La Crucifixion sans Crucifie dans l'art ethiopien: Recherches sur la survie de l'iconographie chretienne de l'Antiquite tardive

The author sets out to trace the origin and typological meaning of representations of the crucifixion of Christ in which Christ is not on the cross. The two alternative ways of representing Christ’s presence are through a bust of Christ in the upper center of the crucifixion scene as shown on several ancient water-flasks or—more frequently and more prominently—as a lamb. The lamb appears usually above the transept of the cross, or sometimes atop the vertical bar of the cross. In one important instance, that of a representation in the church of St. Mark in Venice, the lamb appears below the transept, at eye level of the figures standing at the foot of the cross.

How did artists come to represent the crucifixion scene with the central cross of the three empty? Explanations usually given refer, of course, to early Christian literature touched by Gnosticism that find it inappropriate for the divine Son to have suffered and died on the cross.

Dr. Balicka-Witakowska offers an explanation that requires no such dependence on literary texts or direct theological borrowing on the part of the artists. Rather, the two lines of likely development are from Roman effigies of the emperors or perhaps from Roman military ceremonial displays. The use of the bust of Christ fits these explanations better than does the representation of the lamb in place of the Christ. There is no traceable line, the author shows, from early Palestinian church art to these representations.

On the question how the Ethiopian church would have come to know about earlier developments in Christian iconography, the author points to the long-standing connection of the Ethiopian church with Jerusalem.

The choice of the lamb to depict Christ on the cross is ingenious and powerful. This representation of the Lamb of God also ties the scene to the Jewish Akeda, Abraham’s readiness to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice (Genesis 22), interrupted by the deity with the substitution of a ram.

The author offers rich materials from the history of Christian art and iconography. She also provides detailed commentary on all major elements in the scenes depicted—not only on the lamb and the bust of Christ. The author may not have made full use of the representations from Ethiopic manuscripts that are now housed at the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library of St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, USA. The collection presented by the author, even so, is a rich and varied one, and the color plates are marvelously reproduced. In fact, the entire publication of this folio volume is a pleasure to have in one’s hands.