Influenced by certain OT passages {e.g. Is 53), Justin Martyr had already said, in the earliest extant references to the aspect of Jesus, that He appeared ' without beauty ' (Trj/pli. U, 3G, 85, SS); later, Clement of .\le.\andria had also arsrued in favour of
CHRIST m ART
CHRIST IN ART
315
Christ hpin
(c. Jutl. 1 !
(™Ceb.''v"i' somethiui_ .
of pagan beautj'-uur- I !.i II h ul ■ no torm nor
whom were St. BiiMi ,ui.l .-, 'it .>,. u...
If we turn from these; ilis|iutati(jiis to the Gospels, we find, indeed, no descriptions of our Lord, but we discover on every page One whose personality had a wonderfully attractive power, and whose dignity impressed friends and foes alike. And we may conclude that tlie instinct of the Church as a whole was right m attributing beauty to the Son of Man, since the Incarnation was the taking on of the perfection and fulness of humanity. At the time of the controversy, those on the extreme ascetic side went so far as to make hideous pictures of the Redeemer ; but the idealism of early art had an easy triumph in the end, because Christ is indeed the Ideal of humanity, and the outward form of man is ultimately the e.xpression of the soul within.
The fact that the early portraits of Christ are purely ideal is the more remarkable, because there
representations of Christ in tin- Ci^pd scenes of the 2nd and 3rd cents. ,ui>. .i, iias been stated above, merely figures ot ihc rl.i--ir,il type neces- sary for the determination ot the im iil.'iit (lc|iieted, and only to be distinjiuislu'd l.y llir siluatiou in which He is represented, and partly liy i lir |Mlliuni in which He and the Aiio.stiis an-' always por- trayed.
It is hardly necessary to dwell on the portrait of Himself which Christ was fabled to have sent to Abgar, kini,' of Edessa, by the hand of Thaddaaus ; or on the various legends of Veronica and her napkin. .St. Peter's at Rome claims to possess the true handkerchief of Veronica ; but of this relic Bartier de Montault, who saw it in 1S54, says tliat ' the place of the im- pression exhibits only a blackisli surface, not giving any evi- dence of human features,' and he adds that the supposed copies of it have no iconographic value whatever (Ann. Archeol. xxiii. 232).
The emperor Alexander Severus (ace. 222) placed in his lararium the image of Christ, as well as those of Abraham and Orpheus ; a sect of Gnostics also venerated images of Christ, Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle ; but in neitlier case is it claimed that actual portraits were used. Eusebius (r. 325) tells us that a bronze statue of Christ stretching out His hands to a kneeling woman had stood till the time of the emperor Maximiu Daia (itc: 308) at Ca;sarea Philipni, and that he liim-self had seen it at Paneas (HE vii. 18) : in his time it was re- garded as a representation of Christ, erected in gratitude by tl e o an vl o He 1 d 1 aled of the issue (al o calle I Vero ) Mo t 1 to ans hold with G bbo tl at t a eallj tl e t t e of an emperor receiv ng tl e ul o ot j ov n e
and that tl i a counts fo tl e 1 1 o 1 tl e
Saviour tl e Benefa to 1 t 1 111
it is urged a j ol 1 I tl 1 I 111
have mistaken o f 1 I I
should 1 ave bee e o 1 1 \ M t
public pos tion a 1 It elj I 1 I
the Apostate ( J61) t i I 11
have been i ove 1 f t 1 1 I 1 e
that one 1 1 " I I I 1 t I d
exist bei I
E'l'^'''' I II 1 lb ell kno n
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«ays pla 1> 1 CI t e o le e
to bo found in churches, and it is notorious that with us alone they are forbidden,' and mentions that he took away from a woman two painted figures like philosophers which the owner took for lepreseiitntions of Paul and the Saviour, 'not iliiiikiii- il right in any case that she should ixliiliii I lain further, that we may not seem like idwlairis lo carry our God about in an image.' Here linili the dislike of anything like portraits of Christ and the reason for that dislike are plainly stated. However, the establishment of Christi- anity in the Empire rapidly caused a change of feeling, and images were soon common. With the lialf-pagan people this led to idolatry, and the Iconoclastic Controversy in the East (71ti-S42) was
the result : one of tit long struggle was the i of the statue of Christ gateway of his palac place he set U]i a plaii of Nicica (7S7) nuhIi.:, they were not linally
idents in that .eu the Isaurian .>\ er the bronze iitinople ; in its • second Council <.l images; but svj. The West , and the use of all kinds of inui-e- went oil iiiicla-Vkeil ; hut in the East statues are" not allowed withiu the churches— but only pictures— to this day. The pictures of the East have retained their rigidly tunservative character ; but in the West the greatest artists have striven from age to age to represent our Lord in the utmost majesty and beauty.