Early Christian Art and Divine Epiphany

Drawing upon the work of art historians, historians of ancient Christianity have incorporated the evidence of early Christian visual art in their studies, primarily in order to identify the iconographic content, formal style, and social or religious context of the artifacts or monuments under consideration. This essay argues that, while their standard motifs and compositions undoubtedly served a didactic purpose and reflected the cultural, ideological, or exegetical location, practices, or commitments of patrons, early Christian art also served an epiphanic function; it presented the divine image to viewers in an external and accessible form. Thus, by attending specifically to the relationship of image and observer and the setting in which these objects were viewed, it is possible to see them, like later icons, as devices that facilitated meditation, prayer, and even visionary encounters with the holy.