ART. — There has been in Christian history no antagonism between religion and art as such ; though there have been abuses of particular forms of art, and consequent reactions against those abuses. The NT affords little guidance, for it is not concerned with the subject. It is the revelation of a Person, not of a code of rules. It deals with fundamental spiritual facts, and it was not within the scope of the writers of its books to supply disquisitions on art or philosophy or science. Sucn problems were left to be settled from age to age
♦ In Matth. Ixxxv.
t Mk 1461 „■ „.,;,;„, om. Tisch., WH.
t The n.Su. was a bed-sheet. Cf. Eus. BE vi. 40 : jfi'sx i^'i t^ iwK^f, ^ yifjt/tiv j-yjti^o;, iv Tu Aivw irByijuMTi^ where Heinichen, comparing our p.assage, comments: 'i» rS Aoi iirOii/*«ii idem est quod alias voeatur invhuv.'
§ yuv'tt, not absolutely uaked. Ct. Jn 21''.
II John, who recovered from his panic and followed Jesus to the high priest's palace (Gregory, Moral, xiv. 23). James, the Lord's brother, who, according to Eus. HE ii. 23, alwaj s after his conversion wore linen garments (Epiphan., Theophyl.). See Petavel in Expositor, March 1891.
K Hippol. Philosoph. vii. 30: I'm HmvXk i KTirnU; eCri
by the spiritual instinct of a Church, to which Christ promised the abiding presence of the Spirit : the NT has no more to say about art than it has to say about economics or natural science, and therefore it neither praises any of these things nor condemns them ; it is concerned with that which underlies them all.
The NT is neutral also in regard to the use of art in the worship of the Temple. The Jews were not an inartistic nation, though they had not the genius for art of some other races : they had music, poetry, sculpture, arcliitecture, and the usual minor arts of their time ; and, though in .sculpture they were under strict regulations for the prevention of idolatry, this did not prevent them from using graven images within the sanotuarj- itself, while in the ornaments of their worsliip tliey had been guided by elaborate regulations as to form and colour and symbolism. Christianity grew up in these surroundings, and did not find any fault with them. Our Lord condemned the ethical formalism of current religion, but not its art : He condemned the trafficking in the Temple, but not its beauty. Nor did His disciples have anything to say against the art of the pagan cities where they went, though they had much to say about the wicked- ness : they are silent on the subject, except for a few illustrations from engraving and painting in He P 8° and 10*. It is in the Apocalypse alone that we have any setting forth of visible beauty ; and here there is a clearer recognition of the principle of art, because nothing else could express what the writer liad to show forth. It is not enough to say that the imagery of the Apocalypse is merely symbolic : all religious art is symbolic. St. John envelops his concejjtion of the highest form of being in an atmosphere of glowing beauty ; and a Church which accepted his teaching could hardly mistrust material beauty as a handmaid of religion. It is not therefore to be wondered at that Christian worship, as we know of it after the Peace of the Church, was much influenced by the descriptions of the heavenly worship in the Apoca- lypse (see, e.g., the recently discovered Testament of our Lord, A.D. 350).
But, if we would find in the NT the final argu- ment in favour of art, we nmst turn, as Westcott says in his great essay on the subject, to the central message of Christianity— </te Word became flesh. Here is the justification and the sanctifica- tion of all that is truly human : Christianity em- braces all life, and ' the inspiration of the new birth extends to every human interest and faculty.' The old conflict between the spiritual and the material is reconciled by the Incarnation ; for by it the visible became the sacrament, or outward sign, of that which is inward and spiritual. Thus, like the Incarnation itself, 'Christian art embodies the twofold conception of tlie spiritual destiny of the visible, and of a spiritual revelation through the visible. The central fact of the Christian faith gives a solid unitjf to both truths.' The office of art, Westcott continues, is ' to present the truth of things under the aspect of beauty': the effect of Cliri.^tiaiiity upon art is that of 'a new birth, a transliguration of all human powers by the revelation of tlicir divine connexions and destiny' ; and thus ' Christian art is the interpretation of beauty in life under the light of the Incarnation.' Thus the Christian artist is a teacher, his .art is ministerial, and when it appears to be an end in itself idolatry has begun ; his true function is both to interpret the world as God has made it in its beauty, in the light of a deeper understanding of its meaning, and also to embody to men his own visions of the truth — ' he is not a mirror but a proijhet,' and love is his guide. Thus lie is led ' through the most patient and reverent regard of