Earliest Depictions of Jesus in Art

hi this is matt baker today we're going to look at some of the earliest depictions of jesus over the last 2000 years jesus has been depicted in many different ways but as i'm sure you know nowadays he's usually depicted as a gentle looking european with long hair and a beard like in this famous 1940 painting of jesus by warner solomon of course jesus wasn't european though he was from the middle east so in recent years there have been attempts by several different artists to show what jesus really looked like such as this anthropological reconstruction by richard neve or this a photo realistic image by boss uderwick well another way to figure out what jesus might have looked like would be to go back as far as we can to see how he was depicted in art in the first few centuries following his death so that's what we're going to do in this video i'm going to be showing you 10 of the earliest images we have of jesus and i'll be doing it in the form of a countdown [Music] okay let's now look at some of the earliest depictions of jesus in art i'm going to start with an image that can be found here this is the saint catherine's monastery located in egypt near the mountain that is traditionally considered to be mount sinai this is also the monastery where the codex sinaiticus was found which i discussed in my video about the oldest bible manuscripts however i mention it now because it also houses this image considered to be one of the oldest byzantine icons still in existence dating to around 550 ce now if you know anything about the history of the byzantine empire aka the eastern roman empire you'll know that icons were a source of great controversy basically an icon is a religious image used for worship in the early medieval period there were some byzantine christians who felt that icons should be used and others who felt that they should not be used well during most of the 700s into the early 800s those who felt that they should not be used held sway and therefore during those years many of the oldest images of jesus were destroyed however this particular one survived because it was located in egypt which by that time was controlled by muslims now let me point out two things about this particular depiction of jesus first it is in a style known as the christ pantokrater which to this day is quite frequently used in eastern orthodox churches some of its main features include a halo with a cross in it a new testament in jesus's left hand and his right hand making a very specific gesture that represents the letters i c x c which stands for jesus christ secondly this particular christ pantocrator is unique in that there's something special going on with jesus's face at first glance the eyes look a bit weird and you might have assumed that the artist was simply not that good but the reason why the face looks a bit strange is that the artist actually painted two different faces this becomes clear if you mirror each side the reason for this probably has to do with the artist's attempt to symbolize jesus's supposed dual nature okay the next image we're going to look at is located in the israeli town of shivta which is actually not too far from the saint catherine's monastery it too comes from a byzantine site and dates to around 5 50. but as we're about to see it is quite a bit different for one thing the image is no longer in very good shape the church it is located in now lies in ruins and although the site was investigated in the 1930s it was only in 2018 that this image was noticed here's what it looks like if you can't see much i don't blame you let me zoom out a bit and add some lines so two things stand out right away one is that this jesus does not have a beard and two he appears to have short curly hair instead of long straight hair so although this image was created around the same time as the previous one it represents a very different way of depicting jesus one that we will see more of the further back in time we go a good example is the next image i want to show you which is over 100 years older and comes from the mausoleum of gala placa dia in ravina italy gala placidia was the daughter of emperor theodosius the first who was the emperor that made christianity the official religion of the roman empire this isn't actually her mausoleum or burial place though rather it is a chapel that she had built during her lifetime luckily it is very well preserved over the north entrance is this colorful mosaic of jesus as the good shepherd a theme that comes from the gospel of john chapter 10. once again note the curly hair and lack of a beard next i want to show you another image from the same time period roughly 425 ce this is a carving from the doors of santa sabina basilica in rome which is the headquarters of the dominican order of catholic friars what makes this image particularly important is that it is the oldest known image of jesus on the cross the other two individuals being the two thieves that jesus was traditionally said to be crucified alongside here jesus once again has a beard which goes to show that during the 5th and 6th centuries there was still some variation when it came to how jesus was depicted let's now move from the 5th century to the 4th century i.

e the 300s ce most of the images from this century as well as any that are even older are located in catacombs catacombs are underground burial places and in ancient rome there were many of these it is often said that early christians used these catacombs to worship in secret for fear of being persecuted however generally speaking this is not actually true most of the catacombs were used by early christians as well catacombs a place to bury the dead but what's useful for our purposes is that catacombs were often decorated and because they were located underground and eventually forgotten many of the decorations survived longer than those that were located above ground take for example this next image from the catacombs of camadilla here we have what's likely the oldest surviving image of a bearded jesus dating to around 375 ce what's interesting about this 1650 year old image is that it's not too far off from the average image of jesus we see today the two symbols on each side of his halo are an alpha and an omega the first and last letters of the greek alphabet often used by early christians to represent the belief that jesus has existed for all eternity but take away that halo and the two letters and we're still left with an image that most people today would easily identify as being jesus however this is not going to be the case for the images that are even older than this one this is because originally jesus was always depicted without a beard and as we're about to see he usually just looks like a typical roman from the time of the roman empire take for example this image from the catacombs of marcellinus and peter here we see a woman depicted as touching the edge of jesus's garment a story that comes from mark chapter 5. according to the story the woman was healed automatically as soon as she touched jesus's clothes but what's important to notice is that he is depicted as looking very roman short haircut no beard and look what he's wearing a tunic with stripes over the shoulders something that in roman society was very common and indicated a person of authority he's also wearing a mantel on top of his tunic which take note is different from a toga the mantle was actually the more common garment at the time it was basically just a sheet that wrapped around a person and served as a simple coat what's notable about jesus's mantle though is that it has a visible tassel which is what the woman is touching this is likely a depiction of a tzitzit a ritual fringe that jews wear to this very day so note that jesus's jewishness is indicated not by the color of his skin or by his facial features but by something that he is wearing the rest of the images we're going to look at all come from the 3rd century i.