| Monumental Christianity; or, The art and symbolism of the primitive church. CHAPTER IX - 5 |
Page 6 of 6 More than two centuries later, A. D. 530, we have two representations at least, in mosaic, of the Lamb slain from the founda- tion of the world, in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks, emblematic of His uni- versal Church. One of these is reproduced from Ciampini, in Fig. 109, except that one candlestick is missing, on account of the difficulty of representing it, hidden as it is for the most part by the wing of an angel, not here shown. On each side of this altar stand two angels, in the original picture; and the saints are pressing forward from below with crowns in their hands to cSst before the throne of Monmnental Christianity. the Lamb, saying, '* Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory, and honour, and power; for Thou wast slain, and hast redeenried us to God," &c. (Rev. iv. and v.)* There is no trace yet of the exaltation of the Virgin Mary, nor even of the human form of our Lord ; it is all purely symbolical, and should have so remained for the better preservation of pure doctrine. In the first Vatican Basilica, during the Bishopric of Sylvester, A. D. 315-336, Constantine was persuaded to erect a marble altar instead of the old wooden one, and to decorate the Holy Place in which it stood with mosaics, afterwards restored by Innocent III., representing our Lord alone on His heavenly throne, as a majes- Fig. 109.— The Slain Lamb on the Altar. Mosaic. Sixth century.'^ tic figure of the usual ideal type, /. ^., with short, bifurcated beard, and long hair parted in the middle, but now with a cruciform nimbus. Paul and Peter, His chief apostles, are standing in their usual places ; two stately palm trees are on either side ; the four streams of the first Paradise flow from the mount on which His throne is fixed ; He holds the sealed book in one hand, and gives His blessing with the other. Two stags come to drink of the living water. And directly underneath this, we see the symbolical representation as given in Fig. no, with six sheep on either side, coming from Bethlehem and Jerusalem ; while Innocent is on one side, and a figure representing the Church of Rome, on the other. The whole is sur- mounted by a gemmed cross. The chalice receives the Lamb's blood ; and from ' Ciampini, Vet.AIon. Pars. II. pi. 15 and 46. * The original picture is too large to reproduce here, and I give simply the central object, or the Lamb, with six can Uesticks. Jesus Christ as Sufferer, 25^ His feet flow the streams of living water. A nimbus is on His head, in- dicative of holiness and divinity.' The victorious Lamb with the banner is never seen in ancient Chris- tian monuments ; it was the invention of mediaeval art. Down to the year 692, or thereabouts, the Lamb, as shown in the above examples, was ex- clusively used to symbolize Christ as the Saviour, slain for the sins of men, and triumphant over sin, Satan, and death. At that time, we are told, that the Church was uneasy lest the reality and history of our Lord might eventually be lost or swallowed up in mere symbol and allegory. And so, with a good intention, but with a most painful realism, never ventured upon before, the Council of Trullo, other- wise known as the Quinqui-Sixtum, in the reign of Justinian IL, ordained that henceforth the actual historic figure of the man Christ Jesus, should be substituted in all Church paintings and mosaics for the symbolical lamb. Thus runs the decree: '* In certain venerable pictures and images, the Precursor, St. John, is represented pointing with his hand towards the Lamb of God. We adopted this representation as a symbol of grace ; to our apprehension, it was the shadow of that Lamb Christ, our God, whom the Law exhibited to us. Having, then, in the first instance, accepted these figures and shadows as signs and emblems, we now prefer to them grace and truth, /. e,, the fulfilment of the Law. Therefore, in order to expose to all regards, perfection even in paintings, we determine that for the future, in images of Christ, our God, He shall be represented in His human form, instead of the Lamb, as in former times. We must contemplate all the sub- limity of the Word through the veil of His humility. The painter must, as it were, lead us by the hand to the remembrance of Jesus, living in the flesh, suffering ' Ciampini, Sacr. ^dificiis, pi. 13. Jac. Bosii. De Crux Trimp., pp. 615-16. Fig. 110.— The LIfe-Giving Lamb. Mosaic. Fourth century. 252 Monumental Christianity. and dying for our salvation, and thus obtaining the redemp- tion of the world." * This action of the Eastern Church was adopted by the Western, when Adrian I., Bis- hop of Rome, in the eighth century, ordained this: "Be- cause John the Baptist pointed to Christ, saying, Behold the Lamb of God ; therefore some represented Christ under the form of a Lamb ; but forasmuch as the shadow hath passed away, and because Christ is very man, therefore He ought to be represented in the form of a man."' And it was by such a pro- cess of reasoning that the ven- erable and sacred symbol of the Lord's Supper at length became the real Body and Blood of Christ. I have reproduced from Bosio the painted crucifix which he discovered in the cemetery of Pope Julius, in 1594, and which is usually assigned to the time of Pope Adrian IIL, A. D. 884. (Fig. III.) Bosio says that the form of our Lord is fastened to the cross with four nails, whereas the feet show no marks of nails." Mary and John are the persons pres- ent. It is curious to notice how the artist has represented the eclipse of the sun and moon. The reader is requested to compare this Christian crucifix with that in Chapter VIL, from Central India, and see the difference. Of course there are older representations of the crucifixion than this, the old- est, perhaps, being that of a Syriac manuscript of the Four Gospels, A. D. 586, in which, according to Westwood, the crucifixion of Christ and the two thieves is rep- Fi& xTiw— Crucifix. Fresco. Ninth century. Julius. ' From the Cemetery ot Tope ' Didron, Icon, Chrit., pp. 338-9. ^ Rom. Soit.t p. 581. Aringhi, II. p. 165. * Durandus, RationaU, &c., I. c. 3. Didron, p. 336. yesus Christ as Sufferer. 253 resented ; our Saviour being clothed in a long, loose shirt or tunic like the above ; whereas the thieves have only a short garment across the middle of the body. On either side of the cross of Christ stands a soldier with a spear and sponge, and at its foot are seated three soldiers casting lots for His garments ; whilst on each side of the picture stands a group of weeping disciples and females.' But this exist- ence of the crucifix in manuscripts or other private and secluded places, is a vastly different thing from their public positions in churches, chapels or oratories, where the people were accustomed to meet for worship before them ; it is different, too, as the work of monks for illustration of the Gospel history, from the decrees of councils and popes respecting their use in the public worship of the churches, or in private devotion. For it did not take a great many centuries to bring in the idolatry of the crucifix itself— the adoration of the wood and the figure — and the superstitious veneration of relics. Any one who has witnessed this kind of ceremonies at the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem, or at Rome, knows the meaning of crucifix-worship. And if the Church of the first six centuries could do without the crucifix, and maintain its faith and charity in their purity, I, for one, can see no need of its in- troduction and adoption now. It is and must always be, a most painful object to look at, exciting only horror and anguish. The cross is quite enough to tell the whole story of our redemption ; and of it we must never be ashamed. I have reserved the annexed representation of a Pagan crucifix, as I believe it is, for this place purposely, in order to show how the idea of the crucifixion of the incarnate God may have been the common inheritance of Paganism ; and as an ob- ject to excite the sensibilities, may have suggested to the churchmen of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, its adoption for this very purpose, as well as for popular effect among the still remaining Pagans of the East and West. The actual crucifixion of our Lord was the deed of Paganism ; and now, after so long an interval, its representation might be ventured upon without shame or risk. The Pagans would ridicule it no more, seeing that Christianity had supplanted their own religion, and had realized the meaning of their own myth- ology. The Crucified to them would mean life from the dead, and death in order to life. I have put on the next page (Figs. 1 12 and 1 13) one of the Round Towers of Ire- land, upon which the representation of the crucifixion occurs, and four nondescript bronze animals from India; the former copied from O'Brien, and the latter from Moor." My only motive in doing so is to compare the animals having the long ' PaUogmphia Sacra Pictaria, art. Syriac Manuscripts. London, n. d. Fleury gives it as the first ; VEvan- ffi^t II- pl- 87, with another of same date. • Round Towers, pp. 299-304. Hindu Pantheon, pi. 34, No. 2, p. 141. ^54 Monumental Christianity, Fig. 112.— Irish Round Tower and Crucifix. long flexible nose like the ta- pir, and had no need of a pro- boscis ; such an animal once roamed our Western plains ot lived near their lakes, when a tropical climate prevailed. The horns are still in the way, and we cannot identify snouts. What are they? Not elephants ; for there are no tusks and no proboscis. Not cows and calves, as Moor suggests the lower ones to be, by any stretch of the im- agination ; for still there are no horns, and the bodies are those of elephants. The long snout in all these examples suggests the tapir, but there are no tapirs in Ireland or India; they are found thus far only in South America and Sumatra. They answer better to the account of the brontotherium, an animal so named by Prof. Marsh, of New Haven, Connecticut, and discovered in the bed of an old miocene lake, in Dakota. Large as an ele- phant, and bearing a general resemblance to it in form, its legs were shorter, and like those of the rhinoceros; its nose adorned with a pair of huge horns ; its skull a yard in length ; without tusks or long proboscis, it still had a Kic. 113 —Hindu Fi;*ures oi Animals. Jesus Christ as Sufferer. 255 these animals in our plate with any existing species. But they are much alike; and the question is, how did Ireland and India come so close together? Henry O'Brien explains this Round Tower crucifixion as that of Buddha ; the animals as the elephant and the bull sacred to Buddha, and into which his soul entered after death ; the two figures standing beside the cross as Buddha's virgin mother, and Kama, his favourite disciple.' The whole picture bears a close likeness to the crucifixion in the cemetery of Pope Julius, except the animals, which are conclusive proof that it cannot be Christian. It came ultimately from the far East to Ireland with the Phoenician colonists,, who erected the Round Towers as sym- bols of the Life-giving and Preserving Power of man and nature, and how that universal life is produced through suffering and death. Christ's crucifixion was shrouded in darkness ; but Christ's Church has been pre- sumptuous enough to bring it forth into light and prominence, after the example of Paganism, and to the perversion of its precious purpose. It was not to be seen, or to be seen but once ; its realistic repetition destroys its awful sanctity and mys- tery, and familiarizes the mind only with a ghastly scene of barbaric cruelty. To what length human presumption will go in this image of the Crucified, look for evidence at this representation of God, the Father, hab- ited as a Pope, and holding forth His Son in the agony and death of crucifixion. (Fig. 1 14.) I have copied it from Didron ; and it is to be found among the curious representations of the stained glass windows of St. Martin's Church, Troyes, France.* It is the work of the latter part of the sixteenth century. But earlier than this, viz. : A. D. 15 11, Albert Durer executed one of his most celebrated paintings for a church in Nuremburg, whence it was removed to Prague, and is now in the Bel- vedere at Vienna, I mean his Adoration of the Trinity, in which God the Father is represented as Pope holding forth His crucified Son, as above.* In view of all this, as to the symbol becoming an idol, the cry of the Litany may well go up to heaven, day and night : O Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us. Fig. 114.— God the Father as Pope, and His crucilied Son. Sixteenth century. * Jiound Towers, p. 301, ' Jcon. Chr^i., p. 232. » \it2A\ Handbook of Painting, I. p. 134. London. 1854. 256 Monumental Christianity. The earliest example of our Lord's burial which exists among the monuments of primitive Christianity is, perhaps, that of an ivory in the Vatican, of the sixth century, which represents a square structure, surmounted by a dome, with an open door, no doubt intended for the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, with a sleeping soldier on each side of it, and two of the holy women who came early in the morn- ing to anoint the dead body of their Lord.* No such representations are found in the Catacombs or the early churches either of the East or West. It is barely possi- ble that on a sarcophagus of the fourth century, where two persons sit under the Monogram, one asleep and the other looking up, there may be a symbolical allusion to it ; but the actual scene has yet to be discovered.* So careful was early Christian art in abstaining from all painful representations of her Lord. It is a hint to modern realists in art that they go and do likewise. Mere animal and aesthetic sensibilities do not constitute the essence of true religion, for it consists of faith, hope, and charity ; faith comes from hearing the Word of God ; hope is the child of heaven looking for future deliverance from all evil to the Cross of Christ alone; and charity is the love of God and His truth, as well as of our neighbours, which also keeps His commandments and endures forever. > Fleury. LEvangiU, II. pi. 92, No. 3. * Id.. No. 2. '^9ht[ial al$o $uffei|ed foi{ u$, leaving us an example.'' I. Fit.. iL ai. yesus Christ as Deliverer. 257 |