We can accept neither of these explanations, both of which are so strongly opposed to the entire spirit and character of early Christian art. The formulization of the doctrine of the Trinity by the Council of Nice, in that noble creed which still expresses the faith of Christendom, left, it is true, its impress on Christian art and literature. Both in pictorial representation, and, as we shall hearafter see, in inscriptions, is there a recorded protest against the Arian heresy which at this period convulsed and rent the church. De Rossi cites eight examples in early Christian art which he conceives to have reference to this doctrine; but in seven of these it is indicated by the association of the sacred monogram with the triangle, the symbol of tri-unity, and the eighth is the unique and anomalous bas relief under discussion.
We have seen that Christ is uniformly exhibited in this primitive art as youthful and beardless; and on this very sarcophagus, side by side with this so-called sculpture of the Trinity, he is thus seen as the representative of the Deity giving the wheat-sheaf to Adam and the lamb to Eve. Yet we are asked to believe that in the very next group he is shown, in defiance of the uniform practice, as heavily bearded and of advanced age; and that the Almighty Father, who is substitutionally represented by the Son in the adjoining scene, is here exhibited, as well as the Eternal Spirit, in human form. Another remarkable discrepancy also occurs. The so-called figures of Adam and Eve are of
most diminutive size, and not nearly as large as the infant Christ in his mother’s arms in the scene of the adoration of the Magi immediately below;[603] and of these the prostrate figure supposed to represent the sleeping Adam is considerably the smaller of the two, and of the more feminine aspect. This incongruity is the more striking from the immediate proximity of the adult figures of Adam and Eve, to which the smaller ones bear no resemblance. The whole group seems to correspond better to Solomon’s celebrated judgment concerning the living and the dead child than to the creation of Eve.
Fig. 107.—God Symbolized by a Hand appearing to Abraham.
So careful, indeed, were the early Christian artists to avoid any representation of “the King eternal, immortal, invisible,” that in the scenes where God spake from heaven to Abraham and to Moses he is only symbolically indicated by a hand stretched out to stay the knife of the patriarch, or surrounded by clouds, as if to show more strongly its figurative character, giving the tables of the law to the leader of Israel. The annexed suggestive example of this treatment, of which many others might be adduced, is from a sarcophagus in the Lateran. See also [Fig. 71], p. 290.
Throughout the whole range of sacred mosaics at Rome from the fourth to the fourteenth century, according to Mr. Hemans, the Supreme Being is never represented except symbolically by means of a hand, usually holding a crown over the head of Christ, the Virgin, or the saints. In later art the hand is sometimes surrounded by a cruciform nimbus, to indicate more clearly its divine character. It is also seen stretched out from heaven in pictures of Christ’s baptism and transfiguration, of the agony in the garden, the passion, and ascension.[604]
It was long before the most audacious hand dared to represent in painting or sculpture the omnipotent Jehovah or the infinite Spirit, who sustain and pervade the universe. M. Emeric David says that the French artists of the ninth century had first the “happy boldness”—heureuse hardiesse—to depict the Eternal Father under human form.[605] M. Didron asserts that it was not till the twelfth century that the Divine Being was personally represented,[606] being previously invariably indicated by the symbol of a hand, or by the divine name written in a triangle surrounded by a circle. Previous at least to the earlier of these dates, the work of creation and other acts popularly regarded as proper to the Father are always represented as performed by the Son, “who is the image of
the invisible God,” “by whom also he made the worlds.”[607] Christ is also painted as commanding Noah to build the ark, as conversing with Abraham, and as speaking to Moses out of the burning bush. He is frequently represented also in the gigantic frescoes of the Byzantine cupolas clothed with awful majesty and bearing the title Ο ΠΑΝΤΟΚΡΑΤΩΡ, the Almighty; but the addition of the letters IC XC, the contraction for Jesus Christ, assure us that it is not the Father but the Son who is meant.