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1192 Sacred images in our churches and homes are intended to awaken and nourish our faith in the mystery of Christ. Through the icon of Christ and his works of salvation, it is he whom we adore. Through sacred images of the holy Mother of God, of the angels and of the saints, we venerate the persons represented.
Note: In her on-line article, she left out the first statement from this Catholic paragraph, starting, "Sacred images in our . . . ".
Representation of the divine plays a fundamental role in the construction of all faiths, whether that materialization manifests itself in elaborate displays or through deliberate non-representation. The power of iconography is crucial in the power of Catholic worship, and the history of the church is generally identified by its defense of icons and construction of ornate shrines and cathedrals. However, in the late second century, the Christian Church was characterized by its complete lack of devotional objects in favor of full concentration on the power of Scripture. The nature of the Church shifted dramatically in the third and fourth centuries as the process of Christianization necessitated an exchange between the cultural systems of Roman society and the belief structures of the Christian Church.
When converts flooded the Church during the fourth century, they brought their cultural practices with them. As a result, the Church assimilated rituals and objects commonly associated with paganism into Christian worship. Pagan rituals revolved around materiality and physicality which allowed individuals to experience their beliefs and connect with the divine. The tangibility of the sacred through devotional objects demystified the connection to the divine making the unintelligible intelligible. Christianity had to adapt in order to satisfy these societal needs. The extent to which pagan practices directly influenced Christianity cannot be measured. Nevertheless, it is clear that the rituals and iconography of the Church became more elaborate and complex following the influx of a large portion of society into the Church in the fourth century.
The early Christian Church’s success depended on its successful assimilation of the material cultural associated with religious practice. One particular type of object exists in the threshold between the pagan and Christian worlds, providing a concrete metaphor for the nature of conversion and Roman Christianization: statues of Isis renewed as the Virgin Mary. Popular imagery of Isis was integrated into the new Church in several ways.
First, some statues themselves were physically converted and reused as icons of the Virgin Mary.
Additionally, conventional iconography of the Egyptian goddess may have been adopted in the production of new works in order to portray the nature of Mary.
Isis was commonly depicted seated holding the infant Horus, which could have easily been translated into the Virgin Mary cradling Jesus as a child. Later images of Isis typically portrayed the goddess alone, standing shrouded in fabric and often holding a sistrum. Apuleius described such statues in the Golden Ass, in which suppliants clothed, bathed, and fed the goddess and where new converts were costumed in her image. With the addition of some fabric and the extraction of Egyptian details, the “Mother of the Universe” would have stood visibly and clearly converted into the “Mother of God”.
As the first mystery cult based on salvation introduced into the Roman Empire, the cult of Isis may have ideologically set the stage for the success of Christianity. Although the speculation of parallels between the cult of Isis and Christianity is extensive, historical records can only tenuously substantiate the cult’s influence on the Early Church. Nevertheless, the conversion of a pagan devotional object into a Christian icon raises important questions about the nature of conversion, its societal implications, and the future of Christianity’s relationship to iconography.
The process through which a deity is physically manufactured by human agents through earthly materials remains a topic of great importance. How does one attribute divine properties to an object which has been clearly designed and realized by human hands. Lynn Meskell notes that in ancient Egypt sculptors were not considered secular artisans but existed rather as both priest and technician (Meskell, 105). Statues, like that of Isis, would have been constructed as vessels for divine power. Although the works were clearly recognized as images, the social networks into which they were embedded mobilized their spiritual efficacy. “Standing in for their prototypes”, Egyptian idols became indispensable loci for the performance of religious practice. The role of the manufacturer and the spiritual identity of the object become even more convoluted in the case of a statue of Isis which has been appropriated for Christian worship. In some sense this provides a true mystical notion of sacredness to the object since its sanctity predates Christianity. The statue is so far removed from the initial circumstance of production and the identity of the manufacturer is so obscure that its earthly origins become inconsequential or even overlooked.
The physical origins of a sacred object are generally problematic from an ideological standpoint. In what sense an object is considered sacred is particularly complicated when analyzing an object which has been converted from idol to icon. Clearly, the shift in context from paganism to Christianity would have had a profound effect on the identity and meaning of a statue. The social networks which mobilize the sanctity of an object, in specific moments and places, determine its nature and efficacy (Meskell, 115). By this rationale, a devotional object should seemingly be able to transition between religious frameworks if, the beliefs of those using it and the manner in which it is employed, create its meaning per moment. However, it is necessary to then question to what extent such an object can be divorced from its history and whether the implications of its present can undo its past. The distinction between icons and idols remains incredibly vague, and the issue continues to be problematic for the Catholic Church. A smooth transition from idolatry to the use of icons for meditation was impossible during the early phases of Christianization. The face of religion had changed but the beliefs which accompanied these objects and rituals inevitably carried over into the new faith. The religious world of antiquity maintained its character only “under new management” (MacMullen, 122). The parallels between Isis and Mary illustrate how the continuity of materiality may have eased societal conversion but complicated true spiritual conversion for individuals.
According to Gell, Catholics continue to practice “de facto idolatry” even by utilizing icons in order to achieve understanding of the divine (135). It is impossible to ascertain to what degree the mystery cult of Isis influenced the early Christian beliefs and worship. Nevertheless, the use of Isis as a model for arguably the most important Christian icon outside the Holy Trinity carries important implications for the nature of the Church after the unbridled success of Christianization following the late fourth century. The use of Isis in Christian iconography serves as a recognition of the deity’s sanctity. This may validate the sacred nature of Isis or it may be seen as an effort to dominate and overwrite the influential spiritual movement. The Church’s long history of iconoclasm and struggle with idolatry may be symptomatic of the indistinctive nature of icons and idols. Still, the integration of pagan objects like statues of Isis in early Christian worship may lie at the root of this unresolved issue.
References:
Gell, Alfred. Art and Agency. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1998.
Meskell, Lynn. Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt. New York, NY: Berg Oxford International Publishers, 2004.
MacMullen, Ramsay. Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eighth Centuries. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997.
Thank you!
Michael Ceschini
{ Can you please help me respond to this claim from “Isis and the Virgin Mary"? }
Eric replied:
Michael,
You quoted Alfred Gell who said in the article by Ms Baker:
The essence of idolatry is that it permits real physical interactions to take place between persons and divinities.
Alfred Gell (1998: 135)
This would make the Incarnation idolatrous, since God became man and permitted real physical interactions to take place between men and God.
If you don't believe in the Incarnation, you are not an orthodox Christian and aren't worth bothering with, IMHO.
The Incarnation is the basis for the veneration of images. God has united matter with divinity. And so we now approach God through matter legitimately.
First of all, it is not true that the pre-Constantinian Church did not have images.
The primitive Christians were studious to represent a variety of subjects selected from Holy Scripture, or allusive to their religion, upon the walls of those subterranean oratories to which they were accustomed to resort in times of persecution. These paintings still remain visible at the present day, and it is demonstrated that some of them are the productions of the second century. These ancient paintings triumphantly refute the assertions of Protestants that no pictures or images were allowed in the churches for the first three centuries; and that they were first introduced by Paulinus and his contemporaries, privately and by degrees, in the latter end of the fourth century.
That Christians from the very beginning adorned their catacombs with paintings of Christ, of the saints, of scenes from the Bible and allegorical groups is too obvious and too well known for it to be necessary to insist upon the fact. The catacombs are the cradle of all Christian art. Since their discovery in the sixteenth century—on 31 May, 1578, an accident revealed part of the catacomb in the Via Salaria—and the investigation of their contents that has gone on steadily ever since, we are able to reconstruct an exact idea of the paintings that adorned them. That the first Christians had any sort of prejudice against images, pictures, or statues is a myth (defended amongst others by Erasmus) that has been abundantly dispelled by all students of Christian archaeology. The idea that they must have feared the danger of idolatry among their new converts is disproved in the simplest way by the pictures, even statues, that remain from the first centuries. Even the Jewish Christians had no reason to be prejudiced against pictures, as we have seen; still less had the Gentile communities any such feeling. They accepted the art of their time and used it, as well as a poor and persecuted community could, to express their religious ideas. Roman pagan cemeteries and Jewish catacombs already showed the way; Christians followed these examples with natural modifications. From the second half of the first century to the time of Constantine they buried their dead and celebrated their rites in these underground chambers. The old pagan sarcophagi had been carved with figures of gods, garlands of flowers, and symbolic ornament; pagan cemeteries, rooms, and temples had been painted with scenes from mythology. The Christian sarcophagi were ornamented with indifferent or symbolic designs—palms, peacocks, vines, with the chi-rho monogram (long before Constantine), with bas-reliefs of Christ as the Good Shepherd, or seated between figures of saints, and sometimes, as in the famous one, of Julius Bassus with elaborate scenes from the New Testament. And the catacombs were covered with paintings. There are other decorations such as garlands, ribands, stars landscapes, vines-no doubt in many cases having a symbolic meaning.
One sees with some surprise motives from mythology now employed in a Christian sense (Psyche, Eros winged Victories, Orpheus), and evidently used as a type of our Lord. Certain scenes from the Old Testament that have an evident application to His Life and Church recur constantly:
Daniel in the lions’ den,
Noah and his ark,
Samson carrying away the gates Jonas, and
Moses striking the rock.
Scenes from the New Testament are very common too:
the Nativity and arrival of the Wise Men,
our Lord’s Baptism,
the miracle of the loaves and fishes,
the marriage feast at Cana,
Lazarus, and
Christ teaching the Apostles.
There are also purely typical figures, the woman praying with uplifted hands representing the Church, harts drinking from a fountain that springs from a chi-rho monogram, and sheep. And there are especially pictures of Christ as the Good Shepherd, as lawgiver, as a child in His mother’s arms, of His Head alone in a circle, of our Lady alone, of St. Peter and St. Paul—pictures that are not scenes of historic events, but, like the statues in our modern churches, just memorials of Christ and His saints.
In the catacombs there is little that can be described as sculpture; there are few statues for a very simple reason. Statues are much more difficult to make, and cost much more than wall-paintings. But there was no principle against them. Eusebius describes very ancient statues at Caesarea Philippi representing Christ and the woman He healed there (Church History VII.18; Matthew 9:20-22). The earliest sarcophagi had bas-reliefs. As soon as the Church came out of the catacombs, became richer, and had no fear of persecution, the same people who had painted their caves began to make statues of the same subjects. The famous statue of the Good Shepherd in the Lateran Museum was made as early as the beginning of the third century, the statues of Hippolytus and of St. Peter date from the end of the same century. The principle was quite simple. The first Christians were accustomed to see statues of emperors, of pagan gods and heroes, as well as pagan wall-paintings. So, they made paintings of their religion, and, as soon as they could afford them, statues of their Lord and of their heroes, without the remotest fear or suspicion of idolatry.
The idea that the Church of the first centuries was in any way prejudiced against pictures and statues is the most impossible fiction.
Note one subtle admission made by your interlocutor. She said:
"Although the speculation of parallels between the cult of Isis and Christianity is extensive, historical records can only tenuously substantiate the cult’s influence on the Early Church."
In other words, most of what he or she says is just speculative, dressed up with a few authoritative quotations to shore up its legitimacy. But let's suppose it's true.
May I ask, what difference it makes today?
We can trace central Catholic beliefs back before Constantine, so it's not like the adoption of pagan culture corrupted Catholic doctrine. No Catholic today even remotely thinks of Isis or Horus when they look at images of the Virgin Mary and Jesus. God looks at the heart, and those who adore Jesus and venerate Mary under images that are rooted in a pagan past are still adoring Jesus and venerating Mary, not Isis or Horus.
What difference does it make that 1,500 years ago such images had a pagan past?
Suppose the argument, then, is that we venerate Mary only because Isis was popular in the Roman empire (which is somewhat dubious, as she was an Egyptian goddess, not a Roman one). This, too, I can refute:
The famous troparion Sub tuum praesidium, with its origin in an Alexandrian context, was “found” at the beginning of the twentieth century in an Egyptian papyrus dating from the end of the third century. Because of its great antiquity, it is noteworthy for a number of reasons: from the perspective of worship because it is a collective invocation, liturgical in origin, that shows us the custom on the part of the Christian community of turning directly to Mary to seek her aid in the hour of trouble (“Despise not our petitions in our necessities, but deliver us always from all dangers”); from the perspective of doctrine because it recognizes the divine (Theotokos, “God-bearer”) and virginal (“O pure one”) motherhood of Mary, who was specially chosen by God (“O blessed one”), and her merciful and powerful intercession (“We fly to thy patronage . . . deliver us”).
The Sub tuum praesidium, because of its great antiquity, its dense content, and its grief-stricken supplication, has become a part of nearly all liturgies and is considered to be “the oldest prayer to the Virgin.”
Calabuig, Ignazio M., “The Liturgical Cult of Mary in the East and West,” in Liturgical Time and Space, ed. by Anscar J. Chupungco, translated by David Cotter, Handbook for Liturgical Studies (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2000), V, 232
The dedication of a church to the Virgin is an important expression of Marian piety, of a sort that is especially liturgical. In the era before the Council of Nicea, the patriarch Theonas(† 307) built a church in Alexandria that very soon came to be called “The Church of Saint Mary”; in so doing, the Virgin came to be identified with the church building named in her honor.
Prior to the church in Alexandria there were two “buildings” in the area of Palestine dedicated, respectively, to the mystery of the incarnation and the transitus of the Virgin. The first is at Nazareth, the place of the annunciation of Gabriel to Mary, where excavations done in 1955 and later have brought to light a real Judeo-Christian church, the Marian character of which is attested to by two graffiti dating from the second or third century. These provide moving testimony of pilgrims traveling to Nazareth to venerate the Virgin and to seek her protection. The second is in Jerusalem, where archeological researches done since 1972 and the study of material taken from the Transitus Virginis lead one to conclude that the sacred kiosk called the “Tomb of Mary” witnesses to the existence of a Jewish Christian worship site, certainly dating from the era prior to Nicea, which had a Marian character and was connected to the memory of the end of the earthly life of the mother of Jesus.
In the fourth century, after long-standing rivalry, that part of the Church, which was Gentile in origin, overtook that which was of Jewish origin, and the latter disappeared almost completely. This fact made certain that the texts with a Jewish Christian origin would be viewed with suspicion. Among these were important documents about the earthly life of Mary. Thus expressions of piety that came from her own family circle were neglected, although “they (evinced|revealed) a profound esteem for her, in a way that was really familial.”
Calabuig, Ignazio M., “The Liturgical Cult of Mary in the East and West,” in Liturgical Time and Space, ed. by Anscar J. Chupungco, trans. by David Cotter, Handbook for Liturgical Studies (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2000), V, 231–32
Consequently, Marian devotion in the Church pre-dates the Constantinian era and the influx of pagans.
Marian doctrine also predates Constantine:
Just as Eve, by disobeying, became the cause of death for herself and the whole human race, so Mary, betrothed to a predestined man and yet a virgin, by obeying, became the cause of salvation for herself and the whole human race. . . . What was bound, could not be untied without a reversal of the process of entanglement. The first bonds had to be untied by the second, so that the second might set free the first. And, in fact, this is what happened: the first entanglement was untied by the second bond, the second bond playing the role of loosener of the first. This is why the Lord said that the first would be last and the last first (cf. Matthew 19:30; 20:16). And the prophet made the same point when he said:
‘Instead of fathers, sons shall be born to you.’ (Psalm 44:17)
For the Lord, born as ‘the first-born from the dead’ (Colossians 1:18), took to His bosom the ancient ‘fathers’ and regenerated them into the life of God. He became the beginning of those who live, as Adam had been the beginning of those who die. St. Luke, therefore, begins his genealogy with the Lord and then takes it back to Adam, thereby showing that it was not the fathers who gave life to the Lord but the Lord who gave them rebirth in the Gospel of Life. Similarly, the knot of Eve’s disobedience was untied through the obedience of Mary. For what the virgin Eve tied through unbelief, the Virgin Mary set free through faith.
