Christ the Miracle Worker in Early Christian Art:

Images of Christ Healing

4 Images of Christ Healing As Christians began to develop their visual language and realize the narrative and nonnarrative functions of art, the figure of Christ became a useful tool in promoting Christianity over other religions. Shortly after the beginning of Christian art, Christ as a healer became a primary theme. Early Christian images predominantly appeared in sepulchral settings such as the catacombs. Christ healing the sick and raising the dead were apt funerary themes because they were reminders of the ultimate resurrection vouchsafed by Christ. Thus, these images had a viewing audience that was very much alive, as different members would visit the dead and realize the message visually depicted by the art. The catacombs provided further space to perform the crucial ritual of burying as well as physically interacting with the dead through their presence at the catacomb crypts. The martyrs’ underground tombs commemorated Christian heroes and provided a space where Christian memory was preserved and could proliferate. The rituals in the catacombs could be somewhat frightening, especially given the physical characteristics of a sepulchral crypt. Jerome attests to such trepidation as he recalls childhood visits to the catacombs in his Commentary on Ezekiel: “And often did I enter the crypts, deep dug in the earth, with their walls on either side lined with the bodies of the dead, where everything is so dark that it almost seems as if the psalmist’s words were fulfilled: ‘Let them go down alive into hell.’” For a child, descending into a dark, damp area that housed the dead would understandably cause anxiety. One of the functions of the further development of Christian iconography was to alleviate the darkness with light and make the catacomb space visually appealing to its visitors. The Christian poet Prudentius noted such developments in his description of the tomb of Hippolytus. He described the gleams of light in the confined area dancing off the precious metals used to adorn the worship space where the congregation partook of the Eucharist. Obviously, viewers of the early Christian images of Christ responded to narrative art as in the salient visual theme of the miracleworking Christ. In a realm celebrating the dead, the art was for the living. 87 By contemplating an image of Jesus, viewers such as the young Jerome could reflect upon the final resurrection secured by the ultimate healer. The early images of Christ the Miracle Worker wove together several components of existing visual traditions. Early Christians adopted the artistic influences of their immediate neighbors. Such appropriations do not imply that the Christians lacked originality; instead, the tendency reveals a deeper methodological goal. Non-Christian imagery was appropriated to portray rival deities as inferior to Christ. Christian imagery was a useful platform, and the images of healings were constructive in promoting the powerful abilities of Christ as superior to any non-Christian figure. This chapter will examine images of Christ’s curative ability by focusing on the three scriptural motifs that illustrate his ability: the healing of the paralytic, the woman with the issue of blood, and the healing of the blind. Healing and restoration were prominent themes that were well suited to a funerary setting, and they additionally illustrated the powers of Christ. Finally, this chapter will discuss the visual appearance of Jesus and the god Asclepius, where their connection and rivalry illustrated in the writings treated in the previous chapter can be witnessed visually. Clearly early Christians were influenced by the non-Christian use of art either in icon devotion or in other material forms. Eusebius recorded a possible appropriation in his history describing a statue at Paneas (Caesarea Philippi). Eusebius described the statue as an artwork erected in gratitude for Jesus healing the woman with the issue of blood: For they say that there stood on a lofty stone at the gates of her house a brazen figure in relief of a woman, bending on her knee and stretching forth her hands like a suppliant, while opposite to this there was another of the same material, an upright figure of a man, clothed in comely fashion in a double cloak and stretching out his hand to the woman; at his feet on the monument itself a strange species of herb was growing, which climbed up the border of the double cloak of brass, and acted as an antidote to all kinds of disease. This statue, they said, bore the likeness of Jesus.1 1. Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 7.18 (PG 20, 679C; Oulton, LCL...