313 Christianity legalized (Edict of Milan) by Constantine.
330 Constantine moves capitol of Empire to Byzantium (renames it Constantinople) – remains sole seat of Empire until 395.
337 Constantine dies after being baptized on his deathbed
395 Emperor Theodosius split the Roman Empire into the Eastern (Byzantine) and Western (Roman) sections – each ruled by one of his sons. Church develops in two branches and only officially splits in 1054
476 Western (Roman) Empire collapses
1453 Byzantine Empire falls to Ottoman Turks and Constantinople becomes an Islamic city
Part 1: Introduction to Jewish and Early Christian Art and Architecture
Part 1: Introduction to Jewish and Early Christian Art and Architecture
Jews, Christians and other faiths in the Roman Empire
Religions in the Roman Empire included:
Roman faith
Judaism
Mithraism (from Persia, popular with the military)
Cult of Isis
Cult of Artemis of Ephesus
Christianity
Zoroastrianism
Cult of Bel
A note on the use of the word “cult” – in academic writing, this word is defined as “the care (Latin: cultus) owed to deities and temples, shrines, or churches. Cult is embodied in ritual and ceremony. Its presence or former presence is made concrete in temples, shrines and churches, and cult images, including votive offerings at votive sites” (Wikipedia). Current everyday usage usually is pejorative; in this class, you should assume that the word is used in the traditional, academic sense and that this word can be used to describe any and all faiths.
The Roman cult of the Gods was the legal faith in the Roman Empire, while the other faiths were sporadically tolerated or accepted (such as Judaism and the Cult of Mithras). Persecution existed but it was sporadic and regional and depended on how the local and imperial rulers viewed these other faiths at a particular point in time. Faiths that posed a threat (perceived or real) to the Empire were more likely to be persecuted.
Some of these are “mystery” faiths (Christianity was one) because they required initiation (such as baptism) as part of their practices. They often also promised life after death, which the Roman faith did not.
By the end of this chapter you will be able to:
Describe the form, content, and context of key early Jewish and Christian art
Define key terms related to early Jewish and Christian art
Distinguish between changes in formal stylistic elements, and religion-specific narrative content
Explain the Roman influence on the origins of Christian art
Introduction
During the third and fourth centuries C.E., Roman and Near Eastern Art influenced Jewish and Christian art. Jews and Christians counted themselves among the many types of people that inhabited the Roman empire. As Romans they took part in many aspects of Roman culture. The main difference between Jews and Christians on one hand and Romans on the other, was their belief in one God. Romans like many other ancient cultures believed in many gods and were polytheistic. Jews and Christians, while part of the empire, had their own religious practices and eventually developed artworks with distinctly Jewish or Christian subject matter. This chapter explores the function and meaning of the imagery and architecture created by Jews and Christians. One site that helps us understand this is the Roman outpost located in what is now Syria, on the periphery of the Roman empire.
Dura-Europos was a Roman outpost located on the outer periphery of the empire. Before it was a Roman city, it belonged to the Parthians, and before them, the Greeks. After being sacked in the 3rd century it was abandoned until it was excavated in the 20th century. It is significant to the study of Jewish and Early Christian art because among the various types of places of worship discovered there was a synagogue and a Christian House Church both of which were decorated with religious imagery.
Dura-Europos
by DR. JEN BAIRD
Shrine to Mithras (Mithraeum), c. 240 C.E., painted plaster, 162.5 x 206.4 cm, today installed in the Yale University Art Gallery
On the frontier between east and west
The ancient site now known as Dura-Europos was not a key site in antiquity if we only rely on preserved historical narratives in which it barely features. Rather, its importance is in its vast archaeological record, a record which we are still studying a century after excavations began. That record tells a complex picture about a diverse town which negotiated its place on the frontier between east and west, ending only when the site became a battlefield on which Roman and Sasanian armies clashed.
Dura-Europos has been destroyed many times. A Roman rampart built to protect the city in the third century C.E. failed, but luckily for us preserved beneath it are the extensive religious wall paintings for which the site is best known. In the twenty-first century, it has been destroyed again in the crossfire of the Syrian conflict, and by targeted antiquities looting. The extensive excavations conducted at the site over the past century nonetheless allow an important window into this ancient frontier town where a range of languages from Greek and Latin to Palmyrene Aramaic, Hebrew, and Safaitic, were written, and an even broader range of deities were worshipped.
Temple of Bel in 2005, Dura Europos, Syria (photo: Heretiq, CC BY-SA 2.5)
The site sits above the Euphrates river in Syria, a strategic location that was likely the reason for its founding in about 300 B.C.E. during the Hellenistic period. That initial settlement is not well known archaeologically, but was based on and around a citadel at the eastern edge of the site.
Site plan showing orthogonal (grid-planned) city blocks filling c. 52 hectares (128.5 acres) within the city walls and defended by steep cliffs on three sides. Plan by A. H. Detweiler, modified by J. Baird. Original used by kind permission of Yale University Art Gallery
Eventually it grew, with orthogonal (grid-planned) city blocks within the city walls and defended by steep cliffs on three sides. The long fortification wall on the western side of the site was pierced by a central gate dubbed the “Palmyrene Gate’”(indicated in the plan above) by its excavators, as it faced the steppe across which was Syria’s famous oasis city of Palmyra. A necropolis, consisting largely of chamber tombs, was preserved outside those city walls to the west.
Photo of House of Lysias, from North, in 1930s, showing central courtyard. Yale Dura Archive K327a
Early history under the Arsacids
For most of its history, from the late second/early first century B.C.E. until the late second century C.E., the site was held by the Arsacids (an eastern dynasty known to the Romans as the Parthians), but their power was indirect: it was wielded at Dura by a small number of local families. One family (the head of which held the title of strategos or general of the city), was the Lysiads—known not only from inscriptions but also from a large house associated with them that filled an entire city block (also indicated by block D1, near the right edge, in the plan above).
Painting of Conon and his family performing a sacrifice, installed for display in the Syrian National Museum in Damascus, from the ‘Temple of Bel’ in northwest corner of the city (Yale Dura Archive Dam157)
Painting of Conon and his family performing a sacrifice, installed for display in the Syrian National Museum in Damascus. From the ‘Temple of Bel’ in northwest corner of the city
Elite families are also depicted in paintings, such as that of Conon and his family performing a sacrifice, which was found in a temple in the northwest corner of the city known as the ‘Temple of Bel’. Under the Arsacids, the city was a regional capital where legal matters were handled, judging from civic records preserved on parchments at the site. The site also lay on important long-distance trade routes, which was perhaps the reason people from Palmyra were present at the site from at least the first century B.C.E.
The precise dates Dura was held by different powers are not known, despite having a great number of texts from the site, including inscriptions, parchments, and papyri which were recovered during excavations. This is in part because Dura was in a frontier zone of constantly shifting power.
Roman triumphal arch with Latin inscription found outside the city walls, reconstruction by Detweiler in 1937 (Yale Dura Archive Y594)
Greek Inscription recording renovation of religious building by Alexander, known also as Ammaios (Inscription no. 868, Photo Y466, Yale University Art Gallery)
The Romans
We know from inscriptions that the Romans under Trajan held the site, briefly, in the early second century, from a triumphal arch built outside the city (above), and from another inscription which belonged to a religious building (left). That inscription (dated c. 117 C.E.) records the restoration of a temple by a man known both by the Semitic name Ammaios and the Greek name Alexander, who held a position of priest. This restoration was needed because the doors of the building (presumably, made or decorated with something precious) had been “taken away by the Romans”, who had since departed the city. This practice of double-naming in which people from Dura have both Semitic and Greek names hints at the hybridity of the site, a characteristic that is also seen in its material culture.
Head of deity wearing a headdress, possibly Zeus Megistos, from the Temple of Zeus Megistos. Yale University Art Gallery 1938.5316
An earthquake in 160 C.E., recorded in a local inscription, is thought to have been the impetus for the building (and re-building) of a number of religious buildings in the second century. The sanctuaries are conventionally known by names assigned by the excavators (such as the ‘Temple of Zeus Megistos’ or ‘The Temple of Artemis’) but most of them preserved evidence for a range of deities. For instance, within the Temple of Zeus Megistos are found not only Zeus Megistos, but also the Palmyrene god Arsu and a nude hero, usually identified as Heracles or Nergal, who was popular at the site.
Left: Relief of the god Arsu, with Palmyrene Aramaic inscription reading “Arsu, the camel rider, ‘Ogâ, the sculptor made it for the life of his son”. Traces of black paint survive around the eyes, and the inscription was painted in red; the god is armed with a lance and shield. From the Temple of Zeus Megistos, Block C4 on the plan above(Yale University Art Gallery 1938.5311); right: Nude hero wrestling a lion, probably Heracles wrestling the Nemean lion. From the Temple of Zeus Megistos, Block C4 on the plan above (Yale University Art Gallery 1938.5302)
Interior of west end of Mithraeum during excavation, showing reliefs and paintings (Yale University Art Gallery, Dura-Europos Archive)
Within those sanctuaries were also found religious paintings, preserved best along the western side of the city beneath the Roman embankment, and sometimes “cult reliefs” (small inscribed reliefs dedicated to particular gods). Two such reliefs were found in the Mithraeum, a building dedicated to the god Mithras, whose cult spread widely during the Roman period, mostly among the military, particularly in the third century (see above and the top of this essay). People from Palmyra worshipped in the Mithraeum, and in other religious buildings at Dura, as we know from inscriptions which record their names and the names of their gods, often in Palmyrene Aramaic.
Late in the second century or early in the third, a Roman military garrison was installed within the city walls, taking over many existing buildings and constructing new ones on the north side of the site, including a Roman military palace, an amphitheatre, a principia (headquarters building), and baths. While this marked a major change at the site, and would have displaced many inhabitants, members of the Roman military did adapt to some local practices.
Painting from the ‘Temple of Bel’ of Julius Terentius and his men performing a sacrifice (Yale University Art Gallery, 1934.386)
For instance, a painting of the Roman tribune (cohort commander) Julius Terentius and his men performing a sacrifice was installed in the Temple of Bel, joining the earlier one of Conon and his family, and from a document on papyrus (such as divorce document P. Dura 32, 254 C.E.) we know of Roman soldiers who married local women.
View of the western wall of a model of the Dura-Europos Synagogue with narrative wall paintings and Torah shrine as it may have appeared between 244 and 256 C.E. The paintings are based on photographs taken prior to 1967. The model was created by Displaycraft in 1972 (collection of Yeshiva University Museum, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The earliest Christian house-church and a Jewish synagogue
The installation of the Roman garrison did not mark the end of life at the site, and some religious buildings were built and renovated during this period, including the Jewish synagogue with its extensive wall paintings (from the 2nd century), and a house which was adapted by the Christian community for use as a meeting place and baptistery (from the first half of the 3rd century), in which were preserved Christian paintings. This is the oldest preserved Christian house-church that is archaeologically known.
Latin inscription, painted on a wooden plaque, found in the Palmyrene gate, reading “To Septimius Lysias Strategos of Dura and the wife of the one mentioned above, Nathis, and their children Lysianius and Mecannaea, and Apollophanes and Thiridates, From the Beneficiarii and Decurions of the Cohort,” 3rd century C.E. (Yale University Art Gallery, 1929.370)
Elite families also held on to power, at least for a while, and negotiated their place under Roman rule by, for example, taking Roman names in addition to their other names and titles. In one inscription painted on a wooden plaque found at the Palmyrene gate, it notes one “Septimius Lysias Strategos of Dura,” with Septimius as the added Roman name. Formal inscriptions, usually carved in stone rather than painted on wood, are found in Greek, Latin, and Palmyrene Aramaic throughout the site.
Graffito from Strategion palace (Block C9 on the plan above) of mounted lancer and deer (Yale Dura Archive D200)
On walls throughout Dura, hundreds of graffiti were found, ranging from simple scratched images of camel caravans to elaborate urban landscapes, and preserving lists, receipts, calendars, horoscopes, and many names. These occurred on fortifications in busy parts of the city like the Palmyrene gate but also house walls and within religious buildings and were not illicit markings in the way we think of graffiti today.
Satellite imagery before (top) and after episodes of heavy looting (bottom), leaving the surface of the site covered in round depressions resembling a moonscape (retrieved from Google Earth)
The end of Dura-Europos as an urban settlement
The end of the site as an urban settlement and military garrison came c. 256 C.E. when the Sasanians captured it, after a siege, known from the preserved remains of a siege ramp, mines, and countermines, as well as military equipment. The walls of the site still stood though, and indeed were still standing in the 20th century for it to be discovered. Those same walls stand today, but since the start of the Syrian conflict (2011–present) the site has become, again, a place of conflict. The most notable aspect of this is the systematic looting of the site for antiquities which could be trafficked onto the antiquities market. Satellite photos show the extent of the damage, with the surface of the site covered in the holes made by looters.
Despite the looting at the site, the new destruction has not erased the past of this ancient Syrian city, and much remains to be learned. The extensive excavations tell a story not only of successive empires but also of the resilience of daily life during those times, for instance in the continuity of the mudbrick and plaster courtyard houses which characterized the site. With the extensive archaeological archive which survives from the excavations of the 1920s and 30s we can continue to investigate this multicultural and polyglot ancient site.
Model of the western wall of a Dura-Europos Synagogue with view of its narrative wall paintings and Torah shrine as it may have appeared between 244 and 256 C.E. The paintings are based on photographs taken prior to 1967. The model was created by Displaycraft in 1972 (collection of Yeshiva University Museum)
The location of the synagogue in the L7 block is indicated in yellow. Site plan showing orthogonal (grid-planned) city blocks filling c. 52 hectares (128.5 acres) within the city walls and defended by steep cliffs on three sides. Plan by A. H. Detweiler, modified by J. Baird. Original used by kind permission of Yale University Art Gallery
Discovery of a 3rd-century C.E. synagogue at the ancient site now known as Dura-Europos (in modern Syria) in 1932/1933 shocked the scholarly world. To that point, many had assumed that Jews would never create such an elaborately painted structure for worship—in antiquity or otherwise—because of traditional interpretations about prohibitions against making figural images in the second biblical commandment.
Yet, extensive representations of biblical figures and scenes on the walls of the synagogue’s assembly hall dispel this notion. Moreover, the presence of Hebrew and Aramaic writing on the walls and the ceiling, paired with an additional Persian inscription on the murals that explicitly describes the space as dedicated to the “God of Gods of the Jews,” collectively confirmed its use by Jewish worshippers. [1] Combined, these elements of the synagogue offer rare documentation of Jewish life and devotional space in a 3rd-century frontier town, situated within a multilingual and multicultural society.
The Dura Synagogue and the circumstances of its preservation
Decades before the construction of the synagogue, sequences of conquest, destruction, and rebuilding had already shaped Dura into a politically, culturally, and demographically complex town. Roman soldiers fortified Dura in the mid-250s C.E., inadvertently protecting the synagogue (their efforts included back-filling buildings along the defense walls of the town, including the synagogue, to bolster their resistance to demolition by the enemy’s battering rams).
Plan of the L7 block of Dura-Europos with the synagogue (last state) in red; in orange, the entrance and outbuildings (plan after N. C. Andrews (1941) taken up in Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archeology in the Diaspora, 1998, 41 after Pearson in Hopkins e. a. 1936; plan: Marysas, CC BY-SA 3.0)
Aedicula from the synagogue, 3rd century C.E., Dura-Europos, Syria. Photographed 1932–33 (Yale University Art Gallery)
Phasing and architecture
Yale University’s excavations in the 1930s revealed that the original synagogue building was probably constructed in the late 2nd century or early 3rd century C.E. While much remains unknown about this earlier structure, its foundations are partly documented and indirectly preserved.
The final phase of the synagogue, which was completed in the 240s, is its best understood. The synagogue was primarily composed of an assembly hall and a forecourt (with entry through the adjacent building). The assembly hall may have accommodated up to 120 people. Opposite the entryway, a sculpted aedicula occupied a central position along the western wall of the assembly hall, accessed by several steps from the floor. The Torah (a scroll containing the first five books of the Hebrew Bible) might have been stored and read possibly in or around the aedicula on this wall.
Scenes of the painting west wall frescoes in Dura Europos synagogue (diagram: Marsyas, CC BY-SA 3.0A, ater Weitzmann and Kessler 1990)
Wall paintings
“Pharaoh and the infancy of Moses,” copy by Herbert Gute of a mural in the synagogue, Dura-Europos
The extensive decorative program on the walls of the final phase of the synagogue included roughly 70 panels depicting stories from the Hebrew Bible. The murals were originally applied to dry, rather than wet plaster (using al seccotechniques). [2]
South wall, dado panels 4–6, synagogue, 3rd century C.E., Dura-Europos, Syria (Yale University Archive)
Shrine to Mithras (Mithraeum), c. 240 C.E., painted plaster, 162.5 x 206.4 cm (Yale University Gallery of Art)
Scenes on the walls were presented, out of chronological sequence, in three registers; black rectangular borders divided each panel from others. The lowest decorative band (dado) was distinctive; its colors and decorative program, representing exotic animals and women’s faces or masks in the middle of a black background, separated the biblical panels—both spatially and stylistically—from the floor below.
Similar artisans might have painted the walls of several buildings in Dura, including the synagogue, Christian building, and mithraeum. Nonetheless (and for multiple reasons) the Dura synagogue is exceptional, both locally and regionally; it boasts the most well-preserved decorative program of any Durene building and it contains the only fully decorated walls to survive from any known ancient synagogue.
Painting at the top of the aedicula from the west wall of the synagogue, 3rd century C.E., Dura-Europos, Syria (Yale University Archive)
The west wall
Remaining portions of the west wall, which faced the hall entrances, remain among the best preserved. The aedicula was elaborately and brightly painted. We see a large yellow menorah (a candelabrum with seven branches topped with individual oil lamps), beside which other implements associated with the Temple in Jerusalem also clustered, including a shofar (ram’s horn used as a ritual wind instrument) and ethrog (citron fruit, used by Jews during the festival of Sukkot).
Detail with the hand of God, Beit Alpha synagogue, 6th century, C.E., Israel (Sean Leatherbury/Manar al-Athar)
In the center is an indeterminate architectural structure—perhaps the Holy of Holies from the temple or the Temple itself. On the other side appears an aqeda scene that represents the sacrifice of Isaac. A tiny Isaac appears already on the top of the altar, awaiting his (averted) sacrifice and Abraham appears from behind, and a descending divine hand or the hand of an angel appears to intervene directly from above.
Scholars have offered many theories to explain why these images appear together and in this precise location. Scenes which render cultic implements from the Temple (such as the menorah, shofar, and, ethrog), images of architectural structures, and aqeda scenes appear frequently in mosaic floors of synagogues of Roman Palestine from the fourth and fifth centuries C.E., often closest to where the Torah was likely stored and read. Some scholars have argued that this iconographic and spatial pairing might simultaneously evoke and memorialize the cultic activities of the destroyed Temple in Jerusalem, depict Abraham’s consummate act of piety (his willingness to sacrifice Isaac to demonstrate his obedience to God), and, perhaps, create visual continuity between the destroyed Temple and the liturgical practices conducted within the Dura synagogue centuries later.
Infancy of Moses and the Pharaoh’s daughter, left half, west wall, synagogue, 3rd century C.E., Dura-Europos, Syria (Yale University Archive)
Images on the west wall surrounding the aedicula similarly depict biblical stories about the history and key leaders of ancient Israel. Scenes from Moses’s life are particularly abundant; they include representations of Pharaoh’s daughter rescuing him as an infant from the Nile River and Moses’s leadership of the Israelites miraculously crossing the Red Sea to escape from slavery. Images of the Jerusalem Temple, of Aaron as High Priest, and of the sacrificial activities associated with the Temple cult also recur on the wall.
Synagogue painting, Mordecai and Esther detail, synagogue, 3rd century C.E., Dura-Europos, Syria (Yale University Archive)
Paintings on that wall also depict events of divine intervention, during which Jews were miraculously saved from certain destruction at the hands of their enemies; scenes of the miraculous parting of the Red Sea and the scene depicting Esther enthroned in Persia, collectively function in this way. The positioning of these particular scenes on the same wall that the Torah might have been stored and read appears deliberate.
Moreover, more than serving as mere illustrations of the stories which were recited from the Torah (perhaps with the exception of the Esther story), these representations may play didactic roles, while constituting visual forms of textual interpretation (or midrash). They also serve as spatial and chronological anchors, linking the locations of prayer and recitations of liturgy inside the synagogue to the geography of events within Jews’ historical and religious past.
View of the south wall of the synagogue, 3rd century C.E., Dura-Europos, Syria (Yale University Archive)
The other walls
The other walls are more poorly preserved because they were either partly demolished in antiquity or were badly supported by the fill and thus more susceptible to collapse and destruction. The south wall depicts Elijah and the prophets of Baal; the north wall includes scenes of Bethel and Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones; and images of David and Saul in the wilderness appear on the east. Some of these, as scholars have argued, may depict additional messianic themes.
The Temple with wall and three gates, western wall, right side, from the synagogue, 3rd century C.E., Dura-Europos, Syria (Yale University Archive)
Function of the paintings
These paintings likely served multiple functions for synagogue visitors. They visually conjured and memorialized the greatness of the Jewish God, Jewish heroes and ancestors, and they reminded visitors of a proud lineage that extended back to ancient Israel. Images of the Temple itself, as well as representations of stories in which God saved the Jews from danger, also projected important ideas for their audience, reminding them of God’s power, munificence and protection. Scholars have argued that some images, such as those rendering the vision of dry bones’ in Ezekiel, 37, might suggest God’s promises of future salvation. These images thus simultaneously performed familial, historical, messianic, polemical, and liturgical functions for their ancient viewers. However, the exact relationship between the placement and narrative of many these images remains unclear, because the details of scenes are sometimes abstract and challenging to contextualize.
Replica of ceiling of Dura Europos Synagogue in Damascus Museum, Syria (Yale University Archive). Tiles inside the ceiling were square and 0.42 m and 0.045 m thick.
Upper: Tile with Female Face; lower: Tile with Capricorn; both 245 C.E., synagogue, Dura-Europos (Yale University Art Gallery)
Ceiling
Until recently, the ceiling had been a neglected feature of the Dura synagogue. The ceiling was originally framed on joists and supported by wooden beams inset with painted terracotta tiles to suggest a coffered ceiling.
More than 400 square tiles once comprised the ceiling. Most bore figural decoration, including stylized portraits of benignly smiling women, animals, grains, and fruit. They also incorporate fantastical images of composite creatures that may evoke zodiac signs, such as goat-fish, centaurs, and bird-fish; these were joined by at least two representations of the evil or “good” eye, being assailed by weapons and enemies. Some of these images recur in other buildings from Dura, but most do not; this is the only synagogue ceiling to survive from antiquity and scholars are uncertain why these images were selected.
Tile with Greek Inscription in Wreath, 245 C.E., synagogue, Dura-Europos (Yale University Art Gallery)
Inscriptions and graffiti
Also painted on some of the ceiling tiles were multiple dedicatory inscriptions, which documented the donations of men to the reconstruction of the final synagogue in 244/5 C.E. Three of the tiles from the Dura ceiling included Greek inscriptions, neatly painted, and surrounded by foliate wreaths, which honored individuals named Abram, Arsaces, Silas, and Salmanes; Samuel son of Yeddayah (“Presbyter of the Jews”); and Samuel son of Saphara (Barsaphara) for their generosity. Two Aramaic tiles described the process of the synagogue’s renovation and were unusually presented in two continuous parts. These inscriptions document the final date of the reconstruction of the synagogue, the synagogue officials who supervised the renovation, records of the hard work undertaken, and honor the participation of unnamed women and children. These also record activities associated with the celebration of the sabbath.
In other synagogues, donor plaques were more commonly placed in areas of synagogues where visitors could view them more easily, such as in floor mosaics and on lower portions of walls. Any explanation for the choice to place donor inscriptions in the ceiling at Dura necessarily remains speculative: these tiles possibly may have been inscribed on the ceiling to bring the donors closer to the higher power of God.
Tile with Aramaic Inscription, 245 C.E., synagogue, Dura-Europos (Yale University Art Gallery)
Inscriptions were also found in other areas of the building. An Aramaic dedicatory text was lightly scratched above the aedicula, which attributes the donation of the Torah shrine to a certain “Joseph son of Abba.” The dominance of Aramaic inscriptions inside the synagogue is significant, because, while Aramaic dialects were likely spoken in Dura by Jews and non-Jews alike, Greek is the best documented language in local inscriptions and dedications. Aramaic thus appears to have fulfilled a cultural or ritual importance for Jews who used the synagogue, which is unmatched in other buildings from the town.
A label notes here that “Moses when he went out from Egypt and parted the Sea,” synagogue, 3rd century C.E., Dura-Europos, Syria
Several other types of official inscriptions were also found in the building. Some of these were tituli, or labels, found upon the paintings themselves. Ancient people carefully applied these in paint—in Greek or Aramaic—directly to the paintings. Their work appears to reflect concerns that some of the images were sufficiently ambiguous or difficult for audiences to decipher that they required verbal clarification. Aramaic name labels include those that identify individuals, such as King Solomon (with the Queen of Sheba), Esther, Ahashverosh, and Elijah; a label in Greek identifies the figure of Aaron, the High Priest, who presides over a sacrificial scene. Still panels incorporate fuller captions to help viewers interpret surrounding scenes, such as the label for “Moses when he went out from Egypt and parted the Sea”; or “Samuel, when he anointed David.”
Graffito of aedicula, synagogue, Dura-Europos
Nearly 70 graffiti were also found inside the synagogue. These include visitor’s unofficial drawings and writings that they applied to the surfaces of the synagogue, during their visits through time. Some record activities of various sorts, such as a carving of an aedicula. Textual graffiti are most abundant. Most textual graffiti are in Aramaic and suggest that writing and carving inside the synagogue was a respectful activity, rather than one of defacement. Examples include the names of individual writers or their families, or several requests that writers should “be remembered,” or “be remembered for good” by future readers and passersby. [3]
Photograph showing dipinti in the Purim panel, synagogue, 3rd century C.E., Dura-Europos, Syria (Yale University Archive)
One last form of writing—usually called dipinti because they are painted, rather than carved as are graffiti— was also found upon certain murals from the synagogue—particularly around the so-called “Purim panel” on the west wall, and around the Elijah and Ezekiel panels on the south and north walls. These are distinctive because they are applied in Middle Persian and Parthian scripts and express visitors’ appreciation for the magnificence of the building and its walls. Most writers identify themselves as scribes, which explains their facility with writing in ink. [4]
Cutting away the painting to remove it from the synagogue, 3rd century C.E., Dura-Europos, Syria (Yale University Archive)
Henry Pearson, one of the excavators at Dura, personally supervised the excision of the synagogue walls and their installment inside a special room constructed for their display inside the Damascus Museum, where they still remain. The precarious military situation of Dura—situated along the Euphrates and the Syrian/Iraqi border in the modern town of Salihiyah—currently precludes visitation. While political factors inhibit direct access to the wall panels of the synagogue in Damascus and to the original archaeological site itself, scholars can continue to study the Dura synagogue and other buildings at the site, through digital projects such as the International Digital Dura-Europos Archive (IDEA) and through the photographic archives and collections of the Yale Art Gallery. The unparalleled richness of elements from the Dura synagogue reminds us of the complex nature of architecture diversities in religious practice, and variabilities in the population in Dura-Europos in the middle of the 3rd century C.E.
Notes:
[1] Aramaic inscriptions on the hall’s coffered ceiling call the space a house (of prayer).
[2] The original colors of the wall paintings are somewhat uncertain. The murals faded rapidly after their excavation and initial exposure. The excavators then painted a shellac on the walls to protect them from further deterioration, but this inadvertently caused the opposite effect: in the decades following synagogue’s discovery the coated surface degraded and darkened considerably. The original black-and-white photographs and negatives captured on site, therefore, offer some of the best documentation of the original appearances of the murals. The colorized images, which are often reproduced, were subsequently painted by Herbert Gute and offer an artistic impression of the ancient colors.
[3] Many such examples were preserved on broken plaster, but their adherence to architectural elements (including door jambs) suggests that most originally appeared around the doorways of earlier and later phases of the structure. The discovery of graffiti containing comparable messages (if not in identical languages) in other Durene buildings confirms the regional convention of writing these types of messages (personal names and remembrance requests) on walls of religious buildings and spaces; most graffiti from other cultic contexts, however, appeared in distinctive locations around shrines and altars.
[4] Some have argued that the scribes who visited the structure were Persian Jews; others have argued for the opposite view, based on Zoroastrian terminology embedded in some of their dipinti. Regardless, the presence of these painstakingly painted messages, which respectfully conform to the contours of specific figures, suggests that Persian visitors to the synagogue, like their local Jewish counterparts, wrote their messages inside the synagogue as a respectful activity, to express their appreciation of the space and of devotional activities conducted inside it.
How is it that the Jews, called by Scripture “the smallest of all the nations” (Deut. 7:7) merit a section on religious architecture placed alongside the glories of Christendom, Islam, and Buddhism? After all, the Jews today number something around fourteen million, the same number that existed before the massacre of six million in Europe and the dissolution of communities across Europe and the Arab world during the 1940s. This is a numerical highpoint. In previous centuries, the numbers were far smaller. Just on the basis of demography, then, it would be hard to justify the inclusion of Judaism in this history of art and architecture.
A National Style?
More difficult, perhaps, from the first century through the establishment of modern Israel in 1948 Jews could not claim (or assert, as new European nations states did) a “national” identity or a “national” style of art based upon landed nationalism—categories that were of central importance to nineteenth and twentieth-century constructions of architectural history and style. Theirs was a minority architecture, reflecting a minority existence.
The Temple of Solomon (c. 900 BCE), modern scholars tell us, was a typical near-eastern temple, while the great synagogues constructed at the turn of the twentieth century were art deco palaces. Even on a quality level, it is hard to include Jewish architecture among the great religious architecture of the world.
The greatest of Jewish building, the temples of Solomon (destroyed 586 BCE) and Herod in Jerusalem (destroyed 70 CE) are long gone, and never again have Jews controlled extensive resources for building, nor land for construction. There is no Jewish parallel to Saint Peter’s (neither the “Old” one built by Constantine nor Julius II’s), nor Hagia Sophia, the temples of Varanasi, nor the Forbidden City. Small Jewish communities, stretched across the world from late-antique Palestine to Kaifeng in 17th century China to contemporary America and Israel built synagogues—often buildings of great beauty and historical significance, but mostly pretty limited from an architectural standpoint. There were no Jewish benefactors to compete with Justinian or Saladin or the della Rovere; and virtually no government sponsorship of magnificent synagogues. Jewish architecture is always derivative of local styles and patterns and responds to the needs of local minority communities. It never drove those styles. Jewish “architecture” through the ages was a hybrid architecture—a term scorned by nineteenth and twentieth-century racial and national purists but celebrated in our own “post-modern” age.
Longevity
What Jews lacked in territory, wealth and numbers, they made up for in longevity. Jews—short for “the Judeans,” trace their cultural heritage, and sometimes their physical lineage, to the biblical patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (also called Israel) and to the land of Israel (called in Roman times Judaea)—an unbroken chain of 3000 years. This is not just an “imagined” history. No other western community can assert—based upon rich documentary and physical evidence—to have encountered both Cyrus the Great and Innocent III, Caligula and Mohammed, Victoria, Stalin and Rembrandt. Though a minority, Jews maintained rich mimetic traditions across the empires that make up the “Western world,” and an astonishingly complex book culture that has sustained their sense of group cohesion. From antiquity to modern times, it was (and in many ways, still is) possible to travel from Jewish community to Jewish community from Persia to Spain and beyond—as travellers did—and find Jews who shared an all-encompassing religious culture—even if they ate “strange” (though always kosher) foods, dressed “funny” (though males still wore the biblically mandated ritual “fringes”) and practiced “strange” local liturgical customs. Not speaking the same vernacular language, a visitor from, say, Germany might have communicated with his hosts in, say, Egypt, by drawing upon a mix of “peculiarly pronounced” Hebrew and Aramaic gained through exposure to vast quantities of canonical religious texts.
Jews and their texts—not always together—have been active in what some textbooks still call “the Western Experience” from its beginning. The religious traditions associated with Jesus and Mohammed both assert that Jewish scripture, and interaction with Jews, is essential to their own revelations, both of which assert relationship by virtue of having “superseded” the revelation of Moses. In other words, Jews “matter” to Christians and to Muslims, and by virtue of living among them, Christians and Muslims “mattered” to Jews.
The Study of Jewish Art and Architecture
The academic study of Jewish architecture developed from the eighteenth century onward, when Christian Hebraists and bible scholars developed interests in biblical architecture—the Mosaic Tabernacle, the Solomonic Temple and the Herodian Temple—the latter visited by Jesus, who according to the Gospels predicted its destruction in 70 CE under emperor Vespasian. Post-“biblical” Jewish architecture did not become a focus of research until discoveries by the Palestine Exploration Fund of late antique synagogues during the 1860s. Medieval and early modern buildings took a bit longer to occasion scholarly interest. Jews in 19th century Europe, America and to some degree Islamic lands and south Asia, were engaged in a full-scale building boom; the largest since Herod the Great’s rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple beginning 20-19 BCE. Newly emancipated and emancipating communities asserted their presence by building huge synagogues, experimenting with a wide range of forms, from neo-Egyptian to neo-classical and neo-Moresque, eventually settling upon the modern yet traditionalist tones of art deco.
Only at the end of the 19th century did scholars begin to look back and study “Jewish art,” including Jewish architecture; often looking—whether intentionally or not—for roots for the contemporary boom in earlier periods. Hoping to prove that “Jews do art too,” Jews of all stripes hoped to prove their humanity through the creation and study of Jewish art. It was only in post-war New York that the first—and perhaps still the best—comprehensive surveys of Jewish religious architecture were written, both by art historian/architect Rachel Wischnitzer. These were entitled European Synagogue Architecture and Synagogue Architecture in America. By then, the State of Israel had been established, and “Jewish art”—including architecture—became the national art.
The canonical book of this process was Cecil Roth’s Jewish Art: An Illustrated History, first published in Hebrew in 1958 and still in print in Hebrew. This anthology brought together scholars who had been scattered throughout the world due to the War to present a comprehensive history, from Solomon to the present. Architecture—until the modern period, all of it “religious” appears in every period and in almost every article, with some articles dedicated to this subject. The study of Jewish architecture has been of particular interest to Israeli scholars, but also to Americans and Europeans, and the Hebrew University’s Center for Jewish Art has sent teams across the world to document historical synagogues—most no longer used. In Europe, this work takes on additional significance, as it has been spawned by a real interest to regain a now-lost heritage—particularly in the East, as Europe, particularly since the fall of Communism, has sought to develop a more tolerant European tradition and usable history.
In recent years, Jewish visual culture has been deeply assimilated into the academic study of Judaism, really for the first time. Cultural historians, working with art historians and architectural historians, have begun to focus upon the very elements of Jewish “minority” architecture that in previous generations were often spurned. The process by which a small minority group melded with its general environment, transforming and being transformed within that environment has become the stuff of contemporary scholarship. In many ways, the Jews have been the “canary in the coal mine,” the test case for theoretical discussion of what it means to live in a diaspora and to be Europe’s first, earliest and most intimate—colonized people.
Adapted from Dr. Steven Fine, “Writing a history of Jewish architecture,” in Smarthistory, August 8th. https://smarthistory.org/writing-a-history-of-jewish-architecture/. License: Creative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
Early Christian Art and Architecture
The study of Christian art is divided by the pivotal moment when Constantine decriminalized Christianity in 313 in a document called the Edict of Milan. This document halted the persecution of Christians for their religious beliefs. There is scant evidence of distinctly Christian art before the 200s even though Christ died in 33 AD. The study of Early Christian art is roughly divided into two periods: before and after Constantine permitted Christians to worship openly.
by DR. BETH HARRIS, DR. NANCY ROSS and DR. STEVEN ZUCKER
How little we know
Almost nothing is known about Jesus beyond biblical accounts, although we do know quite a bit more about the cultural and political context in which he lived—for example, Jerusalem in the first century. What follows is an introductory historical summary of Christianity. It hardly needs stating that there are many interpretations and disagreements among historians.
The Good Shepherd, The Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, 425 C.E., mosaic, Ravenna, Italy (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Jesus v. Rome
The biblical Jesus, described in the Gospels as the son of a carpenter, was a Jew and a champion of the underdog. He rebelled against the occupying Roman government in what was then Palestine (at this point the Roman Empire stretched across the Mediterranean). He was crucified for upsetting the social order and challenging the authority of the Romans and their local Jewish leaders. The Romans crucified Jesus, a typical method of execution—especially for those accused of crimes against the government.
Jesus’s followers claim that after three days he rose from the grave and later ascended into heaven. His original followers, known as disciples or apostles, traveled great distances and spread Jesus’s message. His life is recorded in the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which are found in the New Testament. “Christ” means messiah or savior (this belief in a savior is a traditional part of Jewish theology).
Old and New Testaments
Early on, there were many ways that Christianity was practiced and understood, and it wasn’t until the second century that Christianity began to be understood as a religion distinct from Judaism (it’s helpful to remember that Judaism itself had many different sects). Christians were sometimes severely persecuted by the Romans. In the early fourth century, the Roman Emperor Constantine experienced a miraculous conversion and made it legally acceptable to be a Christian. Less than a hundred years later, the Roman Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official state religion.
The first Christians were Jews (whose bible we refer to as the Hebrew Bible or Tanakh). But soon pagans too converted to this new religion. Christians saw the predictions of the prophets in the Hebrew Bible come to fulfillment in the life of Jesus Christ—hence the “Bible” of the Christians includes both the Hebrew Bible (or the Old Testament) and the New Testament.
Sacrifice of Isaac, mosaic, early 6th century, San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
In addition to the fulfillment of prophecy, Christians saw parallels between the events of the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. These parallels, or foreshadowings, are called typology. One example would be Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and the later sacrifice of Christ on the cross. We often see these comparisons in Christian art offered as a revelation of God’s plan for the salvation of mankind.
Different Christianities
Unlike Greek and Roman religions (there was both an official “state” religion as well as other cults), Christianity emphasized belief and a personal relationship with God. The doctrines, or main teachings, of Christianity were determined in a series of councils in the early Christian period, such as the Council of Nicea in 325. This resulted in a common statement of belief known as the Nicene Creed, which is still used by some churches today.
Nevertheless, there is great diversity in Christian belief and practice. This was true even in the early days of Christianity, when, for example, Arians (who believed that the three parts of the Holy Trinity were not equal) and Donatists (who held that priests who had renounced their Christian faith during periods of persecution could not administer the sacraments), were considered heretics (someone who goes against official teaching). Today there are approximately 2.2 billion Christians who belong to a multitude of sects.
The two dominant early branches of Christianity were the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, rooted in Western and Eastern Europe respectively. Protestantism (and its different forms) emerged only later, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. Before that there was essentially just one church in Western Europe—what we would call the Roman Catholic church today (to differentiate it from other forms of Christianity in the West such as Lutheranism, Methodism etc.). Christianity spread throughout the world. In the sixteenth century, the Jesuits (a Catholic order), sent missionaries to Asia, North and South America, and Africa often in concert with Europe’s colonial expansion.
Doctrines
Christianity holds that God has a three-part nature—that God is a trinity (God the father, the Holy Spirit, and Jesus Christ) and that it was Jesus’s death on the cross—his sacrifice—that allowed for human beings to have the possibility of eternal life in heaven. [1] In Christian theology, Christ is seen as the second Adam, and Mary (Jesus’s mother) is seen as the second Eve. The idea here is that where Adam and Eve caused original sin, and were expelled from paradise (the Garden of Eden), Mary and Christ made it possible for human beings to have eternal life in paradise (heaven), through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross.
Christian practice centers on the sacrament of the Eucharist, which is sometimes referred to as Communion. Christians eat bread and drink wine to remember Christ’s sacrifice for the sins of humankind. Christ himself initiated this practice at the Last Supper. Catholics and Eastern Orthodox believe that the bread and wine literally transform into the body and blood of Christ, whereas Protestants and other Christians see the Eucharist as symbolic reminder and re-enactment of Christ’s sacrifice.
Christians demonstrate their faith by engaging in good (charitable) works (works of art were often created as good works). They often engage in rituals (sacraments) such as partaking of the Eucharist or being baptized. Traditional Christian churches have a hierarchical structure of clergy. Devout men and women sometimes become nuns or monks and may separate themselves from the world and live a cloistered life devoted to prayer in a monastery.
A new pictorial language: the image in Early Medieval art
by DR. NANCY ROSS
An illusion of reality
Classical art, or the art of ancient Greece and Rome, sought to create a convincing illusion for the viewer. Artists sculpting the images of gods and goddesses tried to make their statues appear like an idealized human figure. Some of these sculptures, such as the Aphrodite of Knidos by Praxiteles, were so lifelike that legends spread about the statues coming to life and speaking to people. After all, a statue of a god or goddess in the ancient world was believed to embody deity.
Praxiteles, Aphrodite of Knidos, Roman marble copy after 4th century Greek original (Palazzo Altemps, Rome)
The problem for early Christians
The illusionary quality of classical art posed a significant problem for early Christian theologians. When God dictated the ten commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai, God expressly forbade the Israelites from making any graven image, 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 (Exodus 20:4). Early Christians saw themselves as the spiritual progeny of the Israelites and tried to comply with this commandment. Nevertheless, many early Christians were converted pagans who were accustomed to images in religious worship. The use of images in religious ritual was visually compelling and difficult to abandon.
Tertullian asks: Can artists be Christians?
Tertullian, an influential early Christian author living in the second and third centuries, wrote a treatise titled On Idolatry in which he asks if artists could, in fact, be Christians. In this text, he argues that all illusionary art, or all art that seeks to look like something or someone in nature, has the potential to be worshiped as an idol. Arguing fervently against artists as Christians, he acknowledges that there are many artists who are Christians and indeed some who are even priests. In the end, Tertullian asks artists to quit their work and become craftsmen.
Augustine: Illusionary images are lies
Another influential early Christian writer, St. Augustine of Hippo, was also concerned about images, but for different reasons. In his Soliloquies (386-87), Augustine observes that illusionary images, like actors, are lying. An actor on a stage lies because he is playing a part, trying to convince you that he is a character in the script when in truth he is not. An image lies because it is not the thing it claims to be. A painting of a cat is not a cat, but the artist tries to convince the viewer that it is. Augustine cannot reconcile these lies with patterns of divine truth and therefore does not see a place for images in Christian practice.*
Fortunately for art and history, not everyone agreed with Tertullian and Augustine and the use of images persisted. Nevertheless their style and appearance changed in order to be more compatible with theology.
Mosaic in the apse of the Basilica of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, 6th century (Ravenna, Italy)
Towards abstraction (and away from illusion)
Christian art, which was initially influenced by the illusionary quality of classical art, started to move away from naturalistic representation and instead pushed toward abstraction. Artists began to abandon classical artistic conventions like shading, modeling and perspective conventions that make the image appear more real. They no longer observed details in nature to record them in paint, bronze, marble, or mosaic.
Instead, artists favored flat representations of people, animals and objects that only looked nominally like their subjects in real life. Artists were no longer creating the lies that Augustine warned against, as these abstracted images removed at least some of the temptations for idolatry. This new style, adopted over several generations, created a comfortable distance between the new Christian empire and its pagan past.
In Western Europe, this approach to the visual arts dominated until the imperial rule of Charlemagne (800-814) and the accompanying Carolingian Renaissance. This controversy over the legitimacy and orthodoxy of images continued and intensified in the Byzantine Empire. The issue was eventually resolved, in favor of images, during the Second Council of Nicaea in 787.
*There is some irony here since Augustine’s position echos, to some extent, the writing of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. In book X of The Republic (c. 360 B.C.E.), Plato describes a true thing as having been made by God, while in the earthly sphere, a carpenter, for example, can only build a replica of this truth (Plato uses a bed to illustrate his point). Plato states that a painter who renders the carpenter’s bed creates an illusion that is two steps from the truth of God.
The beginnings of an 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 due to 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 and 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 dug frequently adjacent to non-Christian ones, and sarcophagi with Christian imagery were apparently popular with the richer Christians.
Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, 359 C.E., marble (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 will 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 secrets of the cult.
While not directly representing these central Christian images, the theme of death and resurrection was represented through a series of images, many of which were derived from the Old Testament that echoed the themes. For example, the story of Jonah—being swallowed by a great fish and then after spending three days and three nights in the belly of the beast is vomited out on dry ground—was seen by early Christians as an anticipation or prefiguration of the story of Christ’s own death and resurrection. Images of Jonah, along with those of Daniel in the Lion’s Den, the Three Hebrews in the Firey Furnace, Moses Striking the Rock, among others, are widely popular in the Christian art of the third century, both in paintings and on 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 of 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 there were 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
Christ and the Apostles, Catacombs of Domitilla, 4th century C.E., Rome
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 gesture of the orator. 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 the philosopher surrounded by his students or disciples.
Comparably, an early representation of the apostle Paul (left), 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 (right).
Early Christian art and architecture after Constantine
by DR. ALLEN FARBER
By the beginning of the fourth century Christianity was a growing mystery religion in the cities of the Roman world. It was attracting converts from different social levels. Christian theology and art was enriched through the cultural interaction with the Greco-Roman world. But Christianity would be radically transformed through the actions of a single man.
Rome becomes Christian and Constantine builds churches
In 312, the Emperor Constantine defeated his principal rival Maxentius at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge. Accounts of the battle describe how Constantine saw a sign in the heavens portending his victory. Eusebius, Constantine’s principal biographer, describes the sign as the Chi Rho, the first two letters in the Greek spelling of the name Christos.
Colossus of Constantine, c. 312-15 (Palazzo dei Conservatori, Musei Capitolini, Rome)
After that victory Constantine became the principal patron of Christianity. In 313 he issued the Edict of Milan which granted religious toleration. Although Christianity would not become the official religion of Rome until the end of the fourth century, Constantine’s imperial sanction of Christianity transformed its status and nature. Neither imperial Rome or Christianity would be the same after this moment. Rome would become Christian, and Christianity would take on the aura of imperial Rome.
The transformation of Christianity is dramatically evident in a comparison between the architecture of the pre-Constantinian church and that of the Constantinian and post-Constantinian church. During the pre-Constantinian period, there was not much that distinguished the Christian churches from typical domestic architecture. A striking example of this is presented by a Christian community house, from the Syrian town of Dura-Europos. Here a typical home has been adapted to the needs of the congregation. A wall was taken down to combine two rooms: this was undoubtedly the room for services. It is significant that the most elaborate aspect of the house is the room designed as a baptistry. This reflects the importance of the sacrament of Baptism to initiate new members into the mysteries of the faith. Otherwise this building would not stand out from the other houses. This domestic architecture obviously would not meet the needs of Constantine’s architects.
Emperors for centuries had been responsible for the construction of temples throughout the Roman Empire. We have already observed the role of the public cults in defining one’s civic identity, and Emperors understood the construction of temples as testament to their pietas, or respect for the customary religious practices and traditions. So it was natural for Constantine to want to construct edifices in honor of Christianity. He built churches in Rome including the Church of St. Peter, he built churches in the Holy Land, most notably the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, and he built churches in his newly-constructed capital of Constantinople.
Old St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome, from: Giovanni Ciampini, De sacris aedificiis a Constantino Magno constructis: synopsis historica, 1693, p. 33
The basilica
In creating these churches, Constantine and his architects confronted a major challenge: what should be the physical form of the church? Clearly the traditional form of the Roman temple would be inappropriate both from associations with pagan cults but also from the difference in function. Temples served as treasuries and dwellings for the cult; sacrifices occurred on outdoor altars with the temple as a backdrop. This meant that Roman temple architecture was largely an architecture of the exterior. Since Christianity was a mystery religion that demanded initiation to participate in religious practices, Christian architecture put greater emphasis on the interior. The Christian churches needed large interior spaces to house the growing congregations and to mark the clear separation of the faithful from the unfaithful. At the same time, the new Christian churches needed to be visually meaningful. The buildings needed to convey the new authority of Christianity. These factors were instrumental in the formulation during the Constantinian period of an architectural form that would become the core of Christian architecture to our own time: the Christian Basilica.
Reconstruction of the interior of the Basilica Ulpia
The basilica was not a new architectural form. The Romans had been building basilicas in their cities and as part of palace complexes for centuries. A particularly lavish one was the so-called Basilica Ulpia constructed as part of the Forum of the Emperor Trajan in the early second century. Basilicas had diverse functions but essentially they served as formal public meeting places. One of the major functions of the basilicas was as a site for law courts. These were housed in an architectural form known as the apse. In the Basilica Ulpia, these semi-circular forms project from either end of the building, but in some cases, the apses would project off of the length of the building. The magistrate who served as the representative of the authority of the Emperor would sit in a formal throne in the apse and issue his judgments. This function gave an aura of political authority to the basilicas.
Aula Palatina, Trier, early 4th century C.E. (photo: Beth M527, CC BY-NC 2.0)
The basilica at Trier (Aula Palatina)
Basilicas also served as audience halls as a part of imperial palaces. A well-preserved example is found in the northern German town of Trier. Constantine built a basilica as part of a palace complex in Trier which served as his northern capital. Although a fairly simple architectural form and now stripped of its original interior decoration, the basilica must have been an imposing stage for the emperor. Imagine the emperor dressed in imperial regalia marching up the central axis as he makes his dramatic adventus or entrance along with other members of his court. This space would have humbled an emissary who approached the enthroned emperor seated in the apse.
Originally built in the 4th century, the Aula Palatina has been remade several times according to the aesthetics of each age that transformed it.
Basilica of Constantine (Aula Palatina), c. 310 C.E., Trier, Germany. Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker URL: https://youtu.be/HJ6SDufa7ow
Santa Maria Antiqua, located at the foot of the Palatine Hill beside the Roman Forum (originally part of the Roman emperor Domitian’s palace complex of c. 81-96 C.E.), consecrated in the 6th century with paintings from the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries. Special thanks to the World Monuments Fund, Giuseppe Morganti, Werner Schmid, and the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma.
Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus (Sarcophagus with philosopher, orant, and Old and New Testament scenes), c. 270 C.E., marble, 23 1/4 x 86 inches (Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome). Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris URL: https://youtu.be/x4WzBbdG9lU
Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus, c. 275 C.E., white veined marble, found under the floor of Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome
Early Christian and Roman (pagan) art
This third century sarcophagus from the Church of Santa Maria was undoubtedly made to serve as the tomb of a relatively prosperous third century Christian. As we will see below, Early Christian art borrowed many forms from pagan art.
The male philosopher type that we see in the center of the Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus (above) is easily identifiable with the same type in another third century sarcophagus (below), but in this case a non-Christian one.
Asiatic sarcophagus from Sidamara, c. 250 C.E. (Istanbul Archaeological Museum, Istanbul) (photo: Richard Mortel, CC BY-NC 2.0)
The female figure beside him in the Santa Maria Antiqua sarcophagus who holds her arms outstretched combines two different conventions. The outstretched hands in Early Christian art represent the so-called “orant” or praying figure. This is the same gesture found in the catacomb paintings of Jonah being vomited from the great fish, the Hebrews in the Furnace, and Daniel in the Lions den.
Left to right: Orant from the Sarcophagus of Sabinus, c. 310-20 (Vatican Museums); Orant from the Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus, c. 270, Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome; Orant from the Catacomb of Priscilla, Rome, fresco, late 2nd century through the 4th century C.E.
Illustration of Dioscorides, late 6th century C.E., illuminated manuscript
The juxtaposition of this female figure with the philosopher figure associates her with the convention of the muse in ancient Greek and Roman art (as a source of inspiration for the philosopher). This convention is illustrated in a later sixth century miniature showing the figure of Dioscorides, an ancient Greek physician, pharmacologist, and botanist (left).
On the left side of the sarcophagus (below), Jonah is represented sleeping under the ivy after being vomited from the great fish. The pose of the reclining Jonah with his arm over his head is based on the mythological figure of Endymion, whose wish to sleep for ever—and thus become ageless and immortal—explains the popularity of this subject on non-Christian sarcophagi (see the detail from a Roman sarcophagus below).
Jonah (detail), Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus, c. 275 C.E., white veined marble, found under the floor of Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome
Endymion (detail), Marble sarcophagus with the myth of Selene and Endymion, early 3rd century C.E., Roman, marble, 28 1/2 inches / 72.39 cm high (The Metropolitan Museum of Art)
Another popular Early Christian image appears on the Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus, known as the Good Shepherd (below). While echoing the New Testament parable of the Good Shepherd and the Psalms of David, the motif had clear parallels in Greek and Roman art, going back at least to Archaic Greek art, as exemplified by the so-called Moschophoros, or calf-bearer, from the early sixth century B.C.E. On the far right of the Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus, we see an image of the Baptism of Christ . The inclusion of this relatively rare representation of Christ probably refers to the importance of the sacrament of Baptism, which signified death and rebirth into a new Christian life.
Good Shepherd and Baptism (detail), Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus, c. 275 C.E., white veined marble, found under the floor of Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome
Moschophoros, early 6th century B.C.E., marble (Acropolis Museum, Athens)
A curious detail about the male and female figures at the center of the Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus is that their faces are unfinished. This suggests that this tomb was not made with a specific patron in mind. Rather, it was fabricated on a speculative basis, with the expectation that a patron would buy it and have his—and presumably his wife’s—likenesses added. If this is true, it says a lot about the nature of the art industry and the status of Christianity at this period. To produce a sarcophagus like this meant a serious commitment on the part of the maker. The expense of the stone and the time taken to carve it were considerable. A craftsman would not have made a commitment like this without a sense of certainty that someone would purchase it.
Orant and Seated figure (detail), Santa Maria Antiqua Sarcophagus, c. 275 C.E., white veined marble, found under the floor of Santa Maria Antiqua, Rome
A conversation with Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker in front of Christ as the Good Shepherd, 300–350 C.E., marble, 39 inches high (Museo Pio Cristiano, Vatican Museums, Rome)
A mosaic proclaims Christ’s rule over the Heavenly Jerusalem. Gesture, toga, and book signal imperial authority.
Apse mosaic in Santa Pudenziana, c. 400 (Rome). Speakers: Dr. Steven Zucker and Dr. Beth Harris URL: https://youtu.be/zkjScZB9iKM
Façade of Santa Pudenziana, 4th century C.E., Rome (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
A ritual space
The opulent interior of the Constantinianbasilicas would have created an effective space for increasingly elaborate rituals. Influenced by the splendor of the rituals associated with the emperor, the liturgy placed emphasis on the dramatic entrances and the stages of the rituals. For example, the introit or entrance of the priest into the church was influenced by the adventus or arrival of the emperor.
Nave and apse of Santa Pudenziana, 4th century C.E. (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The culmination of the entrance, as well as the focal point of the architecture, was the apse. It was here that the sacraments would be performed, and it was here that the priest would proclaim the word. In Roman civic and imperial basilicas, the apse had been the seat of authority. In the civic basilicas, this is where the magistrate would sit adjacent to an imperial image and dispense judgment. In the imperial basilicas, the emperor would be enthroned. These associations with authority made the apse a suitable stage for the Christian rituals. The priest would be like the magistrate proclaiming the word of a higher authority.
A late 4th century mosaic in the apse of the Roman church of Santa Pudenziana visualizes this. We see in this image a dramatic transformation in the conception of Christ from the pre-Constantinian period.
Apse mosaic of Santa Pudenziana, 4th century C.E., Rome (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Missorium of Theodosius, 388 C.E., silver with traces of gilding, 74 cm diameter (Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid)
From teacher to God
In the Santa Pudenziana mosaic, Christ is shown in the center, seated on a jewel-encrusted throne. He wears a gold toga with purple trim, both colors associated with imperial authority. His right hand is extended in the ad locutio gesture conventional in imperial representations. Holding a book in his right hand, Christ is shown proclaiming the word. This is dependent on another convention of Roman imperial art of the so-called traditio legis, or the handing down of the law. A silver plate known as the Missorium of Theodosius made for the Emperor Theodosius in 388 to mark the tenth anniversary of his accession to power shows the Emperor in the center handing down the scroll of the law. Notably, the Emperor Theodosius is shown with a halo, much like the figure of Christ.
Christ proclaiming the word (detail), apse mosaic of Santa Pudenziana, 4th century C.E., Rome (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
While the halo would become a standard convention in Christian art to demarcate sacred figures, the origins of this convention can be found in imperial representations like the image of Theodosius. Behind the figure of Christ appears an elaborate city. In the center appears a hill surmounted by a jewel-encrusted Cross. This identifies the city as Jerusalem and the hill as Golgotha, but this is not the earthly city but rather the heavenly Jerusalem. This is made clear by the four figures seen hovering in the sky around the Cross. These are identifiable as the four beasts that are described as accompanying the lamb in the Book of Revelation.
Winged lion representing St. Mark and winged ox representing St. Luke, two of the Four Evangelists (detail), apse mosaic of Santa Pudenziana, 4th century C.E., Rome (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The winged man, the winged lion, the winged ox, and the eagle became in Christian art symbols for the Four Evangelists, but in the context of the Santa Pudenziana mosaic, they define the realm as outside earthly time and space or as the heavenly realm. Christ is thus represented as the ruler of the heavenly city. The cross has become a sign of the triumph of Christ. This mosaic finds a clear echo in the following excerpt from the writings of the early Christian theologian St. John Chrysostom:
You will see the king, seated on the throne of that unutterable glory, together with the angels and archangels standing beside him, as well as the countless legions of the ranks of the saints. This is how the Holy City appears….In this city is towering the wonderful and glorious sign of victory, the Cross, the victory booty of Christ, the first fruit of our human kind, the spoils of war of our king.
MIGNE, PG, LVII, COLS. 23–24
The language of this passage shows the unmistakable influence of the Roman emphasis on triumph. The cross is characterized as a trophy or victory monument. Christ is conceived of as a warrior king. The order of the heavenly realm is characterized as like the Roman army divided up into legions. Both the text and mosaic reflect the transformation in the conception of Christ. These document the merging of Christianity with Roman imperial authority.
Christ and the Apostles, Catacombs of Domitilla, 4th century C.E., Rome (photo: Tyler Bell, CC BY 2.0)
It is this aura of imperial authority that distinguishes the Santa Pudenziana mosaic from the painting of Christ and his disciples from the Catacomb of Domitilla. Christ in the catacomb painting is simply a teacher, while in the mosaic, Christ has been transformed into the ruler of heaven. Even his long flowing beard and hair construct Christ as being like Zeus or Jupiter. The mosaic makes clear that all authority comes from Christ. He delegates that authority to his flanking apostles. It is significant that in the Santa Pudenziana mosaic, the figure of Christ is flanked by the figure of St. Paul on the left and the figure of St. Peter on the right. These are the principal apostles.
Female figure personifying the division of the church of the Jews and the Gentiles (detail), apse mosaic of Santa Pudenziana (detail), 4th century C.E., Rome (photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
By the 4th century, it was already established that the Bishop of Rome, or the Pope, was the successor of St. Peter, the founder of the Church of Rome. Just as power descends from Christ through the apostles, so at the end of time, that power will be returned to Christ. The standing female figures can be identified as personifications of the major division of Christianity between the church of the Jews and that of the Gentiles. They can be seen as offering up their crowns to Christ, like the 24 Elders are described as returning their crowns in the Book of Revelation.
Missorium of Theodosius, 388 C.E., silver with traces of gilding, 74 cm diameter (Real Academia de la Historia, Madrid)
The meaning is clear that all authority comes from Christ, just as in the Missorium of Theodosius, which shows the transmission of authority from the Emperor to his co-emperors. This emphasis on authority should be understood in the context of the religious debates of the period. When Constantine accepted Christianity, there was not one Christianity but a wide diversity of different versions. A central concern for Constantine was the establishment of Christian orthodoxy in order to unify the church.
Christianity underwent a fundamental transformation with its acceptance by Constantine. The imagery of Christian art before Constantine appealed to the believer’s desires for personal salvation, while the dominant themes of Christian art after Constantine emphasized the authority of Christ and His church in the world.
Statue of Roman Emperor Augustus, wearing a cuirass, and a mosaic of Christ depicted in a similar manner. Left: Augustus of Primaporta, early 1st century C.E., marble with traces of polychromy, 203 cm high (Vatican Museums; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0); right: Christ treading the Lion and Asp mosaic from the Archiepiscopal Palace, 5th century C.E. (Archiepiscopal Palace, Ravenna; photo: Incola, CC BY-SA 4.0)
Just as Rome became Christian, Christianity and Christ took on the aura of Imperial Rome. A dramatic example of this is presented by a mosaic of Christ in the Archiepiscopal Palace in Ravenna. Here Christ is shown wearing the cuirass, or the breastplate, regularly depicted in images of Roman Emperors and generals. The staff of imperial authority has been transformed into the cross.
Made for a member of the Roman elite, this early tomb features Old and New Testament scenes in a classical style.
Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, marble, 359 C.E., almost 8 x 6 x 5 feet (Museum of the Treasury of the Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican). Speakers: Dr. Beth Harris and Dr. Steven Zucker URL: https://youtu.be/aHIm0jQUsmg
Christianity becomes legal
By the middle of the fourth century Christianity had undergone a dramatic transformation. Before Emperor Constantine’s acceptance, Christianity had a marginal status in the Roman world. Attracting converts in the urban populations, Christianity appealed to the faithful’s desires for personal salvation; however, due to Christianity’s monotheism (which prohibited its followers from participating in the public cults), Christians suffered periodic episodes of persecution. By the middle of the fourth century, Christianity under imperial patronage had become a part of the establishment. The elite of Roman society were becoming new converts.
Plaster cast copy of Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, original is 359 C.E., marble (Treasury, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Such an individual was Junius Bassus. He was a member of a senatorial family. His father had held the position of Praetorian prefect, which involved administration of the Western Empire. Junius Bassus held the position of praefectus urbi (“urban prefect”) for Rome, an office established in the early period under the kings, and was responsible for the administration of the city of Rome. It was a position held by members of the most elite families. When Junius Bassus died at the age of 42 in the year 359, a sarcophagus was made for him. As recorded in an inscription on the sarcophagus now in the Vatican collection, Junius Bassus had become a convert to Christianity shortly before his death.
The birth of Christian symbolism in art
The style and iconography of this sarcophagus reflects the transformed status of Christianity. This is most evident in the image at the center of the upper register. Before the time of Constantine, the figure of Christ was rarely directly represented, but here on the Junius Bassus sarcophagus we see Christ prominently represented not in a narrative representation from the New Testament but in a formula derived from Roman Imperial art. The traditio legis (“giving of the law”) was a formula in Roman art to give visual testament to the emperor as the sole source of the law.
Giving of the law (tradition legis) (detail), Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, 359 C.E., marble (Treasury, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Already at this early period, artists had articulated identifiable formulas for representing Saints Peter and Paul. Peter was represented with a bowl haircut and a short cropped beard, while the figure of Paul was represented with a pointed beard and usually a high forehead. In paintings, Peter has white hair and Paul’s hair is black. The early establishment of these formulas was undoubtedly a product of the doctrine of apostolic authority in the early church. Bishops claimed that their authority could be traced back to the original Twelve Apostles.
Peter and Paul held the status as the principal apostles. The Bishops of Rome have understood themselves in a direct succession back to Saint Peter, the founder of the church in Rome and its first bishop. The popularity of the formula of the traditio legis in Christian art in the fourth century was due to the importance of establishing orthodox Christian doctrine.
In contrast to the established formulas for representing Saints Peter and Paul, early Christian art reveals two competing conceptions of Christ. The youthful, beardless Christ, based on representation of Apollo, vied for dominance with the long-haired and bearded Christ, based on representations of Jupiter or Zeus.
The feet of Christ in the Junius Bassus relief rest on the head of a bearded, muscular figure, who holds a billowing veil spread over his head. This is another formula derived from Roman art. A comparable figure appears at the top of the cuirass of the Augustus of Primaporta. The figure can be identified as the figure of Caelus, or the heavens. In the context of the Augustan statue, the figure of Caelus signifies Roman authority and its rule of everything earthly, that is, under the heavens. In the Junius Bassus relief, Caelus’s position under Christ’s feet signifies that Christ is the ruler of heaven.
Left: Christ’s entry into Jerusalem (detail), plaster copy of Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, original is 359 C.E., marble (Treasury, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City; photo: Giovanni Dall’Orto); right: Adventus of Marcus Aurelius, 176–80 C.E., marble (Palazzo dei Conservatori, Rome; photo: MatthiasKabel)
The lower register directly underneath depicts Christ’s Entry into Jerusalem. This image was also based on a formula derived from Roman imperial art. The adventus was a formula devised to show the triumphal arrival of the emperor with figures offering homage. A relief from the reign of Marcus Aurelius illustrates this formula. In including the Entry into Jerusalem, the designer of the Junius Bassus sarcophagus did not just use this to represent the New Testament story, but with the adventus iconography, this image signifies Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem. Whereas the traditio legis above conveys Christ’s heavenly authority, it is likely that the Entry into Jerusalem in the form of the adventus was intended to signify Christ’s earthly authority. The juxtaposition of the Christ in Majesty and the Entry into Jerusalem suggests that the planner of the sarcophagus had an intentional program in mind.
Old and new together
We can determine some intentionality in the inclusion of the Old and New Testament scenes. For example the image of Adam and Eve shown covering their nudity after the Fall was intended to refer to the doctrine of Original Sin that necessitated Christ’s entry into the world to redeem humanity through His death and resurrection. Humanity is thus in need of salvation from this world.
Adam and Eve (detail), plaster copy of Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, original is 359 C.E., marble (Treasury, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
The inclusion of the suffering of Job on the left hand side of the lower register conveyed the meaning how even the righteous must suffer the discomforts and pains of this life. Job is saved only by his unbroken faith in God.
The scene of Daniel in the lion’s den to the right of the Entry into Jerusalem had been popular in earlier Christian art as another example of how salvation is achieved through faith in God.
Sacrifice of Isaac (detail), Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, 359 C.E., marble (Treasury, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Salvation is a message in the relief of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac on the left hand side of the upper register. God challenged Abraham’s faith by commanding Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac. At the moment when Abraham is about to carry out the sacrifice his hand is stayed by an angel. Isaac is thus saved. It is likely that the inclusion of this scene in the context of the rest of the sarcophagus had another meaning as well. The story of the father’s sacrifice of his only son was understood to refer to God’s sacrifice of his son, Christ, on the Cross. Early Christian theologians attempting to integrate the Old and New Testaments saw in Old Testament stories prefigurations or precursors of New Testament stories. Throughout Christian art the popularity of Abraham’s Sacrifice of Isaac is explained by its typological reference to the Crucifixion of Christ.
Martyrdom
While not showing directly the Crucifixion of Christ, the inclusion of the Judgment of Pilate in two compartments on the right hand side of the upper register is an early appearance in Christian art of a scene drawn from Christ’s Passion. The scene is based on the formula in Roman art of Justitia, illustrated here by a panel made for Marcus Aurelius. Here the emperor is shown seated on the sella curulis dispensing justice to a barbarian figure. On the sarcophagus, Pilate is shown seated also on a sella curulis. The position of Pontius Pilate as the Roman prefect or governor of Judaea undoubtedly carried special meaning for Junius Bassus in his role as praefectus urbi in Rome. Junius Bassus as a senior magistrate would also be entitled to sit on a sella curulis.
Judgement of Pilate (detail), Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, 359 C.E., marble (Treasury, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City; photo: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)
Just as Christ was judged by Roman authority, Saints Peter and Paul were martyred under Roman rule. The remaining two scenes on the sarcophagus represent Saints Peter and Paul being led to their martyrdoms. Peter and Paul as the principal apostles of Christ are again given prominence. Their martyrdoms witness Christ’s own death. The artists seem to be making this point by the visual pairing of the scene of Saint Peter being led to his martyrdom and the figure of Christ before Pilate. In both scenes the principal figure is flanked by two other figures.
The importance of Peter and Paul in Rome is made apparent in that two of the major churches that Constantine constructed in Rome were the Church of Saint Peter and the Church of Saint Paul Outside the Walls. The site of the Church of Saint Peter has long believed to be the place of Saint Peter’s burial. The basilica was constructed in an ancient cemetery. Although we can not be certain the the Junius Bassus Sarcophagus was originally intended for this site, it would make sense that a prominent Roman Christian like Junius Bassus would want to be buried in close physical proximity to the burial spot of the founder of the Church of Rome.
Competing styles
At either end of the Junius Bassus sarcophagus appear Erotes harvesting grapes and wheat. A panel with the same subject was probably a part of a pagan sarcophagus made for a child. This iconography is based on images of the seasons in Roman art. Again, the artists have taken conventions from Greek and Roman art and converted it into a Christian context. The wheat and grapes of the classical motif would be understood in the Christian context as a reference to the bread and wine of the Eucharist.
Erotes harvesting grapes (detail), plaster copy of Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, original is 359 C.E., marble (Treasury, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City; photo: Giovanni Dall’Orto)
Erotes harvesting grapes (detail), Sarcophagus representing a Dionysiac Vintage Festival, 290–300 C.E., marble (Getty, Los Angeles)
While the proportions are far from the standards of classical art, the style of the relief, especially with the rich folds of drapery and soft facial features, can be seen as classic or alluding to the classical style. Comparably the division of the relief into different registers and further subdivided by an architectural framework alludes to the orderly disposition of classical art. This choice of a style that alludes to classical art was undoubtedly intentional. The art of the period is marked by a number of competing styles. Just as rhetoricians were taught at this period to adjust their oratorical style to the intended audience, the choice of the classical style was seen as an indication of the high social status of the patron, Junius Bassus. In a similar way, the representation of the figures in togas was intentional. In Roman art, the toga was traditionally used as a symbol of high social status.
In both its style and iconography, the Junius Bassus Sarcophagus witnesses the adoption of the tradition of Greek and Roman art by Christian artists. Works like this were appealing to patrons like Junius Bassus who were a part of the upper level of Roman society. Christian art did not reject the classical tradition: rather, the classical tradition will be a reoccurring element in Christian art throughout the Middle Ages.