Non-Representational Images of Christ

During the first centuries of Christianity, there was a continuing and often bitter debate as to the propriety of representational art in the service of the new religion. Although the Christian West created and employed representational religious art in the form of painting and sculpture from at least the third century on, the Christian East remained wary of its acceptance. Opposing viewpoints and policies were forcefully promulgated during the great iconodule/iconoclastic controversies of the eighth century. The reluctance to allow representations of Christ, the central figure and focal point of the religion, was undoubtedly at first due to the influence of Judaism on Christianity – note the injunction in the decalogue against graven images (Exodus 20:4). Two additional reasons came to play: Christ’s divine nature could not be truly captured in the form of mere human flesh and portraying him as a man would be a denial of his true nature as the Son of God, Second Person of the Trinity, the almighty Redeemer and Messiah; and, since the older religions of the Mediterranean portrayed their gods as ideal human beings, doing the same for Christ would place him in concert with these gods, thus denying his essential difference. These reasons, combined with the intermittent fear of persecution and the desire to retain the notion of a special, or even secret, society within the larger population, led, very early in the history of Christianity, to the adoption of certain signs and symbols by which the adherents could both identify themselves and profess their allegiance to Christ. As a substitute for the figure of Christ, who could not be truly represented, the fish, the vine, and the cross, along with the Chi Rho monogram became the most common and universally employed symbols. The fish was chosenas a proxy image of Christ because its Greek spelling ( IXθYΣ ) formed an acrostic of a profession of faith (’ Iησovs Xpiστòs Σεov Yiòs Σωτήρ ) ‘Jesus Christ Son of God and Saviour’. The vine could represent Christ because of the words which John used in reference to him: ‘I am the true vine’ (John 15:1). The cross became the other widely used substitute image of Christ since it had come to signify Christ’s triumph over death and the accompanying promise of personal salvation and eternal life as the reward for the true believer.

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