But the number of events illustrated did not increase rapidly : even in modern times it has con- tinued to be liiiiiti'il. .i-iAM' are reminded by a com- parison witli 'ri-^Mts illustrated Life of oiir Lord. The following; li~t ut the .■subjects from the life of Christ which are illustrated in ancient and medi- icval art is given by Detzel ; those which occur in the Catacombs we have italicized : —
yatiHiy, Virgin and Child, Circumcision, Presentation, ViHt <'< Marii and Shepherds, Flight into Egyii
, Temptation, Miracle at Cana, .
ypt, Christ among the uptation. Miracle at Cana, Samaritan .., Healing of the Palsied, qf the Woman vnth the Jssue, Blind, of the Man with Dropsy, Lepers, Raisimj ojf
the Storm, the i V
, Betrayal, Trial, Scourging, '4 the Cross, Crucifixion, l)e- s]. Burial, [Idealizations of the
,. Gregory], Christ in 'Hades'; ilesurre
irney to Kminaus" Christ apueariiiL' tc St. Thomas, Dnmyht o/ Fishes at the i [Last Judgment].
I of Tiberias,
The set of fourteen pictures found in Roman Catholic churches and called the ' Stations of the Cross,' some of which are legendary, are of post- Reformation origin. One scene from the Gospels, the Crucifixion, must be taken separately.
The Crucifixion as a scene from the Gospels (not in isolation) first appears in the 5th cent, on the wooden doors of St. Sabina at Rome. In this earliest example the primitive feeling is shown by the fact that no actual cross appear.s ; Christ
CHEIST IN ART
CHRIST IX ART
31 n
and the two thieves stand, almost completely naked, with the elbows near the body and the hands stretched out and nailed to little blocks of wood ; the Christ is bearded and with long hair, and his eyes are open ; the sculptor has filled up the background with a suggestion of the walls of Jerusalem. — The second examide is also of the 5th century. It occurs on an ivory box in the British Museum : the cross is shown, and the Christ is nailed to it with arms stretched out horizontally ; His face is youthful and beardless, His eyes open, and His body nakeil but for the loin-cloth ; on one side stands a reviling Jew, on tlie other Mary and John, while near them Judas hangs from a tree : in this sculpture the title appears REX IVD. It is on another panel of the same box that tlie earliest representation of Christ bearing the cross appears. — The third Crucifixion is a miniature in a Syrian book of the Gospels, now at Florence, by Rabulas, a monk of Mesopotamia, and is dated 586 : the Christ is bearded, and wears a long tunic ; as in the former example, the feet are separate and the arms horizontal ; the two thieves, St. Jolm and the women, and the two soldiers with the spear and sponge, are included in the picture.
The history of the development of the Crucifix may be tlius summarized. Apjiearing first as a scene of Gospel history in the 5th cent., it con- tinued infrequent for another century, after which, in the 6th cent., the Crucifix in isolation begins also to appear. During the 5th, 6th, and 7th centuries it has the following iharacteristics : the Christ wears either a loin-cloth or a long tunic reaching to the ankles, there are nails in the hands and generally in the feet also, tlie feet are always separate, either with or without the block or 'suppedaneum,' the Christ is always living. He wears neither the royal crown nor the crown of thorns, the title, when there is one, consists gener- ally of the letters IC XC, the cross is either com- missa (T) or immissa (t) ; certain adjuncts also appear, the sun and moon general]}', tlie thieves often, Mary and John generally, the two soldiers sometimes, sometimes also the soldiers dicing, and sometimes Adam and Eve.
About the time of Charlemagne (800) there was a great increase in the use of the Crucifix ; and in addition to the early or Ideal type, a second type, the Kealistic, began to appear. The Ideal type continued till the end of the 13th cent. (e.g. in the Codex Egberti at Treves, c.lOOO, where the Christ is represented with a youthful, almost girlish face, and living, though without the royal crown, wliich is often added at this period to emphasize the triumphant aspect of the Crucifixion). The Real- istic type, in which the Christ is represented dying, as in modern crucifixes, had become in the llth cent, a distinctive mark of the Ea.stern Church, and figures in tlie disputes which ended in the great sciiism of 1054 ; Cardinal Humbert accused the Greeks of putting a dying Christ upon their crosses, and thus setting up a kind of Anti- christ ; the Patriarch Michael Cerularius retorted, in the discussion at Constantinople, that the Western custom was against nature, while the East was according to nature. None the less, the Eastern type had already found its way into Italy itself through the iiiHueiiee of the Byzantine craftsmen who worketl there, and it spread steadily throughout the West, till by the 13th cent, it was the dominant type all over Cliristendom. There was sometimes m the transitional period a ming- ling of the types, as, e.g., in the Crucifix over the gate of St. John's Church at Gmiind, where tlie figure isyoutliful, with open eyes and in a tranquil posture, witliout the crown of thorns, but the wounds and blood are shown, and the arms are bent and the liead drooping. The complete Real-