Why did Jesus begin to be depicted on the cross only hundreds of years after his crucifixion? Foray into images into the history of early Christianity

Today it is hard to imagine a more powerful symbol of Christianity than the cross or the crucifix, apart from Jesus himself of course. But early Christians would probably have been amazed to see the many representations of them today, The Conversation reports.

First, what is the difference between a cross and a crucifix? A cross is just that, an empty cross. In the Christian representation it shows that Jesus is no longer on the cross, thus symbolizing his resurrection.

A crucifix, on the other hand, also includes the body of Jesus, to more vividly remember his sacrifice for humanity. Many Christians today wear a small crucifix or crucifix around their neck, and churches in which at least one cross is not prominently displayed are rare.

But although it is a symbol of faith, it is not only the pious who wear representations of the cross. For example, Madonna famously wore cross earrings and necklaces in the 1980s and ’90s. She provocatively said she does it because she thinks “Jesus was sexy.” The symbol is still displayed at some of the singer’s concerts.

Madonna’s 2015 concert at the Mercedes Benz Arena in Berlin (PHOTO: Rainer Jensen / AFP / Profimedia Images)

The recent ubiquity of the cross, including as a fashion symbol, means that items with it can be bought from shops labeled “Made in China”, to handmade clothing stores, to famous luxury stores that sell cross necklaces that can it ends up costing thousands of dollars.

In 2018, the famous Met Gala in New York chose “Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination” as its theme, further cementing fashion’s status as a symbol for the visual representation of Christianity.

Jennifer Lopez at the Met gala organized 6 years ago (PHOTO: Evan Agostini / Associated Press / Profimedia Images)

But the cross was not always the dominant symbol of Christianity as it is today, and it certainly would not have been worn as a fashion accessory by the early Christians. In fact, the cross began to appear in Christian art only a few centuries after the death of Jesus.

The early Christians were mocked because of Jesus’ death on the cross

Although some want to credit Emperor Constantine the Great with the wider adoption of the cross as a symbol after the 4th century, things are not that simple. To truly understand the relationship of the early Christians to the cross, we must look at the very nature of the crucifixion.

Although this was done with some variations in Classical Antiquity, it was a form of execution usually reserved for convicts who were not part of the elites of the time and were not citizens of the Roman Empire. In other words, slaves, paupers, criminals and rebels. The Romans crucified such people by the thousands, in some cases for what today we would consider minor crimes.

Although the types of crosses on which the condemned were crucified could vary, the process itself as a form of execution was brutal and painful, intended to humiliate the victims by displaying them in public, naked, and thereby reaffirm the authority of the Roman Empire over the masses.

The fact that Jesus died in such a way was a source of embarrassment for some of the early Christians. Even the apostle Paul says in Corinthians 1:23 that other Jews see the preaching of the idea that the one who died on the cross was the Messiah as “deceit” and “foolishness”.

But some have given his death on the cross a symbolic, sacrificial meaning to explain why the son of God would suffer in this way.

However, the shame associated with death by crucifixion lingered in the collective psyche for much longer. One of the most famous archaeological evidences believed to show the mocking of the Christians due to the crucifixion of Jesus was discovered in Rome and dated to the beginning of the 3rd century.

Someone scrawled a message on a wall in what was then the capital of the Roman Empire to ridicule a man named Alexamenos. He is depicted under a cross on which a man with a donkey’s head is crucified. “Alexamenos, worship the god,” is written below the image. “Graffito Alexamenos” is currently housed in the Museo Palatino in Rome.

“Graffito Alexamenos” (PHOTO: Bible Land Pictures / akg-images / Profimedia Images)

The crucifixion of Jesus began to be depicted in Christian art hundreds of years after his death

Felicity Harley-McGowan, a Yale University art historian specializing in early Christian art and the crucifixion, argues that Christians began experimenting with creating their own images around 200, about 100-150 years after they began to write about Jesus.

In some early depictions of Jesus’ crucifixion, the cross was missing entirely

According to the Yale professor, the reluctance to depict Jesus on the cross had nothing to do with any particular sensitivity to the visual arts, although early Christians seem to have been very selective in what they chose to show in their art.

The art they created usually used bucolic images to represent scenes from the Bible such as those related to salvation from death or to tell the story of Old Testament heroes such as Daniel and Abraham.

At the beginning of the 4th century, Christians began to depict passages of the Bible with death, such as the resurrection of Jairus’ daughter, but not the death of Jesus.

“It is clear that the earliest depictions of the dead in early Christian art were directed as their focus on the actions after the event,” says Professor Harley-McGowa.

These representations emphasized healing, new life, and resurrection after death. The early Christian emphasis on these themes explains in turn the slowness with which the first depictions of Jesus on the cross appeared, although historians are divided on whether it is complementary to the embarrassment of his death by crucifixion, or whether there is an in-between a causal relationship.

One of the earliest depictions of Jesus’ crucifixion dates from the early fifth century, more than 400 years after his death. He is depicted on an ivory carving believed to have formed the side of a casket or reliquary.

PHOTO: © Nicoleta Raluca Tudor | Dreamstime.com

Along with it, 3 other engravings were discovered that also depict scenes related to the death and resurrection of Jesus, experts believe that they were part of the same object. They are housed by the British Museum, which calls them the Maskell Passion Ivories, after the British priest and collector William Maskell, from whom they were purchased in 1856.

PHOTO: © Nicoleta Raluca Tudor | Dreamstime.com

As can be seen, as in the rest of early Christian art, the emphasis is on Jesus’ victory over death, without giving any hint of the violence of his crucifixion. One way in which this is done is by his appearance on the cross, but open-eyed, alive, and victorious. He contrasts sharply with Judas, depicted hanging and dead as can be to the left of the picture.

Even though discoveries made over the centuries include a magical amulet from the third century that includes an image of the crucifixion (and researchers believe that there were other such objects that associate the resurrection of Jesus in esoteric terms), the first artistic representations with Jesus on the cross begins to appear only in the 5th century and remains rare until the 6th century.

But as the number of churches built increased, crucifixes began to decorate the doors of places of worship and remained the standard image in Christianity until Martin Luther’s Protestant Reformation in the 16th century emphasized the bare cross.

As such, the cross continues to have a complex history, being used both as a symbol of individual faith and ecclesiastical power. In the United States it was appropriated by racist groups like the Ku Klux Klan for the same purpose as the Romans: to terrorize people.

But beyond these marginal manifestations, the traditions related to the history of the cross reserve for us beauty, mystery and transcendence.

2,000 years after the death of Jesus, it is the most powerful symbol of faith in his death and resurrection.

I hope you enjoyed this week’s special Easter edition of Nerd Alert. In case you are curious to read the one from last weekend as well, you can find it here: