Laser technology used to analyze fresco art in the catacombs of Rome has made possible the recent discoveries of the earliest known icons of the apostles Peter, Paul, John and Andrew. Our interest in these discoveries was high when the news broke during our workshop at St. Tikhon Orthodox Theological Seminary the week of June 19-26, 2011. The prototypes we offer as instructive examples and make available for students to render during our courses bear an identifiable resemblance to the catacomb provenance, which dates from the second half of the fourth century.

One of the emphases in our teaching of icon writing is that we can depend upon the share of images from the Early Church as a record of physiognomy of certain prominent persons in the gospels and epistles of the New Testament. Our conservative approach to making icons is more than nostalgia for the past; it is historical honesty.  In this regard, artists who adopt the semblance of icons to make cultural statements without interest in the authenticity of their subjects abuse the very nature of icons as witnesses of real events and real persons.

When the Church moved upstairs, so to speak, after it gained legal status with the signing of the Edict of Milan 313 AD, churches erected throughout the Roman Empire, including the Levant, Asia Minor and Egypt were packed with scenes from Christ’s life. Old Testament prophetic and typological foreshadowings of the incarnation of the Messiah were woven into the icon schema.

Throughout the middle ages and reaching into our own times, scenes like the three youths in the fiery furnace (Daniel 3) depicted in the catacombs of Priscilla in Rome were repeated in churches in Russia and Eastern Europe where it is typical to also find the hospitality of Abraham, Jacob’s ladder and many other expressions of  Old Testament archetypes.

Three Hebrew children in the flames Priscilla catacombs-Rome

Yet, the organic bridge between Jewish and Christian iconography is barely explored. The part that illustrative painting played  in the adornment of Jewish synagogues is evidenced by a huge store of examples going back to the Talmudic period that have recently been excavated in Northern Israel. Similarly, excavations of a synagogue (erected circa 245 AD) in the city of Dura-Europos in Syria reveal a worship space filled with depictions of major figures from sacred history such as Moses, Elias (Elijah)and David, as well as lessons from Ezekiel and Daniel. These panels, stylistically influenced by Hellenic and Roman models of mythical heroes, celebrate the encounter of real persons with the presence of God. Clearly, the Christian Church inherited this tradition of artistically populating Her places of worship with images that describe past events as eternally present. In fact, the oldest known Christian paintings are probably those of a house church also found in Dura-Europos.

The objective of both Jewish and Christian art was instructive but also experiential. The Jewish Dura-Europos  murals of the infant Moses rescued from the river, his encounter with the burning bush and the Exodus more than reminded the community of its origins; they built faith and reliance on God for its survival. Beyond this, the text of these images proclaimed the promised appearance of another “Deliverer”, an archetype of Moses who would usher in an everlasting and imperishable kingdom. The same subjects in Christian iconography identify this Deliverer as Jesus of Nazareth, the Messiah of Israel.

Infant Moses rescued from the river, Dura-Europos Synagogue-Syria

Moses and the burning bush Dura-Europos Synagogue-Syria

Moses parting the Red Sea, Dura-Europos Synagogue-Syria

The painting of Samuel anointing David as King of Judea also had a messianic dimension for Jews of the Diaspora. Prophesy concerning the youngest son of Jesse, the shepherd poet, encouraged hope for restoration and salvation.

“Now therefore so shalt thou say unto my servant David, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, I took thee from the sheepcote, from following the sheep, to be ruler over my people, over Israel. And I was with thee whithersoever thou wentest, and have cut off all thine enemies out of thy sight, and have made thee a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth …  And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever (2 Samuel 7: 8-13).”

Samuel anointing David, Dura-Europos Synagogue-Syria

In response to Peter’s sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2: 40), three thousand Jews embraced Jesus as their Messiah, the Christ (The Anointed One), the fulfillment of the promise.

“Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses (Acts 2: 29-33).”

These first Christians were soon expelled from the temple in Jerusalem and their synagogues as traitors and heretics.

The mural of Ezekiel’s vision of the tombs opened and the dry bones infleshed with life again depicts the general resurrection at the last judgment. The text of the valley of dry bones (Ezekiel 37) is read annually in Orthodox Christian churches everywhere during the early hours after midnight on Pascha (Easter) morning. The reading is treated as a prophesy of Christ’s decent to Hades to free Adam (mankind) from the prison of death.

Ezekiel's vision of the valley of the dry bones Dura-Europos Synagogue-Syria

Orthodox Christians churches have more in common with the interiors of third century Jewish synagogues than with most Christian denominational places of worship today, which are mostly devoid of images. Jewish retreat from depicting the human form seems quite rapid, however, after the first few centuries of Christianity. While depictions of animals, cherubim and scenes of nature continued minimally, Jewish iconoclasm for representing persons may have been related to the enthusiasm of the Early Church for artistically proclaiming the revelation of the Word become Flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. Whether reactionary to Christian iconography or a development within Judaism toward pure symbolism and decorative script along the lines of Islam, there was a span of several centuries when the imagery of salvation was common to both Jewish and Christian places of worship.

The murals of Dura-Europos synagogue would be at home in any Orthodox Christian church.

Mary Kathryn Lowell

Sources:

Catacomb yields early Christian icons of apostles

The significance of the Dura-Europos synagogue

Synagogue architecture and interior design

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