Sarcophagus; late 3rd-early 4th cent AD Rome
The Europe animal sacrifice ended with the establishment of Christianity; and nothing
could show more vividly the absolute newness of the Christian religion than the choice of
its symbolic animal. After the lions and bulls of Mithras and Mesopotamia came the lamb
and the sheep. Innocent, gentle and docile, they are either the symbol of sacrifice, or
exist to follow the will of the Good Shepherd, and to enjoy His protection. In the same
spirit the dove takes the place of the eagle or falcon. Although the lamb is alluded to as a
symbol of Christian humility in early Christian texts, it does not appear in art till it can
safely be substituted for the hermetic fish. The sheep are the chief symbolic animals of
the evolved Christianity of the late fifth century, and inhabit the mosaics of Ravenna,
beginning with the beautiful representation of the Good Shepherd in the so-called
Mausoleum of Galla Placidia.
Just when Christians began to use and to create pictorial art is therefore not settled.
There are a number of images which fall on the cusp between the Christians' using
images which they acquired from pagan culture and their creation of images as 'their
own.' The first collection of Christian iconic art is in the cemetery of S. Callistus
(Callixtus) from which there are funereal decorations (frescoes) which were painted
approximately at the end of the second century. This development took place at about
the same time as the early Christian apologists were writing. Both were a sign that a
hitherto small, poor and loosely organized group, that is, the Christians, began to go
public. The paintings in the catacomb, including their decorations (borders, birds, fish,
and so on), demonstrate a group who were employing the basic funereal nature
iconography of paganism and beginning to Christianize it. A chief element in this
development was the fact that Christians had begun to arrive at a period in their growth
when they were (1) organized enough to plan for such a project, and (2) had the
economic means to purchase the land and to pay for the excavation and decoration of
the cemetery.
Several of the 'Shepherd Oil Lamps' can be acceptably dated in the period of 175—225
CE. It is not only on lamps of the late second and early third centuries that the Good
Shepherd appears. In Rome, the shepherds carrying their sheep began to appear
around 260 in relief sculpture . . . commissioned by the new religionists. Within the
literary culture of the new religionists there existed a long-standing etradition that
associated the founder of the movement with shepherding metaphors. Here we find
iconic representations that can be positively identified as produced by a Christian
aesthetic.
The Good Shepherd was the most popular figurative Jesus image in the very
beginnings of Christian iconic art. It is is the
criophorus(literally, the ram-carrier).
The figure is usually of a young man. beautiful and, most often, a beardless youth;
he is dressed for outdoor work, that is. with a short tunic and boots or high-laced
sandals; he stands carrying a sheep across his shoulders. It is well known that the
image of the ram-carrier was originally pagan and was at least a thousand years
old before it was used by the Christians. Hermes, Apollo and Dionysos were all
represented by the ram-carrier.
The metaphor of the shepherd who cares for his flock is prolific throughout the early
church's literature (and not only in John 10 and Luke 15:3—7). The image did not
carry over to the church only in the traditions it received from ancient Israel (as in
Psalm 23); the shepherd as leader of the flock permeates the Greek and Roman
cultures of the Mediterranean basin from before the times of the
Odyssey. It is not
therefore the rarity of the image which gives rise to considerable and often
contentious discussions about early Christians' use of the iconic
bonus pastor, the
case is just the opposite. The image is employed so often and is so permeated
with a pagan scent that it seems the Christian use of these images had to be
justified in some way by art historians and theologians.
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The most common device in art history's canonization of the Good Shepherd has
been to suggest that it is an 'abbreviated representation,' and the image therefore
points to scriptural passages, namely, Luke 15:3—7 and John 10. The broader
presentation of a sheep carrier with his flock introduces a bucolic theme, which, in
this context, is to be understood as a symbolic reference to John 10:II.'
The Christian apocrypha join virtually the whole corpus of early Christian literature in
their employment of references to Jesus as Shepherd. The
Acts of Thomas 39
uses the phrase 'Good Shepherd' (agathos poimen). That the
Shepherd of
Hermas uses the image is self-evident in the title given that work; it is an especially
relevant image in the fourth vision. The list of passages throughout Christian
literature is vast, and in the rhetorical images it is not only Jesus who is the
shepherd. God and the apostles are also shepherds of the flock. In the latter
reference, the phrase in the Acts of Paul and Thecla 21 is poignant and touching:
Thecla, having been condemned to be burned, 'as a lamb in the wilderness looks
around for the shepherd, so Thecla kept searching for Paul. And having looked into
the crowd she saw the Lord sitting in the likeness of Paul and said, "As if I were
unable to endure, Paul has come to look after me.'"
