Download PDF | David R. Cartlidge, J. Keith Elliot - Art and the Christian Apocrypha, Routledge, 2001.
294 Pages
ART AND TIlE CHRISTIAN APOCRYPHA
The Christian canon of scripture, known as the New Testament, excluded many of rhe church's rradirional stories abom: its origins. These apocrypha included well-known ules such as those of Lhe ox and the ass aL Lhe NativiLy, the Assumption of Lhe Virgin, and the martyrdoms of St Peter and of St PauL Ah:hough not in "[he Bible, [hese popular stories have had a powerful influence on the church's tradirions and theology) and a particularly marked eHect on visual representations of Christian belief .
This book provides a]ucid introduction to the relationship between the apocryphnJ texts etnd the paintings, mosaics etnd sculpture in which they are frequently paralleled) and which have been so signiticarn: in trans mini n,g these non-Biblical stories to generarions of churchgoers. It reveals rhe enduring power of rhe Chrisrian apocrypha in both text and ,lrc, and displays the artworks themselves in a new light. The volume conmins more than 100 photographs, and numerous extracts from the apocryphal texts.
David R. Cartlidge is 13eeson Professor Emeritus of Religion at Nlaryville College, Tennessee, USA.
J. Keith Elliott is Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism at the University of Leeds, lJK.
PREFACE
The pictorial art of the church has had such an influence on its theology and piety that it would not be inappropriate to insist that this art formed a Bible of its own, a sacred scripture which was handed down in parallel to the written Bible, the Lives of the Saints and the liturgies. When tracing the development and use of the church's images of its heroes and their significant deeds one ought to pay close attention to the role that early Christian apocrypha have played in stimulating the imagination of those patrons and their artists who decorated churches, cemeteries, homes and the texts themselves. Virtually every cycle of Christian art exhibits its parallels with the Christian apocrypha, but studies of this phenomenon are unfamiliar to those outside professional art history.1 The relationship of Christian pictorial art to texts is a subject much under discussion. The old iconographical dictum that texts are the influence which led to specific cycles of images and discrete images is undergoing considerable change and Chapter 1 addresses these issues. The old consensus tended to look to texts first and to announce that a particular text influenced the atelier or painter in such a manner that the primacy of the text was maintained.
The developing consensus is that oral traditions, texts (rhetorical arts) and the pictorial arts all interact so that all the arts demonstrate the church's 'thinking out loud' in both rhetorical and pictorial images. This monograph attempts to make available to those interested on an academic level as well as to the general reader the power and influence upon the faith of the church carried by the art of Christian apocrypha. As there are thousands of such images, this book does not pretend to be exhaustive. It should, however, be able to raise the understanding of its readers of the significance of these apocrypha both in rhetorical and pictorial forms and to lead the reader into further exploration of the 'Art of the Apocrypha' as well as into an interest in the texts. Chapters 2-6 describe and illustrate the rhetorical and pictorial representation of images and events that belong to the non-canonical stories about Jesus, his family and his earliest followers. Thus Chapter 2 focuses on Mary, the mother of Jesus, particularly her origins and early life, but also, briefly, her death. Chapters 3 and 4 are concerned with images of Christ and with episodes relating to his life, mission and destiny. Chapters 5 and 6 feature events parallel to the popular apocryphal Acts, which relate a large number of incidents involving the earliest apostles and followers of Jesus, both male (predominantly Peter, Paul, Andrew, John and Thomas) and female (the most noteworthy being Thecla).
An index of some 2,000 images displaying scenes and persons where there seem to be parallels with the apocryphal New Testament has been assembled over many years by Dr David R. Cartlidge, the Ralph W. Beeson Professor Emeritus of Religion at Maryville College, Maryville, Tennessee, USA. This is not an exhaustive index and is regularly updated and added to. Images found in that index form the basis of the descriptions and figures reproduced in the present book. The full database of that index is available on www.maryvillecollege.edu/cartlidge/homepage.htm The contents of Chapters 1-6 have been written primarily by Professor Cartlidge, who wishes to acknowledge the help received from the chairperson of the Division of Humanities, Dr Susan Schneibel, and the staff of Lamar Memorial Library (with special thanks to Mr Roger Myers) at Maryville College. Dr J. Keith Elliott, Professor of New Testament Textual Criticism in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Leeds in England, has been collaborating with Professor Cartlidge for several years. They have been present together at symposiums on Christian apocrypha in Switzerland and the USA. Professor Elliott's translations of New Testament Apocrypha have been drawn upon throughout this book. His introductory notes to these texts precede the first chapter. Both authors wish to thank Catherine Bousfield and Richard Stoneman of Routledge Ltd, for their help and advice in the preparation of this book.
INTRODUCTION
The Christian apocrypha Where parallels exist between a pictorial representation of a scene and a written form, it is tempting to assume that the artist has been inspired and influenced either directly from the literary source or indirectly from his having heard a story from a literary antecedent. This book does not wish to defend that position as a rule of thumb. Sometimes it may well be the case that the reverse is more likely. For example, illustrations of Jesus' appearance or of Paul's may precede the written descriptions of those images. It will be argued below that certain other images, the meeting of Peter and Paul in Rome, or Peter's striking the rock and its issuing of water, or the boiling in oil of St John preceded the written forms of these events.
However, where we are dealing with a sequence of illustrations and a written version of the same story, as is the case with the ubiquitous cycles of the life of Mary or of one of the Saints, it seems more likely that an artist has referred to an already existing written narrative for inspiration and guidance. One thesis in this book is that early wri tten documents would themselves have been illustrated and that those could therefore have provided exemplars and precedents for painters, mosaicists and carvers of a later time. We do not of course know what texts an artist had at his disposal or what books, illustrated or not, were available. In the West the widespread availability of Jacobus de Voragine's GGlden Legend1 makcs it likely that this collcccion of livcs of thc Saints ctnd early Christian events lies behind artistic representations of those episodes. However, most of rhe pictures with which we are concerned here come from a period much earlier Lhan the composiLioll of the G!!lrien Legtmd in (.1260. liLerary jXlrallds 1:0 anistic representations of works rhat date from the thousand years ben)fe thar time can often be located nowadays in collections of whar are commonly referred to as the Ncw Tcstamcnt Apocrypha. rn many ways this umhrella title 'The Apocryphal New Test:lment' is misleading cHld somewhat of cHl cHlachronism. The definite article implies that there is one agreed and exhausrive collection comparable to the canonical New Testament of !Vventy-seven books, or to the generally agreed conrents of orher Biblical collections, such a<; prinred editions of the Sepnugint or the latin Vulgate. The extrct-canonical Christian texts, many quite early, which may make up a published collection of 'New Tesmment Apocrypha' arc numcrous, cxtant in many diffcrcnt languagcs, oftcn appcaring in a varieTY of textual torms, lacking critical or definitive editions, and from a wide ,geographical and chronological range. In recent years rhe preferred descriprion for Lhese LexlS is 'Early ChrisLian Apocrypha'.
Modern editors must make decisions about what to include and what to exclude in such a collection. Two of the most influential printed editions of Christian apocrypha in the twentieth century were the collections originally published by Edgar Hennecke2 and by Montague Rhodes James. 3 These have been revised in recent times. 4 Other collections exist in F rench,5 Spanish6 and other languages including two very full collections in Italian, one edited by L. Moraldi,7 the other by M. Erbetta. 8 Obviously some of the earliest and most influential texts appear in all these editions, but each has different contents. Although several of these early non-canonical Christian texts were popular, were translated into different languages and seemed to have been best -sellers over several centuries these were not the books which were accorded canonical status. Quite the reverse. In many cases the church authorities expressed their disapprobation of the contents of these writings by including them in lists of books deemed unsuitable for reading. The Christian writings finally accepted by the church both East and West as its scriptures achieved canonical status in the fourth century and formed the 'New Testament'; these books had been extensively used as authoritative foundation documents for at least two centuries prior to that time. Many of the so-called New Testament Apocrypha included on the lists of censored texts have disappeared without trace; some are known only by a title found in one of the registers of books declared inappropriate for the faithful to read; some are known only from limited extracts of their contents cited in writings by the Church Fathers. Nevertheless, others have survived - some even in multiple manuscript copies dating from over several centuries. It is rather surprising that so many of these rejected texts are extant. We shall note in Chapters 2-6 an irony, namely, that details found in those relegated books often appear in iconic, pictorial, form in churches, on Christian sarcophagi and on liturgical utensils - all clearly with the church's sanction and promotion. The sheer chance of survival has meant that we sometimes possess only one recently recovered copy of a work. The Gospel of Thomas, composed probably in the second century, has survived in its entirety only in a Coptic manuscript dating from the fourth century and unearthed in 1945/6 among the codices discovered at Nag Hammadi. Similarly, the apocryphon known from antiquity as the Gospel of Peter was rediscovered, albeit only in part, by a French archaeological team working in Egypt in 188617. Those and many other early Christian texts originating from the second century onwards provided the faithful with popular reading matter. Much of their contents is unsophisticated, sensational, superstitious and magical to modern tastes. It is in that sense of 'secondary,' 'spurious' and 'derivative' that the quasi-pejorative term 'apocryphal' is applied to these non-canonical texts. (With a couple of exceptions, the word 'apocryphal' in the literal sense of 'hidden' or 'concealed' does not properly apply to these texts, as most of them do not claim to have been written clandestinely.) Despite the judgment of the ecclesiastical authorities about the status and contents of the rejected books in our 'Apocryphal New Testament,' most of the books are 'orthodox' when judged alongside the official canon. Many may seem theologically uncritical but few of these texts are deliberately unorthodox or against the mainstream party lines. Occasionally gnostic and other heresies are to be found within its pages, but full-blown gnosticism, such as is found in many of the texts found in Nag Hammadi, is not characteristic of the New Testament apocrypha. (Obviously, when speaking of those texts which were written in the first few Christian centuries, it is to be understood that we are being anachronistic in using words like 'apocryphal,' 'canonical,' 'heretical' and 'orthodox.') Throughout this book reference is made to several apocryphal texts. Extracts from these works are quoted to show parallels wi th (but not necessarily direct literary influence upon) the examples of artworks described or illustrated. The most common texts from which extracts are included or which are referred to in the chapters following are now given. These are subdivided below into their conventional, but by no means necessarily appropriate, categories of apocryphal gospels, acts, epistles and apocalypses.
Apocryphal gospels The Prolel-YlugeliurN oJJalues like ,-dl the '-lpocryphal books and many of the New Testament writings the author of the ProtCl-'angelium is unknown. The book was probably written in the second half of the second century. Nfany manuscripts survive in Creek (its original language) as well as in many e'-lrly ttc'lnslations. The ProtC1.;rmxeiilllr! W,-lS the inspiration behind other written apocrypha, most nombly the C;r;Jpei (l P.fetldo-iVlatthew (see below) and rhe GOJPe/ 0/ Ilk: Bir/!J 0/ j\1r.try. The tide by which this book is conventionally referred to is intended to shu\v that its contents precede rhe events found in rhe canonical gospels. The srory tells of the Virgin Mary's parents) Anna and Joachim, Anna's divinely encouraged pregnancy, the birth of Mary, her upbringing in the Temple, her betrothal ro Joseph, the virginn.! conception of Jesus and his birth. like many of these '-lpocryphal gospels the motive for its composition seems to hcrve been the pc-ldding ouL of sLOries l()und in Lhe Gospels of IVIanhew and Luke. The emphasis now given here ro IVIary Indicares the growing interest in her and itself created much of the later ,-md increasing devotion to Jesus' mother.
The Inlctrlcy Gospe! a/Thomas This apocryphon, cdso from the second cenLUry, tells of the childhood deeds of Jesus trom the age of five 1:0 his visit to rhe Jerusalem Temple ar rhe age of rwelve. The srories fill a perceived gap in the biography of Jesus. and show him (orren as an enfant terrible) having power over life and death and able to perform some improbable and precocious miracles. The cycle of childhood stories here was made use of in hter rewritings of the early career of Jesus.
The Gospe! of Pseudo Matthew This work, probably composed in the eighth or ninth century drew extensively on the PrGtf}l)angeiiutrl ,:l'JdtrleJ" and on b1:Fl11£).' ThGtrldJ' (although it altered and added to irs sources). This was the mai n vehicle for popularizing the contents of those earlier Gospels in rhe Wesr in Latin.
The Arabic Infancy Gospel This Christian equivalent of the Thousand and One Nights also drew heavily on the Protevangelium and Infancy Thomas, but added many stories, especially those set on the Holy Family's sojourn in Egypt.
The Armenian Infancy Gospel Like the Arabic cycle this too seems to have been based on a (now lost) Syriac archetype. That archetype may have been written in the fifth or sixth century although the Armenian version is several centuries later.
The Arundel Infancy Gospel (Arundel 404) This is one of several medieval Latin infancy gospels. It is housed in the British Library. The earlier infancy gospels are behind this apocryphon, but its distinctive description of the birth of Jesus may parallel some iconic images of the birth and it is in that context, below, that an extract from this work may be found.
The Gospel of Thomas (not to be confused with the Infancy Gospel of Thomas referred to above) This is a rare apocryphon in that it seems to refer to the ministry period - most apocryphal gospels are set at the beginning or the very end of Jesus' life. It is also unusual in that it contains very little narrative and is a collection of 114 sayings, nearly all attributed to Jesus. As a sayings document it may be compared with Q, one of the supposed sources used by Matthew and Luke. This is one of the few apocrypha which has close parallels with the canonical books - several of the logia of Jesus here are identical with, and others (but by no means all) close to, words of Jesus in the New Testament. For that reason it is one of the few apocrypha where theologians legitimately seek historical material that may have originated with Jesus. Thus some of the contents of Thomas go back to the first century although the form in which we have it now is a second-century composition. Three fragments from this Gospel were discovered in Greek (its probable original language) at the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth among the Oxyrhynchus papyri, but it was not until the discovery of the Gnostic library at Nag Hammadi that the text in its entirety became known to the scholarly world. The full text survives only in Coptic.
The Gospel of Peter This Gospel, known in modern times only from a large fragment found in 188617 and two tiny scraps discovered more recently, tells of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Despite some recent claims that this may in effect be a fifth and separate firstcentury gospel to relate Jesus' Passion, its independence of the canonical gospels is questionable. In fact it seems to have been a second-century rewriting, perhaps even a deliberately harmonizing rewriting, of the four canonical gospels. Apparent tinges of gnosticism or docetism in it probably account for the apocryphon's dismissal and its virtually complete disappearance.
The Gospel of Nicodemus This is another Passion Gospel and, like many other apocryphal texts, fills in gaps in Jesus' story. Early legends about Pilate (which are also to be found in medieval apocrypha such as the Mars Pilati and the Paradosis Pilati) are to be found here. There was a growing curiosity about the biography of Pilate, especially his end, as well as about the theological ambiguity of his role in the sentencing of Jesus. So expansions of the exiguous references to him in the first-century accounts were created. Likewise the roles of other dramatis personae in the story of the death and burial of Jesus were elaborated in this apocryphon. Such stories are to be found in the first half of the Gospel of Nicodemus known as the Acts of Pilate. The second half, usually known as the Descensus ad Inferos tells, as its name suggests, of Jesus' descent to the underworld in the period between his death and the discovery of the empty tomb. Once again a tantalizing gap in Jesus' story is filled by an ingenious elaboration of a possible interpretation of 1 Peter 3:19 in order to answer a theological problem about the status of those who had died prior to the time of Jesus' ministry. The Descensus relates Jesus' entry into Hades and his releasing of the faithful dead. This scene, often known as the Harrowing of Hell, was an extremely popular influence on artists, on the mystery plays and on theology. Both parts of the Gospel of Nicodemus go back to the fifth-sixth centuries, but the two halves are likely to have been separate stories originally before they were combined in later manuscripts where the text of one runs into the other. The dual work, the Gospel of Nicodemus, became a widely known work particularly in the medieval West.
V indicta Salvatoris The well-known legend about Veronica and her kerchief that captured the image of Christ's face gave rise to many artistic representations. The literary parallel occurs in the medieval Latin text known as the Vindicta Salvatoris, although the character Veronica (or Berenice in Greek) is to be found earlier in the Acts of Pilate where she is identified as the woman healed by Jesus of haemorrhaging.
The Dormition of Mary Although not normally classified under 'Apocryphal Gospels' the many stories about Mary's death (dormition or assumption) provide ample literary parallels to depictions of her parting. There are various stories about her death in several languages in the apocryphal tradition, but the one quoted in Chapter 2 comes from the Greek narrative The Discourse of St John the Divine concerning the Falling Asleep of the Holy Mother of God. Other extracts below include the versions attributed to Joseph of Arimathea and Pseudo-Melito. The history of the traditions and the interrelationship of the various accounts in the different languages are largely unknown. It is likely that the earliest written traditions about Mary's death are from the fourth century. These had a profound effect on Christian theology and practice in both East and West.
The Passion of Matthew This is a late martyrdom quoted below because of its references to the visions of Jesus as a 'beautiful child.' It exists primarily in Greek and Latin. Jewish-Christian Gospels These are conventionally divided into three separate texts, the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the Gospel of the Nazareans and the Gospel of the Ebionites. These titles were known in antiquity but the books themselves are lost. Recent reconstructions of some of their contents have been taken from appropriate citations found in various patristic sources, primarily Jerome, Origen, Epiphanius and Clement of Alexandria who attribute certain quotations to gospels of a Jewish-Christian character. The Gospel of the Egyptians Another lost gospel, some of whose contents are also known only from a patristic source, is the Gospel of the Egyptians. This probably flourished in the second century. A reference to a quotation found in Clement of Alexandria from the Gospel of the Egyptians is given below in the context of androgynous pictures of Jesus. The apocryphal Acts The five major Acts, those of Andrew (incorporating possibly the Acts of Andrew and Matthias), of John, of Paul, of Peter, and of Thomas are likely to have been composed in the second century. Only one (the Acts of Thomas) survives in its entirety. The others have many gaps and they have had to be reconstructed from extant fragments and from later rewritings and catholicized or expurgated versions based on the secondcentury originals. These later rewritings ensured the survival of the concluding sections of the earlier Acts because those tell of their eponymous hero's death, typically by martyrdom. Whatever doubts the church may have had about the racy narratives in the bulk of these often prolix Christianized novels, the martyrdoms were deemed not only to be inspirational and educational in a church determined to honor the memory of its founders and famous apostles but also to be of relevance at times when selfsacrifice and abstinence were virtues worthy of emulation - hence the preservation of distinctively Christian examples to serve as role models. In addition to the text of the second-century apocryphal Acts, some of the later bowdlerized versions, such as the Martyrdom of Peter attributed to Linus, the Passion of Peter and Paul by PseudoMarcellus, the Virtutes Iohannis by Pseudo-Abdias and the Acts of Andrew by Gregory of Tours, provide stories for which we have iconic parallels. Apocryphal epistles By their very nature the contents of letters (such as the alleged correspondence between Seneca and Paul) did not lend themselves to artistic parallels. Pictorial art commonly matches narratives or descriptive passages. However, the Letter of Lentulus, which contains the famous description of Jesus' face, is one of the best known apocryphalletters. This is a thirteenth-century concoction, originally written in Latin. The relevant portion of this text is quoted in Chapter 4. Another famous letter (also quoted in Chapter 4) is the so-called Letter of Christ which occurs within the account of the Abgar legend. This comes from Eusebius' Church History in Greek (and in Rufinus' translation into Latin); a Syriac version of the Abgar legend is also extant (the 'Doctrina Addai'). The relationship between the Syriac and Greek is disputed, but the original tradi tions behind these two seem to have come from the second century.
Apocryphal apocalypses There are several such apocrypha. The images and word-pictures in these written apocalypses are of a piece with a view of the world (and the other world) found in many paintings and other iconic manifestations of the medieval mentality and its preoccupations. However, citations from these texts do not occur in the pages following. Although there are, as one would expect, works of art illustrating the other world, the Last Judgment, the horrors of Hell and the like - all themes that are to be found in these apocryphal apocalypses - these do not seem to have unique parallels with the Christian apocrypha. Instead their inspiration, insofar as it can be paralleled with literary sources, may be traced to Jewish apocalyptic writings or the Book of Revelation. Milton and (especially) Dante did draw on these apocryphal writings for their poems, but a direct influence on art is more difficult to define. The Questions of Bartholomew Often classed as an apocalypse is the Questions of Bartholomew, the form of which is a dialogue between Bartholomew and the risen Christ. It deals inter alia with the descent of Jesus to Hades. (It is included below in the section on the Resurrection in Chapter 4). The main text is in Greek (its original language) and Latin. A Slavonic version also exists. The earliest form seems to have originated between the second and sixth centuries.
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