Depiction of Jesus
The depiction of Jesus in pictorial form dates back to early Christian art and architecture, as aniconism in Christianity was rejected within the ante-Nicene period. It took several centuries to reach a conventional standardized form for his physical appearance, which has subsequently remained largely stable since that time. Most images of Jesus have in common a number of traits which are now almost universally associated with Jesus, although variants are seen.
The conventional image of a fully bearded Jesus with long hair emerged around AD 300, but did not become established until the 6th century in Eastern Christianity, and much later in the West. It has always had the advantage of being easily recognizable, and distinguishing Jesus from other figures shown around him, which the use of a cruciform halo also achieves. Earlier images were much more varied.
Images of Jesus tend to show ethnic characteristics similar to those of the culture in which the image has been created. Beliefs that certain images are historically authentic, or have acquired an authoritative status from Church tradition, remain powerful among some of the faithful, in Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Roman Catholicism. The Shroud of Turin is now the best-known example, though the Image of Edessa and the Veil of Veronica were better known in medieval times.
The representation of Jesus was controversial in the early period; the regional Synod of Elvira in Spain in 306 states in its 36th canon that no images should be in churches. Later, in the Eastern church, Byzantine iconoclasm banned and destroyed images of Christ for a period, before they returned in full strength. In the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, the followers of John Calvin in particular saw images of Christ as idolatrous and enforced their removal. Due to their understanding of the second of the Ten Commandments, most Evangelical Protestants still avoid displaying representations of Jesus in their places of worship.
Early Christianity
Before Constantine
Except for Jesus wearing tzitzit—the tassels on a tallit—in Matthew 14:36 and Luke 8:43–44, there is no physical description of Jesus contained in any of the canonical Gospels. In the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus is said to have manifested as a "light from heaven" that temporarily blinded the Apostle Paul, but no specific form is given. In the Book of Revelation there is a vision the author had of "someone like a Son of Man" in spirit form: "dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head were white like wool, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like burnt bronze glowing in a furnace His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance". Use in art of the Revelation description of Jesus has generally been restricted to illustrations of the book itself, and nothing in the scripture confirms the spiritual form's resemblance to the physical form Jesus took in his life on Earth.In the first-century AD, many Jews understood Exodus 20:4–6 as a proscription against any depiction of humans or animals. Consequently, no figure art was produced for, or by, the Jewish communities in Judea and Galilee during Jesus' lifetime, or in the decades that followed. But attitudes towards the interpretation of this Commandment changed through the centuries, and by the third century, some Jewish communities were producing figure art. The frescos decorating the interior of Dura-Europos synagogue depict many scenes from the Tanakh. They are the earliest-known examples of Jewish figure art.
During the persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire, Christian art was necessarily furtive and ambiguous, and there was hostility to idols in a group still with a large component of members with Jewish origins, surrounded by, and polemicising against, sophisticated pagan images of gods. Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, Lactantius and Eusebius of Caesarea disapproved of portrayals in images of Jesus. The 36th canon of the non-ecumenical Synod of Elvira in 306 AD reads, "It has been decreed that no pictures be had in the churches, and that which is worshipped or adored be not painted on the walls", which has been interpreted by John Calvin and other Protestants as an interdiction of the making of images of Christ. The issue remained the subject of controversy until the end of the 4th century.
The earliest surviving Christian art comes from the late 2nd to early 4th centuries on the walls of tombs belonging, most likely, to wealthy Christians in the catacombs of Rome, although from literary evidence there may well have been panel icons which, like almost all classical painting, have disappeared.
Initially Jesus was represented indirectly by pictogram symbols such as the ichthys, the peacock, or an anchor. The staurogram seems to have been a very early representation of the crucified Jesus within the sacred texts. Later personified symbols were used, including Jonah, whose three days in the belly of the whale pre-figured the interval between Christ's death and resurrection; Daniel in the lion's den; or Orpheus charming the animals. The image of "The Good Shepherd", a beardless youth in pastoral scenes collecting sheep, was the most common of these images, and was probably not understood as a portrait of the historical Jesus at this period. It continues the classical Kriophoros, and in some cases may also represent the Shepherd of Hermas, a popular Christian literary work of the 2nd century.
Among the earliest depictions clearly intended to directly represent Jesus himself are many showing him as a baby, usually held by his mother, especially in the Adoration of the Magi, seen as the first theophany, or display of the incarnate Christ to the world at large. The oldest known portrait of Jesus, found in Syria and dated to about 235, shows him as a beardless young man of authoritative and dignified bearing. He is depicted with close-cropped hair and wearing a tunic and pallium—the common male dress for much of Greco-Roman society, and similar to that found in the figure art in the Dura-Europos Synagogue.
The appearance of Jesus had some theological implications. While some Christians thought Jesus should have the beautiful appearance of a young classical hero, and the Gnostics tended to think he could change his appearance at will, for which they cited the Meeting at Emmaus as evidence, others including the Church Fathers Justin and Tertullian believed, following Isaiah 53:2, that Christ's appearance was unremarkable: "he had no form nor comeliness, that we should look upon him, nor beauty that we should delight in him." But when the pagan Celsus ridiculed the Christian religion for having an ugly God in about 180, Origen cited Psalm 45:3: "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, mighty one, with thy beauty and fairness". Later the emphasis of leading Christian thinkers changed; Jerome and Augustine of Hippo argued that Jesus must have been ideally beautiful in face and body. For Augustine he was "beautiful as a child, beautiful on earth, beautiful in heaven."
File:ChristPeterPaul.jpg|thumb|left|Bearded Jesus between Peter and Paul, Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter, Rome. Second half of the 4th century. Such works "first present us with the fully formed image of Christ in Majesty that will so dominate Byzantine art." For detail of Christ, see this file.
File:Apsis mosaic, Santa Pudenziana, Rome W3.JPG|thumb|Christ Pantocrator in a Roman mosaic in the church of Santa Pudenziana, Rome, c. 400–410 AD during the Western Roman Empire
From the 3rd century onwards, the first narrative scenes from the Life of Christ to be clearly seen are the Baptism of Christ, painted in a catacomb in about 200, and the miracle of the Raising of Lazarus, both of which can be clearly identified by the inclusion of the dove of the Holy Spirit in Baptisms, and the vertical, shroud-wrapped body of Lazarus. Other scenes remain ambiguous—an agape feast may be intended as a Last Supper, but before the development of a recognised physical appearance for Christ, and attributes such as the halo, it is impossible to tell, as tituli or captions are rarely used. There are some surviving scenes from Christ's Works of about 235 from the Dura Europos church on the Persian frontier of the Empire. During the 4th century a much greater number of scenes came to be depicted, usually showing Christ as youthful, beardless and with short hair that does not reach his shoulders, although there is considerable variation.File:Spas vsederzhitel sinay.jpg|thumb|The oldest surviving panel icon of Christ Pantocrator, encaustic on panel, 6th century, showing the appearance of Jesus that is still immediately recognised today.
Jesus is sometimes shown performing miracles by means of a wand, as on the doors of Santa Sabina in Rome. He uses the wand to change water to wine, multiply the bread and fishes, and raise Lazarus. When pictured healing, he only lays on hands. The wand is thought to be a symbol of power. The bare-faced youth with the wand may indicate that Jesus was thought of as a user of magic or wonder worker by some of the early Christians. No art has been found picturing Jesus with a wand before the 2nd century. Some scholars suggest that the Gospel of Mark, the Secret Gospel of Mark and the Gospel of John, portray such a wonder worker, user of magic, a magician or a Divine man. Only the Apostle Peter is also depicted in ancient art with a wand. Research by Lee M. Jefferson however, argued that the depiction of Jesus holding a wand is not an attempt to portray Jesus as a magician or magic user, but rather a continuity of biblical tradition of Moses's staff. It is also argued that early Christians were strong in their rejection of magic and anything related to it.
Another depiction, seen from the late 3rd century or early 4th century onwards, showed Jesus with a beard, and within a few decades can be very close to the conventional type that later emerged. This depiction has been said to draw variously on Imperial imagery, the type of the classical philosopher, and that of Zeus, leader of the Greek gods, or Jupiter, his Roman equivalent, and the protector of Rome. According to art historian Paul Zanker, the bearded type has long hair from the start, and a relatively long beard ; this depiction is specifically associated with "Charismatic" philosophers like Euphrates the Stoic, Dio of Prusa and Apollonius of Tyana, some of whom were claimed to perform miracles.
After the very earliest examples of c. 300, this depiction is mostly used for hieratic images of Jesus, and scenes from his life are more likely to use a beardless, youthful type. The tendency of older scholars such as Talbot Rice to see the beardless Jesus as associated with a "classical" artistic style and the bearded one as representing an "Eastern" one drawing from ancient Syria, Mesopotamia and Persia seems impossible to sustain, and does not feature in more recent analyses. Equally attempts to relate on a consistent basis the explanation for the type chosen in a particular work to the differing theological views of the time have been unsuccessful. From the 3rd century on, some Christian leaders, such as Clement of Alexandria, had recommended the wearing of beards by Christian men. The centre parting was also seen from early on, and was also associated with long-haired philosophers.
File:Christ treading the beasts - Chapel of Saint Andrew - Ravenna 2016.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Christ as Emperor, wearing military dress, and crushing the serpent representing Satan. "I am the way and the truth and the life" reads the inscription. Ravenna, after 500