Earliest Depictions of Jesus in Art

Hi, I'm Matt Baker, today we'll look at some of the

earliest

depictions

of Jesus over the last 2000 years. Jesus has been depicted in many different ways, but as I'm sure you know, today he is usually depicted as a friendly-looking European. with long hair and a beard like in this famous 1940 painting of Jesus by Warner Solomon, of course, Jesus was not European, although he was from the Middle East, so in recent years several artists have attempted to show what Jesus really looked like. like this anthropological reconstruction by Richard Neve or this photorealistic image of Chief Uderwick, well, another way to discover what Jesus might have been like would be to go back as far as we can to see how he was depicted in art in the first few centuries after his death, That's what we're going to do in this video.

I will show you 10 of the first images we have of Jesus and I will do it in the form of a countdown. Okay, now. Look at some of the

earliest

depictions

of Jesus in art. I'm going to start with an image which can be found here. This is the monastery of Saint Catherine located in Egypt, near the mountain that is traditionally considered Mount Sinai. This is also the monastery. where the Sinaiticus codex was found, which I talked about in my video about the oldest biblical manuscripts, however, I mention it now because it also houses this image considered one of the oldest Byzantine icons still in existence and dating from around the year 550 A.D., if you know anything.

About the history of the Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, you will know that icons were a source of great controversy. Basically an icon is a religious image used for worship in the early medieval period, there were some Byzantine Christians who felt that the icons should be used and others who felt they should not be used well for most of the 700's to the early 800's, those who felt they should not be used dominated and therefore during those years many of the oldest images of Jesus They were destroyed, however this one in particular.

It survived because it was located in Egypt, which at the time was controlled by Muslims. Now let me point out two things about this particular depiction of Jesus. First, it is in a style known as Christ Pantocrater, which to this day is used quite frequently in Eastern Orthodoxy. churches, some of its main features include a halo with a cross, a new testament in Jesus' left hand and his right hand making a very specific gesture representing the letters i c x c which means

jesus

christ Secondly, this particular christ pantocrator is unique because there is something special going on with the face of Jesus at first glance the eyes look a little weird and you might have assumed the artist just wasn't that good but the reason the face looks a little weird is That the artist actually painted two different faces, this becomes clear, if you mirror each side, the reason for this probably has to do with the artist's attempt to symbolize the supposed dual nature of Jesus.

Well, the next image we'll look at is located in the Israeli town of Shivta, which is actually not too far from St. Catherine's Monastery also comes from a Byzantine site and dates back to around the year 550. But as we're about to see , it's quite different. For one thing, the image is no longer in very good condition. The church in which it is located. It is now in ruins and although the site was investigated in the 1930s, it was not until 2018 that this image was noticed. This is what it looks like if you can't see much, I don't blame you, let me zoom out a little and add something. lines, so two things stand out immediately, one is that this Jesus does not have a beard and two, he appears to have short curly hair instead of long straight hair, so although this image was created around the same time as The previous one represents a different way of representing Jesus, one that we will see more in the past.

A good example is the following image that I want to show you, which is more than 100 years older and comes from the mausoleum of Gala Placa Dia in Ravina, Italy, Gala Placidia. She was the daughter of Emperor Theodosius the First, who was the emperor who made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. This is not actually her mausoleum or burial place, but rather a chapel that she had built during her life, fortunately it is very well preserved. Above the north entrance is this colorful mosaic of Jesus as the good shepherd, a theme that comes from from the gospel of John chapter 10.

Once again, notice the curly hair and lack of beard. Next I want to show you another image of it. Approximate time period of 425 AD. This is a carving of the doors of the Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome, which is the headquarters of the Dominican order of Catholic friars. What makes this image particularly important is that it is the oldest known image of Jesus on the cross. two individuals were the two thieves with whom Jesus was traditionally said to have been crucified here, here Jesus once again has a beard, showing that during the 5th and 6th centuries there were still some variations as to how Jesus was depicted, let's move on now from the 5th century to the 4th century, that is, from the year 300 AD, most of the images from this century, as well as those that are even older, are found in catacombs.

Catacombs are underground burial places and in ancient Rome there were many of these. It is often said that in ancient times. Christians used these catacombs to worship in secret for fear of being persecuted; However, generally speaking, this is not true. Most catacombs were used by early Christians and catacombs were a place to bury the dead, but what is useful for our purposes is that catacombs were often decorated and because they were located underground and eventually forgotten , many of the decorations survived longer than those located above ground. Take, for example, the following image of the Camadilla catacombs.

Here we have what is probably the oldest surviving image of a bearded Jesus dating from around 375 AD. What's interesting about this 1,650-year-old image is that it's not far off from the average image of Jesus we see today. The two symbols on either side of his halo are an alpha and an omega, the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. often used by early Christians to represent the belief that Jesus has existed for all eternity, but if we remove that halo and the two letters, we are still left with an image that most people today would easily identify as Jesus, however, this will not work.

This is the case for images that are even older than this one, because originally Jesus was always depicted without a beard and, as we are about to see, generally looks like a typical Roman from the time of the Roman empire, take for example. This image from the catacombs of Marcellin and Peter here we see a woman depicted touching the hem of Jesus' cloak a story that comes from Mark chapter 5. According to the story the woman was automatically healed as soon as she touched Jesus' cloak but what It is important What you have to notice is that he is represented with a very Roman appearance, short haircut, no beard and look what he wears a tunic with stripes on his shoulders, something that in Roman society was very common and indicated a person of authority.

She also carries a shelf above her head. The tunic, please note, is different from a toga, the mantle was actually the most common garment at the time, it was basically just a sheet that wrapped around a person and served as a simple coat. What is notable about Jesus' cloak is that it has a visible tassel. which is what the woman is touching. This is probably a representation of a tzitzit, a ritual fringe that Jews wear to this day, so keep in mind that Jesus' Jewish character is not indicated by the color of his skin or his facial features, but by something that he is. wearing the rest of the images that we are going to see come from the 3rd century, that is, from the year 200 AD, this shows Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead again, we have the short haircut without a beard combined with a tunic and a simple cloak, but this time he has a wand, yes, that's right, a wand like Harry Potter's in the Roman Empire during the 3rd century.

Wands were a symbol of magic just as they are today and to the Romans back then the stories of Jesus healing people and raising people from the dead. were understandably seen as stories about magic. Now we have reached our final three images. The third oldest image we have of Jesus is on the lid of this sarcophagus which is inscribed with the words sevira in deo vivas, but note the person shown on the left. of the words is not

jesus

, it is probably an image of savira, the woman who was buried in this particular sarcophagus, endovivus means may you live with god, jesus is here, he is of course the baby held by his mother, Mary, standing behind them, is presumably Joseph and in front of them are the three wise men and the star of Bethlehem, so yeah, image number three is basically a Christmas image, moving on to number two, which is this image that It comes from the catacomb of Saint Calixtus and dates back to around 250 AD.

Jesus once was here. He is again depicted as the good shepherd and this time he is wearing a short robe of the type a shepherd would have worn at the time. Note that he also looks quite young, as you would probably have been considering that he died when he was in his early 30s. Note that seeing a religious figure with a lamb or goat around his neck was not something the ancient Greeks and Romans would have found all that strange; in fact, they were quite accustomed to such images, as they were commonly used in representations of the god Hermes or Mercury.

Well now we have come to what is probably the oldest representation we have of Jesus, unlike the last ones we saw, all found in Rome, this one was found in Syria, in the ruins of an ancient city called Dura Europas. The site of europe is located on the euphrates river, near what is now the border between syria and iraq, but in the early 3rd century it was a prosperous city and the easternmost stronghold of rome. Fortunately for archaeologists, it was abandoned shortly after and never rebuilt, making it a bit of a time capsule located in Dura Europa.

It is the oldest church ever found, as well as one of the oldest synagogues, both containing works of art. , so dura europas not only gives us the oldest known depiction of Jesus, but it also gives us the oldest known depictions of many others. Also characters from the Bible like Abraham Moses and David, but in this video we are focusing on Jesus, so without further ado let me reveal to you the oldest image we have of Jesus. This image is based on a story that is told in all three. synoptic gospels in which a paralyzed man is lowered through a roof so that Jesus can heal him, which he does.

On the left you can see the now healed man carrying his bed and on the right you can see Jesus in his typical short Roman form. hair no beard simple robe and cloak our best guess is that this image dates back to around 235 AD so basically we have nothing from the first 200 years after Jesus died well not entirely there is actually an image additional thing I want to show you. I'm not including it in the main list because it doesn't actually show the face of Jesus. It's actually graffiti done by a non-Christian to mock someone named Alex Amenos, who was a Christian.

The words written in Greek and scratched. Below the image it reads Alex Least Worships His God depicted on the left is presumably Alexamenos and on the right is Jesus hanging on the cross but with the head of a donkey, which was obviously an insult to non-Christians at the time it seemed absurd. for anyone to worship someone who had been crucified and this graffiti expresses that feeling. Well, that was a look at some of the earliest depictions of Jesus. If you know of any that I've missed, let me know in the comments, thanks for watching.