Early Christian Art

ARTICLE
Early Christian Art and

Divine Epiphany
http://www.utpjournals.press/doi/pdf/10.3138/tjt.28.1.125 - Thursday, June 02, 2016 9:21:12 PM - IP Address:188.68.3.69
Robin M. Jensen
robin m. jensen is Luce Chancellor’s Professor of the History of Christian Art and
Worship, Vanderbilt University.
Abstract: Drawing upon the work of art historians, historians of ancient Christianity
have incorporated the evidence of early Christian visual art in their studies, primarily in
order to identify the iconographic content, formal style, and social or religious context of
the artifacts or monuments under consideration. This essay argues that, while their stan-
dard motifs and compositions undoubtedly served a didactic purpose and reflected the
cultural, ideological, or exegetical location, practices, or commitments of patrons, early
Christian art also served an epiphanic function; it presented the divine image to viewers
in an external and accessible form. Thus, by attending specifically to the relationship of
image and observer and the setting in which these objects were viewed, it is possible
to see them, like later icons, as devices that facilitated meditation, prayer, and even
visionary encounters with the holy.
Keywords: icon/image, idol/idolatry, prototype/figure, portrait, theophany, veneration
In a letter to his friend Sulpicius Severus, written in either 403 or 404, Paulinus
of Nola described the mosaic that he had commissioned for the apse of his
episcopal basilica. Although the mosaic no longer exists, Paulinus gives us a
pretty good idea of how it must have appeared from:
The Trinity shines out in all its mystery. Christ is represented by a lamb, the Father’s
voice thunders forth from the sky, and the Holy Spirit flies down in the form of a dove.
A wreath’s gleaming circle surrounds the cross, and around this circle the apostles
form a ring, represented by a chorus of doves. The holy unity of the Trinity merges in
Christ, but the Trinity has its threefold symbolism. The Father’s voice and the Spirit
show forth God, the cross and the lamb proclaim the holy victim. The purple and the
palm point to kingship and to triumph. Christ himself, the Rock, stands on the rock
of the Church, and from this rock, four splashing fountains flow, the evangelists, the
living streams of Christ.1
His description makes it clear that Paulinus credited visual art’s potential
to reveal something about the nature of God. It is also evident that Paulinus
intentionally avoided an anthropomorphic representation of any of the Trinity.
Rather, the three are shown as a voice (probably visually represented by a dis-
embodied hand), a dove, and a lamb or cross. Even the Apostles are depicted
Toronto Journal of Theology 28/1, 2012, pp. 125–144 DOI: 10.3138/tjt.28.1.125

126 Robin M. Jensen
as doves and not as men. Yet, Paulinus has no doubt that viewers will under-
stand what they see, and that it is meant to represent or reveal God: to be an
epiphany of sorts.
Until fairly recently, historians of early Christianity have paid relatively
little attention to visual art as a mode of theological expression, and even
less to the ways that seeing visual art could have shaped the beliefs or piety
of viewers. When they have done so, the text historians have tended to rely on
the studies of art historians who, by profession, ordinarily are more interested
in formal, compositional, or stylistic developments than in the artworks’
possible reflection of certain theological teaching or its devotional functions.
Nevertheless, those art historical studies laid important groundwork, identify-
ing, dating, describing, and cataloguing iconographic themes, especially from
the most extensive corpus of evidence that comes from the Roman catacombs
and sarcophagi. As such, many of the best have became standard references
for traditional text scholars who occasionally incorporate visual art into their
analysis of early Christian theology and practice.2
While text scholars’ reliance on art historians’ works should be regarded as
the respectful acknowledgement of one scholarly guild’s expertise by another,
in the last three decades or so, both groups have raised pertinent questions,
opened up the terms of the discussion, and blurred the edges of formerly dis-
tinct disciplinary fields. Analyses that focus on the social context and function
of the monuments and urge that visual art be studied independently from the
patristic textual canon in order to avoid text-skewed interpretations have chal-
lenged older studies, which examined the remains primarily in light of tradi-
tional Christian doctrine or sacramental theology. Some of these reappraisals
have concluded that the extant evidence demonstrates a distinction between
popular and official Christianity and the existence of a subgroup of Christian
believers—the illiterate or disenfranchised members of the community—who
were more likely to be users or viewers of art.3 Other examinations have
attended to Christian art’s emergence from and continuity with Greco-Roman
religious art more broadly, arguing that boundaries should not be drawn too
sharply between rank-and-file Christians and their non-Christian neighbours,
or between ‘‘popular’’ and ‘‘official’’ expressions of theology or modes of
worship.4
Simultaneously emerging with these generative and even compelling theories
of how early Christian art reflected social and cultural location, values, and
religious practices is a burgeoning interest in the theology of eastern Christian
icons.5 The enormous interest in and literature on the subject is a phenomenon
unto itself. Yet most of the attention has focused on Byzantine Christian icon-
ography, but rarely considering the formative and even mystical dimension of
viewing images in general, or the possibility that early Christian art served a
similar purpose—to serve as a focus for contemplation or meditation on the
nature of the divine Being. It was not to be the recipient of adoration itself,
but to mediate the prayers and reverence of the faithful, effectively transmitting
Early Christian Art and Divine Epiphany 127
Figure 1: Early Christian sarcophagus, first half of the fourth century. Now in the
Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican. Photo: author.
them from the image to its prototype.6 To this end, this essay considers how
early Christians might have regarded their visual art and proposes that the act
of viewing generated a certain kind of subjective epiphanic experience—one
that was cognitively different from hearing a sermon or reading Scripture and
more like having an eyewitness encounter with the holy. Thus, along with
examinations of the stylistic, iconographic, theological, sociological, and con-
textual dimensions or function of early Christian artworks, it seems appro-
priate to consider their possible spiritual or visionary purpose, and to start by
considering a concrete example.
A marble sarcophagus was removed, probably sometime in the mid-
eighteenth century, from Rome’s Catacomb of San Sebastiano (figure 1).
Dated to the 330s, it was restored and transferred to the Christian Museum of
Pope Benedict xiv. Today it is in the Vatican Museo Pio Cristiano. Unlike
Paulinus’s apse, this object shows Jesus and the Apostles as quite normal-
looking human beings. The slightly reconstructed front frieze presents (from
left to right) scenes of Christ giving the symbols of work to Adam and Eve
prior to their expulsion from Eden, Jesus healing the paralytic who carries
his bed on his shoulders, Jesus changing water to wine at Cana, Jesus entering
Jerusalem on his donkey, Jesus healing the man born blind, and Jesus raising
Lazarus. The scenes do not conform to any narrative sequence, although they
do seem to draw predominantly on the Gospel of John (e.g., the Johannine
version of the paralytic healing story, the Cana miracle, the Johannine version
of the entry upon the healing of the man born blind, and the raising of
Lazarus). Jesus, of course, appears in all the scenes. They also include
figures who might be identified as witnesses or disciples, including one of
Lazarus’s sisters. Another appears in a tree in the entry scene—possibly the
figure of Zaccheus, borrowed from the story of Jesus’s entry to Jericho as
recounted in Luke 19:1–6. One other individual seems to appear in all—or
nearly all—of the scenes. His receding hairline and long face indicate that
he should be identified as Paul. The inclusion of Paul as witness to events
that, according to the Gospels, he could not have been present (or even alive)
to see is intriguing. It might indicate that Paul symbolizes the viewer who
128 Robin M. Jensen
comes to know the stories of Jesus and how they reveal God’s plan for salva-
tion, from Fall to Resurrection.
This frieze is just one among dozens somewhat like it. By the late third
century, some Christians clearly were affluent enough to afford such monu-
mental coffins. Many were able to pay for the excavation and decoration of
family mausoleums in underground cemeteries (catacombs). Some of these
were lovingly decorated with wall paintings and simple stucco work. These
remains, mostly from the environs of Rome and predominantly from a funerary
context, constitute the largest, primary corpus of early Christian art. Emerging
around the beginning of the third century, the content and style of the work
follows a clear trajectory of development.
In the beginning, the motifs were mostly simple, conventional signs such
as anchors, fish, doves, or praying figures (orantes). These symbols pointed
to aspects of the faith or references to the piety or identity of the faithful. Sim-
ilarly, the image of the Good Shepherd with his flock was a visual metaphor
referring to Christ’s attributes as a guide and guardian. Soon, along with
these, appeared abbreviated depictions of Old Testament narratives. These
developed as types that had Christian significance or could be interpreted as
allusions to Christian sacraments or teachings. In a funerary context, they
likely expressed the believer’s trust in the Shepherd’s loving care, and her
expectation of resurrection from death. The figure of the orante may symbolize
the soul of the deceased, offering prayer that she be received into heaven. This
expectation, arising out of her having undergone Christian baptism, may ex-
plain the inclusion of certain figures, e.g., Noah, Jonah, and the Three Hebrew
Youths (figure 2).
Like the frieze of the Vatican sarcophagus, the wall paintings in catacomb
hypogea or on other Christian sarcophagi seem to be composed from common
motifs drawn from the sample books offered by artists’ workshops. Represen-
tations of Jesus’s baptism, Jesus raising Lazarus, and the adoration of the
Magi could be combined with an orante, a Shepherd, Jonah, Abraham offer-
ing Isaac, Adam and Eve, and Daniel. Another monument might contain some
of the same themes, along with others, in a varied but similar arrangement.
Beginning in the fourth century, scenes of Jesus teaching, healing, and work-
ing wonders became more popular, often displacing the earlier symbolic or
typological themes. Along with particular episodes from Jesus’s life—the
adoration of the Magi, the baptism, and the entrance to Jerusalem—such
scenes regularly constituted a kind of compositional mélange. A series of dis-
crete narratives were synthesized into a somewhat jumbled set whose overall
pictorial narrative might seem a bit confusing but nevertheless projects the
general message that Jesus was teacher, healer, wonder-worker, and life-
giver. The inclusion of Old Testament narratives (e.g., Adam and Eve, Noah,
Jonah, Abraham’s offering of Isaac, Daniel in the lions’ den) attests to the
belief that the sacraments as well as Christ’s death and resurrection were pre-
figured and eternally part of the God’s plan for human salvation (figure 3).
Figure 2: Decoration of early Christian hypogeum, Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome.

Photo: author.
In these images, the representation of Jesus is remarkably consistent. He

most often appears as a beardless youth with long, curly hair (see figures 1, 3).
Jesus appears several times in many compositions, always distinguished from
the other adult male figures by his lack of beard and long, curly hair. Other
than these distinguishing facial features, he is otherwise like them. He is
about the same size and wears the garments of a well-dressed, respectable
Roman male. He has neither halo nor sceptre. He does not appear nude, like
the heroes or gods of Greco-Roman iconography. Jesus’s garb is exactly like
the others’ around him, which is that of a well-dressed Roman citizen of the
mid-fourth century: a tunic with draped pallium. Like several other figures, he
often holds a scroll and raises his hand in a gesture indicating speech. In short,
he is recognizable by his coiffure, but not overly intimidating in any of his
features.
In depictions of the most popular miracle stories, such as the healing of the
paralytic or the man born blind, the recipients are often shown as relatively
small in comparison to characters. Perhaps their diminutive size was intended
to reflect their social position; they are suppliants and thus ‘‘little ones.’’ Jesus
normally extends his hand to touch those he heals (see figure 1). One excep-
tion, the woman with the hemorrhage, reaches out to him instead, or rather to
130 Robin M. Jensen
Figure 3: Early Christian sarcophagus, Rome, mid fourth century. Now in the Museo
Pio Cristiano, Vatican. Photo: author.
his cloak. Jesus’s imposition of his hand is a simple gesture, described in

many Gospel accounts (e.g., Matt 8:14–15, 20:29–34; Mark 1:41). By con-
trast, in depictions of wonders such as the changing of water to wine, the
resurrection of the widow’s son, and the raising of Lazarus, Jesus wields a
staff: the only identifiable or special sign of his power and authority, and a
detail not mentioned by the Gospels. Two other figures in early Christian art
hold a similar staff; Moses and Peter both use it to strike a rock to produce
water, the former for thirsty Israelites, the latter to baptize his Roman jailers,
a scene from an apocryphal narrative (see figure 3).7 Thus, Jesus’s miracles
are not incidents intended to show that he is so very different from all others
as to manifest his glory and to reveal the nature of his kingdom—where the
blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the
dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them (Matt
11:5).
Perhaps as significant as what early Christian iconographic programs in-
clude is what they do not. The Annunciation to Mary, the Transfiguration,
the Last Supper, the Passion, the Empty Tomb, and the Ascension appear
either rarely or not at all before the fifth century. Although depictions of
episodes from the Passion begin to appear by the last quarter of the fourth
century and incorporate scenes of Jesus before Pilate or Simon carrying the
cross, they do not include representations of the actual crucifixion. In its place
stands a triumphant and empty cross, surmounted by a wreathed christogram
(figure 4). Beneath, a Roman soldier looks up as if recognizing ‘‘truly, this is
the son of God’’ (Mark 15:39). Generally, artistic representations of what
came to be the holy mysteries of Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection
are relatively late, compared to the typological allusions to prophecy and
fulfillment and popular portrayals of Jesus teaching and working miracles.
Figure 4: Passion sarcophagus, Rome, third quarter, fourth century. Now in the
Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican. Photo: author.
Some historians have suggested that Christian visual art could have
emerged only in a community that had grown lax about enforcing the Second
Commandment’s prohibition against ‘‘graven images.’’8 As the Church began
to admit dominantly gentile converts, authorities clearly struggled against re-
sidual habits and practices of idolatry. Arguably (according to certain analyses),
they accepted the need to compromise and began to accommodate images in
the form of pictorial art. However, these historians’ own theological ambiva-
lence about visual art, rather than evidence for actual aniconism in the ancient
Church likely drives such a conclusion. These scholars appear to interpret
early Christian condemnations of idol worship as a general denunciation of
pictorial art in general, rather than the repudiation of false gods.
Without doubt, early Christian apologists confidently contrasted Christian
lack of divine images to the practices of their polytheist neighbours. Never-
theless, they never condemned visual art for itself; rather they focused specif-
ically on what they described as foolish the making or worshipping of divine
images (and in this respect they agreed with many ancient philosophers). To
this point, they also cited the biblical injunction against visual art—‘‘You
shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is
in heaven above, or that is on the earth below’’ (Exod 20:4: Deut 5:8)—but
understood as a command to honour no other gods, or to bow down to and
adore their material representations. Although that injunction could have
inhibited some pre-third-century Christians from making or enjoying paint-
ings, mosaics, or sculptures, the reasons for its relatively late emergence is
more likely explained in other ways.9 Most ancient critiques of images,
whether philosophical, Jewish, or Christian, concentrated on the problem of
mistaking art for reality (the image for truth), or of worshipping false gods
instead of the true one. They were not attacks on visual art per se.
For example, in his treatise against idolatry, dated to the end of the second
century, Tertullian cites the biblical prohibition as directed against anything
manufactured specifically for the purpose of veneration.10 He defines images
132 Robin M. Jensen
as representations of deities, fashioned out of ordinary materials and trans-

formed by ritual consecration into objects of worship. He mocks those who
pay homage to statues, for they are inanimate counterparts to their dead
originals.11 Tertullian’s fellow African, Minucius Felix, points out that poly-
theists apparently found the absence images of the Christian god slightly
suspicious, as if Christians were trying to conceal or hide the nature of their
deity. In his dialogue, Octavius, Minucius Felix describes the protagonist,

Octavius, responding by asking what kind of visible representation he could
fashion for his God, seeing that humans are, themselves, rightly considered
to be God’s true image (see Genesis 1:26). Furthermore, statues and other
images are absurd: birds roost in and spiders weave webs over them. They
rust and decay.12 A century later, Arnobius of Sicca, in his discourse Against
the Nations, likewise ridicules those who bow down to images made of base
materials, baked in kilns, forged in furnaces, or whittled by knives. Is it not
folly, he asks, to kneel down in supplication to an object that you made with
your own hands?13 Unquestionably, most ancient Christians, whether simple
believers or theologically sophisticated authors, considered idols to be images
of someone else’s gods (i.e., false gods)—and did not include pictorial art
depicting stories from the Bible or even representations of Christ or the saints,
in the category.14
About the time that the Vatican Sarcophagus described above (figure 1)
was produced (ca. 335), Athanasius, the fourth-century bishop of Alexandria
and champion of Nicene orthodoxy, wrote a two-part apology. The first part,
Against the Nations (Gentes), opens by summarizing his objections to idolatry
and concludes by explaining the role of the Divine Word in salvation. In
an early chapter of the Against the Nations, he launches his critique of idols,
saying that those who pay homage to images ignore and dishonour the crafts-
men who made the works; they worship the products of skill and art, rather
than the recognizing the skills or paying tribute to the artists.15 A little further
on he echoes his predecessors, condemning idols for being as phony as the
gods they depict and asserting that those who worship them are deluded,
impious, and irrational. Quoting the Epistle to the Romans he says, ‘‘Profess-
ing themselves to be wise they became fools and changed the glory of the
incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of
birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things, wherefore God gave them
up unto vile passions’’ (see Rom 1:22–24).16
At the same time, Athanasius realizes that Christians are not different from
pagans in their sense that ‘‘seeing’’ God is crucial for their comprehension of
the divine. In the second part of his treatise On the Incarnation, Athanasius
lays out what he believed to be the orthodox explanation for God’s coming
to the world in human form. Here he propounds a theology of visuality that
could be understood as a divine antidote to the deception of idolatry and thus
as the constructive part of his two-part treatise. Although he asserts that
human knowledge of God relies on sensual perception as much as on cogni-
tive processes, he warns that mortals are easily deceived, both in what they
perceive and how they mentally evaluate or assess it. Their eyes are often
tricked, he says, into mistaking false for true images and into offering the
adoration due to the invisible divine being to mundane and even demonic
visible objects. Humans do this, he adds, even though God is not hidden
from their sight, but rather is revealed in myriad ways and forms, especially
in the beautiful works of creation. Yet they remain ignorant of the creator
(Rom 1:20). They tend to mistake the ephemeral for the eternal; they cast
their eyes on illusions, confusing them with reality. They are so distracted by
worldly goods that they miss the source of goodness itself.17
According to Athanasius, the merciful and loving God did not will for
humans to remain in this state. Recognizing human weaknesses, God tried to
accommodate them in different ways. God sent the law and prophets, holy
men and women who instructed the people and modelled a virtuous life. Yet
humans, being mired in evil habits and subject to clouded vision and lack of
reason, persisted in their errors and refused to amend their pleasure-seeking
habits. Most of all, they did not recognize themselves as bearing the divine
image, however clouded it had become by their sinfulness. Finally, God,
unable by nature to be unconcerned with the dissolute state of God’s own
handiwork, could not allow humans to suffer further corruption or even to
perish altogether. Thus, God condescended to become physically and visibly
present in the Incarnation of the Word—in a mortal body—so that humanity
might be confronted with its original image.
In a passage that evokes the images of ancient Egyptian panel portraits
and even shows that Athanasius may have been thinking about visual art as a
kind of medium for making the holy one present (see figure 5), Athanasius
compares God’s work with the renewal of a painted likeness:
For as, when the likeness painted on a panel has become effaced by stains from without,
he whose likeness it is must needs come once more to enable the portrait to be renewed
on the same wood, for, for the sake of the picture, even the mere wood on which it is
painted is not thrown away, but the outline is renewed upon it; in the same way also
the most holy Son of the Father, being the image of the Father, came to our region to
renew humanity, once made in his likeness.18
Therefore, Athanasius continues, God made himself visible. Not in order
to come down and fix things or even to figure out, at close range, how they
had come to be broken, but rather to become sensibly present to creation
itself—to be seen—so that it could be restored to its original beauty. But it
was not enough simply to make a brief, corporeal appearance and then imme-
diately sacrifice himself on a cross and die. Christ’s manifestation needed to
encompass visible acts and deeds that demonstrated both his power and his
purpose and revealed who he was by the works and wonders he performed.
Thus, Christ’s earthly life included his human birth, death, resurrection, and
ascension, but also manifestations of God’s love for creation, humanity’s
134
Robin M. Jensen
Figure 5: Portrait of a Woman, Antinoopolis (Egypt), ca. 130–161. Photo: Author.

original image, and God’s intention that this image should be rescued, re-
focused, and renewed.
For this, the work of the eye was central. By encountering God in a human
body and observing his works, mortals would recognize their origin and
understand their potential. As Jesus, himself, says in the Gospel of John,
‘‘Whoever has seen me has seen the Father’’ (John 14:7). And if, Athanasius,
posits, someone would wonder why not in a nobler instrument than a mere
human body (e.g., the sun or moon or fire or air), he explains that the Lord
did not become incarnate only in order to make some grand, dazzling display,
but to heal and teach, to care for the suffering, and to give himself to those
in want. In this way, Christ’s appearance did not exceed human capacity to
receive him. That would have rendered the incarnation useless, by terrifying
or stupefying those to whom Christ appeared. Rather, Jesus came to humans
in a form that resembled them, allowing them to comprehend and contemplate
their own true nature through their physical and visual encounter with the
Lord.19
Consequently, seeing is salvific. Athanasius does not believe that human
salvation is primarily a matter of thinking correctly or assenting in the mind
to certain dogmas or ethical principles. Humans need to perceive God in order
to know God. This may happen in the works of nature, but it was ultimately
accomplished in the Incarnation. Seeing Christ in the flesh was the beginning
of the reformation of the whole person, body and soul. Having such a vision,
humanity is transformed by its beauty and comes to know its true character
and purpose: to love and glorify God. Humans become what they see.
Again and again, Scripture emphasizes the importance of physically
seeing—and perceiving. The imperative behold (Greek idou or orao) is
ubiquitous. Seeing Christ is often a turning point in a Gospel story. A mirac-
ulous healing leads to the recognition, as when the crowds saw the paralytic
get upon and walk (Matt 9:7). John’s Gospel enumerates a series of signs in
which Jesus manifests his glory, as in the changing of water to wine in Cana
(John 2.11). Peter, James, and John are granted a preliminary vision of his
glory at the Transfiguration (Mark 9.2–8 and parallels). Pilate commands,
‘‘Behold the man’’ (John 19:22). The centurion at the foot of the cross
witnesses the earthquake and bodies of saints coming out of their tombs and
realizes who it was whom he had been guarding (Matt 27:51). Realization
sometimes is linked with a characteristic gesture, vocal cue, or other sign.
For example, Mary Magdalene mistakes Jesus for the gardener and realizes
whom she addresses only when he speaks her name (John 20:16). The dis-
ciples travelling to Emmaus were unable to recognize him until he broke
bread at table (Luke 24:31). In John’s Gospel, Jesus reveals himself through
the straining nets of the fishermen (John 21:7).
Athanasius’s explanation for the Incarnation, of course, presents the ques-
tion of how those did not see Christ could come to this same recognition.
What about those who did not live at that very time or place that Christ
136 Robin M. Jensen
came to earth? Athanasius, himself, is included in that disadvantaged group.

If God’s purpose in the Incarnation is, as he says, to make God visible to
those who otherwise could not see the divine Creator behind creation’s tempt-
ing beauties and desirable pleasures, how are humans to be aided after the
ascension? Athanasius’s explanation seems, moreover, to contradict Jesus’s
reproach to the doubting Thomas: ‘‘Blessed are those who have not seen and
yet believe’’ (John 20:29). One may ask when the prototype is due to return so
that the canvas can be renewed once again.
One answer, of course, is that Jesus continues to appear to his followers
in some form or other. Stephen saw Jesus standing at the right hand of God
just before his death by stoning (Acts 7:55–56). Jesus speaks to Paul, out of
a flash of light, on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3–6) and converses with
Ananias in a vision (Acts 9:3–16). The Son of Man, the Living One, and the
Lamb of God appears to John on Patmos (Rev 2:12–20, 5:6–8). Later visionaries
have similar encounters, like those of Francis of Assisi, to whom Jesus
appeared with instructions to repair the church, or Catherine of Siena, whose
vision included a mystical marriage to Christ. But, unlike those saints, most
of the faithful are not granted such visions. Nevertheless, these ordinary be-
lievers are not bereft of visual revelations to the extent that the divine image
can be seen in the lives of those holy men and women, encountered in the
beauties of nature, or mediated through visual art. Like the portrait painting
on a panel, where the image exists after the person has gone (even if the
image begins to fade), an artistic representation preserves the appearance just
as the Scriptures preserve the words of Christ.
To this end, the art of fourth-century Christian monuments can be viewed
as intentionally epiphanic. Observers saw more than simple decorative motifs;
they encountered an image of the image of God. At the very least, certain
aspects of the iconography indicate that viewers would have perceived more
than simple, decorative, or didactic illustrations of Bible stories. They may
have been prompted to imagine themselves as eyewitnesses, along with the
disciples, Paul, Martha, and Zaccheus. Dressing these figures along with Jesus
in ordinary Roman street garb emphasizes this identification. The recurring
scenes of Jesus performing earthly works and healings not only reveal and
emphasize his divine power and identity, but also demonstrate his particular
care for the suffering and the needy. What they could not have perceived in
life, they could through the medium of art. As the pagans did, they were able
to see an image of their god, but in this case performing revelatory works of
love and power. The images, themselves, were not designed to be objects of
adoration or prayer, but they may have closed a gap in time and space, allow-
ing contemporary observers to experience a certain kind of theophany.
Along with the healing and miracle scenes, three scenes from the narrative
of Jesus’s life that appear with some frequency in mid-fourth-century art—the
adoration of the Magi, his baptism by John (in which he is shown as a young
child rather than an adult), and his entrance into Jerusalem—are ones in
Figure 6: Adoration of the Magi and Daniel, sarcophagus frieze, Rome, early fourth
century. Now in the Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican. Photo: author.
which his divinity is particularly manifest to and acclaimed by spectators.

In the first, we see three nearly identical figures (the Magi) approaching the
Virgin and child in a kind of procession (figure 6). They hold their gifts; the
first one often bearing a wreath or crown to indicate gold, the second and third
some kind of vessel (a box or bowl) that could hold frankincense or myrrh.
Their garb instantly identifies them as easterners; they wear little peaked
caps, leggings, and tunics that Roman viewers would have associated with
Persians or Babylonians. Their camels often show up in the background.
Their recognition of Jesus’s divinity as well as his royalty is emphasized in
the narrative: ‘‘Going into the house they saw the child with Mary, his mother,
and they fell down and worshipped him’’ (Matt 2:11).
The second scene—Jesus’s baptism by John—has, at least to modern eyes,
a surprising feature. Jesus is depicted as a small, nude child standing in an
ankle-high stream of water (figure 7). John lays his right hand upon Jesus’s
head in a gesture that evokes the bishop’s imposition of hands in the later
Christian ritual of initiation. A descending dove appears, indicating the presence
of the Holy Spirit. The presentation of Jesus as childlike and nude, instead of
a full-grown adult, only six months younger than his cousin, John (as indi-
cated in the Gospel narratives, of Luke 1:26, and 3:23), might be explained
by the fact that early Christians understood baptism as a symbol of new birth
and a return to the state of childlike innocence. Showing Jesus in this way
emphasized Jesus’s identification with all those who underwent the ritual,
just as they participate in his death and resurrection through receiving the
sacrament (Rom 6:3–4). In many compositions, a witness stands to one side.
The depiction of the scene naturally evokes John’s prophecy that one would
come after him who would baptize with the Holy Spirit, and God’s pronounce-
ment at the scene: ‘‘You are my beloved Son; with you I am well pleased’’
(Mark 1.11).
In the third image, Jesus appears astride a donkey as he makes his ac-
claimed entry into Jerusalem (Mark 11:7–10 and parallels). Jesus makes a
gesture of blessing with his one hand and holds a scroll, a rod, or the animal’s
138 Robin M. Jensen
Figure 7: Baptism of Jesus on sarcophagus end, mid fourth century and close up
detail. Now in the Museé de l’Arles Antique. Photo: author.
Figure 8: Jesus entering Jerusalem, detail from fourth-century sarcophagus from Rome,
now in the Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican. Photo: author.
reins in the other (figure 1). Often—but not always—the donkey is shown
having to contend with a foal scrambling beneath her belly (see Matt 21:5).
The crowd is indicated by two or three or, in some instances, a small group
of figures, some of them child-sized, others adults. One of the children throws
garments under the animals’ feet; others hold palm branches. The viewer
must imagine hearing them cry out, ‘‘Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in
the name of the Lord!’’ (Mark 11:9). One spectator has climbed up into a
tree, possibly an allusion to the story of Zaccheus and Jesus’s entry to Jericho
in Luke 19. On one of the Vatican sarcophagi, the city gate appears to the
right (figure 8), making the scene appear very much like the image of an
imperial adventus, a parade in which an emperor enters a city riding a horse
(or, sometimes, a horse-drawn chariot). The point of the imperial adventus
was to be seen as the savior of the people. Jesus’s entry on a donkey rather
than a horse was based, at least partly, on the prophecies of Isaiah 62:11 and
Zechariah 9:9. But, like the imperial entry, Jesus’s entry revealed him as Son
of David and Messiah to the crowds.
Finally, one very frequent fourth-century motif shows Jesus in a scene that
was not taken directly from a biblical narrative but depicts Jesus handing a
scroll to Peter to his left. Paul stands to Jesus’s right (figure 9). The traditional
identification of the image, the Traditio Legis, arises from the words that
occasionally appear on the scroll: Dominus legem dat. Sometimes a phoenix
sits in a palm tree to one side. In certain depictions Jesus sits on a throne, in
others he stands upon a rock from which four rivers flow. The image, adapted
for a variety of different media, appears on sarcophagus reliefs, apse mosaics,
gold glasses, and wall paintings. Although some interpreters of the scene have
140 Robin M. Jensen
Figure 9: Jesus giving the law to Peter and Paul (Traditio Legis), detail from a fourth-
century sarcophagus, now in the Museé de l’Arles Antique. Photo: author.
argued that it shows the commission of Peter as chief of the Apostles (Matt
16:18–19), others have claimed that it depicts the Second Coming of Christ.20
A strong case has, however, been made that it portrays a post-resurrectional,
theophanic appearance of Christ to the two primary Apostles of Rome, Peter
and Paul—an appearance in which he delivered the new law to his Church.21
Viewers of any of these monuments might understand themselves to be
participant witnesses to divine manifestations. By contemplating the images
presented to them, they could form a conception of the nature and as well
as the person of Christ and contemplate the significance of his works and
wonders. They could see, as well as hear, the stories of others coming to faith
and acclaiming Jesus as Lord. Viewing is, however, qualitatively different
from hearing or reading. Instead of an idea in the mind, they had a figure
before their eyes. This different experience granted an opportunity to see
Christ, in a sense, face-to-face—not merely as a subject in a picture, but as a
doer of deeds, recipient of adoration, and a still-living lawgiver. By the end

of the fourth century, actual portraits of Christ, the saints, and the Apostles
began to appear without a narrative context and showing only the face or
figure. Before then, however, those who saw Jesus in art saw him in action,
and they could imagine themselves as part of a crowd of onlookers, recogniz-
ing God in their midst.
Augustine, writing within a century of Athanasius, was more circumspect
about the value of physical seeing in the process of human salvation. Taking a
different approach, Augustine insisted that the mind comprehends the truth
more effectively than the eye. In an extraordinarily long sermon delivered on
New Year’s Day sometime around 404, Augustine admonishes his flock not
to behave like the pagans by feasting, drinking, giving good luck presents,
going to the theatre or races, and singing silly or disgraceful songs. He urges
them, instead, to celebrate the occasion by fasting, praying, singing spiritually
uplifting songs, and grieving for those who get caught up in the love of false
pleasures or futile pursuits—and by staying in church to listen to his extended
preaching.22 Augustine is concerned that some members of his congregation
have been venerating images and urges them to purge the places of prayer
from such things just as they would purify their hearts. The Scriptures read
or sermons heard with the ear are better antidotes to evil than spectacles or
pictures presented to the eyes.
Anything else, he warns, is too much like the pagan devotion to or adora-
tion of sacred images. Referring to the statues of pagan gods, for example
those of Neptune or Tellus, Augustine scoffs at those who foolishly offer their
prayers to such idols, preferring human made personifications rather to the
actual sea or earth. Why would one offer prayer to a representation of the
sun instead of the sun itself ? Pleading with his congregation to concentrate,
he explains that they should adore the creator of the beautiful things of nature,
just as they should admire the craft and skill of the artist more than the love-
liness of the object. Even though the one is invisible while the other can be
seen and appreciated by the senses, goodness or truth resides in the capacity
and not in its products. The latter is visible with the eye, while the former is
something one can know only through the mind. That the cognitive apprehen-
sion is better than physical perception is clear: the essence of life (soul) is
invisible, just as the structure and governance of the cosmos is. These things
can be known only by the intellect. As he explains, ‘‘Because God made you
one thing to see these things with, another with which he himself might be
seen—for seeing these things he gave you the eyes in your head, for seeing
142 Robin M. Jensen
himself he gave you a mind—you cannot therefore be allowed to say in that

inane way, ‘I can’t see him’; examine all these things with your intelligence,
and you will see the one at work in them.’’23
Yet even though Augustine deemed physical sight as incomplete, he did
not disparage it altogether. He was a good Platonist, even after his Christian
conversion. As such, he could argue that contemplation of the sensible world
could lead (indeed might be necessary) for apprehension of the purely intel-
lectual realm. So, as long as it is not deemed the primary gauge of truth
(e.g., ‘‘seeing is believing’’), nor confused with ultimate reality, sensible
things have a purpose and value. Images, he allowed, could be a means of
mediating divine presence and demonstrating God’s purpose for creation. A
mind could rise from the image perceived to the truth that lies behind it. In
fact, Jesus revealed himself by being born of Mary, just as the Word was
revealed to the patriarchs and prophets of the Israelites. By accommodating
the abilities of the humble as well as the adept, he took flesh and dwelled
among humanity, becoming both the bodily and spiritual creation. Those
who cannot rise above creation to perceive the invisible and inexpressible
reality may hold onto this as the ground of their knowledge. Those who are
able to glimpse that reality still need to grasp its physical manifestation.
Augustine adds that this is why Christ performed both signs and miracles, so
that he could show who he is: a terror to those who fear him and reassurance
to those who love him. Moreover, his humble birth, just as the kind of his
miracles, demonstrates his particular affection for common folk.24
If one could synthesize these two points of view in respect to visual art, it
would be to affirm the basic value of seeing, so long as what is seen is not
adored per se or mistaken for more than an initial or preliminary revelation
that subsequently must be contemplated by the mind or soul. Both Athanasius
and Augustine assert that Christ came in the flesh in order to demonstrate
God’s will that humanity rise above the transitory and visible things of the
world. Both Athanasius and Augustine emphasize that Christ’s incarnation
was a bodily one, assuring the divine presence in the created realm and
manifesting the divine image in human form. Both Athanasius and Augustine
insist that Christ’s works revealed his power and divinity but also visually
demonstrated God’s special care for the suffering, the humble, and the needy.
These assertions can be argued in words or presented in visual images. While
words may have more long-term durability, the images might more closely
recreate to the experience of actually ‘‘seeing’’ Jesus.
Because of Augustine’s insistence on Christ’s bodily appearance, he probably
would not have approved of Paulinus’s non-anthropomorphic apse (described
at the beginning of this essay). In his great treatise On the Trinity, Augustine
asks how Christians are able to love something that they cannot see, or
believe to be absent. In the absence of the physical presence of a loved one,
the imagination inevitably will fabricate something to cling to, the shape or
outlines of a face or body that may or may not be accurate. But, he says,
accuracy really is not the point. Faith is not dependent, he insists, on the
precision of our images. What is important to believe about Jesus, he says, is
that he had an image: he had a face and he had a body. What Christians can
know about Christ is what they experience in themselves. If Christians believe
this, they will realize that God became one of them as a demonstration of love
and humility, joining a soul to a body and living a mortal life. While they
have never seen God, Christians are able, from experience and contemplation
of comparable things, to love that unseen God until they at last come before
the Eternal Presence and see God face to face.25
Notes
1 Paulinus of Nola, Ep. 32.10, trans. slightly adapted from P.G. Walsh, Letters of St. Paulinus
of Nola (Westminster, me: Newman, 1967), 2:145.
2 Among the most recent and inclusive scholarly reference works are Friedrich Deichmann,
Ulbert Thilo, and P. von Zabern, Repertorium der christlich-antiken Sarkophage. Vols. 1–3.
(Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1967–2003); Aldo Nestori, Repertorio topografico delle pitture delle
catacombe Romane (Vatican City: Pontificio Istituto di Archeologia Cristiania, 1993); and
Norbert Zimmermann, Werkstattgruppen römischer Katakombenmalerei (Münster: Aschendorff,
2002).
3 On this see Graydon Snyder, Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life before
Constantine, 2nd ed. (Macon, ga: Mercer University Press, 2003); or, more recently, Ramsay
MacMullen, The Second Church: Popular Christianity A.D. 200–400 (Atlanta: Society of
Biblical Literature, 2009).
4 Here see Jas Elsner, Imperial Roman and Christian Triumph (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1998); and this author’s work, Understanding Early Christian Art (London: Routledge,
2000), which suggests that textual and material evidence be viewed together and that they
emerge from the same religious or theological milieu.
5 Among the best of this genre is the joint work of Leonid Ouspensky and Vladimir Lossky,
The Meaning of Icons (Yonkers, ny: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1999), and Michel Quenot,
The Icon: Window on the Kingdom (Yonkers, ny: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1992).
6 For example, see the parallels between the fourth-century definition given by Basil of
Caesarea, Spir. Sanc. 18.45, which was repeated in the more commonly cited assertion made
in the eighth century by John of Damascus, Apol. 1.21.
7 The story of Peter striking the rock to baptize his Roman jailers is recorded in a sixth-century
manuscript: Mart b. Peteri a Lino ep. Conscriptum 5, traditionally attributed to Pope Linus
(Peter’s successor). The fact that artistic portrayals of the scene predate the earliest documen-
tary evidence suggests that the legend was circulated (either in writing or orally) no later than
the third or early fourth century.
8 The presumption that originally aniconic Christians became less strict during the third
century is common in standard histories, including the work of Henry Chadwick, The Early
Church (London: Penguin, 1967), 277. See a summary and critique of this assumption in an
essay by Mary Charles Murray, ‘‘Art and the Early Church,’’ JThS n.s. 28, no. 2 (1977): 304–
345.
9 Other explanations for the late emergence of visual art in Christianity are proposed by P.
Corby Finney, The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1994), 108–10; and Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art, 13–15.
10 Tertullian, Idol. 4
11 Tertullian, Apol. 12.
12 Minucius Felix, Octavius 10.2–5, 32.1–7, 24.5–9.
13 Arnobius, Adv. nat. 6.16.
144 Robin M. Jensen
14 One exception, Epiphanius of Salamis, did object to images of Christ, the Apostles, and saints
that were painted on walls or curtains. See Epiphanius, Frag. 2. The authenticity of this frag-
ment has been questioned but generally accepted as authentic. The authenticity of the famous
condemnation of images of Christ attributed to Eusebius in a letter supposedly written to the
Augusta Constantia is not so clear. The text may have been forged in order to bolster the
arguments of eighth-century iconoclasts. Its oldest version comes the florilegium of the
iconophile Nicephorus of Constantinople, Contra Eusebium et Epiphanidem. Another possible
exception, the 36th canon of the Council of Elvira (ca. 305), seems only to object to Christian
images that might be worshipped, not to art as such.
15 Athanasius, C. Gent. 13.
16 Ibid., 19.
17 Athanasius, Inc. 11–12.
18 Ibid., 14. Trans., NPNF, ser. 2 vol. 4.43.
19 Athanasius, Inc. 43.
20 See a summary of scholarly views in Geir Hellemo, Adventus Domini: Eschatological Thought
in 4th Century Apses and Catecheses (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1989), 65–89.
21 This was particularly the view of Paul Styger, ‘‘Neue Untersuchungen über die altchristlichen
Petrusdarstellungen,’’ RQ 27 (1913): 66.
22 Augustine, Serm. 198 (Dolbeau 26).
23 Ibid., 31.
24 Ibid., 61–62.
25 Augustine, Trin. 8.3.7–8.

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ARTICLE

Early Christian Art and

Keywords: icon/image, idol/idolatry, prototype/figure, portrait, theophany, veneration

Toronto Journal of Theology 28/1, 2012, pp. 125–144 DOI: 10.3138/tjt.28.1.125

Figure 2: Decoration of early Christian hypogeum, Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome.

In these images, the representation of Jesus is remarkably consistent. He

his cloak. Jesus’s imposition of his hand is a simple gesture, described in

as representations of deities, fashioned out of ordinary materials and trans-

deity. In his dialogue, Octavius, Minucius Felix describes the protagonist,

Figure 5: Portrait of a Woman, Antinoopolis (Egypt), ca. 130–161. Photo: Author.

came to earth? Athanasius, himself, is included in that disadvantaged group.

which his divinity is particularly manifest to and acclaimed by spectators.

doer of deeds, recipient of adoration, and a still-living lawgiver. By the end

himself he gave you a mind—you cannot therefore be allowed to say in that

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