RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Jesus Christ
lamp in the museum of Estense) and in a circle (above a throne in the center of a sarcophagus at Tusculum). The form is occasionally modified to I*, especially in graffiti of the catacomb of St. Calixtus, while a Gallic gravestone of 498 shows the three forms £ , & , and +. The monogram occurs also in the mosaics of several churches of Ravenna.
The usual abbreviation of the two names in the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament is I c xc, which is also found in the Neapolitan catacombs, while in the Greek Church it was frequently placed on the base of the paten. It appeared on the coins of the Byzantine emperors from John Zimiskes (969-975) to the fall of the dynasty, and was also employed in Greek paintings and sculptures, as well as on the bronze doors of 1070, formerly in the church of St. Paul at Rome. Particularly noteworthy is the transfer of this monogram to the medieval Latin Church. In the ancient church of St. Peter at Rome were mosaics of the time of Innocent III., which represented Christ enthroned between Peter and Paul with the inscription Fc XC, while similar mosaics are still preserved from the early part of the fourteenth
century in the church of Sta. Maria Maggiore at Rome. Italian easel-pieces of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries likewise show this form of the monogram. The Latin form of the monogram for Jesus Christ was IHS XRS, which occur in the earliest Latin manuscripts of the Bible, the first two letters of each part being expressly declared to be Greek and the last Latin. In the Occident this form was used from the earliest times in inscriptions, sculptures, and paintings, especially in miniatures of the Carolingian period and in medieval panel-paintings, while it was placed on Byzantine coins from Basilius Macedo (867-886) to Romanus Diogenes (1068-71). (A. Hauck.)
Bibliography: Spicilegium Solesmense, ed. J. B. Pitra, iv. 505 sqq., Paris, 1858; E. le Blant, Inscriptions chretiennes de la Gaule, vol. i., passim, ib. 1856; G. B. de Rossi, Inscriptiones christians urbis Romce, vol. i. passim, Rome, 1861; R. Garrucci, Storia della arte cristiana, i. 163 sqq., Prato, 1881; F. X. Kraus, Real-Encyklopadie der christlichen Alterthumer, ii. 125 sqq., 412 sqq., Freiburg, 1886; V. Schultze, Archaologie der altchristlichen Kunst, pp. 235 sqq., Munich, 1895; DCA, ii. 1310-14; C. M. Kauffmann, Handbuch der christlichen Archaologie, pp. 295 sqq., Paderborn, 1905; H. Leclercq, Manuel d'archeologie chretienne, ii., 383 sqq., Paris, 1907; F. Cabrol, Dictionnaire d'archeologie chretienne, i. 178 sqq., Paris, 1903.
JESUS CHRIST, PICTURES AND IMAGES OF.
I. The Oldest Views and Data on the External Appearance of Jesus.
The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha (§ 1).
The Church Fathers (§ 2).
Other Data (§ 3).
2. The Church Fathers.
II. Literary Data on the Oldest Pictures of Jesus. III. Extant Pictures of Jesus. 1. Portraits Ostensibly Authentic. Portraits by Painters, Sculptors,
etc. (§ 1). Alleged Supernatural Pictures (§ 2).
I. The Oldest Views and Data on the External Appearance of Jesus : Neither the New Testament nor the writings of the earlier post-Biblical Christian authors have any statements regarding the personal appearance of Jesus, thus contrasting sharply with the Apocrypha and the Pseudepigrapha and especially with the works of the Gnostics. In the " Shepherd " of Hermas (ix. 6, 12) the lofty stature of the Son of God is emphasized, and according to the Gospel of Peter he even towered above the heaven at his resurrection. Gnostic influence is betrayed by visions in which Christ appears as a shepherd, or the master of a ship, or in the form of one of his apostles, as of Paul and of Thomas, or again as a young boy. In the Acts of Andrew and Matthew he assumes the figure of a
lad, and the same form is taken in the
i. The Acts of Peter and Andrew, in the
Apocrypha Acts of Matthew, and in the Ethiopic
and Acts of James. Manazara is healed
Pseud- by a youth in the Acts of Thomas,
epigrapha. and a beautiful lad appears to Peter
and Theon in the Actus Vercellensis, which also mentions the smile of friendship in the face of Jesus. A handsome youth with smiling face appears at the grave of Drusiana in the Acts of John, but certain widows to whom the Lord restored their sight saw him as an aged man of indescribable appearance, though others perceived in him a youth, and others still a boy. The youthfulness of Christ is also mentioned in the life and passion of St. Cfficilius, and the pas-
2. Pictures of Jesus in Ancient Art. Symbolical and Allegorical Representations (§1). Representations as Teacher and Lawgiver (§2). IV. Origin of the Pictures of Jesus.
sion of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas ascribed to the risen Christ the face of a youth with snowwhite hair.
The early Christian authors were by no means concordant in their opinions of the personal appearance of Jesus. Some, basing their judgment on Isa. lii. and liii., denied him all beauty and comeliness, while others, with reference to Ps. xlv. 3, regarded him as the most beautiful of mankind. To the former class belong Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Basil, Isidor of Pelusium, Theodoret, Cyril of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Cyprian. Origen declared that Christ assumed whatever form was suited to circumstances. It was not until the fourth century that Chrysostom and Jerome laid emphasis upon the beauty of Jesus. While Isidor of Pelusium had referred the phrase, " Thou art fairer than the children of men " in Ps. xlv. 2, to the divine virtue of Christ, Chrysostom interpreted the lack of comeliness mentioned in Isa. liii. 2 as an allusion to the humiliation of the Lord. Jerome saw in the profound impression produced by the first sight of Jesus upon disciples and foes alike a proof of heavenly beauty in face and eyes. From the insults inflicted upon Jesus Augustine concluded that he had appeared hateful to his persecutors, while actually he had been more beautiful than all, since the virgins had loved him.
The problem of the external appearance of Jesus possessed but minor interest for the Church Fathers,
Jesus Christ