Early Christian art and archaeology

Religion (1982) 12, 1 6 7-173

SURVEY ARTICLE

EARLY CHRISTIAN ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY Sister Charles Murray The purpose of this article is to gather together for students of Religion some information about the field of early Christian Art and Archaeology . The necessity for such a survey exists by reason of the fact that it is only comparatively recently that scholars within the discipline have given up an antiquarian or even a romantic approach to the monuments of the early Church and have begun to consider them as works of art and archaeology ; and only very recently have students started to view them within the context of the study of Church History .' Accordingly there is very little written reflection on the nature and purpose of the discipline itself, and there is no good standard introduction to the study which might form a handbook to which students of religion could turn . 2 In order to organize the material with some adequacy it seems best then to divide this review into two areas and to look first at the evidence on which the discipline bases itself and the history and development of its scholarship, and then to outline some of the current emphases of work in the field . THE EVIDENCE

The worst problem confronting the student of the monuments is the lack of availability of the basic tools of scholarship . This is not due primarily to a lack of sources, but to the difficulty of the way in which the material evidence survives . Geographically it is widespread, covering the whole of the ancient Roman world, and frequently it is accessible only with hardship . 3 The result is that collections of source material are still only in actual process of formation . The catalogue of the Christian sarcophagi, for example, exists only for Rome and Ostia ; the corpus of the Christian basilicas is unfinished ; and the recently published Repertorio of the paintings of the Roman catacombs may only be regarded as provisory since the mapping of the Christian cemeteries is incomplete . 4 0048-721 X/82/020167 + 07 $02 .00/0

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Secondly, much of the evidence itself is still in a completely raw state and has not been reduced to order at all ; this is particularly true of the monuments of the preconstantinian period . The tombs of the martyrs in Rome, Naples and Sicily are not well known nor widely studied, thus there is no index ofChristian tombs . This means that the transformations which they have undergone in antiquity and since are unstudied ; this problem is further compounded by that of the internal and external translations of relics . In the area of epigraphy it is the problem of attribution with regard to content and context which is formidable . It is difficult to identify what can be considered as specifically Christian material, and to ascertain to which monument or period individual inscriptions belong, since they are rarely found in situ and suffer from the problem of theft and archaeological racketeering .' METHODS OF STUDY

In the face of such chaos there are two possible main ways of ordering the evidence, and so scholarship tends to assume a two-fold form . The first is to study topography, and the so-called `topographical method', of which the leading exponents are the Italian school of early Christian archaeologists, has as its aim the production of ground plans . It ignores the iconographical elements of the excavations except in so far as these are useful for providing information with regard to chronology . 6 The second method of approach, used especially in dealing with evidence of the artistic type, is to apply the methods of art historical analysis and to study formal composition ; here many of the leading scholars in the field have been the historians of classical GraecoRoman art whose period of specialization is that of late antiquity . This emphasis has tended to mean that, because the monuments have been classed together on the basis of a shared relationship of forms, their study has often been regarded simply as a sub-department of classical art, without reference to their quite specific context.' Art history as such can only take account of purely artistic factors, so scholarship in the field of early Christian art is now giving attention to other factors at work in the production of the monuments, factors which are historical and primarily religious . The study of the art and archaeology of the early Christian period is therefore increasingly seen as part of the study of Church History, and is often now referred to as `Christian iconography' since iconography is that branch of artistic study dealing with the transmission of ideas . 8 There was already a strong feeling in the ancient pagan world that the use of symbols is the only artistic process which can express with any form of appropriateness an interior religious activity, and it was this form of art which predominated in the age when Christianity first began to make representations . The art then is part of the Christian religious expression of the time, an age which, in keeping with its general outlook, was directed towards the use of

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allegory and figure which had its roots in the Platonic understanding of problems of symbolism and meaning . Since it has become clearly necessary to relate the Christian legacy both visual and literary to the theological, social and educational context of the time, the study of Christian iconography has become one of the most fruitful areas of development within the discipline at the moment . As this is the area of scholarship which is of most immediate importance and interest to the discipline of Religious Studies it seems best to confine the rest of the survey to an outline of the main emphases of current work as they relate to this part of the field . CURRENT EMPHASES IN SCHOLARSHIP

Current and on-going debate centres largely on two interrelated problems : the origin of Christian art, 9 and the attitude of the early Church to the use of art for religious purposes . 10 Since there is no controversy about the general lines of the actual development of the art, these may be briefly sketched as follows . The earliest Christian efforts at representation, as found in the catacombs and on the sarcophagi in the West, 11 and also in the Eastern provinces, as the Alexandrian tomb shows ' 12 are formed by the use of symbolic figures of pagan origin and of pastoral- .bucolic scenes . From the time of Constantine and throughout the fourth century these are increasingly replaced by vigorously presented biblical and narrative themes, as exemplified on the frieze, columnar and 'city-gate' sarcophagi of Italy and South Gaul, and in the paintings of the Via Latina catacomb . 13 These themes are replaced in their turn by purely Christian symbols on the sarcophagi of Ravenna and Aquitaine .14 Finally, the Christian and Jewish floor mosaics of the churches and synagogues of the Eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire, with their biblical, genre and pagan symbolic motifs, together with the great biblical and idyllic wall and vault mosaics of the Ravenna churches and of SS . Cosma e Damiano, Maria Maggiore and Pudenziana in Rome and the Euphrasian basilica at Porec conclude the history of both late antique and monumental early Christian art .'s One of the great puzzles in the study of this material is the apparently sudden appearance of Christian art in the third century A .D ., the so-called problem of the origins of Christian art . No Christian or Jewish art which may be dated before 200 A .D . has yet been recognised, and it appears only in Rome and Italy and in a few monuments from Eastern countries such as the Dura chapel and synagogue . 1 ° Four major theories are offered as solutions to this problem . They date from the earliest days of the subject but are now propounded in a less polarised form, and have become modified in view of recent discoveries and according to the individual interests and mentalities of the scholars who maintain them . (A) The first theory holds that early Christian art was the product of Graeco-Roman models . This was the pre-

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vailing theory of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and was due largely to the studies of Dölger and the theological efforts of the History of Religions School . But because of its desire to ally Christianity as closely as possible with paganism, it made very little allowance for creativity or innovation on the part of the Christian artists . 17 (B) The opposite view was therefore maintained by Wilpert, who stressed the unique nature of Christian art, insisting upon the role of doctrine in its creation . While this was a valuable insight, Wilpert's work suffered from a refusal to accept any inheritance from the pagan past and also from a lack of theological nuance in the understanding of Christian doctrine itself, which was seen as an initial and unchanging whole . This dogmatic anachronism caused Wilpert to fall into the errors of fact and chronology for which he has been criticized ever since, 18 but his insight has been used in a modified form by later scholars who now place emphasis on other Christian factors as possible reasons for the development of Christian art such as the liturgy of the Church and the funeral cult . 19 (C) The third position holds that Gnosticism was the origin of Christian art, and it has been revived in recent years by Corby Finney, who in an as yet unfinished study, intends to complete a full investigation of the question . 20 (D) The fourth theory, one which is much to the fore in present discussion, is that of the dependence of Christian art on Jewish prototypes . It is in the studies of Weitzmann that the argument has been most cogently presented that Christian art derives from Jewish illustrated manuscripts of the Bible . A slightly different form of the theory is propounded by Strauss ; in his view a discussion of the evidence would show that there is in early Christian art a possible influence ofJewish folklore and legend rather than Jewish Scripture .21 When the theories are set out in this way it may be seen that the problem of origins is not an easy one and can produce widely differing interpretations . The most that can be said with any degree of security is what is a matter of observable fact : the Judaeo-Christian tradition felt an urge towards decoration which depended on pagan art for its technique and style, and expressed itself in groups and figures which included such stock pagan types as Bacchic figures, heads, masks, Seasons, Winds, Victories, Cupids and Psyches and pastoral settings of a sometimes conspicuous and elaborate character . The apparently pagan nature of much of the earliest Christian imagery is what underlies the second area of scholarly controversy : the attitude of the early Church to questions of artistic representation . Until recently it was universally held to be a fact that the early Church was hostile to art . But a re-examination of the evidence upon which the view rests makes it appear unnecessary to believe that this was in fact so . Contrary to the standard view, there is nothing to support the idea that the art was disapproved of by the clergy, or that at times of persecution the laity became uncontrolled and indulged in a frenzy of unauthorized art . Likewise the two-dimensional nature

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of the Christian representations, including the Cleveland Jonah figures, demonstrates that no question of idolatry or theory about the making of images was involved . Nor need it be that the absence of art in the first and second centuries implies aniconism ; it is simply the concomitant of the fact that no art could exist until the community was materially identifiable . There is of course the possibility of its existence but this remains beside the point since there is no surviving evidence of ít . 22 Accordingly, where it is agreed that the art is a complement to early Christian literature and that both forms together make up the early Church's theological expression, the incorporation of apparently pagan elements is assumed to be deliberate, and the problem is seen as one not of attitude but of interpretation . So a third developing emphasis in the field is the study of the transmutation of ideas, since it has long been observed that from the beginning of Christian art a process of selectivity operates, and that a quite narrow choice was made by the Christian artists among a whole range of available symbols which caused them to adopt some and disregard others as suitable for their purpose . The range only widens in the fourth century as a full material Christian culture establishes itself . Why this should be so and what the images mean constitutes the problem of interpretation . 23 The method of investigation employed is the iconographical one : what is desired is that an illustration should be matched by a text or series of texts which account for all its chief elements . By bringing together a knowledge of pictures and a knowledge of texts the interpreter endeavours to fuse the subject matter and the image, and the resulting interpretation becomes, it is hoped, the reconstruction of a lost piece of evidence . This in turn should help to clarify the meaning of an idea in a particular context, since meanings change over a passage of time . If the method is scientifically applied the results, far from being speculative, should be able to meet exacting standards of demonstration, and it should be possible to gain a little further insight into the mind of the ancient Church, for it may now be taken as a matter of general acceptance today that in early Christian art the purely formal elements of composition were subordinated to the contents of the works . NOTES

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The first systematic exploration of the catacombs, begun in 1593 by A . Bosio, was published in his book Roma Sotterranea (1632), which remained the standard work of reference until the nineteenth century publications of De Rossi . Bosio's work is still sometimes the only source of a now lost painting, although the engravings, executed by his colleagues, are unfortunately not always reliable . On early copies of the paintings see J . Wilpert, Die Katacombengêmalde and ihre alten Kopien (Freiburg i . B . 1891) . For a romantic approach to the catacombs in the style of The Last Days of Pompeii, see the novel of Cardinal Wiseman Fabiola, required reading for Catholic tourists at the turn of the century . The `Church of the Catacombs' was a concept

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unquestioningly held, and 100 years ago even archaeologists thought that early Christian art had originated in the catacombs, a view still to be found in a few text books on the history of art . The latest German handbook, that of C . Andresen, Einführung in die Christliche Archäologie, Göttingen 1971, part of the series Die Kirche in ihrer Geschichte, is of great technical help but is not readily accessible . Excellent reproductions resulting from modern photographic techniques have made the monuments visually available, but direct access is difficult. Many are in remote places, e .g . Qalat Sem'an, a superb Christian precinct, comparable to Baalbek, built about 480 A .D . round the pillar of Simon Stylites in Syria . Above all the central plateau ofAsia Minor, the most flourishing part of the ancient Christian world, is particularly hard to reach and there is no full investigation of the area . Ephesus only has been opened up and explored by the Austrian arachaeologists . Even a well known site like the Vatican excavations under St Peter's is not open . This is partly due to the need not to weaken Michaelangelo's foundations of the present church which are sunk into the Constantinian level . For the sarcophagi see W . F . Deichmann, Repertorium der christlich-antiken Sarkophage, Wiesbaden 1967 . For the basilicas see R. Krautheimer, Corpus Basilica rum Christianarum Romae, sec IV-IX (Monument di antichità cristiana 2 serie, 2) (Rome 1937 f.) . For the catacomb paintings, A. Nestori, Repertorio Topografico delle Pitture delle Catacombe Romane, Rome 1975 . Where the cemetery of the Via Appia and that of the Ardeatina actually begin is still not known with exactitude. For the inscriptions see E . Diehl, Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (Dublin/Zurich, repr . 1970), Supplement, J . Moreau and H . I . Marrou, Berlin 1967 . See also P . A . Ferrua, L'Epigrafia Christiana Prima di Costantino in Atti IX Cong . Arch . Grist, Rome 1978, vol 1, pp . 583-613 . See as an example U .M . Fasola, Le Catacombe di S . Gennaro a Capodimonte, Rome, 1975 . Theories of structure and typology really go back to P . Styger, Die römischen Katakomben, Berlin 1933 . Much of the bibliography is that of classical art, see e.g . D . Strong, Roman Art, Pelican, 1976, and K . Weitzmann, Studies in Classical and Byzantine Manuscript Illumination, Chicago 1971 . For example see E . Dassmann, Sündenvergebung durch Taufe, Busse und Martyrflirbitte in den Zeugnissen früchristlichen Frömmigkeit und Kunst, Münster 1973 . Characteristic are the titles of some of the major publications in the field . A . Grabar, Christian Iconography-a Study of its Origins, Bollingen Series XXXV, 10, Princeton 1968, ibid . The Beginnings of Christian Art, London 1966 . Among the earlier literature note D .V . Ainalov, The Hellenistic Origins of Byzantine Art, repr . New Brunswick 1961, J . Strzygowski, Orient oder Rom, Leipzig 1901 . See H . Koch, Die altchristliche Bilderfrage nach den literarischen Quellen (Forsch . zur Relig. und Lit . des A . und N . Testaments, X), Göttingen, 1917, and W . Elliger, `Die Stellung der alten Christen zu den Bildern in den ersten vier Jahrhunderten' Studien über christliche Denkmaler, XX, Leipzig 1930 . For the catacombs see J . Stevenson, The Catacombs, London 1978 . For the sarcophagi see F . Gerke, Die christliche Sarkophage der vorkonstantinischen Zeit (Studien z . spätant . Kunstgeschichte 11, Berlin 1940 . For the decorated Alexandrian tomb see H . Brandenburg `Überlegungen zum Ursprung der früchristlichen Bildkunst' in Atti IX Cong. Arch. Grist ., vol . 1 . pp . 331-360 at p . 342f. For some lovely illustrations of fourth century frieze sarcophagi seethe plates in W . F. Volbach, Early Christian Art, e .g . nos . 37-39 . For the columnar and 'city-gate' sarcophagi see M . Lawrence, `Columnar Sarcophagi in the Latin West' Art Bulletin

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14 (1932) pp . 103-185, and ibid . 'City-gate Sarcophagi' A .B . 10 (1927-28) pp . 1-45 . For the Via Latina Catacomb see A . Ferrua, Le Pitture della Nuova Catacomba di Via Latina, Rome 1960 . For the Ravenna sarcophagi see M . Lawrence, The Sarcophagi ofRavenna, New York 1945, and for those of Aquitaine, J .B . Ward-Perkins, `The Sculpture of Visigothic France' Archaeologia 87 (1937), pp . 79-128 . On the general development of the floor mosaics see E . Kitzinger, `Stylistic Developments in Pavement Mosaics in the Greek East from the Age of Constantine to the Age ofJustinian' in La Mosaiquegréco-romaine 1 (Colloques internationaux du C . N . R . S .), Paris, 1965 pp . 341-551 . On Jewish floor mosaics see ibid . Mosaiques Byzantines Israeliennes, UNESCO 1965 . For Ravenna see W .F . Deichmann, Ravenna, Hauptstadt des spätantiken Abendlandes, 3 vols ., Wiesbaden 1969, 1974, 1958 . For the Mosaics of Rome see J . Wilpert, Die römischen Mosaiken und Malereien der kirchlichen Bauten vom IV bis XIIIJahrhundert, Freiburg 1917, and W. Oakshott, The Mosaics of Rome, London, 1967 . For the Euphrasian basilica at Porec see B . Molajoli, La Basilica Eufrasiana di Parenzo, 2ed ., Padua 1943 . For the Christian building at Dura see C .H . Kraeling, The Excavations at DuraEuropos . Final Report VIII. Part II: The Christian Building, New Haven 1967 ; for the synagogue see ibid, Part I: The Synagogue, New Haven 1956 . For Dölger's studies see his series Antike und Christentum, Münster 1929-1950, and his great work on fish symbolism lXOYZ 4 vols ., Münster i . W . 1922-43 . For the bibliography of Wilpert up to 1938 see G .P . Kirsch, 'Bibliografia di Mons . Giuseppe Wilpert' Riv . A .C.XV (1938) pp . 6-16 . The best known criticism of Wilpert is that of E . Weigand, Die spätantike Sarkophagskulptur in Lichte der neuerer Forschungen' Byzantinische Zeitschrift 41 (1941) pp. 104-146 . See also P . Styger, Die altchristliche Grabeskunst, Munich 1927, who denied any symbolism at all to catacomb paintings . He believed that Christian funerary art was purely narrative . E .g . Th . Klauser, Die Cathedra im Totenkult der heidnischen und christlichen Antike 2ed . Liturgiewissenschaftliche Quellen und Forschung, Heft 21, Münster Westfalen 1971 See his `Gnosticism and the Origins of Christian Art' in Atti IX. Cong . Arch . Crist. vol . 1 . pp . 391-405 . Weitzmann's fundamental treatment was `Die Illustration der Septuaginta' MüncherJahrbuch der bildenden Kunst 3 ; III?IV (1952-53) pp . 96-120 : he considered the question again in `Zur Frage des Einfluss jüdische Bilderquellen auf die Illustration des Alten Testaments' Mullus, Festschrift Th . Klauser = Jb .A .C . Ergänzungsband I (1964), pp . 401-415 . For Strauss' views see Juedische Vorbilder fruechristlicher Kunst?' in Brandenburg op . cit . For a full discussion of the evidence and for reasons supporting the view given here see Sister C . Murray, `Art and the Early Church' Journal of Theological Studies XXVIII (1977), pp . 303-345 . Iconographical studies are rare in English, for an example see Sister C . Murray, Rebirth and Afterlife, B .A .R . International Series 100, 1981 .

SISTER CHARLES MURRAY read Theology at the University of Oxford and also was awarded the degree of D . Phil . at the same university for research in the art and archaeology of the early Church . She now lectures in Church History at the University of Nottingham, England . Department of Theology, University Park, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, England