Images of the crucifixion in late antiquity

339 Pages·2015·22.2 MB·English

by  Felicity Harley

i' L.oz
IMAGES OFTHE CRUCIFIXION IN
LATE ANTIQUITY
The testimony of engraved gems
Felicity Harley
Thesis submitted for PhD candidature, June 2001
Centre for European Studies and General Linguistics
Classics Discipline
Adelaide University
And they brought him to the place called Gol'gotha (which means the
place of a skull). And they offered him wine mingled with myrrh; but he
did not take it. And they crucified him, and divided his garments among
them, casting lots for them, to decide what each should take. And it was
the third hour, when they crucified him. And the inscription of the charge
against him read, "The King of the Jews." And with him they crucified two
robbers, one on his right and one on his left. And those who passed by
derided him, wagging their heads, and saying, "Aha! You who would
destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself, and come down
from the cross!" So also the chief priests mocked him to one another with
the scribes, saying, "He saved others; he cannot save himself. Let the
Christ, the King of Israel, come down now from the cross, that we may see
and believe." Those who were crucified with him also reviled him.
And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land
until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice,
"E'lo-i, E'lo-i, la'ma sabach-tha'ni?" which means, "My God, my God,
why hast though forsaken me?" And some of the bystanders hearing it said,
"Behold, he is calling Eli'jah." And one ran and, filling a sponge full of
vinegar, put it on a reed and gave it to him to drink, saying, "Wait, let us
see wether Eli'jah will come to take him down." And Jesus uttered a loud
cry, and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two,
from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw
that he thus breathed his last, he said, "Truly this man was the Son of
God!".
Mark 15:22-39
CONITENTS
Abstract lll
Declaration iv
Acknowledgments
INTRODUCTION
1
I
Chapter
THE STATE OF THE QUESTION 10
Crucifixion Iconography and Engraved Gems
A. METHODS OF APPROACH
I.
Creating a Theory of Rejection: I6
1. Social and Political Impediments 17
2l
2. Mystery and Idolatry
3. Christological Concerns 22
4. Art Historical Obstacles 24
5. The "Quasi-avoidance" Solution 26
tr. An Alternative View: neglect JJ
B. TFIE CRUCIFIXION GEMS: a survey of past scholarship 42
I.
Engraved Gems 47
tr.
The Crucifixion Gems: some problems of disparity 51
Itr. The Origins and Definition of Christian Art 57
Towards a New Perspective 60
II
Chapter
THE ICONOGRAPHIC EVIDENCE c. 200 - 600 62
A Brief Review
L
Second and Third Centuries 65
tr.
Third and Fourth Centuries 69
m. Fifth Century 79
IV. Sixth Century 100
III
Chapter
THE CRUCIFIXION GEMS tt7
Part 1. LATE ANTIQUITY
A. The Pereire Jasper r20
tzr
1. The Inscription
2.The Jasper and its Group 131
3. The Iconography 134
B. The Nott and Constanza Gems r46
1. Jesus and the Cross 150
2. The Inscriptions 159
3. Veneration Iconography 161
Part2. BYZANTIUM 184
A. The Lewis Jasper 184
1. Jesus 185
2.The Lance and Sponge-Bearers 197
3. The Inscription 207
4. Contemporary Engraved Gems 2t2
B. Gaza Jasper 216
1. The Script 219
2.The Iconography: 224
a. the attendant figures: some problems of identification 229
b. the twisted and suffering Jesus 243
P art 3 . PROBLEMATIC AMULETS 259
A. Orpheus Bakchikos Seal-Cylinder 259
B. Crucified-Ass Amulet 26t
C. Haematite Amulet 263
CONCLUSION 266
Appendix 1: Catalogue of Engraved Gems 28t
Appendix 2: The Lewis Jasper and its Group: Spier 286
List of Abbreviations 288
Bibliography 289
List of Illustrations 3r4
Plates
l1
ABSTRACT
This study takes five gemstones, each engraved with an image of the Crucifixion
and previously dated to the Late Antique period, as its focus. Traditionally it has
been thought that Christian images of the Crucifixion emerged in the fifth century
and that prior to that time, the subject was consciously rejected by artists. Utilising
the largely ignored and invariably misused evidence of the gems, this study
challenges both the conventional view of the early history of the image and the
theory of rejection.
Although the gems have previously been cited to indicate the portrayal of the
Crucifixion prior to the fifth century, confusion about their authenticity and art-
historical validity has seen them marginalised or dismissed from most
iconographic studies of the subject in Late Antiquity. Yet clearly the question of
the avoidance of the Crucifixion cannot be addressed until a systematic
examination of the gems' iconographic as well as compositional, physical and
epigraphic evidence, is carried out. This study undertakes such an examination. It
demonstrates the way in which critical information regarding the evolution of the
Crucifixion image in Late Antiquity has been seriously obstructed in previous
studies through the dismissal, misapplication and./or misinterpretation of the gems.
Focusing on iconography, it presents a revised chronology for the gems. It
suggests that only three are Late Antique, with the fourth gem being early
Byzantine. The Late Antique date customarily assigned to the fifth gem is rejected
and a Middle Byzantine date proposed.
The core investigation of the gems is prefaced by a short review of the material
and literary evidence customarily cited in iconographic studies for the
representation of the Crucifixion between c. AD 200 and c. 600. The extent to
which the gems augment and transform this evidence is shown to be significant.
Drawing on the testimony of the gems this study proposes that at least two design
models of the representation of Jesus on the cross were circulating prior to the
fifth century but proved unpopular: the earliest model is "magical" and is
characterised by its realism; the second, later model is Christian and is
characterised by its symbolism. The focus away from the subject in art prior to the
fifth century is shown to be witnessed in the small number of surviving gems and
in the compositional formats and iconography adopted on them. On the strength of
such discoveries the study concludes that the prevailing assumptions regarding the
rejection of Crucifixion imagery in Late Antiquity need to be reconsidered.
111

ACKNOV/LEDGMENTS
Several years ago I was granted a stipendiary Australian Postgraduate Award by
Adelaide University which enabled me to begin this study. During my PhD
candidature a Research Abroad Scholarship from the Graduate Studies office and
the Mutual Community Postgraduate Travel Grant from the Alumni Association
assisted me in continuing my research in England, where I was able to examine
the gems that form the focus of the study. At the British Museum Christopher
Entwistle gave me access to various objects, photographs and drawings and has
since fielded many queries and requests. At the Fitzwilliam Museum Penny
Wilson gave me permission to view the Lewis Crucifixion jasper. Whilst in
England I was able to meet with Sr Mary Charles Murray. The example of her
scholarship and her enthusiasm for this project in its early stages was pivotal and I
am extremely grateful to her for her encouragement.
I am lucky to have benefited from the help of many talented friends and colleagues
during the period in which this study was researched and written. I would
particularly like to thank Paul Tuffin and Anne Geddes, and my supervisor
Margaret O'Hea for the singular role she played. Roger Scott, Sam Lieu, Bill
Adler and V/endy Mayer have also given freely of their time, skills,
encouragement and advice over a number of years and at crucial stages in my
research. Jeffrey Spier's passion for engraved gems has been an important
influence and I am thankful for his support. Having given me access to his
unpublished research and photographs, this study has been significantly enhanced
by his generosity and knowledge. David Richardson has been a longstanding
advocate and has influenced the growth of this study on many fronts. In their
wisdom (and patience!) John Roffey and Alan Cadwallader have been generous
and indispensable contributors. I am also grateful to Alan Treloar and Greg
Horsley for their kindness; and to Gary Vikan and Jas Elsner for their advice and
encouragement.
Many of the people mentioned above have commented on sections of the draft, as
has Steven Ogden. The final text has been improved by the keen eyes and
suggestions of Fred Ebbeck, Anne Geddes and Dick Richards. Any errors remain
my own responsibility.
The encouragement and assistance of my parents, plus the faithful support of my
friends, has been a source of great strength over so many years. Mary Lou
Simpson has been a steadfast believer in my research and I am deeply grateful to
her for the ways she has sought to demonstrate this. I would particularly like to
acknowledge Dick Richards who is a most generous mentor and friend. Finally,
special thanks go to Elspeth, my extraordinary mother and ally, for her endurance,
patience, humour and unwavering belief in me.
INTRODUCTION
Lying on her deathbed, a Cappadocian nun named Macrina wore a small iron
cross and an iron ring, both suspended around her neck on a thin chain and hidden
beneath her robes. The ring bore the symbol of the cross and was hollowed out in
the centre: in the hollow was secreted a tiny piece of wood, wood from the cross
on which Jesus was crucified.
Macrina died in AD 380 at the age of fifty-four. Her wearing of a relic of the cross
is recorded in the eulogy composed by her younger brother Saint Gregory of
Nyssa.r Despite its antiquity, the anecdote has a disarming familiarity; for whilst
few Christians now own relics from Jesus' Crucifixion, metal crosses bearing his
dead or dying body are common as items of jewellery. We recognise in Macrina's
story both the immutable centrality of the Crucifixion to the Christian faith, from
fourth century Cappadocia to the present day, as well as the potent desire to make
physical the spiritual connection with God and His son, through Jesus' act of self-
sacrifice. Yet the centrality in Christian art and culture of the image of Jesus'
brutal and public execution outside Jerusalem around AD 33, witnessed in its role
today as a universally recognised symbol of spiritual confidence, is a later
phenomenon. Although arising out of the same stimulus that moved Macrina to
keep the relic secretly next to her chest, the urge to produce explicit images of the
Crucifixion does not manifest itself until after her lifetime.
It is the formative history of the Crucifixion image, from around the third until the
early seventh century, that is the focus of this thesis. These chronological
parameters are set according to the material evidence that survives for the
development of the image. They begin in Rome less than two hundred years after
the Crucifixion with a remarkable piece of ancient graffito executed around AD
t
Gr"gory of Nyssa, Vita s. Macrinae;trans. V. W. Callahan, FC 58, pp. 184-185. OnMacrina's
life see Brown (1988), pp.277-279.
I
Intoduction
200 on the Palatine Hill. The graffito is accompanied by a crude drawing of a man
hailing a crucified figure, the figure having the head of a donkey lPI.lal. After this
pictorial reference to the Christian belief in a crucified deity, the subject of Jesus'
crucifixion does not seem to appear in Christian art until the fifth century. From
that century there survive two images. These are traditionally cited as the earliest
surviving Christian images of the Crucifixion in a narrative context; that is, each
representation of the Crucifixion is viewed as part of a series of episodes from
Scripture, not as an individual subject for isolated contemplation. The two images
are well-known to art-historians and are pictured together on Plate 5. Both are
carved reliefs, one in ivory and the other in cedar, and were probably executed in
Rome in the first half of the fifth centuryt both portray Jesus alive, nailed to the
cross but standing firmly against rather than hanging from it. In essence, both
images accentuate his transcendence over physical pain, thereby making explicit
the focus of the early Christian Church on the Crucifixion as a means of
celebrating Jesus' triumph over death, a triumph subsequently fulfilled in the
Resurrection. The nascent history of the Crucifixion image as it is understood here
closes just over a century later in the eastern part of the Roman Empire when the
pictorial type of the triumphal Jesus enters a new phase in its development,
beginning its rise as the pivotal image of Christianity. The stretch of some five
hundred years thus covered in this thesis falls predominantly within the epoch
designated as Late Antique, those centuries between around AD 200 to about 750
in which the Mediteffanean world underwent profound social and cultural
change.2
It is important to define at the outset what is meant in this study by an "image" of
the Crucifixion. Essentially, the word image is used to refer to a pictorial
representation of Jesus' crucifixion in which he hangs on his cross in the presence
of those characters and/or subsidiary events mentioned in the four canonical
Gospel accounts of the Passion. All four accounts, the earliest being created by
2 The boundaries of the historical period tend to shift slightly. Peter Brown (1989), sets them at AD
150-750, covering the reign of Marcus Aurelius (161-180) up to the post-Justinianic period. See
also Brown (199S), p. 1. For the discussion of Late Antiquity as a distinct period between 250 and
800: Bowersock, Brown & Grabar (L999), introduction pp. vii-xiii.
2
Introduclion
Mark sometime around AD 70,3 begin with the conspiracy against Jesus [Mt.
26:l-5 Mk 14:I-2;Lk. 22:I-21and extend to the finding of the empty tomb [Mt.
28:1-10; Mk 16:1-8; Lk. 24:l-l2l,a thereby encompassing his death. An image of
the Crucifixion is thus distinct from a crucifix. Strictly speaking a crucifix is a
cross bearing the fully modelled body of Jesus which functions as an isolated or
independent instrument of devotion.s Hence the cross Macrina wore is not a
crucifix, as it has been mistakenly described.6 Crucifixes are unknown in Late
Antiquity and are rare in Byzantine art, their development in the sense of bearing a
three dimensional figure coming much later.l
Since Christian artistic expression can be seen to begin in Rome around AD 200
with the painted decoration of the catacombs, the two fifth century images seem to
document a remarkably slow appearance of the Crucifixion as a subject for visual
representation. This slowness has proven notoriously difficult to explain. Mostly,
the two reliefs are seen to come at the end of a period during which images of
Jesus crucified were deliberately avoided. This deliberacy appears particularly
pointed in the fourth century when pictorialised Passion narratives, or even single
episodes from the narrative, appear on sarcophagi. Although providing an ideal
context for the pictorialisation of the Crucifixion, the subject remained absent, In
place of the Crucifixion, fourth century artists are seen to use several alternatives:
antitypes or typological parallels from the Old Testament to allude to the event,
such as the Sacrifice of Isaac on the Junius Bassus sarcophagus;8 symbolic
'Green (1988), p. 160; Green's monograph, The Death of Jesus, provides a detailed study of the
Passion narrative.
a Throckmorton (1967), pp. 163-188.
t This disti.rction is stipulated by Smith & Cheetham (1875), v. I p. 5I2, and Maskell (1905), p.
246.Plain pre-fifth century crosses are still mistakenly termed crucifixes: eg. Drijvers (1992),p.
90, calls Macrina's cross a crucifix; there is no indication from Gregory's description that this
cross carried a figural representation of Jesus. Similarly Taylor (1993), pp. I22-I23, uses the word
cross and crucifix interchangeably when discussing the literary evidence for the erection of a
cornnemorative cross on Golgotha: yet there is no indication that such a cross, whether erected by
Constantine or subsequent individuals, bore a figural representation of Jesus.
u Plain pre-fifth century crosses are still mistakenly termed crucifixes: eg. Drijvers (1992), p. 90,
calls Macrina's cross a crucifix; there is no indication from Gregory's description that this cross
carried a figural representation of Jesus. Similarly Taylor (1993), pp. 122-123, uses the word cross
and crucifix interchangeably when discussing the literary evidence for the erection of a
commemorative cross on Golgotha: yet there is no indication that such a cross, whether erected by
Constantine or subsequent individuals, bore a figural representation of Jesus.
7 One of the finest early examples is the Gero cross in Cologne Cathedral, c. 960-965: Schiller
(1e72), fig. 455.
t Malbon (1990), pp 44-47, fig. 1 & diag. 8.1, showing compositional links.
-t