ARTH101: Art Appreciation

Key Events

Two important moments played a critical role in the development of early Christianity:

1. The decision of the Apostle Paul to spread Christianity beyond the Jewish communities of Palestine into the Greco-Roman world.
2. When Emperor Constantine accepted Christianity and became its patron at the beginning of the fourth century,

The creation and nature of Christian art were directly impacted by these moments.

The Spread of Christianity

As implicit in the names of his Epistles, Paul spread Christianity to the Greek and Roman cities of the ancient Mediterranean world. In cities like Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonica, and Rome, Paul encountered the religious and cultural experience of the Greco-Roman world. This encounter played a major role in the formation of Christianity.

Christianity as a Mystery Cult

Christianity, in its first three centuries, was one of many mystery religions that flourished in the Roman world. Religion in the Roman world was divided between the public, inclusive cults of civic religions and the secretive, exclusive mystery cults. The emphasis in the civic cults was on customary practices, especially sacrifices. Since the early history of the polis or city-state in Greek culture, the public cults played an important role in defining civic identity.

Arch of Titus and Colosseum, late 1st century C.E., Rome

As it expanded and assimilated more people, Rome continued to use the public religious experience to define the identity of its citizens. The polytheism of the Romans allowed the assimilation of the gods of the people it had conquered.

Thus, when Emperor Hadrian created the Pantheon in the early second century, the building's dedication to all the gods signified the Roman ambition of bringing cosmos or order to the gods, just as new and foreign societies were brought into political order through the spread of Roman imperial authority. The order of Roman authority on earth is a reflection of the divine cosmos.

Pantheon, completed 126 C.E., Rome.

For most adherents of mystery cults, there was no contradiction in participating in both public and mystery cults. The different religious experiences appealed to different aspects of life. In contrast to the civic identity as the focus of the public cults, the mystery religions appealed to the participant's concerns for personal salvation. The mystery cults focused on a central mystery that would only be known by those who had become initiated into the cult's teachings.

Monotheism

These are characteristics Christianity shares with numerous other mystery cults. In early Christianity, emphasis was placed on baptism, which marked the initiation of the convert into the mysteries of the faith. The Christian emphasis on the belief in salvation and an afterlife is consistent with the other mystery cults. The monotheism of Christianity, though, was a crucial difference from the other cults. The refusal of the early Christians to participate in the civic cults due to their monotheistic beliefs led to their persecution. Christians were seen as anti-social.

The beginnings of identifiable Christian art can be traced to the end of the second century and the beginning of the third century. Considering the Old Testament prohibitions against graven images, it is important to consider why Christian art developed in the first place. The use of images will be a continuing issue in the history of Christianity. The best explanation for the emergence of Christian art in the early church is the important role images played in Greco-Roman culture.

As Christianity gained converts, these new Christians had been brought up on the value of images in their previous cultural experience. They wanted to continue this in their Christian experience. For example, there was a change in burial practices in the Roman world, away from cremation to inhumation. Outside the city walls of Rome, adjacent to major roads, catacombs were dug into the ground to bury the dead. Families would have chambers or cubicula dug to bury their members. Wealthy Romans would also have sarcophagi or marble tombs carved for their burial. The Christian converts wanted the same things. Christian catacombs were frequently dug adjacent to non-Christian ones, and sarcophagi with Christian imagery were apparently popular with the richer Christians.

Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, marble, 359 C.E. Treasury of Saint Peter's Basilica

Junius Bassus, a Roman praefectus urbi or high-ranking government administrator, died in 359 C.E. Scholars believe that he converted to Christianity shortly before his death, accounting for the inclusion of Christ and scenes from the Bible. (Photograph above shows a plaster cast of the original).

Themes of Death and Resurrection

A striking aspect of the Christian art of the third century is the absence of the imagery that would dominate later Christian art. We do not find in this early period images of the Nativity, Crucifixion, or Resurrection of Christ, for example. This absence of direct images of the life of Christ is best explained by the status of Christianity as a mystery religion. The story of the Crucifixion and Resurrection would be part of the cult's secrets.

While not directly representing these central Christian images, the themes of death and resurrection were represented through a series of images; many were derived from the Old Testament, which echoed the themes. For example, the story of Jonah – swallowed by a great fish and vomited out on the dry ground after spending three days and nights in the belly of the beast – was seen by early Christians as an anticipation or prefiguration of the story of Christ's death and resurrection. Images of Jonah, along with those of Daniel in the Lion's Den, the Three Hebrews in the Fiery Furnace, and Moses Striking the Rock, among others, are widely popular in the Christian art of the third century, both in paintings and in sarcophagi.

All of these can be seen to allegorically allude to the principal narratives of the life of Christ. The common subject of salvation echoes the major emphasis in the mystery religions on personal salvation. The appearance of these subjects frequently adjacent to each other in the catacombs and sarcophagi can be read as a visual litany: save me, Lord, as you have saved Jonah from the belly of the great fish, save me, Lord as you have saved the Hebrews in the desert, save me Lord as you have saved Daniel in the Lion's den, etc.

One can imagine that early Christians – who were rallying around the nascent religious authority of the Church against the regular threats of persecution by imperial authority – would find great meaning in the story of Moses striking the rock to provide water for the Israelites fleeing the authority of the Pharaoh on their exodus to the Promised Land.

Christianity's Canonical Texts and the New Testament

One of the major differences between Christianity and the public cults was the central role faith plays in Christianity and the importance of orthodox beliefs. The history of the early Church is marked by the struggle to establish a canonical set of texts and the establishment of orthodox doctrine.

Questions about the nature of the Trinity and Christ would continue to challenge religious authority. Within the civic cults, there were no central texts and no orthodox doctrinal positions. The emphasis was on maintaining customary traditions. One accepted the existence of the gods, but there was no emphasis on belief in the gods.

The Christian emphasis on orthodox doctrine has its closest parallels in the Greek and Roman world to the role of philosophy. Schools of philosophy centered around the teachings or doctrines of a particular teacher. The schools of philosophy proposed specific conceptions of reality. Ancient philosophy was influential in the formation of Christian theology. For example, the opening of the Gospel of John: "In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God...," is unmistakably based on the idea of the "logos" going back to the philosophy of Heraclitus (ca. 535-475 BCE). Christian apologists like Justin Martyr, writing in the second century, understood Christ as the Logos or the Word of God who served as an intermediary between God and the World.

Early Representations of Christ and the Apostles

An early representation of Christ found in the Catacomb of Domitilla shows the figure of Christ flanked by a group of his disciples or students. Those experienced with later Christian imagery might mistake this for an image of the Last Supper, but instead, this image does not tell any story. It conveys rather the idea that Christ is the true teacher.

Christ represented in the Catacomb of Domitilla

Christ draped in classical garb, holds a scroll in his left hand while his right hand is outstretched in the so-called ad locutio gesture, or the orator's gesture. The dress, scroll, and gesture all establish the authority of Christ, who is placed in the center of his disciples. Christ is thus treated like a philosopher surrounded by his students or disciples.

Comparably, an early representation of the apostle Paul (first), identifiable with his characteristic pointed beard and high forehead, is based on the convention of the philosopher, as exemplified by a Roman copy of a late fourth century B.C.E. portrait of the fifth century B.C.E. playwright Sophocles (second).

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Source: Allen Farber, Smarthistory, smarthistory.org
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License.