The clash of Gods: a reinterpretation of early Christian art (review)

206 Reviews As weU as providing the specialist art historian with slighdy mind-numbing technicalities and a useful survey of topics not often considered, especially in Mango's and Necipoglu's contributions, the book exemplifies tbe problems confronting conscientious guardians of the physical manifestations of cultural heritage. Measuring a budding is all very well, but bow does one prop it up? With what materials? For Hagia Sophia this book adumbrates the problems and pleads for further investigations, but gives no answers for the moment. Elizabeth Jeffreys Department of M o d e m Greek University of Sydney Mathews, Thomas F., The clash of Gods: a reinterpretation of early Christian art, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993; cloth; pp. x, 223; 138 plates; R.R.P. US$50.00. Mathews upsets the traditional view, established between the wars by Kantorowicz, Alfoldi and Grabar, that early images of Christ developed from imperial iconography. H e suggests that this 'emperor mystique' was influenced by the nostalgia of each of these scholars for the old German, Habsburg, and Russian emphes respectively. Instead Mathews sees a broader eclecticism and ambivalence in the imagery and argues that this contributed not only to the success of the imagery but also to the success of the new religion in 'the clash of gods'. W h U e Eusebios propounded a theory of divine kingship for the emperor, and the emperor might model himself on Christ, the reverse did not take place. Christ was not modelled on the emperor. Church and state remained distinct. The imagery which developed in the three centuries after Constantine focused on the divinity and the magician in Christ. It was even antiimperial , stressing his divinity in opposition to the Arianism of Constantine, Constantius, and Valens. Christ appeared not on the sella curulis of an emperor but as a bearded phUosopher enthroned amongst his disciples. This was not an emperor who sat while his court stood respectfully in the consistory. H e was the new Jupiter, fully God, with flowing hah, seated on a high-backed throne. He was also a miracle-worker wielding a magic wandtikeMoses. He could appear as a beardless youth, as effeminate as an Apollo or Dionysos, or with a pronounced swelling of the breasts as in two sarcophagi in Ravenna, a feature also occurring in statues Reviews 207 of Serapis and Apollo. H e could appear as a sexually ambiguous image in the apse of Hosios David in Thessaloniki or a hermaphroditicfigurein the dome of the Arian baptistery in Ravenna Mathews argues that the scene of Christ's entry into Jerusalem on a donkey is full of paradoxes. It was derived from a hunter's homecoming not an imperial adventus. Christ was seated side-saddle like a woman. He rode a humble donkey as Hephaistos did when he joined the company of the gods while Dionysos himself rode on a mule. The palm branchesrelateto Jewish feasts, the spreading of garments on the ground to hospitality. Similarly it isrecognizedthat processions so oftenrepresentedin the apses of Christian churches had a very long history in association withreligiousceremonies. Supporting imagery was also anti-imperial. Moses was shown closing the Red Sea over the pharoah. Daniel in the lion's den and the young men in thefieryfurnace defied Nebuchadnezzar. The magi were magicians who came to serve a new master-magician. In the new medium of glass mosaic Christ appears variously represented in the apses of basilicas and the domes of the Ravenna baptisteries. These larger-than-life imagesreplacedthe cult statues of the gods. The crowns that are offered are wreaths as conferred on athletes or used in sacrifices. The stars represented in vaults are 'fixed', and not those of the astrologers' cosmology derived according to Lehmann's theory from the now lost ceiling decoration of the throne rooms of emperors. Mathews leaves some questions only partially answered. If Christ is not an emperor, and if he wears civUian dress, who is he? In the contest for power, why did the pagans not develop comparable narrative imagery, for example of miracle-working in the case of Apollonios of Tyana, Orpheus, or Asclepius? What can explain the authority of the images of Christ? Mathews describes him as...