscheint, j a es wird die Unmöglichkeit der Ikone
in ihrer Vollendung dargestellt. Allein in der NichtVollendung oder
auch Falschheit ist die Abbildung einer Ikone gegeben. Die Ikone
zerschellt im Moment ihrer Vollendung.
4. Gerade aber die Konsequenz der Unmöglichkeit einer Ikone in
diesem Sinne bleibt zumeist von den Fertigern der Ikone unbe-
rücksichtigt.
5. Die Unmöglichkeit der Schaffung von Ikonen, welche in der
heidnischen Schaffung der Ikonen des jüdischen Gottes wahrge-
n o m m e n wird (—ein Aspekt, den die Heiden nicht sehen, denn
sie fertigen die Ikonen an: In der oben dargestellten Szene wird
die Möglichkeit der Unmöglichkeit gewagt durch die Möglichkeit
dessen, der nicht möglich ist) bedeutet zugleich die Unmöglichkeit der
Existenz Gottes selbst. (Die Schlußfolgerung, daß Gott unmöglich
ist—konnte so von den Rabbinern niemals formuliert werden.
Doch diese Unmöglichkeit stellt zugleich eine absolute Notwen-
digkeit dar. Sie entspricht der W a h r n e h m u n g einer Wahrheit,
und der ikonischen Abbildung unauflöslicher Widersprüche. Die
W a h r n e h m u n g Gottes, der Glaube an Gott schließt die W a h r -
n e h m u n g von dessen Unmöglichkeit ein. Eine religiöse Person (in
der von uns entfalteten Religiosität) ist diejenige, welche davon
überzeugt ist, daß es Gott gibt und deshalb die Unmöglichkeit
seiner Realität erkennt. Der Logik der religiösen Aussage, wo-
nach die Wirklichkeit unmöglich ist, ist zugleich die Formulie-
rung, daß Gott unmöglich ist, inhärent. Dies entspricht der
eschatologischen W a h r n e h m u n g . Sie besteht darin, daß Gott
selbst eschatologisch ist oder eschatologisiert wird. N u r in der
radikalen Änderung der Wirklichkeit existiert Gott (erscheint die
Existenz Gottes möglich). O d e r wie die Rabbiner formulieren:
Nur in der eschatologischen Zukunft wird der vielfältige Gottesname vereint
sein, (siehe Babylonischer T a l m u d Traktat Pesachim, 50a).

Der Verfertiger von Ikonen verstößt deshalb gegen die Erkenntnis

von der Unmöglichkeit Gottes, eine Schlußfolgerung, welche sich aus
der visuellen Interpretation dieses Textes ergibt.
In dieser Erkenntnis ist jedoch das Geheimnis einer bestimmten
Form der hermeneutischen Aussage verborgen. Die Lhimöglichkeit
Gottes (eine Erkenntnis, welche die Rabbiner historisch so nie formu-
lieren würden) drückt gleichzeitig dessen Wahrheit aus. Freud würde
vielleicht davon ausgehen, daß unsere Ikone einer unbewußten
Wahrheit entspricht. N a c h meiner Auffassung handelt es sich jedoch
durchaus u m eine bewußte Ironie. Der Darstellung dieses Textes ist
auch die W a h r n e h m u n g immanent: ‫״‬So kann es nicht sein!", wäh-
rend die Nichtjuden umgekehrt die Überzeugung: ‫ ״‬G e r a d e dies ent-
spricht der W a h r h e i t " begründen. Diese Erkenntnis greift gleichzeitig
einen entschiedenen Einwand auf, wonach die Aussage, daß Gott ist,
als die grundlegendste Form des Atheismus oder des Heidentums
begriffen wird. Die A n n a h m e der Bejahung einer Existenz Gottes
erfordert j a dessen begriffliche Fassung und Fesdegung, was unmög-
lieh ist. Die rabbinische Argumentation zielt zugleich auf den Erweis
der Nichtexistenz von Realität überhaupt. W ä h r e n d andererseits die
heidnische A n n a h m e von Wirklichkeit die Existenz Gottes aus-
schließt. Eine Seite negiert die andere, diese Schlußfolgerung ist in
der Notwendigkeit von Ikonographie einbegriffen.
Ein tatsächliches Verstehen der Existenz Gottes führt somit auch
zu einem andersartigen Verständnis der Existenz des Menschen und
der Realität als solcher. Die ganze Zeitachse erhält einen anderen
Charakter, so daß die W a h r n e h m u n g der widersprüchlichen Existenz
eine andere Auffassung vom Sein impliziert. In der klassischen Auf-
fassung vom Sein gelten die Widersprüche als aufgehoben, es sei
denn, diese werden nachfolgend, in zeidicher Abfolge begriffen. Eine
Existenz dieser jedoch in deren Gleichzeitigkeit (nicht jedoch Identi-
tät oder Aufhebung) erfordert einen völlig anderen Begriff des Seins
sowie vom Sein Gottes.
 TORAH: BETWEEN PRESENCE AND REPRESENTATION
O F T H E D I V I N E IN J E W I S H M Y S T I C I S M

M O S H E IDEL

The Jew lives on intimate terms with God,

and God with the Jew, within the same words:
A divine page. A human page. And in both cases
the author is God, in both cases the author is man.
Edmond Jabes, "Key."

1 Introduction
T h e tension between iconic and non-iconic concepts of divinity is
evident for any reading of the Hebrew Bible, a composite document
reflecting different modes of thought. In addition to expressions deal-
ing with the image, tzelem, picture, temunah, and face, panim, of God,
there is also an assumption that a vision of these divine representa-
tions, though not impossible, is a lethal experience. T h e r e are, on the
other hand, some biblical expressions where anthropomorphic state-
ments also includes elements of light imagery as the enlightenment of
the divine face. 1 In a later development, found in the T a l m u d , the
assumption is that God cannot be seen just as the soul is invisible, 2
while elsewhere in the same corpus and in the Heikhalot literature
there are quite anthropomorphic descriptions. 3 W h e n Jewish thinkers

1
Michael Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1983) 329-334.
2
BT, Berakhot, 10a.
3
On ancient Jewish anthropomorphic theology see Joseph Gutmann, "Deuter-
onomy: Religious Reformation or Iconoclastic Revolution? " The Image and the World,
Confrontations in Judaism, Christianity and Islam (J. Gutmann ed.; AAR,SBL, Scholars
Press, 1977) 5-25; Moshe Halbertal - Avishai Margalit, Idolatry, tr. Naomi Goldblum
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992) 1-2, 46-47, 50; Alon Goshen
Gottstein, "The Body as Image of God in Rabbinic Literature," HTR 87 (1994)
171-195; David H. Aaron, "Shedding Light on God's Body in Rabbinic Midrashim:
Reflections on the Theory of a Luminous Adam," HTR 30 (1997) 299-314; especiaUy
the bibliographical references adduced on 300, n. 5; Elliot R. VVolfson, Through a
Speculum that Shines, Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1994) 16-51 ; Shlomo Pines, "Points of Similarity between
the Doctrine of the Sefirot in the Sefer Yetzirah and a text from the
Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, T h e Implications of this Resemblance," Proceedings of
The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 8,3 (1989) 101-103; Martin S. Cohen, The
Shi'ur Qomah: Texts and Recensions (Tuebingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1985); idem, The Shi'ur
encountered in the Middle Ages Greek philosophical concepts of the
divinity, which assume a complete spiritualization of the concept of
God, a variety of strategies of appropriation and interpretation
emerged, which represent the most sustained medieval Jewish theolo-
gies, philosophical and Kabbalistic altogether. 4 In my opinion, the
anthropomorphic aspects of biblical and rabbinic thought did not
disappear in the Middle Ages. Neither the Rabbinic thinkers who
remained within the the literary genres of classical Rabbinism, nor
most of the more speculative oriented medieval thinkers, renounced
the biblical terms and imagery, but rather applied them to other
entities. So, for example, the divine face became an angel, the angel
of the face, Sar ha-panim, the divine image and picture were applied to
the ten sefirot, as it happened also to the concept of face. 5 In the
following I shall be concerned with the conceptualizations of the
T o r a h as representing a divine form, and sometimes the amorphous
transcendence of this form. Those conceptualizations reflect assump-
tions upon which the specific theology or theosophy of the thinkers is
based.
An important development in the history ofJewish mysticism may
be formulated as follows: we shall survey a gradual convergence of
the divine being and the canonical book or, if someone prefers a
more literary nomenclature, the gradual convergence between the
Author and His Book. Each thinker was striving to introduce the
"Author" in which he believes into the canonical book. As we shall
see below, there are some examples in late Midrashic and many more
in Kabbalistic sources which evince cases of partial or full identifica-
tions between the two, but this was much more related to a partial
graphic isomorphism of the book and its author, as both have been

Qomah: Liturgy and Theurgy in Pre-Kabbalistic Jewish Mysticism (Lanham, New York, Lon-
don, 1983), Yair Lorberboim, Imago Dei: Rabbinic Literature, Maimonides andNahmanides,
(Ph. D. Thesis, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1997) (Hebrew); Michael L. Klein,
Anthropomorphisms and Anthropopathisms in the Targumim of the Pentateuch (Jerusalem:
Makor, 1982) (Hebrew). For some important aspects of anthropomorphism in early
Islam, (which may be related to Jewish ideas) see Joseph van Ess, "The Youthful
God: Anthropomorphism in Early Islam, 5' The University Lecture in Religion at the
Arizona University, (Arizona State University, Tempe, 1989) 1 -20. See also Anthony
Welch, "Epigraphies as Icons: The Role of the Written Words in Islamic Art," in The
Image and the Word, 63-72.
4
See Gershom Scholem, On the Mystical Shape of the Godhead (New York: Schocken
Books, 1991) 15-55; idem, "Die Ringen zwischen dem biblischen Gott und dem Gott
Plotins in der alten Kabbala," Eranos Jahrbuch 33 (1964) 9-50.
5
On this topic see M. Idel, "Panim: On Facial Re-Presentations in Jewish
Thought: Some Correlational Instances," On Interpretation in the Arts, Interdisciplinary
Studies in Honor of Moshe Lazar, ed. Nurit Yaari (Tel Aviv, 2000) 21-56.
conceived mainly in anthropomorphic terms. Let me first attempt to
explicate the problems and their solutions as I believe were envi-
sioned by the Jewish mystics.
O n e of the hermeneutical problems that faced some of the Jewish
mystics were the daunting quandaries created by a double heritage:
the biblical one, concerned with the display of the will of God as
operating in and visible on the scene of history and in the details of
the revealed way of life, the commandments, on the one hand; and
the growing importance of the fixed form of these two in a book that
become canonical, on the other. O r , to formulate this issue differ-
ently: the Jewish mystics had to solve the emerging quandary of what
is more important: the author or the author's book. In modern, and
more conspicuously in postmodern literary criticism, the author has
been gradually demoted, not to say killed, in order to safeguard the
integrality and the integrity of the book, and sometime also the im-
portance of the reader. It was a relatively simple enterprise, as most of
the authors did not live longer than their books.
However, in a religious scriptural system it is easier to eliminate
the book, important as it may be, than its divine Author. Easier, but
not easy if the book became the founding text of the religious tradi-
tion. This is the case in Rabbinic Judaism, where the canonical text
was established as the most important source of authority, p a r a m o u n t
subject of study, and the main object of interpretation. In fact, the
emergence of Rabbinic Judaism is connected to a process of
re-nomadization reminiscent of an earlier type of worship centered
on a portable sacred object; once the tabernacle, now it was a book.
In such a religious tradition both author and book are incumbent to
coexist, and a modus vivendi for this coexistence was ensured in
order not to trivialize the book, or to relegate it to the status of one of
the many possible literary products of the eternal author and, at the
same time, not to minimize the importance of the author, which
ensures the importance of the Book. This quandary becomes more
acute in a minority culture, as the Jewish one was for most of its
history, where other books competed for the status of the final and
perfect revelation, like the New Testament and then the Q p r ' a n .
Thus, the battle over the nature of the Book is m u c h more central for
a culture gravitating around books, attempting to validate its canoni-
cal books, but has to allow a significant role for the author. I would
say that the nature of the quandary as formulated above contributed
to the search for solutions. This means that by attempting to imagine
the nature of the affinities between the Author and the sacred book,
the graphic nature of the latter sometimes had an impact on the
specific understandings of the former, just as the spiritualization of
the author contributed in other cases to the mentalistic understanding
of the ultimate message of the book.
O n e of the regular solutions for the tension between two values is
a subordination of one factor to another, so establishing an hierarchy
between the two or, to resort to a phrase coined by a scholar of
Islamic mysticism - 'une distinction hiérarchisée.' According to such a
view the book is conceived of as dependent upon the author though
this approach minimizes a little bit the dominant role of an omnipres-
ent author. 6 This is the classical Rabbinic stance that contends that
the T o r a h is not found in heaven, but is in full possession and in the
legitimate responsibility of the Rabbinic masters. 7 T h e y were appar-
ently more contented to deal with the divine will as embodied in the
specific literary expression they possess, without allowing a further
interference of the author. W h e n his will had been codified into a
text, this text became a closed representation of the divine will and,
by extension, of G o d himself. Rabbinic masters, and even less their
mystical descendants, would not subscribe to Paul Ricoeur's theory
about the eclipse of the author, 8 but postulate an ongoing process of
reading and elaboration upon the book in the imagined presence of
the living author, without however, totally subscribing to His free will
as inscribed in the canon. T h e precise difference between an eclipse
of the author in Ricoeur and the presence of a living author in the
consciousness of the religious reader, but an author who is not al-
lowed to intervene in the act of reading, though H e may be the
ultimate goal of this act of reading or interpretation as it is the case of
the Rabbinic attitude, is an issue that I cannot dwell upon here.
Indeed, the phenomenology of a religious reading is less dictated by
m o d e r n assumptions about the actual death of the author, and more
by the awareness and imagination of the reader, who may imagine
the author as alive and attempt to enter a certain type of intellectual
or spiritual dialogue with him, even over centuries since the composi-
tion of the canonical text. Even more so when the reader believes that

6
See David Weiss-Ha-Livni, Midrash, Mishnah and Gemara (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1986) 16.
7
See Deuteronomy Rabbah, 8; W.B. Davies, Torah in the Messianic Age and/or the Age to
Come (Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1952) 87.
8
See Hermeneuhcs and the Human Sciences (John B. Thompson ed.; Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1982) 146-147. The single instance I am acquainted
with where Ricoeur addressed the referential value of the Sacred Scripture as point-
ing to God is Paul Ricoeur, Figuring the Sacred, Religion, Narrative, and Imagination, tr.
David Pellauer (Mark I. Wallace ed.; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995) 221, which
is a rather short and far from clear statement.
the author is both eternal and omniscient, and available within the
book he assiduously and continuously studies. 9
T h e T o r a h when identified as the image of God, could not be
conceived of as a forbidden image, to use Alain Besançon's formula-
tion, and as such it remained part of the center of some forms of
Judaism while maintaining an iconic character. 1 0 From this point of
view, at least in so far as some forms of Kabbalistic schools are con-
cerned, the struggle between the Jewish iconodules and iconoclasts
was never resolved, and it remained not only part of the dynamics of
different forms of Judaism, but also part of the inner development of
Kabbalah.
T h o u g h for a Rabbinic master the 'world of the text' and a certain
distanciation between the author and the text, to use Ricoeur's terms,
are plausible concepts, with the Jewish mystics the situation become
much more complex. Those medieval mystics were part and parcel of
a religion and culture which, at least in its elite forms, inherited a
fascination with the Sacred Book and its study, but they were, at the
same time, also pursuing the search for a more direct contact with
God, either as an author, or as an entity before the very act of writing
of the book. These two forms of spiritual concerns were primary
purposes of their mystical life.
T h e distinction between the Rabbinic and the mystical attitudes
should not be seen as a neat differentiation between totally different
aspects of a certain personality; in fact, some of the mystical aspects of
the T o r a h have been exposed in writings of Rabbinic figures. Mod-
ern scholarly attempts to offer too neat a distinction between mystical
and Rabbinic elites, seem to be, sometimes, an exaggeration. Appar-
ently the Jewish mystics were in pursuit of a more vibrant relation
with the supreme author, a direct contact with Him, but could not,
or, perhaps refused to, circumvent the book as the canonical expres-
sion of the divine will, as the centre of their culture, and as a divine
entity which may mediate between them and the divine. However, a
full fledged mediation by assuming an hypostatic status of the book, is
only one of the solutions they accepted. T h e other one was to conflate
the book and the author. As we shall see below, some Jewish mystics
created forms of ontological continua between the author and the
book, some of them based upon the principle of isomorphism, others
on the belief in a substantial presence. As we shall see various uses of

9
For the significance of this assumption see below, section 6.
10
Alain Besançon, L'image interdite, Une histoire intellectuelle de l'iconoclasme (Paris: A.
Fayard, 1994).
the term tzurah, form, as related to the divine, were applied also to the
shape of the T o r a h , and the process of reading was conceived some-
times much more as a matter of contemplating the divine form rather
than understanding His intention.
T h e emergence of the main school of Kabbalah, the
theosophical-theurgical one, contributed a new angle to the above
issue. Dealing as it does with the details of theogenesis, namely the
emanation-system of the ten sefirot conceived of as divine powers and
the processes that take place between them, this school evinces a
much greater concern with the authorial persona than the Rabbinic
fascination, which dealt with the book rather than its author. This is
the case also in ecstatic Kabbalah, where the intellectual nature of the
deity, impacted directly the understanding of the T o r a h in this
school, as it is the case with the emergence of the astro-magical
Kabbalah and its Hasidic ramifications. In other words, each K a b b a -
listic model produced its own vision of the T o r a h , as representing the
divine nature of this book in its specific m a n n e r . "

2 The Author between the Lines of His Book

As pointed out above, anthropomorphic visions and concepts of the
divine are part of the ancient and late antique forms of Judaism.
These views reverberated in some conceptualizations of T o r a h as
either a manifestation of a certain part of God, an issue to be dealt
immediately below in this paragraph, or by a complete identification
between the two, an issue to be surveyed in the next paragraph. T h e
focus of some of the following discussions is the question of the con-
verging between the nature or the anthropomorphic shape of the
author and the canonical text, and much less the view, discussed in
detail by Scholem, according to which the T o r a h is an organism. 1 2
Neither will the rich female and sexual aspects of the imagery of the
T o r a h concern us in the following discussions. 15
A late Midrash, perhaps written as late as the 1 Oth century, formu-

" For a presentation of the three models in Kabbalah, the

theosophical-theurgical, the ecstatic and the magical-mystical, see Moshe Idel,
Hasidism: Between Ecstasy and Magic (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995) 45-102.
12
See Gershom Scholem, On the Kabbalah and its Symbolism (New York, Schocken
Books, 1969) 44-50.
13
See Moshe Idel, "The Concept of the Torah in Heikhalot literature and Its
Metamorphoses in Kabbalah," Jerusalem Studies in Jewish Thought 1 (1981) 40-41,
61-62 (Hebrew), and Elliot R. Wolfson, Circle in the Square, Studies in the Use of Gender in
Kabbalistic Symbolism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995) 1-28; idem, Along the Path (Albany:
SUNY Press, 1995) 104-105.
lates this question in a rather complex manner. Dealing with the
préexistence of the T o r a h , this Midrashist, who is not quite an excep-
tional Rabbinic thinker, addresses the question of the substratum
upon which the T o r a h has been written:
Before the creation of the world, skins for parchments were not in exist-
ence, so that the Torah will be written on them, because the animals did
not yet exist. So upon what was the Torah written? On the arm of the
Holy One, blessed be He, by a black fire on [the surface of] a white fire.14
According to another late Midrashic text, the T o r a h has been written
on the divine forehead. 1 3 This concept of the T o r a h as a mythical
and preexisting being constituted as an inscription on divine limbs
emphasizes the visual dimension of the text and of the author at the
same time. T h e text is a divine manifestation, to the extent T o r a h is
the black fire, and we may assume that the contemplation of our
T o r a h is reminiscent of its status in illo tempore, before the act of
creation, or possibly even its status today. Contemplating the T o r a h
will, accordingly, involve more than a study of certain sacred con-
tents, more than the disclosure of an ideal modus vivendi; it will
include, at least in part, a divine self-revelation. Accordingly the white
fire will stand for the divine substance of the T o r a h whereas the black
one, for the letters.
T h e T o r a h is expressly viewed by R. Eleazar of Worms, an early
13th century Ashkenazi master, as tantamount to the face of the
Shekhinah. 1 6 T h e same author also presents a view which I could not
find in earlier traditions to the effect that the T o r a h , written on white
fire, rests upon the divine knee. 17 T h o u g h not dealing with an inscrip-
tion on a divine limb, the anthropomorphic vision of God is pre-
sented in the context of the primordial T o r a h . This convergence
between an image, the face of the divine presence, and a canonical
text is quite interesting and we shall follow some of its later develop-
ments in Kabbalah immediately below. However, it should be men-
tioned, that those developments attenuate the distinction proposed in
the interesting statement of G e r h a r d von R a d , (which I quote from

14
Midrash in 'Otzar ha-Midrashim (Yehudah Eisenstein ed.; New York, 1927) 450.
For more on this issue see Moshe Idel, Absorbing Perfections: On Kabbalah and Interpreta-
tion (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001) ch. 2.
15
Ibid.
16
See his Commentary on Liturgy, Ms. Paris BN 772, fol. 84a, adduced by Elliot
YVolfson, "The Mystical Significance of Torah Study in German Pietism," JQR 84
(1993) 61, n. 70.
'‫ ׳‬Perushei Siddur ha-Tefillah (M. and Y.A. Herschler eds.; Jerusalem, 1992) 94.
Barasch's book on Icon,) according to w h o m "In its relationship to
G o d Israel, unlike other peoples, is not dependent on ritual image,
only on God's words." 1 8
Indeed, as Barasch remarked, the importance of the sacred words
does not demote the possible resort to cultic images. Moreover, I
would say, following Barasch, that in some forms of Kabbalah the
words constituting Scriptures become a cultic image. After all the
graphics of a text is as graphical an image as any other image, and
there can be no doubt that the scroll of the T o r a h become a cultic
object. In other words, while biblical Judaism, which was the topic of
van Rad's observation, was dependent more on a verbal revelation,
since the canonization of the Bible, its graphics started to play an
important role both in Rabbinic literature and in some forms of
Kabbalah. Some discussions in Rabbinic literature deal with the mi-
nutiae of the writing of the scroll of the T o r a h , namely the size of
some letters and the m a n n e r in which pericopes are composed on the
page, but it seems that never had those details been organized in a
comprehensive structure, anthropomorphic or not. 1 9 This develop-
ment seems to have some sources in Heikhalot literature or Midrash,
for example, the identification of the T o r a h as the daughter of God,
but explicit discussions occur only since the beginning of theoso-
phical-theurgical Kabbalah. Since the 13th century, iconicity is no
more a matter of an anthropomorphic and independent icons it is the
case of the Christian approaches, but of a text which was imagined to
have anthropomorphic dimensions. In fact, the above passages and
some of the texts to be quoted in this paragraph and in the next one,
close dramatically the gap between conventional, linguistic signs and
natural representation by means of isomorphism. 2 "
In the middle of the thirteenth century in Castile, R. J a c o b , the
son of R. J a c o b ha-Cohen, proposed an interesting theory on the
relationship between the white and the black configurations of the
Hebrew letters. W h e n discussing the shape of the letter 'Aleph he
wrote:
The inner [form] stands for the Holy One, blessed be He, as He is
hidden from the eye of any creature and His innermost [aspect] cannot
be reached. The external form stands for the [external] world, which

18
Moshe Barasch, Icon, Studies in the History of an Idea, (New York: New York
University Press, 1992) 19.
19
See the material collected by Moses Gaster, in his rather ignored study, The
Tittled Bible (London: Maggs Bros., 1929).
20
For a survey of the different scholarly analyses of the relationship between
textuality and iconology see W.J.T. Mitchell, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1986).
 depends on the arm of the Holy One, blessed be He, as an amulet does
on the arm of a powerful m a n / 1 And just as the inner form is the locus
of the external form, so [also] is God the locus of the world, and the
world is not the locus of God.2‫ ־־‬What I have mendoned to you that the
white form in the 'Aleph stands for the level of Holy One, blessed be He,
but not the black one, [which is] external. I did teil you this by the way
of a [great] principle, and as a great secret because the white form stands
for the white garment, and our sages, blessed be their memory, said:23
'Whence was the light created? It teaches that the Holy One, blessed be
He, was clothed Himself with a white garment, and the splendor of it [the
garment] shone from one end of the world to another as it is said24 'Who
covers himself with light as with a garment' and 25 'and the light dwells
with him'. 26

T h e inner form, which represents the invisible aspect of the divine,

consists of the white spaces that was imagined as the locus of the
black configuration of the letter. It is the inner form that is the most
important one, just as the soul sustains the body. This last type of
imagery is expressly used in the context of our passage and it reflects
the Neoplatonic view of the soul as sustaining the body by the very
fact that she surrounds it.
Moreover, the white light is conspicuously identified with the di-
vine light, which was described as the divine garment. All this is
related to the divine arm, albeit the anthropomorphic aspect was
somewhat attenuated in this passage. Crucial for our discussion is the
fact that the amorphous component of the letter, the white space, is
conceived of as the p a r a m o u n t element, and identical with a divine
manifestation. According to R. J a c o b , all the forms of the Hebrew
letters are included within the form of 'Aleph, and this inclusion
designates the various revelations of the divine to the prophets, as
taken in different forms. 2 ‫ ׳‬Moreover, this letter in its black manifesta-
tion is described as a figurai image, possessing as it is a form of a m a n ,
tzurat ,Adam.1^ T h e white forms are therefore not gaps without signifi-
cance, disjunctive aspects of a text, but the unifying background with

21
Cf. BT, Sanhédrin, 21b; Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 43-44, n. 59.
22
Sefer Yetzirah, ed. Ithamar Gruenwald, in "A Preliminary Critical Edition of
Sefer Yezira," IOS 1 (1971) 157, par. 38.
23
Genesis Rabba, 111:4 (Theodor-Albeck, 19). An analysis of this Midrash and its
impact is found in Alexander Altmann, "A Note on the Rabbinic Doctrine of Créa-
tion," JJS 6 / 7 (1955-1956) 195-206.
24
Psalms 104:2.
25
Daniel 2:22.
'‫ יי‬The Rationales of the Letters, edited by Gershom Scholem, Madda'ei ha-Yahadut
(Jerusalem, 1927): II, 201-202; idem, On the Kabbalah 30, n. 2 and 50, n. 1.
27
Ibid., 202.
28
Ibid., 203.
is, mystically speaking, more sublime than the black aspects. T h e text
is continuous despite the white aspects, and it assumes the quality of
a picture. Subsequently, the Kabbalists were less prone to draw a
strong demarcation line between picture and text, as has been pro-
posed by Nelson G o o d m a n . 2 9
Obviously the above discussion does not refer, as in the earlier
literature, to the entire T o r a h and to its role in the cosmogonical
process. T h e white spaces are now described in terms reminiscent of
negative theology. Intertwined as the white and black letters are they
point to theosophical layers which sharply differ from each other.
T h e human-oriented aspect, the semantic one, is constituted by the
black letters while the divine dimension consists in the white spaces,
and is parasemantic. T h e meaning created by the black letters de-
fines, at the same time, the shape of the divine, which embraces the
semantic message.
However, this passage includes an even more striking factor: not
only is the primordially written version of the T o r a h pregnant with a
divine dimension but also the individual Hebrew letters in general,
independendy of their role in the cosmogonical process. T o a certain
extent, the separate letters are fraught with their own meaning, inde-
pendent of their specific context in the biblical text. In other words, in
the m o m e n t when the move from the semantic to the morphic as-
pects of the linguistic material took place, the auctorial intention dis-
appeared, opening the path to speculations about and the
contemplation of the divine morphe. It should be mentioned that
neither in the above paragraph nor in the following one, do I address
the rich symbolism which relates the different types of T o r a h : the
primordial, the written and the oral one, with different sefirotic mani-
festations. This symbolic approach, emphasizing as it does some se-
mantic aspects, only rarely has a manifest anthropomorphic
dimension, and therefore deserves a separate discussion. i ‫״‬

3 The Graphics of the Book and the Shape of the Author

Already at the beginning of the theosophical-theurgical Kabbalah in
Gerona, there are some descriptions of the T o r a h as a divine edi-
fice.31 However, the Geronese Kabbalists did not elaborate upon the

29
See Mitchell, Iconology, 67-68.
30
See further Idel, Absorbing Perfections, ch. 4,111,1.
31
See Scholem, On the Kabbalah 39-41; Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 49-52.
See also R. Jacob ben Sheshet, Meshiv Devarim Nekhohim (G. Vajda ed.; Jerusalem:
Israel Academy of Science and Humanities, 1967) 141.
details of the correspondences between the divine system and the
T o r a h . Only the Castilian Kabbalah elaborates the most important
developments, which explicate the various possibilities included in
this identification. This is clear in the most influential Kabbalistic
book written in Castile, the book of the Zohar. 3 ' 2 So, for example, we
read that the Written T o r a h is identical to the "likeness of m a n "
found on the throne according to Ezekiel. 33 T h e term demut, likeness,
occurs also in a somewhat similar context in an younger contempo-
rary of the Zohar, Sefer Ma arekhet ha-'Elohut.34 Elsewhere in the same
book, a much more detailed comparison between the h u m a n body
and its limbs and the T o r a h is offered, a comparison which had a
profound impact on many Kabbalists. 3 '
O n e of the most important and influential examples for the stand
that the T o r a h has an anthropomorphic shape, is a lengthy discussion
found in R. Joseph Gikatilla's classical Sha'arei ,Orah. This Kabbalist
presents a parable explaining the understanding of the innermost
aspects of the T o r a h , as the gradual stripping of the garments of the
king, who divests himself of his arms and clothes, remaining naked
with his wife. This parable is to be understood also as pointing to the
relationship between G o d and the Assembly of Israel, and on the
theosophical level, as the relationship between the male and female
divine attributes, Tiferet and Malkhut.36 It is in this context that the
Kabbalist resorts to the term Tzurato, 'his form', namely the form of
the naked king, which is supposed to point to the esoteric meaning of
the T o r a h , which is the divine name, the Tetragrammaton. 3 7 It
should be mentioned that according to many Kabbalists, including
Gikatilla, the plene spelling of the consonants of the T e t r a g r a m m a t o n
are numerically equivalent to 45 which is the equivalent of the conso-
nants of 'Adam. 38 Thus, the anthropomorphic aspect of the divinity

32
For a comprehensive discussion of the concept of the Torah in the Z°har s e e
Isaiah Tishby, The Wisdom of the Zohar, An Anthology of Texts, tr. David Goldstein,
(London: The Littman Library, 1991) III: 1077-1121. See also Wolfson, Through a
Speculum, 375-377.
33
Zohar, I, 71b.
34
(Mantua, 1558), 95a. R. Yehudah Hayyat describes the Torah as the image of
God, while elaborating on hints already found in the text he interpreted. See his
Minhat Yehudah, ibid.
35
See Z0har, I 134b; Scholem, On the Kabbalah 46; Boaz Huss, Sockets of Fine Gold,
The Kabbalah of Rabbi Shim'on lbn Lavi (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1999) 172 and
n. 158 (Hebrew).
36
ed. Joseph ben Shlomo (Jerusalem: Mossad Bialik, 1970) 206, 208-209. More
on this parable see Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 60-62.
37
See also below note 69.
38
See, e.g., Qetzat Be'urei ha-Moreh (Venice, 1575), 24c-d.
had been projected within the most essential aspect of the T o r a h , the
divine name.
O n e of the most fascinating cases of a straightforward identifica-
tion of the graphic shapes of the T o r a h with the divine realm is found
in a circle of Kabbalists active at the end of the 13th century in
Castile, to which both Gikatilla and the book of the Z o h a r have been
close. In the anonymous Sefer ha-Tihud, (attributed in some manu-
scripts to a certain R. Shem Τ ο ν ben J a c o b of Faro, in others to other
Kabbalists), it is said that:
God gave us the entire perfect Torah from the [word] Bereshit to the
[words] Le-Έιηά kol Israel.39 Behold, how all the letters of the Torah, by
their shapes, combined and separated, swaddled letters, curved ones and
crooked ones, superfluous and elliptic ones, minute and large ones, and
inverted, the calligraphy of the letters, the open and closed pericopes and
the ordered ones, all of them are the shape of God, Blessed be He. It is
similar to, though incomparable with, the thing someone paints using
[several] kinds of colors; likewise the Torah, beginning with the first
pericope until the last one is the shape of God, the Great and Formida-
ble, Blessed be He, since if one letter be missing from the Scroll of Torah,
or one is superfluous, or a [closed] pericope was [written] in an open
fashion or an [open] pericope was [written] in a closed fashion, that
Scroll of Torah is disqualified, since it has not in itself the shape of God,
blessed be He the Great and Formidable, because of the change the
shape caused. And you should understand it! And because it is incumbent
on each and every one of Israel to say that the world has been created for
him 40 God obliged41 each and every one of them to write a scroll of the
Torah for himself, and the concealed secret is [that he] made God,
blessed be He. 42
T h e precise form of the authorized writing of the Bible is, therefore,
equivalent to the shape of God. In its ideal form, the Bible constitutes
an absolute book including in itself the supreme revelation of God,
which is offered anthropomorphically and sometimes symbolically,

39
These are the first and the last Hebrew words of the Pentateuch.
40
See Tanna de-Bei 'Eliyahu, ch. 25.
41
In fact 'commanded'.
42
Sefer ha-Tihud, Ms. Milano-Ambrosiana 62, 113b, printed and discussed in Idel,
"Concept of the Torah," 62-64; O n the problem of authorship see Moshe Idel, "The
Commentary on Ten Sefirot and Fragments from the Writings of R. Joseph of
Hamadam," 'Alei Sefer 6 / 7 (1979) 82-84 (Hebrew). See also Scholem, On the Kabbalah,
43-44; Charles Mopsik, Les Grands textes de la Kabbale (Lagrasse: Verdier, 1993)
278-287, 560-565; Michael Fishbane, The Garments of the Torah, Essays in Biblical
Hermeneutics (Bloomington/Indianopolis: Indiana University Press, 1989) 43; Barbara
A. Holdrege, Veda and Torah, Transcending the Textuality of Scripture (Albany: SUNY
Press, 1996) 361.
limb by limb, within the various parts of the text. However, what is
more important for the understanding of the status of the canonical
text is the identification between the scroll of the T o r a h , which was
incumbent to be written for, or by each and every Jew, and the
concept of making, or reproducing the image of God. T h e r e is no
doubt that the scroll of the Bible is conceived in iconic terms, as a
faithful representation of the divine shape. It seems that beyond the
emphasis on the isomorphism, the view of the anonymous Kabbalist
is that the iconic T o r a h represents the divine hypostasis of the ten
sefirot, conceived in this book as possessing a divine essence. T h o u g h
not consubstantial with the divine, the T o r a h is faithfully reproducing
the form of the hypostasis, in a m a n n e r reminiscent of the concept of
icon found in Nicephorus of Constantinople. 4 5
T h e emergence of this important and influential passage may be
explained as the result of the conflation between two somewhat differ-
ent attitudes to the T o r a h found a m o n g Catalan Kabbalists:
Nahmanides' emphasis on the importance of the minutiae of the
writing of the scroll, as found in his introduction to the C o m m e n t a r y
on the Pentateuch, with Geronese Kabbalistic discussions, especially
R. Azriel of Gerona, about the T o r a h as a human-like edifice.
Let me introduce another passage from a book of R. Joseph of
H a m a d a n , a late 13th century Kabbalist writing in Castile who was,
conceptually and historically speaking, close to Sefer ha-Yihudf[ In a
passage dealing with a complex isomorphism, he declared that:
This is the red attribute of judgement, 45 and from those five fingers were
created five lower sefirot and corresponding to them has David, blessed be
his memory, composed the five books of Psalms, and corresponding to

43
See Barasch, Icon, 278, 281-282; Christoph Schoenborn, L'icone du Christ,
Fondements theologiques (Paris: Le Cerf, 1986) 206-214.
44
On this Kabbalist see Gershom Scholem, Einige Kabbalistische Handschriften im
Britischen Museum (Jerusalem, 1931) 19-21; Alexander Altmann, "An Allegorical
Midrash on Genesis 24 According to the 'Inner Kabbalah'," Sefer Ha-Tovel Tifereth
Tisra'el Likhevod Tisra'el Brodie (S.Y. Zimmels, Y. Rabinovitz, Y.S. Feinstein eds.; Lon-
don, 5727) 57-65 (Hebrew Part); Jeremy Zweling, Joseph of Hamadan's Sefer Tashak
(Ph.D. Thesis, Brandeis University, 1975); Shlomo Pines, "A Parallel between Two
Iranian and Jewish Themes," Irano Judaica 2 ( 1990) 49-51 ; Yehuda Liebes, Studies in
the Zohar, trs. A. Schwartz, S. Nakache, P. Peli (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993) 103-126;
Charles Mopsik, "Un manuscript inconnu du Sefer Tashak de R. Joseph de
Hamadan suivi d'un fragment inédit," Kabbalah 2 (1997) 167-205; idem, Joseph de
Hamadan, Fragment d'un commentaire sur la Genese (Lagrasse: Verdier, 1998); Idel, "Com-
mentary on Ten Sefirot," 74-84 and "Additional Fragments from the Writings of R.
Joseph of Hamadan," Daat 21 (1988) 47-55 (Hebrew).
45
Namely the sefcrah of Gevurah, which is symbolized by the left hand.
 the three joints of each and every finger there are three topics in each of
the [five] books. Genesis corresponds to the thumb, and is divided in
three topics: the creation of heaven and earth, the events related to the
forefathers, and the matter of exile. And the second finger corresponds to
Exodus, and just as there are three joints in a finger, so is the book
divided in three topics. The book of Exodus reports events related to
Moses, our master, blessed be his memory, who took out the people of
Israel from Egypt as a mission of God, blessed be He, and tells the laws
and rules, and tells the matter of the Tabernacle. Behold they are three
things. And the book of Leviticus, which corresponds to the third finger,
so is this book the middle of the Pentateuch, and it is divided in three
topics corresponding to three joints of the middle finger. They are the
law of the sacrifices, and the law of the leprosy, and the blessings and the
curses. The book of Numbers corresponds to the fourth finger and is
divided in three topics: The numbers, the issue of the priesthood and the
issue of the spies. The fifth book corresponds to the fifth finger and is
called Deuteronomy, which explicates the issue of the wonders and the
miracles done by God to Israel, and the issue of the commandments, and
Moses's death. Behold the five fingers of the right hand corresponding to
the five books of the Pentateuch. But the five books in the book of Psalms
correspond to the five fingers of the left hand, and each of these books
too is divided in three topics corresponding to three joints of the finger.46
T h o u g h there is a certain correlation between the anthropomorphic
details involved in the correspondences found in the two last quotes,
the main intention of the Kabbalist is rather clear: the shape of the
h u m a n body is the c o m m o n denominator for both the T o r a h and the
divine realm. Moreover, it seems that the mode of expression domi-
nant in this passage does not assume the fathoming of an inexpress-
ible realm by contemplating the h u m a n body qua shadow. I would
rather stress that the precise correspondences presuppose a strict iso-
morphism. In order to understand these topics, and the correspond-
ences between them, the Kabbalist must resort to his anatomical
knowledge for an insight into the literary and divine structures. Those
literary parts are conceived as figurai images representing both a
semantic content, on both the plain and symbolic level, and the shape
of a certain limb, on a parasemantic level. In the Commentary on the
Rationales of the Commandments the term 'supernal form' recurs:
Happy is the man who knows how to relate a limb47 to another and a
form to another, which are found in the Holy and Pure Chain, blessed be

46
Sefer ha-Malkhut, ed.J. Toledano, (Casablanca, 1930) 93ab. For establishing the
authorship of this part of the book see Efrayyim Gottlieb, Studies in Kabbalah Literature
(J. Hacker ed.; Tel Aviv, 1976) 251-253 (Hebrew).
47
Namely a human limb to a divine limb.
 His Name, because the Torah is His form, 48 blessed be He. He com-
manded us to study Torah in order to know the likeness of the Supernal
Form, as some few Kabbalists said49 'Cursed is whomever will not keep
this Torah up.' Can the Torah fall? This [verse should be understood as]
a warning for the cantor to show the written form of the Torah scroll to
the community in order that they will see the likeness of the Supernal
Form. Moreover, the study of the Torah brings someone about to see
supernal secrets and to see the glory of the Holy One, blessed be He,
indeed. 5
T h e gist of the passage is the knowledge of the structural affinity
between the h u m a n limbs and forms and the divine ones. T h e cogni-
tive movement is expressly upward. T h e form of the letters in the
T o r a h is assumed to play the same role as the shapes of the h u m a n
body: the later is an icon, and a shadow, enabling the contemplation
of the supernal form. ' 1 This quality explains, according to the last
quote, the custom of showing the open scroll of the T o r a h to the
members of the community after the reading of the weekly portion.
However, it seems that the formal correspondences between the
lower and higher limbs should be understood in a broader sense. T h e
Hebrew expression 'ever ke-neged 'ever which means 'a limb versus
a[nother] limb' is reminiscent of another recurrent phrase in R.
Joseph of H a m a d a n ' s nomenclature: 'ever mahaziq ''ever which means
that the lower limb is sustaining the supernal one. This Kabbalist
contends that the performance of the c o m m a n d m e n t s by a certain
limb strengthens the corresponding limb found on high, which is a
sefirah?1 Thus, the contemplation of the higher realm, namely divine
Glory, starting from the lower is not the single, and may be even not
the most important sort of relationship between the privileged shapes
here below, the h u m a n body and the T o r a h on the one hand, and the
supernal sefirotic structure on high, on the other. Knowing G o d be-
comes now not only knowing the divine will, nor only His nature, but

4s
Tzurato. For this term see above, in the discussion of Gikatilla. See also the view
that the Torah is the form of the supernal world, found in Gikatilla's book Sha'arei
Tzedeq, in the important fragment printed by Gotdieb, Studies, 155.
49
Deut. 27:26. I translated the verse in the literal way in which R.Joseph under-
stood it.
50
Ms. Jerusalem J N U L 8° 3925, fol. 110b. On this book see Alexander Altmann,
"Concerning the Question of the Authorship of Sefer Ta'amei ha‫־‬Mitzwot Attrib-
uted to R. Isaac ibn Farhi," Qiriat Sefer 40 (1964-1965) 256-276, 405-412 (Hebrew).
See also Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 65. For an additional analysis of aspects
of this passage see Idel, Absorbing Perfections, ch. 10 par. V.
51
For relations between icons and shadows in Origen see Schoenborn, L'icone du
Christ, 79.
also intuiting His form by means of studying the T o r a h , which now
means the understanding the anthropomorphic correspondence. T h e
lower not only knows the higher, but also contributes to its making—
in the case of the quote above from Sefer ha-Tihud—or maintains it, as
is the case in R. Joseph of H a m a d a n ' s books.
This theurgical influence is possible only by the dint of the affini-
ties existing between three isomorphic structures: the T o r a h , the hu-
m a n body, and the ten sefirot conceived of as possessing a divine
essence. T h e same Kabbalist contends again in his C o m m e n t a r y on
the Rationales of the C o m m a n d m e n t s :
Why is it called Torah and it has an open and a closed pericope, refer-
ring to the image of the building and the form of man, who is like the
supernal, holy, and pure form. And just as there are in man joints con-
nected to each other, just as in the Torah there are closed pericopes like
in the case of the structure of the pericope Va-Yehi Be-Shalah Pharaoh53 and
the secret of the song Ά ζ Tashir Moshè54 are the secret of the joints of the
Holy One, blessed be His hands. And the song of ha-'azintc'5 is the secret
of the ear of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the secret of 'Az Tashir
Yisrael56 is the secret of the divine circumcision57 ...and the positive com-
mandments correspond to the secret of the male and the negative com-
mandments correspond to the secret of the female and to the secret of the
Shekhi1iah and to the secret οf Malkhut.™ This is the reason why the Torah
is called so, because it refers to the likeness of the Holy One, blessed be
He. 59
R. Joseph of H a m a d a m offers an interesting interpretation for the
word T o r a h : while the noun points to instruction, the medieval Kab-
balist interprets it as meaning 'refer,' morah. However, while the an-

2
‫י‬ See Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Persp
1988) 184-190; Huss, Sockets of Fine Gold, 192-211.
53
Exodus 13:17-17:16.
54
Exodus 15:1.
55
Deuteronomy 32:1-43.
56
Number 21:17.
57
Berit, namely the phallus. Though R.Joseph of Hamadan was one of the Kab-
balists who indulged in sexual symbols more than many other Jewish authors, at least
in this case the phallus does not play an outstanding role in his symbolism.
>8
I wonder whether the various designations for the feminine manifestation reflect
different aspects of the last sefirah.
59
Ms. Jerusalem, J N U L 8° 3925, fol. 110b. For the affinities between this text and
Geronese Kabbalists see the introduction of M. Meier, ed., A Critical Edition of the Sefer
Ta'amei ha-Mitzwo th Attributed to Isaac ibn Farhi (Ph. D. Dissertation, Brandeis Univer-
sity, 1974) 32-33, and Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 49-56. Compare also a
similar discussion in R. David ben Yehudah he-Hasid, Sefer 'Or Zflrua', Ms.
Oxford-Bodleiana 1624, fol. 10a.
cient use of the term T o r a h points to the instruction stemming from
the supernal realm and intended for m a n here below, the Kabbalist
assumes the inverse direction: the lower entity, the T o r a h , reflects a
higher one, and thus it opens one more way to understanding the
divine by fathoming the structure and the meaning of the text. This
understanding is based upon a type of isomorphism shared by certain
portions of the T o r a h and by the limbs of the divine anthropos.
However, this symbolic function does not work here on the narrative
level, by introducing a divine myth as paralleled by, and reflected in
the m u n d a n e events reported in the T o r a h , as it is the case in many
types of theosophical Kabbalah, especially in the book of the Zohar.
According to R. Joseph of H a m a d a n , it is the graphic shape of the
portion of the canonical text that counts, not its semantic content. As
in the case of Sefer ha-Tihud, a book very close to this Kabbalist, the
assumption is that God, the h u m a n shape and the Bible are somehow
identical or at least isomorphic. However, what I find fascinating in
the last quote is not the very disclosure of this isomorphism but the
attempt to flesh it out in some detail, by correlating specific sections
of the biblical text to specific limbs of the supernal anthropos. I would
say that while Sefer ha-Tihud refers to a pictorial correspondence, the
views of R. Joseph of H a m a d a n may be described as discussing a
skeletic type of correspondence.
Elsewhere in the same book, it is said that:
Woe to whoever believes that there is no more than the plain sense of the
Torah, because the Torah is the name of the Holy One blessed be He, in
its entirety ... because the Torah in its entirety is the name of the Holy
One, and it consists in inner [namely spiritual] things... that any creature
cannot comprehend the greatness of its rank, but God, blessed be He, the
supreme and the wonderful that created it, and the Holy One, blessed be
he, His Torah is within Him and in Him there is the Torah, and this is
the reason why Kabbalists said that 'He is in His name and the Name is
in Him', 60 He is His Torah and the Torah is made out of the holy and
pure chain, in [the image of the] supernal form, and it is the shadow of
the Holy One, blessed be He, indeed.''1
T h e depths of the T o r a h as text cannot be penetrated by the mortals.
I assume, therefore, that the T o r a h does not serve as the telescope by
means of which it is possible to attain a vision of the divine. Rather,

60
On this dictum and its sources in the ancient Sefer Shi'ur Qomah and in early
Kabbalah see Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 52.
61
Commentary on the Rationales of the Commandments, Ms. Jerusalem, J N U L 8° 3925,
116b; Ms. Vatican 177, 24a. See also Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 66-67.
being identical to God, it is fraught with the nature of the divine
realm, designated by the terms 'the pure and holy chain' and the
'supernal form', namely anthropomorphism. Thus, it is the
nontransparent nature of the T o r a h that is emphasized, and I assume
that any effort of achieving its spiritual essence consists in finding out
the correspondence between the different aspects of the text and the
divine structure. 6 2 T h e transparency achieved by the theosophical-
symbolic exegesis consists in the imposition of the theosophical
scheme upon the T o r a h , which in itself is conceived to be incompre-
hensible but by God. T h e paradigmatic supernal form, an anthropo-
morphic one, is reflected by its shadow, the T o r a h . Since the two
parallel anthropomorphic systems are known, what remains for the
Kabbalist to do in the context of the T o r a h is to find the precise
correspondences between them and the various parts of the sacred
text. According to direct continuation of the last passage, the respect
toward the T o r a h is connected to the respect for old persons, assum-
ing a c o m m o n denominator between them, the external form. T h e
Kabbalist expressly identifies the Pentateuch as an old person, be-
cause in both the paradigm of the Holy O n e is found. This is the
reason why a feeling of the t r e m e n d u m is related to the appearance of
the T o r a h . 6 3 This affinity between the T o r a h and a h u m a n being
occurs in a rather explicit m a n n e r also in a treatise of R. Joseph
Angelet, Sefer Livenat ha-Sappir, written in 1325, presumably under the
impact of R. Joseph of H a m a d a n . 6 4
Important in this context is the vision of a mid-14th century influ-
ential Kabbalistic book, endtied Sefer ha-Temunah and composed ap-
parently in the Byzantine Empire. T h e r e the assumption is that the
divine picture, ha-temunah, consists of the letters of the Hebrew alpha-
bet, which means in fact the letters of the T o r a h . Like R. Joseph of
H a m a d a n , the anonymous Kabbalist too relates parts of the Bible to
h u m a n limbs.6‫׳‬r> However, unlike R. Jacob ben J a c o b ha-Cohen, ac-

62
See Idel, Absorbing Perfections, ch. 2, par. V.
63
See Commentary on the Rationales of the Commandments, Ms. Vatican 177, 24a. The
Kabbalist uses the term dugmato shel ha-Qabah, which may be translated as the para-
digm of the Holy One, Blessed be He. For the earlier connections between the
respect for the old persons and the reverence to the Torah see already in the Ara-
maic translation named Onqelos on Leviticus 19:32; See also BT, Qiddushin, 33b.
64
See the commentary on Leviticus, Ms. British Library 767, 359b, 363ab.
6
‫ י‬See the passages and the discussion related to this book in Idel, "The Concept
of the T o r a h / ' pp. 70-74. On this book and theories see Gershom Scholem, Origins of
the Kabbalah tr. Allan Arkush, ed. R.J. Zwi Werblowski, (Philadelphia/Princeton: J P S
and Princeton University Press, 1987) 460-475; Elias Lipiner, The Metaphysics of the
Hebrew Alphabet (Jerusalem: T h e Magnes Press, 1989) 216-265 (Hebrew).
cording to Sefer ha-Temunah it is the black aspects of the biblical text,
not the white parts, which represent the divine. In any case, it is
interesting that this book used this title, understood as a matter of
external shape.
T h e identity between the T o r a h and the essence of God occurs in
quite explicit terms in the late 15th century Sefer ha-Meshiv, a book
which is a Kabbalistic commentary on the Pentateuch dictated by the
Author himself. 66
T h e relation between contemplation of the T o r a h , cultic actions
and anthropomorphism has been expressed by R. Meir ibn Gabbai's
'Avodat ha-Qodesh, a classic book composed in 1531 in the O t t o m a n
Empire:
The Torah is, therefore, the wholeness67 of the grand and supernal
Anthropos, and this is the reason why it comprises the 248 positive com-
mandments and 365 negative commandments which are tantamount to
the number of the limbs and sinews of the lower and supernal man... and
since the Torah has the shape of man it is fitting to be given to man, and
man is man by its virtue, and at the end he will cleave to Man. 68
Elsewhere this Kabbalist describes the T o r a h again by the term tzurat
ha-'Adam, the form of man. 6 9 This kind of iconization of the T o r a h
serves its transformation into an intermediary man, a mesoanthropos,7°
as it is "the intermediary which stirs the supernal image towards the
lower [one]" 7 1 or, according to another sentence of the same K a b b a -
list "the T o r a h and the c o m m a n d m e n t s are the intermediary which
links the lower image with the supernal one, by the affinity they have
with both." 7 ‫ ־‬O r , to invoke Stephane Mallarmé, the T o r a h is "Le
Livre, Instrument Spirituel." 7 5 However, the instrumental nature of
the T o r a h , and the isomorphism of the three factors God, m a n and
T o r a h , is part of a strong theurgical presupposition: the lower is capa-
ble of impacting the higher by means of the T o r a h . Thus, we may
conclude that some of the most important theosophical-theurgical
Kabbalists developed an anthropomorphic concept of the T o r a h

06
Cf. the passage printed by Gershom Scholem, "The Maggid of R. Joseph
Taitachek and the Revelations Attributed to Him," Sefunot 11 (1971-1978) 100 (He-
brew).
67
Kelal.
68
(Jerusalem, 1963), fol. 20c. See also Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 74-75.
69
Ibid., 86cd.
70
See Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 75.
71
'Avodat ha-Qodesh 36d.
72
Ibid.
73
Stephane Mallarmé, Oeuvres Completes (Paris: Gallimard, 1970) 378.
since they envisioned the ritualistic activity as the most important
form of ritual activity, and those acts involve limbs which were con-
ceived of as both representing and impacting higher entities described
in anthropomorphic-dynamic terms. It should be mentioned that the
theosophical-theurgical Kabbalists, though assuming the perfection of
the h u m a n body, were not interested so m u c h in its external beauty,
as in their capacity to perform rituals. Thus, the dynamic vision of
religious life as replete with ritualistic performances is to be seen as
the main reason for the detailed anthropomorphic theosophies. 7 4
T h o u g h in late antiquity is possible to find some Jewish texts where
the drive to see the divine beauty was part of the mystical effort, 70 this
seems not to be the case in medieval texts. It should be mentioned
that at the end of the 16th century, an interesting development took
place in the circle of R. Isaac Luria. In the version of Lurianism as
formulated in R. Israel Saruq's Kabbalah, following some earlier
Ashkenazi and early 16th century traditions, the first divine manifes-
tation are the combinations of all the twenty-two letters of the He-
brew alphabet, which is designated as Malbush, garment, and the
primordial T o r a h . T h e second manifestation is the ,Adam Qadmon, the
primordial m a n , who emerges within a lower part of the primordial
T o r a h . Thus, it seems that an anthropomorphic structure is found
within the space occupied by the primordial Torah. 7 6 Also in this
case, the semantic aspects of the T o r a h are not involved in the type of
relationship between the supernal anthropos and the text.
T h e above quotes are far from exhausting the Kabbalistic treat-
ments of the T o r a h as the image or icon of God. More can be found
in the later Kabbalistic sources, and some of them have been
analyzed elsewhere. 77 However, it would be wise to distinguish be-
tween these notions and the Christian icon, which is supposed to
represent a very specific persona, the Christ, either as suffering or in
an apotheotic state; the perception of the T o r a h as anthropomorphic
is related to the very structure of the h u m a n , basically male, body. It
represents everyman's image, rather than the body of the savior.

74
See Moshe Idel, "From Structure to Action," Mishqafayyim 32 (1998) 39-41
(Hebrew).
75
Pines, "Points of Similarity," 102-105, 107; Aaron, "Shedding Light," 309-310.
76
O n the entire issue see Moshe Idel, Golem, Jewish Magical and Mystical Traditions on
the Artificial Anthropoid, (Albany: SUNY Press, 1990) 148-154; For a more elaborate
exposition of this theory see idem, "Between The Kabbalah of Jerusalem and the
Kabbalah of R. Israel Saruq, Sources for R. Israel Saruq's Doctrine of Malbush,"
Shalem 6 (1992) 165-173 (Hebrew).
77
See Idel, "The Concept of the Torah," 76-83.
 It should be mentioned that the anthropomorphic vision of the
T o r a h had elicited an interesting reaction by R. Shimeon ibn Lavi, a
mid-16th century Kabbalist who, though a commentator of the
Zohar, suggested that the resort to the shape of m a n in connection to
the T o r a h is but a metaphor for its perfection. 7 8 In the same vein,
also R. Dov Baer of Miedzirech, known as the Great Maggid, inter-
prêts the Zoharic theory dealing with the T o r a h as possessing h u m a n
limbs in a metaphorical manner. 7 9
Before leaving the iconic attitude to the T o r a h , it would be perti-
nent to address the question of the ascent of the anthropomorphic
imagery in relation to the T o r a h . As pointed out, there can be little
doubt that there were earlier traditions which could be exploited in
order to offer the more explicit anthropomorphic views adduced
above. T h o u g h this seems to me to be the case, the floruit of this type
of discussion in Catalan and Castilian schools of Kabbalah may point
to an effort to offer a Jewish counterpart for the anthropomorphic
icons, by emphasizing the textual anthropomorphism. H a r d as this
question is to be answered in a significant manner, it seems fascinat-
ing that it was in Catholic provinces that the interest in this type of
imagery for the T o r a h , was elaborated in detail.

4 Torah as the Agent Intellect

Like in many other important issues, Kabbalists had different views.
In the following two sub-sections I would like to describe the impact
of the appropriation of models of thinking from medieval Arabic
thought by Kabbalists and Hasidic masters. T h e first, which will con-
stitute the topic of this sub-section, deals with the revolution created
by the introduction of the intellectual vision of the divinity and the
entities that mediate between it and the celestial world: the separate
intellects. Likewise, h u m a n perfection had been described in terms of
intellectual achievements. Adopting these intellectualistic attitudes,
the formal aspects of the deity and of the scroll of the Bible were
relegated to the margin or totally obliterated. Instead the T o r a h , like
God, was conceived of as identical with the Agent Intellect, a spiritual
entity which is the last of the ten separate intellects, whose nature is
similar to that of God. HI) This enterprise involved not only indiffer-

78
See his Ketem Paz (ed. Djerba, 1940) 159d.
9
‫י‬ See Maggid Devarav le-Ta'aqov ed. R. Schatz-Ufi
Magnes Press, 1976) 17.
80
Herbert Davidson, Atfarabi, Avicenna, and Averroes on Intellect (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1992).
ence toward the graphic of the book but also toward the anthropo-
morphic significance of the m a n y biblical expressions, like image or
face. This iconoclastic attitude represents a deep restructuring of the
more dominant understandings the Bible, and of Jewish culture in
general up to the 12th century which were much more 'iconodulic'.
Fascinatingly enough, when Maimonides, the main power beyond
this comprehensive rationalization of Judaism, attacked the most im-
portant anthropomorphic theological treatise, Shïur Qomah, he at-
tributes it to some 'Greek homilists' apparently a reference to the
Byzantine iconodules who emerged victorious from the fierce debate
with the iconoclasts. 81 Indeed, the first chapters of his Guide to the
Perplexed are devoted to the non-corporeal understanding of terms like
tzelem, temunah, and panim.82 It goes without saying that Midrashic
discussions dealing with the T o r a h as written on the divine body did
not play any role in Maimonides' conceptualization of the T o r a h .
Such an anti-anthropomorphic attitude, sometimes related to an
apophatic theology, is found a m o n g m a n y followers of Maimonides,
who is one of the primary though implicit sources for this view. R.
A b r a h a m ibn Ezra and his followers also contributed to this cosmic
understanding of the T o r a h . 8 3 T h e central status of the Agent Intel-
lect in the realm of ontology and psychology has been adopted in a
substantial m a n n e r by the founder of ecstatic Kabbalah, R. A b r a h a m
Abulafia, though also other somewhat older figures, like R. Isaac ibn
Latif, expressed similar views. In Abulafia's writings there are various
formulations dealing with the identity between an intellectualistic
concept of T o r a h and the Agent Intellect. Some discussions on this
issue from Abulafia's writings and his immediate sources, especially
the view of R. Barukh Togarmi, were dealt with elsewhere. 84 O n e
more passage to this effect, found in an untitled manuscript of
Abulafia's, is pertinent for our context here. W h e n interpreting the
verse, 'U-vaharta ba-Hayyim,8b, "thou shall choose life' he asserts that

81
O n Maimonides' theology as utterly incorporeal see Warren Z. Harvey, "The
Incorporeality of God in Maimonides, Rabad, and Spinoza," Studies in Jewish Thought
(S.O. Heller Wilensky - M. Idel eds.; Jerusalem: T h e Magnes Press, 1989) 63-78
(Hebrew).
82
I, chs. 1,2,3,54.
83
Shlomo Sela, Astrology and Biblical Exegesis in Abraham ibn Ezra's Thought, (Ramat
Gan: Bar-Ilan University Press, 1999) 198-199 (Hebrew).
84
Moshe Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics in Abraham Abulafia, tr. Menahem
Kalus (Albany: SUNY Press, 1989) 29-46.
85
Deuteronomy 30:19.
 There is a great secret pointing to that upon which the life of people
depend, whose secret is the tenth angel, and it is the secret of the Torah
because the [word] "And thou should choose" [u-vaharta] amounts to [the
numerical value of] ha-Torah. And ba-hayyim is a secret, and is the knowl-
edge of the Tetragrammaton, Tod He' Vav He'. Behold, the secret of the
Torah is life which depends always upon the Torah. 86
T h e r e can be no doubt that the tenth angel stands for the tenth
cosmic intellect, which is identical in Abulaf1a , s system also to the
archangel Metatron. Real life is to be understood in the context of
Abulafia's writings as the life of the h u m a n intellect which depends
upon the Agent Intellect, namely the supernal T o r a h . This spiritual
dependence of the h u m a n upon a supernal angel is reminiscent of
Muslim spirituality, which resorts to an angelology, especially as ex-
p o u n d e d in ibn 'Arabi. 8 7 However, immersed as Abulafia was in
numerical exegesis he founded his passage on the identity between
'life' namely the sublime attainment of the intellect and the union
with the divine name, as be-hayyim and the numerical value of the
consonants of the T e t r a g r a m m a t o n plus their plene spelling, amount
to the same sum 70 or 71.
In his major work, Hayyei ha-'Olam ha-Ba\ the ecstatic Kabbalist
describes the tenth sphere, a term which stands sometimes for the
Agent Intellect, as follows: "But the excellency of knowledge is that
wisdom preserves the life of him who has it; and the secret of this
excellency is the entirety of the T o r a h ; and the secret of the T o r a h ,
the tenth sphere, will preserve the life of him who has it, the masters
of resurrection." 8 8 Life, as seen above, is an allegory for the act of
intellection which ensures the immortality of the soul, is related to the
Agent Intellect in many medieval sources, but here it is explicidy
related to the T o r a h . Indeed, according to another text, the T o r a h
exists within the h u m a n intellectual apparatus, 8 9 thus creating an
intellectual continuum between God, the agent and the h u m a n intel-
lects, the latter two being understood as T o r a h . In one of his com-
mentaries on the Guide to the Perplexed, he declared that:

86
Ms. Firenze-Laurenüana 11.48, 32a.
8
' On mystical potentials of this concept in medieval philosophy see Moshe Idel,
Messianic Mystics (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 1998) 349, n. 26 and
27. For the mystical overtones of this concept in Islamic mysticism see the various
studies of Henry Corbin, especially his Alone with the Alone (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1998) 10-11, 17-18, 80; idem, Cyclical Time and Ismaili Gnosis (Lon-
don: Kegan Paul International, 1983) 76.
88
Ms. Oxford-Bodleiana 1582, 80a; Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, 39.
89
Idel, Language, Torah and Hermeneutics, 49 the quote from 'Otzar Eden Ganuz•
 The soul is a portion of the Divinity and within it there are 231 gates,
[Tesh R'al] and it is called 'the congregation of Israel' that collects and
gathers into herself the entire community, under its power of intellect,
which is called the 'supernal congregation of Israel' the mother of provi-
dence, being the cause of the providence, the intermediary 90 between us
and God. This is the Torah, the result of the effluence of the twenty-two
letters.91
Let me start with the remark that this is a rather uncharacteristic
passage: Abulafia was concerned with the intellect not with the soul,
and the concept of the divinity of the soul is quite weird in an Aristo-
telian or Maimonidean system which Abulafia shared to a very great
extent. I assume that here, like in some other cases, there is a vestige
of an earlier tradition that was not sufficiently adapted to his way of
thought. In any case, the soul is conceived to be a portion of divinity
in a way reminiscent of Neoplatonism and theosophical Kabbalah.
This divine soul also harbors the 231 gates which point to the primor-
dial T o r a h , and Abulafia mentions T o r a h explicitly at the end of the
passage. Moreover, we may assume that either Abulafia, or his
source, did not intend h u m a n souls in general but the souls of the
people of Israel for two reasons: the term Knesset Tisrael occurs twice in
the passage, and the 231 gates, in H e b r e w RL' whose consonants are
part of the word Tisrael, as Abulafia and the young Gikatilla repeated
so m a n y times in their writings. It is quite reasonable to assume that
the two occurrences of the term Knesset Tisrael stand for the h u m a n
intellect and the supernal one, which is identical with the Agent and
the h u m a n Intellect. 92 T h e feminine terminology used by Abulafia in
order to designate the Agent Intellect is also strange in Abulafia's
mystical axiology, where the source of knowledge is conceived, meta-
phorically, to be masculine. Perhaps, the resort to such a reference
has to do with an earlier theosophical Kabbalistic source, which
stems from a way of thinking different from Abulafia's.

90
ha-'emtza'it. See Idel, Language, Torah, and Hermeneutics, 165 n. 47; idem, Absorbing
Perfections, appendix 2, n. 41.
91
Sitrei Torah, Ms. Paris BN 774, 155b, translated in Idel, Language, Torah, and
Hermeneutics, 38. Compare also R. Dov Baer of Mezeritch, 'Or Torah (Jerusalem,
1968) 58-59, and to the early 19th century R. Menahem Mendel of Shklov, Menahem
Τζίοη (Jerusalem, 1987) 18, in a text reminiscent of R. Abraham Abulafia's thought.
See also ibid. 21.
92
On the term Knesset Tisrael as a metaphor for the the supernal intellect, as well as
for the human spiritual power in ecstatic Kabbalah see more in Moshe Idel, The
Mystical Experience in Abraham Abulafia tr. J . Chipman (Albany: SUNY Press, 1987)
211-212, n. 36.
 This quote may be understood as pointing to a triunity of God,
soul of Israel, and the T o r a h , in the vein of the famous but much
later formula, Qudesha' Benkh Hu\ ,Orayyta' vi-Tsrael - had Hu'f' Also
here, the importance of the activity of the Kabbalist in order to
actualize this potential triunity is conspicuous. Let me point out the
median role of the T o r a h for the process of union between the hu-
m a n and the divine intellect:
And human love cannot share in the divine save after much study of
Torah and much attainment of wisdom, and after having received proph-
ecy, and this is the secret of Hatan [bridegroom]: Torah, [the letter] tav,
between Hen94—Wisdom [Hokhmah] on its right and Prophecy [Nevu'ah]
on its left.93
Here another triunity is described: the divine and the h u m a n love,
(which are to be understood as the h u m a n and divine intellects) are
connected to each other by the study of the T o r a h , by wisdom and
prophecy, which are acts of intellection. Now the Aristotelian noetics
dealing with the identity of the intellect, the intelligible and the act of
intellection is adduced in order to conceptualize the union between
the h u m a n and the divine. It is fascinadng to see the sequel created
by Abulafia: T o r a h , namely its study, is the second a m o n g three
stages which culminates in prophecy. Thus, it seems to be a low stage
in the process of intellection, whose peak is a direct contact with the
divine.
T h e above passages, like many other topics, demonstrate the deep
phenomenological difference between the theosophical-theurgical
Kabbalah and the ecstatic one. While for the latter the graphical
issues were so important, for the former the esoteric meaning, which
is conceived of as basically pointing to an intellectual comprehension,

‫־‬l i
On the emergence of this triunity see Abraham J . Heschel, "God, Torah, and
Israel," Theology and Church in Times of Change: Essays in Honor of John C. Bennett (E.
LeRoy and A. Hundry eds.; Westminster, 1970), 81 and 89, n. 60; On the identity
between these three elements see Isaiah Tishby, Studies in Kabbalah and Its Branches
(Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1993) 3.941-960 (Hebrew). See also the recurrent
resort to this formula in the early 19th century Lithuanian R. Hayyim of Volozhin in
his Nefesh ha-Hayyim. Meanwhile, more material which includes the triple idendfica-
tion surfaced: see Bracha Sack, Be-Sha'arei ha-Qabbalah shel Moshe Cordovero (Be'er
Sheva": University of Be'er Sheva" Press, 1995) 103-109 (Hebrew), who pointed out
several discussions, including Cordoverian evidence that anticipated the 18th century
formula; and Moshe Idel, "Two Remarks on R. Yair ben Sabbatai's Sefer Herev
Piffiyot," Qinat Sefer 53 (1979) 213-214 (Hebrew).
94
Grace. This word emerges as the acronym of the first letters of the two Hebrew
words Hokhmah and Nevu'ah.
95
Sefer Gan Na'ul, Ms. München 58, 323a.
a mystical intuition, or a prophetic revelation, were conceived to be
the ultimate goal of study. In general I would say that according to
some other texts, for Abulafia the lowest form of obtaining knowledge
is by studying written books.

5 God within the Letters of the Book

Unlike the assumption of an identification between the forms of the
letters and of the pericopes, and the divine form, or the intellectual
vision of the T o r a h , another assumption which draws its inspiration
from astro-magical sources, informed many Kabbalistic and Hasidic
texts. 96 According to this view, the Hebrew characters stand for con-
tainers of the divine light, or spirituality, which descends from above
within the biblical text, and thus the divine light may be encountered
by fathoming neither the semantic meaning of the text, nor by con-
templating its graphic forms, but by penetrating a zone found within
the letters. Unlike the passage of R . J a c o b ben J a c o b ha-Cohen which
was quoted above, where the divine light is found outside the black
letters, many of the Hasidic authors are concerned with the divine
light within the black letters.
Let me start with one of the Kabbalistic formulations of this view.
It is found in R. Shlomo ha-Levi Alqabetz, a leading Safedian Kab-
balist active in the second third of the 16th century:
All the letters of our holy Torah ... possess by themselves an extreme
holiness, since they are like bodies and palaces to the spiritual forces
which are in them, coming from above, like the body into which the soul
was infused, part of God from above, and this is the reason why the
scribe who copies the Torah [scroll] or tefillin, [phylacteries] says: '1 write
for the sake of holiness etc,' since by this intention he infuses spiritual
force into the bodies of the letters from above. 97
This theory had an impact of one of the most influential Kabbalists in
Safed, his brother-in-law R. Moses Cordovero, under whose seminal
impact it became part and parcel of Kabbalah and Hasidism. Ac-
cording to one of the m a n y pertinent discussions of Cordovero:

96
For an history of the Greek, Arabic and some Jewish sources of this theory see
Shlomo Pines, "Shi'ite Terms and Conceptions in Judah Halevi's Kuzari," Jerusalem
Studies in Arabic and Islam 2 (1980) 165-251; idem, "On the Term Ruhaniyyut and its
Sources and on Judah Halevi's Doctrine," Tarbiz 57 (1988) 511-540 (Hebrew); Dov
Schwartz, Astral Magic in Medieval Jewish Thought (Ramat Gan: Bar-Ilan University
Press, 1999) (Hebrew); Idel, Hasidism, 65-81.
97
Ms. Oxford-Bodleiana 1663, 169b.
 When someone pronounces and causes one of the letters [or sounds] to
move, then the spiritual force ofthat [letter] will necessarily be stirred...so
also regarding their [i.e. the letters'] existence, namely even in their writ-
ten form their spiritual force dwells upon those letters. And this is the
reason behind the holiness of the scroll of the Torah. 98
I have no doubt that the above passages draw from another type of
speculation, the astro-magical views, basically because of the empha-
sis on the possibility to draw down spiritual forces. T h e two K a b b a -
lists were well acquainted with the theosophical literature, especially
that of the Zohar, as well as with ecstatic Kabbalah, in both of which
it is possible to find the view that the numerical value of the conso-
nants of light, 'or is tantamount to raz secret, and this meant, in some
cases, especially in the Zohar, that light is found within the canonical
text."
Following those theories, many Kabbalists and Hasidic masters
assumed that there is a divine immanence within the letters of the
holy book, a concept that I designate as 'linguistic immanence'. Seen
from this point of view the book is holy because of its serving as the
dwelling locus of the divine presence, and it is possible to manipulate
this power, which may also be experienced as part of what may be
described as a mystical encounter. This is a major contribution of the
astro-magic model of Kabbalah to Hasidism, and the vision of letters
as palaces and containers of divine light is widespread since the very
beginning of Hasidism. 1 0 0 This emphasis on the divine as an infinite
light, found already in Cordovero and Luria, attracted also anti-
iconic expressions a m o n g Hasidic thinkers. 101 Let me adduce a late

98
Pardes Rimmonim, (Muncakz, rpr. Jerusalem, 1962), XXVII, ch. 2; II, 59c. Com-
pare also the reverberations of this text in R. Abraham Azulai's important treatise
Hesed le-'Avraham, (Lvov, 1863) 10a. On Cordovero see Sack, Be-Sha'arei ha-Kabbalah.
99
See Wolfson, Through the Speculum, 371.
100
See R. Dov Baer of Miedzyrecz, Maggid Devarav le-Ta'aqov (Rivka
Schatz-Uffenheimer ed.; Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1976), 71. Compare to the
statement adduced in the name of the Besht by R. Aharon ha-Cohen of Apta, 'Or
ha-Ganuz la-Tzaddiqim (Lemberg, 1850) 18a that "the letters of the Torah are vessels
and chambers of God, and by means of kavvanah, man draws down within them the
emanation of the supernal light," and idem, Ner Mitzwah (Pietrow, 1881) 6a. See also
in the book of a student of the Besht, R. Moshe of Dolina's Divrei Moshe, (Zolkiew,
1865) 46d, where a similar interpretation of the word chamber is offered. Cf. R.
Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl in Me'or 'Eynayim (Jerusalem, 1975) 121. On God's
immanence within the letters of Torah see ibidem, 112, 122 and R. Ze'ev Wolf of
Zhitomir, 'Or ha-Meir (Perizek, 1815) 14cd, where the Hebrew letters are conceived
as houses and boxes. See also R. Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk, Peri ha-'Aretz (rpr.
Jerusalem, 1969) 10b.
101
See, e.g., R. Ze'ev Wolf of Zhitomir, Or ha-Me'ir 238c.
18th century passage, written by R. Aharon ha-Cohen of Apta, a
compilator deeply influenced by the Lubavitch version of Hasidism:
The name 'Eheyeh shows His divinity which emanated and caused the
emergence of everything, in order to announce His divinity which is
announced by 'Eheyeh. This is similar to someone who sees the form of
the king which is inscribed on a paper, and he enjoys very much seeing
the form and its beauty. And whoever is [found in the state of] qatnut
ha-sekhel, enjoys and delights in the inscribed form. But whoever has a
wise heart says that because there is such a great joy which is deriving
from the inscribed form, I shall be more glad and I shall delight [more]
from the light of the face of the king,102 namely when seeing the form of
the king himself. And he is making an effort to enter the palace of the
king. 103 Thus whoever is in [the state of] qatnut ha-sekhel is enjoying the
study of the Torah or the prayer whose letters are the inscribed form of
the king of the world... But whoever is [in the state of] gadlut [ha-sekhel]
says that it is good to enjoy the light of the face of the king, namely he
causes the adherence of his thought to the light of 'Ein Sof which is found
within the letters, by directing [his thought] that in each letter there are
three hundreds and ten worlds, souls and divinity,104 and man has to
integrate his soul in each and every of the aspects etc.105
W h a t is characteristically Hasidic in this passage is the strong empha-
sis on experiences connected to individual letters. Unlike the more
semantically oriented representation of the divine will by letters
which form words, which is characteristic to theosophical-theurgical
Kabbalah, both ecstatic K a b b a l a h and Hasidism were concerned
more with the representation of the divine by individual letters. Here,
the individual letters are conceived of as palaces, namely as having
two aspects: the external one, represented by the written letters which
stand for the inscribed form of the king, and the inner aspect of those
letters, or palaces, which stand for the form of the king himself, and
consists of the light of the face of the king. While the external is
related to study and the smallness of mind, the latter is related to a
mystical attitude, the adherence, which represents the greatness of
mind. 1 0 0 Going within the letters is therefore an expansion of the

102
On this expression see Proverbs 16:15, and R. Eleasar of Worms, Sefer Hokhmat
ha-Nefesh (N.E. Weiss ed.; Benei Beraq, 1987) 22. See also ibidem, 64, 67.
103
heikhal ha-melekk.
104
On this triad see below the Besht's Episde of the Ascent.
105
R. Aharon ha-Cohen of Apta, 'Or ha-Ganuz la-Tzaddiqim, col. 8, fol. 3ab. O n this
book see, e.g., Hayyim Lieberman, 'Ohel RaHeL (New York, 1980) 8-11 (Hebrew).
106
See Yehuda Liebes, '"Two Young Roes of a Doe': T h e Secret Sermon of Isaac
Luria before his Death," and Mordekhai Pachter, "Katnut ('Smallness') and Gadlut
('Greatness') in Lurianic Kabbalah," in Lunanic Kabbalah (R. Elior and Y. liebes eds.;
Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1992) 113-170 and 171-210 respectively (Hebrew).
consciousness which also means the transition from the limited form
to the infinite light. T h o u g h it is not explicit in the above passage we
may assume that the external forms of the letters represent the black
aspects while the inner forms the white or luminous aspects. W e may
also assume that studying the T o r a h stands here for a more distant
attitude toward the subject of the study, while the second stage as-
sûmes an entrance within the divine light, namely an integration
which obliterates the distance. Indeed, according to several quite in-
teresting statements in R. Aharon's book, the adherence to the divine
light is to be understood as the disintegration of the drop of water
within the ocean. l ü / T h e amorphous nature of the light of the Infi-
nite, without the emphasis on the mediation of a supernal Anthropos,
'Adam *Elyon or Qadmon, characteristic of the theosophical Kabbalists,
seems to point to an effort to sublate one of the most important
aspects of those Kabbalists. In fact, the transcendence of the black
forms of letters in order to encounter the divine light within them,
represents a shift from the iconic toward an an-iconic vision of the
essence of the T o r a h .
I assume that this passage reflects not only the personal view of R.
Aharon but an earlier Hasidic stand, perhaps stemming from the
Besht himself. Indeed, already the founder of Hasidism recom-
mended that:
during your prayer and your study [of the Torah] you shall comprehend
and unify each and every speech and utterance of your lips, because in
each and every [pronounced] letter there are worlds and souls and divin-
ity and they ascend and combine and unify with each other and with the
Godhead and afterwards they [the sounds] combine and unify in a per-
feet union with the Godhead, and the soul108 will be integrated [into the
Godhead] with them. 109
T h e Besht is also reported to have said that:
a person who reads the Torah, and sees the lights of the letters [or of the
sounds] which are in the Torah, even if he does not properly know the
cantillations [of the Biblical text], because of his reading with great love
and with enthusiasm, God does not deal with him strictly, even if he does
not properly pronounce them [i.e. the cantillations].1111

107
See col. 4, fol. 4a; col. 12, fol. la. On this image for an experience of unio mystica
see also Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives, 67-70.
108
i.e. your soul.
109
Epistle on the Ascent of the Soul, in Y. Mondshein, Shivehei Ha-Baal Shem Του, A
Facsimile of a Unique Manuscript (Jerusalem, 1982) 235-236.
Liqqutim Teqarim (Jerusalem, 1981) la; idem, 'Or ha-'Emmet (Zhitomir, rpr. Benei
Beraq, 1967) 83d. See Joseph Weiss, "Talmud-Torah le-Shitat R. Israel Besht,"
Essays Presented to the Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie (London, 1967) 161 (Hebrew part).
According to this text, the divinity is present already within the let-
ters, and what remains for the mystic, or the simple m a n is to con-
template it.
T o return to R. Aharon's passage: the distinction between the
study of the external form, the inscribed one, and the inner light of
the infinity, which is that between the small and great mind, may also
point to the controversy between the Hasidic c a m p and their oppo-
nents, the mitnaggedim. T h e latter's emphasis on the value of study is
well known and it is possible that in the period of the great conflict
between the camps, the above distinction attempts to elevate the
mystical approach over the regular attitude.
Elsewhere in R. Aharon of Apta's book he emphasizes the creation
of the world by divine speech, and writes that m a n has, likewise,
before speaking a speech of the Torah or prayer, to direct [their thought]
to the fact that the Holy One, Blessed be He, and the Torah are [both]
one. Thus, in those words that he speaks the light of the divinity is stored
there and it is the soul of the entire world, because the Torah and its
letters is the soul of the entire world, because by means of the letters of
the Torah and its names and their combinations, all the parts of the
world had been created, by a speech performed in holiness in matters of
Torah he awakens the amendment and the union of all the parts of the
worlds and the souls, so that they are united to divinity111 and this is what
is written 112 'and you shall take me as an offering', the commentary of
Rashi is 'to my name' whose meaning is that people should study Torah
for [the sake of] its name, in order to draw Me to My name, which is the
Torah, which is in its entirety the names of the Holy One, blessed be
He... and this is why the reader of the Torah is called a reader, because
he calls the Holy One, blessed be he, like a man who calls his father by
his name. This is similar to the son of the king that is in pain and he calls
to his father by many cognomens: 'My father,' 'My Lord,' 'My King,'
'My Master,' etc., until the mercy of the father for his son arose. So too
insofar as the reader of the Torah by an immense kavvanah, that all the
words of the Torah are the cognomens of God, in addition to those
cognomens that are known... and by the greatness of the awe and cleav-
ing, he draws down Him, blessed be He, to His names, which are the
words and the expressions of the Torah and of prayer, the mercy of God
is arisen on him, and this is the meaning of'and they should take Me' to
My name, namely to draw Me down to My name. 113
T h e reader of the T o r a h is therefore someone who supplicates, per-
haps even coerces. These loud readers are reminiscent of the ancient

111
I assume that we have here the triad 'Elohut, 'olamot, and nefashot, which was
discussed above.
112
Exodus 25:2.
113
Col. 6, fol. 4b - col. 7 fol. la.
'callers' who cause the descent of the supernal p n e u m a by means of
'enchandng songs' and 'ineffable words' according to the Chaldaean
Oracles. 1 1 4 Loud reading of the T o r a h and prayer are actually be-
coming almost the same activity, a tendency very prominent in
Hasidism. T h e r e can be no doubt that R. Aharon was influenced by
Gikatilla's view of the relationship between the T e t r a g r a m m a t o n and
the cognomens.
T h e talismanic view of the letters of the T o r a h , when activated by
the reader's voice, is conspicuous in another student of the Great
Maggid, R. Ze'ev Wolf of Zhitomir:
The Holy One, Blessed be He, has concentrated the strength of His
luminosity within the letters of the Torah and within the combinations of
names and within the attributes of the cognomens, in order [to enable us]
to seize Him, and to call Him by names, in order to draw down His
providence onto the creatures by means of the combinations of names." 3
T h e process of contraction of the divine infinite light within the letters
of the T o r a h , creates thereby a special cultic object that is capable of
attracting the divine downward. According to another passage of the
same master, the divine light is vivifying the letters conceived of as
palaces. 1 1 6 From this point of view the T o r a h serves as a statue which
is animated by the divine power dwelling within it. 117 Moreover, it
should be emphasized that though adopting Lurianic terms like con-
traction this Hasidic master, like many others, also emplys ways of
thought stemming from other types of Kabbalah, like the combina-
tion of letters, in order to shape a vision which differs from the
Lurianic theosophy: the possibility to adhere to the divine within the
linguistic material. 1 1 8
T h e mystical aspects of the union with the divine light which is the
hidden essence of letters is found in an early 19th century book,
written in Chernovitz. R. Hayyim Tirer explains the meaning of the
name of the second century Rabbinic figure, R. Me'ir, as follows:
Each and every halakhah he was studying with his disciples, he was
disclosing to them the light which is found within it, and the secrets and
the yihudim so that they reached the possibility to receive the great light
stored within the Torah, and they were uniting themselves to the
supernal light in a wondrous union. They were drawing the great light

114
See Hans Lewy, Chaldaean Oracles and Theurgy (M. Tardieu ed.; Paris, 1978) 47.
115
'Or ha-Me'ir, 240c and 247cd.
116
Ibid., 219d.
117
See Barasch, Icon, 40-43.
118
See Moshe Idel, "On Talismatic Language in Jewish Mysticism," Diogenes 4 3 / 2
(1995) 23-41.
 until the lower world, and the celestial fire was burning around them, so
that they were seeing indeed with their eyes the apparition of the great
Lord, which he has done." 9
Therefore, not only the Bible, but also the Halakhic discussion is able
to cause the descent of the divine light which can be experienced.
However, it is interesting to point out the fact that according to this
author the vision of light within the oral T o r a h is inferior to the
fathoming of the secrets and the Tihudim.™ However, secrets and
Tihudim are understood as a path to attaining the 'great light' found in
the Written T o r a h .
Another well known figure, the Hasidic master R. Levi Isaac of
Berditchev contends at the end of the 18th century, that
It is known that there is an image of the letters as it appears in a book.
And there is the language of the speaker, who speaks what is written in
the book. And the image of the letters as written in the book is [tanta-
mount] to the world of making, the world of nature, since they have a
limit and an image whereas the language of the speaker who speaks what
it is written in the book, his very speech is spiritual, something that has no
limit and it corresponds to the world of Thought. 121
T h e axiological principle inherent in this description is clear to any-
one cognizant of the Kabbalistic and Hasidic ontologies; the world of
making is the lowest one in the hierarchy of the four worlds, whereas
the world of thought is the highest one. Indétermination is the central
characterization of h u m a n speech in comparison to the limited na-
ture of the written expression. Speech is spiritual in comparison to the
natural, namely the material world. In the vein of the passage of R.
Aharon ha-Cohen, the written is the lower, restricted, image, and the
development moves from the limited to the less limited. However,
this move is dependent on the activation of the letters by the reader,
and from this point of view, the iconic stage is a lower phase in
comparison to the more active approach to the letters.
W h a t seems to me fascinating in the Hasidic discussions is the fact
that the formal aspect of the T o r a h becomes less important in itself,
becoming the locus for the divine presence, which is the ultimate aim
of the mystical enterprise. T h e letters are not symbols, nor forms
which represent the divine, but containers whose content is infinitely
more important than the vessels. While the written letters are the
representation, their content presents the divine substance itself.

119
Sidduro shel Shabbat (Jerusalem, 1960) 80c. See also 81cd-82a.
120
Ibid., 80bc.
121
Qedushat Levi (Jerusalem, 1972) 1 17ab. See also R. Menahem Mendel of
Vitebsk, Pen ha-'Aretz, 9a.
 6 Divine Presence and Human Experience of Plenitude
T h e texts translated and analyzed above evince different approaches
which have nevertheless something in common: the assumption that
the divine is mediated or manifested within the T o r a h as found in the
possession of the mystic. H e imagined that he has direct access to the
divine in the present, and the attainment of an experience of the
divine was conceived of as possible and plausible. T o a great extent,
both meaning and external shape related to the T o r a h were relegated
to the margin, while the emotional attitude to the text was conceived
of as the most efficacious m a n n e r to penetrate the divine content.
Thus, some of the main forms of Jewish mysticism, at least since the
Middle Ages, did not live a religious 'life in deferment' 1 2 2 or strictly
depending upon a process of mediation between a present mystical
experience and a primordial revelation. 1 2 3 For a Hasidic master, the
assumption is that the 'key of the T o r a h ' Mafteah ha-Torah, is always
available, at least to one of the righteous of the generation. 1 2 4 This is
the case, for example, in the late collection of legends entitled Gedolim
Ma'asei Tzaddiqim, where R. A b r a h a m Yehoshu a Heschel of Apta
reported that the Maggid of Zlotchov was that righteous person. 1 2 '
T h e y believed that they have direct access to the divine while study-
ing and contemplating the book which was one of the main topics of
their studies. Moreover, rituals related to the T o r a h were understood
as reflecting its continuous revelation. So, for example, we learn in
the early 17th century influential book Shenei Luhot ha-Berit, authored
by R. Isaiah Hurwitz, that " T h e reason for our blessing of the T o r a h
by [the formula] ' H e gives the T o r a h ' is to show that the Holy O n e
blessed be He, is still revealing the T o r a h as H e did then, in antiquity,
at the holy assembly, at Mt. Sinai." 1 2 6

122
See Gershom Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism (New York: Schocken
Books, 1972) 35.
123
See ibidem, 293-303.
124
Compare also to Scholem's discussion of the lost keys to the understanding of
the Torah in his On the Kabbalah, 12-13. On 'inner and external keys' related to the
divine names see the Introduction to Tiqqunei %ohar, 5a.
125
See also the quote from R. Nahman of Braslav, translated and discussed in Idel,
Absorbing Perfections, ch. 6 par. IV, and beside n. 195 there.
126
(Jerusalem, 1960), II, fol. 108b; R. Ze'ev Wolf of Zhitomir, Or ha-Me'ir, 4a. See
also ibidem, 5a, 17b, 216d-217a; See also the earlier texts adduced and discussed by
David Weiss-Halivni, Revelation Restored, Divine Writ and Critical Response (Denver, C O :
Westview‫ ׳‬Press, 1997) 87-89, and the Kabbalistic passages quoted in Yochanan D.
Silman, The Voice Heard at Sinai, Once or Ongoing? (Jerusalem: The Magnes Press, 1999)
98-100 (Hebrew) and Scholem, The Messianic Idea in Judaism, 298-303.
 According to another passage which makes a similar point, there is
an isomorphic structure that unifies God, T o r a h and the created
universe. Because of this descending structure which is gradually be-
coming material, the mystic is able to elevate himself by ascending
from one degree to another. So, for example, we learn from R. Ze'ev
Wolf of Zhitomir, again following terminology found in R. Isaiah
Hurwitz, that a Platonic process of ascent to the supernal source, is
possible by the means of the T o r a h :
The Torah is the impression of the divinity, and the world is the impres-
sion of the Torah. When an illuminatus concentrates his heart, spirit and
soul to divest everything in the world from the form of the materiality,
and cause the embodiment of the spiritual form... By his comprehension
of the embodiment of the divinity, which dwells there, namely within the
letters of the Torah, which are embodied also in the entirety of the world,
which has been created with the Torah, and they animate everything.
And this is the power of the illuminatus that he can divest the material
form and cause the clothing by the spiritual form. 127
T h e T o r a h is therefore a median entity which serves as an intermedi-
ary between the creator and the h u m a n creature, and in fact the
letters of the T o r a h represent what I called above, the linguistic im-
manence of the divine within the created world. 1 2 8 T h e Hasidic mys-
tic may limit his contemplation to the letters of the T o r a h and thus
arrive to the divine source. Therefore, the divine immanence or its
extension within the T o r a h and then into the world is presented in a
substantial, non-symbolic manner, and serves as a ladder of ascent to
the divine. T h e descent via the letters of the T o r a h is an interesting
kind of divine accomodation, though not a regular one, which means
attuning the message to the intellectual or moral level of the recipient,
but an ontic accomodation which involves the divine presence in the
m u n d a n e sphere, not only its symbolic representation there. T h e
term used by the Hasidic author in order to convey the affinities
between God, T o r a h and the world, is roshem, translated above as
impression. 1 2 9 W h a t may be the import of the resort to this term

127
'Or ha-Me'ir, 239b.
128
See also ibidem, 17b and R. Hayyim Tirer of Chernovitz, Be'er Mayyim Hayyim
(Israel, ND) I, fol. 7d, etc. More on this issue see Idel, Absorbing Perfections, ch. 4,VI,3.
129
For the sources of this view see, e.g., Zohar III, 73b; R. Me'ir ibn Gabbai, Sefer
Derekh 'Emunah (Berlin, 1850), 12b-13a; R. Shimeon ibn Lavi, Ketem Paz, 181a;
ha-Shelah, I, vol. 9a; II, fol. 98ab, 112b; R. Hayyim Yosef David Azulai, Penei David
(Jerusalem, 1965) 181b; R. Ze'ev Wolf of Zhitomir, 'Or ha-Me'ir, 165b, 239b; see also
the additional material adduced by Huss, Sockets of Fine Gold, 195-196.
instead of the more widespread tzurah, which occurs in the above
passage? In my opinion, impression is more vague and attempts to
convey less the precise form than the divine emanation found within
the lower worlds.
Hasidism was less concerned with emphases on external divine
forms than with divine presence. T h e creation of the substantial con-
tinuum between world and God by means of T o r a h conferred a
unique status to its study and contemplation, one which was imag-
ined to bridge the gap between m a n and God. So, for example we
learn from an early Hasidic thinker R. Meshullam Phoebus of
Zbaraz, who wrote in the second half of the 18th century in Galicia,
as follows:
The quintessence of the intention to study [Torah] is identical to that of
the intention of prayer: The soul cleaves to, and comes nearer to God,
Blessed be He, by [means of] the letters of the Torah. Then the letters
ascend, and likewise the vapors, up to God, Blessed be He, and He has a
great pleasure in it.' 50
Here the ascending aspect is emphasized: the vapors emerging from
the pronunciation of the letters of the T o r a h and of prayer bridge the
gap between the h u m a n and the divine. T h e specific quality of each
of the letters, or sounds, gives shape to the h u m a n spirit, ultimately of
divine origin, that pronounce them. By elevating this aspect of the
h u m a n nature the T o r a h serves as a vehicle, and thus it is imagined
to share both the h u m a n nature and the divine one. In the same vein
we learn from an early 18th century Hasidic author, R. Moses
Eliyaqum Beri'ah, that by the adherence of the thought of the student
to divine presence found within the letters of the T o r a h , the mystic is
able to elevate the T o r a h up to the supernal divine eye, and then
divine grace descends upon this world. 131 It is as if h u m a n study
creates the condition for divine study of the T o r a h .
Let me turn to a statement stemming from an early 19th century
figure, which displays another synthesis between a mystical, unitive
model and the talismanic-magical one. According to R. Moses
Hayyim Efrayyim of Sudilkov, the Besht's grandson, and seemingly
under his grandfather's direct influence:

130
Tosher Divrei ,Emmet par. 39, printed together with Liqqutim Teqarim, 133a. See
also Or ha-Me'ir, 239b.
131
Be'er Moshe (repr. Tel Aviv, ND) 72a. For the resort to 'supernal' limbs, perhaps
under the impact of Gikatilla, in this book see the discussion on the supernal ear,
ibidem, 182c.
 the Torah and God and Israel—all are one unity 132 only when they
[namely Israel] study the Torah for its own sake [or name]. Then there
is in it 133 the power of God and it becomes the secret of emanation, [and
becomes able] to vivify and heal. 134
T h e act of study, which includes vocal performance, is described as a
process of actualizing potencies inherent in the T o r a h . R. Moses
Hayyim assumed that the activation of the written letters by h u m a n
voice, or more precisely the voice of the people of Israel, involves a
m o m e n t of inspiration, namely of inserting the divine or the spiritual
element inherent within the student into the studied text. It is at the
level of the vocal performance, therefore, not at that of its visual form
that the canonical text assumes its highest efficacy: it reflects the
divine structure - this is the way I understand the phrase 'the secret of
e m a n a t i o n ' — a n d is able to heal.
This understanding of the process of Torah-study can be com-
pared with the performance related to a magical recipe. In m a n y
cases, the latter operates because the formula is recited. T h e récita-
tion activates the formula but the main purpose of the opération lies
beyond the formula: the act of incantation or recitation strives to
affect a third entity, the main subject of the magical operation. This is
the case also with the T o r a h : its recitation activates something outside
it. Like in m a n y other cases of linguistic immanence, the substantial
continuum serves not only as a ladder for contemplation, but also as
means for theurgical and the magical purposes. T h e T o r a h was,
therefore, imagined by m a n y Jewish mystics as embracing a divine
presence which may be experienced by its study, thus problematizing
Scholem's vision o f ' l i f e in deferment.' 1 3 5

7 Some General Observations

Let me attempt to summarize some of the proposals in the above
lines. T h e biblical situation, and to a great extent also the Rabbinic
one, assumes that h u m a n behavior is to be shaped by a certain type
of instruction, by divine imperatives imposed from a transcendental
authority. Jewish medieval conceptualizations of the affinities be-
tween the three factors, author, book and reader, strive to reduce the
gaps between the three, creating different continua that mediate in a

132
O n this issue see above, note 93.
133
i.e. in the T o r a h .
134
Degel Mahaneh 'Ejrayyim (Jerusalem, 1963) 103.
135
O n this topic see ailso Idel, Messianic Mystics, 283-289; idem, Absorbing Perfections,
Concluding Remarks.
much more substantial m a n n e r the relationship between them. It is
this propensity toward unifying the planes of existence that is charac-
teristic of the types of medieval Jewish ontologies surveyed above.
This unitive proclivity was performed by introducing modes of
thought, mosdy of Greek philosophical extraction, that were
phenomenologically different from the earlier layers of Jewish
thought, where the anthropomorphic elements were obvious, and
nevertheless had to be integrated into the new schemes adopted by
Jewish authors, as we shall suggest below.
T w o major observations are pertinent at the end of this discussion:
one regarding the nature and role of anthropomorphism, the other
dealing with its insertion in broader speculative schemes. As seen
above, even when dealing with the nature of a scroll, the Kabbalists
resorted to anthropomorphic imagery, which means words whose
meaning point to aspects of h u m a n shape. This abundant type of
imagery notwithstanding it should be emphasized that I am not ac-
quainted with any attempt to compile graphic designs of the T o r a h .
In general, even in other instances, when dealing with the nature of
the ten sefirot, Jewish Kabbalists were not eager to resort to graphic
representation, but restricted their discussions to anthropomorphic
terminology, or to more geometrical designs. It is only much later,
since the second part of the 16th century, that more clear anthropo-
morphic designs may be found also in Jewish treatises, presumably
under the influence of Christian Kabbalah.
Nevertheless, the emphasis on the anthropomorphic-iconic as-
pects, especially evident in Lurianic Kabbalah, had been transcended
in Hasidism, with the emphasis on the amorphous light found within
the letters. Some of the Hasidic passages dealt with above represent
implicitly a marginalization of the Lurianic iconism in favor of a
Cordoverian non-iconism, as far as the ultimate form of divine près-
ence with the letters of the T o r a h is concerned. This shift, which is
evident also in some other treatments like sacred language, prayer,
and the study of the Holy Scriptures, profoundly problematizes the
vision of Hasidism as deeply related to one single form of Kabbalah,
the Lurianic one, as expressed by Scholem's understanding of the
emergence of Hasidism and that of his followers.
Indeed, the strict necessity of the study of Cordovero's views in
order to prevent an anthropomorphic 'misunderstanding' of Luria
was clearly expressed by an important disciple of the Great Maggid.
In the introduction to his Dibrat Shlomo, R. Shlomo of Lutzck declared
that Lurianic teachings are focused upon anthropomorphic subjects,
only because they were intended for Luria's immediate disciples who
have already studied the Cordoverian Kabbalah, "wherein the real
spiritual significance of anthropomorphism was exposed." This
means that when armed with the true understanding of Kabbalah as
found in Cordovero, there was no danger in misunderstanding Luria.
According to R. Shlomo, because of the deterioration of the genera-
tions the simplistic understanding of Lurianic Kabbalah prevailed. In
his view the role of Hasidism is to restore the real spiritual perception
of Kabbalah. 1 3 ' This Hasidic author tacidy implies that such a re-
versai means, inter alia, the resort to Cordovero's works or concepts,
which were indeed of utmost importance for Hasidic thought. 1 3 8
However, what is also revealing is the fact that this shift took place
in Christian provinces where cults of icons were paramount. Either in
its Catholic forms in the Polish provinces, or in the O r t h o d o x prov-
inces: Russian, Ukrainian and Northern R u m a n i a n , iconodulic views
and praxis were dominant. Nevertheless, the aniconic structure stem-
ming from the astro-magical model, become prevalent a m o n g the
Hasidic masters. Just as A b r a h a m Abulafia rejected the iconic atti-
tude of the Catalan and Castilian Kabbalists, adopting an aniconic
approach while writing most of his books in Catholic Italy, and some
of them even in iconodulic Byzantium, Hasidic masters were moved
by a logic that is not consistent with an historicist approach.
Let me address now the integration of the anthropomorphic no-
menclature, of ancient Jewish origins, within the wider schemes
which were mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph. T h e estab-
lishment of strong ontological links between the author, the text and
the reader created new forms of religious activities, which joined to
the more Rabbinic oriented forms of study. T h e structural corre-
spondences and the substantial affinities transformed the student not
only in the consumer of ancient, though for him relevant messages,
which he is d e m a n d e d to absorb, clarify, expand and disseminate, but
also modes of mystical ascent to the source and impact on the
extra-human entities and processes. T h e understanding of the differ-
ent kinds of mediation discussed above will contribute to the better
description of the new modes of approaching the T o r a h . If the
theosophical-theurgical K a b b a l a h accepted Neoplatonic theories of

136
Cf. the first introduction to R. Shlomo of Lutzck, Dibrat Shlomo (Zolkiew, 1848),
fol. le and Maggid Devarav le-Ta'aqov, 2-3.
13
' R. Shlomo of Lutzck, Dibrat Shlomo, lc and Maggid Devarav le-Ta'aqov, 2.
138
See Immanuel Schochet, The Great Maggid (New York, 1978) 1.70-71. See also
R. Moshe of Sambur's haskkamah to R. Barukh of Kossov's 'Amud ha-'Avodah
(Chernovitz, 1863) 1 b-2a, where he regards the study of Cordoverian writings and
that of Gikatilla's Sha'arei Orah as helpful in avoiding an anthropomorphic under-
standing of Luria's writings. Implicidy, this is the content of the haskkamah of R.
Menahem ben Eliezer of Premislany, ibidem, lb.
emanation, and some form of ancient Jewish intradivine emanation,
A b r a h a m Abulafia adopted the Neoaristotelian theory, while some
Kabbalists combined Neoplatonic and astro-magical theories, as it is
the case especially since the middle 16th century Safed, and then
Hasidism. Concepts of T o r a h were forged as part of those explana-
tions of ontic mediation and the divine was sometimes represented,
other times present by resorting to the general conceptualizations of
those larger schemes. T h e T o r a h became, therefore, not only the
representation of the divine will but also a mode of presence of the
divine within the world.
However, it should be emphasized that despite the significant im-
pact of those different models on the Jewish mystical literatures, the
anthropomorphic imagery is oftentimes informing much of the man-
ners in which T o r a h is mediating the divine nature and its presence.
Most of Rabbinic thought was much less interested in closing the gap
between the author and the T o r a h . Medieval and premodern Jewish
mystics attracted, however, their visions of divinity, oftentimes an-
thropomorphic, within theological schemes that embraced God, T o -
rah and m a n within more comprehensive frameworks, which can be
described as informed by a Gestalt-contexture. 1 3 9 Such a central issue
for Jewish religious life as the T o r a h and its study could not but be
integrated within the comprehensive conceptual schemes which in-
formed the medieval conceptual superstructures. T h e various onto-
logical continua stem, as pointed out above, from different
speculative systems; they, as well as the descending and the ascending
ladders, enchained the archaic imageries about God and His instruc-
tions by means of verbal and written instructions, into forms of expia-
nation which transformed the T o r a h into a direct presentation of the
divine essence, not only a representation of the semantic aspects of
His will.

139
Aron Gurwitsch, "Phenomenology of Perception: Perceptual Implications," An
Invitation to Phenomenology (James M. Edie ed.; Chicago: Quandrangle Books, 1965)
21; Idel, Hasidism, 49-50. '
 R E P R E S E N T A T I O N S O F T H E J E W I S H B O D Y IN
MODERN TIMES—FORMS OF HERO WORSHIP

RICHARD I. COHEN

"Worship of a Hero is transcendent admiration

of a Great Man. I say great men are still admirable;
I say there is, at bottom, nothing else admirable.
No nobler feeling than this of admiradon for one
higher than himself dwells in the breast of man."
( T h o m a s C a r l y l e , On Heroes, Hero-Worship
and the Heroic in History)

Jews have been known as a cerebral people, always dealing intellectu-

ally with the holy texts, turning them one way or another, and with
no visceral relationship to the world. T h e y have also been considered
a non-visual people, shorn of the ability to create artistic expression.
In a sense, this is an offshoot of a traditional Christological way of
conceiving Judaism as the religion of law and Christianity as the
religion of love. In modern times, this hypothesis has become wide-
spread and furthered by many, often with an acerbic edge and some-
times with an antisemitic one. Influenced in some cases by Kant's
assessment of Judaism, 1 the claim that Jews disdained the arts, in
particular, its visual dimension, was magnified by the contention that
their inability to create artistically (and otherwise) led them to con-
centrate their efforts on dealing and trafficking in art to the detriment
of society. 2 However, this perspective never remained the domain of
non-Jews alone and was shared by m a n y a Jewish critic throughout
the ages and especially in modern times. Often, Jewish thinkers have
turned this attitude of Judaism into an axiomatic one, in which
Judaism and art are seen as two wholly separate realms. Some have
(and one could bring various examples of this orientation from Philo
to modern times) transformed this apparent dichotomy into a source

1
See Kaiman P. Bland, The Artless Jew (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
2000).
2
Many examples of this modern trope can be brought from Richard Wagner's
Judaism and Music (1850) to the present. See, e.g., Romy Golan, "From Fin de Siècle
to Vichy: T h e Cultural Hygienics of Camille (Faust) Maudair,"The Jew in the Text.
Modernity and the Construction of Identity, ed. Linda Nochlin and T a m a r G a r b (London:
T h a m e s and Hudson Ltd, 1995), pp. 156-173.
of pride, maintaining that Judaism and Jews pursued higher values
and principles than other people—that they possessed a superior hier-
archy that regarded the spiritual as far more significant than the
material. So the renowned German-Jewish historian Heinrich Graetz
commented in 1846—"Paganism sees its god, Judaism hears H i m . " 3
In this sense, Graetz returned to the biblical notion that the only form
of contact with G o d was through the spoken voice, heard in the
" T e n t of the Covenant," and later in the Temple. 4 This was neither
an isolated remark by Graetz, 5 nor by others, well-versed in Jewish
sources and society. In making this comparison between paganism
and Judaism, one could assume that Graetz was also thinking about
Christianity that presented, to his mind, a very different model from
Judaism. Christ could be seen in a multitude of ways, as a baby, as a
youth and as a grown man, in scenes of the nativity, as a preacher, as
God's messiah, and crucified on the cross. 6 O n e could feel attracted
to him for his compassion and care, and could feel moved by and
angered for his pain and rejection by others. His presence in a most
physical way was a central organizing principle of the public space of
Christianity. In contrast, the Jewish God could not be seen, neither in
reality—not even by His servant Moses—nor imaginatively by later
generations. T h e few extant examples of an attempt to depict G o d
physically, point to the staying power of the norm rather than to the
contrary, its abrogation. T h e Jewish God's visual absence was ac-
cepted, strengthening the need to turn to text as a way to fashion an
approach to His existence. His corporeality was dealt with intellectu-
ally. T h e Kabbalists were clearly perturbed with this notion and they
developed all kinds of schemes to envision His figure. In contrast,
Maimonides in the twelfth century, broke with Talmudic tradition,
when he declared that any J e w who even thought of God as a corporeal
being was a heretic. T h o u g h immediately attacked for taking this ex-
treme view I would claim that for normative Judaism the Maimoni-
dean approach became the dominant one, incorporated into the daily

3
Quoted by Joseph G u t m a n n , "Is there a Jewish Art?," The Visual Dimension.
Aspects of Jewish Art, ed. Clare Moore (Boulder, San Francisco, and Oxford: Westview
Press, Inc., 1993), p. 2.
4
Cf. the notion developed by Michael Fishbane, The Kiss of God. Spiritual and
Mystical Death in Judaism (Seatde and London: University of Washington Press, 1994).
5
See Heinrich Graetz, The Structure of Jewish History and Other Essays, ed. Ismar
Schorsch (New York: T h e Jewish Theological Seminary, 1975), pp. 263-66.
6
Inter alia, see Leo Steinberg, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modem
Oblivion (New York: P a n t h e o n / O c t o b e r , 1984).
prayers—Eyn loh guf (He has no corporeality)—and into the n o r m a -
tive Jewish belief structure. This c o m m u n a l denial went further.
Notwithstanding the iconoclastic m o v e m e n t s at different periods,
Christians were able to view the Holy Family, C h u r c h Fathers,
Saints, etc., yet J e w s did not know h o w the giants of their past—e. g.,
J e h u d a Halevi, Maimonides, Solomon Luria—looked: their physical
quality, like that of their G o d , seemed to be both taboo a n d insignifi-
cant—until the m o d e r n p e r i o d — w h e r e a s their texts were held in the
highest esteem a n d importance. T h u s , similar to the way J e w s appre-
ciatively a n d intimately referred to a rabbinic scholar by the most
noted book he w r o t e — " H a s h l a , " " H a t a z , " " H a m o r d e c h a i " — t h u s
implying the tertiary importance of the author's biography, so they
seemingly were u n p e r t u r b e d by the absence of his image, of his cor-
poreal being. "You shall not make for yourself a graven image, or any
likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth
beneath, or that is in the water u n d e r the e a r t h " (Exod 20: 4) was a
c o m m a n d m e n t J e w s struggled with, both with regard to the divine
a n d with regard to h u m a n beings. Clearly the "ritual instinct," to
follow J a c o b Katz's understanding of the ways in which normative
behaviour was gradually construed as legally binding, was p a r a -
m o u n t . ' Even though m a n y halakhic authorities allowed for the de-
piction of a one-dimensional image, t h o u g h of only half the body,
individuals instinctively sensed that halakha prohibited the making of
any image. This is not to say, as is well known, that images of the
h u m a n body did not exist in a wide range of Jewish visual material,
rather, that they were forever a c c o m p a n i e d by an instinctive reti-
cence to their dissemination.
D u r i n g the m o d e r n period, a d r a m a t i c c h a n g e took place in Jewish
attitudes to the representation of the body. This was associated with
the process of integration. For various reasons—apologetics, nostal-
gia, patriotism, historical consciousness, religiosity a n d nationalism
they turned m o r e and m o r e to the visual dimension to p r o m o t e their
particular self-image. T h e y appreciated the ability of art to convey
traditions a n d evoke memories of the past, while asserting a particular
view of the Jewish present a n d future. Part of that drive included the
fashioning or representation of the body, often in t a n d e m with devel-
o p m e n t s in Christian society, at times in rejection of the mould in
which the "Jew's body" h a d been constructed in the imagination of

' See Jacob Katz, " The Shabbess Goy": A Study in Halakhic Flexibility (Philadephia:
The Jewish Publication Society, 1989), conclusion.
Figure 1. Anonymous portrait of Jacob Baruch Cawalho, Venice, 1687.
Oil on canvas. 205.7 cm. χ 188 cm.
Daniel M. Friedenberg Collection, New York.
 the surrounding society. 8 This article will argue that in this process of
coming to terms with the changing nature of Jewish life within Euro-
pean society, Jews of different persuasion began to turn certain fig-
ures, through their physical representation, into forms of hero
worship or idealization. By looking at this domain ofJewish existence,
I suggest to move away from the artificial separation between
Judaism and art, and, what is more important, recognize that images
and representations of the body enable us to open up another angle
through which the process of Jewish acculturation to European soci-
ety can be charted and appreciated, and I daresay, offer some insights
into the contemporary cult surrounding certain Jewish figures.
I will begin with a portrait of an unimposing figure, J a c o b
Carvalho (Fig. /). 9 Jacob, the son of a M a r r a n o family that had mi-
grated to Italy at the beginning of the seventeenth century and
reached a certain wealth, remains basically an anonymous figure.
Probably commissioned by his parents or parents—in—law as a wed-
ding gift on the occasion of his forthcoming marriage in 1687, the
painting points to the readiness of some Jews to pose before an artist
and have their portrait painted, attesting to the general p h e n o m e n o n
of the "democratization of the portrait" of the period." 1 Not only
individuals of high rank, the aristocracy and clergymen, but also sim-
pie folk had their portraits painted. T h e formal and theatrical ruled in
these works. Accordingly, J a c o b Carvalho stood against a commonly
staged backdrop, holding a ring between the fingers of his right hand.
Dressed in keeping with the best fashion and elegance of the day, a
brocade waistcoat on his body and a fashionable wig on his head,
Jacob projects an air of contentment and self-confidence—exuding
little trace of the oppressive ghetto reality. T o the contrary, the por-
trait demonstrates how the reality of the segregated ghetto exerted a
certain paradoxical influence, compelling Jews to reveal openness to-

H
T h e phrase is from Sander Gilman, The Jew's Body (New York and London:
Routledge, 1991) which deals extensively with the image of the Jewish body in the
eyes of non-Jews. Some sections treat the ways in which Jews inculcated these images
and integrated them into their understanding of the Jewish predicament. Gilman
does not treat the issues discussed in this essay. See also his essay "The Visibility of
the Jew in the Diaspora: Body Imagery and Its Cultural Context," T h e B. G.
Rudolph Lectures in Judaic Studies, Syracuse University, 1992.
9
Daniel M. Friedenberg Collection, New York. My thanks to Mr. Friedenberg
for granting me permission to publish this image.
10
This notion is developed in Peter Burke, The Historical Anthropology of Early
Modem Italy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), ch. 6.
ward the surrounding society outside of the ghetto and integrate its
elements into their lives."
For Italian Jews in the ghetto at the end of the seventeenth and
during the eighteenth centuries, the betrothal period was distin-
guished by festive ostentation and exhibitionism. During these days,
the strict internal regulations regarding dress were eased up and a
person who wished to manifest economic success and "wear the
clothes of kings" was permitted to do so, as did Carvalho in the
portrait. Even the portrait itself may have been part of a social norm,
serving as one of the betrothal routines widespread a m o n g Italian
Jews in the days of the ghetto that constituted a measure of their self-
esteem. 1 2 In creating these rites, Italian Jews found a way of identify-
ing with the aesthetic culture beyond the ghetto. Involved in the
commercial side of the arts, buying and selling paintings, they were
known to have h u n g paintings of secular and religious content in their
own homes. T h u s having become accustomed to seeing art in both
public and private domains, inculcating it as part of their cultural
ambience, the "Carvalhos"' decision to invest considerable means
and commission an exceptionally large-scale portrait (205.7X188
cm.) in which Baruch's whole body is seen, exemplifies the aspiration
of a "closed" society to adopt fashionable elements of the "open"
society beyond the gates. T h e artist and the patron, each for his own
reasons, was complicit in the inversion of the social hierarchy ghetto
life exacted. In this sense, the portrait was an instrumental means of
building an internal imaginary world, not enslaved to the ghetto real-
ity. But Carvalho was far from being seen as a hero: the importance of
his portrait lies elsewhere—the period in which the desire of Jews in
central and western Europe to be portrayed emerged, not fearing or
sensing the fear of halakhic stricture. This was further pronounced in
A m s t e r d a m — a n o t h e r center of M a r r a n o life—where various Jews,
rabbis and laypeople, commissioned portraits of themselves or of their
loved ones. 1 3 Carvalho, and fellow Jews in Amsterdam, thus represent
an openness to a form of expression that Jews had been wary of and
declined to partake in previously.

' 1 I have discussed this painting in ch. 1 of my Jewish Icons: Art and Society in Modem
Europe (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998), see
there related bibliography.
12
On gift giving and its meaning see Pierre Bourdieu, Outline of a Theory of Practice
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), passim, esp. pp. 8-15.
13
For various paintings from Amsterdam, see Mozes H. Gans, Memorbook (Baarn:
Bosch & Keuning, 1977).
 Figure 2. Johann Andreas Pfeffel and Christian Engelbrecht, portrait of Samuel
Oppenheimer (1670-1703), engraving, Vienna, 1703-4.

A step forward in the process of idealization can be seen in the

illustration of the court Jew, Samuel O p p e n h e i m e r (Fig. 2).14 O n e of
the leading Court Jews in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth

14
Part of this discussion is based upon my entry on Oppenheimer in Vivian B.
Mann and Richard I. Cohen, eds., From Court Jews to the Rothschilds: Art, Patronage, and
Power 1600-1800 (Munich and New York: Prestel, 1996), p. 208.
‫הזאדמשכיד הגדול זקןובשוא פביסנדיב גינייי־־בלם ‪- χ‬‬
‫לאבלים עושה צדקה בכל עת חדד ^פיאן איעזהיי—‬
‫וראלי* זצלמ^י‪ -‬המלוכדת יייבא‬ ‫בחמגור* חדד‬
‫מידקגרוזהפגורפד‪.‬נ‪ $‬אמשטרדם בשנת י‪.-‬םג לדי ‪ 2‬ק‬

‫‪Figure 3. P. Berge, portrait of Samuel Oppenheimer (1670-1703), engraving‬‬

‫‪Amsterdam, 1702-3.‬‬
centuries, O p p e n h e i m e r served in the court of the Habsburg Em-
peror Leopold I and developed an extensively productive financial
network with branches and agents in different parts of the Empire.
H e encountered intrigue on many different occasions from competi-
tors at court, some driven by anti-Jewish motives, some jealous of his
stature. Nonetheless, O p p e n h e i m e r persisted to provide services for
the Emperor, but eventually succumbed to bankruptcy due to unpaid
loans by the court. H e died in 1703. T h e engraving was initiated by
an economic associate of Oppenheimer's, Samuel Bürgl, who en-
gaged the services of two well-known Viennese court engravers to
execute the portrait of the m a n he served and apparentiy highly
respected. He had these words in Hebrew added to the portrait:
"I rose to act in his honour. Go and see the portrait of
the distinguished and famous shtadlan (intercessor),
pamas (warden) and leader, the great rabbi Samuel
Oppenheimer....Executed by his servant the humble
Samuel, the son of my master and father Juda Biirgl,
may God the redeemer watch over him, from the holy
community in Frankfurt a.M., currently in the fortified city
Ofen [Buda], Hungary, 5464 [=1703-04]. 5 "‫י‬
Bürgl, from what we know, was an observant J e w , who rose to certain
financial prominence in Buda, in part through his close association
with O p p e n h e i m e r , performing m a n y of the functions of a subcon-
tractor. T h r o u g h connections with the crown, his family became well
established in Buda at a time when the n u m b e r of Jews in the city was
still minimal. 111 deciding to commission Oppenheim's portrait, Bürgl
clearly expressed his desire to share in his employer's glorification but
apparently had another agenda, to establish his closeness to the Impe-
rial Court Jew. H e did this by having his own name inserted three
times in the portrait,"' clearly wanting to be seen responsible for shap-
ing the visual memory of his former employer. Copies of the engrav-
ing are extant in various collections in different countries attesting to
Bürgl's intention to offer it to mutual associates who may also have
held O p p e n h e i m e r in high regard. It is not clear whether this engrav-
ing was created during Oppenheimer's lifetime or was based on a
previous work as another portrait of him (Fig. 3)—in a poorly ex-
ecuted m a n n e r — b e a r i n g the date 1703, and an inscription heralding
Oppenheimer's achievements as a m a n of great philanthropy and

15
Ibid., p. 208.
16
They appear on the letter on the table; in the Hebrew inscription recorded
above and in the inscription below Oppenheimer's personal insignia.
action, has recently come to light. 1 ' Noting that this is his image, the
work was done by a non-Jewish artist and disseminated in Amster-
d a m (where as we have noted portraits of Jews were more common)
and it shows the court J e w wearing a large brimmed hat c o m m o n at
that time in the city. In later generations several portraits of
O p p e n h e i m e r , based on the one commissioned by Bürgl, flourished,
an indication that long after his death Jews desired to possess images
of notable Jewish leaders of the past.
Bürgl's intention of offering O p p e n h e i m e r ' s portraits to others im-
plies that certain Jews at the beginning of the eighteenth century
inculcated a norm, c o m m o n a m o n g the court elite (as, for example,
the engraving of Rudolf II which also incorporates his many deeds) of
preserving portraits of distinguished figures—a habit, we should add,
that was frowned upon by certain rabbinical figures of the period.
T h e act of giving a picture as a way of expressing regard for an
individual revives the c o m m e n t made by Rabbi Leon da M o d e n a in
his remarkable seventeenth century autobiography that he had sent a
copy of his portrait to a friend as an act of friendship, so that he may
be remembered. 1 8 In other words, Jews of certain stature, rabbinic
and lay, were beginning to see the portrait as a medium through
which they could establish contact wath others and did not sense a
conflict with the Second C o m m a n d m e n t , which prohibited certain
forms of image-making. Thus, the O p p e n h e i m e r portrait, that shows
half of the Court Jew's body, continues the concern with the image of
the physical body that we saw in the Carvalho portrait but with the
added element—the image now became part of private veneration.
T h e engravers focused on O p p e n h e i m e r ' s facial expression and
courtly appearance, wanting their impression to be left with posterity.
Prior to Oppenheimer's portrait there are hardly any extant exam-
pies of individual portraits ofJews from the Germanic sphere, indicat-
ing that those few paintings/engravings of Court Jews (e. g. the

17
I have not seen the original work and cannot vouch for its authenticity. Vivian
B. Mann of the Jewish Museum, New York, kindly brought this copy to my atten-
tion. It was offered to the museum following the exhibition on the Court Jews. The
Hebrew inscription, different from the one on this engraving, carries the Hebrew
date 5463 (= 1702-03) and does not indicate whether Oppenheim was alive when the
work was executed. The engraver, P. D. Berge (probably Pieter van der Berge), was
acdve in the late seventeenth century in Hamburg until he returned to Amsterdam in
the 1690s where he died in 1737. He was especially known for his portraits.). At least
five other versions of Oppenheimer's portrait are known.
18
The Autobiography of a Seventeenth-Century Venetian Rabbi: Leon Modena's Life ofjudah,
trans, and ed. Mark R. Cohen (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988).
anonymous sitter in the Anton Schoonjans painting 1 9 or that of
Joseph O p p e n h e i m e r 0 ‫( ־‬known as J u d Süss) represent the beginning
of a tendency that would develop more fully in the second half of the
18th century.
Devout followers of a particular figure, entrepreneurial individuals
looking for ways of extending their livelihood, and responsible institu-
tions interested in promoting their designs were often behind the
popularization of a physical image in the following decades. Interest-
ingly enough, this was more pronounced a m o n g elements of tradi-
tional society but also found a certain resonance among the less
traditional elements, as can be seen in the case of the followers of the
enlightenment movement of Judaism. T h o u g h they struggled for re-
ception a m o n g the Jewish community and fought an uphill battle for
generations, leading Enlightenment figures only rarely incorporated
the visual dimension into their attempt to reach larger numbers of
supporters, and did not prominendy stress the visual domain in their
new hierarchy of values. 1 ‫ ־‬O n e would have expected the opposite
after opening the first issue of the flagship of the Jewish Enlighten-
ment, the journal Hameassef, and encountering the portrait of its guid-
ing spirit, Moses Mendelssohn, and finding the following year an
announcement by chevrat dorshei leshon ever (Society for the Promotion
of the Hebrew language) the journal's entrepreneurs—that it was
selling copies of portraits of Mendelssohn and his colleague Dr.
Markus Herz. 2 ‫ ־‬Moreover, it promised to incorporate portraits of

19
See From Court Jews to the Rothschilds: Art, Patronage, and Power 1600-1800,-46 .‫קנן‬
47, 191.
20
Several engravings of Oppenheimer are known, however, I am unaware of any
painting. This is in itself surprising as he was certainly inclined in this direction. Ibid.,
p p . 38,' 100.
21
The following represents a summary of a larger study I am engaged in on the
representation of the Enlightenment, Moses Mendelssohn and toleration. Several
basic collections of Mendelssohniana have been invaluable in tracing his visual per-
sona, though each lacks important images. See Hermann M. Z. Meyer, Moses
Mendelssohn Bibliographie (Berlin, 1965), p. 177f; Heinz Knobloch, Herr Moses in Berlin
(Berlin: Das Arsenal, 19872); Michael Albrecht, ed., Moses Mendelssohn, 1729-1786: das
I^ebenswerk eines jüdischen Denkers der deutschen Aufklärung [Ausstellung im Meissnerhaus
der Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel] (Weinheim: Acta Humaniora, V C H ,
1986); Gisbert Porstmann, Moses Mendelssohn. Porträts und Bilddokumente, vol. 24 (Moses
Mendelssohn Gesammelte Schriften). (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann
Verlag, 1997).
22
See Hameassef 1783; a copy of the frontispiece was recently reproduced by
Ruth Gay, The Jews of Germany: A Historical Portrait (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1992), p. 120. The announcement appeared in Hameassef, Kislev 1784, p. 48.
Herz's portrait was done by the well-known contemporary Polish-German artist
Daniel Chodowiecki, who also drew a most popular image of Mendelssohn.
Chowdowiecki's depictions of Herz appear in Alfred Rubens, A Jewish Iconography,
second rev. ed. (London: Nonpareil, 1981), ρ 165.
distinguished Jewish figures in each issue. However that was not, as
we shall see, the case.
Surprisingly, Moses Mendelssohn, the most celebrated and well-
known figure of the Jewish Enlightenment, who left an indelible im-
pression on G e r m a n Jewry, was seldom represented by artists of
Jewish origin. This can only partially be explained by the extensive
depiction of the renowned philosopher by non-Jewish artists during
his lifetime and long after his demise in a variety of materials that
made it available to a cross-section of Jewish and non-Jewish society.
T h e interest in Mendelssohn by non-Jewish artists was unprec-
edented. N o Jewish figure before or after him attracted such atten-
tion, neither Spinoza nor the contemporary English-Jewish pugilist
Mendoza, who for different reasons engendered non-Jewish interest.
Seen in a variety of contexts, with other seminal philosophers and
thinkers of the classical age and his day (Socrates and Lessing being
the most common), Mendelssohn was represented as one of the sig-
nificant thinkers of the period, whose image should be duly coveted.
T h o u g h the Jewish philosopher probably sat only three times before
artists ( J o h a n n Christoph Fritsch, Daniel Chodowiecki, and the
sculptor Tassaert), 2 5 others created independent versions based on
Fritsch and Chodowiecki. Portraits of Mendelssohn concentrated en-
tirely on his head, emphasized his thin beard and protuding forehead,
while conveying composure, simple attire, and engaging gaze.
Mendelssohn images were not one-dimensional, as was often the case,
with well-known figures. Artists emphasized his diminutive form,
hinting at times at his hunched back, but did not seem to be working
with a clearly formed image of the philosopher. Yet, rarely was
Mendelssohn portrayed in a m a n n e r that so dramatically jolts one's
intuitive imagination of his appearance. T w o examples of such un-
c o m m o n representations of Mendelssohn were created in the nine-
teenth century and both happen to show Mendelssohn in full body.
In one case, in an allegory after his death, Mendelssohn is seen about
to be brought by an angel to join A b r a h a m , Moses and A a r o n — a n
extremely rare threesome in both Christian and Jewish art—standing
on a platform within an oval-shaped conch. 2 4 In another he sits

23
Though it has been commonly argued that Mendelssohn only sat for the por-
trait by Fritsch, it appears that Tassaert could not have made the sculpture of
Mendelssohn without his knowledge and participation; also, Chodowiecki's stature as
one of Berlin's leading artists of the day, would lead us to believe that Mendelssohn
sat before him as well.
24
See Andreas Nachama and Gereon Sievernich, eds., Jüdische Lebenswelten
(Berlin: Jüdischer Verlag, 1991), p. 183.
bareheaded at a table, dressed dandy-like, as he looks out onto a
church. 2 0
T h e interest in Mendelssohn's appearance was clearly related to
an attempt to assimilate this unique figure a m o n g the G e r m a n literati
with the image of Judaism. Several known comments made during
his lifetime by non-Jews expressed particular engagement with his
appearance that alluded to his religion and remarkable nature. As
Sophie Becker put it in her diary in 1785: " T h e conversation became
very interesting, and I feasted my eyes in seeing the amiable philoso-
pher with the Jews' beard engaged in talk with some charming la-
dies." 2 ' 1 T h a t Mendelssohn's countenance was viewed in contrast to a
stereotypical image of Jews is most evident from the work of his
counterpart, J o h a n n Caspar Lavater. Several years after their well-
known public encounter, Lavater published in 1775 a silhouette of
Mendelssohn in his influential and tremendously popular Physiogno-
mischen Fragmenten, a work that placed the Swiss theologian at the
center of physiognomic studies. Reveling in the silhouette (Fig. 4) and

Figure 4. Johann Rudolf Schellenberg portrait of Moses Mendelssohn

(1729-86), silhouette, c. 1775. Published inj. C. Lavater's
Physiognomischen Fragmenten, 1775.

25
Print Collection, The Jewish Theological Seminary Library. This image has to
my knowledge never been published, though was recendy reproduced by the Library
for development purposes.
26
Quoted in Alexander Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn. A Biographical Study (London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1973), p. 720.
 F.- V J J• I
:»4tm1ur

Figure 5. Vase with image of

Moses Mendelssohn, based on the
painting by Johann Christoph Fritsch,
Fürstenberg, 1785-1790. Porcelain.

offering a detailed and laudatory description of Mendelssohn's facial

features, that contained "magnificent" characteristics and embodied
a "Socratic soul," Lavater found a tremendous gap between
Mendelssohn's image ("divine truth of physiognomy perceptible and
visible to me") and that of his fellow Jews. Nonetheless, by giving such
prominence to Mendelssohn's appearance Lavater increased the in-
terest in his figure a m o n g non-Jews as well. Sensing the remarkable
appreciation of this Jewish philosopher, following Mendelssohn's
death in 1786 the Berlin Jewish Free School sent an engraving of
Fritsch's painting of Mendelssohn to Frederick's successor, King
Friedrich Wilhelm II, with a dedicatory inscription. 27 This gesture,
obviously a way for the enlightenment school to put its best foot
forward in greeting the new ruler, points to the way Mendelssohn's

‫ ׳־‬This engraving has been reproduced in many different publications. For a

recent example, see Alfred Rubens, A Jewish Iconography. Supplementary Volume (London:
Nonpareil, 1982), p. 94. cat. no. 1815. Copies of the engraving are quite common.
 'mttijssàmÊĒ
w atssmJ .1 «
A /tx9 » m
sab* A u w r
Wit SOKRAjiS f Figure 6. Jean Piene Antoine Tassaert
I DER YATEBCOW‫ ״‬j
(1727-88), image of Moses Mendels-
Ηκί.ιτ liimtJ® j
ERBUCH Wit tt ,
söhn (1729-86) with dedication at
base by the poet Karl Wilhelm Ramler,
added after Mendelssohn's death.
1795, marble.

image—the philosopher and the J e w — w a s seen as a carrier of mes-

sages in certain circles. Not surprisingly several years after he died the
Berlin Porcelain Factory had Mendelssohn's image engraved on one
of its vases (Fig. 5), convinced that his admirers, Jews and non-Jews,
would be enticed to purchase an attractive piece of porcelain. 2 8
But it was a group of close students and colleagues of the philoso-
pher who went a step further in this process of turning Mendelssohn
into an idealized figure. Desiring to immortalize their esteemed
teacher and friend, Mendelssohn's companions turned to the leading
sculptor in Berlin of the day, the Belgian-born J a n Pieter Tassaert, to
create a work that would symbolize the unprecedented place
Mendelssohn had in their lives and in the world of the Enlightenment
(Fig. 6). Banking on the support of the wealthy elite of Berlin Jewry,

28
The vase has been reproduced in several publications, see on frontispiece of
Norbert Hinske, ed., Ich handle mit Vernunft...Moses Mendelssohn und die europäische
Aufklärung (Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag, 1981); Jüdische Lebenswelten, p. 181; see
there also the box for snuff or jewels with Mendelssohn's portrait.
twenty individuals each contributed the sum of twenty talers in gold
for the commission. Each of them was to obtain a copy of Tassaert's
marble sculpture in plaster for their own private residence. O n e must
conclude that this sculpture would not have been made were
Mendelssohn opposed to it for halakhic reasons. Moreover, he him-
self possessed a least one sculpture in his house, a bust of Lessing, that
was granted pride of place in his drawing room. In fact, it is reported
by Marcus Herz that when Mendelssohn became mortally ill this bust
was moved from its regular place above the sofa to a commode oppo-
site that sofa, conceivably enabling Mendelssohn to indulge in his
memories of this dear friend. 2 9 Consciously or subconsciously his fol-
lowers wanted in some way to recreate this setting in their own pri-
vate spheres, to be able to have their teacher in close proximity,
especially after his demise. T h a t Mendelssohn's stature was not an
impressive o n e — h e suffered from a hunchback and was rather
short—did not in any way minimize his attractiveness to them and
did not detract from their desire to possess a tangible representation
of his image. Even his first biographer and devoted student, Isaac
Eichel, writing a year after his death, alluded to Mendelssohn's undis-
tinguished physical traits, but felt that these paled in light of "his
intelligence {that} lit up his face." Mendelssohn, according to Eichel,
never donned elegant clothing, but always wore clean clothes out of
respect for others, 311 yet Tassaert's sculpture had Mendelssohn appear
in classical attire, emphasizing once again the c o m m o n epithet ac-
corded him "the Jewish Socrates." (This association would be in-
scribed on the sculpture following his death in Karl Wilhelm
Ramler's homage. 3 1 ) Not incidentally, upon its creation,
Mendelssohn's followers had the bust placed in the offices of the
chevrat chinuch neaúm (the Society for Youth Education) an Enlighten-
ment school, whose orientation was not fully in keeping with
Mendelssohn's beliefs. 32 But their desire was clear: they, like others (e.
g. the porcelain factory in Berlin mentioned above and fellow sup-
porters of the Enlightenment who dedicated Mendelssohn's engrav-

29
Describing Mendelssohn's last hours Herz recalled: "I rushed there and found
him on his sofa, no longer beneath Lessing's bust, which had been placed opposite
him on the chest of drawers." Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, p. 740.
30
Isaac Eichel, Toldot Harav hechacham...Ben Menachem (Berlin, 1788).
31
"Moses Mendelssohn, wise like Socrates; loyal to the faith of his fathers; like
him he taught immortality; and he immortalized himself like him." Altmann, Moses
Mendelssohn, p. 742.
32
Shmuel Feiner, "Mendelssohn and "Mendelssohn's Disciples." A Re-examina-
tion," Leo Baeck Institute Year Book, X L (1995), p. 137.
 Figure 7. Mendelssohn's handwritten dedication to his student and colleague
Herz Homberg (1749-1841), Berlin, March 1781 with silhouettes of
the philosopher, his wife and his oldest daughter, Dorothea.

ing to the King of Prussia), wanted to emphasize Mendelssohn's iden-

tification with their cause and utilize his reputation to encourage
others to follow suit.
Mendelssohn himself was not opposed to "using" his image for
expressing respect to distinguished individuals or for extending a to-
ken of his friendship to close associates. An interesting example is a
dedication he sent to Herz H o m b e r g in 1781, seemingly prior to the
latter's departure for Vienna. T h e warm dedication in the center of a
handwritten album entry ("My friend, my son, and my son's second
father..") was flanked by silhouettes of Mendelssohn's wife and oldest
daughter Dorothea, while Mendelssohn's, done by the Berlin silhou-
ette artist Haase appears above the dedication in the center of the
entry (Fig. 7)?1 Clearly Mendelssohn had accepted a c o m m o n courtly
custom of extending his portrait to people he was engaged with,
recognizing how others perceived the pathbreaking nature of his per-

33
See the silhouette in Knobloch, Hen Moses, p. 310; reproduced in Henry
Wasserman, Moses Mendelssohn- Encounter between Two Cultures, Unit 17 of The Culture of
the Enlightenment in Europe of the 18th Century (Tel Aviv: The Open University of Israel,
1994 ), p. 32 (Hebrew).
 Figure 8. Moritz Oppenheim (1800-1882), Lavater and Lessing Visit
Moses Mendelssohn, 1856. Oil on canvas. Gift of Vernon Stroud,
Gerda Mathan, Ilse Feiger, Eva Linker and Irwin Straus.
Judah L. Magnes Museum, Berkeley, California.

sonal odyssey. 34 Moreover, it is hard to imagine that Mendelssohn

was oblivious or complacent about the way in which his image was
being marketed. In 1774, J a c o b A b r a h a m and his son A b r a h a m
Abramson struck a medal with Mendelssohn's bust appearing on the
obverse and the head of a skull surmounted by a butterfly (symbol of
immortality) under the inscription Phaedon (referring to Mendelssohn's
philosophic tract on immortality carrying that name, published in

54
See, e.g., Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, p. 284.
 1767) on the reverse. 35 In the same year Mendelssohn was ap-
proached by J o h a n n J a c o b Spiess, who headed a library and collec-
tion of coins and medals in Ansbach with the proposal to publish this
medal in a forthcoming volume. 3 '‫ י‬H e showed no reticence to the
publication. Together with the sculpture done in his honor, the medal
represented a clear break with the halakhic attitude taken by
Mendelssohn's esteemed contemporary Rabbi J a c o b Emden, who
rejected all forms of art done in relief. 3 ' T h u s it appears that the
famous philosopher accepted a certain modicum of public adoration,
even if this meant a relaxation of the halakhic boundaries.
T h e interest in Mendelssohn and his iconic role in the conscious-
ness of G e r m a n Jewry and a m o n g elements of G e r m a n society cer-
tainly did not disappear with his demise. Visually his image was kept
alive by several commemorative broadsides and engravings, but the
first painting to involve Mendelssohn in a clear agenda of an artist
was the work of the German-Jewish artist Moritz O p p e n h e i m (Fig. 8).
Seeking to find the appropriate medium through which he could
utilize his art for the sake of showing Jewish civic involvement and
behaviour, he turned in 1856 to the encounter between Mendelssohn
and Lavater, that transpired almost one hundred years before. In
Oppenheim's construction, Mendelssohn is seen attentively listening
to the argument of Lavater while Mendelssohn's close colleague, the
dramatist Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, who was not actually present at
their meeting, looks on critically at Lavater's behaviour. In fact, the
artist merged several different events together into this "historical
encounter." Six years after Lavater and Mendelssohn conversed at
the latter's home in 1763 on their respective attitudes to religion in
general and to Jesus in particular, Lavater dedicated a translation of
a work by Charles Bonnet to Mendelssohn with the challenge to
either refute his proofs about Christianity or to convert. Here Lavater
is seen with one hand on an open book—which I presume to be the
Bonnet volume—and the other hand holding Mendelssohn's arm in a
most ungentlemanly gesture. Lavater is depicted as having apparently
interrupted a game of chess—a symbol here of both rationalism and

i:>
Many examples of the medal are exant and have been reproduced in a variety
of publications. See, e. g., Daniel M. Friedenberg, Jewish Minlers and Medalists (Phila-
delphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1976), p. 38.
Altmann, Moses Mendelssohn, p. 280.
!/
Emden's position was enunciated in his responsa, Sheilat Taavetz (Lemberg: Uri
Z. Salat, 1874) where he openly attacked the creation of a medal struck for Rabbi
Elazar ben Samuel of Amsterdam. See Cohen, Jewish Icons, pp. 122-23.
friendship—in which Lessing and Mendelssohn were engaged, as was
their c o m m o n practice. While wearing a skull cap and a thinly-
trimmed beard that appears in various portraits, Mendelssohn is seen
gazing directly at Lavater from the profile, the position that marked
many of his portraits. Mendelssohn's stoic and unyielding image cou-
pled by his idealized relationship with Lessing, heralded here by the
latter's critical gaze at Lavater, is being used by O p p e n h e i m to eel-
ebrate a form of Jewish integration and particularism that was still
held in deep respect by m a n y elements in German-Jewry in the nine-
teenth century. This "historical" painting had resonance a m o n g Ger-
m a n Jews and was copied and reproduced in various versions,
attesting to the need of later generations to hold on to the memory
of their distinguished philosopher and to his steadfast behaviour.
Interestingly, they were not alone in this regard. Events from
Mendelssohn's life continued to engage artists of different persuasions
and nationalities into the twentieth century. 3 8
Mendelssohn was not the only Enlightenment-Jewish figure who
attracted attention a m o n g Jews and non-Jews but none of the others
came close to being portrayed by so many different artists in such a
variety of contexts and materials. Yet, to capture the nature of the
transition to a more visual, and more "hero" oriented society, it needs
to be mentioned that images of most of the leading figures in
Mendelssohn's circle, small as it may have been, are extant. In some
cases, the possession of their portraits was deemed worthy enough
that in a m o m e n t of crisis the editors of Hameassef thought that it
would be able to bolster support for the movement if it offered its
followers portraits of two of its leading supporters, Daniel Itzig and
David Friedländer, two major supporters of the Enlightenment. 3 9
T h e editors reasoned that such an act would prompt individuals, and
the subjects of the portraits themselves, to try and further the cause of
the fledgling movement. Certainly for Itzig this flattery could not
have been foreign. H e did not shy away from outward manifestation
of his financial success, possessing one of the most expansive homes in
Berlin in the eighteenth century. His portrait and a view of his h o m e
appeared on a private cup and saucer set, made of Meissen china,
similar to a set showing Frederick the Great of Prussia. 40 Friedländer,

iK
I will treat some of these other works in the study mentioned in fn. 21.
39
On another instance (late 1784) , as mentioned above, the journal encouraged
individuals to buy images of Mendelssohn and Herz, the latter in the depiction by
Daniel Chodowiecki.
40
See From Court Jews to the Rothschilds: Art, Patronage, and Power 1600-1800 , pp. 30,
101.
one of Mendelssohn's closest collaborators and a m a n of extensive
financial resources, was painted several times during his long life by
well-known Berlin artists. 41 O n e of these paintings was eventually
hung in the hall of the communal board of the Berlin Jewish c o m m u -
nity on his seventieth birthday in 1820 as an act of homage to a man
who did much for the improvement of the political and cultural status
of the Jews of Berlin. 42 T h e act of marking an individual's contribu-
tion to the community by placing a person's portrait in the communi-
ty's public space exemplified the process whereby figures of
distinction were to be recognized and remembered, following a pat-
tern c o m m o n a m o n g seventeenth-century guilds. This became a hall-
mark of more acculturated Jewish institutions in Europe in the
nineteenth century.
Whereas in the world of the Enlightenment one figure towered
over all others, this was not the case a m o n g the rabbinic world. Here
hero worship took off but was not limited to a few outstanding per-
sonalities. T h e popularization of the rabbinic image—in particular
the traditional/orthodox Ashkenazic r a b b i — h a d many variants from
the end of the eighteenth century, a period that as noted saw a grow-
ing interest in portraiture and theories of physiognomy. Images of
these rabbis appeared in various forms and materials—lithographs,
broadsides, miniatures and silhouettes, pipes, misrachim, embroidered
material, cups and saucers, plates, tabletops, frontispieces to books,
and micrography. M u n d a n e and utilitarian objects befitted the ten-
dency to popularization and the absorption of the rabbinic image as
a form of talismanic protection. Almost always appearing solitary,
without their families, the rabbis were rarely seen as individuals with
whole bodies: truncated around the stomach, the focus is invariably
facial, emphasizing the mind and the spirit, as the rabbi gazes direcdy
at the viewer. A formal inscription in Hebrew and often also in a

41
T h e portrait by Julius Hübner (1806-82) of Friedländer in his old age shows
him in a deeply retired manner. This work was shown in a major retrospecrive of
German art at the beginning of the 20th century. The painting was entitled there:
Stadrat (City Councillor) David Friedländer. He was appointed to the Berlin City
Council in 1809. A lithograph based on this work by J o h a n n Sprich does not convey
as successfully the introspective gaze that permeates the Hübner original. See Steven
M. Lowenstein, The Berlin Jewish Community. Enlightenment, Family and Crisis, 1770-1830
(New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), between pp. 164-65.
42
Steven M. Lowenstein, "The Jewishness of David Friedländer and the Crisis of
Berlin Jewry," Braun Lectures in the History of the Jews in Prussia, no. 3, (Ramat-Gan: Bar-
Ilan University, 1994), p. 27.
vernacular language was generally added to identify the rabbi to the
viewer while authenticating the portrait with the remark that it repre-
sents "the form of our teacher ... of the blessed community of . . . "
Various tides of the rabbi may follow as well as the name of his most
famous exegedcal work. Often, to stress his spiritual nature, he was
seen with books, and, at times, an added inscription in verse was
appended to the portrait praising the individual for his remarkable
accomplishments and nature. Few orthodox rabbinical figures, en-
compassing all varieties of orthodox trends in the nineteenth cen-
tury—from neo-orthodoxy to ultra-orthodoxy—were overlooked in
these forms of popularization. Some became particularly visible and
were reproduced in different media, suggesting that in the public
consciousness their persona had grown in importance beyond their
erudition and rabbinic authority. 4 3
As the portraits of the rabbis emerged in the modern period they
underwent the process of reproduction interrelated with the commu-
nity's needs. This resembles the p h e n o m e n o n described by Walter
Benjamin in his essay " T h e Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction": "the desire of contemporary masses to bring things
"closer' 5 spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent
toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its
reproduction. Every day the urge grows stronger to get hold of an
object at very close range by way of its likeness, its reproduction." 4 4
Reproduction had the capacity of reactivating the object depicted in
the personal setting of the beholder.
A few examples will help elucidate this phenomenon: T h e example
of Rabbi Seckel Loeb Wormser of Michelstadt in Hesse (1768-1847),
the famous "baalshem" (wonderworker), whose personality was
enframed in legends, myths, and miraculous tales is intriguing in this
regard. Seckel Loeb studied under the charismatic and innovative
Rabbi N a t h a n Adler of Frankfurt, who engaged in Kabbalah, and
was deeply influenced by him. Wormser studied and practised practi-
cal and theoretical mysticism and was well known for his magical
tales and stories; his ability to uplift individuals through these means
were well-known and he himself preserved notebooks in which re-
quests of hundreds of individuals were listed. Pregnant women,
women who fell to post-partum depression, men without male off-

43
Parts of the following section on rabbinic portraits are based on my Jewish Icons,
ch. 3. See there for a more extensive discussion of this phenomenon.
11
Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, ed. Hannah Arendt (London: Jonathan Cape,
1968), p. 223.
spring, and hosts of other cases were sent his way. He responded by
writing amulets, praying or studying for the needy, checking mezuzot
and tefillin, and performing other similar deeds. This integration of
different worlds makes the visual material relating to Seckel Loeb all
the more engaging.
At least three portraits (Figs. 9-11) of the rabbi have survived, two
very similar and a third of an entirely different m a n n e r and compo-
sure. T w o of the pictures convey the likes of an ascetic and mystical
figure. In them Wormser appears somewhat dazed and in deep
thought. H e wears a shirt with an open collar and a scarf and his
head is covered with a large black skull cap. In contrast, the third
print presents Wormser as a gentle, concerned man, whose long
white beard moulds well with his caring eyes and soft skin. Seen in
the latter portrait with an open shirt collar and a large circular berret
(both u n c o m m o n for rabbinical figures at this time), one could as-
sume that this is not the same person. Yet it would be incorrect to
argue that any of these portraits is a "forgery" for various publishers,
in their desire to "market" a venerated rabbi, tampered with what
can be called the 'original' figure, complicating the sense of true
likeness. All three portraits bear Wormser's name, however at the
bottom of the third print a two line inscription appears alongside his
title in Hebrew and G e r m a n : "Im tachpezu leroti beeyneychem/
hineni beemet omed lefnaichem." ("If you want to see me with your
own eyes, I am truly standing before you.") T h e rabbi's Hebrew
signature appears below this inscription, a pattern followed by certain
rabbis, giving added authenticity and significance to the portrait.
Drawn "from life" by an unidentified J . Goldman, it was published
and distributed by W. Würmeil in M a n n h e i m . As the inscription does
not indicate that the rabbi was deceased one may assume that
Wormser was alive when this picture circulated, and was responsible
for the unprecedented Hebrew inscription that commands our atten-
tion. N o similar expression appears on any other rabbinic portrait
that I have seen.
As Wormser was apparently still alive, it would be hard to imagine
that anyone but he could have enunciated this direct address to all
who valued his advice, presence, and supernatural powers. Wormser
is conveying to his followers unequivocally that whoever needs or
aspires to have his physical presence may simply gaze at his picture.
T h e intention of the portrait was clearly to create a bridge between
the rabbi and his followers and possibly, to quote David Freedberg,
the art historian, in another context: "to reinforce the implicit claim
that it is this particular image and not another that works in such and
such a miraculous or benefìcient way." 4 ‫ י‬This was an emphatic decla-
ration of the possibility of a rabbinic portrait to perform the functions
invested in wonder workers. T h e use of the reproduced portrait
served an added function. As Wormser was consulted from near and
far the modern techniques helped overcome distances and enabled
him to continue his protective impact. T h o u g h he resided in
Michelstadt, his popularity extended throughout Germany (in pardcu-
lar south Germany) and especially a m o n g Alsatian Jews, who both
visited him and h u n g his portrait in their homes. T h u s Wormser's
multi-faceted personality served rural J e w r y in an age of transforma-
tion, when issues of conscription and regular sicknesses intertwined;
even after his death, as his reputation continued to grow, visitors to
the area could still see his portrait hanging in their homes. In this
custom, as in others, village Jews resembled the local Christian peas-
ants, except that their icons were of contemporary rabbinical figures.
T h e outstanding case of the Baalshem warrants interest for the
clear involvement of the rabbi in turning his image into a branch of
an extensive healing activity and for the light it sheds on the nature of
popular reception. In dozens of other cases of rabbinic portraits,
though not as pronounced as Wormser's, spiritualization of the rab-
binic image is achieved in part through an accompanying text that
praises the act of beholding the image. T h e penetration and accept-
ance of this form of visual representation and the evolution of a
language related to the rabbinic image point to a cultural norm
a m o n g orthodox Jews in the nineteenth century. Of course, this de-
velopment did not challenge the centrality and priority of learning
but questions the commonly held notion that orthodox Jews were
oblivious to the sense of the physical and fled embodiment.
Let me bring one further example (Fig. 12) that shows the m a n n e r
in which the nineteenth century witnessed the need for what
Benjamin called the desire to bring the figure closer to the massses.
Hezekiah da Silva from Leghorn (1659-1695), a rabbi with a clear
sense of his halachic authority, was a revered emissary from Jerusa-
lem. H e travelled to Amsterdam where he was warmly received by
the community and offered to remain as their rabbi. As a token of
appreciation, the community commissioned his portrait which shows
da Silva wearing a red kaveze (head dress of Turkish Jews) and a fur-
trimmed coat. Conforming with contemporary seventeenth century
portraiture, da Silva holds a book in his hand while manifesting a

45
David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), p. 119.
 Figure 13. Printed image
‫ הזה‬ρή ·;‫מי־>י מןסנז י»ע‬5‫»יד יביך ז‬ "‫"י״י׳ •י‬ of Hezekiah da Silva from
ΐί!‫גיר‬-‫ם‬-%-,‫הזגך‬,‫ נימיי‬VronjDor·.‫יב‬-‫ י‬,‫״‬.‫»־‬1 ‫ ייפים‬.‫נז־איד‬ Leghorn (1659-1695).
‫נ׳־ן‬-· ;‫ י־‬rz3 :-As ‫;נז׳‬: ‫ יעווה‬roiua .‫ח «סר ודחי‬5 ‫נעל מי‬ First half of nineteenth
!<‫־ע‬urtccatcr.p3ipar‫לעהק‬ ‫־ץ במיזייר ^ברהב גב־‬+‫ ייי‬K‫־‬C:
century, lithograph.

serious comportment. This painting had a second life in the nine-

teenth century. Found in the possession of Abraham Zvi Hirsch
Lehren (1784-1853), a major orthodox lay leader in Holland, who
seems to have had a keen interest in collecting rabbinical and reli-
gious portraits, the painting was copied (Fig. 13) and reproduced and
a telling inscription added:
"Whoever sees Pri Chadash must bless 'who has given us life and kept us
that we have reached this moment'/ To see in print the figure of the
most learned rabbi, our rabbi Hezekiah da Silva, may his memory be
blessed/The author of p"c (pri chadash) that was stored and hidden in the
archive of kings in the house of the rabbi and pious/the president (nasi) of
Israel the most learned rabbi, our rabbi Abraham Zvi Hirsch Lehren his
memory pious and holy in the city and mother of Israel, Amsterdam,
may God watch over her."

This fine play on words and associations implies that whoever sees
the portrait of da Silva (pri chadash—a new fruit being the name of
his most noted work, he is called accordingly) must make the required
blessing on seeing a new fruit. 111 this way the painting took on a
religious significance; since the new fruit symbolizes the wonders of
God's handiwork one is obliged, upon seeing it, to make the above
blessing; so too with the figure of the rabbi.
T h e anonymous individual who added the inscription and gave
the portrait its spiritual implications after 1853, the date of Lehren's
death, fulfilled consciously or subconsciously an important aspect of
Lehren's public activity. Motivated by the deteriorating level of or-
thodoxy in Western and Central Europe, Lehren had for decades
directed Pekidim and Amarkalim of Eretz-Israel in Amsterdam, an organiza-
tion that strove zealously to guarantee Jewish settlement in Palestine
in an atmosphere free of secular influence and as a homeland and
refuge for strict orthodox observance, unfettered by modernizing ten-
dencies. In specifically associating the portrait with Lehren, its dis-
tributor wished to signify its orthodox provenance and give further
weight to its spiritual value and connection with Eretz-Israel. Trans-
formed into a popular reproduction, the seventeenth century painting
could now possibly serve as an incentive for potential donors, capital-
izing on da Silva's function as an emissary from Eretz-Israel to the
Diaspora. Moreover, the rabbi's oriental and exotic appearance
moulded well with the romantic yearnings of the Holy Land in the
nineteenth century, strengthening its marketing value.
T h e case of the da Silva reproduction indicates that portraits of
rabbis were distributed to transmit messages to the public, and par-
ticular figures from the past were invoked to bolster a specific ideo-
logical orientation. In the end of the nineteenth century figures from
the past were assimilated into the struggle to maintain orthodoxy in a
critical hour for its proponents.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century the need to mobilize
support for the cause of orthodoxy grew in areas that witnessed a
decrease in religious observance. This development seems to have
given rise to new forms of popularization of the rabbinic image that
would eventually extend beyond the orthodox circles. Seeking to
widen the attraction of this type of representation, entrepreneurial
figures embarked on two new directions. Firsdy, images of major
rabbinic figures of the middle ages were conjured up and distributed;
secondly, broadsides with individual pictures of rabbis, from different
periods and persuasions, were assembled into "group portraits" and
marketed for Jews in Western and Eastern Europe. T h e invocation of
the historical figures of the past emerged as the historical portrait had
already become a household object in Western and Central Europe
and had begun to penetrate the east as well.
In turning to the imaginative creation of the foremost rabbinic
thinkers and exegetes, one can see how the visual dimension—specifi-
 Figure 14. Printed image of Rabbi Simeon Bar Yochai, second century
rabbi. Late nineteenth century. Printed paper.

cally lithography and photography—had become incorporated into

orthodox life and was being utilized for persuasion and assertion of
that identity. By widening the visibility and tangibility of these hal-
lowed figures in relatively inexpensive techniques, the ideal "ortho-
dox" image of a J e w who preserved a traditional appearance, in his
special dress and beard, was manifested. But also a more subtle
agenda was in vogue—to create greater identification with the figures
associated with seminal Jewish texts. In the 1880s a broadside with
the image of Rabbi Simeon Bar Yochai, the second century rabbi—
considered by tradition as the author of the Z o h a r — w a s distributed
and sold (Fig. 14). Here Bar Yochai is seen donning unique headgear
on which is inscribed the letters of Shema Tisrael. But the inscription
underneath his image reveals the inner tensions of those who pro-
duced this print. As if preempting criticism a m o n g "enlightened" pro-
vocateurs and other interested parties that such portraits were
inauthentic, the publisher of this imaginative construction claimed
that this portrait of R. Simeon was found in the Bibliothèque
Nationale in Paris. In mentioning this distinguished secular institu-
tion, the publisher intimated that if this broadside was found in such
a respectable non-Jewish institution, it undoubtedly confirms the au-
thenticity of the figure of Rabbi Simeon, the author of the Zohar.
T h e strategy is worth reiterating: secularism is brought to bear to
fortify a particular orthodox and traditional perspective and to in-
crease its legitimacy.
Another outstanding example is the figure of the Rabbi Elijah, the
G a o n of Vilna (1720-1797), one of the foremost halakhic scholars of
the modern period. Over a generation after his death the first image
of the G a o n appeared, authored by a Polish artist, and already in
1827 Zevi Hirsch Lehren (mentioned above) sought a copy of a paint-
ing of the Gaon. From that time on variations on the Gaon's picture
abounded and it was clearly sought after in different areas of Europe.
It underwent a particular transformation when the G a o n was shown
wearing phylacteries and a prayer shawl, in the spirit of the legends
that recounted his external appearance while studying religious texts.
Towards the end of the century when a tendency developed to assem-
ble together prints of rabbinic figures (from medieval to modern
times) in the form of a gallery of great Jewish scholars, the Gaon was
often given pride of place to emphasize his outstanding piety, learning
and popularity. C o m m o n l y h u n g in Jewish homes, in diverse media,
the Gaon's image loomed large, received much attention and was
marketed widely with the belief that his picture would inspire future
generations to follow his path in the study of torah.46 O f the image of
the G a o n it could be said what the art historian Richard Brilliant
argued with regard to the Capitoline Brutus: it "corresponded so exactly
with the mental image of him...(that) viewers found the portrait they
were looking for." Indeed, "the temptation of such an identification
can be overwhelming given the desire to embody great persons" with
an appropriate image and distinctive features. 4 ‫׳‬

4,1
For a fine collection of the Gaon's images, see Rachel Schnold, ed., The Gaon of
Ulna. The Man and His Legacy (Tel Aviv: Beit Hatefutsoth, 1998), passim.
'‫ ׳‬Richard Brilliant, Portraiture (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1991), pp. 55-6.
 T h e idea of bringing together orthodox rabbis of different
orientations and persuasions in this modern collage was, of course,
inspired by many secular parallels in nineteenth century society. O r -
ganizational portraits and photographs had become commonplace
a m o n g diverse elements of European society. In the case of our
theme, the "group portrait" enabled the individual rabbi to be seen as
part of a much larger historic enterprise that could be traced back to
the medieval luminaries and illustrated the continous path of rabbini-
cal exegesis, to maintain the crown of torah. T h e composite image
crosses boundaries, time, and differences of opinion in order to em-
phasize the rabbis' "transcendent association" and encouraged the
Jewish public to take pride in their past heros. Following Susan
Stewart, one can view this broadside as a display, in which a Jewish
observer would encounter "the state of all-at-onceness... (that)
marks... the defeat of time, the triumph over the particularity of con-
texts in which the individual" figures thrived. 4 8 T h e chain of Jewish
life is thrust upon the observer and is intended to create a sense of
continuity and identity. Israel Wiesen, one of the creators of m a n y
such broadsides, appears to have been an itinerant teacher and
scribe, who turned this hobby into a way of generating some extra
cash. H e assiduously collected lithographs of individual rabbis, cut
them u p and pasted them together adding basic identifying informa-
tion to each figure and uniting them all under a respectful title, like:
"Sages and Great Scholars of Israel." (Fig. 75) 49 T h e rabbis' bodies in
their truncated nature came to serve the purposes of the spiritual
quest. T h e y and their teachings are to be savored. In this sense, we
can say that the priority is still the spirit, but the use of the body is not
seen as an illegitimate m a n n e r to reach it. Yet, it would appear that
this tradition of turning the rabbis into heros, via their portraits, was
seldom accompanied by a clear Htual of devotion or sanctification as one
can find in other cultures, as was the case with C h ' a n portraiture in
Medieval China. 5 0

48
Susan Stewart, "Death and Life, in that Order, in the Works of Charles
William Peale," The Cultures of Collecting, ed. J o h n Eisner and Roger Cardinal (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994), p. 204.
49
See Schnold, The Gaon of Vilna, p. 54. Cf. Cohen, Jewish Icons, p. 149. Other
collages by Wiesen are to be found in the Print Collection of the Jewish Theological
Seminary Library. I plan to devote a separate study to Wiesen's efforts.
50
For fascinating parallels to the material I have discussed, see T. Griffith Foulk
and Robert H. Sharf, "On the Ritual Use of Ch'an Portraiture in Medieval China,"
Cahiers d'Extrême-Asie 7 (1993-1994), pp. 149-219. My sincere thanks to K. Shinohara
of McMaster University for bringing this article to my attention.
 Figure 15. Israel Wiesen, Sages and G r e a t Scholars of Israel,
Kettwig (Prussia), Germany, 1881, lithograph on paper.
The Vilna Gaon appears in the centre of the top row.

Whereas with the portraits of the rabbis the body was only an
instrument to reach the spiritual level, this was not the case with the
representation of the body in early Zionist art. Here it would appear
that several different factors merged to shape the "new J e w " that
Zionist ideology was so deeply engaged in creating at the turn of the
century. In rejecting the obese, ugly body depicted in antisemitic
caricatures and c o m m o n to the racial thought of the nineteenth cen-
tury, Zionist imagery also turned away from the depiction of the ideal
J e w as naturally gloomy and melancholy, as a d u m b r a t e d in Abbé
Grégoire's famous essay on the Jews from 1789. Grégoire, like m a n y
others in the nineteenth century, accepted Lavater's depiction of the
Jewish physiognomy—characterized by sallow complexions, hooked
noses, hollow eyes, prominent chins, and constrictive muscles of the
mouth. Jewish women were seen as subject to nymphomania; males
as masturbators. But the antisemitic depiction to which Zionist artists
responded was especially and almost completely concerned with the
male body, as this was the figure that antisemitic literature and cari-
cature associated with the parasitic, bourgeois behaviour of the Jews,
as can be seen from any n u m b e r of images. A mere perusal of the
m o d e r n caricatures published by Eduard Fuchs in 1921, or those that
appeared in D r u m o n t ' s Libre Parole in the 1890s bring home this
 Figure 16. Alfred Nossig, The Wandering Jew, Lodz, c. 1900.
Sculpture. Whereabouts unknown.

streotypical figure.51 Thus, when encountering the Wandering Jew, a

sculpture (Fig. 16) by the Lvov-born artist and statistician Alfred
Nossig (1864-1943), the comparisons with andsemitic imagery and
with the way in which the representation of the body had come to
serve a certain ideological construct are glaring. 52

51
See Eduard Fuchs, Die Juden in der Karikatur (Munich, 1921), passim; for French
images, see Norman L. Kleeblatt, ed., The Dreyfus Affair. Art, Truth, and Justice
(Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1987), passim.
52
Ost und West 1 (Berlin, 1901), pp. 5-6.
Figure 17. Gustave Doré, T h e W a n d e r i n g J e w , prìnt, France, 1852.
 In choosing the age-old theme of the Wandering Jew, a Christian
legend that apparently originated in the thirteenth century, 5 ‫ י‬Nossig
was driven to subvert the message inplanted in the Christological
perspective and to offer a Jewish interpretation, visually and philo-
sophically, that would give credence to a new vision of the Jewish
people. T h e legend of the Wandering J e w was predicated on the
Christological premise that when Christ turned for sustenance on his
way to Calvary he was turned away by a J e w with no remorse. In
return for this act Christ condemned the J e w to wander through the
world until his return on earth. T h u s the nomadic nature of the
Jewish people was viewed as a divine condemnation, enabling peoples
of different persuasions to comprehend the c o n u n d r u m ofJewish per-
sistence through time and space. Treated and interpreted by an inor-
dinate n u m b e r of writers and thinkers in the nineteenth century, the
myth became extremely widespread, fitting well with the nineteenth-
century romantic search into mythic cults and figures. It also found a
popular outlet in a variety of artistic works which gave added potency
to the myth's dissemination. Moreover, the modern historical reality
of Jewish pedlars in European capitals, large-scale Jewish migration
from Eastern Europe to the west, and the religious backlash in Eu-
rope to modernization tendencies, gave luster and presumed authen-
ticity to the myth. Nossig was aware of these tendencies and the
myth's staying power, as well as certain visual depictions that focused
sharply on the terrorizing nature of this figure. O n e interpretation in
particular of the Wandering J e w that may certainly have served as
the catalyst to Nossig's was the series produced by the French artist
Gustave Doré (1832-1883), known for his extensive illustration of the
Bible. Placing one of Doré's works (Fig. 17) side by side with Nossig's
we are offered a clear confrontation between the perspective of an
openly-declared Zionist and an artist greatly intrigued by the myth of
the Wandering Jew. 5 4 Nossig's Wandering Jew , like Doré's and many
others, holds a large staff (larger than the figure itself) and wears an
unkempt and unwieldy beard, reminiscent of Doré's figure. But here
is where the parallels end. Wearing a large berret (reminiscent of the
phrygian cap, a symbol of liberty) Nossig's virile figure stands erect
and proud, his left foot somewhat raised to give the sense of motion.

53
See George K. Anderson, The Legend of the Wandering Jew (Hanover and Lon-
don: Brown University Press, 1965).
54
Doré's engravings of the Wandering Jew were recently republished as an ap-
pendix to Galit Hasan-Rokem and Alan Dundes, eds., The Wandering Jew. Essays in the
Interpretation of a Christian Legend (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University
Press, 1986).'
 His countenance is one of intensity and firmness. But what has given
this Wandering Jew his strength to wander through lands and centuries
is not the sign of Cain (present in Doré's depiction) but the T o r a h
scroll he holds close to his heart. T h e Star of David is its sole decora-
tion. Strong, muscular arms hold the staff and scroll, unlike the thin,
bony legs of Doré's Wandering Jew. Presenting the Wandering Jew in this
vein, Nossig was making a definite statement on the ability of the J e w
to withold the pressures of opposition, to subsist, as h e / s h e possessed
an eternal attribute, the Bible. If Doré's Wandering Jew roamed the
world with the mark of Cain, in the form of a cross on his forehead,
Nossig's stood as a visionary holding tighdy to the T o r a h as the
symbol of Jewish perseverance over time and oppression. T h o u g h in
dialogue with Doré, Nossig's inspiration came clearly from
Michelangelo's Moses. H e integrated Michelangelo's muscular inter-
pretation of Moses, tried to emulate his outstanding wavy beard,
removed the horns and placed the T o r a h in the center of the work,
rather than have his Wandering Jew hold the decalogue to the side, as
did Michelangelo's Moses. Nossig was concerned with transforming
the negative connotations often associated with the Wandering Jew into
positive ones, endowing him with the attributes of Moses and grant-
ing him the symbolic power of Jewish tradition—the T o r a h . In mak-
ing this claim Nossig was not speaking as an orthodox J e w nor as an
artist concerned with art for the sake of propaganda, but rather as an
intellectual seeking the source ofJewish survival. T h e T o r a h ' s ethical
and religious teachings lay at the root of J u d a i s m and its ability to
interact with the world. T h e T o r a h ' s universal principles allowed
J u d a i s m to forge a place in the m o d e r n world. Nossig argued that
these teachings needed to evolve constandy to enable Judaism to
survive in a changing world. T h e strong physical Wandering Jew perse-
vered due to his spiritual attachment. His powerful body is
complimented by the eternal strength of the T o r a h he holds tight to
his chest. O n c e again in the hierarchy of values scripture was para-
mount over all other forms of Jewish expression.
Merging biblical associations with a mythic figure transformed
completely the message traditionally attached to that persona. But in
the case of a h u m a n being, the interweaving of a known figure into a
biblical theme/context, as was the case with some of Ephraim Moshe
Lilien's representations of T h e o d o r Herzl, the depictions take on a
certain glorification of the body and the person. Born in Drohobycz,
Galicia in 1874 Lilien came to Berlin in 1899 and quickly became
associated with individuals involved in the Zionist movement and a
literary-Zionist club, Die Kommenden. W h e n Lilien attended the Fifth
Zionist Congress in 1901 in Basle, for which he prepared the broad-
 Figure 18. Ephraim Moses
Lilien, photograph of Theodor
Herzl, Basle, 1901.

side that became a Zionist icon, he was already considered the pre-
mier Zionist artist. 55 At that Congress Lilien photographed Herzl
leaning over a bannister in his hotel room in Basle, overlooking the
Rhine, a photograph that also became a prized image (Fig. 18), to be
reworked in many versions and dispersed in the thousands. 5 6
Focussing on HerzPs profile and prophetic gaze, Lilien wanted to
bring out the visionary nature of Herzl, whose heavy, dark beard
lended itself to such representation. T h e theatrical pose was con-
structed by both the leader of the Zionist movement and the artist,
who were both aware of the importance of showcasing the leader of
the movement to the public. But it was in Lilien's ambitious project to
illustrate the Old Testament that his representations of Herzl—who
passed away several years before—took on a bolder and a clear,

55
The image shows an angel touching the back of an aged, traditional Jew (a
symbol of the Diaspora) and directing him to a rising sun to which another tradi-
tional Jew is seen advancing as he ploughs the land. T h e broadside was reproduced
in many publications since 1901 and refashioned in coundess ways. For the original,
see Michael Berkowitz, Zlonut Culture and West European Jewry before the First World War
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), p. 128.
56
Inter alia, ibid., p. 136-37; see also Painting with Light. The Photographic Aspect in the
Work of E. M. Lilien (Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv Museum of Art, 1990), pp. 30-31. (Hebrew)
 Figure 19. Ephraim Moses Lilien's depiction of the angel (as Theodor Herzl)
expelling Adam and Eve from Paradise. Braunschweig 1908, engraving.

homoerotic nature. As was his Bible in general, Lilien's interjection of

a naked Herzl in certain biblical sections reeked with daring allusions,
dramatically original interepretations, and was capped by a célébra-
tion of masculinity and strength, eroticism and nudity. Lilien begins
his mixing of images and associations at the beginning of his repre-
sentation of the book of Genesis, where he presents T h e angel as
Herzl, or Herzl as T h e angel (Fig. 19). T h e angel/Herzl appears as a
naked, homoerotic, powerful, masculine figure draped with wings
and with a halo as he holds a sword pointed downwards, covering his
genitalia; he is seen turning to his right, banishing A d a m and Eve
from Paradise. T h e r e is no attempt to mask the figure of Herzl—it is
a clear likeness of the Zionist leader. So too Herzl's image is merged
with Moses, enabling the Zionist figure to join the heroic leader, who
brought the people out of bondage to freedom. By opening up these
various associations, inserting into Herzl's personality such visionary
implications and emphasizing his powerful masculinity, Lilien implied
a new interrelationship between body and spirit. 5 ‫ ׳‬Lilien's fascination
with Herzl during the first decade of the 20th century was entangled
with artistic and cultural orientations he was involved in, thus ena-
bling such a radical departure from his more traditional depictions of
the Zionist leader. Yet, it was the latter images of Herzl, as a vision-
ary leader, that marked Lilien's significant contribution to the visual

57
See especially Lilien's Bible, first published in 1908-12 by George YVesterman
in Braunschweig; second edition with no changes whatsoever in 1923 by Benjamin
Herz Verlag, Berlin and Vienna.
 representation of Herzl as the new Moses. He bestowed on the Zion-
ist movement certain iconic images that were to be transformed over
time into a wide variety of works, techniques, and interpretations. 5 8
But the preoccupation with Herzl went far beyond Lilien. H e be-
came after his death a household image that appeared on all sorts of
artifacts and objects. O n c e again, it was generally not the whole body
but merely his face, either in profile or en face. Just as images of
rabbis had appeared in almost every conceivable format, so Herzl
now was popularized in such diverse objects as clocks, inkstands,
greeting cards, rugs, tea kettles, tie clips, etc. Even his arch-enemy,
Achad H a ' a m , recognized how the heroic nature of Herzl was being
formed with his demise. Achad H a ' a m perceptively noted how Herzl
was becoming the "theme" of the national resurrection and how his
image was being constructed as the " H e b r e w national hero." His
looks and physique clearly awed some, in particular the artists who
attempted to promote his image. More than anyone, it was H e r m a n n
Struck, the G e r m a n - b o r n artist, who spoke of Herzl in mythic terms.
T h e m a n whom he described as possessing " s u p e r h u m a n " and
"amazing" beauty, represented an "ideal type" that Struck could not
imagine to be only physical. His etchings of Herzl prominently fo-
cused on his profile to give special artistic attention to his gaze and to
his eyes, as Struck saw in them "the eyes of a seer." 3 9 Art was being
channeled into the service of a political movement, for the first time
in modern Jewish history, and at the center of this effort was the
representation of the heroic figure whose vision was to overcome all
opposition. Yet, the road to Zionist iconization was not creatio ex
nihilo as has sometimes been claimed but rooted in the ways in which
Jewish representation of its rabbinic figures had merged the body
(even in its truncated form) and the spirit and dispersed these images
in the most m u n d a n e manner.
T o conclude, acculturation contributed to the proliferation of the
visual dimension in all areas of modern Jewish society including its
traditional and orthodox elements. Acculturation and modernization
also brought with them the growing need for Jews and others to
identify culturally, religiously and politically with certain individuals.
This association was much more pronounced a m o n g Jews of Europe

>fi
See, e.g., Rachel Arbel (ed.), Kachol Lavan Bezvayim. Dimuyyim Khazutiyyim shel
Hazionut 1897-1947 (Tel-Aviv: Beit Hatefutsoth, 1996); E. M. Lilien. ‫׳‬Aus dem
graphischen Werk. 6. März-12. April 1996 (München: Michael Hasenclever Galerie,
1996).
39
Quotations from Struck appeared in his article "As an Artist Saw Him," in
Theodor Herzl. A Memoriam, ed. Meyer W. YVeisgal (New York, 1929), p. 36.
than it had been in previous periods and took on new forms of attach-
ment. I have attempted in this article to follow one specific aspect of
this transformation of identity—the bond established between certain
figures and a Jewish public through visual representation. Posing for
portraits, paintings, and photographs became a c o m m o n p h e n o m -
enon, indicating that particular individuals understood the needs of
others to see them or be close to t h e m — n o t to speak of their own
desire for self-representation. This appears to be a far-cry from
Graetz , s position that I quoted at the beginning of this article and
much closer to Carlyle's approach, but this is I would claim part of
the historical evolution in which the Jewish body became in certain
circles a form of hero worship, granting the physical nature of the J e w
a new place in its historical development.
This p h e n o m e n o n has not withered but only intensified in recent
years. Professional advertisers have found ingenious ways to bring the
message to the masses. This is especially true in the case of rabbinic
representation, particularly in its Lubavitch vintage, where their im-
ages try to compete with the finest of male and female celebrities. For
example, the facial portrait of the last Lubavitcher rabbi appears on
highly visible sights, often accompanied with one of his adages, striv-
ing to gain the attention and awe of bystanders. H e can be seen by
Jews and non-Jews alike as he will be most commonly showcased in
the secular setting, fulfilling a basic Hasidic doctrine of the rabbi's
need to confront the "sinners" on their turf. As the C h a b a d Press
wrote recently in an article entitled " T h e Power of the Image:" "For
those who did not merit to ever see the Rebbe, the Rebbe says, that,
they can develop the same bond by learning his teachings and by
looking at his pictures." In reaching out to Jews of all shades and
beliefs in this m a n n e r and by harnessing all modern visual means for
this purpose, Lubavitch exemplifies how traditional/orthodox Jews
lowered certain obstacles that had separated them from the cultural
norms of the surrounding society. Within the historical development
of modern Jewish society, however, the representation of the
Lubavitcher Rebbe needs to be seen within the modern quest for a
hero—his ancestors can be found in Samuel Oppenheimer, Moses
Mendelssohn, the G a o n of Vilna, Herzl, Moses Montefiore and many
others. Indeed, the Jewish body carried a spiritual message, and its
depiction and dissemination expressed a profound need for attach-
ment in the crucible of acculturation and modernization.
 MONUMENTAL MOCKERY:
SACRED REGALITY AND DRAMATIC
R E P R E S E N T A T I O N IN E A R L Y M O D E R N E N G L A N D

JAMES R . SIEMON

God hath ordained & disposed al callings, and in

his prouidence designed the persons to beare them.
William Perkins, "Treadse of the Vocations or
Callings of Men" 1

For anyone versed in the history of royal iconography in T u d o r -

Stuart England, two of the charges accompanying that ultimate
iconoclastic act of 1649, the decapitation of King Charles I, might
seem paradoxical. Although Charles was merely the inheritor of a
long line of visual and verbal rhetoric which proclaimed the mon-
arch, as William Barlowe had called Q p e e n Elizabeth I, a "visible
god," the charges brought against Charles included accusations that
he had "deported himself as a G o d " and had been "idolized and
adored, as our good G o d only ought to be." 2 Given the prevailing
official representations of monarchy, which had styled monarchs
"gods" and had awarded them divine place and deportment in offi-
cial iconography, it is not clear what could have made the words and
demeanor of Charles I stand out as objectionable in themselves. 3 His
predecessors had officially promulgated a visual and verbal rhetoric
of sacred regality that had been apparently widely, if by no means
universally, accepted. As J o h n N. Phillips has recendy documented,

1
William Perkins, Works (STC 19647: London, 1603) 904. Subsequent quota-
tions of Perkins are taken from this edition and will be cited parenthetically in the
text.
2
For "visible God," see Barlowe's Sermon as quoted in Mervyn James, Society,
Politics, and Culture: Studies in Early Modem England (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1986) 445-6; on idolatry, see Margaret Aston, England's Iconoclasts, vol. I: The
Laws Against Images (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988) 473; citing State Trials, vol iv.,
cols. 1017, 1043.
!
For a recent account of the iconic qualities resident in the images of Elizabeth
I, see Kate and Andrew Belsey, "Icons of Divinity: Portraits of Elizabeth I," in
Renaissance Bodies: The Human Figure in English Culture c. 1540-1660, ed. Lucy Gent and
Nigel Llewellyn (London: Reaktion Books, 1990) 11-35. T h e standard accounts of
Elizabeth's images and their interpretation are provided by the work of Roy C.
Strong; see especially Portraits of Queen Elizabeth I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1963).
many Englishmen between the period of Henry VlII's assumption of
royal ascendancy and Charles I's execution largely concurred on the
nature and representation of monarchy:
their monarch was anointed by God to be his vicar on earth, responsible
for administering divine justice to men....Likewise, royal portraits of
Elizabeth I were not intended to be merely physical likenesses of the
Queen, but were badges of royalty that assured the legitimacy of her
royal power. Elizabethan symbolism resided in the imperial theory that
monarchs have religious and political rights within their own domains.
Thus to depict a ruler whose image and arms would supplant those of
Christ and his saints was to conceive of such images as possessing the
hieratic detachment and iconlike mask of the God-ordained ruler. Por-
traits of the monarch were thus understood in the context of the concept
of divine right as being holy images supplandng those of traditional
saints....4
So, how might it happen that King Charles's employment of this
traditional rhetoric of word and image could be so violently turned
against him? Given the long-standing, pervasive hierarchical imagery
of visual art and discourse, where did anti-royal iconoclasm acquire
the confidence to articulate itself as right, as godly, as universal and
more than a matter of factional, sectarian resentment?
T h e r e are certainly ample political explanations why a monarch
who refused to summon parliament for years could come to be seen
by a wide spectrum of those within the political nation as autocratic
"idol[]" rather than "god on earth." 5 But rather than dismissing the
specific vocabulary of these charges of idolatry against Charles I as
merely opportunistic oppositional rhetoric, I would suggest approach-

4
J o h n N. Phillips, The Reformation of Images: Destruction of Art in England, 1535-1660
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973) 204-5. For a recent account of official
imagery and the English Reformation, see J o h n N. King, Tudor Royal Iconography:
Literature and Art in the Age of Religious Crisis (Princeton: Princeton University Press,
1989).
5
For recent attention to religion's role in conflicts from the 1590s through the
early decades of the seventeenth century, see Richard Cust and Ann Hughes, "Intro-
duction: after Revisionism" in Conflict in Early Stuart England: Studies in Religion 1603-
1642, ed. Richard Cust and Ann Hughes (London: Longman, 1989) 1-46; see also
Johann Sommerville, "Ideology, Property, and the Consdtudon, " in Conflict in Early
Stuart England 47-71. The debate over the homogeneity or division of opinion con-
ceming absoludsm and divine kingship continues to enlist contrary opinion; for a
strong assertion that pre-Revolutionary England was deeply divided in opinion, see
J o h a n n P. Sommerville, Politics and Ideology in England, 1603-1640 (London: Longman,
1986), and the counter arguments of Conrad Russell, "Divine Rights in the Early
Seventeenth Century," in Public Duty and Private Conscience in Seventeenth-Century England,
ed. J o h n Morrill, Paul Slack, and Daniel Woolf (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993)
101-120.
ing these charges from a different perspective, a perspective that
would take the charge of idolatry seriously, even literally, and would
attend to the dynamics of iconicity and iconoclasm in royal represen-
tation during the longer period of Tudor-Stuart royal ascendancy.
While many might agree with Phillips' characterization of the prevail-
ing religio-political climate in England from Henry VIII's replace-
ment of religious images with T u d o r royal insignia to the decapitation
of the body royal, there is reason to remember, as Geoffrey Elton and
Deborah K. Shuger (among others) have argued, that officially ap-
proved and widely reproduced political theology had long been at
least potentially at odds with other strands of native and imported
political theory. Elton has written, for example, of a "splendid jumble
of reformist yearnings" in the Tudor-Stuart era, including " C o m -
monwealth, Protestantism and Christian H u m a n i s m . " 6 Of course,
opposing these desires for reform, there certainly was what J . G. A.
Pocock has described as a "sheer fear of disorder [which] compelled
an obstinate adherence to the vision of England as a hierarchy of
degree." 7 T h u s it might have come to be that although public expres-
sion in visual images and print were dominated by a hegemonic
orthodoxy that treated inherited rank as a "natural" ontological dis-
crimination, there were also other ideas and attitudes available at
least in limited, often oblique, and necessarily non-official circulation.
Visual and verbal images of monarchy doubtless conformed to the
iconic form and role that Phillips defines (see Fig. 1), but there was
one arena of visual image and discourse, the public theatre, in which
the representation of monarchy both was and was not quite as stable
as Phillips suggests. 8 For if it had been explicitiy forbidden since 1560
to deface or destroy any physical images of a dead person or m o n a r c h
not "commonly reputed or taken for a saint," and if it was also the
case, as J a n e t Clare maintains, that a climate of official interest die-
tated that "plays could not endorse rebellion whatever its cause,"
nevertheless odd things happened to the representation of long-dead
monarchs and the institution of monarchy in the Tudor-Stuart public
theatre. 9

(>
Reform and Renewal: Thomas Cromwell and the Common Weal (Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1973) 1.
‫ ׳‬The Machiavellian Moment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1975) 348-9.
11
Phillips follows Roy Strong, Portraits of Elizabeth 36.
9
On the protection of funerary images from Elizabeth's reign through parlia-
mentary ordinances of the 1640s, see Margaret Aston, England's Iconoclasts. Janet
Clare is cited from "Art Made Tongue Tied By Authority": Elizabethan and Jacobean Censor-
ship (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990) 55.
 PmtotopHoxrM to»0TATft ÄseftâpieSrai

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Erge mtb1(qu4 fri4at0 fertmgere nuŪi
CA S £ áaiHr)t awn fut! <jr f4tù Aßr*t**ritß.

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S p h ä r a C i v i t a t i s

Figure 1 Elizabeth I, from the title page ofJohn Case,

Sphaera Civitatis (1588)

Surprisingly enough, a medium-durée history of royal representa-

tion especially implicates an author who—at least until the revisionist
criticism of the last twenty-five years— has been prominendy associ-
ated with iconic representation of royal authority and whose plays
have often been described as embodying the cosmic order upon
which that royal authority often founded its claims. 10 My suggestion
of a link between William Shakespeare's art and the forces and strat-
egies of iconoclasm is not merely the historically arbitrary effect of
developments in twentieth-century oppositional critique, however,
since one of the foremost Caroline iconoclasts, J o h n Milton, has al-
ready made that linkage for us. Milton's attack on royal idolatry, the
apdy-named Eikonoklastes, invokes Shakespeare's stage images of mon-
archy as a precedent for itself, and in the process it suggests represen-
tational practices that Milton, the self-designated image-mutilating
anti-royalist, shares with Shakespeare, the royally patronized play-
wright. Furthermore, I will argue that Milton's text also suggests a
standard of authority—comprised in the notion of calling or voca-
tion—that both Milton and Shakespeare recognize, along with many
of their contemporaries, as an alternative to traditional notions of
cosmic hierarchy and inherited iconic identity.

II
W h e n Charles I mounted the scaffold on J a n u a r y 30, 1649, advance
copies of a book called Eikon Basilike—The Pourtraicture of His Sacred
Majestie in His Solitudes and Sufferings were already circulating in the first
of approximately twenty English editions that would appear within a
m o n t h and a half of the royal execution." Not consisting of political
theory, connected history, or religious principles, this book called the

10
The identification of Shakespeare's art with the expression of a hierarchically-
conceived static order of being is most closely idendfied with E. M. W. Tillyard, The
Elizabethan World Picture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1943). The power
of Tillyard's depiction is attested to by the fact that it has continued to require
attacking since the 1960s onward. Most recendy, influential figures in American New
Historicist and English Cultural Materialist criticism (including Stephen J .
Greenblatt, Jonathan Dollimore, Alan Sinfield and others) continue the argument
with Tillyard. On the other side, even so informed a reader of history and theology
for its social consequences as Margo Todd depicts Shakespeare as a "later adherent
of the theory of the Great Chain of Being, 'Take but degree away, untune that
string/ And hark! What discord follows!'" (Margo Todd, Christian Humanism and the
Puritan Social Order [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987] 180η. citing
Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida ); cf. Conrad Russell, "Divine Rights."
11
[John Gauden (attributed)], Eikon Basilike: The Pourtraicture of His Sacred Majestie in
His Solitudes and Sufferings, Philip A. Knachel, ed., (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
1966) xi-xiv. All citations from this edition. For the bibliographic record, see Francis
F. Madan, A New Bibliography of the Eikon Basilike of King Charles I (Oxford: Oxford
Bibliographic Society Publications, n.s. 3, 1950).
 Figure 2 Charles !,from thefrontispieceof Eikon Basilike (1649)

"Royal Image," opens with a visual image of the monarch (Fig. 2)

that sets the tone for a work in which prayers and personal reflections
provide, in one contemporary's words, a portrait of the King as
"Charles the First and Christ the Second." 1 2 This view of the king is
compactly rendered in the famous frontispiece, with its representation
of Charles's imitation of Christ in accepting a divinely ordained

12
Owen Felltham's "Epitaph to the Eternal Memory of Charles the
First...Inhumanely Murthered by a Perfidious Party of His Prevalent Subjects" is
quoted from Lana Cable, "Milton's Iconoclastic Truth," in Politics, Poetics, and
Hermeneutics in Milton's Prose, ed. David Loewenstein and James Grantham Turner
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990) 146. O n the frontispiece to Eikon
Basilike, see Dorothy George, English Political Caricature: A Study of Opinion and Propa-
ganda, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959) 1: 34-36. George points out that the
frontispiece itself was subject to commentary, exegesis, and controversy.
crown of thorns while rejecting the crown of worldly power. 1 1 It was
against this representation of King Charles as Christ and of the insti-
tution of monarchy as sacred that Milton wrote his Eikonoklastes, a
work which models its bitter verbal attack explicitly after the forms of
physical iconoclasm. 1 4 Milton's deformed verbal image of Charles in
Eikonoklastes constitutes an act of mutilation carried out in words.
More specifically, while preserving pieces of the original royal self-
rendering, Milton violently mars the effect of the memorial monu-
ment erected to Charles through the words and pictures of Eikon
Basilike. His repertoire of blows is various, but it includes verbal ver-
sions of time-honored forms of image mutilation such as exposing the
base material from which the m o n u m e n t has been fabricated or hu-
miliating the image by depriving it of its signifiers of authority. 1 · 1
Milton's linguistic attack resembles that of many instances of physical
mutilation in intending communication rather than mere destruction.
T h r o u g h his (mis)treatment of the image of Charles, Milton asserts

l:!
Many editions of Eikon Basilike include an "Explanation of the Embleme" which
explains (among other things about the image) Charles's depicted reladon to the
crown: "That Splendid, but yet toilsome Crown/ Regardlessly I trample down./
With joie I take this Crown of thorn/ Though sharp, yet easie to be born" (Eikon
Basilike [Wing E308a: 1649] frontispiece). T h e practice of rendering the monarch in
the likeness of the suffering, thorn-crowned Christ is evident in windows dating from
c. 1516-24 that portray Henry VII beneath an image of the crucified Christ wearing
the Crown of Thorns (see J o h n King, Tudor Royal Iconography, 8811. For reasons of
length, I cannot offer a more complete reading of the visual image of Charles, but the
image repays attention in detail; even the posture of kneeling before an altar is
fraught with political and religious significance. On the social multivalence of kneel-
ing during the period, see Lori Anne Ferrell, "Kneeling and the Body Politic," in
Religion, Literature, and Politics in Post-Reformation England, 1540-1688, ed. Donna B.
Hamilton and Richard Strier, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) 46-
69.
14
Eikonoklastes is quoted from The Complete Prose Works ofJohn Milton, vol. Ill, ed.
Merritt Y. Hughes (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1962); subsequent citation
will be included parenthetically in the text. For the publication history of Eikonoklastes,
see 3:147-50. O n Milton's iconoclastic tendencies, see David Loewenstein, Milton and
the Drama of History: Historical Vision, Iconoclasm, and the Literary Imagination (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990); Richard Helgerson, "Milton Reads the King's
Book: Print, Performance, and the Making of a Bourgeois Idol," Criticism 29 (1987) 1-
26; and Ernest B. Oilman, Iconoclasm and Poetry in the English Reformation: Down Went
Dagon (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986).
1
' The practice of attacking the idol by exposing its construction material is an old
one; see for example Tertullian's claim that venerated images could just as easily
have ended up cooking pots as gods, in The Apology of Tertullian, trans. William Reeve
(London: Griffith Farran, n.d.) 41. The most clear-cut example in which Milton
exposes the base material of the royal image occurs when he points out that the
words of a prayerful meditation offered by Eikon Basilike as being Charles' own
sentiments are actually verses plagiarized from Sir Philip Sidney's Arcadia (see 3:362).
and represents the distance and distortions that separate the image
from the exalted spiritual reality that the image would claim for itself
as its p r o t o t y p e . " ' A m o n g his affronts to the image of King Charles,
none is more telling than those attacks upon the sacred iconicity of
monarchy that Milton undertakes in order to reveal its institutional
pretensions to divinity as merely idolatrous images of true authority.
For its own monumentalizing strategies, the ostensible self-rep-
resentation of King Charles in Eikon Basilike appropriates two tradi-
tional European images of divine regality—the monarch as cosmic,
solar divinity and as long-suffering Christ figure. Charles repeatedly
refers to himself as the "sun of sovereignty ... [who could] shine in the
full luster of kingly power" (EB, 49). Alternatively, Charles describes
himself as a figure of Christlike self-sacrifice, "rather ch00s[ing] to
wear a crown of thorns with my Saviour than to exchange that of
gold, which is due to me, for one of lead" (EB, 28). Instead of simply
rejecting such assertions, Milton's iconoclastic attack gleefully mocks
these deific regal self-representations in the act of reproducing them.
T h e strategies Milton employs against this "civil kinde of Idolatry in
idolizing...Kings" (3:343) are rich in implication, but by no means
without historical precedent. However, in the light of his twentieth-
century reputation, one predecessor in this sort of royal iconoclasm
might be something of a surprise, for Milton mentions Shakespeare,
an author who for a good deal of the twentieth century has been and
in some scholarly quarters even today continues to be invoked as an
embodiment of social conservatism and especially of deference to
orthodox paradigms of cosmic hierarchy. O n e of Milton's references
to Shakespeare as a forerunner in anti-monarchical iconoclasm is
more implicit, more a matter of shared iconoclastic technique than of
explicit reference; the other case is quite explicit. Let me begin with
some suggestions of implicit resemblance between Miltonic icono-
clasm and Shakespeare's own dramaturgy, then move to the more
explicit instances of shared practice, before finally returning to ex-
plore further the subtieties of both.
First, in answer to Charles' invocation of the traditional notion of
solar monarchy, Milton asserts that the self-designated image is re-
vealing. It is revealing that Charles employs such an image in his self-
representation because in the course of recurring to what Milton
dismissively calls such "Poetrie" (3:406), Charles inadvertently opens
the way to historical analysis. T h a t is, Charles's poeticizing employs

16
O n the strategies and significance of mutilation, see James R. Siemon, Shake-
spearean Iconoclasm (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
an image for his opponents that is actually more appropriate, given
the actual history of his own reign, to Charles himself. W h e n Charles
attacks others, he brings up the mock-resemblance between the disas-
trous Phaeton and the true sun-god Apollo, and this recalls to Milton
the ways in which King Charles himself was more ill-fated Phaeton
than Phoebus. Milton says this kingly utterance amounts to a self-
revealing signifier, an " O m e n tak'n from his own m o u t h " (3:463). In
this instance Milton's iconoclasm amounts merely to a reminder of
historical context in order to emphasize a feature in the image that,
when seen in the light of history, makes the image reveal its own
factitiousness. Placed against the backdrop of time and events, the
asserted likeness appears suspect. Something similar occurs when
Milton quotes a statement of Charles on behalf of Christian liberty of
conscience and observes: "Which words, of themselves, as farr as they
are sense, good and Philosophical, yet in the mouth of him who to
engross this c o m m o n libertie to himself, would tred down all other
men into the condition of Slaves and beasts, they quite loose thir
c o m m e n d a t i o n " (3:412).
This technique of attack is richly suggestive of Shakespeare's own
treatment of stage monarchs who often similarly d a m n themselves
with "omens" from their own mouths which appear ironic given the
contexts of their self-representations. For one example there is the
wonderfully ironic m o m e n t when Shakespeare has King Henry IV,
who rose to the throne by rebellion against the lineal heir to the
throne, King Richard II, grandly pronounce upon the defeat of his
own enemies, " T h u s ever did rebellion find rebuke." 1 ' In Shake-
speare's treatment of it, the authority of the impeccably orthodox
semantic content embodied in King Henry's pronouncement is com-
promised in that it is uttered by a usurper at the moment of his
triumph over forces who themselves claim the authority of that very
hereditary legitimacy he invokes. Such dramaturgy resembles a form
of mutilation because it preserves the monumental original—in this
case the claim of the monarch as divinely constituted in essence—but
mockingly turns its own signs against the iconic intentionality of the
original image. Seen in its historical context, the image simply does
not fit the facts. Similarly iconoclastic, if less violently so, there are

‫ ' י‬Henry IV, Part One (5.5.1). Shakespeare plays, with the exception of Richard II, are
quoted from The Complete Works of Shakespeare, ed. David Bevington (New York:
Harper Collins, 1992). Richard II is quoted from the Arden edition, ed. Peter Ure
(London: Methuen, 1966).
moments in Shakespeare's play about King Richard II when the very
same orthodox imagery of solar kingship that Charles later employs
in Eikon Basilike is pointedly turned into a mockery of kingly self-
limitations through the m a n n e r and circumstances of its articulation.
But before turning to deal with this more subtie variation of icono-
clastic practice, it would be useful to examine some revealing passages
in which Milton explicitly refers to Shakespeare's stage images of
kings and kingship.
In attacking the tradition-based images of King Charles as earthly
icon of sacred Christ-like qualities and attributes, Milton reaches back
to Shakespeare for aid and precedent. 1 8 Drawing on his knowledge of
Shakespeare's Richard III, Milton asserts that Charles' own "phrase &
stile" (3:361) remind him of Shakespeare's supremely demonic mon-
arch. In fact Milton goes so far as to claim that Charles had modeled
his own idolatrous self-representations on Shakespeare's stage image
of tyrannical kingship. Milton calls Shakespeare "the Closet C o m p a n -
ion of ...[Charles'] solitudes," and describes Shakespeare's King Ri-
chard as:
speaking in as high strain of pietie, and mortification, as is utterd in any
passage of this Book; and sometimes to the same sense and purpose with
some words in this place, I intended, saith he, not onely to oblige my
Freinds but mine enemies. The like saith Richard, Act 2. Scen.l,
I doe not know that Englishman alive.
With whom my soule is any jott at odds,
More than the Infant that is borne to night;
I thank my God for my humilitie.
Other stuff of this sort may be read throughout the whole Tragedie,
wherein the Poet us'd not much licence in departing from the truth of
History, which delivers him a deep dissembler, not of his affections onely,
but of Religion.
In praying therfore, and in outward work of Devotion, this King wee
see hath not at all exceeded the worst of Kings before him. (3:361-2)
T h e r e is much that will repay further attention in what Milton here
says. Certainly it is important that although Milton is capable of
dismissing even such divinely enjoined activities as prayer and wor-
ship as mere "outward work," he is like the Puritan wing of the
English C h u r c h in being far from being actually indifferent to
adiaphora or "things indifferent." In fact, like Puritans generally,

18
Charles' own father, James I, had invoked the image of the monarch as wearing
a "croune of thornes" with his savior in the dedication to his son Charles of his
Meditations upon S. Matthew (1619); see Steven N. Zwicker, Lines ofAuthority: Politics and
English literary Culture, 1649-1689 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993) 41.
Milton reads externals of style and demeanor very carefully indeed. 1 9
Thus, even in those rare moments when Milton does grant
Charles' own statements of principle to be unobjectionable in their
content, he nevertheless violently objects to the " m a n n e r " (3:469) of
royal self-representation. So, he maintains that it can never be fitting
for kings to assume a philosophical style of utterance because philoso-
phy, no matter how true, will when uttered by those whose office
prevents proper understanding of its demands rather "break[] the
neck of thir own cause" (3:413) than furnish a non-philosopher with
an effective discourse for purposes of argument. More strikingly still,
Milton maintains that the king, any king, ought not ever to confuse
his calling with that of a poet. In Eikonoklastes Milton blasts Charles for
not observing the bounds of "State, his proper Sphear" (3:359):
The Simily wherwith he begins I was about to have found fault with, as
in a garb somwhat more Poetical then for a Statist: but meeting with
many straines of like dress in other of his Essaies, and hearing him re-
ported a more diligent reader of Poets, then of Politicians, I begun to
think that the whole Book might perhaps be intended a peece of Poetrie.
The words are good, the fiction smooth and cleanly; there wanted onely
Rime, and that, they say, is bestow'd upon it lately. (3:406)
In such criticism of the King's verbal style of "garb" or "dress," the
point is not that Charles himself is particularly bad at writing poetry
qua poetry. Milton objects instead to any king whose behavior is such
that he "admires and falls into an extasie" (3:466) or that might
"effeminateQy]" speak (3:421) as if writing "a peece of Poetrie." 2 0
Expressing his exasperation at such violation of the formal p a r a m -
eters of utterance that are appropriate to the royal calling, Milton
denounces a particular passage of Eikon Basilike in which Charles lays
claim to solar kingship by offering a curtly dismissive condemnation,
"Poets indeed use to vapor m u c h after this m a n n e r " (3:502). 21

19
Milton rejects, for example, what he calls the "lip-work of every Prelatical
Liturgist," no matter how righteous such prayers might be in their content, warning
"he who from such a kind of Psalmistry, or any other verbal DevoUon, without the
pledge and earnest of sutable deeds, can be perswaded of a zeale, and true righteous-
ness in the person, hath yet much to learn" (3:360).
20
Cf. Milton , s remark on the dubious masculinity of the royal courtiers (3.455).
Charles is also faulted for being a "more diligent reader of Poets, then of Politicians"
(3:406).
21
In this passage quoted by Milton, Charles sounds like Shakespeare's Richard II
in Act 2, Scene 3, when he alludes to political reality as being like nature in its divine
allocation to kingly direction; Charles says his own reputation, "like the Sun shall rise
and recover it self to such a Splendour, as Owles, Batts, and such fatal Birds shall be unable to
beare'{3:502).
 As these and related exemplary passages show, for all his icono-
clasm, his suspicion of "outward signs," and his irreverence toward
the notion of essential hierarchies, whether cosmic or inherited,
Milton, like certain major Puritan thinkers, has important ties to an
alternative principle of order and hierarchy, and this principle of
order and hierarchy has its own curious links to the contentious mat-
ter of the relationships between outward signs and essential "nature."
T r u e , Milton may claim that "the Kings of this World have both ever
hated and instinctively fear'd the Church of G o d " for what he calls its
"Doctrin" of "Liberty and Equality" (3:509), but he and other Re-
formers had their own alternative ground of order and hierarchy that
came to be defined in the notion of "calling." And this principle of
order and hierarchy also plays an important role in Shakespearean
dramatic renderings of monarchy and in the iconoclastic treatment to
which it repeatedly subjects its kingly figures.
For his own part, Milton explicidy interprets the "outward" fail-
ings of Charles in language, behavior, attitude, and signifying activity
generally as themselves signifiers of Charles' inward unfitness by "na-
ture" for the "Calling" of king. 22 In fact he treats the principle of
authority and the institution of monarchy that is authority's highest
traditional embodiment as matters of occupation demanding particu-
lar kinds of persons to meet their needs. Milton attacks the King's
subjection of national concerns to his own personally "opinionated
conscience" (3:368), urging that the "calling" to kingly "Authority"
depends on a particular "nature" in the monarch: "a privat con-
science sorts not with a public Calling; but declares that Person rather
meant by nature for a privat fortune" (3:368-9). Even Charles' ortho-
dox assertions of traditional forms of hierarchy are subjected to
Miltonic analysis and critiqued as expressions of occupational hyste-
ria; the king is denounced for having spoken like one of "those
[who]...beeing exalted in high place above thir merit, fear all change"
(3:503). As such statements suggest, this idea of calling constitutes for
Milton a principle of value, social order, and authority that is an
alternative to more static principles of traditional cosmic ontology or
more essentialized notions of inherited identity. T h e concept of the
calling permits those who invoke it a justification for change based on
merit, while also defining the nature of merit, and significandy pro-
viding for new kinds of social distinction. It is important to examine
the role of calling in slightly greater detail in order to see its impor-

22
While, on the other hand, Milton says Charles should "be subject to the
Parlament, both his natural and his legal superior" (3:502).
tance to representational practices during the period under consid-
e ration.
T h e late-Elizabethan divine William Perkins—a foundational au-
thor for later Puritan thinking—best articulates the notion of call-
ing. 2 3 It is crucial to realize that although he was decidedly Calvinist,
Perkins was no separatist, and certainly no social leveller. In "A Trea-
rise of Callings," Perkins sounds the authentic note of early modern
English orthodoxy when he insists (repeatedly) that "euery societie" is
divinely apportioned into hierarchical order:
God hath appointed that in euery societie one person should be aboue or
vnder another; not making all equall as though the bodie should be all
head and nothing else: but euen in degree and order, he hath set a
distinction, that one should be aboue another. (909)
Although similar statements are normative for the entire early mod-
ern period, Perkins and his fellow Reformers actually ground this
hierarchical principle in a new way. Far from simply relying on birth
to define status in a static social order, Perkins bases the true principle
of hierarchy upon "personal calling" (909). As in the familiar cosmic
model of rank, the notion of divinely-ordained "distinction" is re-
tained, but objective hierarchies of order and degree are reconstituted
by Perkins as outer signs that ultimately a m o u n t to no more than the
social articulation of an underlying individual fitness for individual
vocations. Above all, any true calling must be "effective"; that is, its
validity for an individual depends upon that individual's possession of
an embodied capital of "inward gifts" (909)— abilities, attitudes, incli-
nations (914), behaviors, and practices. 2 4 All these factors taken to-
gether constitute the person who is "designed" by God. This way of
thinking amounts to more than a mere anticipation of modern social
engineering or personnel management, with their functional de-
mands that there be a thoughtful match between a particular indi-
vidual and a particular chosen occupation. For Perkins and those
who follow him, godly society and, indeed, salvation itself depend
upon the principle of effective calling and successful labor within that

23
David Zaret calls Perkins "by far the most popular Puritan author" with more
than 200 editions and reprints of his works between 1590 and 1640; he is called by
one contemporary, J o h n Cosin, "their great Rabbi"; see David Zaret, The Heavenly
Contract: Ideology and Organization in Pre-Revolutionary Puritanism (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1985) 115.
24
Margo Todd points to a continuity between Christian Humanism and later
Puritanism in a notion of an "alternative hierarchy" but, appropriately suggests that
there was, nevertheless, a shared nervousness about the problem of disobedience and
unruliness (Todd, Christian Humanism 200).
calling. Thus, Perkins urges a standard of continual examination of
one's self and of one's neighbors according to the demands of calling,
so that these considerations of calling ground a supreme hermeneutic
that is social as well as personal. "By this rule," Perkins claims, "one
may rightly iudge of himself and others" (912).
T h e importance of calling is taken so seriously that Perkins' "Trea-
tise" even displaces the foundational Christian virtue of Charity from
its supreme position: effective calling becomes the fundamental
means of salvation. Boldly taking over the text of 1 Corinthians 13,
Perkins does not follow his biblical original in urging the Gospel
paradoxes that devalue those who "speak wath the tongues of men
and of angels, and have not love"; instead he insists:
though they be indued with excellent gifts, and be able to speak well,
conceiue praier, and with some reuerence to heare the word, and receiue
the Sacramëts; yet if they practise not the duties of godlinesse within their
owne callings, all is but hypocrisie... (912)
This passage not only takes striking liberties with biblical values, but
it also boldly overrides the power of the sacraments, reducing a
means of grace to something that resembles, at least potentially, what
Milton might call an "outward work." Lacking a proper relation to
his or her calling, the communicant Christian, no matter how rever-
ent and observant, is no better than a hypocrite. Thus, no gift, no
attitude, behavior, observance or utterance is intrinsically "excellent"
in itself, nor is it even to be evaluated apart from a consideration of
the demands of one's true calling. 25 This far-reaching revaluation of
the individual and the social order itself served not only as an impor-
tant structural element in constituting the often-noted Puritan ethos
of intense introspection by furnishing a measure against which to
judge oneself, but, of course, it also played a role in prompting evalu-
ation of others, even of one's "betters." 2 6 As David Zaret has de-
scribed it, from the collapse of the Puritan Classis movement in 1590
onward, a vital part of the English Reformed agenda was what con-
temporaries called a "Second R e f o r m a t i o n " — an unofficial program
of identifying and informally excluding those whom T h o m a s Good-
win called the "carnal Protestants that fill our churches." As Goodwin
saw it, the primary work of the laity and clergy lay in: "exactly
putting a difference between them that fear God, and them that fear him

25
This attitude is mockingly invoked in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part One, when
Falstaff rebuts Hal's moral attacks upon his life of debauched thievery with the
rejoinder that it is no sin to labor in one's calling (1.2.).
26
On this see David Zaret, Heavenly Contract 190.
not; measuring out who fear him, by Marks, Signs, and Spots.... [and]
in distinguishing men, by giving Signs and Marks of Mens Natural
and Regenerate Estates, and convincing and discovering carnal Men
to themselves, and others." 2 ' As a result of the promulgation of such
standards of judgment, an individual's fitness for and labor in an
effective calling came to be seen by many as primary determinants of
his or her ultimate value and authority. Ehe implications of such
developments for a top-down model of monarchical authority are
clear. As Margo T o d d has argued the stress on reformation of "indi-
vidual behavior through godly self discipline" entailed "an explicit
critique of the opposing approach to social harmony, the Great
Chain of Being." 2 8 But how might one speak against the Great Chain
of Being in a society where the affirmation of hierarchy was ubiqui-
tous and the sacredness of the monarchical institution and person
were officially enforced?
Early in the T u d o r period, writers like Erasmus resorted to alle-
gory, fable, and irony to criticize the monarchical person or institu-
tion. 29 But even such oblique criticism was hardly an option by the
1590s. T h e bloody religious persecutions of the mid-sixteenth century
and the abortive Catholic invasion of 1588 were too fresh in memory,
and the threat of impending chaos loomed larger each year since
Elizabeth's heirless throne could be plausibly claimed by no fewer
than a dozen claimants. Not surprisingly, such circumstances lent
impetus to official censorship of both written history and historical
drama. 3 0 W h a t is interesting about Shakespearean historical drama,
which is precisely a product of this period, is the extent to which it
incorporates elements of orthodox political theology while yet expos-

2/
Thomas Goodwin, "An Exposition upon the Book of the Revelation" (1639) in
The Works of Thomas Goodwin (Wing G1220: 1683) 2: 124.
28
Margo Todd, Christian Humanism 179.
29
For Erasmus's criticism of royal authority, see his allegorical meditation on
"Scarabeus aquilam quaerit" in The 'Adages' of Erasmus, ed. Margaret Mann Phillips
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1964). As Todd puts it: "the Erasmian
approach is antipathetical to the enforcement of social order on the basis of the
inherent authority of the well-born"; see Christian Humanism 184).
30
On the succession situation, see Thomas Wilson's "State of England" (1600)
which begins by listing the " 12 Competitors that gape for the death of that good olde
Princesse the now Qu: the Eldest Pr; in yeares and raygne through out Europe or our
Knowne World" (quoted in Marie Axton, The Queen's Two Bodies: Drama and the
Elizabethan Succession [London: Royal Historical Society, 1977] 96). On censorship,
see Janet Clare, "Art Made Tongue-tied"·, and Annabel Patterson, Censorship and Interpre-
tation: The Conditions of Writing and Reading in Early Modem England (Madison: University
of Wisconsin Press, 1984); Richard Burt, Licensed by Authority: Ben Jonson and the Dis-
courses of Censorhip (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).
ing that hieratic theology to the qualifying blows of a contrary social-
political theory that is based on some of the founding ideas that
comprise the notion of calling. While some such combination of offi-
cial state theology and a more critical theory of society is discernible
to varying degrees in m a n y of Shakespeare's English histories, per-
haps the most obvious case appears in his play of Richard II.
If the historical King Richard III qualifies for Milton and his Eng-
lish contemporaries as "the worst of Kings," then the historical Rich-
ard II is a close contender for this dubious distinction. Milton himself
unhesitatingly invokes Richard II to exemplify "proud contempt and
misrule" (3:407). Yet Shakespeare's own stage treatment of Richard
II is remarkably oblique, even gende. H e is not, as is Shakespeare's
King Richard III, merely the obverse of royal hagiography, the gro-
tesque tyrant. T h e r e is nothing in Shakespeare's Richard of the king
who the Mirror for Magistrates says "ruled all by Lust," and even Rich-
ard's role in murdering his uncle, infamous in another d r a m a of the
period, the anonymous Woodstock, is left pointedly unjudged by the
victim's own brother, who instead defers to Richard's divinely consti-
tuted authority as "God's substitute,/ His deputy anointed in His
sight" (1.3.37-8). 31 Similarly, Shakespeare's play leaves the notorious
flattery of Richard's courtiers largely unrepresented. 3 2 By contrast
with its downplaying of notorious historical negatives, the play lav-
ishes attention instead on Richard's own language and deportment.
And what it presents is not an image of tyranny and ambition like
that to be found in the stage representation of Richard III, but a king
who is royally given to offering pronouncements and striking physical
poses that evoke traditional notions of cosmic hierarchy, solar monar-
chy, and Christ-like royal identity. In fact, the lines from the play on
which I will concentrate have been adduced by Ernst Kantorowicz as
expressing "the indelible character of the king's body politic, god-like
or angel-like." 33 However, while Kantorowicz is right about the con-
tent of what Richard says, he fails to realize that the manner in which

31
See The Minor for Magistrates, ed. Lily B. Campbell (1938; rpt. New York: Barnes
and Noble, 1960) 113.
32
On the notorious connecdon of Richard and flattery, see Minor for Magistrates
113.
33
Ernst H. Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies: A Study in Medieval Political Theology
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1957) 27. There is a strong thread of histori-
cal association between the actual King Richard II and Christ. See Gordon Kipline,
"Richard IPs 'Sumptuous Pageants 1 and the Idea of the Civic Triumph,' ‫ י‬in Pageantry
in the Shakespearean Theater, ed. David M. Bergeron (Athens: University of Georgia
Press, 1985) 83-103.
Shakespeare's Richard embodies this ideology marks Shakespeare's
play as an iconoclastic mutilation of these principles rather than their
iconic embodiment. Richard II's deportment and utterance reveal
that he is clearly not "designed" for the kingly calling.
Richard's utterances are orthodox enough in their content. Nor
does he fail, as does Shakespeare's Richard III, physically to resemble
the proper ideal of a king; Richard II is said to "look[] like a king"
and to possess an eye that "lightens forth/Controlling majesty"
(3.3.68-70). H e is not overly hasty in demeanor like Shakespeare's
Richard III, nor is he piously oblivious to reality as is Shakespeare's
Henry VI. But he is, as critics since Swinburne have claimed and as
Milton himself might say, poetic. T h a t is, he is given to grandly
metaphoric utterance and prone, like Milton's Charles I, to "admira-
don and extasie" in his expression. 34 H e certainly employs the tropes
and devices of Petrarchan "Sonnetting" that Milton so dislikes in the
writings attributed to Charles, and he is remarkably inept in his
" m a n n e r " of delivering the very pieties demanded by his office.
T h r e e examples will clarify what I mean.
First, there is the way in which Shakespeare's play treats the iden-
tification of the kingly office with the divine rulership of Christ. What-
ever the potential that such an identification might be taken seriously,
the m a n n e r in which Shakespeare's Richard first invokes it manifests
the hollowness of the very trope he employs. Mistakenly interpreting
the somewhat enigmatic news that his in fact murdered associates
have " m a d e peace" with his enemies, Richard explodes in an expres-
sion of misplaced rage and awkward vehemence that claims for him-
self the mantle of Christ:
Three Judases, each one thrice worse than Judas!
Would they make peace? Terrible hell,
Make war upon their spotted souls for this! (3.2.132-4)
Even if one did not realize that Richard is totally mistaken in the
assumption that he has been betrayed by his friends, the orthodox
identification of monarch and Christ is here belied in the very form of
its assertion by virtue of the incredible hyperbole in Richard's claim
to have been betrayed by three Judases and by his adoption of the

34
Of Shakespeare's Richard, Swinburne writes: "The inspired effeminacy and the
fanciful puerility which dunces attribute to the typical character of a representative
poet never found such graceful utterance as the greatest of poets has given to the
unmanliest of his creatures, when Richard lands in Wales" (Algernon Charles
Swinburne, "King Richard II" (1909), in Richard II: Critical Essays, ed. Jeanne T.
Newlin [New York: Garland, 1984] 239-247; 243-244).
grotesque calculus that claims each of the betrayers "thrice worse
than J u d a s . " Such ridiculous overstatements only make the one who
utters them appear personally petulant and unkingly, an effect com-
pounded visually by his fit of misplaced wrath.
Similarly, with regard to the idea of cosmic hierarchy, the content
of Richard's statements is mocked by the form in which he utters
them. In lines that culminate with his invocation of the angels them-
selves as guardians of royal right, Richard demands aid from the
entire Chain of Being, including animals, vegetables, and minerals:
Feed not thy sovereign's foe, my gentle earth,
Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense,
But let thy spiders that suck up thy venom
And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,
Doing annoyance to the treacherous feet,
Which with usurping steps do trample thee;
Yield stinging netties to mine enemies;
And when they from thy bosom pick a flower,
Guard it, I pray thee, with a lurking adder,
Whose double tongue may with a mortal touch
Throw death upon thy sovereign's enemies. (3.2.12-22)
T h e only problem with this cosmic claim is that Richard's very next
line amounts to a disclaimer that takes back the possibility of unwit-
ting acceptance of what he says, for he orders his assembled onstage
forces to an awkward acquiescence: "Mock not my senseless
conjuration, lords." In its nervousness about being mocked or appear-
ing senseless to others, this line conveys a deeply unsettling self-con-
sciousness. It is as if the monarch were himself aware of the merely
ideological nature of his own royal claims without being able to stop
himself from uttering them, and it also suggests that the other actors
onstage must be about to give evident physical expression to a
skepticism about the very idea of cosmic ontological order. 3 0
W h e n it comes to solar kingship, moreover, Richard is equally
assertive and equally prone to articulations that overplay the claim to
the point of self-parody. Not content to claim kingly power in rising
to his throne like the sun, Richard goes on to assert (mistakenly) that
his political opponents will collapse in ontological terror before his
mere presence:

So when this thief, this traitor, Bolingbroke,

Shall see us rising in our throne the east,

30
Cf. Richard's remark to Aumerle at Flint Castle, "I talk but idly, and you laugh
at me" (3.3.171).
 His treasons will sit blushing in his face,
Not able to endure the sight of day,
But self-affrighted tremble at his sin. (3.2.27-53)
This predicted collapse of the opposition never occurs. In fact, Shake-
speare , s play shows a direct line of causality connecting such naive
conceptions of solar kingship on Richard's part to the subsequent
political debacle that ultimately prompts Richard's self-recognition
as—à la Milton's Charles I — m o r e like "glist'ring Phaethon" (3.3.178)
than like the sun itself.3'5
In these and similar cases we see Shakespeare performing much
the same iconoclastic mutilation of an individual monarch and of
traditional grounding discourses of monarchy as an institution that
we find in Milton. In the Shakespearean instance, the implication to
be derived from the deformation of the monarch is not the abolition
of the institution itself, but a revised view of its nature. Objectified as
a calling rather than as a birthright, monarchy becomes in Shake-
speare's later history of Henry IV, the sequel to Richard II, a matter of
being judged for having or lacking the right stuff, and the essential
qualities for this tightness are not inherited nobility or regality of
nature, but self-conscious skills and practices of strategy, planning,
and self-representation. T h e charge that Milton lays upon King
Charles and that might equally apply to Shakespeare's character of
Richard II that he had so "weakly...plaid the King" (3:408) is a
charge that could never be laid against Shakespeare's young Prince
Hal, who is seen positively for playing all the right roles in the d r a m a
of state, and for playing none of them "weakly." T h a t is a further,
and very interesting, story.

36
An utterance which might achieve something of tragic grandeur as anagnoresis
but that is compromised by Northumberland's immediate reaction to it: "Sorrow and
grief of heart/ Makes him speak fondly like a frantic man" (3.3.184-5).
 PICTURES VERSUS LETTERS:
WILLIAM W A R B U R T O N ' S T H E O R Y O F
GRAMMATOLOGICAL ICONOCLASM

J A N ASSMANN

1
T h e ancient Egyptians have always been held to be the para-
digmatical or archetypal idolators, and the iconoclasm of the second
c o m m a n d m e n t has always been understood as having been directed
primarily against Egypt. Was not Egypt the nation out of which the
Lord redeemed his people? Speaking of iconoclasm means to speak of
anti-Egyptianism, of exodus, separation and rejection with regard to
the world of images. T h e debate between Egyptian iconists and anti-
Egyptian or Biblical iconoclasts has many aspects. In the following
paper I am choosing one of them for closer study, an aspect which as
far as I can see has up to now received only very little attention: the
grammatological aspect of iconoclasm. Since iconicity, writing and
revelation are central topics within a dialogue I am entertaining with
Moshe Barasch over many years, I dedicate this essay to him, to
whom it owes so much inspiration.
T h e discovery of a manuscript of Horapollo's Hieroglyphica on the
island of Andros in 1419 led to a linguistic and semiotic revolution.
T h e ancient debate as to whether words referred to things and con-
cepts 'by nature' (physei) or 'by convention' [thesei) which seemed to
have been closed once and for all by Aristotle in favor of 'convention'
was re-opened with the discovery of a writing system that was
(mis)interpreted to refer 'by nature' to things and concepts. Due to
this discovery, the linguistic debate between 'Platonists' and 'Aristote-
lians' turned into a debate on writing. But now, with regard to writ-
ing, it was no longer a question of either/or, that is, whether writing
refers direcdy to things or indirecdy to language, but a question of
comparison and historical development. T h e r e were two principally
different writing systems, presumably in use side by side in ancient
Egypt, one referring to things and concepts "by nature", that is
iconically, and the other one referring to concepts and sounds "by
convention", that is by arbitrary signs. Ancient Egypt was held to be
a culture that not only invented Hieroglyphs as a system of picture
writing or natural signification but that also invented alphabetic writ-
ing as a system of conventional signification. 1
T h e idea that ancient Egypt used two radically different scripts
was based upon ancient tradition. Almost all of the Greek and Latin
authors on Ancient Egypt, above all Herodotus and Diodorus, agreed
that the Egyptians used two scripts, one called "Hieratic" or "Hiero-
glyphic" and the other one called "Demotic" or "Epistolic". T h e
Hieratic or Hieroglyphic script was interpreted as sacred (hieros =
sacred), inscriptional [glyph - "carved" sign) and iconic, the Demotic
or Epistolic script was interpreted as profane (demos - c o m m o n peo-
pie), used for everyday communication (epistole = correspondence) and
aniconic, that is, alphabetic. All this corresponds closely to historical
reality as far as modern Egyptology is able to reconstruct it except
one detail: the equation of aniconic and alphabetic signs. T h e Egyp-
tians distinguished between what they called "epistolary script" (zh r
šC.t) and "divine speech" (md.t ntr). Epistolary script is what we call
today "Demotic" and refers to the vernacular language; "divine
speech" refers to the classical language and has a cursive form called
"Hieratic" and an inscriptional and iconic form called "Hiero-
glyphic". If we concentrate on the outward appearance of the signs,
we should distinguish three different scripts; if, however, we concen-
träte on the languages written by these scripts, we are dealing with
two different scripts one of them occuring in a cursive and in an
iconic form. T h e ancient authors, accordingly, speak partly of three
and partly of two Egyptian scripts. T h e first to give an account of
Egyptian digraphia is Herodotus. T h e most famous and influential
description, however, is given by Diodorus:
Dillon gar Aiguptiois onion grammâton, The Egyptians use two different scripts:
til men demode prosagoreuômena pántas
manthánein, one, called "demotic", is learned by all;
til dè hierà kaloumena the other one is called "sacred".
para min toîs Aiguptiois monous This one is understood among the
gignôskein Egyptians exclusively
tous hiereîs para ton patéron by the priests who learn them from their
fathers
en aporrhétois manthänontas, in the mysteries. 2

1
Concerning the grammatological discourse on hieroglyphs in early modernity
see especially Liselotte Dieckmann, Hieroglyphics, St Louis 1970; Madeleine V. David,
Le débat sur les écritures et I'hieroglyphic aux XVIIe et XVIIle siècle, Paris 1965. Erik Iversen,
The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition, Copenhagen: Ced Gad Publ.,
1961; repr. Princeton, 1993. "
2
Diodorus, bibl.hist., III.3,4.
T h e existence of two different scripts is explained by a functional and
social distinction: the distinction between the sacred and the profane,
priests and laymen, secrecy and publicity. For the scholars of early
modern Europe, it was more than plausible to link this situation of
digraphia with what Heliodorus and other ancient authors described
as the Egyptian "duplex philosophy", a vulgar or exoteric one and an
exclusive or esoteric one, one for the priests and one for the people.
Egyptian culture and its writing systems, therefore, became interest-
ing for scholarship in two regards: first and foremost, because it of-
fered a system of "natural signs", a "scripture of nature," a writing
which would refer not to the sounds of language, but to the things of
nature and to the concepts of the mind. Secondly, because it supple-
mented and contrasted this natural system with a conventional one
and showed beyond any reasonable doubt, that picture writing or
immediate signification was a matter of esotericism, mystery and the
tradition of sacred knowledge whereas alphabetic writing was a mat-
ter of general and profane communication.
In this image of ancient Egyptian grammatology, there was thus a
close connection between iconicity and sacredness. Religion, priest-
hood, and mystery used icons, while the alphabet dominated the
state, administration, and the public domain. This association of pic-
ture writing, that is, the principle of immediate and natural significa-
tion, with the mysteries of Egyptian religion, gains an utmost
importance for the debate which I am going to relate in the following
pages. T h e sacredness of hieroglyphs was identified with the principle
of immediate signification. Immediacy is the key word in this context:
the signs conveyed their meaning without mediation either by lan-
guage or by a conventional code. T o quote Ralph Cudworth's défini-
tion: " T h e Egyptian hieroglyphicks were figures not answering to
sounds or words, but immediately representing the objects and concep-
tions of the mind." 5 This inteq3retati0n of the Egyptian hieroglyphs
was based particularly on a famous passage in Plotinus which reads as
follows:
The wise men of Egypt, I think, also understood this, either by scientific
knowledge or innate knowledge, and when they wished to signify some-
thing wisely, did not use the form of letters which follow the order of
words and propositions and imitate sounds and the enunciations of philo-
sophical statements, but by drawing images [agalmata] and inscribing

s
Ralph Cudworth, The True Intellectual System of the Universe: the First Part, wherein All
the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted and its Impossibility Demonstrated ( 1 st ed.
London: 1678; 2nd ed. London: 1743) 316.
 them in their temples, one beautiful image for each particular thing, they
manifested the non-discursiveness of the intelligible world. Every image is
a kind of knowledge and wisdom and is a subject of deliberation. And
afterwards [others] deciphered [the image] as a representation of some-
thing else by starting from it in its concentrated unity, already unfolded
and by expressing it discursively and giving the reasons why things are
like this.4
This is how Marsilio Ficino commented on this passage:
The discursive knowledge of time is, with you, manifold and flexible,
saying for instance, that time is passing and, through a certain revolution,
connects the beginning again with the end... The Egyptian, however,
comprehends an entire discourse of this kind by forming a winged ser-
pent that bites its tail with his mouth. 3
"Using an alphabet of things and not of words," wrote Sir T h o m a s
Browne in the first half of the seventeenth century, "through the
image and pictures thereof, they (the Egyptians) endeavoured to
speak their hidden contents in the letters and language of nature."
God created the world as symbols and images and the Egyptians
merely imitated the creator. Their system of writing was held to be as
original and natural as Adam's language which immediately trans-
lated God's creatures into words. 6
Hieroglyphic writing, therefore, was held to be not only a system
of communication but also and above all a codification of sacred
knowledge and divine wisdom. It was both natural and cryptic,
whereas alphabetic writing was held to be both conventional and
clear. Hieroglyphs were invented by the Egyptians for the purposes of
mystery, for the transmission of esoteric knowledge, the Alphabet was
invented for the purposes of communication, administration and
documentation.

4
Plotinus, Enneades V, 8, 5, 19 and V, 8, 6, 11, quoted after Moshe Barash, Icon.
Studies in the History of an Idea, New York 1992, 74f. . Cf. A. H. Armstrong, "Platonic
Mirrors," Eranos 1986 vol. 55 (Frankfort: Insel, 1988) 147-182. On Plotinus' concept
of non-discursive thinking see Richard Sorabji, Time, Creation and the Continuum. Theo-
ries in Antiquity and in the Early Middle Ages (Ithaca, NY: Cornell UP, 1983) 152f.
5
Marsilio Ficino, In Plotinum V, viii, = P.O. Kristeller, Supplementum Ficinianum.
Mamlii Ficini Florentini philosophi Platonici Opuscula inedita et dispersa, 2 vols. (Florence:
Olschki, 1937-45 repr. 1973) 1768, quoted after Dieckmann, Hieroglyphics, 37. Cf.
Edgar Wind, Pagan Mysteries in the Renaissance (New Haven: Yale UP, 1958) 169ff.; M.
Barasch, Icon, 75.
6
Cf. Umberto Eco, IM ricerca della lingua perfetta nella cultura europea (Rom and Bari:
Laterza 1993). Cf. Aleida Assmann, "Die Weisheit Adams," Weisheit, ed. Aleida
Assmann (Munich: Fink, 1991) 305-324.
 2
This reconstruction of Egyptian grammatology became more compli-
cated when Giordano Bruno and others introduced an evolutionary
perspective. For Giordano Bruno, hieroglyphs were the original
script, whereas alphabetic writing was a later invention.
.... the sacred letters used among the Egyptians were called hieroglyphs ...
which were images ... taken from the things of nature, or their parts. By
using such writings and voices, the Egyptians used to capture with mar-
vellous skill the language of the gods. Afterwards when letters of the kind
which we use now with another kind of industry were invented by
Theuth or some other, this brought about a great rift both in memory
and in the divine and magical sciences.7
Bruno refers to Plato's famous passage in Phaedrus.8 Plato is opposing
writing (in general) against oral communication, not phonographic
writing against picture writing. But Bruno's reading of the tale opens
a highly interesting view on the mnemotechnical properties of
hieroglyphs.‫ '־‬Plato warns that writing will destroy memory because it
makes people rely on external signs instead of interior insight and
recollection. In Bruno's interpretation, the king is afraid that
T h e u t h ' s invention of phonographic letters will destroy the Hermetic
knowledge stored in the hieroglyphic images. Not "memory" as a
h u m a n faculty, but the ars memoriae of the hieroglyphic system will be
destroyed by the invention of letters.
Plato, as a matter of fact, thinks of "alphabetic writing" when he
speaks ο{ grammata. In his later dialogue Philebus (18b), he returns to
the myth of T h e u t h as the inventor of writing. Here, he makes it

' Giordano Bruno, De Magia (Opera Latina III, 411-412), quoted after Frances
Yates, Giordano Bruno 263. The connecdon between hieroglyphics and magic is pro-
vided by the church historian Rufinus who reports that the temple at Canopus was
destroyed by the Chrisdans because there existed a school of magic arts under the
pretext of teaching the "sacerdotal" characters of the Egyptians (ubi praetextu
sacerdotalium litterarum (ita etenim appellant antiquas Aegyptiorum litteras) magicae artis erat paene
publica schola\ Rufinus, Hist.eccles. XI 26).
8
Phaedrus 274c-275d cf. Jean Pierre Vernant, "Le travail et la pensée technique,"
in J.P. Vernant, Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs: études de psychologie historique (Paris: F. Mas-
péro, 1971) 16-43. Cf. Plato, Philebus 18b-d, where the 'letters' of Theuth resemble
those of the Greek alphabet and refer to sounds, thus being phonographic instead of
hieroglyphic.
9
O n hieroglyphics and memory cf. Francis Bacon, Advancement of Learning (Lon-
don, 1605) II, XV, 3: "Embleme deduceth Conceptions Intellectuall to images sensi-
ble, and that which is sensible, more forcibly strikes the memory, and is more easily
imprinted, than that which is Intellectuall".
perfectly clear that we are dealing with alphabetic writing. Theuth's
discovery concerns the distinction between the infinite variety of
sounds and the finite n u m b e r of what we call "phonemes". This
discovery enables him to invent letters (stoicheia) for each of those
phonemes. 1 0 Bruno obviously combines the two versions of the myth
in making T h e u t h the inventor not of writing in general, but of the
alphabet in particular. H e knew that the Egyptians used Hieroglyphs
as a pictorial script referring not to sounds but to things—signa rerum,
non autem sonorum. Thus, Plato's myth could only refer to the invention
of a second script, the alphabet.
This evolutionary interpretation of Egyptian writing was taken up
150 years later by William W a r b u r t o n , an Anglican bishop, aristocrat
and h o m m e de lettre. H e was not only a friend of Alexander Pope
and edited the works of Shakespeare but also published a m o n u m e n -
tal work in nine books and three volumes on The Divine Legation of
Moses (1738-1741).
W a r b u r t o n contended that Hieroglyphs were original and that al-
phabetic letters were only a secondary invention. But he also wanted
to show, that originally, Hieroglyphs had nothing to do with mystery,
esoteric knowledge and Hermeticism. These functions and qualities
were only developed within the hieroglyphic system when it was inte-
grated alongside with alphabetic letters into the system of digraphia.
His argument was simple and reasonable. H e looked into the origins
of other writing systems and found that no original writing was ever
invented for the sole purpose of secrecy. W a r b u r t o n based his dem-
onstration on Chinese and Mexican scripts, using whatever informa-
tion was available in his time from missionaries and travellers. T h e
Egyptian method of figurative writing by picturing "things" and using
the properties of things in order to denote undepictable meanings
requires a vast knowledge of natural history. This ingenious observa-
tion of W a r b u r t o n explains the striking analogies between
Horapollo's interpretations of hieroglyphics on the one h a n d and
codifications of ancient natural sciences such as Aelianus, Pliny, and
the Physiologus on the other. 1 1 Unlike all other scripts, the Egyptian

10
See Robert Eisler, "Platon und das ägyptische Alphabet", in: Archivßir Philosophie
XXXIV, 1922, 3-13.
11
Cf. Erik Iversen, The Myth of Egypt and its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition (1961),
2nd ed., Princeton, 1993; 48: "The relations between sign and meaning were accord-
ing to Horapollo always of an allegorical nature, and it was always established by
means of exacdy the same sort of 'philosophical' reasoning which we find later in the
Physiologus and the bestiaries of the Middle Ages."
hieroglyphs remained a "Dingschrift" (signa rerurrì) and thus a codilica-
tion of cosmological and biological knowledge. O t h e r writing systems
lost this epistemological connection with the visible world and turned
into purely conventional codes.
After this demonstration of origins, the ground is prepared for the
next step: the question of "how hieroglyphs came to be used to con-
ceal knowledge." Again, Warburton's explanation is most ingenious.
Precisely because the Egyptian script did not take the common course
from picture to letter, it became complex and developed into
polygraphy. While other civilizations changed their script according
to the general gravitation from pictures to letters, the Egyptians kept
their ancient pictorial system alongside with their new alphabetic
script. Yet Warburton's reconstruction is even more complex. H e
refers to Porphyry and Clement of Alexandria and combines their
seemingly divergent descriptions in order to arrive at a system of
tetragraphy. Porphyry writes in his Life of Pythagoras that Pythagoras
during his long sojourn in Egypt became initiated into the three kinds
of Egyptian writing, the Epistolographic, the Hieroglyphic and the
Symbolic script. T h e Hieroglyphs denoted their meaning by imita-
tion (kata mimesin), the Symbolic script by enigmatic allegories (kata
tinas ainigmous). Clement describes the curriculum of an Egyptian pu-
pil. First, he learns the Epistolic writing, then proceeds to the Sacer-
dotal script, and only exceptionally arrives at Hieroglyphics which is
the last, most difficult, and most accomplished script. Hieroglyphs
signify either through "elementary letters" (dia ton proton stoicheion) or
through symbols of which there are three kinds: mimetical (kata
mimesin), tropical (tropikos) and allegorical (or enigmatic) ones. T h e
mimetical symbols direcdy depict what they signify, the tropical sym-
bols use several metaphorical or metonymical ways of signification
and the allegorical symbols are enigmatic. For m o d e r n egyptology, it
is perfectly easy to correlate both Porphyry's and Clement's descrip-
tions with the late Egyptian situation. T h e y are referring to what we
call Demotic, Hieratic and Hieroglyphic. For Warburton, however,
these data were not yet available. W a r b u r t o n thinks that each of the
two authors is omitting a script that the other one mentions. Por-
phyry omits Clement's "Sacerdotal" writing, Clement omits Porphy-
ry's "symbolic" script. Thus, W a r b u r t o n arrives at a system of
tetragraphy: Epistolic, Sacerdotal, Hieroglyphic, and Symbolic. T w o
of them he thinks to have been iconic (Hieroglyphic and Symbolic),
the other two alphabetic (Epistolic and Hieratic). T w o belong to the
public domain: Hieroglyphic and Epistolic, and two to the domain of
the sacred and secret: Symbolic and Hieratic.
 Function

public domain secrecy

(official script) (priestly script)

System pictures Hieroglyphs Symbolic

letters Epistolic Hieratic

W a r b u r t o n thinks that Clement is describing not the curriculum of an

Egyptian pupil but the development of Egyptian writing: starting with
D e m o d e , developing into Hieratic, and ending up with Hieroglyphic.
Therefore, he thinks it necessary to correct Clement in this point and
to invert this sequence. In the history of writing, Hieroglyphic came
first, then Sacerdotal and finally Epistolic and Symbolic. By turning
Clement's pupil into a people, W a r b u r t o n develops a theory of cul-
tural evolution based on grammatology which became of utmost im-
portance for the 18th century. Within this grammatological
reconstruction of h u m a n evolution, the invention of alphabetic writ-
ing constituted a revolutionary step.
For Warburton, this event occurs with the invention of epistolic
writing which he takes to be alphabetic. This invention occurred
somewhere midway in the long history of Egyptian civilization. A
secretary of Pharaoh made this discovery which originally was used
only for the private correspondence of the king. W a r b u r t o n refers like
Bruno to Plato's Phaedrus.'‫ ־‬Like Bruno, W a r b u r t o n thinks that Plato's
objections against writing do not concern memory but memorized
knowledge. In the same way as Bruno, W a r b u r t o n interprets hiero-
glyphic writing as a kind of mnémotechnique. H e points out that
hieroglyphs presuppose a vast a m o u n t of knowledge about the nature
of those things that are used for signs. Since virtually all existing
things are used for signs, this knowledge amounts to a veritable cos-
mology and the hieroglyphic system amounts to a veritable ars
memoriae.

12
Phaedrus 274c-275d cf. Jean Pierre Vernant, "Le travail et la pensée technique,"
in J.P. Vernant, Mythe et pensée chez les Grecs: études de psychologie historique (Paris:
F. Maspéro, 1971) 16-43. Cf. Plato, Philebus 18b-d, where the 'letters' of Theuth
resemble those of the Greek alphabet and refer to sounds, thus being phonographic
instead of hieroglyphic.
 M e n ' s attention would be called away from things, to which hieroglyph-
ics, and the manner of explaining them, necessarily attached it, and be
placed in exterior and arbitrary signs, which would prove the greatest
hindrance to the progress of knowledge. 1 3

Thanks to the wisdom of their kings the Egyptians never gave up

their systems of "thing-writing" and confined the new alphabet to the
specific purposes of correspondence.

Following Warburton's reconstruction, we are now approaching the

time when Moses "was brought up in all the wisdom and sciences of
the Egyptians" (Acts 7:22) and when with Moses and revelation the
problem of idolatry and iconoclasm arose. At Moses' time, all four
scripts were already in use. Moses, educated in all four kinds o f E g y p -
tian writing, had the choice which script to use in order to write down
the Law. For this purpose, only a script was to be considered appro-
priate that was commonly accessible and aniconic in order to con-
form to the second c o m m a n d m e n t and to the task of making the Law
known to all the people. T h e epistolic writing fulfilled both these
requirements. Moses had just to purge the letters of all iconic traces.
According to Warburton, the second c o m m a n d m e n t was explicitly
directed against hieroglyphs because G o d had recognized that the use
of hieroglyphic writing would necessarily lead to idolatry.
T h e second c o m m a n d m e n t prohibiting idol-worship has two dif-
ferent implications. 14 It is mostly understood in the sense that God
must not be represented because he is invisible and omnipresent. 1 '
But as W a r b u r t o n correctly points out, the same c o m m a n d m e n t also
prohibits the making of "any graven images, the similitude of any
figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is
on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flieth in the air, the
likeness of anything that creepeth on the ground, the likeness of any
fish that is in the waters beneath the earth" (Deut 4:15-18,
Warburton's translation). Warburton's interpretation emphasizes the
anti-Egyptian meaning of the prohibition of idolatry. It is the exact
"normative inversion" of the very fundamental principles of Egyptian

13
William Warburton, The Divine Legation of Moses Demonstrated on the Principles of a
Religious Deist, from the Omission of the Doctrine of a Future State of Reward and Punishment in
the Jewish Dispensation, 1738-1741, vol. 2, 428.
14
Cf. M. Barasch, Icon.
15
Cf. M. Halbertal, A. Margalit, Idolatry, Cambridge, Mass., 1982, 37-66 ("Idola-
try and Representation").
writing, thinking, and speaking: " D o not idolize the created world by
<hieroglyphic> representation. 5 ' T h e second c o m m a n d m e n t is the re-
jection of hieroglyphic knowledge and memory because it amounts to
an illicit magical idolization of the world.
According to W a r b u r t o n , idolatry is an outgrowth of hieroglyphic
writing and thinking. It is a specifically Egyptian p h e n o m e n o n be-
cause Egypt is the only civilization that retained the pictorial charac-
ter of its writing and resisted the usual tendency towards abstraction.
T h e proof of this is to be seen in the fact that "brute-worship," the
worst form of idolatry, occurs only in Egypt. W a r b u r t o n goes on to
delineate different stages in the development of idolatry. In the first
stage, the figures of animals are just signs which stand for some tute-
lary gods or deified hero-kings. "This truth Herodotus seems to hint
at in Euterpe, where he says, the Egyptians erected the first altars,
images, and temples to the gods, and carved the figures of animals on
stones." 1 6 T h e second stage is reached when these figures are
worshiped on their own instead of being simply "read" as signs for
the various gods. This stage was reached during Moses' time, and
that is the reason why the second c o m m a n d m e n t prohibits the mak-
ing of images, not the worship of the things themselves. T h e worship
was still directed towards the image. For the same reason the He-
brews m a d e a Golden Calf as a substitute for Moses w h o m they
believed to be dead.
T h e Egyptians only later fell into worshiping the beasts themselves.
This is the last stage of "idolitis." T h e priests welcomed and fostered
this development because it protected the gods even more efficientiy
against being found out. T h e priests, at least those who passed the
most advanced initiations, knew the truth about the gods—that they
were only deified kings and lawgivers, and they had every reason to
make this origin of the gods invisible and to keep it a secret. T h e
representation of these deified mortals in the form of animals was a
first step towards making their origin invisible. It became even more
efficient when the people turned to worship the representations in-
stead of the represented. But absolute invisibility was reached when
the animals themselves came to be worshiped. T h e animals were the
perfect concealment for the gods.

16
Herodotus, Hist. II, ch. 4; cf. Alan Β. Lloyd, Herodotus Book II. Commentary 1-98
(Leiden: Brill, 1976) 29-33. Warburton interprets the word "zoa" which means "fig-
ure, image" (Liddle-Scott-Jones, p.760 a s.v. zoon II) as "animals."
 According to W a r b u r t o n this is the meaning of a fable which
Diodorus and Ovid tell about Typhon. 1 7 T y p h o n is seen as the per-
sonification of inquisitiveness and impious curiosity, the very charac-
ter that is so dangerous for the pseudo-gods. T h e fable tells how the
gods fled to Egypt before T y p h o n and hid there in the shape of
animals. T y p h o n is the Greek equivalent of the Egyptian god Seth,
who is actually represented in the Egyptian texts as threatening the
gods with the sacreligious discovery of their secrets. According to the
Egyptians, the secret of the gods is not the Euhemeristic concept of
their mortal past, but even this is not totally abstruse. T h e paradig-
matic secret, in Egypt, is the corpse of Osiris which must by all means
be protected against the assaults of Seth. T h e role of Seth as the
potential discoverer and violator of the corpse of Osiris was extended
in the Late Period to the notion of a general menace to all of the
secrets of all the gods. T h e r e was generally an enormous increase of
secrecy in the Egyptian cults during the Late Period. This is quite
natural under the conditions of foreign rule. Since this was the Egypt
which the Greek experienced and described, the emphasis laid on
secrecy and the fear of inquisitive curiosity becomes quite under-
standable.
W a r b u r t o n derives two Egyptian specialties from their writing sys-
tem. O n e is "brute-worship," the other specialty is the interpretation
of dreams. According to Artemidorus there are two kinds of dreams:
"speculative" (theorematikos) dreams and "allegorical" ones. 18 T h e
"speculative" dreams are just images of what they signify. They cor-
respond to the "curiological" hieroglyphs. By contrast, the allegorical
dreams need to be deciphered. T h e Egyptians were the first interpret-
ers of dreams because they were accustomed to the methods of deci-

17
See Diodorus, Bibl. I 86; Ovid, Met. V 32Iff.; Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride, c. 72;
Theodor Hopfner, in his commentary on Plutarch, De Iside II, Prague 1941, 264
gives the following additional refernences: Pindar frg 68 apud Porphyrius, De abstin.
Ill 16; Nigidius Figulus, Sphaera Graecan., 122/25 Sw.;Josephus Flavius, Contra Ap.
11,11; Apollodorus, Bibl. I 41; Hyginus, Astronom. II, 28; Nicandrus apud Antonin.
Liberal. 28. Ovid, Metamorph. Buch III, Nr.5, see also Lothar Stork, "Die Flucht der
Götter", in: Göttinger Miszellen 155, 1996, 105-108. 111 Diodorus I, cap. 86, the gods
are hiding in animal shapes for fear, not of Typhon but of human beings. Afterwards,
the gods declared the animals sacred in whose shape they had been hiding.
18
For Warburton's theory of dreams and hieroglyphs see Aleida Assmann,
"Traum-Hieroglyphen von der Renaissance bis zur Romantik", in: G. Benedetti, Ε.
Hornung, eds., Die Wahrheit der Träume, Eranos N F 6, Munich 1997, 119-144, esp.
123-126.
p h e r m e n t and could just " r e a d " the dreams where others guessed and
puzzled. But the art of oniromancy could only develop when hiero-
glyphics became sacred " a n d were made the cloudy vehicle of their
theology." 1 9 This must have happened, however, before the time of
Joseph. 2 0 T h e development of symbolic hieroglyphics as a sacred
cryptography must already have been developed in Joseph's time
because oniromancy, a subdiscipline of cryptography and decipher-
ment, was already in use. Four hundred years later, in Moses' time,
the use of hieroglyphs had already given rise to a general idolization
of "things" to such a degree that G o d had to explicitly prohibit the
use of hieroglyphs in the second c o m m a n d m e n t . But it is also clear
that the Egyptians had not yet reached the stage of brute-worship
because the Hebrews m a d e a Golden Calf instead of worshiping a
living bull when they fell back on Egyptian customs.
Idolatry and brute-worship are aberrations of the h u m a n mind
that were implied in the hieroglyphic writing, because this script
turned and fixed the attention on the things of the world. W a r b u r t o n
explains idolatry as a sickness of writing, in the same way as more
than 100 years later Friedrich M a x Mueller explains myth as a sick-
ness of language. 2 1 Both idolatry and mythology result from a literal-
istic misunderstanding of metaphor.

3
H a i f a century after the first publication of Warburton's Divine Legation
of Moses, Moses Mendelssohn brought grammatology and theology in
an even closer connection in his booklet Jerusalem where he concen-
trates on the theological implications of writing. "Methinks", he
writes, "the changements of writing during the different periods of
culture have a big share in the revolutions of h u m a n cognition in

19
Warburton, Divine Legation vol. 2, 458.
20
It is typical of Warburton's way of argumentation that he forms this brilliant
insight into the relation between oniromancy and hieroglyphic writing (which will
become so important in the work of Sigmund Freud) in the context of a chronologi-
cal demonstration, thus forgoing the obvious possibility of interconnections between
the dream-book of Artemidoros and hieroglyphic theories of Hellenism.
21
"So oft man nun ein Wort, das zuerst metaphorisch gebraucht wurde,
anwendet, ohne sich über die Schritte, die von seiner ursprünglichen zu seiner
metaphorischen Bedeutung hinführten, ganz im Klaren zu sein, liegt die Gefahr der
Mythologie nahe; so oft diese Schritte vergessen und künsdiche Schritte an ihre Stelle
gesetzt werden, haben wir Mythologie oder wenn ich so sagen darf, krankgewordene
Sprache", F. Max Müller, Die Wissenschaft der Sprache, Leipzig 1892, II, 434-36,
quoted after Maurice Ölender, Die Sprachen des Paradieses, Frankfurt 1995, 90.
general and of their various religious convictions and conceptions in
particular. 2 ‫ '־‬Mendelssohn, too, assumes the first script to be pictorial
and imagines it as a kind of moralizing zoography, where "the lion
stands for braveness, the dog for fidelity, the peacock for fierce
beauty". 2 5 "If people, he writes, want to use the things themselves or
their images to denote concepts, there are no things more appropriate
and significant for the denotation of moral qualities than animals.
Every animal has its distinctive character and shows it immediately
by its external aspect." 2 4 "Even the poet, when he wants to speak of
moral qualities in metaphors and allegories, has recourse to the ani-
mal. Lion, eagle, bull, fox, dog, bear, worm, dove, all this speaks and
the meaning strikes the eye". 2 5
In the beginning, people think, speak and write in images; only
later do they turn to thinking in arguments, speaking in prose and
writing with letters. 26 T h e danger of picture writing lies in the confu-
sion of sign and signified. Thus, an innocent thing such as a mode of
writing can degenerate and turn into idolatry. But, Mendelssohn
adds, we must always be careful not to see everything through our
home-made glasses and to call idolatry what fundamentally might be
only writing. 2 ‫ ׳‬In order to avoid the pitfalls of idolatry, God had
Moses write down his laws in alphabetic letters, not in pictorial
hieroglyphs. But the law is in itself just another kind of writing and
this third form of writing is to Mendelssohn's eyes the most appropri-
ate form of transmitting religious conceptions. This is the function of
the ceremonial Law. Rites are a kind of practical hieroglyphs. Francis

22
"Mich dünkt, die Veränderung, die in den verschiedenen Zeiten der Kultur mit
den Schriftzeichen vorgegangen, habe von jeher an den Revolutionen der
menschlichen Erkenntnis überhaupt und insbesondere an den mannigfachen
Abänderungen ihrer Meinungen und Begriffe in Religionssachen sehr wichtigen
Anteil"—Moses Mendelssohn, Jerusalem, in: Schriften über Religion und Aufklärung, ed.
Martina Thom, Berlin 1989, 422f.
23
Mendelssohn, 426.
24
Mendelssohn, 430.
25
Mendelssohn, 430.
26
See for this idea already F. Bacon, The Advancement of Learning (1605; Oxford
1974, 98: "as hieroglyphics were before letters, so parables were before arguments;
and nevertheless now and at all dmes they do retain much life and vigour, because
reason cannot be so sensible, nor examples so fit."). The interpretation of the dis-
course on hieroglyphs in terms of cultural evolution and the assumption of a concrete
thinking, speaking and writing in images preceding the formadon of an abstract
tl1ir1king=speaking=writing in letters and concepts is shared by authors such as
Condillac, Diderot, Hamann and Herder.
27
Mendelssohn, 432.
 Bacon had already associated hieroglyphs with gestures, in calling
gestures "transitory hieroglyphs": "As for gestures, they are as transi-
tory hieroglyphics, and are to hieroglyphics as words spoken are to
words written, in that they abide not". 2 8 By means of the ceremonial
Law, G o d wanted to inscribe religious meaning in the everyday ac-
tivities of people. 2 9 T h e ritual writing serves as a kind of
mnémotechnique preserving religious knowledge without leading ei-
ther to idolatry as hieroglyphs do, or to dead abstraction as letters do.
" W e are lettrified beings (Buchstabenmenschen). O u r whole nature
depends on letters". 30 T h e way of hieroglyphs leads to idolatry, the
way of letters leads to "lettrificadon", to abstract speculation, but the
Jewish way of halakha, the information of everyday life with religious
meaning, preserves the chosen people from both forms of dégénéra-
tion. 31
W h a t I find most interesting in this debate on hieroglyphs and
letters is the correlation of media, epistemology and religion. In our
century there have been similar debates on the implications of writ-
ing, connected with the names of Marshall M c L u h a n , J a c k Goody
and others. Eric Havelock coined the term "alphabetic revolution"
which he interpreted as a Greek achievement leading to abstract
thinking, logical reasonment, scientific research, technology and
everythings else which shaped Western culture including monotheism
and enlightenment. 3 2 T h e 18th century did not go that far. Scholars
of that time were operating within a far more restricted field of avail-
able data. Yet they were remembering what nowadays tends to be
forgotten: the fact that the invention of the alphabet (in the sense of
non-pictorial signs relating exclusively to sounds) was not a Greek but

28
For Bacon's interpretation of gestures as der transitory Hieroglyphs see Dedef
Thiel, "Schrift, Gedächtnis, Gedächtniskunst. Zur Instrumentalisierung des
Graphischen bei Francis Bacon", in: J.J.Berns, W. Neuber (eds.), Ars memorativa,
Tübingen 1993, 170-205, esp. 192f.; Peter Burke, Vico, Philosoph, Historiker, Denker einer
neuen Wissenschaft, Frankfurt 1990 (engl. 1985), 50.
29
"Mit dem alltäglichen T u n und Lassen der Menschen sollten religiöse und
sitdiche Erkenntnisse verbunden sein": Mendelssohn, 437.
30 « W i r sind Buchstabenmenschen. Vom Buchstaben hängt unser ganzes Wesen
ab.": Mendelssohn, 422.
31
Mendelssohn's cridcism of alphabetic writing comes close to a line of argumen-
tation which has been dealt with by Aleida Assmann as "Exkarnauon", see her ardcle
"Exkarnation. Über die Grenzen zwischen Körper und Schrift", in: J . Huber,
A.M.Müller (Hgg.), Raum und Verfahren, Zürich und Basel 1993, 133-156.
32
On these theories see Aleida and J a n Assmann, "Schrift—Kognition—Evolu-
tion. Eric Α. Havelock und die Technologie kultureller Kommunikation", in: Ε. A.
Havelock, Schriftlichkeit. Das griechische Alphabet als kulturelle Revolution, Weinheim 1990,
1-35, with extensive bibliography.
a Semitic achievement and that it was in fact ultimately derived from
Egyptian hieroglyphs. T h e idea to correlate this grammatological
revolution with an iconoclastic rejection of images, with monotheism
and what Freud called a progress in intellectuality (Fortschritt in der
Geistigkeit) is at least as interesting a phantasy as its modern correla-
tion with logical thinking, democracy and other allegedly Western
achievements. In the same way as monotheism could be regarded as
an exodus out of the cosmological shelter (or prison-house) of natural
religions or "cosmotheism", alphabetic writing came to be regarded
as an exodus out of the sensual involvement in the world of visible
forms. W a r b u r t o n and Mendelssohn were right: revelation could only
take place in a realm of signs, not of pictures.
 THE ROOTS OF MODERN ICONOCLASM

A L A I N BESANÇON

C o m m e vous le savez, la fete de l'orthodoxie, célébrée depuis 843

consacre la liceité de l'image divine et de son culte. U n procès com-
mencé par Platon et par Dieu lui même, dans son second commande-
ment, se conclut sur le triomphe des images. Cela fit qu'en Orient
l'art de l'icône, presque anéanti par la crise iconoclaste connut un
nouvel essor. Cependant il déclina et mourut au X V I I è m e sièle.
Pourquoi? La raison principale pourrait être que, maintenant que
l'image divine est autorisée, il ne vaut plus la peine de représenter
autre chose que Dieu. L'art profane, qui représente les choses du
Cosmos comme capable de porter quelque chose du divin se tarit. O r
il semble que le Ciel et la terre exigent également d ' ê t r e représentés,
et que si l'un ne l'est plus, l'autre ne l'est bientôt plus.
Pendant ce temps, en Occident, se multiplient les images avec une
abondance et une variété incomparable à tout ce qui s'était fait dans
l'antiquité et dans la chrétienté byzantine. Et on le faisait avec bonne
conscience parce que jamais la question de l'image n'avait revêtu
cette intensité dramatique qu'elle avait pris en Orient. Le texte clé
qui explique cette innocence retrouvée, est probablement la lettre
envoyée en l'an 600 par le pape Grégoire le G r a n d à Serenus, évêque
de Marseille qui avait brisé les images de sa ville épiscopale. Le pape
lui reproche se scandaliser les fidèles. L'image, poursuit il, est utile
pour apprendre aux illettrés les vérités de la foi, pour réveiller leur
piété. Autrement dit le pape, au lieu de poser la question de l'image
sur un plan métaphysique, c o m m e avait fait l'orient, la place sur le
terrain familier de la rhétorique. La fonction de l'image est celle
qu'assignait Cicéron à la rhétorique: docere, suadere, placere. Il en résulte
trois conséquences fondamentales. D ' a b o r d l'image n'est pas un objet
sacré. Elle est un simple adjuvant aux moyens véritables du salut que
sont les sacrements et l'Ecriture. Ensuite, dans sa fonction propre, elle
peut hériter de tous les procédés qu'avait accumulés l'art antique,
toujours exemplaire pour enseigner, persuader, plaire. Il n'est donc
pas nécessaire de changer d'art. Il n'y a pas d'art chrétien spécifique,
il y a l'art tout court. Enfin pour confectionner cet art, l'artiste a le
choix des moyens. Il ne lui m ê m e pas d e m a n d é d'être vertueux. Il est
déchargé du fardeau de la théologie que doit supporter l'iconographe
oriental.
 Tel est sans doute le secret de l'étonnante fécondité de l'art d ' O c -
cident, que cette liberté à l'égard de la théologie est jointe à la convic-
tion, cette fois théologique, que le Dieu qui a créé toutes choses étant
bon les a faites bonnes et équivallement belles. Constable a parfaite-
ment exprimé cette conviction q u a n d il a déclaré qu'il n'avait jamais
rien vu de laid. Ce n'est pas seulement le T o u t qui est beau, vérité
connue des Grecs, mais chaque chose, m ê m e la plus humble est belle
d'une double beauté, c o m m e créature—ce qui justifie le réalisme en
art—et c o m m e reflet de la suprême beauté de Dieu—ce qui justifie le
symbolisme. L'esthétique de saint T h o m a s est une esthétique typique-
ment occidentale de la belle ouvrage, du travail bien fait.
Ces principes n'ont fait que s'accentuer sans rupture j u s q u ' à la
renaissance, jusque dans l'art du concile de Trente. L'esthétique de la
belle ouvrage confère une dignité de plus en plus haute à l'ardste qui
devient le médiateur entre le public et les puissances célestes, dans la
mesure où le caractère épiphanique de l'oeuvre dépend de la qualité
d'éxécution. O n parle ainsi du divin Michel Ange, du divin Raphael.
L'introduction des dieux antiques et de la fable ovidienne ou
virgilienne dans le sujet, m ê m e religieux, des tableaux, permet de
restaurer le canon idéal de la beauté du corps humain, dont la grande
scholastique avait toujours dit qu'il était le sommet esthétique de la
création. Il permet aussi de déployer un aspect de l'art que saint
T h o m a s avait déjà aperçu, c'est à dire son lien avec le jeu, la récréa-
tion, l'otium noble.
Cela ne va pas sans susciter des réactions inquiètes, depuis Wycliff
j u s q u ' à Calvin qui tonne contre ce paganisme dont témoigne la re-
présentation moderne du divin. Mais au concile de T r e n t e l'Eglise se
contente, c o m m e elle faisait depuis Grégoire le G r a n d , depuis Char-
lemagne, à r e c o m m a n d e r l'honestum, le decorum, l'ornamentum. Elle fixe
avec indulgence une simple discipline de l'image. Q u e voulait l'Eglise
quand elle répondait au défi protestant par cette formidable inflation
de l'image qui caractérise l'exubérance baroque? Calvin l'accusait
souvent avec raison d'oublier le Dieu de l'Ancien Testament, le Dieu
d ' A b r a h a m , d'Isaac et de J a c o b . Mais l'Eglise s'efforçait d'éviter une
autre rupture qui l'aurait écartée de sa vocation catholique, c'est à
dire du rassemblement en son sein de ce qui vient des Gentils et de ce
qui vient d'Israël pour former un unique peuple afin de pouvoir un
j o u r rendre au Père un royaume au complet. La surabondance de
l'image dans l'art témoigne pour la surabondance de la grâce capable
d'imprimer aux statues d'évêques une liesse dansante et tourbillon-
nante et de jeter sur les supplices des martyrs un rayon de lumière
joyeuse. Elle fait confiance au fidèle, tenu pour suffisamment éduqué
pour être à l'abri de la tentation idolâtre, confiance dans la vertu
éducatrice de la rhétorique divine et confiance dans l'artiste dont la
moralité et même la foi personnelle peut être oubliée s'il ne pêche pas
dans son art.

Au moment m ê m e ou l'image connaît une sorte de feu d'artifice, un

nouvel iconoclasme se met en place. L'iconoclasme antique était né
au m o m e n t ou l'art grec s'épanouissait: il avait mis des siècles avant
de nuire à l'image. De même, l'iconoclasme moderne agira avec un
effet retard: au X X è m e siècle seulement.
Q u a t r e grands auteurs suffisent à caractériser le nouvel icono-
clasme, lequel, comme l'ancien, est à la fois religieux et philosophi-
que. Le premier est Calvin. Il retrouve les arguments classiques de
l'iconoclasme chrétien. Aucune image n'est capable de transmettre la
vérité sur le Dieu qui a choisi de se c o m m u n i q u e r aux hommes par la
Parole. C'est, de la part de l'Eglise, paresse ou trahison de confier à
d'indécentes et idolâtriques images le soin d'enseigner aux illettrés ce
qu'elle devait enseigner par l'écriture. Il déploie dans toute sa force le
second c o m m a n d e m e n t du décalogue, en s'appuyant sur les textes
patristiques appropriés. Mais Calvin est aussi un moderne, qui veut
débarasser le temple du fatras que le moyen âge y a entassé. C'est
dans un climat pré-cartésien qu'il pose la conscience individuelle, le
moi, en face de son créateur. La médiation des anges, des saints, de la
hiérarchie est récusée. Le Cosmos est une scène vide, désenchantée. Il
ne proclame plus la gloire de l'Eternel. Calvin cependant ne con-
d a m n e pas l'art. Si le temple doit rester vide, les murs de la maison
hollandaise peuvent se couvrir de tableaux qui témoignent d'une fa-
culté de représentation et de bon travail que l'homme a reçu de Dieu
pour sa seule gloire: Soli Deo gloria.
Pascal, à cause de l'hypercatholicisme de façade du mouvement
janséniste, se garde d'attaquer l'image. Mais il ne l'aime pas. Il y voit
une facilité, un signe d'une piété superficielle, d'une rhétorique capa-
ble de farder la vérité. De plus il est un savant pré-newtonien, pour
qui l'analogie entre le m o n d e et Dieu est dénuée de sens. T o u t ce que
le Dieu caché révèle de lui même, est dans l'intériorité du coeur, à
travers l'unique médiation du Christ. La paternité de Dieu est singu-
lièrement absente de la prière de Pascal.
Le Calvinisme, et dans une moindre mesure le jansénisme, sont
responsables d'une immense destruction d'images. La plupart des
primitifs français et hollandais, une importante partie de l'art anglais
ont été anéantis. Le mouvement philosophique dont je vais parler n'a
pas touché aux oeuvres faites, mais à miné à la source l'inspiration
des oeuvres à faire. Deux noms sont capitaux.
 K a n t a légué à tout artiste à venir deux concepts fatals. Le premier
est celui de génie. Le mot existait auparavant: il signifiait une excel-
lence dans le métier, une facilité extraordinaire à obéir aux règles de
l'art. Le génie kantien, n'obéit pas aux règles, il les donne. Il est une
sorte de médium en qui reposent les lois de la nature. Il est
supraconscient. Il est aussi inconscient parce que le génie ne sait pas
vraiment ce qu'il fait ni comment il le fait. Le génie ne s'apprend pas
ni ne s'enseigne. L'enseignement du métier est donc inutile, l'école
n'est q u ' u n lieu ou se produit la déflagration ou non du génie. L'ori-
ginalité absolue devient la condition de l'art.
Le second concept est celui de sublime. Le sublime, c'est l'absolu-
ment grand, et en cela il porte un n o m divin. K a n t distingue le
sublime "mathématique", qui est un " m a x i m u m " qui surpasse le pou-
voir de l'imagination. Il rejoint alors la méditation de Pascal sur les
deux infinis. Puis le sublime "dynamique" qui est un mouvement
intérieur à la raison dans lequel elle se sent dépassée, ce qui lui donne
le sentiment de sa propre grandeur et de sa vocation à l'absolu. Ici,
K a n t rejoint la méditation de Pascal sur le roseau pensant. M a t h é m a -
tique ou dynamique, le sublime kantien ne peut donner naissance à
aucune image, et c'est pourquoi K a n t ne trouve rien de plus sublime
dans toute la Bible que le deuxième c o m m a n d e m e n t qui l'interdit.
Calvin, Pascal, Kant, traduisent la convergence de trois courants
modernes: un intellectualisme, qui désincarné l'idée de Dieu et tend à
l'assimiler à la force organisatrice du monde. U n courant élitaire, qui
dédaigne la religion populaire, assimilée à la plus basse superstition.
Enfin un courant mystique, très ancien, qui méprisant les rites et les
représentations recherche, selon le Christ, un culte en esprit et en
vérité.
Le quatrième grand auteur est Hegel. Dans sa monumetale Esthé-
tique, il met au centre de toute forme d'art l'image de Dieu. L'art est
une épiphanie. Mais il introduit une dimension historique: le dévelop-
pement de l'art s'identifie au développement de l'idée de Dieu, qui est
le développement de Dieu lui même. Dans cette immense histoire, il
distingue trois étapes: l'art "symbolique" ou primitif, où l'idée divine
n'arrive pas à se faire j o u r dans la représentation; l'art classique, qui
est l'art grec, où le dieu ne fait q u ' u n avec sa représentation; enfin
l'art romantique, c'est à dire chrétien, où l'art s'intériorise, se réfugie
dans l'âme. Mais conclut Hegel, l'art est désormais une chose du
passé. La foi, qui soutenait l'art est morte. L'art, continuant sur son
mouvement continu de spiritualisation, se dissout en Begriff, en pur
concept. Il fait place à la philosophie.
Il est dur pour l'artiste moderne de vivre à l'ombre de K a n t et de
Hegel. K a n t lui impose d'être génial. Le simple talent, l'excellence
dans le métier, sont dévalués, humiliés. Il lui impose l'originalité abso-
lue, c'est à dire qu' avant toute oeuvre il doit consacrer l'esentiel de
ses forces créatrices à se trouver un style. Il ne peut plus accepter
d'avoir un maître, de faire partie d'une école. En outre, il doit
oeuvrer dans le c h a m p du sublime, parce que le simple beau ne suffit
plus et qu'il est dévalué par l'ambition de sublime. O r le sublime
inhibe l'image, inhibe le patient travail de l'art. L'artiste est tenté de
donner à contempler non pas son oeuvre, mais sa disposition inté-
rieure à l'art, dont l'oeuvre, si elle existe encore, est seulement le
signe. K a n t renchérit sur Plotin.
Mais si l'artiste par miracle se hausse au niveau de génie et du
sublime, Hegel vient lui dire qu' il est trop tard. Quelqu'un l'a de-
vancé dans l'invention de la formule, le cubisme, l'abstraction, le pop'
ou le miminal art: tout cela doit être produit, au juste moment histo-
úque, just in time. Nous entrons dans le m o n d e de la critique du déjà et
du pas encore. Hegel vient encore insinuer à l'artiste que l'art est une
chose du passé et qu'il perd son temps. Après avoir mis l'art et l'ar-
tiste sur un piédestal, Hegel l'en fait descendre et l'enterre.
Avec une prescience prodigieuse Hegel définit les quatre voies que
va nécéssairement prendre l'art au X I X è m e siècle. C o m m e la prédic-
tion me parait juste, je vais essayer de suivre ces quatre voies.
La première voie, serait de retourner ou de continuer ce que
Hegel appelle l'art romantique, c'est à dire chrétien. Mais c'est une
voie sans issue: il n'y a plus assez de foi pour peindre sérieusement le
Christ et la Vierge comme le faisaient les peintres germaniques mé-
diévaux. O n ne produirait q u ' u n art faux et artificiel. Hegel a-t-il eu
raison? J e ne peux entrer dans le détail. Mais il faut constater l'échec
rapide des nazaréens allemands; l'énorme déchet de la peinture reli-
gieuse française. En Angleterre la confrérie pré-raphaélite se lança
avec un grand courage dans une peinture d'inspiration religieuse.
Assez vite la peinture de Rossetti, de Burne-Jones délaissa cette inspi-
ration et se laissa submerger par un érotisme envahissant, préparant
le symbolisme et les provoquantes illustrations d'Aubrey Beardsley.
La seconde voie serait de retourner à l'art que Hegel appelle sym-
boliste, c'est à dire un art sacré primitif où l'effet est obtenu par par
une analogie obscure entre la forme, souvent d'apparence mons-
trueuse, et le contenu mystérieux et indéfini, par exemple le sphinx
d'Egypte. Cette voie a en effet été explorée, avec pour guide initiati-
que le grand adversaire de Hegel, Schopenhauer, qu'ont lu la plupart
des écrivains et des artistes de la fin du X I X è m e siècle. Schopenhauer
radicalise la dichotomie entre le génie et celui qu'il appelle l'homme
ordinaire. Le génie est doté d'une vision de l'autre monde, du m o n d e
plus réel que le m o n d e illusoire de l'homme ordinaire, il pénètre de
l'autre côté du miroir des apparences. Il est capable de s'arracher à la
fatalité biologique du vouloir vivre. U n artiste, un peintre, communi-
que sa vision à l ' h o m m e ordinaire, lui prête un instant son génie. Il
est un philosophe naturel, et qui plus est un philosophe schopen-
hauerien. C'est pourquoi tant d'artistes, c o m m e Klimt, Stuck, Klin-
ger, Beardsley, M o r e a u , Burne-Jones, Khnopf, M u n c h , mettent en
image le thème schopenhaurien de la femme fatale, coupeuse de
têtes, castratrice, Méduse, J u d i t h , ou Salomé, donnant simultanément
la mort et l'orgasme dans un ton de luxure sacrée.
A la fin du siècle, les artistes cherchent en effet à retrouver le sacré
par deux chemins. L'ésotérisme déferle en une énorme vague à tra-
vers les productions de Schuré, Péladan, M m e Blavatsky, Steiner,
Ouspensky que lisent avidement les peintres. Cette littérature les con-
firme dans l'idée qu'ils sont des initiés, arrachés à l'ignorance de la
foule. Ils espèrent grâce à cette gnose entrer en communication avec
les forces cosmiques. L'ésotérisme intoxique l'artiste d'une chimère de
pouvoir. De Gauguin aux débuts du Bauhaus, en passant p a r K a n -
dinsky, Malévitch et Mondrian, l'ésotérisme hante le monde de l'art.
Mais pour atteindre le sacré, il y a un autre chemin plus direct, c'est
d'imiter la démarche du sorcier nègre ou océanien, sculpteurs naïfs
de masques et de totems d ' u n e extraordinaire force expressive. Alors
les peintres utiliseront les couleurs pures, sorties du tube, les contours
brutaux, le dessin simplifié. Fauves français, expressionnistes aile-
mands, surréalistes, cherchent à produire un art porteur d'une puis-
sance religieuse, mais dont la religion demeure, c o m m e l'avait vu
Hegel, à tout jamais inconnue et impénétrable. Esotérisme et primiti-
visme visant le m ê m e point sont contemporains: la nouille mystique,
les mauves et les violets du symbolisme coexistent avec la brutalité
colorée des expressionnistes.
La troisième voie prévue par Hegel passe par !'experience solitaire
du génie kantien, qui éprouve en lui m ê m e le sublime de l'absolu-
ment grand. Le peintre, pour parler c o m m e Nietzsche, crée ses pro-
près valeurs. Il les trouve dans sa subjectivité, qui, seule est en contact
avec l'absolu. Q u a n d on lit les écrits de Kandinsky, particulièrement
" D u Spirituel dans l'art", on le voit se retirer dans l'expérience inté-
rieure et dénier toute possibilité à la représentation du cosmos d'at-
teindre le divin. C'est à travers des formes et des couleurs
complètement détachées du réel externe, que l'artiste exprime son
moi profond qui est en continuité avec les forces divines. C'est par
une désincarnation radicale que Kandinsky tournant le dos à la tradi-
tion chrétienne espère parvenir à un nouvel âge qui sera celui de
l'Esprit. O n peut parler d ' u n joachimisme pictural.
C'est ainsi que l'art abstrait nait chez Kandinsky, Malévitch, M o n -
 drian, d'une aspiration religieuse et même mystique. Il retrouve le
grand argument de l'ancien iconoclasme, à savoir que la représenta-
tion des choses est incapable de contenir l'Absolu. Mais d'un autre
côté l'art abstrait s'imagine iconophile, car il pense donner une image
de l'absolu, mais en renonçant à toute référence à la nature. Dans le
triangle posé p a r Augustin, de l'âme, de Dieu et de la nature, un
Kandinsky laisse tomber la nature pour garder le face à face de Dieu
et de l'âme? Mais est-ce réellement fécond ?
La quatrième voie prévue par Hegel lui avait été suggérée par la
peinture hollandaise. Peinture dégagée du religieux, entièrement
vouée à la contemplation des choses, image d'une société heureuse et
libre, c'était, disait Hegel, la peinture du "dimanche de la vie". Mais
il remarquait que dans ces natures mortes, ces tables couvertes de
poissons, de citrons épluchés, de chopes de bière, le sacré sourdait
tout seul, le religieux remontait. T o u t se passe comme si dans le
triangle augustinin, il valait mieux conserver l'âme et la terre, parce
que dans ce cas, Dieu revient et s'impose tout seul.
O r c'est cette quatrième voie de la peinture, la plus modeste, q u ' a
emprunté une partie de l'Europe post-hégélienne, la peinture an-
glaise, j u s q u ' à T u r n e r , la peinture danoise de l'âge d'or, les
machiaioli italiens et surtout la peinture française. L'histoire de l'art
décerne souvent à la peinture française du X I X è m e siècle un brevet
d'avant garde. C'est le contraire qui est vrai. Si on dresse génération
par génération une liste parallèle des peintres français et des peintres
du reste de l'Europe, on constate que la nouvelle théologie romanti-
que de l'image a été presque ignorée par la France. Sans doute la
révolution et l'empire avaient gelé le paysage et empêché d'entrer les
effluves de l'eshtétique romantique. T o u j o u r s est il que, de Delacroix
aux impressionnistes, les peintres français ne se sont pas mis sous le
j o u g du génie et du sublime. Ils sont restés fidèles à une esthétique du
voir et du faire. Du voir: c'est à dire l'étude de la nature et l'art du
percevoir. Beaudelaire plaçait le génie dans l'enfance, car c'est à cet
âge que la perception est forte, naive, fraîche. Du faire: depuis Dide-
rot, j u s q u ' à Fromentin et Fénéon, en passant par les Goncourt et
Baudelaire, la question de la critique fut: est-ce ou non de la bonne
peinture? S'abstenant de considérations philosophiques et religieuses,
l'esthétique à la française s'efforce d'être une école de conoisseurship.
Elle garde toujours une curiosité pour le métier de peintre, pour la
cuisine d'atelier.
Tel fut l'idéal des impressionnistes: rivaliser avec les maîtres dans
l'étude et le représentation de la nature. Cependant, vers 1880, avec
Gauguin et les symbolistes, sous l'influence de l'ésotérisme, l'ambition
de création pure se fait j o u r et la peinture française se rapproche de
l'esthétique c o m m u n e européenne. C o m m e au m ê m e moment les
peintres allemands et russes puisent dans les découvertes formelles des
Français pour la plier à leur esthétique à eux, cela engendre de mul-
tiples contre sens et quiproquo. Matisse et à bien des égards Picasso
maintiennent cependant l'originalité archaïque de l'esthétique fran-
çaise, avec sa référence aux maîtres anciens, la capacité de peindre
avec plaisir et sans dégoût le corps nu de la femme, le goût pour le
beau plutôt que pour le sublime. La chute finale intervint en 1940,
qui vit la translatif) artis de Paris vers New York. Depuis l'Amérique,
qui impose depuis la guerre sa prépondérance artistique, c'est l'esthé-
tique romantique du sublime qui a triomphé dans le m o n d e entier.
Nous attendons, sous le pathos tragique qui domine aujourd'hui, le
retour dans la peinture du "dimanche de la vie"
L'hybris romantique d ' u n rapport direct avec le divin, et qui se
passe de la médiation de la nature, des choses, essaye désespérément
de créer des objets remplis de sacré. Le plus souvent ils n'obtiennent
pas ces objets, mais seulement donnent à voir le pathos et l'angoisse
où cette hybris les a plongés. Si on vise Dieu seul, on perd la terre et
Dieu se cache. Si on vise aussi la terre, voire seulement la terre, on a
quelque chance de voir se produire une épiphanie.
 T H E ABSENT ARTIST

PETER SPRINGER

With the motiv of the absent artist I want to point to a very special way
of representing an artist as—more or less—vacant, void or empty
space. T h a t means: I do not want to speak about the better known
related type of painting where the absent artist is represented by his
portrait as a picture within a picture (his "representative likeness" /
stellvertretendes Bildnis) or where he is represented by his work (like
in the famous examples by Fantin-Latour for Delacroix and by
Maurice Denis for Cezanne). 1
In 1814 Leon-Mathieu Cohereau (1793-1817), a pupil of Jacques-
Louis David, painted a picture of a studio-scene with memorial sig-
nificance. This painting shows a bare, tall room of the Academie in
Paris. Here we see eleven (with Cohereau twelve!) pupils of the great
master assembled. Standing before their easels or sitting and drawing,
they are studying the nude: facing them poses a male model. In the
centre of the painting, between the students on the left and the nude
model on the right, an isolated easel is standing, on which a covered
canvas can be seen. (Exactly where the head of the person belonging
to it could be expected, the diagonals of the picture are crossing—
surely not by accident.)
Easel and canvas refer to Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825); they
represent the absent artist. In other words: David is absent in person.
But at the same time he is present (not so much in his covered,
hidden work) in the instruments of his profession. T h e great dominât-
ing window as the origin of the light in this room is partly covered. In
its lower part it is darkened by wooden panels, so that—like a gate—
only a narrow gap releases the view outside. T h e connection between
the motif of the gap and the real origin of the light could also be
an allusion to David, being out of the room, out of the scene—like
the sun. So David, at the same time absent and present, is the real
centre of the picture. In this way the painting points to the political
status of the artist who, after the restoration of the Bourbons, had to

1
This paper is confined to some aspects concerning only one motif from a chap-
ter which is part of a much larger work about "ARS LONGA—ardstic strategies of
memory" on which I am working.
retire from public life in 1814 before he finally went into exile to
Belgium.
T h r o u g h the twelve pupils, the light, the hidden canvas and
through the instruments of his profession, the pattern of this picture
may remind us of equivalents in Christian iconography, where the
vacant centre—for example in descriptions of the Ascension—refers
to the absent Christ.
W h e n Charles Dickens died in 1870, the illustrator and painter
Luke Fildes (1844-1927) m a d e a wooden engraving, showing Dick-
ens' study on the morning after his death. Preliminary sketches focus
only on the main motif: " T h e empty chair...". Vincent van Gogh,
who collected this as well as similar popular wooden engravings, was
stimulated by them to produce his own works, which today are world
famous. 2
T h e motive of the empty chair is rooted in the much older motive
of the empty throne (Etoimasia), belonging to the sphere of political
and christian iconography. 5 In the latter one, a m o n g other things, the
empty throne means it is prepared for the final j u d g e m e n t or refers to
the invisible presence of Christ. V a n G o g h — p e r h a p s because of the
calvinistic ban on pictures—did not refer directly to this point, but he
meant something similar. V a n Gogh picked up the "sdll life-like"
motive and the symbolic meaning of the empty chair during a period
of his life when he dreaded loss. In this sense we see "paintings [...]
with almost prophetic character". 4
In a letter to his brother, V a n Gogh explained that he transmits
this pattern (as a m e t a p h o r of memory) to other artists and also—it
seems—to himself: "»Edwin Drood« was Dickens' last work"—he
writes—"and Luke Fildes, known to Dickens through his illustration

2
Cf. Werner Hofmann, Die Geburt der Moderne aus dem Geist der Religion, in:
exh.eat. Hamburg 1983/84, 58: "Dieses Verfahren, das Nicht-Anschaubare als ein
physisch Abwesendes einzugrenzen, hat Van Gogh von dem Engländer Luke Fildes
übernommen [...]."—Werner Hofmann, "Seltene Paare," in Werner Hofmann,
Bruchlinien. Aufsätze zur Kunst des 19. Jahrhunderts (München 1979) 147-165.- A. M. and.
Renilde Hammacher, Van Gogh. Die Biographie in Fotos, Bildern und Briefen (2d ed.;
Frankfurt a.M./Olten/Wien Ì983), 61, flg. 36,—Chetham, Copies, 178-180, fig.
128a.
!
Cf. Gertrud Schiller, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, (6 vols.; Gütersloh 1971)3.
193-202.‫ ־‬The motive of the empty throne was already connected with Van Gogh
by Hans Sedlmayr. (The last chapter of his famous book Verlust der Mitte. Die bildende
Kunst des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts als Symptom und Symbol der Berlin 1966 (1. ed.
1948), in which he also mentions Van Gogh, bears the tide "Der leere Thron".—Cf.
Ingo F. Walther and Rainer Metzger, Vincent van Gogh. Sämtliche Gemälde, (2 vols. Köln
1994), 1. preface p. 7-11.
4
Chetham, Copies, 178.
of this work, entered his room on the day of his death, saw his empty
chair [...]. Empty chairs—there are a lot of them, there will be more,
and sooner or later there will be only empty chairs instead of artists
like [...] Luke Fildes [...] and so on". 5
Immediately before V a n Gogh's dream of an "Atelier du Midi", a
community of artists in Aries, ended up as a failure and Paul Gauguin
left the Yellow House in December 1888, V a n Gogh started his
painting "Gauguin's c h a i r ' V ' T h e empty chair" (Amsterdam,
Rijkmuseum Vincent van Gogh). He wrote to an art critic about this
picture: "I tried to paint his empty space." 6 A little while later he
painted "Van Gogh's chair", as an equivalent which was meant to
represent his own self (London, National Gallery).
T h u s the different chairs characterize the different personalities of
the two artists. T h e lighted candle together with two books on
Gauguin's armchair, the pipe and the tobacco pouch on the straw
seat of van Gogh's rustic chair implore, as accessories, a relaxed
homeloving atmosphere, in complete contrast to the real quarrels.
T h e same could be considered for the characterisation of both pic-
tures as day and night views, as opposites and complementaries. After
the end of the friendship between the two artists, this pair of empty
chairs implies a loss. So, at the same time it is a symbolic m o n u m e n t
dedicated to the end of the "Atelier du Midi", as well as to the death
of an idea.
"In the 19th century the symbol of the empty chair meant the loss
of a loved one, and usually implied death. T h e dead person had
owned the chair and the articles usually scattered on it. M a n y varia-
tions of this theme were known to van Gogh." 7 As Charles C h e t h a m
proved in his dissertation, van Gogh picked up a motif which was
popular at that time. T h e r e are several examples in addition to that
of Fildes which link the empty chair with the chair in the empty study
in memorial-like implications.
Immediately before he created his pair of empty chairs, van Gogh
painted the famous view of his bedroom in Aries. T h e empty chair
and the empty room are both appearing as "constructions of almost
physiognomic insistence". Because of the way the lonesome artist
combines a lot of things in this room in pairs—two chairs, two bot-
ties, two pillows and even the paintings are grouped as a pair—the

5
Van Gogh, Briefe, vol. 2, 158, no. 252.
6
Van Gogh, Briefe, vol. 6, no. 626 to Albert Aurier, from ca. Febr. 12th 1890.
Cf. also the letters vol. 4, 219, no. 563 and 232, no. 571.—exh.cat. Van Gogh in Aries,
(New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984/85).
7
Chetham, Copies, 178f., fig. 128 b-d.
picture has been rightly judged as a self-portrait-like projection of his
own wish for h u m a n engagement.
V a n Gogh's influence on Egon Schiele (1890-1918) is well known.
T h e young artist worshipped van Gogh as a great idol and figure of
identification. H e not only picked up van Gogh's motives on several
occasions, he also saw himself as van Gogh's ardstic heir. "Schiele
considered himself as van Gogh's legitimate successor and equal ri-
v a l . " 8 — F o r the nineteen year old Schiele, the "Internationale
Kunstschau" Vienna 1909, must have been like a revelation: For the
first time he saw van Gogh's "Bedroom of the artist in Aries".
Schiele's patron, the industrialist Carl Reininghaus, later bought this
version (Chicago, T h e Art Institute).
But Schiele's painting " T h e room of the artist in N e u l e n g b a c h ' 7
" M y living r o o m " from 1911 (Wien, Histor. Museum der Stadt Wien)
is more than a repetition of this famous pattern, more than just a
" H o m a g e to V a n Gogh." 9 Obviously for Schiele, as for V a n Gogh,
"items of his personal surroundings could act as a kind of representa-
tive self-portait, because the artist identifies with them, projects his
"self' into them, and therefore charges these unimportant objects and
rooms with meaning." 1 0
Schiele underlined the special importance and various meanings of
this rather insignificant picture for himself—as a picture of identity,
as symbolic self-portrait, as homage-picture, as biographical docu-
ment and as "a definition of his artistic position"—by signing it three
times! So, the triple signature seems to represent the inhabitant; it is a
substitute for the absent artist. 11
In addition, van Gogh as well as Schiele reflect the fact that in the
19th century a "room with a soul" could achieve the qualities of a
cultural m o n u m e n t , and was regarded as the shadow of its former
inhabitant. O n e version of this interpretation is the "cult about the
home of a famous person, especially of artists. Houses of artists be-

8
Buchholz, Interieurbild, 146.
9
Buchholz, Interieurbild, 136.
Ιύ
Buchholz, Interieurbild, 136.‫ ־‬Kallir, Schiele, 306, no. 220,—Cf. Almut Krapf-
Weiler, "Zur Wirkungsgeschichte Vincent van Goghs in Wien," in: exh.cat. Essen/
Amsterdam 1990/91, 423-425, p. 425: "[...] auch die Art der Individualisierung des
Gegenständlichen erinnert an die von Van Gogh 'porträderten', mit persönlichen
Attributen versehenen Sessel von Gauguin und ihm selbst."
11
Cf. Fred Leeman, "Reflections of Van Gogh in the work of some masters of
early modern art," in: Tsukasa/Rosenberg, ed., Mythology 74, related to fig. 38: "[...]
the depiction of his room might be seen as a symbolic self-portrait. [...] Seen in this
light, the prominent triple signature might be interpreted as a gesture of appropria-
tion."—Cf. Buchholz, Interieurbild, 140.
came places of remembrance after the death of their inhabitants, they
were documented by pictures or kept as a complete ensemble." 1 2 So
portrait-like rooms and portrait-like objects are only two kinds of
existence through things (Dingpräsenz)•
"Everything is living dead." ("Alles ist lebendig tot.")—Schiele's
famous sentence from 1910 is not only paraphrasing the tension of his
oeuvre between extreme consciousness of the body and visional con-
sciousness of death, it also points to his animated perspective of only
so called "dead things".This also refers to the artist himself. In 1911
Schiele, under the tide "Self-portrait" varies this thought: "I am hu-
man, I love death and I love life." 13
After the outbreak of World W a r O n e , Schiele is occupied with
the project of a mausoleum, which should be decorated with frescoes.
Not only the contemporary cult of the hero would have been eel-
ebrated here, but also Schiele's belief in art (Kunst-"Glaube"). 1 4 As a
sacral complement to V a n Gogh's "Yellow house" this building, dedi-
cated to death, obviously would also have incorporated components
which related to Schiele himself, because the actual contents would
have been his art.
O r , in the words of W e r n e r H o f m a n n : "Convinced by the 'holi-
ness' of his artistic duty, Schiele d e m a n d e d a temple-like building for
his pictures [...]. T h e evangelist has replaced the gospel: not the art,
but the artist himself takes up the proclamation. T h e idea of a concili-
atory Gesamtkunstwerk is dropped, the temple of art, which Schiele will
never experience himself, [...] serves as the representation of a single
person [ . . . ] " — a n d this person is the artist himself. In addition to this,
Schiele often characterises himself in his self portraits as an hermit,
monk, prophet, saint, martyr—or even as Christ.
For the exhibition of the "Wiener Sezession" in March 1918
Schiele designed a poster showing the portrait of a group. Next to
Schiele, at the narrow side of the table shaped like an L, are shown
his artist friends. For some time Schiele had the idea of painting a
great group-portrait of all his friends, life-sized, sitting around a table.
Even if the identification of the persons shown is not quite clear and
therefore varies, the changes of the motif in different drafts and oil

12
Buchholz, Interieurbilder, 141.
13
Egon Schiele, Selbstbildnis, zit. nach Hofmann, Schiele, 149.
14
Schiele, in connection with the hope to preserve Klimt's house and studio after
his death, spoke about a museum of the "Klimt-Glaube" (belief in Klimt) and—
similarly—relating to himself: "Früher oder später wird ein Glaube zu meinen
Bildern [...] entstehen." Quoted from Comini, Portraits, 205f, notes 95 and 102.
sketches preparing the poster are remarkable. 1 ' Whereas in the draw-
ings the frontal figure is separated from the others and moved away
from the table, an oil sketch shows a person seen from behind in the
place of honour at the frontal end of the table, that means opposite
from Schiele. But on the final poster version the chair remains empty.
T h e supposition is clear, that Klimt should be shown here, because he
died just some weeks earlier.
Lately this identification has been strengthened by Alessandra
Comoni, pointing to a detail:
The empty chair opposite Schiele's own [...] may [...] be understood as
symbolizing the missing friend and artist. Close study of the litographic
poster copies reveals the scrawl of Klimt's distinctive signature faindy
indicated on the right-hand page of the book in front of the empty chair.
The partly shown book of manuscript in front of the second empty chair
(to the right) has no »signature« and the identity of the person it might
represent can only be conjectured. 16
T h e similarity with the motif of T h e Last Supper has often been
rightiy noticed, and it has been pointed out that this theme is not
really suitable for a poster for an art exhibition. 1 7 This was probably
the reason why Schiele replaced the plates by books in the final
version of the picture. "In keeping with the 'Last Supper' theme, the
figure at the foot of the table may represent Christ; in the poster, this
figure probably became irrelevant, and Schiele assumes the dominant
position at the head of the table." 1 8
"Absent Presence" 1 9 —closely connected with this metaphor of
death is one of the most fascinating concepts for a m o n u m e n t , chal-
lenged by m o d e r n art. In 1928 Pablo Picasso planned a m o n u m e n t to
honour Apollinaire. H e picked up an idea which Apollinaire himself
described in 1916 in his novel "Le poete assassine". In this novel a
sculptor wants to build a m o n u m e n t for a poet—not a traditional
m o n u m e n t made of marble or bronze, but a "statue" of the hollow
form of the poet buried in the earth, as a "hole, filled with his spirit".
Not only Picasso was fascinated by this paradoxical idea of sculptur-
ing an empty space, building an immaterial m o n u m e n t made out of
nothing and emptiness ("statue en rien, en vide").

‫ י י‬For the identification of the people portrayed by Schiele compare Kallir (Schiele,
342, no. 323) and Wolfgang Georg Fischer (Egon Schiele, 1890-1918. Pantomimen der
Lust— Visionen der Sterblichkeit (Köln 1964) 42f.—For sketches, preliminary stages and
variations of the modf realized in the poster cf. Kallir, Schiele, no. 323-325.
16
Comini, Portraits, 185,—Cf. ibid. 250, note 96.
17
Kallir, Schiele, 342.
1(1
Kallir, Schiele, 342.
 In 1965 Claes Oldenburg picked up this idea and developed the
project of a "negative m o n u m e n t " . His "Proposed Underground
Memorial and T o m b for President J o h n F. Kennedy" intended a
similar hollow form, the same size as the Statue of Liberty, which
should be buried in the g r o u n d — h e a d first. Only one year later
Oldenburg transferred this idea of an "upside down" m o n u m e n t to
his own person (that means at least as photographic reversal of an
empty pedestal occupied by the artist)—but without mentioning
Apollinaire and Picasso.‫"־‬
It was a G e r m a n artist who realized the idea of Apollinaire and
Picasso by imitating them (but also without naming them). H e also
relates the idea self-referentially to his own person, carrying it out as
a m o n u m e n t for an artist, like a self portrait:
Timm Ulrichs—that is the name of the artist—below the earth crust"
(1972/80). "It is a matter of a life-sized [...] 'negative monument'—he
said—a monument of myself and for myself, which is buried in the earth
[head first]. The soles of my feet, touching the earth crust from below,
allow a look inside my hollow body, which is only air, empty space and
emptiness in the ground, like the people of Pompeii, buried under lava
and later cast in plaster [...]. 21
So it is up to the viewer to imagine not only the invisible sculpture but
also to fill its empty hollow-form with his own ideas and memories.—
Normally, provocative emptiness as a way to stimulate memory is
more often connected with architecture. A famous example is the
building dedicated to the painter Mark Rothko in Houston, Texas. 2 2
Originally the "Rothko-Chapel" was designed by Philip J o h n s o n for
the campus of the Catholic University of St. T h o m a s in Houston,
where it was intended to mark a group of buildings with "monastery-
like character."
Finally it developed from an originally christian church room to an
unusual chapel without any liturgical centre like an altar, only
equipped with 14 paintings by a jewish painter, who has officially

19
Cf. Thomas H. Macho, Todesmetaphem. Zur Logik der Grenzerfahrung, (edition
suhrkamp 1419/NF, vol. 419; Frankfurt a. M. 1987) 2.
20
Cf. Claes Oldenburg, Proposals for Monuments and Buildings 1965-69 (Chicago
1969) 146f., fig. 54; cf. ibd., fig. on p. 37.
21
"Timm Ulrichs: auf der Unterseite der Erdoberfläche," in b.b.b.-Express. Zeitung
des 5. bergkamener bilder basars (Beilage), Stadt Bergkamen, Kulturdezernat, ed.,
(Bergkamen 1980); quoted from: Timm Ulrichs "Der Blitz—ein Zeichen Gottes?," in
exh.cat. Timm Ulrichs (Kunstpreis der Norddeutschen Landesbank Girozentrale), Kubus
Hannover (Braunschweig/Hannover 1983) 37, note 53.
22
Barnes, Rothko Chapel.—Sheldon Nodelman, The Rothko Chapel Paintings. Origins,
Structure, Meaning. The Menil Collection (Austin 1997).
given his name to it. Architecture as cover for stage productions
points to the connection between seeing and remembering, but at the
same time you can look at the architecture as a completely empty
container, pure space. It seems to be a building full of contradictions,
neither just a museum nor a simple memorial building, neither just a
room for various cults, nor just a room for meditation only. Since its
consecration in 1971 the Rothko-Chapel has been used for varied
ecumenical purposes, for religious and cultural events, for prayers
and masses, for meetings, concerts and readings. In 1988 the range of
uses was even extended to personal ceremonies such as baptisms, bar
mizvahs, weddings and memorial services. 23
This wide variety of functions incorporates the primary function,
because above all the Rothko-Chapel is, according to the wishes of
the painter, "the simple, environmental, one-man museum." 2 4 Sacral
and profane components meet museum- and memorial-like in many
ways in the Rothko-Chapel. And the artist—like a patron or saint—
is not actually present in person but only through his paintings. And
all these different components and aspects are combined with his
name, so that, above all, this building seems to be a semi-sacral me-
morial-museum-monument.
Therefore, this museum could be regarded at the same time as an
object of art and the object of art as a museum. Additionally the
Rothko-Chapel is a "Gesamtkunstwerk" and "a temple of harmony",
which—according to the artist's intention—should be visited as "a
kind of pilgrim journey." 2 ^ T h e hidden sacralisation of the museum
corresponds to the obvious profanation of the sacral room. H e r e the
cult of the saint is replaced by the cult of the artist.This is consistent
with Rothko, who temporarily had planned shrine-like architecture
for his works—but for one picture only.26
This corresponds to the characterization of the Rothko-Chapel by
Robert Hughes:
It is hard to enter the Rothko Chapel without emotion, for its huge
obscure paintings [...] have had the memorial dignity of funeral stelae

23
Barnes, Rothko Chapel, 124.—Cf. also Bernhard Kerber, "Die ökumenische
Kapelle in Houston," in exh.cat. Gegenwart—Ewigkeit. Spuren der Transzendenz in der
Kunst unserer £eit, Wieland Schmied u. Jürgen Schilling, ed., Martin-Gropius-Bau
(Berlin 1990) 65-70.
24
Barnes, Rothko Chapel, 104. Since the 60's Rothko worked at a "environmental
installation of his work".
25
Breslin, Rothko, 464.
26
Breslin, Rothko, 464: "[...] a series of small one-man or even one-paindng muse-
ums, wayside chapels that travelers come to visit and contemplate."
 given them by Rothko's death. Subjecdess, formless [...], and almost
without internal relationships [...], they represent an astonishing degree
of self-banishment. All the world has drained out of them, leaving only a
void. [...] In effect, the Rothko Chapel is the last silence of Romanticism.
The viewer is meant to confront the paintings in much the same way as
the fictional viewers, gazing on the sea in a Caspar David Friedrich, were
seen confronting nature: art, in a convulsion of pessimistic inwardness, is
meant to replace the world.27
In this hybrid building the components relating to the artist were
particularly emphasized by the fact that, in 1970, Mark Rothko
commited suicide. With the death of its patron, the Rothko Chapel
took on the importance of a memorial and architectural m o n u m e n t
to the artist. So it is not surprising that the first impression of visitors
often is: "this building looks more like a tomb than a chapel or a one-
man museum." 2 8
Outside the Chapel, Barnett Newman's "Broken Obelisk" corre-
sponds in a special, fitting way to this interpretation of the Rothko
Chapel as a mausoleum-like m o n u m e n t for an artist. After all, the
great steel sculpture was erected exactly on the middle axis of the
building and opposite the main entrance to the Rothko Chapel—in a
"reflecting pool", so that Obelisk and pyramid are doubled through
the reflection in the water. But this meaningful location is countered
by the fact that the sculpture was not originally created for any spe-
cific place. T h e donors de Menil wanted the steel sculpture—of
which there are two more copies—to be placed in Houston as a
m o n u m e n t for the murdered Martin Luther King. Only after the city
refused this m o n u m e n t did the "Broken Obelisk" receive its present
function, for which it seems perfectly suited in form and meaning. 2 ' 1
"Broken Obelisk", is an Obelisk irregularly broken at its highest
point, balancing on the top of a pyramid, an apparently unstable
construction. T h e fascination of this construction not only results
from the " d r a m a of contact" (Lawrence Alloway). In fact the Obelisk
stands on its head, that means on its spire. For this reason the first
dominating impression of destroyed vigour and premature end—fa-
miliar from the traditional meaning of the broken column—seems to
be reduced or even reversed.
T h e interpretation of the symbolic meaning of obelisk and pyra-
mid is changing, depending on the context. Some, pointing to the

27
Hughes, Shock, 323.
28
Breslin, Rothko, 486, 463.
29
Cf. for the dedication Barnes, Rothko Chapel, 90-99,—Alloway, On Sculpture, 22-
24.
function of the broken obelisque as a symbol in the 17th and 18th
century, stress its meaning as a m o n u m e n t of d e a t h . — O n the other
hand: " T h e ,broken' top is a symbol of infinity [...]. T h e sculpture,
then, is not a confrontation with death, nor with the dead-directed
religion of Egypt; [...] It is a celebration of life, of birth and renewal,
in art, in man." 3 0
This interpretation can refer to the fact that originally the symbol
of the pyramid was not a symbol of death or tomb, but the symbol of
a "place of ascent". Therefore the Obelisk with its gilded top, reflect-
ing the sun light, was originally seen as a symbol of life and remem-
brance. But at the same time there is the connection between the
motif of the broken top and the extended motif of the broken column
as traditional metaphor of death. So the combination of the broken
Obelisk on a pyramid can be seen as a symbol of life and a sign of
triumph over darkness and death, which—like stability and frailty—
includes at the same time its opposite: or, as Stephen Polcari noticed:
"from death to life to death, and back again." 3 1

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Alloway, Lawrence, "On Sculpture", Arts Magazine 45 (May 1971) 22-24.

Barnes, Susan, The Rothko Chapel. An Act of Faith (Austin 1989).
Breslin, James E.B., Mark Rothko. A Biography (Chicago/London 1993).
Buchholz, Elke Linda, "Das private Interieurbild als künsderische Standort-
bestimmung," in Pia Müller-Ramm, ed., Egon Schiele. Inszenierung und Iden-
tität (DuMont Taschenbücher 309; Köln 1995) 134-158.
Chetham, Charles, The Role of Vincent van Gogh's Copies in the Development of His
Art (New York/London, Harvard University, 1976).
Comini, Alessandra, Egon Schiele's Portraits (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London
1990).
exh.cat. Hamburg 1983/84, Werner Hofmann, ed., Luther und die Folgen für
die Kunst, Hamburger Kunsthalle (München 1983).
Erpel, Fritz, ed., Vincent van Gogh. Sämtliche Briefe (6 vols.; 1965/1968; re-
printed Frankfurt a.M., Lamuv/Zweitausendeins, 1985).
Hess, Thomas, Barnett Newman. The Museum of Modern Art, New York
(New York 1971).
Hofmann, Werner, "Egon Schiele," in Werner Hofmann, ed., exh.cat. Ex-
periment Weltuntergang. Wien um 1900, Hamburger Kunsthalle (München
1981) 147-152.
Hughes, Robert, The Shock of the New (New York, Alfred A. Knopf, 1996).
Kallir, Jane, Egon Schiele. The Complete Works (New York 1990).

30
Hess, Bamett Newman, 123.
31
Stephen Polcari, "Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk," in Art Journal 53 (1994)
no. 4, 48-55, esp. 54.
 ICONOCLASM O N T H E 20TH CENTURY MUSICAL
S T A G E ( S C H Ö N B E R G , H E N Z E A N D GLASS)

WOLF-DANIEL HARTWICH

I
Eigtheenth to twentieth centuries' art and art criticism of the Penta-
teuch show that modernity perceived monotheism as a religious revo-
lution and regarded it as a cultural challenge. In the 18th and 19th
century there were two opposite tendencies in estimating the effect of
Moses and his religion. Moses was generally celebrated as the very
model for a philosopher and statesman because he was the first to
base a state upon 'reason', for example as Schiller emphasizes in his
lecture Die Sendung Moses.1 O n the other hand, the effect of mosaic law
upon fine arts, which formed the aesthetical paradigm in Goethe's
time, was almost seen as destructive. According to Schiller's famous
poem Die Götta Griechenlands, the invention of the one transcendent
God destroyed the 'beautiful world', which was expressed within the
polytheistic pantheon and its pictorial representation.
This opinion on Moses' achievement shows an analogy with an-
other subject of 19th century aesthetics, that is, romantic music
theory. From Wackenroder up to the late Richard Wagner musical
art work was regarded to be distinguished by its abstraction and its
lack of images and terms thus being predestined to be a medium for
the absolute divine. In this respect absolute music was mainly associ-
ated with Christianity; and the artists became its true prophets. 2
Referring to this background in the following I would like to out-
line how the monotheistic revolution has become the subject of the
musical theatre in the 20th century. Within this process the Christian
horizon is widened and the origins of monotheism and its iconoclastic
impulse in Egypt, Israel, and Greece are discussed. In the plays, such
founders of a religion as Moses, Pentheus, and Akhnaten serve as

1
Wolf-Daniel Hartwich, Die Sendung Moses: Von der Aufklärung bis Thomas Mann
(München: W. Fink Verlag, 1997).
2
Enrico Fubini, Geschichte der Musikästhetik: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart (Stutt-
gart/Weimar: J.B.MetzIer Verlag, 1997) 204-232; Wolf-Daniel Hartwich, "Religi ü n
und Kunst beim späten Richard Wagner: Zum Verhältnis von Ästhetik, Theologie
und Anthropologie in den 'Regenerationsschriften'", Jahrbuch der deutschen
Schillergesellschaft 40 (1996) 297-305.
examples for the relation of art and politics, and of sensuality and
abstraction. In this context the religious counter-movements against
monotheism become very important; these counter-movements can
be qualified as nomoclastic, i.e. antinomian, as they aim at over-
throwing the iconoclastic law.

II
In the 20th century the most important attempt to put the foundation
of Judaism on the stage are the two acts of Schönberg's Moses und
Aron, written between 1928 and 1932. Although up until 1950
Schönberg was at a loss for an appropriate finale, he left the opera as
a fragment. It was T h e o d o r W . Adorno who pointed out that Jewish
iconoclasm forms the central motif in the opera. 5
By opposing the two leader figures, Moses and Aron, Schönberg
describes a contradiction in the biblical story; this contradiction had
previously been discovered in the biblical criticism of enlightenment.
T h e biblical text inappropriately materializes the transcendent, uni-
versai and imageless G o d since Moses announces him through "signs
and wonders" and grants the Hebrews a homeland in the n a m e of
the L O R D .
In Schönberg , s opera, Moses feels the inadequacy of available ex-
pressive means to deliver his message; therefore it is Aron who turns
Moses' thoughts into images and promises his people "the land where
milk and honey flows". In doing so, Aron goes so far as to sensualize
the sacred in the form of the golden calf as well as to re-introduce the
pagan blood sacrifices and fertility rites. T h e conflict between Moses
and Aron mirrors Schönberg's own view of the Jews as the chosen
people. This idea is exclusively based on the knowledge of an invis-
ible, spiritual god, which is however problematic to turn into political
terms. 4
T h e discussion between Moses and Aron in the second act, where
Aron justifies the necessity of images for the sake of announcing god,
drives Moses to despair, for the very same reason that the people

3
Theodor W.Adorno, ‫״‬Sakrales Fragment. Über Schönbergs 'Moses und Aron',
in Theodor W.Adorno, Quasi una fantasia (Frankfurt a.M. : Suhrkamp Verlag, 1963)
306-338.
4
Michael Mäckelmann, Arnold Schönberg und das Judentum: Der Komponist und sein
religiöses, nationales und politisches Selbstverständnis nach 1921 (Hamburger Beiträge zur
Musikwissenschaft 28; Hamburg: Verlag der Musikalienhandlung K.D.Wagner,
1984); Bluma Goldstein, Reinscúbing Moses: Heine, Kafka, Freud and Schönberg in an Euro-
pean Wilderness (Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard University Press, 1992)137-167.
accept a new faith only because of his brother's suggestions. While
the Israelites move to the promised land guided by the pillar of fire,
Moses complains that the ambiguous idea of god has become inter-
pretable because of this 'Götzenbild' and that he does not know of a
form of language conveying its true meaning: " O h Wort, O h Wort,
das mir fehlt!" (II.ν). In the third act this triumph is turned into a
defeat when Aron is dragged onto the stage as a prisoner. Moses
produces the decisive argument for differentiating between the com-
municative functions of images from idolatry and for challenging
Aron's authority. Aron did not understand that the metaphors point
to abstract entities, and regarded them as substantial realities. T h u s
he became a deceived deceiver.
Du, dem das Wort mit dem Bild/ davonläuft, du weilst selbst,/ lebst
selbst in den Bildern,/ die du vorgibst fürs Volk zu erzeugen./ Dem
Ursprung, dem Gedanken entfremdet, genügt dir dann weder das Wort
noch/ das Bild. ... Da machtest du den Stab zum Führer,/ meine Kraft
zum Befreier...Da begehrtest du leiblich, wirklich,/ mit Füßen zu betre-
ten ein unwirkliches Land.(III.i)

Moses, in contrast, considers the desert as the only place where Israel
and God can be joined. If it was Schönberg's intention to close the
opera with Moses' victory, it seems doubtful whether he would have
ended the opera with the arrival at the promised land, an arrival
denounced by Moses himself.
However, this theological problem points to an aesthetic concept
which Schönberg had already developed in his Harmonielehre written
in 1911. In the Harmonielehre Schönberg demanded that composers
think about the 'emancipation of the dissonance' that later became
the basis of the 'twelve-tone technique'. T h e following is a quote from
the Harmonielehre‫׳‬.
In der Obertonreihe...erscheint nach einigen stärker klingenden Obertö-
nen eine Anzahl schwächer klingender. Zweifellos sind die ersteren dem
Ohr vertrauter, die letzteren, fürs Ohr kaum wahrnehmbaren, fremder.
Mit anderen Worten: die näherliegenden scheinen mehr oder Wahr-
nehmbareres beizutragen zu der als kunstfähiger Wohlklang erkannten
Gesamterscheinung des Tones, die fernerliegenden weniger oder weniger
Wahnehmbares... Die Ausdrücke Konsonanz und Dissonanz, die einen
Gegensatz bezeichnen sind falsch. Es hängt nur von der wachsenden
Fähigkeit des analysierenden Ohrs ab, sich auch mit den fernerliegenden
Obertönen vertraut zu machen. 5

5
Arnold Schönberg, Harmonielehre (Wien: Universal Edition, 1922) 16.
T h e compositions by Schönberg perform a kind of iconoclasm within
music, consciously avoiding the sensual moments produced by melo-
dious sound and tonal structure. O n the other h a n d Schönberg ere-
ates an emphatic type of absolute music, which emancipates from the
objectiveness as can be found in the p r o g r a m m e music of the 19th
century.
Kunst auf der untersten Stufe ist Naturnachahmung. Aber bald wird
sie...nicht bloß Nachahmung der äußeren, sondern auch der inneren
Natur. Mit andern Worten: sie stellt dann nicht bloß die Gegenstände
oder Anlässe dar, die Eindruck machen, sondern vor allem diese Ein-
drücke selbst; eventuell ohne Rücksichtnahme auf deren Was, Wann und
Wie. 6
T h e musical design of the characters in the opera Moses und Aron can
be subsumed under this classification. T h e aesthetical category of the
inner impression in which the outward occasion is absorbed can be
seen as being analogous to revelation in a religious context since
mystical revelation means that the transcendent god shows himself in
a h u m a n being and at the same time hides himself. Moses tries to
analyse intellectually the impression which the calling left upon him
and to express it in a new language. Only after a long educational
process in the 'desert' of abstract thinking will the Jewish people be
able to perceive appropriately this revelation, distinguished for its
strangeness and invisibility. Aron's announcement, however, uses cur-
rent patterns of outward perception and of h u m a n communication.
Finally, he gives way to the temptation of making the revelation ob-
jective by giving a representation of its origin, the divine itself. In the
score, the 'Zwölftonreihe', on which the musical structure of the op-
era is based, is assigned to Moses' speaking part. T h e invisibility and
otherness which charcterizes the Jewish G o d can only be expressed
by dissonance. Aron's character, however, is portrayed by a melodi-
ous traditional tenor part.
It was in the Haimonielehre that Schönberg described the artist in
the proper sense as a lawgiver who relies only on 'truth' whereas
minor epigones declare that 'beauty' is the essence of art. T o blame
modern art for ugliness only proves the intellectual and moral inferi-
ority of the critics.
Die Schönheit gibt es erst von dem Moment an, in dem die Unprodukti-
ven sie zu vermissen beginnen...denn der Künstler hat sie nicht nötig.
Ihm genügt die Wahrhaftigkeit...Das zu sagen, was gesagt werden mußte;

'‫ י‬Schönberg, Harmonielehre, 13.

 nach den Gesetzen seiner Natur. Die Gesetze der Natur des genialischen
Menschen aber sind die Gesetze der zukünftigen Menschheit. Die Auf-
lehnung der Mediokren gegen sie ist genügend erklärt durch den Um-
stand, daß diese Gesetze gut sind. Aber die Schönheit, wenn sie
überhaupt existiert, ist unfaßbar, denn sie ist nur dort vorhanden, wo
einer, dessen Anschauungskraft allein imstande ist, sie hervorzubringen,
allein durch diese Anschauungskraft sie schalft, so oft er schaut...Die
andere Schönheit, die man besitzen kann, in festen Regeln und Formen,
diese Schönheit ist die Sehnsucht des Unproduktiven. Dem Künstler ist
die nebensächlich wie jede Erfüllung, denn dem Künstler genügt die
Sehnsucht, aber die Mediokren wollen die Schönheit besitzen.'
T h e opera Moses und Aron transfers this typology of artists to the reli-
gious context. Whereas Moses is depicted as a religious genius that
derives his inspiration from his own intellectual apperception, Aron
appears unproductive, only popularizing or criticizing the founder of
this religion and his work. Even as early as in the opening scene of the
opera, which presents the calling of Moses, the voice out of the burn-
ing bush sets 'the truth 5 as the standard for his mission. Aron, how-
ever, refers to the aesthetical concepts of the people: "Ein lieblicher
Gott!/ er zeigt sich in Schönheit" (Eiv). Aron provides the people
with the images of god which correspond to his desire for material
attraction and regulated calculation. "Ihre leibliche Sichtbarkeit,/
Gegenwart, verbürgt unsre Sicherheit;/ ihre Grenzen und
Meßbarkeit/ fordern nicht, was unserm Gefühl versagt" (Il.ii). In
contrast to this, Moses breaks the tables after recognizing that the
tables themselves are images and thus contain the danger of idolatry.
T h e perfect iconoclast becomes a nomoclast as he insists on an always
new and productive perception of divine glory.

Ill

Schönberg , s followers disregarded this warning and took the 'twelve-

tone technique' for a dogma. In the post war period serial music
aimed at completely rationalising and dissemantizising art. N o w not
only are melody and harmony strictly formalized as is done in
Schönberg's works but also rhythm and dynamics. This school was
associated with the 'Internationale Ferienkurse für Moderne Musik'
in Darmstadt. In this context Pierre Boulez, the most important rep-
resentative of this movement, compared Schönberg with Moses, as
the latter—seeing the promised land died; for the religious hero like

‫ ׳‬Schönberg, Harmonielehre, 392-393.

the composer was not able to accept the utmost consequences of his
iconoclastic programme. 8
According to his political definition of art, Hans W e r n e r Henze
rebelled against the elitist claim of avantgarde music, which was
topped by his commitment for the 1968 movement and revolutionary
C u b a . 9 Henze's music performs an antinomian revolution against the
puristic anti-aesthetic concept found in serialism; this nomoclasm is
produced by connecting the 'twelve-tone technique' with late roman-
tic and impressionistic tonality and with expressionistic free atonality.
This stylistic syncretism is derived from Henze's democratic intention
to give a wider range of people access to this new music. T h e com-
poser's desire to make a political statement through his works causes
him to refer again to methods used in p r o g r a m m e music. As to aes-
thetics Henze agrees with the attitude expressed by Aron in
Schönberg's opera, and he risks being accused of Populism and
epigonality. Henze, however, shows that an avantgarde art definition
open for history and contemporary culture, is aesthetically more pro-
ductive than a radical absolute art stuck with formalism. T h e crosso-
ver between the genres is also revealed in the fact that Henze
structures his opera The Bassarìds like a symphony in four 'Mouve-
ments'.
Henze's opera The Bassands, based on a free adaptation by W . H .
Auden of the Euripideian Bacchae, fits into this development. 1 0
Aesthetical and political questions are transferred into a religious his-
torical constellation just as they are in Schönberg's Moses und Aron. In
the centre of the opera is king Pentheus of Thebes, who fails in intro-
ducing a monotheistic religion. In contrast to Moses, Pentheus' reli-
gious revolution was not caused by divine calling but by a rationalistic
theory. This shows the enlightener's distance from the traditional rites
in the way they are presented in his father's political religion, and in
the Dionysian popular cult, the latter of which is mainly supported by
women. Pentheus mocks his father C a d m u s because the latter, being
afraid of the deities, built a temple for each of them. Pentheus consid-
ers the idea of divine punishment as a priesdy furtiveness. In a mono-

8
Pierre Boulez, Anhaltspunkte (Stuttgart/Zürich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag,
1975) 294.
9
Hans Werner Henze, Musik und Politik. Schriften und Gespräche 1955-1975 (Stutt-
gart/Zürich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1976).
10
Peter Andraschke, "Zur Wirkungsgeschichte der Antike nach dem zweiten
Weltkrieg: Hans Werner Henzes 'Bassariden'", in Dieter Rexroth, ed., Der Komponist
Hans Werner Henze: Frankfurter Feste'86 (Mainz: Verlag B. Schott's Söhne, 1986) 122-
131.
theistic enlightener's perspective this religious form seems a lie:
"Cadmus's gods may p u n i s h / the gods do n o t / Your fear, Cadmus,
t a u g h t / Thebes to worship lies." (Second Mouvement).
In the opera the Dionysian religion is connected with the sepul-
chre of Semele, Pentheus' aunt, with whom Zeus had a son, the new
god Dionysos. A charismatic movement led by a strange foreigner
claiming Dionysos' reign in Thebes refers to this legend. Hereby the
son of god breaks political and theological categories, set up by
Cadmus, who considers the gods just to be primordial mythic arche-
types. "Could a new god be my grandson?/ T h e y are the ageless
forebears/ of ageing m a n / and were never children of m a n . " (First
Mouvement). This sexual transgression between gods and mankind
coincides with the liberation of h u m a n animalism. T o document their
emancipation from cultural norms the Bassarids are clad with foxfurs.
In the opera, the belief that Dionysos is God's son alludes to the
Christian dogma. Declaring this a blasphemous invention, Pentheus
forbids this belief; and symbolically he extinguishes the flame on
Semele's sepulchre. Seeking to meet the spiritual god in individual
meditation and asceticism, Pentheus vehemently persecutes the
Dionysos cult, that looks for divine revelation in a collective corporeal
experience. " H e prays to the All-Father Z e u s / for guidance./ H e
goes hungry. T h e loud cries:/ 'Hail, Dionysos!'/ He did not hear"
(First Mouvement). T h e traditional religion scorned by Pentheus for
philosophical reasons is still accepted by him for its moral norms. In
contrast, he considers the antinomian rite of Dionysos to be the true
enemy of his belief in rationality. Pentheus even goes so far as to
condemn sexuality. Pentheus' mother Agaue and his sister Autonoe
also join the people of the Dionysian community, who are impris-
oned, tortured and banned by Pentheus. Pentheus' iconoclastic meas-
ures are defeated by a miracle. Similar to the apostles in the New
Testament, the Dionysian enthusiasts are set free by an earthquake;
and Semele's fire sets itself ablaze.
T h e dramatic climax is reached in the dialogue between Pentheus
and Dionysos, the latter being disguised as the stranger. This passage
revises the conflict between Moses and Aron in Schönberg's opera.
T h e stranger shows that it is actually Pentheus as an iconoclast who
gives an objective form to the sacred when he fights against its sensual
incarnations. These various manifestations guarantee god's invisibility
since they do not permit god to be clearly defined. " M a n y are his
forms./ D o you think the Gods are visible?" (Second Mouvement).
Pentheus' rationalism, however, tries to pin the divine down to a
certain definition of spiritual existence and even to submit the divine
to ethical norms. T h e godhead, who is identical only with itself, how-
ever, is beyond any differences between right and wrong, between
good and evil, which are set up by h u m a n logic. In the opera, this
thesis is represented in the form with which the L O R D revealed
himself to Moses in the burning bush: "I am I " (Third Mouvement)
In Schönberg's opera, Aron fails to make the divine aesthetically
perceivable because of Moses' sensual asceticism. In Henze's opera,
Pentheus is seduced by Dionysos' beauty, and he has to recognize his
own sensual constitution. Henze's opera suggests a psychological in-
terpretation of this process. T h e stranger lets Pentheus have a look
into a mirror where he can see an erotic scene that shows his sister
and his mother seducing the officer who beforehand had announced
the dogma of God's asexuality. W h e n after that, Pentheus, dressed as
a woman, hurries to the place where the Bassarids meet, he is over-
whelmed by his repressed incestuous fantasy and his inclination to
homosexuality. This sphere of the Bassarids is put to music quoting
the 'Venusberg bacchanal' from Wagner's Tannhäuser and the 'Dance
of the Seven Veils' from Richard Strauss' Salome.11
As is known, the Euripedian tragedy ends with the triumph of
Dionysos and the death of Pentheus, who is torn to pieces by his
mother. Henze may consciously have chosen this plot in opposition to
Schönberg's biblical story, for Moses und Aron also quotes the ecstatic
sacrifice of Pentheus as a possible fate for the founder of a religion. In
the opera the people asks Aron: " W o ist Moses?/ D a ß wir ihn
zerreißen" (II.i). The Bassands repeat the dance round the golden calf
but this time the orgy ends differently. T h e music is changed from a
medium for revealing spiritual calling to a motor for a materialistic
revolution.

IV
In a similar way to Henze, in the US, the so-called minimal music
tried to emancipate itself nomoclastically from predominant
serialism. 12 T h e composers around Philip Glass who, of course, re-
jects the term 'minimalism' because of its simplistic label perform a
true normative inversion basing their scores on musical elements de-
spised by the Schönberg school. T h e compositional p r o g r a m m e of
these artists clearly shows the polemic against twelve-tone technique;

11
Hans Werner Henze, Reiselieder mit böhmischen (Quinten: Autobiographische Mitteilungen
1926-1995 (Frankfurt a.M.: S.Fischer Verlag, 1996) 254-256.
12
Fabian R. Lovisa, Minimal-Music: Entwicklung, Komponisten, Werke (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1996) 11-19.
 ICONOCLASM ON THE 2 0 T H CENTURY MUSICAL STAGE 339

J o h n Adams, for example, called one of his most important sym-

phonic works Harmonielehre. In the Harmonielehre he deals with the
sensualisation of religion representing visionary experiences by the
means of music. H e therefore combines Catholic mysticism of medi-
aeval times with the symbolism of Freudian dream reading and the
'Kunstreligion' of Richard Wagner's Parsifal.
Whereas doctrinal serialism dictates permanent variation and de-
velopment of musical elements, minimal music uses static and repeti-
tive structures. T h e always new and individual figurations of the
twelve-tone row are substituted by oscillating sound tapestries. In
contrast to Schönberg's preference for dissonance, here, we find a
conscious use of current consonant triad harmony. This kind of mu-
sical aestheticism allows an interesting link with contemporary pop
culture, with spiritual practice in New Age as well as with civil right
and ethnic liberation movements. Minimal music aims at creating a
kind of 'Gesamtkunstwerk' which is produced by basic forms of dif-
ferent arts and which could mediate between art and the general
public. T h e special affinity of minimal music for visuality can be seen
in Philip Glass' film scores for Godfrey Reggio's 'Quatsi'-trilogy and
also in Michael Nyman's p e r m a n e n t co-operation with Peter
Greenaway.
In his musical theatre, Glass, similar to Henze, tries to motivate
the audience into becoming an active part within society. T h e most
ambitious attempt in this direction is an opera-trilogy which deals
with the connection between science, politics, and religion, taking
Einstein, Ghandi and Akhnaten as examples. These three figures,
similar to Schönberg's Moses, caused a transformation of society, but
failed in their own lives. T h e ambivalent effect of h u m a n progress
and its violent implications are analysed in the trilogy. Developing the
trilogy, Glass starts with the future and the immediate present and
traces his subjects as far back as to the remotest roots of h u m a n
civilization. Einstein on the Beach is about the genesis of the atomic age
and its threat of a nuclear Holocaust. T h e Western colonisation of
indigenous cultures and the vision of its future liberation is treated in
Satyagraha. T h e most ancient location in this trilogy is Egypt where
Akhnaten tries in vain to establish a monotheistic religion.
T h e image of Egypt in Western civilisation was strongly influenced
by the biblical rejection of paganism; this attitude was expressed in
Y H W H ' S revelation to Moses as well as in the Jewish Exodus. How-
ever, there was an enduring fascination with this ancient advanced
culture, because the public could identify with its innovative achieve-
ments. Even monotheism was traced back to old Egyptian mystery
cults as they are described in Hellenistic historiography. Re-discover-
ing original Egyptian m o n u m e n t s people became aware of the
strangeness of this culture and were attracted to its exotic appearance.
T h e three motives: religious revolution, cultural identity and es-
trangement are combined in Glass' opera on the Egyptian ruler, who
in the middle of the 14th century B.C. invented monotheism.
Akhnaten turned the traditional Egyptian religion upside down and
thus anticipated Western intellectual history. T h e play is set in a
distant environment which shows some structural parallels with our
present situation.
In the libretto Akhnaten's life is given as a collage of texts taken
from historical sources in the original languages: Egyptian, Accadian,
and Hebrew. This historistic and exotistic approach becomes incar-
nated in the figure of the scribe as he interprets the plot. At the end
of the play the scribe turns into a tourist guide, who leads the visitors
through the ruins of Akhnaten's residence at Tel-el Amarna.
Pharaoh Amenophis IV changed his name into Akhnaten to ex-
press that he was the son of Aten, the only god he believed in. As a
rational philosopher and theologian, who fought against the tradi-
tional religion of the god Amun, Akhnaten is closely akin to Pentheus
in Henze's opera. Above all, however, Glass gives an answer with his
opera to Schönberg's Moses und Aron, for monotheism does not appear
as a radical abstraction, but as a celebration of cosmic beauty. In
contrast to Schönberg's unpolitical Moses, Akhnaten initiates a social
liberation movement against the authoritarian society of Ancient
Egypt, a society based on patriarchal tradition.
In the opera Akhnaten's new religion is interpreted as a rebellion
against his father Amenophis III. As in Henze's opera, Glass implies
a psychoanalytic background. Here the psychoanalytic reading of
Akhnaten by Karl A b r a h a m and Sigmund Freud is referred to. T h e
figure of Akhnaten reminds one of Karl Abrahams 1912 Imago-article
"Amenophis IV (Echnaton)", which became an important source for
Freud's Der Mann Mose und der Monotheismus. Karl A b r a h a m writes that
Akhnaten replaced his real father by the G o d R a (Aten), his imagi-
nary father. Akhnaten sublimates his aggression against paternal au-
thority in his idealistic activities, which is directed against the
tradition passed on by his father. According to Karl A b r a h a m , the
central idea of Akhnaten's private religion consists of his desire to be
his own father. T h u s he imagines a god who is similar to himself; and
this god generated himself at the beginning of time. This idea of
patricide is represented in the funeral cortege from the opera
Akhnaten; the funeral march runs as a leitmotif through the whole
play. T h e funeral rites quoted from the Egyptian Book of the Dead and
from the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom portray the traditional society
of Egypt, which is dominated by the A m o n priests. After Akhnaten
had failed, he joins the funeral march; thus his revolution against
Egypt goes down in Egyptian history.
T h e political aspect of Akhnaten's religion is expressed in the foun-
dation of a new capital whereas Moses will not manage to reach the
promised land. Not only does this political aspect itself contradict
Schönberg's but also its musical treatment. T h e inauguration of the
new capital is accompanied by a dance performed by Akhnaten's
followers. In the work of Glass, dance is an essential element of mu-
sical expression as can be seen in his numerous ballets. In Akhnaten the
dance initiates the new monotheistic belief whereas in Schönberg's
Moses und Aron the dance around the golden calf stands for the apos-
tasy from the true religion. Apart from these differences, there are
many more allusions to Judaism in the opera.
This approach reminds one of Freud's theories on Moses. In his
treatise Der Mann Mose und der Monotheismus, Freud traces the Jewish
religion back to Akhnaten, who failed to establish his new doctrine.
Moses is described as a noble Egyptian who wants to pass on the
iconoclastic impulse to the Hebrew slaves. T h e Hebrews are said to
have murdered Moses since they could not stand the abstract reli-
gion, and they substituted Moses with a Midian magician who trans-
formed Judaism into a visible religion. Judaism, however, preserved
the remembrance of the true Moses and of the people's guilt. This is
affirmed in the opera when Akhnaten cites in the language of the
audience his H y m n to the Aten which according to the libretto ex-
presses "the inspiration for his religious and social reforms" (II.iv).
After that, offstage, a choir strikes up Psalm 104, which some schol-
ars, including Freud, consider to be an adaptation of Akhnaten's text.
In the first two scenes the new ideology is depicted. T h e Atenists
attack the A m o n temple and pull off its roof; the text alludes to the
temple in Jerusalem. Here the iconoclastic act is not connected with
religious law, but staged as an aesthetical vision and sung melodi-
ously. " T h e light of the Aten pours into what once was called the holy
of holies. T h e attackers sing a vocalise, no word being necessary
here" (II.i). Akhnaten transfers the sacred from the cult into a cosmic
experience.
T h e love scene between Akhnaten and Nefertiti represents a hu-
manistic religiosity praising mankind as the image of god. " T h e scribe
begins reciting a poem. T h e first time we hear it as if it is addressed
to a god...The poem is heard again, this time spoken as an exchange
between two lovers" (II.ii). Schönberg's Moses, in contrast, empha-
sizes the distinction between G o d and man's nature, which is over-
come by spiritual election and martyrdom. This puritan morality is
opposed to Akhnaten's ethos of love, which he practices in his ideal
family. In the opera and in Freud's book, the very reason for
Akhnaten's defeat is seen in the increasing distance between the revo-
lutionary leader and his people. Akhnaten is rated as positive, since
his aesthetical religion is opposed to a paralysed political theology. Of
course, in the opera the fanatic elements of the Atenian religion are
rejected. This follows Freud's theory that intolerance was caused by
Akhnaten inventing monotheism. In the trilogy Glass contrasts
Ghandi's non violent opposition to Akhnaten's religious revolution.
T h e opera also performs a historical criticism of the elitism found in
musical avantgarde which refers to monotheism.

T h e staging of the founders of monotheistic religions in modern mu-

sical theatre takes for granted the romantic equation of art and reli-
gion. Iconoclasm is considered as an aesthetical problem. According
to the romantic idea of the unified work of a r t — a theory of major
importance for the 20th century—aesthetics bears philosophical and
political relevance. In the operas by Schönberg, Henze, and Glass,
iconoclasm as well as antinomianism, which appears as a counter-
movement to the iconoclastic law, undergoes divers judgements. In
their works these composers establish three different types of icono-
clasm. T h e Moses figure presented by Schönberg stands for a philo-
sophic and aesthetic iconoclasm. This kind of iconoclasm has its
parallel in Schönberg's theory of abstract art; he had developed this
theory in his Harmonielehre and applied it to his twelve-tone technique.
In "Moses and Aron" aesthetical iconoclasm is combined with divine
transcendence, which is then defended against earthly sensualization.
In Schönberg's opera the religious idea of transcendence is trans-
formed into a musical presentation of Judaism. T h e invisibility of
Moses' God results in an apolitic religion. It is only Aron, operating
as an earthly mediator, who visualizes Moses' message and thus es-
tablishes a binding collective law. Unfortunately, the suggestive
power of the images employed mutates into an ideology, which super-
sedes the law. Savage instincts unbound and cultural regression are
the outcome of Aron's antinomian experiment. However, because of
its critical potential Mosaic iconoclasm, deconstructing even its own
law, can easily respond to this challenge. In this musical encounter
between iconoclasm and idolatry the principle of aesthetic autonomy
is formulated. T h e programmatic distinction between image and real-
ity excludes any political instrumentalization of art as well as religion.
Having strong objections to hermetic modernism as it was taught
 ICONOCLASM ON T H E 2 0 T H CENTURY MUSICAL STAGE 343

by the Schönberg school, Henze entrusts art with a political task. In

his opera, therefore, Henze expresses his negative attitude towards
iconoclasm. Henze's Pentheus propagates a political and philosophi-
cal iconoclasm. In contrast to Schönberg's self-critical Moses, Henze'
Pentheus develops a doctrinal world view. Monotheism appears as a
mere instrument of power. Therefore, power is legitimized by ra-
tional superiority: Pentheus' surpressing his physical urges enables
him to rule his people. In the "Bassarides" the cult of Dionysos is
represented as a revolutionary movement against Pentheus' authori-
tarian law. Popular religion is discovered as a political force against
Western rationalism.
Finally, in Glass' "Akhnaten" iconoclasm is perceived as an
aesthetical and political principle. Whereas Schönberg's Moses only
accepts divine transcendence and Henze's Pentheus is stuck in en-
lightened rationality, Glass' Akhnaten preaches the communicative
religion of cosmic beauty and h u m a n e love. In abolishing traditional
priesthood and democratizing the sovereign, Akhnaten's iconoclasm
is revolutionary; but concerning political and theological images
Akhnaten's monotheism clings to the traditional Egyptian religion.
His reform, therefore, lacks social dynamics. Contenting himself with
representing the universal God, Akhnaten feels no need to implement
His law on earth. This means that Akhnaten is a political romantic,
who is carried away by his religious and aesthetical visions, but
loosing any social contact. Showing Akhnaten's failure, Glass is airing
his opinion that art should participate in transforming society. While
Schönberg is celebrating radical iconoclasm as an unachieved role
model and Henze is condemning iconoclasm as the projection of the
class enemy, Glass is taking iconoclasm as a historical stage of cultural
evolution.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adorno, Theodor W., "Sakrales Fragment. Über Schönbergs 'Moses und

Aron", in id.: Quasi una fantasia (Frankfurt a.M.: Suhrkamp Verlag, 1963)
306-338.
Andraschke, Peter, "Zur Wirkungsgeschichte der Antike nach dem zweiten
Weltkrieg: Hans Werner Henzes 'Bassariden'" in Dieter Rexroth, ed.: Der
Komponist Hans Werner Henze: Frankfurter Feste '86 (Mainz: B.Schott's Söhne,
1986) 122-131.
Boulez, Pierre, Anhaltspunkte (Stuttgart/Zürich: Deutscher Taschenbuch
Verlag, 1975).
Fubini, Enrico, Geschichte der Musikästhetik: Von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart
(Stuttgart/Weimar: J.B.Metzler Verlag, 1997).
Goldstein, Bluma: Reinscribing Moses: Heine, Kaflia, Freud and Schönberg in an
 European Wilderness (Cambridge, Mass./London: Harvard University
Press, 1992).
Hartwich, Wolf-Daniel, "Religion und Kunst beim späten Richard Wagner:
Zum Verhältnis von Ästhetik,Theologie und Anthropologie in den
'Regenerationsschriften'", Jahrbuch der deutschen Schillergesellschaft 40 (1996)
297-323.
—, Die Sendung Moses: Von der Aufklärung bis Thomas Mann (München: W.Fink
Verlag, 1997).
Henze, Hans Werner, Musik und Politik: Schriften und Gespräche 1955-1975
(Stuttgart/Zürich: Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag, 1975).
—, Reiselieder mit böhmischen Quinten: Autobiographische Mitteilungen 1926-1955
(Frankfurt a.M.: S.Fischer Verlag, 1996).
Lovisa, Fabian, minimal-music: Entwicklung Komponisten, Werke (Darmstadt:
Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1996).
Mäckelmann, Michael, Arnold Schönberg und das Judentum: Der Komponist und sein
religiöses, nationales und politisches Selbstverständnis nach 1921 (Hamburger
Beiträge zur Musikwissenschaft 28; Hamburg: Verlag der Musikalien-
handlung K.D.Wagner, 1984).
Schönberg, Arnold, Harmonielehre (Wien: Universaledition, 1922).
 INDEX O F NAMES AND SUBJECTS1
Aaron xiii-xiv, 163, 165, 167, 248,
334-340
Abraham Abramson 254
Abraham Abulafia 218-222, 234-235
Hayyei ha-'olam ha-ba' 219
Abraham Azulai 223 n. 98
Hesed le-Avraham 223 n. 98
Abraham ibn Ezra 218
Abraham, Jacob 254
Abraham, K. 342
Abraham, Patriarch 149-151, 158, 165,
167, 173, 178-179, 191-192, 248,
314
Absolutism 278 n. 5
Achad Ha'am 275
Adam 181, 192, 193, 207, 274, 300,
See also: Tzurat Adam
Clothing of 187, 192
Adams, J . 341
Harmonielehre 341
Adipurana, Jain Text 96
Adler, Ν. 258
Adoration of the Magi 5-13, 23
Adorno, T. W. 334 ^
Advaita Vedanta, School, See: Hindu-
ism, Religious Orders and
Schools—Advaita Vedanta
Advaita Vedanta, Texts 84
Aegina 35
Aelianus 302
Aemilius Paulus, Roman General 27
n. 2
Aeneas 49
Aesthetics 194, 314, 316-320
Agaue, Pentheus' Mother 339
Agent Intellect 217-222
Agni 111, 120
Aharon ha-Cohen of Apta 223 n. 100,
224-228
Aigion 37
Ajatasatru, Crown Prince 134-135
Akha, Gujarad Poet 81, 83 n. 26, 86-
87, 101
Gita 81
1 This index was prepared by Mr. Nittai Shinan of Jerusalem.
Chappa 86-87
Akhnaten 333, 342-344
Alcamenes 39
Alienation 187-188
Aliphera 39
Alloway, L. 329
Altona, Haggadah—See: Haggadas—
Altona
Amaruku, King 126
Amitayus Contemplation Scripture 133-147
Commentaries 139-146
Amon 342-343
Amsterdam 153-154, 242, 246, 262-
263, 268-269
Pekidim and Amarkalim of Eretz
Israel, Organisation of 264
Haggadah, See: Haggadas—
Amsterdam
Amyclae 31, 33-34, 39
Ananda, Buddha Disciple 135
Anantakavi 80 n. 22
Campu Bharata 80 n. 22
Ancient Orient 149
Andros Island 297
Angelet, J . 214
Sefer Livenat ha-Sappir 214
Angels 150-152, 157, 167, 178,182,
188, 189, 198, 219, 248, 274, 315
At Elonei Mamre 167, 178
Herzl as Angel 274
Metatron 219
Sar ha-Panim 198
Animal Worship xiv, 306, 308, See
also: Golden Calf
Anthropomorphism 197-199, 202, 204,
205-208, 210, 214-218, 234
Antiochus xiii (Philadelphus Asiaticus)
55-58
Candelabrum gift of 55-58
Antisemitism 268-270
Aphrodite 39
Of the Gardens at Athens 39
Statue and cult at Hermione 39
Apis bull xiv
Apollinaire 326-327 Autonomy 315
Le Poete Assassiné 326 Auxesia 35
Apollo 30-31, 33, 35, 37, 47, 54 η. 59, Statue and Cult at Aegina 35
55, 285 Statue and Cult at Epidaurus 35
Statue and Cult at Acragas 54 n. 59 Statue and cult at Troezen 35
Statue and Cult at Amyclae 31, 33 Avalokitesvara, Bodhisattva 136, 138
Statue and Cult at Delos 35 Avi Yonah, M. 172
Statues and Cults at Delphi 30 Ayodhya 66 n. 6
Statue and Cult at Epidelion 35 Azriel of Gerona 209
Statue and Cult at Naxos 31 n. 12
Statue and Cult at Phlious 37 Baal xiv
Statue and Cult at Thornax 31 Bacon, F. 310
Aqeda of Isaac 149-152, 157-158, 166 Badarayaa 122
Ibn 'Arabī 219 Bakhtin, M. 1
Architecture 328 R. Ban'a 191-192
Argive Heraeon 33, 38 Bar Ilan University ix, x, xviii, 42, 62,
Argos 34 106, 160, 236, 296, 312
Aristode 297 Barasch, B. xi
Aristotelianism 221, 297 Barasch, M. ix-xii, xvii, 194, 204, 297
Aries 323-324 Biography ix-xi
Aron, See: Aaron Icon—Studies in the Histoiy of an Idea
Art 237, 321-330, See: Christian Art, xii, xvii, 204
Jewish Art, Zionist Art Works xi-xii, xvii
Abstract 318 Barlowe, W. 277
History of 313-320 Baroque 314
Primidve 318 Basle 272-273
Artemidorus 307 Bathycles of Magnesia 33 n. 21, 39
Artemis 33-36, 38-39, 50 Beardsley, A. 317, 318
Of the Lake 36 Beaudelaire 319
Statue and Cult at Hyampolis 38 Beauty 194-195, 314, 317
Statue and Cult at Orthia 33-35 Becker, S. 249
Statue and Cult at Sicyon 36, 39 Belgium 322
Ascarus of Thebes 30 Belting, H. 9
Ascension 322 Benjamin, W. 258
Asclepius xv-xvi Berge, P. D. 246 n. 17
Ashkenaz 153 Berlin 155, 250-252, 257, 272
Asia Minor 33 n. 21, 58 Jewish Community 257
Astasahasrikaprajnaparamita 96 n. 43 Jewish Free School 250
Astrology 171 n. 18, 173-174 Porcelain Factory 251-252
Aten 342-343 Berlin, I. 126
Atheism 193, 196 Besançon, A. 201
Athena 27, 33-35, 37, 39 Besht 223 n. 100, 225, 231
Athena Parthenos 27, 33-34 Beth Alpha Synagogue, See: Syna-
Athene Polias 33, 35 gogue—Beth Alpha
Statue and Cult at Aliphera 39 Beth El xiv
Statue and Cult at Hermiona 37 Beth Shean, Floor Mosaic 169-171
Statue and Cult at Priene 39 Beth Shean Valley 169
Athens 9, 27, 32-33, 38-39 Bhagavadgita 112
Acropolis 27, 33 Bhagavata Purana 73, 99
Erechtheion 33-34 Bharata 66-67 n. 6
Parthenon 33 Bharati 126
Auden, W. H. 338 Bhasa 66 n. 6, 68 n. 10, 90
Augusdne 194, 319 Pratimanataka 66 n. 6
Autonoe, Pentheus' Sister 339 Svapnavasavadatta 68 η. 10, 90
Bhaskarakantha 85 n. 30 Sakyamuni 108, 134
Bhavisyapurana 70 Shadow 68 n. 10
Bhusundi Ramayana 101 Visualization and Contemplation
Bible 181-196, See also individual 134-147
books of the Bible Buddhapratimalaksana 72 11. 17, 96 n. 45
Bible Illustrations 156-157, 274 Buddhavijaya 65 n. 5
Bilhana 65 n. 5, 70, 83-84, 89 Citrasenapadmavaticanta 65 η. 5
Kamasundari 65 n. 5, 70, 74, 83, 89 Buddhism and Buddhist 68 n. 10, 72
Bimbisara, King 134-135 n. 17, 73, 82 n. 25, 84, 86 n. 31, 96
Bird's Head Haggadah, See: Hagga- n. 43, 99, 108, 112 n. 5, 117, 134
dah--Bird's Head Buddhist Monks 91, 110 n. 3, 116,
Black Demeter, See: Demeter—Black 143-144, 146-147
Blavatsky, Mme., 318 Burgl, S. 245-246
Bodhiruci, Indian Monk 143 Burkert, W. 34
Bodhisattvas 136-139 Bume-Jones 317, 318
Bonnet, C. 255 Burning Bush, Motif of 152, 158, 340
Boston X Byzantium 234
Boulez, P. 337
Bowersock, G. 11 Cadmus 338-339
Brahma, See: Brahman Caesar, Iulius 44
Brahman, Concept of 68. n. 11, 86-88, Cain 272
108, 111, 114, 122-124, 127-129 Cakora Birds 75-76
Brahmasutrabhasya 125 Callimachus 33
Brahmasutras 122 Calukya, Dynasty 108
Briha X Calydon 35
Brilliant, R. 266 Calvin, J . 314, 315, 316
British Isles 15 Calvinism, Iconoclasm 315
Brown, P. 109 Cambay 97 n. 47
Brown, R. 89 n. 35 Canachus of Sicyon 30
Browne, T. 300 Cancik, H. 27 n. *
Bruno, Giordano 301-302, 304 Candella, Dynasty 109
Bryseai, See: Sparta Briseai 37 Candraprabha 135
Buda 245 Candravari 97 n. 47
Buddha 67, 68 n. 10, 68 n. 11, 74 n. Canopus Temple 301 n. 7
19, 86 n. 31, 91-92, 93 n. 39, 96, Carlyle, T. 276
108, 133-147 Carthage, Carthaginians 54-55a
Aksobhya 140 Carvalho, J 241-242, 246
Amitabha, See: Amitayus Caspar, D. F. 329
Amitayus 133-139, 141, 143-144, 146 Cassius Hemina 49
Recitation of Name 144 Castillia 152, 204, 207-209
Body 72 n. 17, 96, 97 11. 47, 100- Cathedral of Torcello, See: Cathedral
101, 133-134, 137-142, 145 of Torcello Cross
Dharma 139-140, 142 Ceiyavandanamahabhasam 64 n. 3
Enjoyment 134, 141-142, 145 Central Asia 134
Response 133-134, 140-142 Cessna, P. 321
True 140-141 Chaeroneia 36
Iconic and Aniconic Understanding Chagal, M. 156-159
133-134, 139, 141-142 Color Symbolization of 157-159
Image 68 n. 11, 91-93, 110 n. 3, Chaldaean Oracle 227
136-138, 141-142 Ch'an Portraiture 267
Painting 67, 68 n. 10 R. Chaîna b. Chanina 189
Pure Land Buddhism 134-147 R. Chanina sgan Ha-kohanim 191
Reflection 86 n. 31, 91-92, 93 n. Chaos 191
39, 96 Charlemagne 314
Charles I, English King 277-278, 281- Lothair Cross 15-16
288, 295 Crystal and Crystal Wall 70, 80, 90, 92
As Christ 282-284 n. 38, 93 n. 39, 94, 96, 97, 99 n.
As God 278 51, 101
Charmides 31, 38 Cuba 338
Chetham, C. 323 Cudworth, R. 299
Chevrat Chinuch Nearim 252 Cumont, F. 19
Chevrat Dorshei Leshon Ever 247 Cupido, See: Hermes
Chodowiecki, D. 247 n. 22, 248, 256 Cypselus 4, 6
n. 39 Czernowitz x, 227
Christ 2-3, 5-13, 15-16, 23, 216, 238,
271, 282-284, 292-293, 322, 326 Daedalus 37-38
Chrisdan Art 5-13, 20-22, 152, 154, Damia 35
156, 159, 161, 169-170, 248, 313, Statue and Cult at Aegina 35
316-317, 322, 326 Statue and Cult at Dellos 35
And Jewish Art 248 Statue and Cult at Epidaurus 35
Christian Humanism 279, 289 n. 24 Statue and cult at Troezen 35
Christianity XV, 5-7, 19-22, 179, 185, Damophon 31
238, 255, 313-320, 333 Dan xiv
Church Fathers 239 Danxia Tianran 146-147
Cicero, M. T. 49-59, 313 Daochuo 143-145
Verrine Orations 50-59 Essays on the Pure Land 144
Citrasemavaticarita 79 Darmstadt 337
Clare, J . 279 Haggadah, See: Haggadas—
Cleiota 39 Darmstadt
Clement of Alexandria 303-304 David, J . L. 321
Clooney, F. 120 David, King 154, 209
Coherea, L. M. 321 Delacroix 319, 321
Cola, Dynasty 109 Delos 35
Coldstream, j . N. 29 Delphi 30-31, 36, 37
Commentary on the Rationales of the Demaratus of Corinth 48
Commandments 210-212 Demeter 37, 50
Conditio humana 187-188 Black 35
Conoisseurship 319 Statue and Cult at Phigalia 35
Comoni, A. 326 Statue and Cult at Corinth 37
Constable 314 Statue and Cult at Hermione 37
Constantine the Great 9, 20, 179 Denis, M. 321
Coomaraswamy 66, 71-73 n. 17 Deuteronomy xi, 149, 210, 305
Cordovero, M. 222-223 Devadatta, Demon 134
Corinth 37 Dharma / Dharmas 117, 119, 135,
Cornelius Labeo 49 137-139, 146
Cornelius Scipio Africanus 54-55 Dharmakira 137, 141, 142 n. 12
Cornell xi Dharmarkirti 122
Cosin,J. 289 n. 23 Dharmasastra of Dévala 117
Cosmotheism xiv-xvii Diana 54-55, 57
Cotta 49 η. 34 Statue and Cult at Segesta 54-55,
Court Jews 242-247 57
Croesus 31 Dickens, C. 322-323
Cronus 30, 36 Diderot 319
Cross 13-17, 20, 23, 238 Dio Chrysostom 27
Adoration of 15 Diodorus 298, 307
Cathedral of Torcello Cross 13-15, Dionysos 4-13, 32-38, 178, 338-339
17, 20, 23 Cadmus at Thebes 36, 338-339
Cross ofMuiredach 16 Mosaic at Paphos 4-13, 23
 Phallic 34-35 Enoch 173
Stage Performances of 338-339 Epidaurians 35
Statue and Cult at Argos 34 Erasmus 291
Statue and Cult at Bryseai 37 Eretz Israel 264, See also: Palestine
Statue and Cult at Patrea 34-35 Eros 35, 51, 53
Statue and Cult at Phlious 37 Erythrae 39
Statue and Cult at Sicyon 37 Esau 181-196
Divyavadana 92 n. 38 Eschatology 185, 186, 187, 191, 195
Domitian Germanic Trophy, See: Esotericism 318, 319
Rome—Domitian Germanic Ethrog 150
Trophy 23 Etruria 46
Doré, G. 271-272 Etruscans 46
Dothan 172 Eurypylus 35
Dov Baer of Miedzirech 21 7 Evagrius 9
Dreams and Reality 70-71, 74-79, 82, Exodus xii, 149, 156, 163, 165, 210,
84, 87, 144, 146, 307-308 239
Drohobyez 272 Ezekiel, Prophet 22, 190, 207
Drona 68-69
Drumont 268 Fantin Latour 321
Libre Parole 268 Fates 37
Statue and Cult at Corinth 37
East Asia 134 Feast of the Tabernacle 165
Eastern Europe 264, 271 Fénéton 319
Edessa 10 Festivals 9, 36, 37
Egypt xii, xiv-xvi, 210, 297-311, 330, At Edessa 9
333, 341-342 Boeotian Daidala 36
Idolatry, See: xv-xvi, 305- Of Artemis at the Lake 36
Musical Plays about 341-342 Of Dionysus at Sicyon 37
Writing Systems, See: Writing Of the Nile xvi
Systems 308 Roman 181-196
Egyptian Book of the Dead 342 Ficino, M. 300
Eichel, I. 252 Fifth Zionist Congress 272
Eikon Basilike 281, 283-284, 287 Fildes, L. 322-323
Eileithuia 37 Foerster, G. 172
Ein Gedi 169 Food Offerings 117-119, See also: Puja
Einstein, E. 341 Frankfurt 258
Ekalavya 68-69 Frederick the Great 256
Eleazar ben Samuel of Amsterdam 255 Freedberg, D. 51 n. 41, 259
n. 37 Freud, S. xvii, 308 n. 20, 196, 311,
Eleazar of Worms 203 342-344
Eleusis 36, 49 η. 34 Der Mann Mose und der Monotheismus
Eliezer (Abraham's Servant) 192 342, 344
Elis 31 Friedlander, D. 256, 257 n. 41
Elizabeth I, English Queen 277-278, Friedrich Wilhelm II 250, 253
291 F r i t s c h J . C. 250, 248
Elohim 182, 189 Fromentin 319
Elonei Mamre 167, 178 Fuchs, E. 268
Elton, G. 279 Fuller, C. 129
Emden, J . 255
Sheilat Taavetz 255 n. 37 Gaius 35
Empty Chair, Motif 322-323, 326 Galicia 231, 272
England 277-295 Galilee 163, 173, 179-180
Enlightenment x, 247-248, 251-252, Ganges, River 127
256-257, 310 Ganymeda 36
Gaon of Vilna 266, 276 Goncourt 319
Gauguin, P. 318, 319, 323 Goodenough, E. R. 171
Gaza 9 Goodman, N. 206
Gedolim Ma'asei Tzaddiqim 229 Goodwin 290
Genesis xii, 152, 155, 166-167, 178, Goody, J . 310
210, 274 Graces 36
Genesis Rabbah 184-185, 187, 189, Graetz, H. 238, 276
190 Granoff, P. 27, n. *
Genius 316-317, 319 Greece 27 n. 2, 58, 149, 194, 314, 333
George, S. xiv Greek and Roman gods, Cults of 27-
Gerhard von Rad 203-204 40, See also under each individual
Germany 156 god
Gerona 206 As Images of State Power 27-39
Getty Research Center xi Gifts to 17, 19, 27-32, 55-58,
Ghandy, M. 341, 344 Mystification 48-49
Ghazna 108 Greenway, P. 341
Ghaznavid Dynasty 109 Gregoire, Abbé 268
Gikatila, J . 207, 21 1 η. 48, 220, 234 η. Gregory the Great 313, 314
138 Guan Wuliangshoufo Jing See: Amitayus
Sha'arei ,Orah 207, 234 η. 138 Contemplation Scripture
Sha'arei Tzedek 211 η. 48 Guanfo Samei Jing 141 n. 10
Gilman, S. 241 η. 8
Ginzburg, C. 9 Hachlili 172
Glass, P. 340-344 Haggadah, Ilustrations of 151-155
Einstein on the Beach 341 Haggadas 151-152, 154
Satyagraha 341 Altona 155
God xiii, xv-xvii, 19, 149-159, 173-178, Amsterdam 154
189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, Bird's Head 151
197-235, 238, 274-275, 277, 286, Darmstadt 154
289, 290, 300, 305, 308-309, 313, Sarajevo 151-152
315, 316, 319, 320, 334-337, 340, Venice 153
343, See also: Brahman Haggana χ
As Light 223-227 Hamadan, Joseph 209-214
Face of 189 Hamburg 246 n. 16
Hand of 19, 22, 149-151, 155, 159, Hameassef 256
See also: Isolated Hand Hand 17-23
Indian Perception of 111, See also: Isolated Hand, Motive of 17-23
Brhaman Hand of God, See: God—Hand of
Names 154, 156, 158, 203, 207, 226 Sabazios Hand 18-20, 22-23
Shekhinah 168, 203 Votive 17-18
Tetragrammaton 158, 206, 207 Hanina bar Hama 1 73
Relation to the Torah 200-212 Harivamsa 70 n. 15
Representation in Jewish Art 149- Harvard xi
159, 173-178, 334-337 Hasidism and Hasidim x, 202, 222-
Temunah 197, 214 234, 276
Throne of 190-191 And Mitnaggedim 226
Transcendence xiii, 119 Chabad 276'
Tzelem 197 Haskala, See: Enlightment
Τ zur ah 202, 231 Hasse, Artist 253
God of Death, See: Yama Havelock, Ε. 310
God of Love 74-75, 77-78, 80, 82, 100 Hayyim of Volozhin 221 n. 93
Golden Calf xiv, 306, 308, 334, See Hebrew Alphabet, See: Letters,
also: Idolatry Hebrew
Goldman, J . 259 Hebrew University xi
Hegel, G.W.F. 316-320
Heikhalot Literature 197, 204
Heius Mamertinus, C., Sicilian
Nobleman 52-53
Chapel of 52-53
Heliod ü rus 299
Helios 163-164, 168, 171, 175, 177,
179-180, See also: Sun
Hellenism 3, 308 n. 20, 341
Hemacandra 64 n. 3, 93-95, 100
Vitaragastotra 64 n. 3, 93
Henry IV, English King 285, 295
Henry VII, English King 283 n. 13
Henry VIII, English King 278-279
Henze, H. W. 338, 340-342
The Bassarids 338-340
Hepahaestus 34, 36
Hera 33, 36-39
Statue and Cult at Aigion 37
Statue and Cult at Argive Heraeon
33, 38
Statue and Cult at Heracleion at
Erythrae 39
Statue and Cult at Olympia 39
Heracles 39, 50, 52-53
Statue and Cult at Olmous 39
Hermes 5, 7, 8, 10, 12, 50
Hermeticism 302
Herodotus 35, 298, 306
Herz, M. 247, 252, 256 η. 39
Herzl, T. 272-276
As an Angel 274
Heschel, Abraham Yehoshu'a of Apta
229
Hezekia da Silva 262-264
Hierarchy 186, 188, 190, 315
Hieroglyphs 297-308
And Idolatry 305-308
Hindus and Hinduism 64 n. 3, 72 n.
17, 73, 74 n. 19, 107-130, 119, 125,
129
Image Worship 64 n. 3, 66 n. 6
Temple Hinduism 109, 115-116,
119, 129
Temple Priests 117
Theists 118-123
Hinduism, Religious Orders and
Schools
Advaita Vedanta 119, 122
Baudhayana School 116
Katha of the Black Yajurveda 116,
118
Maitrayani School 117
Purva Mimamsa 119
Saiva Siddhanta 1 10 n. 4
Taitdriya of the Black Yajurveda
116
Hirsch, J . R . 1
Hofmann, W. 325
Holland 263
Holy Family 239
Holy of Holies 156
Homberg, H. 253
Horapollo 297, 302
Hieroglyphica 297
Houston 327
Catholic University of St. Thomas
327
Rothko Chapel 327-329
Hsihe 143
Hubner, J. 257 n. 41
Huges, R. 328
Huiyuan 139-140, 145
Hurwitz, I. 229-230
Shnei Iidiot ha-Berit 229
Hyampolis 38
Hyginus 49
Iano 48
I anus 45, 47
Iconoclasm xii, 4, 45, 47, 49, 55, 146,
161, 163, 180, 279, 281, 283-287,
295, 297, 305, 313-320, 334-337,
341-344
Ancient vs. Modern 315
Christian 315
Iconoclasts and Iconodules, Debates
XV, xvii 1, 110, 118, 201, 218, 234
Iconography 63, 64 n. 3, 72 n. 17,
167, 171, 177, 277
Iconometry 63, 64 n. 3
Idealism 84
Idolatry xiii-xv, 107-109, 149, 277-279,
283 n. 13, 284, 305-306, 309-310,
314, 335
See also: Golden Calf
And Hieroglyph Writing 307-309
Stages of Development in Egypt
306, 309-310
Images and Image Worship xiii, xv-
xvii, 5, 38-39', 43-61, 63-67, 107-
133, 168-170
And Abstraction 334-337
As Center of Cults 33-40
As Indicating State Power 32, 37-39
As Key To Salvation 137-149, 143
As Works of Art 38-39, 52-53
Bible, Prohibition of xii-xiv, xvi-xvii,
 149, See also: Second Com-
mandment
Cicero, Opinion of 53-59
Criticism of 64 n. 3, 109, 116-122,
284-288, 293-295
Grammatological Aspect of 297-305
History of Development in India
108-115
Image Making 63, 71-72
Importance to the World xv-xvii
Justification of 64
Muslim Opinion of 107-108, 161 n.
3 Jesus 186, 255, 315, See also: Christ
Mystification of 48-49
Of Royalty 277-295
Robbery of 50-59
Roman Theology of worship 43-48
Social Circumstances of Acceptance
115-116
Theology 109-115
Unseen Images 37-39
Varro, Opinion of 45-53
Wooden 33-39, 53, 146-147
Impressionism, Impressionists, 319-320
Inden, R. 116
India 70 n. 15, 67, 80, 96, 99, 120,
134
South 67, 96, 99
Indian Art 63-69, 83-90
And Reality 69, 83-90
Nature of 66-67 n. 6, 67, 72-73 n.
17
Indra 111-112, 119-120, 123
Iphigeneia 33
Isis 37
Isaac ibn Latif 218
Isaac, Patriarch 150-151, 158, 165,
168, 173, 178, 314
Isaiah 190
R. Ishmael 181, 185, 192
Isomorphism 198, 201, 209-210, 212-
213, 215, 230
Israel Museum 163
Israel, People 204, 220-221, 232, 333
Israel Saruq 216
Italian Jewry 241-242
Italian Renaissance 40
Italy 49-50, 234, 241
Itzig, D. 256
Iuventus 48
Jacob, Patriarch 182-196, 314
Jacob ben Jacob ha-Cohen 204-205,
214, 222
Jansenism 315
Jehudah Halevi 239
Jain Monks 94 n. 40, 97 n. 41, 100,
116
Jains a n d j a i n i s m 63 n. 2, 64 n. 3, 64
n. 6, 67, 68 n. 11, 70, 73, 82 n. 25,
93, 96-100, 108, 117, See also: Jina
Attitudes to Reflections 82 n. 25
James I, English King 286 n. 18
Jamini 119-121
Jerobam xiv
Jerusalem 171, 173, 342-343
Jewish Art 149-159, 161-180, 237-277
Jewish Body 237-276
Jewish Mysticism 199, See also:
Kabbalah, Mysticism
Jews, And Roman Religion 46-47, 181-
196
Jews, And Christians 179-180, 237-
238, 314
Jews, And Pagans 178
Jina 64 n. 3, 67, 68 n. 1, 93-97, 100,
108
Body 64 n. 3, 93 n. 39, 94-97, 100
Candraprabha 97 n. 47
Mahavira 108
Reflections 93 n. 39
Sitalanatha 94 n. 40
Worship 64 n. 3, 93-94
Jingyingsi Temple 139
Jinsena 93 n. 39
Adipurana 93 n. 39
Jivaka, Physician 135
J o b Manuscript at the Vatican 20-21
Johanson, P. 327
J o h n of Damascus 1
J o h n of Ephesus 9
Jonah, Prophet 157
Jubilees 173
Judaea 173, 179
Judaism 201-202, 204, 237-238, 247-
248, 272, 343
Biblical 204
Julian the Apostate 12
Jupiter, See: Zeus
Jupiter Capitolinus 46-48
Kaballah 178-234, 258, See also:
Jewish Mysticism
Astro-Magical 202, 223, 234
Christian 233
Ecstatic 202, 219, 221, 223
Lurianic 227, 233-234
 Schools 201-202, 217 Lessing, E. G. 248, 252, 255-256
Theosophical-Theurgical 204, 206, Letters, Hebrew 203-206, 214-216,
216, 220-221, 223, 225, 234 222-229
Kabbalists 206-207, 217, 234 Leukothea 37
Castilian 207, 209, 217, 234 Levi Isaac of Berditchev 228
Catalan 209, 217 Leviticus 210, 214 n. 63, 214 η. 64
Geronese 206, 209 Levidcus Rabbah 174
Kalidasa 65 n. 5, 78 n. 21 Levy, P. 30 n. 9
Malavikagnimitra 65 n. 5 Levy, S. 65 n. 5, 69 n. 12, 70 n. 16
Sakuntala 78 n. 21 Licurgus 32
Kamala 69 n. 12 Light Beams, Motif of 150-157, 159
Kandinsky 318-319 Lilien, Ε. M. 155-156, 272-274
Kant, E. 237, 316-317 Limping 181-196
Kantorowicz, E. 292 Loeb, S. W. 258-262
Karpurapura, Princess of 65 η. 5 London xi
Kathasaritsagara 65 η. 5 Los Angeles xi
Katz, J . 239 Lubavitcher Rebbe 276
Kavichandra Dvija 70 n. 15 Lulav 150
Kamakumaraharana 70 n. 15 Luria, I. 216, 223, 233
Kennedy, J . F. 327 Luria, S. 239
Khnopf318 Lurianism 227
Kings, Book of xiv
Klimt 318 Macrobius 48-49
Klinger 318 Madanavati 73
Kosmokrator 186 Madrid 7
Kramrisch 66 n. 6, 71 11. 17 Maggid of Zlotchov 229
Krsna 101 Mahabharata 110
Ksemendra 91 n. 37 Mahabharata Adiparvan 68
Avodanakalplato 91 11. 37 Mahamaudgalyayana 134-135
Kulluka 117 Mahasthama Prapta 136, 138
Kumarajiva 143 Mahayana Scriptures 140, 141 n. 10
Kumarapala, King 93 n. 39 Mahmud, Ghaznavid Ruler 107-108,
Kumarika 122 130
Kumarila 81 n. 25 Maimonides 151-152, 218, 238-239
Slokavarttika 81 n. 25 Guide to the Perplexed 218-219
Kundakunda 99 n. 51, 95 n. 43 Mishne Torah 151-152
Samayasara 95 n. 43 Malévitch 318
Mallarmé, S. 215
Laksmi, Goddess 100 Manasollasa 84 n. 29
Larger Pure Land Scripture 141 Manicudavadana 68 n. 10
Last Judgment 16 Manimekhali 89-90 n. 35
Last Supper 326 Manna 151
Lavater, J . C. 249-250, 255, 268 Mannheim 259
Dispute with Mendelssohn 255-256 Manu 117-118
Physiognomischen Fragmenten 249 Manusmrti 117
Lebadeia 37 Marcellus 53
Leghorn 262 Marriages 67-68, 241-242
Lehren Α. Ζ. Η. 263-264, 266 Mars 48
Leipzig 151 Martyrdom 181
Leon da Modena 246 Mask 181, 185, 192, 194
Leontios of Neapolis 161 n. 2 Mathura 107-108, 130
Apology 161 η. 2 Matisse 320
Leopold, I 245 Mcluhan, M. 310
Lesbos 35 Megara 31-32
R. Meir 227 Moses Hayyim Efrayyim of Sudilkov
Meir ibn Gabbai 215 231-232
'Avodat ha-Qodesh 215 Mother Dindymene, Statue of 38
Memory and Writing 302-303 Mousus 30
Menahem Mendel of Vitebsk 223 Mrgankavali, Princess 70, 73-75, 77,
n. 100 83, 84 n. 29
Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl 223 n. Mrgendragama 121
100 Mucius Scaevola 44
Mendelssohn, M. 247-257, 276, 308- Mueller, M. F. 308
309, 311 Munch 318
Dorothea, Daughter 253 Munich 155
Jerusalem 308-309 Munster-Sarnsheim 175
Mendoza 248 Music 333-344
Menophanes 35 Myron 52
Menorah 150 Mysticism 258, 316, 318, 319
Merian, M. 153 Mythology 182, 188-189, 308
Meru, Mountain 96
Meshullam Phoebus of Zbaraz 231 Nagarjuna 143
Messana 52 Nagnajit 63 n. 1, 68 n. 10
Metz 158 Atralaksana 68 η. 10
Michelangelo 272, 314 Citralaksana 63 η. 1
Michelstadt 258, 262 Nahman of Braslav 229 n. 125
Middle Ages 3, 5, 15, 22, 25, 150, 152, Nahamanides 209
154, 159, 198, 229, 302 n. 11 Naples 7
Middle East 108 Naravahanadatta 65 n. 5
Milton, J . 281, 283-288, 293, 295 Narayana Rama Acarya 80 n. 22
Eikonoklastes 281, 283, 287 Narayanadiksita 69 n. 12
Mimamsaka 81 n. 25 Narkiss, Β. 172
Mimamsika Mandana Misra 126 Narmada, River 114
Minerva 48 Nature (Cosmos) 187-188, 191, 313,
Mirror, Motif of 82 n. 25, 94, 101, 315, 316, 319
135, 146 Nefertity 343
Mishna 165, 173-174, 181 Nelson, L. 124
Avot 191 Neoplatonism 205, 220, 234-235
Bikkurim 165 Nero 35
Mithridates 35 New Age 341
Molitor, J.A.L. 66 n. 6 New Testament 199
Monarchy and Monarchs 277-295 New York χ
Mondrian 318 Newman, B. 329
Monotheism 310-311, 333-344 Nicephoros of Constantinople 209
Montefiore, M. 276 Nietzsche, F. 318
Monuments 327-330 Nigidius Figulus 49
Monza, Ampullae of 6 Nile xvi
Moon, Motive 75-77, 98, 175, 179 Nile Festival 178
Moria, Mountain 179 Nilsson, M. 32, 34
Mosaic of Paphos, See: Dionysus— Nimrod 187
Mosaic at Paphos Ninive 157
Moses xiii, 151-153, 155-158, 210, 238, Nizza 157-158
248, 272, 274-275, 305-306, 309, Noah 158-159
333-340, 343 Nonius 51 n. 42
And Herzl 274-275 Nonnus, Dionysiaca 11
Freud, Theories of 343-344 Nossig, A. 269, 271-272
Moses of Dolina 223 n. 100 Wandering Jew, Statue 269, 271-272
Moses Eliyaqum Beri'ah 231 Numa, King 46
Numbers, Book of 165, 210 Phillip, J . N. 277, 279
Nyman, M. 341 Phoebus 285
Phlious 36-37
Oldenburg, C. 327 Acropolis 36
Olmous 39 Phrygia 49
Olympia 27-31, 39-40 Phryne 31 n. 14
Statues of Zeus, See: Zeus—Statue Picasso, P. 320, 326-327
and Cult at Olympia Plato 301-302, 304, 313
Onqelos 214 n. 63 Phaedrus 301, 304
Oppenheim, M. 255-256 Phüebus 301
Oppenheimer, J . 247 Platonic Academy 9
Oppenheimer, S. 243-246, 276 Platonism and Platonic Philosophy 24,
Orchomenus 36 45, 230, 297, See also:
Orestes 33 Neoplatonism
Orpheus 178 Plays 280-281, 285-286
Osiris 307 Pliny 53 n. 57, 302
Ouspensky 318 Plotinus 40, 299, 317
Ovid 307, 314 P o c o c k J . G. A. 279
Poland 156
Pagans and Paganism 9-13, 22-26, Polcari, S. 330
178-179, 238 Policlitus 38
And Christians 9-13, 19, 22-26, 238 Pope, A. 302
And Jews 178 Porphyry 303
Paintings 63, 68 n. 10, 89 n. 33, 93 n. Life of Pythagoras 303
39, 276, 322-326, See also: Por- Portraits 65-71, 77-78, 83-84, 241-277
traits, Sculpture As representing An Individual 65 n.
Palaimon 37 5, 66 n. 6, 68 n. 10
Palestine 163, 173, 179, 264 Of Charles I 282
Pallava, Dynasty 108 Of Herzl 273-276
Pan 39 Of Jacob Carvalho 241-242, 246
Pandora 33 Of Lehren 264
Panofsky, E. xi Of Mendelssohn 247-257, 276
Paphos 4-13 Of Montefiore 276
Paradise 150, 274 Of Rabbis 257-268, 275
Paramasamhita 113, 115 Of T h e Vilna Gaon 266, 276
Paris 266 Opposition to 255
Parvati 70, 100 Roman 194
Pascal 315, 316 Poseidon 37
Patrae 34-35 Statue and Cult at Palaimon 37
Patriarchs 190, See also: Abraham, Prabhacandra 82 n. 25
Isaac and Jacob Prague χ
Paul 182, 185 Pramcyakamalamartanda 82 n. 25
Pausanias 27-28, 30 n. 9, 31, 36-40 Praxiteles 31 n. 14, 52
Péladan 318 Priense 39
Peleponnesian War 32 Princeton xi
Pentheus, King of Thebes 333, 338- Protestantism 279, 290, 314
340, 342 Prthiviraja, King 79
Perkins, W. 289-290 Psalms xvi, 193, 209-210
Pesikta Rabbati 173, 179 As Divine Form 209-210
Phaeton 285 Psyttaleia 39
Pharae 36 Puja 115, 118, 121
Pheidias the Athenian 27, 29-34, 38, Purana, Buddha Disciple 134
40 Pure Land Contemplation of 138-147
Phigalia 35, 37 Puritans and Puritanism 288-290
Purity of Worship and Worshippers Rosetti 317
117 Rothko Chapel, See: Houston—
Pumavadana 92 n. 38 Rothko Chapel
Purvamimamsasutras 119 R û thko, M. 327
pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom 342 Rudolf II 246
Rufinos 301 n. 7
Quintilian 27 Rumania χ
Qumran Scrolls 173
Qur'an 199 Sabbath 153, 155-156
Sahara 119-122
Rabbinic Judaism 198-199, 201 Sacraments 313
Rabbis 149, 174, 181-196 Sacrilegious Acts 50-51, 54, 107-108
Rajasekhara 65 n. 5, 69-71, 73, 75 n. Safed 235
19, 77-79, 82-85, 87-91, 100, 102 Sagarika 75 n. 19
Karpuramanjari 65 n. 5, 70 Saints 2, 149, 315
Kavyamimamsa 69 n. 12 Salvadon 133, 136, 143, 159, 168, 289
Viddhasalabhanjika 65 n. 5, 69-71, 73- Samavasarana 93 n. 39
83, 84 n. 27, 85-88, 90-91, 102 Samos 36
Ramanuja 111 Samothrace, Cults of 48
Ramayana 110 Samsara 72 η. 17
Ramler, Κ. W. 252 Sankara 80 η. 23, 119, 122-130
Raphael 314 Nirgunamanasapuja 127
Rashi 182, 183, 220 Upadesasahasri 80 n. 23
Ravana 98 Sanskrit Dramas 65-69, 72-83
Rebecca 183 Sanskrit Poetry 75 n. 19, 76, 79 n. 21,
Redempdon, See: Salvation 80 n. 22, 81, 86 n. 31, 89 n. 33,
Reflections 80-81, 82 n. 25, 86 n. 31, 101
91-99, 101-102 Sandsuri 64 n. 3
Reggio, G. 341 Ceiavandananamahabhasam 64 11. 3
Reininghaus, C. 324 Sara, Wife of Abraham 167, 192
Reiter, T. χ Sarapis 50
Revelation 315 Saturnus 47
Rhetoric 313, 315 Schiele, Ε. 324-326
Rhineland 151 Schiller 333
Richard II 285-286, 287 n. 21, 292- Die Götter Griechenlands 333
295 Die Sendung Mose 333
Richard III 286, 292-293 Scholem, G. 202, 229 η. 124, 232-233
Ricoeur, P. 200 Schönberg, Α. 334-341, 343
Robertson, M. 30, 31 n. 12, 40 Harmonielehre 335-336
Rockefeller Museum 171 Moses und Aron 334-340
Roman Empire 9-10, 55, 184-196 Schoonjan, A. 247
Christianization of 9-10 Schopen, G. 72 η. 17, 96 n. 45
Province of Sicily, See: Sicily Schopenhauer 317
Roman Religion 43-49, 59 Schuré
Nature of 43-46 Scripture 313
Origin of 46-47 Sculpture and Sculptures 63, 78-79,
Romance and Love 65 n. 5, 66, 70, 82, 84-88, 89 η. 33, 91, 102, 149,
73-83, 89-90 n. 35 251-252, 255, 269, 271, 329-330
Rome 5, 46, 48-49, 55-58, 149 Second Commandment xii-xv, 161,
Catacomb of Marcellino 5 239, 246, 297, 305-306, 308, 313,
Catacomb of S. Pietro 5 315, 316
Festivals 181-196 Second World War, See: World War II
Temple of the Capitoline Triad 46, Sefer ha-Meshiv 215
48-49, 55 Sefer ha-Temunah 214-215
Sefer ha-Tihud 208-209, 212-213 Steiner 318
Sefer Ma'arekhet Ha-'Elohut 207 Steinhardt, J . 156-157
Sefer Minhagim 153-154 Stewart, S. 267
Sefer Tetzirah 197 n. 3 Stoicism / Stoics 45, 51, 59
Sefirot 197 n. 3, 198, 202, 206-207, Stone Worship 36
209-212, 233 Strauss, R. 340
Sefirat Malhut 207, 212 Salome 340
Sefirat Tiferet 207 Struck, H. 275
Segesta 54-55, 57 Stuck 318
Semele 339 Sublime 316-317
Serenus 313 Sumeru Mountain 138
Seth 307 Sun 81-82 n. 25, 101, 114, 163, 168,
Shah, P. 72 n. 17 171-172, 174-175, 186, See also:
Shakespeare, W. 281, 284-286, 287 n. Helios
21, 291-295, 302 Sundari 69 n. 12, 78 n. 21, 80 n. 22
Shandao 140-145, 147 Camatkaratarangini 80 n. 22
Contemplation of the Buddha 144 Swinburne, A. C. 293 n. 34
Shem Τον ben Jacob of Faro 208 Symbolism 314
Shewbread Table 165 Synagogue—Dura Europos 149-150
Shibi 143 Synagogue Mosaic—Beth Alpha 150,
R. Shimeon bar Yochai 265-266 166-168, 177, 179-180
R. Shimeon ben Lakish 190 Synagogue Mosaic—Hammamlif,
Shimeon ibn Lavi 21 7 Tunisia 150
Shi'ur Qomah 218 Synagogue Mosaic—Hammat Tiberias
Shlomo ha-Levi Alqabetz 222 ' 163-168, 175, 177
Shlomo of Lutzck 233-234 Synagogue Mosaic—Na'aran 161 n. 2
Dibrat Shlomo 233 Synagogue Mosaic—Sepphoris 161-
Shorter Pure Land Scripture 144 169, 171, 175-178, 180
Shuger, D. K. 279 Syracuse 50, 52-54, 56-57
Shulman, D. 75 n. 19 Syria 55-56
Sicily 49-51, 55, 57
Sicyon 30, 36-37 Tabernacle 156, 163, 165, 167, 199,
Sidney, P. 283 n. 15 210
Arcadia 283 n. 15 Tablets of the Law 151, 156-158
Sifrei ΖμΙα 165 Talmud 173-174, 197
Sinai, Mountain 155, 229 Avoda Zara 174, 181-196
Siva 67, 77, 99-100, 109-114, 116, Babylonian 173-174
118, 121, 127 n. 11, 128 Bava Batra 191-192
Slaje, W. 84 n. 27 Megillah 185
Socrates 248, 252 n. 31 Pesahim 195
Sodom 153 Shabbat 173
Soul 81, 110, 197, 205, 219-220, 226, Tamilnad 129
230 Tanluan 143, 145
Of Israel 220-221 Tarquinius 48-49
South India, See: India- South Tassaert, J . P. 248, 251-252
Spain 151 Taubes Minerva Center ix-x, 107 n. 1
Sparta / Sparthans 32-33, 35, 37 Tel-el Amarna 342
Spiess,J. 255 Temple 163, 165, 167-168, 171-172,
Spinoza, B. 248 177
Sprich, J. 257 n. 41 Second 165
Sri Hars'a 65 n. 5, 75 n. 19 Terminus 48
Ratnavali 65 n. 5, 75 n. 19 Tertullian 283 n. 13
Púyadarsika 65 11. 5 Thebes 36, 38, 338-339
Strabo 27, 31 Thespiae 35
Thetis 37 Vedic Brahmins, Class 68 n. 11, 109,
Statue and Cult at Sparta 111, 115-119, 124
Theuth 301-302 Religious Split among Members
Thomas Aquinas 1,314 115-116
Tiantai Traditions 139-140 Venice, Haggadah, See: Haggadas—
Tiberias 178 Venice
Tillyard, E. M. W. 281 n. 10 Vergil 49, 314
Tirer, Hayyim 227 Aeneid 49
Tiruvannamalai 99 Verres C., Sicilian Governor 49-50,
Todd, M. 281 n. 10, 289 n. 24, 291 53-58, See also: Cicero, Verrine
Togarmi, B. 218 Orations
Torah xvi-xvii, 151, 198-235, 272 Vesta 45
As a Part of God 203, 214, 226 Viddha 84 n. 29
As an Icon 211, 215, 225, 233 Vidyadharamalla, King 73-74
As the Agent Intellect 217-222 Vienna 253
As Representing an Image of the Vimakakirti Mrdesa Sutra 140 n. 9
Divine 201-217, 222-229, 235 Virgin Mary 5-6, 10, 12
Graphic Representation 199, 202, Visnu 85-86, 98, 100, 109-113, 115-
205-206, 228, 233, 235 116, 118, 129
Letters 199, 203-206, 208, 211, Avatara (crossing Down) 111-112
214-215, 221-229, 231, 233 Incarnations 112
Recitation 226-228 Visnudharmottara Purana 63 n.l, 64 n. 3,
Scroll 204, 211, 208-209, 233 72 n. 17, 109, 118
Study 199, 201, 203, 211-212, 221, Visnusmrti 109, 116, 118
225, 228-229, 231-232, 235, 266- Visvakarman 67
267, 272 Volca 46
Written and Oral 206, 228 Von Stietencorn, Heinrich 110, 115-
Tosefta Menahot 165 116
Traianus 53 n. 57 Vulture Peak 134-135, 139
Treatise of Shem 183
Trophonius, Oracle of 37 YVackenroder 333
Troy 34 Wagner, R. 333, 340-341
Turner 319 Parsifal 341
Typhon 307 Tannhäuser 340
Τ zurät Adam 205, 215 Wandering Jew, Myth 271
Wandering Jew Statue, See: Nossig,
Udayana 68 η. 10 A.— Wandering Jew, Statue
Ugliness 194-195 War of Liberation xi
Ukraine χ Warburg Institute xi
United States 156 Warburton, W. 302-308, 311
Upanisads 108, 111, 125 The Divine Legation of Moses 302, 308
Urbach, Ε. Ε. 172 Weber, M. xiv
Usa 70 Weber, R. 66 n. 6, 68 n. 10
al-Utbi 107 Weiss, Z. 165, 167, 172 n. 21
Welker, Μ. χ
Vaidehi, Queen 134-136, 142, 144 Wiesen, I. 267
Van Gogh, V. 322-325 Wisdom of Solomon 173
Varro, M. T. 43-49 World War I 325
De Dis Selectis 47 World War II x, 156-157
Summa Theologiae Romanorum 45 Writing Systems 297-304, See also:
View on Image Worship 43-49 Hieroglyphs
Vasavadatta 68 n. 10 Wurmel, W. 259
Vasistha 85-86 Wycliff 314
Vedas 108, 111, 116, 118-119, 124
Xenophanes 47 Fallen Zeus at Gythion 36
Xuanzhungsi Temple 143 Statue Dedicated by the People of
Corinth 30
Yale xi Statue Dedicated by the Laconians
Yama 97-98 30
Yamuna, River 101 Statues and Cults at Megara 31-32
Yehudah Hayyat 207 n. 34 Statues and Cults at Olympia 27-
Yehuda ha-Nassi 173 31, 34, 38, 40
Yohanan ben N a p p a h a 173 Zhiyi 140, 145
Yogavasistha 73, 84-85, 87-89, 90 n. 35 Mohe Zhiguan 145
Zionist Art 268, 271-275
Zaret, D. 290 Zionist Movment 273
Ze'ev Wolf of Zhitomir 223 n. 100, Zodiac 162-163, 165, 169, 170-172,
223 n. 101, 227, 230 175-176, 180
Zeus 7, 27-34, 36, 38-40, 44, 46-48, Zohar, Book Ū f 207, 213, 217, 223,
55-57, 59, 339 265-266
 CONTRIBUTORS

Aharon R.E.. Agus

Hochschule für jüdische Studien
Friedrichstrasse 9
D-69117 Heidelberg
Germany

J a n Assmann
Aegytologisches Institut
Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg
Marstalhof 4
D-69117 Heidelberg
Germany

Moshe Barasch
10 Rabbi Binyamin
Jerusalem, Israel

Albert I. Baumgarten
Department of Jewish History
Bar Ilan University
R a m a t Gan, Israel 52900

Alain Besançon
97 R u e du Bac
75007 Paris, France

Hubert Cancik and Hildegard Cancik-Lindemaier

Hauserstrasse 89
D-72076 Tübingen
Germany

Richard I. Cohen
Department of Jewish History
T h e Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel 91905
Richard H. Davis
Religion Program
Bard College
Annandale-on-Hudson, NY 12504
USA

Margalit Finkelberg
Department of Classics
Tel Aviv University
R a m a t Aviv, Israel

Phyllis Granoff
Department of Religious Studies
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, C a n a d a L8S 4K1

Wolf-Daniel Hartwich
Germanistisches Seminar
Hauptstrasse 207-209
D-69117 Heidelberg
Germany

Bianca Kühnel
Department of Art History
T h e Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel 91905

Hannelore Künzl
Hochschule für jüdische Studien
Friedrichstrasse 9
D-69117 Heidelberg
Germany

Moshe Idel
Department of Jewish Philosophy
T h e Hebrew University
Jerusalem, Israel 91905

Koichi Shinohara
Department of Religious Studies
McMaster University
Hamilton, Ontario, C a n a d a L8S 4K1
J a m e s R. Siemon
Department of English
College of Arts and Sciences
236 Bay State Road
Boston University
Boston, M A 02215
U.S.A.

Peter Springer
Oldenburg University FB II
Ammerländer Heerstrasse 1 18-124
D-26111 Oldenburg
Germany
 S T U D I E S IN T H E H I S T O R Y OF R E L I G I O N S
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8 K.W. Bolle. The Persistence of Religion. An Essay onTantrism and Sri

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lished on the occasion of his retirement from the Chair of the History of
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sterdam. 1969.1 s β ν 90 04 03092 ι
19 U. Bianchi, C.J. Bleeker & A. Bausani (eds.). Problems and Methods of the
History of Religions. Proceedings of the Study Conference organized by
the Italian Society for the History of Religions on the Occasion of the
Tenth Anniversary of the Death of Raffaele Pettazzoni, Rome 6th to 8th
December 1969. Papers and discussions. 1972.1 s β ν 90 04 026401
31 C.J. Bleeker, G.Widengren & E.J. Sharpe (eds.). Proceedings of the 12th In-
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34 V.L.Oliver, Caodai Spiritism. A Study of Religion in Vietnamese Society.
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41 Β. Layton (ed.). The Rediscovery of Gnosticism. Proceedings of the Interna-
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31,1978. Two vols.
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43 M. Heerma van Voss, D.J. Hoens, G. Mussies, D. van der Pias & H. te Velde
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44 P.J. Awn. Satan's Tragedy and Redemption. Iblis in Sufi Psychology. With a
foreword by A.Schimmel. 1983. I S B N 90 04 06906 2
45 R. Kloppenborg (ed.). Selected Studies on Ritual in the Indian Religions.
Essays to D.J.Hoens. 1983. I S B N 90 04 07129 6
50 S.Shaked, D.Shulman & G.G.Stroumsa (eds.). Gilgul. Essays on Trans-
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52 J.G.Griffiths. The Divine Verdict. A Study of Divine Judgement in the
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53 Κ. Rudolph. Geschichte und Probleme der Religionswissenschaft. 1992.
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54 Α. N. Balslev & J. N. Mohanty (eds.). Religion and Time. 1993.
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56 Β. Saler. Conceptualizing Religion. Immanent Anthropologists,Transcen-
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57 C. Knox. Changing Christian Paradigms. And their Implications for Mod-
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58 J.Cohen. The Origins and Evolution of the Moses Nativity Story. 1993.
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59 S.Benko. The Virgin Goddess. Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of
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60 Z. P.Thundy. Buddha and Christ. Nativity Stories and IndianTraditions.
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61 S.Hjelde. Die Religionswissenschaft und das Christentum. Eine historische
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62 Th. A.Idinopulos & E. A.Yonan (eds.). Religion and Reductionism. Essays
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63 S. Khalil Samir & J. S. Nielsen (eds.). Christian Arabie Apologetics during the
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64 S.N. Balagangadhara. 'The Heathen in His Blindness...' Asia, the West and
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65 H. G. Kippenberg & G. G. Stroumsa (eds.). Secrecy and Concealment. Stud-
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67 J.Platvoet & K. van derToorn (eds.). Pluralism and Identity. Studies on
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68 G.Jonker. The Topography of Remembrance. The Dead,Tradition and Col-
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69 S.Biderman.ScnpíMreaníí Knowledge. An Essay on Religious Epistemo-
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70 G.G.Stroumsa. Hidden Wisdom. EsotericTraditions and the Roots of
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72 W.J. Hanegraaff. New Age Religion and Western Culture. Esotericism in the
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75 P.Schäfer & H.G.Kippenberg (eds.). Envisioning Magic. A Princeton
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77 P. Schäfer & M. R. Cohen (eds.). Toward the Millennium. Messianic Expec-
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78 Α. I. Baumgarten, with J. Assmann & G. G. Stroumsa (eds.). Self, Soul and
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79 M. Houseman & C. Severi. Naven or the Other Self. A Relational Ap-
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80 A. L. Molendijk & P. Pels (eds.). Religion in the Making. The Emergence of
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81 Th. A.Idinopulos & B.C.Wilson (eds.). What is Religion? Origins, Défini-
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82 A. van der Kooij & Κ.van derToorn (eds.). Canonization & Decanoniza-
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1997.1999. I S B N 90 04 112464
83 J. Assmann & G.G. Stroumsa (eds.). Transformations of the Inner Self in
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84 J.G. Platvoet & A. L. Molendijk (eds.). The Pragmatics of Defining Religion.
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86 A. I. Baumgarten (ed.). Apocalyptic Time. 2000.1 s β ν 90 0411879 9
87 S. Hjelde (ed.). Man, Meaning, and Mystery. Hundred Years of History of
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88 A. Körte (ed.). Women and Miracle Stories. A Multidisciplinary Explora-
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89 J. Assmann & A. I. Baumgarten (eds.). Representation in Religion. Studies in
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