medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Pn Wednesday, March 26, 2008, at 5:37 pm, Tom Izbicki wrote:
> The earliest Western depiction of the Crucixion is supposed to be -
> yes
> I got that from Kenneth Clark's Civilization on TV the wooden carving
> on
> the doors of Santa Sabina in Rome - early 5th century:
>
> http://www.bstorage.com/Rome/Sabina/
>
> It is unusual among the religious pictures of early date I have seen
> on
> several trips to Rome. The cross appears, but not much in the line of
>
> the Passion.
>
Perhaps Clark called the Santa Sabina image the earliest _certain_ Western depiction of the Crucifixion or the earliest _reverent_ Western depiction of the Crucifixion. But it has long been widely thought that the earliest surviving Western depiction of the Crucifixion is the probably third-century Alexamenos graffito discovered on the Palatine in Rome in 1857:
http://tinyurl.com/2zrsmu
Other illustrations and brief discussions are here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito
and here:
http://tinyurl.com/2yq95k
There have been dissenters, of course, and other interpretations have been advanced from time to time. But these have failed to gain much acceptance. As far as I can determine, the _communis opinio_ among the learned remains that the figure worshiped by Alexamenos is a parodic representation of the crucified Christ. That was already the view transmitted by the (old) Catholic Encyclopedia at the beginning of the last century:
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01793c.htm
and it seems unlikely that Sir Kenneth (at the time of his writing he was not yet Lord Clark) or any careful scholar would have been unaware of it.
For a contrary indication, see the blurb from Ashgate (a learned press) here:
http://christianbookshops.org.uk/reviews/passioninart.htm
I have not seen Harries' book. Perhaps someone who has a copy can say what his take is on the Alexamenos graffito.
Best,
John Dillon
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