The earliest extant example of a visual reference to the Crucifixion is the third-century wall graffito, excavated on the Palatine Hill, Rome, in 1856 (Harley 2007: 227, fig. 2). It depicts a man, with the head of a donkey, affixed to a cross and hailed by a man who stands in the foreground striking the standard Greco-Roman gesture of acclamation. An accompanying inscription reads ‘‘Alexamenos worships his God.’’ The drawing is thus traditionally interpreted as a parody of the Christian worship of a crucified deity, and it has been used to forward the theory that Christians deliberately chose not to portray the Crucifixion. Interestingly, it has a literary counterpart in the image of Jesus erected in Carthage around ad 197, described by Tertullian, which confirms both that the early Christians were accused of worshiping an ass and that caricature images of Christianity and its tenets were being executed around the turn of the third century.
Certainly, as the preaching of Christ crucified by Paul attests, and as the discussions of the early church fathers illustrate, the early church was focused on the fact and soteriological significance of the Crucifixion. Although images of the Crucifixion are rare among extant material evidence from the early Christian material, there are three highly unconventional images that have survived on engraved gems (Harley 2007: 228-9, cat. nos. 55 and 56). Together with the Palatine graffito, the gems constitute a small but critical body of evidence testifying to the use of individual episodes from the Passion narrative as isolated images by the mid fourth century. One example is the carnelian intaglio in London, which is from the eastern part of the Roman Empire (possibly Syria), and was originally used as a personal seal (fig. 21.7).
The gem features a depiction of Christ nude, his arms stretched out below the patibulum of the cross, his head and feet turned in profile to the left but his body shown in strict frontality. Christ is flanked on either side by six diminutive apostles, who process toward him in the same ceremonious and symmetrical format as seen on the Arch of Constantine - where the figure of the emperor is also shown at the axis of the composition, in strict frontality. Above Christ’s head is engraved the word IXOYC (ichthys), meaning ‘‘fish’’ in Greek but signifying in acrostic form ‘‘Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour’’ (lesous Christos, theou uios, soter).
As I have noted, the composition utilizes pictorial devices familiar from late antique imperial art. Yet, the iconography bears a striking resemblance to those iconographic formats developed in the later fourth century for the acclamation of Christ, and specifically on the series of Roman ‘‘star and wreath’’ sarcophagi. As it is seen on the gem, therefore, the visual reference to the story of Christ’s Crucifixion is made to suggest an interpretation of that story’s significance, rather than its narration per se, the symbolism referring specifically to Christ’s triumph and to the apostles as witnesses to his ministry. The iconography thus suggests a high degree of familiarity with the textual content of the Crucifixion story and its meaning within the early church. It also indicates a willingness to experiment with the visual expression of that knowledge at an earlier date than is still customarily acknowledged.
While episodes from the Passion narrative were developed for inclusion on a specific class of Christian sarcophagi between ad 340 and 370 (including the crowning with thorns, Pilate washing his hands of guilt, and Simon of Cyrene carrying the cross), the Crucifixion itself was not depicted (Harley 2006). The absence is particularly perplexing, both in light of the earlier representations that survive on the gemstones, including the London intaglio (fig. 21.7) - indicating that artists were capable of experimenting with the subject - and in view of the fact that the sarcophagi were probably created in the fourth century and later, after the conversion of Constantine and the end of Christian persecution. One possible explanation is that, while compositions as preserved on the London stone were realizable, the symbolic cross surmounted by a victory wreath - as found at the center of many ‘‘star and wreath’’ sarcophagi, evoking both the Crucifixion and Christ’s triumph in the Resurrection - was in practice theologically preferable to a literal depiction of Christ crucified (Harley 2007: 227).
Only two representations of the crucifixion are known from the fifth century, most notably the panel that appears on the carved wooden doors of the church of Santa Sabina, Rome (c. ad 432; Harley 2007: 227, fig. 1). There, a bearded Christ stands crucified between two diminutive thieves against the backdrop of the walls of Jerusalem. The other image occurs on one of the four ivory panels that as a series, illustrate scenes of the Passion and Resurrection. These were once part of the private collection of the liturgical scholar William Maskell, and are among the most important minor art works to have survived from the early Christian period (fig. 21.2).
Probably made in Rome c. ad 420-30 in a workshop that was also producing consular diptychs for pagan customers, the so-called Maskell ivories are exquisitely carved in high relief with a sequential cycle of seven episodes; it is the first time in early Christian art that the Passion is represented as a cohesive passage from arrest to
Crucifixion, culminating in the Resurrection. Yet, the message asserted is not the suffering and death of Jesus but both his triumph and that of the Church. The ivories probably once constituted the four sides of a small box, perhaps commissioned and used by a wealthy individual or church community, either for the storage of a relic or as a container for the consecrated host. In craftsmanship and sophistication of design, they are an exceptionally fine example of the high standard of ivory carving achieved in Rome during the early fifth century.
If we look closely at the series, we discern the use of classical technique and style to illustrate an emergent Christian iconography, similar to that noted above in the case of the sarcophagus of Junius Bassus. The narrative reads across the four panels from left to right. It begins on the first panel with a depiction of Pilate washing his hands, Christ carrying his own cross (John 19: 17), and Peter denying Christ. Each episode draws on iconographic conventions developed for the representation of these particular episodes as self-contained stories on Passion sarcophagi. Yet here, a lucid passage from one event to the next is achieved through the deft placement of figures, careful direction of their gaze, and skillful use of gesture. The artist is thus capable of illustrating several pictorial elements within each episode to evoke both the fuller text and the wider significance of each event, without sacrificing pictorial coherence across the surface of the panel as a whole. The image of Christ, striding forward and carrying his own cross (John 19: 17) forms a striking and pivotal unit with the soldier who turns compassionately toward him, taking his shoulder with his right hand and ushering him forward with his left. The Latin cross, which symbolically dominates the center of this composition, is processional in size, but is of the same form (having flared ends) as the larger cross in the next panel, on which Jesus is shown nailed.
In the second relief, the suicide of Judas (Matt. 27: 5) is juxtaposed with a scene at the cross in what is a remarkable visual interpretation of Christ’s death. The limpness of Judas’ body (the neck broken, head cricked backwards, eyes closed, the flaccid hands and feet), is powerfully discordant with the vitality of Christ’s taut body (the neck upright, head erect, eyes open, hands open, feet flexed firmly upward). As a result of the juxtaposition in this pictorial context, various dramatic tensions and paradoxes are explored by the artist. These cut across the image to articulate gracefully both of Christ’s natures, the human and the divine: the nails and the lance, yet the open eyes and vibrancy of body; the human shape but divine appearance (muscled, yet nimbate); the demise of Judas and the new life forecast in the bird’s nest in the tree and born of his betrayal; the coins symbolizing both the betrayal and the victory subsequently won on the cross.
Perhaps the most striking feature of the Crucifixion is the peculiar vigor conveyed by the artist in his representation of the youthful body of an apparently living and quiescent Jesus on the cross, flanked by his mother and John on one side, and a soldier on the other (John 19: 26-7). His eyes are wide open and looking intensely, yet his gaze is not directed at the viewer. Like the young Christ on the Junius Bassus sarcophagus, the head of this crucified Savior is turned fractionally to his right, so that he looks past the viewer and out of his physical condition on the cross. He is shown rigidly en face, as though standing defiantly against the cross and voluntarily unfolding his arms flat against the patibulum. His hands are stretched out and shown quite flat, unflinching at the nails penetrating the midst of the palms. His legs and feet are placed purposefully, side by side. A plain nimbus now encircles his head, as it does again in the fourth panel, emphatically pointing to the fact that Christ’s indomitable divinity is shown forth on the cross and further revealed in the Resurrection.
The figures in this series conform to the rather stocky style associated with art of the Roman period and seen on the Arch of Constantine; and other pictorial elements betray the Roman artistic milieu in which these ivories were produced. They include, for example, the well-proportioned and somewhat idealized physique that the artist has carefully and quite explicitly portrayed: Jesus wears only the very narrow loincloth or subligaculum, shown pulled in around the waist to accentuate from side view the curve of the buttocks; the flesh creases of the groin are very deliberately rendered, as is the shapely musculature of his body. This is an athletic or heroic display of nudity of the kind understood in the Roman world as a mark of superior status - and, interestingly, seen in the earlier representation of the Crucifixion on the London gem (fig. 21.7). This interpretation is borne out in the juxtaposition of Jesus’ strong, victorious, and semi-naked body with the fully clothed and unmistakably dead figure of Judas.
The third relief depicts just one scene and is dominated at its center by a sepulcher. Conventional early Christian iconography of the women visiting Christ’s place of burial on Easter morning tends to follow the Gospel narratives in depicting them approaching the tomb, usually in the presence of an angel and sometimes watched by soldiers. Here, two grieving women are shown seated, wrapped in their maphoria (as Mary is at the Crucifixion scene) and hunched in sorrow, one on either side of the sepulcher. They face inward and are beautifully contrasted with the pair of sleeping soldiers depicted in the foreground, facing but leaning away from the tomb, sprawled out lazily on their shields and lances (both of which are broken). The doors of the tomb are ajar, one having burst open and splintered under the force of the Resurrection to reveal an empty strigillated Roman sarcophagus inside. There is further iconographic evidence here attesting both to the artist’s knowledge of pictorial traditions in the funerary art of classical antiquity and to his ability in deftly modifying them in order to interpret specifically Christian stories. For example, Kotzsche has demonstrated that the hunched posture and introspective sorrow-filled mien of each woman, with hand raised either to chin or cheek, repeats the topos of the mourning female figure at the tomb (or grave) in the pagan tradition. Moreover, the iconography of the tomb with its doors open was one of the most common funerary motifs in Roman art, symbolizing the passage of the soul into the afterlife (Kotzsche 1994).
Finally, at the compositional axis of the fourth panel is the triumphant Christ, standing on a podium flanked by two disciples on either side. The open gesture made by his left arm is one of speech, from the same vocabulary as that hand sign we have noted in the representation of philosophers and of Christ. Yet here, it is a gesture impelled outward with the energy of the whole body, the palm now open and Christ shifting his weight onto his right foot to impel his arm upward above his head, as though engaged in active discourse with his disciples. Yet the movement has another function, being simultaneously a means of revealing the wound in his side to the diminutive figure of the doubting Thomas. Hence, amid the shift of drapery that occurs as Christ moves and raises his arm, the deliberate parting in his pallium cleverly provides a sliver of flat background against which the carefully modeled hand and pointed finger of Thomas can be set. The panel is thus a powerful evocation of both Thomas’s skepticism, recounted in John 20: 24-8, and of Matthew 28: 16-20, where the risen Christ both commissions the apostles and faces doubters. Its composition is essentially a redaction and subtle adaptation of the Roman traditio legis iconography, in which Christ is shown handing the new law to the apostles - a version of which appears of course on the Junius Bassus sarcophagus. For this pictorial context, the customary attribute of the scroll or book must be dispensed with, and the left arm raised to expose the wound.
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