joedad

Fom a standpoint of iconography, there is no Christian depiction of a crucified human christ/Jesus until the 7th century. Bede ventured the explanation that this is simply iconoclasm. Is there evidence supporting this position?

I'm also aware that the V/VI Councils held in Constantinople in 692 decreed that John the Baptist is no longer to be depicted pointing to a lamb, but instead to a figure of a human christ.

The earliest Christians depicted their christ as a lamb, a good shepherd and a young teacher, but never as a human crucified. After Constantine this christ began to be depicted as an adult, assuming imperial attributes and a halo of divinity. Constantine was still, however, an early 4th century event.

It took two/three more centuries for Christianity to officially and fully and supplant Paganism, after which time a crucified human christ/Jesus appears in the religious record.

I'm wondering if this late appearance has more to do with the disappearance of classical Paganism than the historicity of the crucifixion. The cross was certainly not an explicitly Christian symbol, but could only become a wholly Christian symbol if there were no more Pagans to contest it.

Does this very late depiction of a crucified christ/Jesus at all weaken the historical claims to crucifixion, especially in light of the fact that Christian imagery flourished for centuries without such a depiction?

joe

Peter Kirby

The first depiction of Christ on a cross may date a little earlier than the 7th century.

In the Rabbula Gospels, dated to 586, "The Crucifixion and Resurrection scenes are arranged in two registers, as if the second artist, whose work it is, was copying from an illustrated rotulus. ... the two crucified thieves are of the same proportions as Christ Himself." (The Origins of Christian Art, p. 130) A quick look at the illustration in the Rabbula Gospel will show that it is indeed a depiction of the crucifixion in the sixth century.

C. R. Morey writes: "Here [northern Italy and southern Gaul] one finds, for example, our earliest existing representations of the Crucifixion (fifth century), depicting the Saviour nude save for the loincloth and differing widely from the extant Asiatic renderings, which come about a century later, wherein Christ is clothed in a long tunic." (Christian Art, p. 11)

Michael Gough writes of this item: "A lack of refinement and a stubborn insistence on Scriptural authority mark the square ivory box in the British Museum. For once, too, the Passion forms the sole theme to be treated, from Christ's confrontation with Pilate, through the Way of the Cross to the Crucifixion itself, to the Holy Women at the Empty Tomb and the Reappearance of Christ among the Apostles. This Crucifixion, rather more terrible than the Santa Sabina panel, may even be fractionally ealier, and dated about 400 with a possible provenance in Southern Gaul." (The Origins of Christian Art, p. 130)

Instead of a crucifix, a cross seems to be the preferred iconography in the earlier centuries of Christianity. Andre Grabar writes of a fourth century sarcophagus in which the passion and related Gospel imagery is used with a cross instead of a crucifix: "The Christian formula replaces the [Roman] trophy by the Cross, on which is suspended a triumphal crown, and substitutes for the captured barbarians two armed but sleeping soldiers—in an allusion to the guardians of the tomb of Christ." (Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins, p. 125)

F. van der Meer comments on the same item: "These ancient artists do not know how to cope with the Passion. What they show, on a sarcophagus at about 350 in Rome, is the 'Victory over Death'." (Early Christian Art, p. 120)

Walter Lowrie writes: "It seems strange therefore that in the earliest Christian art the cross was not depicted realistically. But we can understand that Christians were loath to depict the common patibulum or gallows upon which the worst criminals suffered. This would subject them to teh cruellest misunderstanding. A graffito scratched upon the wall of the pages' room on the Palatine shows a figure with the head of an ass attached to a cross, and the inscription under it reads, 'Alexaminos adores his god.' This was a young Christian derided by his companions. The picture belongs to the end of the second century, and it is the earliest representation of the Crucifixion we know of. The cross which first appeared upon the monuments was the triumphal cross of Constantine, often in the form of a monogram he beheld in his vision." (Art in the Early Church, p. 110)

Referring to Palestinian ampullae that are part of the Treasure of the Collegiale, Monza, Andre Graber writes: "The images of the Incarnation which we have considered so far represent this dogma by means of hitsorical scenes evoking—or at least making allusion to—the beginnings of Christ's earthly life, either through the conception or through the birth of God made man. It goes without saying that, indirectly, any scene that shows Christ in the course of his earthly career is a reference to the Incarnation. This is especially true of images of his death on the Cross, since this death always figured among the major proofs of a complete incarnation. It was not in late antiquity, however, but only at the beginning of the Middle Ages that the image-makers began to use the subject of the Crucifixion as a representation of the death of Jesus. In late antiquity, the scene of Golgotha, sometimes realistic in detail, did not extend its realism to the figure of the Crucified, and especially not in order to represent him after his death; for here, as elsewhere, the evangelical scene serves to proclaim a truth. It is often said that the image-makers did not dare to approach the subject of the Crucifixion, but this is a gratuitous affirmation, particularly in view of the fact that the theologians of the same peroid treated it constantly. It would be more judicious to maintain here our usual point of view and to state that during this period images of the Crucifixion were used not to designate the reality of Jesus' death but to demonstrate the glory of Christ, his victory over death (that is, as a symbol of the Resurrection), the universality of salvation through the Cross, and so on." (Christian Iconography: A Study of Its Origins, p. 132)

best,
Peter Kirby

Yellum Notnef

That particular carving on a pillar in Rome (193-235 CE) is shown in the photo section of The Jesus Mysteries. The caption reads: "A Pagan initiate of the Mysteries looks on at the crucifixion of a donkey-headed man. This represents his lower "animal" nature,which he has put to death in the process of initiation so that he may be spiritually resurected."

Somebody here is wrong about this carving. My finger is already pointing at Lowrie since theres nothing there to suggest the ass-headed man is Jesus or that man beside it is a Christian.

Bede

Fenton,

Given the amount Freke and Gandy get wrong, it would be gullibility of the highest order to give them the benefit of the doubt over an esteemed scholar.

Yours

Bede

Bede's Library - faith and reason

Yellum Notnef

Just as it would be"gullibility of the highest order" to not take your reply with a huge grain of salt.

You could at least make an attempt to prove Freke/Gandy are wrong and your "esteemed scholar" correct about this carving.


Thanks,
Fenton

Bede

Fenton, the carving is crude graffiti found with lots more crude graffiti of various kinds and and the inscription is clearly an insult. People don't put their religious icons, crudely scratched, on to graffiti covered walls. Also we have no record at all of anyone worshipping an ass headed crucified man while we have lots of evidence for Christianity.

B

Yellum Notnef

That inscription is among many other markings and there is no possible way to know that it was carved on there when the image of the ass-headed man was.

Theres also no way to say that people don't scratch religious icons on walls. And theres no way to say that it was scratched on top of other graffiti. I'm looking at that picture and it's impossible to tell what was scratched first.
And who's to say that inscription wasn't carved later by Christians to make fun of the existing Pagan image?
It's not as if we don't have plenty of examples of Christians slamming Pagans. Even the word "Pagan" itself was created for the sole pupose of making fun of lesser "hick" religions.

According to Freke/Gandy the crucified ass-headed man is purely symbolic. Why should there be a record of people worshipping a symbolic crucified ass-headed man? It's not as if it the symbolism was mistaken for a real event like some other religious symbols were.

I was hoping you'd have a better explanation than that,but the most informative part of your post was how quickly your friendly signature changed to just a lone "B".

Fenton

Peter Kirby

Bede and Fenton,

Instead of assuming one authority must be wrong and another right, it would be reasonable to attempt to understand the graffito on its own terms, and not to make claims that go beyond the evidence.

It is not difficult to understand why many have supposed that the graffito was mocking xianity, when we know this fact: xians were accused, along with Jews, of worshipping an ass. Tertullian writes (Defense of the Christians Against the Heathen, chapter 16): "For you, too, like some others, have dreamed that an ass's head is the object of our worship. The fancy of such a deity was put into their minds by Cornelius Tacitus, who in the fifth of his Histories, having begun his account of the Jewish War with an account of the origin of the race, and having also discussed at his pleasure alike the origin itself and the name and religion of the race, records that the Jews, having been freed or, as he thought, exiled from Egypt, when they were weakened through thirst in the deserts of Arabia, where water was very scarce, employed some wild asses to guide them to a spring, thinking that they would probably be seeking water after food, and on that account consecrated the form of a similar animal. And hence I think it was presumed that we, too, being thus allied to the Jewish religion were taught to do reverence to the same image. But indeed it is the same Cornelius Tacitus, truly the most inventive of romancers, who in the same history records that Gnaeus Pompeius, after capturing Jerusalem and thus going to the temple to investigate the secrets of the Jewish religion, found no image therein. And to be sure, if the object of worship was represented by some figure, this would have been most appropriately shown in its own shrine, the rather that the worship, however vain, had no fear of strangers to witness it; only the priests were allowed to approach, while the gaze of the rest was forbidden by a curtain spread out over it. And yet you will not deny that you pay divine honours to all beasts of burden, as well as to asses, heads and bodies both, along with their own goddess Epona. Perhaps our fault consists in the fact that amongst the worshippers of cattle and beasts of all kinds we worship the ass alone."

Further evidence for this interpretation might be found with an inscription that says "Alexmenos worships his god" (Freke & Gandy, The Jesus Mysteries, p. 52). This would seem to go against the idea that the figure on the cross is the lower animal self, not a god, which I suppose is why it is now being said that the inscription is (maybe) by another hand.

I assume that F&G wrote "Alexmenos" as a typo for "Alexamenos." Here would have been an opportunity for F&G to use a knowledge of Greek in their discussion. The word SEBETE is indeed derived from SEBW and means to revere. In this conjugation, however, it is either 2nd person plural of the Present Active Imperative (for all of you: "worship!") or the 2nd person plural of the Present Active Indicative ("you [pl.] worship"). Thus it does not appear to be a dig against Alexamenos individually in the form of "Alexamenos worships his god," unless the reconstruction of the inscription is wrong or the person who made the inscription didn't know Greek well. One could instead read the inscription as if the person who made the graffito is Alexamenos and he is saying, "worship God!" Or one could still read it as indicative and saying to Alexamenos that he is among the "you" that worship god in this way.

There is another inscription that might suggest that this is a pagan graffito of a pagan subject. F&G write: "In addition the graffito depicts another well known Pythagorean symbol, the letter 'Y.' Cumont records numerous grave inscriptions with this symbol (see Cumont [1922], 26-7, 76, 148, 150). To the Pythagoreans it was a symbol of the two paths open to man in life and in death. In life the left-hand path leads to dissolution and the right to virtue, likewise after death the left-hand path led to Tartarus, the Greek purgatory, follwed by subsequent reincarnation, while the right-hand path led to the Elysian fields." (p. 269) I am not aware of any other writers who take the "Y" into account when evaluating the image.

Because the evidence is meager and various, I won't be pointing fingers at this time.

best,
Peter Kirby

joedad

Right you are, Peter. I got my centuries wrong.Are we talking about this:
http://vandyck.anu.edu.au/introducti.../Ah441-097.jpg
the Door of Santa Sabina, circa 432? This is obviously some type of crucifixion, but no cross, at least not one that I can see. It is interesting.

Christian iconography has many such images. Even the Good Shepherd imagery is known not to be Christian.

On this subject, in The Oxford Illustrated History of Christianity p. 88, is an illustration "Christ as the Divinity of a Germanic Warrior Aristocracy." It is described:How and why is such an artifact even thought to be of "Christ" and therefore "Christian" in the first place?

Gurdur

Bede, I actually agree with you here, but with one correction:

Both Venus-cults and Priapus-cults were very often commerated in graffiti, and not as marks of dishonour either.
That being said, I think your main argument is correct.