Hits and Highlights from Christian Iconography

A few fun bits from class...

If you see a picture of a saintly figure with a dog's head, don't worry: it's not an attempted Christianization of the Egyptian god Anubis, nor a hagiographical depiction of the Wolfman, nor an early rendering of Chewbacca. It's actually... St. Christopher! No, seriously! See, apparently some translators at some point mistook the word that was describing him as a "Canaanite" (i.e. someone from the land of Canaan) to be calling him a "canine" (i.e. a cute little pooch). So, naturally, instead of thinking, "Hmm, did I translate that word correctly?" they concluded that St. Christopher was an overgrown Ewok. Other depictions of St. Christopher portray him more akin to Andre the Giant (or maybe Hillbilly Jim)....

Have you ever seen the pawnbrokers' symbol? Do you know where that comes from? St. Nicholas! According to the legend, there was a man who was too poor to be able to give his daughters in marriage (i.e. he had no money to provide a dowry for them). He was going to send them into prostitution. St. Nicholas, to prevent this, on three successive nights, dropped a bag of gold through the man's window, providing him the money to let his daughters get married. I think the connection with pawnbrokers is that, by doing this, St. Nicholas sort of "bought back" the daughters from prostitution. This also explains why St. Nicholas is the patron saint of prostitutes. No, seriously. Hey, everybody needs a patron saint, right? ....

You may have noticed that a fair number of saints are depicted together with weaponry of various kinds: swords, flaying knives, spears, arrows, etc. Not exactly the peaceful image of holiness, is it? Are they "soldiers for Christ"? Is this what we mean by the "Church Militant"? Ought we to picture roving bands of saints, armed to the teeth like a 19th-century street gang, laying the smackdown on all the pagans and sinners within arms' reach? No! They aren't showed with these instruments because they used them, but because they suffered by them. Martyrs are often shown with the instruments of their martyrdom, as a visible display of what they suffered for the name of Christ. St. Paul was beheaded by a sword. St. Thomas was killed by a spear. St. Bartholomew was skinned alive with a flaying knife. St. Sebastian was shot with arrows. These are the symbols of their victory over death in Christ. Actually, Christ himself is often depicted with the instruments of his torture: the scourge, the nails, the crown of thorns, etc. These are called the arma Christi, or "arms of Christ," because the serve as his coat of arms, his royal banner, displaying the weaponry by which he conquered Satan--not by using them, but by undergoing their torment. They remind us of the horror of the Passion, which makes the glory of the Resurrection that much more glorious.

Smashing Icons and Why God Has a Beard

In the first few centuries of Christianity, very few religious works of art were produced by Christians. There were several reasons for this:

1) When you're an illegal, underground movement, you don't generally commission sculptors or painters to depict your sacred stories or beliefs, lest that artist turn to the nearest centurion and shout, "Yo, another one for the lions over here!"

2) There was a bit of a hangover from Judaism with its strong prohibitions against making images of God or gods, making Christians wary to portray God.

3) Likewise, since they lived in a pagan world, and the pagans loved their statues and mosaics of the gods, Christians tended to associate such artwork with paganism, and wanted to distance themselves from it.

After the legalization of Christianity in the 4th century, great public churches were built and artwork began to increase: we see mosaics and paintings of the Trinity, of the saints, of scenes from Scripture. But in the 8th and 9th centuries a movement arose called iconoclasm (literally, "image smashing" - this what I meant by "smashing icons": not "Oh, excellent, well done, smashing icons, old chap!" but rather breaking icons into tiny bits). The iconoclasts had various motivations. Some said that any images of Christ, the Trinity, or the saints amounted to idolatry, the worship of images, strictly prohibited by the Scriptures. To make icons, they said, was to violate the First Commandment.

St. John Damascene made several arguments against this. First, very simply, because God had become man in Jesus Christ, God could be depicted, rendering the Old Testament prohibition against making images of God null. Second, the veneration of icons was an ancient tradition which had borne abundant spiritual fruit. And third, he stressed that the veneration shown to an icon is not directed to the image itself, but rather to the one whom the image depicts; when I venerate an icon of Christ, the image is serving as an occasion and a point of focus for my veneration of Christ himself. I'm not worshiping the image, but the one imaged. Thus St. John defended iconodulia (veneration of icons).

One group made a theological argument against making images of God, attacking Damascene's first point: they claimed that, because Jesus is a divine person, because he is God, and because God cannot be described or depicted, therefore we cannot depict Jesus. They acknowledged that Christ indeed had a human nature as well as a divine nature, but asserted that his human nature was one that could not be drawn (the ten-dollar word for this position is agraptodocetism, agrapto- meaning "cannot be drawn," -docetism meaning "seeming," as in "only seeming to have a fully human nature, with all a human's attributes"). Some even went so far as to say that Christ had all colors of hair, all possible heights, all possible noses, etc.!

Theologians like St. Theodore the Studite defended the full humanity of Christ, including its ability to be depicted, against these heretics. There is nothing essential to being human that Christ lacked, they argued, and that includes the ability to be described. The Incarnation means Christ became truly human, which includes having a particular hair color, height, etc. St. Theo argued, "You would have it that Christ became incarnate not into the world, but only into your minds, only as an idea." But because Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis ("The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" - John 1:14), Christ can be drawn, and icons are legitimate.

Further, because Christ said, "He who has seen me has seen the Father" (John 14:9), it was argued that it was not inappropriate to portray God the Father in some way. (This was more prevalent in the Western Church; the Eastern Church still tends to be wary of imaging the Father.) Two modes of depiction seem to have become dominant.

The more common one was taken from the Book of Daniel, in which Daniel has a vision of God:

I beheld till thrones were placed, and the ancient of days sat: his garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like clean wool: his throne like flames of fire: the wheels of it like a burning fire. (Daniel 7:9)

This "Ancient of Days" is where we get the image of God the Father as an elderly man. And it just looks so much better to have a big flowing beard on an old man, so artists tended to add that on.

A less common mode, but one popular for a time, was to take John 14:9 very literally and show the Father as looking like Christ. If you've ever seen a religious painting with what appear to be two Christs and wondered, "What the Samuel F. Hill is that about?" that's what's going on. It's not Jesus' brother Jerry (Robin Williams's joke), or a high-class ad for Doublemint gum; nope, it's an artistic way of illustrating the idea conveyed in this passage of Scripture.

There ya go: a little history, theology, and art history all in one!

Fall 2013 Courses

The beginning of the fall semester is upon us. Classes start next week, and since I'm sure my upcoming blog posts will be influenced by my coursework, you might like to have a heads-up on what I'll be taking.

Modern Philosophy: This is the third in a sequence of four survey courses on the history of philosophy: Ancient, Medieval, Modern, and Contemporary. This terminology could seem a little confusing, since we tend to use "modern" to mean "present, recent, up-to-date, latest," but in historians tend to use it differently, more precisely. The modern period is typified by the rejection of the medieval systems and the creation of new systems of thought by such men as Descartes, Leibniz, Hume, and Kant. I've studied these guys before in undergraduate classes, so it should sound familiar; I'm hoping that they might make a little more sense this time around. The class will be taught by Fr. Anselm Ramelow, OP, a Dominican priest from Germany who, like many of the faculty here, specializes in just about everything.

Christian Iconography: Do you ever wonder why pictures or statues of St. Paul almost always feature him holding a sword? Why St. John the Baptist is often depicted by the Eastern Churches as having wings? What the significance is of images of the Resurrection of Jesus including Adam and Eve rising with him? When it comes to imagery in Christianity, there is a science to the art. This course will teach us how to recognize meaningful elements in Christian art and interpret their significance. The class is being taught by Fr. Michael Morris, OP, who also teaches courses on film and the arts at the DSPT.

Theology of the Sacraments: A sacrament is a visible sign of invisible grace. There is an awful lot packed into that statement, and we'll unpack it in this course. We'll study the notion of sacraments in general and each of the seven sacraments in particular, including the history of the development of their ritual celebration and our understanding of them. I've always had an attraction to sacramental theology, and I think I may be able to glean a thesis topic from this course, so I'm doubly excited for it! The course will be taught by Fr. Bryan Kromholtz, OP, who specializes in eschatology (study of the end times).

It's going to be a busy semester, but, I hope, a fruitful one!