§ 110. IMAGES OF OHRISI. 563
§ 110. Images of Christ.
Fb. Kdgleb: Handbuch der Geschichte derMalerei seit Constant.in dem Gr Berlin, 1847, 2 vols. ; and other works on the history of painting Also C. Gkuneisen : Die bildlicheDarstellungder Gottheit. Stuttgart 1828. On the Iconoclastic controversies, comp. Maimboukg (R. C.) Histoire de Theresie de I'Iconoclastes. Par. 1679 sqq. 2 vols. Dal. L^TTS (Oalvinist): De imaginibus. Lugd. Bat. 1642. Fk. Spanheim Historia imaginum restituta. Lugd. Bat. 1686. P. E. Jablonski (t 1757): De origine ima;^inum Christ! Domini, in Opiiscul. ed. Water, Lugd. Bat. 1804, torn. iii. Walou : Ketzergesch., vols. x. and xi. J. Maex: Der Bildersturm der byzantinischen Kaiser. Trier, 1839. W. Grimm: Die Sage vom Ursprunge der Christusbilder. Berlin, 1843. L Gluokselig: Ohristus-Archaologie, Prag, 1863. IIefele: Beitrag« zur Kirchen geschichte, vol. ii. Tiib. 1864 (Christusbilder, p. 254 sqq.). Comp. the liter, in Hask's Leben Jesu, p. 79 (5th ed. 1865).
While the temple of Solomon left to the Christian mind no doubt concerning the lawfulness and usefulness of church architecture, the second commandment seemed directly to forbid a Christian painting or sculpture. "The primitive church," Bays even a modern Roman Catholic historian,' " had no images of Christ, since most Christians at tliat time still adhered to the commandment of Moses (Ex. sx. 4) ; the more, that regard as well to the Gentile Christians as to tlie Jewish forbade all use of images. To the latter the exhibition and veneration of images would, of course, be an abomination, and to the newly converted heathen it might be a temptation to relapse into idolatry. In addition, the church was obliged, for her own honor, to abstain from images, particularly from any representation of the Lord, lest she should be regarded by unbelievers as merely a new kind and special sort of heathenism and creature-worship. And further, the early Christians had in their idea of the bodily form of the Lord no temptation, not the fjlightest incentive, to make likenesses of Christ. The opiressed church conceived its Master only under the form of a servant, despised and uncomely, as Isaiah, liii. 2, 3, describes the Servant of the Lord."
The first representations of Christ are of heretical and pagan
' Hefele, 1. c. p. 254.
564 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
origin. Tlie Gnostic sect of the Carpccratians worshijjped crowned pictures of Christ, together with images of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and other sages, and asserted that Pilato had caused a portrait of Christ to be made.' In the same spirit of pantheistic licro-worship the emperor Alexander Severus (a. d. 222 — 235) set up in his domestic eliapel for his adoration the images of Abraham, Orpheus, Apollouius, and Christ. After Constantine, the Hrst step towards images in the orthodox church was a change in the conception of the outward form of Christ. The persecuted church had filled its eye with tlie humble and suffering servant-form of Jesus, and found therein consolation and strength in licr tribulation. The victorious church saw the same Lord in heavenly glory on the right hand of the Father, ruling over his enemies. The one conceived Clirist in his state of humiliation (but not in his state of exaltation), as even repulsive, or at least " having no form nor comeliness ; " taking too literally tlie description of the suffering servant of God in Is. Hi. 14 and liii. 2, 3.'' The othei beheld in him the ideal of human beauty, " fairer than the children of men," with "grace poured into his lips;" after the Messianic interpretation of Ps. xlv. 3."
* IrensDus, Adv. hsnr, 1, 25, § 6 : " Imagines qnasdam quidem depictas, qnasdam autem et de rcliqua materia fabricatas habent, dicentes fonuam Christi factam a Pilato illo in tempore, quo fuit Jesus cum homioibus. Et has coronant et proponunt eas cum imaginibus muiidi philosopborum, videlicet cum imagine Pytliagorae et Platonis et Aristotelis et reliquorum ; et reliquam observationem circa eas, similiter ut gentes, faciunt." Comp. Epiphanius, Adv. ha3r. xxvi. no. 6 ; August., De haer. c. 7.
' So Justin Martyr, Dial. c. Tryph. ; Clement. Alex., in several places of the Pajdagogus and the Stromata; TertuUian, De came Christi, c. 9, and Adv. Jud. c. 14 ; and Origen, Contra Cels. vi. c. 15. Celsus made this low conception of iho form of the founder of their religion one of his reproaches agaiust the Chiiatians.
* So Chrysostom, Ilomil. 27 (al. 28) in Matth. (tom. vii. p. 371, in the new Paris ed.) ; OuSi yap dav/xarovpyuii' ■^y ^av/xuaroi n6vov, aWa koX (paiv6/j.€vos awKciis wo.WtJs iytfif x'^'P^'''"^ ' ""' toCto 6 ■n-po<pT]TT]<; (Pa. xlv.) STjAtif tAeyf i' • uip nos xaAAfi irapii Tovs vlcvi tSiv aybpwTTuv. The passage in Isaiah (liii. 2) he refers to the ignominy which Christ suffered on the cross. So also Jerome, who likewise refers P.t. xlv. to the personal appearance of Jesus, and says of hmi : " Absque passionibus crucit umversis [hominibus] piichrior est. . . . Nisi enim habuisset et in vultu quiddara oculisque sidereura, numqujm eum statim secuti fuisscnt apostoli, nee qui ad comprehendendtim eum veuerant. corruiasent (J'" '" '^'^ *