into a secondary position as service to their own ...

[FT 12.3 (2004) 277-304] ISSN 0966-7350

Art and Archaeology as an Historical Resource for the Study of Women in Early Christianity: An Approach for Analyzing Visual Data

Janet Tulloch ABSTRACT This article examines the potential of art and archaeological remains for the study of women’ssocial history in early Christianity. Part I considers important sources for art and archaeological data; the received method and classification criteria for the discipline of early Christian art and archaeology; and the types of problems both earlier and contemporary approaches to the material remains present for scholars. Part II proposes an approach to understanding early Christian art and material culture as part of a larger ongoing social discourse in the ancient Mediterranean world where cultural representations take part in the lively social and aural culture of life lived in close proximity to others. This approach places art and archaeological evidence in the foreground and documentary sources in the background as corroborative evidence.

PartI

Introduction

Religious Studies, a discipline which grew out of the academic study of Christian theology, is predisposed toward the classical texts from the ’world’s great religions’ as its core locus of primary data. In the field of early Christianity, the study of the Christian scriptures and their canonized commentaries continues to be the loci classicus. Recently, noncanonical texts such as the Christian apocrypha and Gnostic gospels have gained respectability as part of the scholar’s inventory of available historical evidence. However, when it comes to art and artifacts as a source of historical data, I agree with historian Robin Jensen when she states that for a variety of reasons intellectual historians still’safely limit their use of ... images to mere illustration of the points made in the words on the page, thus unfortunately (and unwittingly) putting art works into a secondary position as service to their own prose’.1 The practice 1.

Robin Margaret Jensen,

2000), p. 2.

Understanding Early Christian Art, (London: Routledge,

278

Feminist

Theology

of

ordaining texts as the primary means of understanding Christian history has left the study of the early Church, as expressed in visual and material culture, to other specialists, primarily art historians and archaeologists. Historians of religions have much to thank these specialists for. They have produced a treasure trove of detailed catalogues, many with superb photographs, documenting the ancient art and artifacts of numerous sacred sites around the planet. For those working in the area of Christian origins, there is an opportunity to bring this visual database together with the literary tradition for the benefit of a more enlightened and informed scholarship. This is particularly the case for research framed by feminist concerns as acknowledged by a couple of prescient scholars more than fifteen years ago. In 1985 two historians of religion published independent treatises advocating the value of cross-disciplinary approaches to the study of women and religion. Margaret Miles advanced the use of visual art as a source of historical data in Image as Insight: Visual Understanding in Western Christianity and Secular Culture. She argued that if scholars were to adequately understand the life and worship of historical people, visual imagery must be an integral part of the material they study. While texts connected the historian with the perceptions and ideas of a handful of educated elites, visual imagery complemented this approach by offering the historian access to the social conditions of a broader spectrum of the historical community - especially its women.2 Bernadette Brooten’s article of the same year focused on new methods for feminist scholars. In ’Early Christian Women and their Cultural Context : Issues of Method in Historical Reconstruction’, Brooten detailed the profound perceptual shift required by historians when women are the subject of study. Such a focus involves a recasting of categories typically used in the construction of historical reality such as time periods, canons of art and literature, as well as a reconsideration of the criteria that constitute ’historical evidence’. First-hand accounts that typically serve as the pool of primary evidence used by historians to reconstruct historical events are problematic in this field since such records written by women are simply not available.4 As Brooten states: ’The lack of [written] sources on women is part 2. Margaret R. Miles, Image as Insight: Visual Understanding in Western Christianity and Secular Culture (Boston: Beacon Press, 1985), pp. 29-30. 3. Bernadette J. Brooten, ’Early Christian Women and their Cultural Context: Issues of Method in Historical Reconstruction’, in Adela Yarbro Collins (ed.), Feminist Perspectives on Biblical Scholarship (Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1985), pp. 65-91. 4. See Patricia Wilson-Kastner et al., A Lost Tradition: Women Writers of the Early

Tulloch Art and Archaeology as

an

Historical Resource

279

of the history of women’.In the 1980s this lack did indeed lead some scholars to study collections of early Christian art and archaeology. Feminist academics were beginning to discover that material remains (mosaics, glassware, pots, paintings, architecture etc.) revealed information about female figures not available, misrepresented or omitted in textual records6. Excited by these discoveries, Dorothy Irvin published articles on what she thought she had uncovered: archaeological proof of female priests in the early Church.7 This view saw the art and archaeology of Christian origins as prima facie evidence for the pro-female ordination debate. According to Irvin:Archeological material, such as inscriptions, frescoes and mosaics...reflect the actual practice of the early Christian community... They simply tell what was being done’.8 The idea that art and archaeology had preserved unmediated early Christian monuments as ’pure’ data that offered a replica of reality proved to be embarrassingly naive. Such claims are no truer of ancient visual and material culture than they are of ancient texts. Irvin’s theories were quickly shot down in flames. The lesson learned by Irvin’s premature attempt at interpretation of early Christian art and archaeology taught emerging feminist scholars that we needed to be better trained in the field of ancient culture and visual hermeneutics if we were going to have anything significant to say about early Christian women based on art and archaeological evidence. We also needed to become aware of our discipline’s assumptions with respect to how little early Christianity valued imagery as cognitive information. Those of us engaged in the intersection between text and art historical research have come to appreciate that each cultural form (text or image) has its own type of intellectual integrity and modes of inquiry. Church (Lantham, New York: University Press of America, 1981). 5. Brooten, ’Early Christian Women’, p. 66. 6. For problems with the literary tradition, see Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza, ’Introduction to the Tenth Anniversary Edition: Remember the Struggle’ in Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1994, 1983), pp. xx-xxii, xxvi; Elisabeth Schüssler-Fiorenza, But She Said: Feminist Practices of Interpretation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1992) , pp. 62-68; Ross Kraemer, ’Heresy as Women’sReligion: Women’sReligion as Heresy’, in Her Share of the Blessings: Women’s Religions Among Pagans, Jews, and Christians in the Greco-Roman World (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), pp. 157-73. 7. See Dorothy Irvin, Archaeology supports Women’s Ordination’, The Witness 63.2 (1980), pp. 4-8;’Ancient Art Depicts Women Clergy’, National Catholic Reporter 16 (1980), pp. 16-17; ’The Ministry of Women in the Early Church; The Archaeological Evidence’, Duke Divinity School Review 45.2 (1980), pp. 76-86. 8. As quoted in K.M. Irwin,’Archeology does not support Women’s Ordination; A Response to Dorothy Irvin’, Journal of Women and Religion 3.2 (1984), p. 39.

280

Feminist

Theology

as Jensen points out, that there is a ’subtle but definite of disparagement images by many of those who come at history through texts. This disparagement may have a philosophical or even theological basis, or it may be nearly unconscious’.9 Whatever its cause, the potential for knowledge of early Christian women through art and archaeology is too extensive to be foreclosed by earlier misunderstandings of the data. The remainder of this essay aims to clarify how art and archaeological data can be used as an historical resource for the study of women in early Christianity. Part 1 considers some important sources for the study of women in early Christian art and archaeology; how to approach visual data as a primary source; the received method and classification criteria for the discipline of Christian art and archaeology; the methods used in contemporary interpretative writing; and the types of problems both older and contemporary approaches to the material present for scholars interested in the history of women in early Christianity. Part II proposes an approach to early Christian art and archaeology as part of a larger social discourse ongoing in Mediterranean antiquity in which the products of material culture take part in the lively social atmosphere of life lived in close proximity to others. This approach is based on understanding early Christian remains within their various physical and social contexts: artistic, cultural, archaeological, and finally in relation to contemporary texts where relevant.

But we also know,

Sources for the

Study of Women in Early Christian Art and Archaeology It should be noted, by readers interested in pursuing research in this field, that none of the following sites have a section called ’Women and early Christian Art and Archaeology’. The visual remains of antiquity are spread out everywhere, as are the books that catalogue the data. The following list10 of sites will get one started but should not be considered exhaustive. While Rome is not the only city with early Christian monuments, it is the most important for third to fifth century Christian art and artifacts. Vatican Museums Holy See for the Catholic Church houses many museums, art galleries and special book collections. For early Christian art and artifacts some of the most significant collections are found in the following

The

museums:

9. 10.

Jensen, Early Christian Art, p. For addresses and

2.

telephone numbers see: Appendix A.


an

Historical Resource

281

Museo Pio Cristiano: The collection includes Christian antiquities found in the excavation of the catacombs: sarcophagi, reliefs, grave plates with inscriptions, some funerary portraits, etc. There are also a small handful of Jewish grave a.

plates. b. Museo Gregoriano Profano This museum is separated into four sections. It contains Roman sculpture from Republican and Imperial periods: sarcophagi, reliefs, art. c. Museo Sacro in the Vatican Library This museum houses many of the smaller more delicate items from early Christianity including decorated glass vessels with inscriptions, vials, glass bases and objects such as oil lamps made out of terra-cotta. Roman-Christian Catacombs and Small On-site Museums With the exception of the Jewish catacombs, most underground Roman burial sites are under the jurisdiction of the Pontifico istituto di archeologia cristiana (Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology). Since a large number of frescoes are still located in situ, a tour of open sites is absolutely mandatory. Permission for extended tours of any catacomb must be obtained through the institute. Each burial site open to the public has a small on-site museum housing artifacts found during its excavation. Visitors may also purchase guidebooks and slides at some of these smaller museums.

Jewish Catacombs

in Rome The Villa Torlonia Under the jurisdiction of the Soprintendenza archeologica di Roma, (the Office of the Archaeological Inspector for Rome) the Jewish hypogaea are found below a public park near Mussolini’s former residence in northeast Rome. Extensive documentation of the site was carried out between 1989-1991 by the Office of the Archaeological Inspector. b. The Vigna Randanini This is a smaller catacomb that has an exterior mausoleum, painted cubicula (burial rooms) and inscriptions. Photographic documentation of this site may be accessed through the International Catacomb Society, the Commissione de archeologia sacra (Commission of Sacred Archaeology) or the Soprintendenza archeologica di Roma. a.

Pontifico istituto di archeologia cristiana (Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology): Archivio fotografico (Photographic Archives) Originally located at the catacomb of Priscilla, the photographic archive is now housed at the Pontifical Institute in the heart of Rome. This archive is an extremely important resource since in some instances, the photo-

282

Feminist

Theology

graphs allow the scholar to trace back the history of restoration made to certain significant frescoes depicting women (e.g., ’Fractio Panis’ in the catacomb of Priscilla). Labeled black and white prints of frescoes from each catacomb exist in catalogues available for use by researchers. Colour slides and prints of some frescoes also exist. Copies may be purchased. Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Rome The German Archaeological Institute in Rome has more than 300,000 photographs of ancient art, many of them depicting early Christian artifacts. The institute also has its complete subject catalogue since 1956 on a computer database accessible in four different languages: German, Italian, French and English. Museo Nazionale Romano delle Terme This national collection contains many Jewish and Christian artifacts as well as Roman-pagan monuments from the Roman Republican and Imperial eras.

Early Christian Churches and Basilicas There are too many to list all of them but some of the best include: Santa Maria Maggiore, St. Pudenziana, San Clemente, SS. Giovanni e Paolo, and San Lorenzo in Lucina. As is the case with San Clemente, some of the early Christian churches have medieval basilicas built over the top of them. To find the artifacts of early Christianity, one must be prepared to venture down into the sub-basement levels of the site. At San Clemente, the adventurous scholar will also find a well-preserved first century building and artifacts dedicated to the cult of Mithras beneath the fourth century Christian church. Approaching Art as Visual Data For the period of early Christianity (0-600 CE), art historians who study western art generally classify their material through the aid of iconography or literally, ’writing [with] images’. More specifically iconography is one conventional model used by art historians for the analysis of still pictures. This approach divides the content of a visual image up into distinct elements for the purpose of identification, often resorting to contemporary texts for assistance. For example, a picture of a naked man and a naked woman holding an apple near a tree with a snake wrapped around it can be correctly identified as ’Adam and Eve in Paradise’ through the use of the iconographical approach. Key iconographical elements here would be: (1) a naked man; (2) a naked woman; (3) a tree; (4) a snake; and (5) an apple. Take away one or two of these elements and the identification of the visual image becomes less certain.


an

Historical Resource

283

In the above example, the hypothesized scene becomes a reinterpretation of the biblical story when it is rendered in an artistic medium. However this process of transformation from one medium (text) to another (the plastic arts) also produces a new historical record with its own cultural context, intellectual integrity and modes of inquiry. As an the scholar must deal with a interpreter, analyzing new’original’ docuthe ment, picture. The Genesis text of ’Adam and Eve in Paradise’ is only one of the picture’s reference points. Others include, the patron who requested the picture to be painted, the function the picture will serve, the place it is to be painted, the skill of the artist, and how well the artist knows the story. Given the level of literacy in antiquity, the artist probably never read the story. His/her knowledge of the content would have come from an oral communication, perhaps more than one. Artists who lived during the period of early Christianity in Rome did not always make images based on stories or legends. Sometimes they

painted or sculpted portraits of real individuals (e.g. funerary portraits), or of historical events (e.g. victories of emperors). Sometimes they decorated walls with floral and bird motifs based on nature, and sometimes they personified ideas (e.g. fortune), nature (e.g. four seasons) or cultural forms (e.g. cities) as people. There is no way of knowing if the artists who painted the frescoes in the Christian catacombs were Romanpagans, Roman-Christians, or both. These artists did not sign their work. Their biographies are not available to scholars. The intellectual process of working with artistic documents is not substantially different from working with textual records. Both are representations of something that happened or existed beyond the page/ visual frame. Both are subject to some degree to the understanding the author/ artist imposed on his/her subject matter. Both documents are at the same time interpretations of something else (story, idea, event) as well as’original’ products (in the sense that primary sources are unique in some way). Identification of visual elements (iconography) in a fresco or artifact can help scholars to sort visual data into categories. An identification, however, is not an analysis. For that one needs to first become familiar with the discipline of Christian art and archaeology’s system of classification. The scholar does not have to agree with this system. In fact if one is a feminist scholar, junctions for agreement will probably be rare. Nonetheless, ignorance of the received classification criteria will not lead to bliss in this instance.

Classification Criteria and Early Christian Art and Archaeology In early Christian art and archaeology, there are two institutes in Europe that effectively dominate the research and (some would argue) the inter-

284

Feminist

Theology

pretation of early

Christian visual culture. The oldest is the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology in Rome, officially founded in 1925 but with a history that dates back to 1757 when Pope Benedict XIV created a museum of Christian archaeology in the VaticanP The other major research centre for early Christian art and archaeology is the Franz Joseph Dolger Institute in Bonn, Germany. The latter institute, named after the famous early twentieth century German scholar of material culture, publishes the prestigious Jahrbuchfiir An tike und Christentum amongst others. Unlike the Pontifical Institute, it did not receive its mandate from the Vatican and its publications, as a result, place less emphasis on ecclesiastical links with the material and more on the cultural context in which early Christian remains are found. In addition to the Pontifical Institute, French, British and American academies whose affiliated scholars produce research on early Christian art and archaeology can also be found in Rome. Ultimately, it is the Pontifical Institute that is charged by the Holy See with the responsibility, care and official publication of all early Christian monuments under its jurisdiction. Archaeological reports, for

example, frequently carry a double imprint when results are published, one representing an ’outside’ school of research and one representing the Pontifical Institute. Perhaps due to the ideologically charged nature of interpretation of early Christian remains, a standard has been set up whereby the received method for categorizing the visual elements of an archaeological site or picture as ’Christian’, has been ’elevated to a principle of hermeneutical correctness’ according to historian Paul Corby Finney. This method, in Finney’s view, only allows for the identificationChristian’ by means of what he calls’symbol-specific imagery’. In other words the label of ’Christian’ for any ancient picture may only be assigned when the figure or story is clearly derived from a New Testament text. 12 Since we know artists from antiquity made art based on a variety of sources (story, idea, event), this rule seems rather prohibitive. It effectively makes all early Christian imagery an extension of the textual canon. Further, it does not allow for any non-text based imagery to be classified as’Christian’ until the post-Constantinian era (CE 337+) when, as Jensen correctly observes, art objects with ambiguous content could be identified as Christian through their placement in Christian sites, e.g., church buildFor the history of the Pontifical Institute, see Graydon Snyder, Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life before Constantine (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 1985), pp. 4-5. 12. Paul Corby Finney, The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), p. 188. Jensen echoes this same standard on p. 16 of Understanding Early Christian Art but without Finney’s critique. 11.


an

Historical Resource

285

ings, baptisteries. With the exception of funerary portraits, this standard determining the identity of pre-Constantinian Christian art denies a priori the possibility of classifying non-biblical figures (male or female) as potential images of authentic early Christians. If, however, through using the iconographical method we can eliminate the possibilities that a human-looking figure in art cannot: (1) be related to a character in a biblical story; (2) be identified as a mythological figure from a Greek or Roman pantheon; or (3) be identified as a funerary portrait, then those figures which remain, it would seem logical to assume, could possibly be representations of actual early Christians, could they not? If we subscribe to the canon of interpretation standardized by ’the fathers’ of early Christian art and archaeology: Giuseppe Marchi (1795-1860); G.B. de Rossi (1822-1894); Henri Leclercq (18691945) ; Horace Marucchi (1852-1931); and Josef Wilpert (1857-1944) to name a few, the answer, unfortunately, is a resounding: ’No!’13 Here we have the first major hurdle for scholars studying the history of women in early Christianity using Christian art and archaeology as an historical resource: an interpretative standard for identifying human figures as ’Christian’ which does not recognize the potential for nonbiblical figures to be representations of authentic early Christian people. This rule, it must be argued, has a greater negative impact on historical for

Christian women than men due to the social condition of male-driven textual evidence to reinforce the patriarchal status quo. Early Christian women, according to this status quo, neither wrote very much nor were they portrayed in art (except for a few funerary portraits) before the reign of emperor Constantine. This conclusion is very surprising how13. There is some indication that this canon is starting to break down. In a 1999 publication on the Christian catacombs in Rome prepared directly by members of the Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra for the 2000 Jubilee, one author admitted that not enough attention had been paid in past scholarship to the historical development of the monuments (i.e. archaeological context) in which Christian art is situated. See Fabrizio Bisconti, ’The History of Scholarship’, in Vincenzio F. Nicolai, Fabrizio Bisconti and Danilo Mazzoleni, The Christian Catacombs of Rome: History, Decorations, Inscriptions (trans. Cristina Carlo Stella and Lori-Ann Touchette; Regensburg: Schnell & Steinen, 1999), pp. 130-45. Bisconti’sadmission is accurate with respect to research carried out in the name of the Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology. It is not accurate however with respect to the host of research on the Roman-Christian catacombs carried out by other national academies in Rome. Despite Bisconti’sadmission, the Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra still sees publications by its members as representing’the official publication on the Christian catacombs of Rome’ as declared by its president in the introduction to the above book. Such assertions do little to ameliorate the concern over the Pontifical Institute’s reputation for interpretative bias of early Christian remains.

286

Feminist

Theology

since we know that Roman-pagan women (albeit well-to-do Romanpagan women) from the same time period both wrote and were portrayed frequently in art.14 Why then would Roman-Christian women, many of them well-to-do, not show up in art? ever

The ’Orans’ Factor. The above classification criteria prove to be especially inadequate when called upon to interpret the omnipresent figure known as the orans (a praying figure with hands raised on either side of the body) found in the Roman-Christian catacombs. Although there are both male and female figures depicted in the orans posture, almost all of the extant figures in the Roman-Christian catacombs are female. 15 With so many female orans figures extant in some of the oldest, uncontested Christian burial sites underneath Rome, an explanation had to be developed by early interpreters of Christian art to account for the ubiquitous presence of female non-biblical figures. What follows is a brief summary of the standard model used in nineteenth to early twentieth century interpretations of the orans (or the orante if we are speaking of female-specific

figures). Myth: The Female Body as ’Sign’ Acknowledging a difference of opinion among archaeologists, Henri Leclercq declared that in the opinion of his colleagues (known as the Roman schooll6), the orans symbolized the spirits of the deceased who are in the bosom of heavenly bliss praying for the salvation of those who are close to them still living on earth’ .17 According to Leclercq, this meaning is consistent for all orans that appear as single figures. Other figures, in the context of a group, express the idea of prayer more clearly by symbolizing God’s elect. The function of a group of orans is to offer intercessory prayers on behalf of others while awaiting the resurrection Woman

as

14. See Diana E.E. Kleiner and Susan B. Matheson (eds.), I Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome (New Haven: Yale University Art Gallery, 1996). 15. Up to 153 examples of this representation had been found in the catacombs at the time of the publication of the second volume of Dictionnaire d’archeologie chrétiénne et de liturgie in 1925. See H. Leclercq,’ Art des Catacombes’, in Henri Leclercq and Fernand Cabrol (eds.), Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétiénne et de liturgie vol. II (Paris: Letouzey, 1920-1953), col. 2472. For a numerical breakdown of biblically identified subjects from the pre-Constantinian era in early Christian art, see Snyder, Ante Pacem, p. 43. 16. While the Pontifico istituto di archeologia cristiana did not officially open until 1925, Guiseppe Marchi (1795-1860) and Giovanni B. de Rossi (1822-1894) are generally credited as the founders of the science of early Christian archeology. 17. Henri Leclercq, ’Orans’, in Henri Leclercq and Fernand Cabrol (eds.), Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétiénne et de liturgie vol. XII (trans. J. Tulloch; Paris: Letouzey, 1920-1953), col. 2299.

Tulloch Art and Archaeology as an Historical Resource

287

of all.18 Signore G.B. de Rossi, the scholar credited with co-founding the Roman school, believed that the oldest representations of the orante figure in the Roman catacombs depicted an abstract symbol which stood for the Church, especially when configured in relation to ’the good shepherd’ (’Ie bon Pasteur’): a male figure dressed as a shepherd holding a lamb around his neck. The view of the orans as an’allegory of the soul of the pious believer’ was also advanced by Andre Grabar (1896-1990). While Grabar was not a member of the Roman school of interpretation, his understanding of Roman art from the early Christian era is within the Christian tradition and begins, as suggested by Laurence Kant in his analysis of Grabar’s Christian Iconography, with the a priori identification of the orans not only as Christian, but dogmatically so. According to Kant, Grabar ’assumes the priority of Christian dogma [in his interpretation of the art] and seems to formulate a position that views early Christian visual images as signals that teach abstract theological ideas’.19 The phrase, ’visual images as signals’ refers to what Kant sees as Grabar’s tendency to identify the early frescoes in the catacombs as’image-signs’. In Christian Iconography Grabar explains that image-signs appeal primarily to the mind in that they correspond to ideas beyond what is represented by the image.2o Grabar considered image-signs too difficult to interpret because he thought their complex meanings had been condensed into a single visual form (e.g. fish or orans). The orans, like other image-signs, condensed multiple ideas into a simple form. For reasons that are not clear, Grabar interpreted the orans as a compact symbol of the virtue of piety referring specifically to the piety of the deceased Christian.21 The quality of pietas however, is so clearly a Roman-pagan value associated with paying the proper respect to one’s family and emperor through correct ritual and sacrifice, that this interpretation is unlikely in a Christian context.

Commentary It is probable that in examples of early Christian art in which we have a non-biblical female figure, the figure has been conflated and identified with its gesture. The phenomenon of ’female figure as sign’ is most 18. Leclercq, ’Orans’, Dictionnaire, vol. XII , col. 2300-2301. 19. Laurence H. Kant, The Interpretation of Religious Symbols in the Greco-Roman World: A case study of Early Christian Fish Symbolism (PhD dissertation, Yale University, 1993), p. 101. 20. André Grabar, Christian Iconography: A Study of its Origins (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1968), p. 8. 21. Grabar, Christian Iconography, p. 11.

288

Feminist

Theology

visible in the history of interpretative writing on the orante.22 While it may be possible that the prayer gesture of raised arms was used in art to signal a specific meaning (e.g. sacrifice of praise), past scholarship has followed the credo that every non-biblical figure23 drawn or sculpted in this position is a symbol when found in an uncontested Christian archaeological site.24 The female figure could not be, for example, a representation of an early Christian woman from a congregation who offered prayers on behalf of her community. Nor could it be a depiction of a female saint well known to an early Christian community (but now unknown to us). Both of these interpretations would ascribe authority (earthly or celestial) to real women in early Christianity. Thus we have our second major hurdle for scholars studying the history of women in early Christianity using art and archaeology as an historical resource: when in doubt, a female figure is interpreted as a symbol. Nineteenth and early twentieth century interpreters would have benefited from applying Elizabeth Clark’s analysis on the writings of the early Church Fathers to their own work. In her examination of patristic texts, Clark demonstrates the operation of an ’ideology of gender’ through which’the history of women in early Christianity has been flattened to the myth of woman’.25 James Arlandson upholds this observation in his study on women, class and society in early Christianity. Arlandson states that the existence even of prominent women’is known only through inscriptional and numismatic evidence, which almost always contradicts the literary and philosophical writings about women’.26 The concept of ideology, as Clark points out, is an important one for historians who bring a feminist framework to their research. The term is 22. A

single

. Some orante

masculine

figure

is known

as an

, orant

a

single female figure

as,

scholars, including me, use the term orans to designate a figure of either

The plural of the feminine singular term is ’orantes’. 23. To my knowledge, there have been no studies of male figures in this posture. 24. Not only are these female figures seen as symbols, they are seen as not having any power. Despite their evocative location (in many cases painted under the arch of the arcosolium directly facing the sarcophagus of the deceased), there is no suggestion of their function as an apotropaion (something capable of repelling evil) in the interpretative literature. In a culture where cult images were thought to contain the presence of the deity, it is highly unlikely that such Christian images were placed over graves to be decorative only. On the history of the power of images, see David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: sex.

Chicago University Press, 1989). 25. Elizabeth A. Clark, ’Ideology, History, and the Construction of Woman in Late Ancient Christianity’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 2.2 (1994), p. 170. 26. James Arlandson, Women, Class and Society in Early Christianity: Models from Luke-Acts (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1997), p. 35.

Tulloch Art and Archaeology

as an

Historical Resource

289

simply another word for ’worldview’ but rather encompasses an ’implied critique of power relations’.27 According to Clark, the operation of any ideology in texts functions to ’naturalize and universalize its subjects...obscur[ing] the notion that ideas and beliefs are particular and local, situated in specific times, places, and groups’. 28 The effect smoothes over differences and obscures historicity. Clark argues that the harm of gender ideology is that it insidiously renders ’meaning in the service of power’.29 In patristic literature, the operation of a gender ideology is not

most evident in the’Church Fathers exhortations to and chastisement of women, based on

nostalgia for the ideals of female behaviour in an earlier era rather than on the laws and customs pertaining to women in their own day’.3o In nineteenth, early twentieth century interpretative writing on early Christian art and archaeology, the operation of an ideology of gender3l on female figures produces the similar effect of flattening history into mythology. Female figures, especially ambiguous ones, are interpreted, in Christian contexts, as either symbols or signs. Past scholarship on female figures in early Christian art seems to dictate that female figures which do not represent specific biblical characters can only be interpreted as rhetorical constructs i.e. either personifications of abstract moral ideals such as ’piety’ or as symbols of the Christian church (i.e. ekklesia). The claim here is that there is nothing about female figures in early 27. Clark, ’Ideology’, p. 157. Concepts such as ’strategies of containment’, ’structural limitation’ and ’ideological closure’ that Clark borrows from Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press), 1981, are all characteristic features of the meaning implied in the term,

’ideology’. 28. Clark, ’Ideology’, p. 160. 29. Clark, ’Ideology’, pp. 158-59. Clark imports this definition of ideology from John B. Thompson, Ideology and Modern Culture: Critical social theory in the era of Mass Communication (Cambridge: Polity),1990. 30. Clark, ’Ideology’, p.161. 31. For a discussion of how the category of gender is understood in Christianity and Judaism in Late Antiquity, see Daniel Boyarin, ’Gender’, in Mark Taylor (ed.), Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), pp. 117-35. Boyarin suggests that at the level of a metaphysics of substance in late antique Christianity, the notion of an ideal human being as ’a universal spiritual self that is above the differences of the body and its sexuality ... seems to produce an androgen who is always gendered male’, p. 125. In contrast, Rabbinic Judaism from the same period, ’insists on a two-ness of humanity in the flesh from the very beginning [i.e. the originary human being as dual sexed, as two sexes joined in one body] from the conception by God, as it were’, p. 129. The latter view, Boyarin argues, ’portends enormous dangers for women, the dangers, precisely, of essentialism, while [the] universalism [of Christianity] seems to threaten an end to woman entirely’, see p.132.

290

Feminist

Theology

Christian art and archaeology, that can be identified as authentically ’Christian’ unless the figure refers to a character in the New Testament. This is a viewpoint that must be squarely challenged if we are to recover anything historical about women through early Christian visual data.

Contemporary Interpretations of Female Figures The following sample of publications from the literature on female figures in early Christian art from the last fifteen to twenty years is by no scientific. The selections were made for other reasons. The scholfor example, do not belong to the dominant schools of research mentioned above. Two of them are in fact North American. An examination of their research suggests three new tendencies in current interpretative models of early Christian art and archaeology. The first is that gender is considered a less important category of analysis than it was in nineteenth and early twentieth century interpretative models. For example, the tendency in two articles by the same scholar32 is to gloss over the sex of the orans, (male or female) especially if the figure has been consigned by the author to playing a purely symbolic role within a funeral chamber. In the article that examines a number of extant orans in the Roman catacombs to determine if their function is symbolic or realistic (e.g., a funerary portrait), research on those orans that do not represent the deceased is summed up in the following way: means

ars,

Il faut

plutot y voir 1’effet d’une indifference : peu importe que Fen represente un homme ou une femme, 1’essential est I’attitude d’orant et la signification quelle exprime.33 While Pierre Prigent grants that some orans figures do indeed represent the deceased, his overarching theory is that they are symbols. In earlier interpretative literature, we saw that female figures, when symbolized, were at least valued for their ability to signify positive human qualities or for representing the body of the Church as a whole. In this 1990s article, the interpreter argues for an erasure of gender as a potential link to anything that might contribute to the meaning of these figures. The second tendency is a type of reluctance among scholars who are aware of contradictions between the status and function of female fig32. Pierre Prigent,’Les orants dans l’art funéraire du christianisme ancien’, Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses lère partie 72.2 (1992), pp. 143-50; Revue d’Histoire et de Philosophie Religieuses 2ème partie 73.3 (1992), pp. 259-87. 33. Prigent, ’Les orants dans l’art funéraire’ 73.3 (1992), p. 265. Translation: It is necessary to understand the impact of indifference here. Whether the orans represents a man or a woman is of little importance; what are essential are the bearing (i.e. the iconography) of the figure and the meaning of its posture.


291

richly dressed female figures in potential serving roles) shy away from confronting these visual enigmas. For example, in a fascinating scene from a crypt in the catacomb of Callixtus a man and a woman appear to be performing a ritual of some kind. The figures are depicted on either side of a tripod table with food on it. The male figure places his hand over and above the food while the female figure raises her hands in prayer. Paul Corby Finney rightly suggests caution in interpreting this scene: ures

in early Christian art (e.g. to

The

simple but lamentable truth is this: no one (myself included) has the foggiest idea what the scene left of the central sigma is supposed to represent. The table is clearly the visual and hence symbolic center of the scene... For [Franz J.] Dolger the table was a secular object, a piece of household furniture... If (as is more likely) the table had been intended as a piece of cultic furniture, then the Vorgang involves the cultic display of bread and fish. To claim anything more than this seems to me unwise.34 However, it is remarkable that the focus of the discussion is on the status of the furniture (secular or cult table?) and not on the status or function of either figure. An absence of commentary on the female figure is particularly remarkable in light of early Christian proscriptions of women in leadership roles. Given her close proximity to the table, the female figure is clearly a co-participant in the portrayed action. The third tendency is really an old preconceived notion with a new twist. As we saw in nineteenth to early twentieth century interpretations, the unidentified female body in early Christian art is interpreted as a symbol. However, in the following example of contemporary interpretative writing, this problem becomes more insidious. Even when a female figure in a scene is identified as a specific biblical character from the New Testament, her crossover into the realm of art transforms her into a symbol in the eyes of the interpreter. On a wall in the catacomb of Callixtus, there is a scene that depicts Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman or the ’Woman at the Well’ [ Jn 4.4-42]. The interpreter of this scene reads the fresco in the following way: The Samaritan woman, or the Woman at the Well (John 4), occurs twice in our [visual] material. At Dura-Europos she simply is standing next to the well. In St. Callixtus she appears as an Orante by the well while Jesus

Finney, The Invisible God, p. 216. See also Peter Dückers, ’Agape und Irene. Die Frauengestalten der Sigmamahlszenen mit antiken Inschriften in der Katakombe der Heiligen Marcellinus und Petrus’ (Agape and Irene: The Female Figures in the Scenes of a Sigma Meal with Ancient Inscriptions in the Catacomb of the Saints Marcellinus and Petrus in Rome), Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Jahrgang 35 (1992), pp. 14767 for a similar reluctance to confront disagreements between the status and function of female figures in early Christian art. 34.

292

Feminist

Theology

points to it. The scene is the New Testament counterpart to Moses Striking the Rock. Jesus’delivers’ the woman by granting her an unusual accession to the water. After Constantine the more frequent scene was Peter Striking the Rock. Presumably the difficulty for the woman was not a great thirst. Consequently, as with Moses and Peter, it would be appropriate to see here a cultic symbol in which Jesus grants the water of life to the congregation, which could refer to baptism, the agape, or both.35 [Emphasis added] It is interesting to note that when Moses and Peter are rendered as artistic figures, they are not interpreted as cultic symbols. These males retain their identity regardless of what meaning is read into their scenes. It would seem that the woman with no identity other than’the Samaritan woman’ loses all trace of her historicity36 when represented in preConstantinian art. After Constantine however, this tendency is modified permanently. According to the above interpreter, the scene with the unnamed female disappears altogether and is replaced by one with a named male.

Commentary This glimpse at three tendencies in contemporary interpretative writing on female figures in early Christian art is discouraging. It would suggest that we are losing ground in the battle to recover the history of women in early Christianity through the use of art and archaeological data. While feminist scholars of religion such as Randi Warne draw our attention to the importance of ’sex’ and ’gender’ as critical categories of analysis in religious studies37, no one seems to be listening. Despite the explosion of scholarship in the field of women in early Christianity over the past twenty years, Ramsey MacMullen, in 1997, summarized the participation of women in early Christianity in the following way: As to the women, the churches made special provision for widows, presided over not by male officers but, to avoid scandal, by deaconesses; and there is a very occasional priestess attested, too. Otherwise, women were valued for the renunciation of their sex or of their wealth, while barred from worshipping in groups at a saints martyrium or entering to offer their prayers (they must use male intermediaries); likewise, they were forbidden to approach the altar or to teach or

preach.38

35. 36.

Snyder, Ante Pacem, p. 61. Her name, if the disciples ever knew it,

was

lost when the redactor of the

gospel of John included this story in his account of Jesus’ ministry. 37. Randi R. Warne, ’Engendering Religious Studies’, in Darlene M. Juschka (ed.), Feminism in the Study of Religion: A Reader (London: Continuum, 2001), pp.147-56. 38. Ramsey MacMullen, Christianity and Paganism in the Fourth to Eight Centuries (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997), p. 7. Given such conditions, MacMullen


an

Historical Resource

293

Despite the publication of new evidence, such limited estimations of women’s participation in early Christianity by prominent scholars has persuaded many to believe that women did not play important historical roles in the development and practice of the new faith. Challenges to the traditional interpretations of female figures in early Christian art such as Dorothy Irvin’s, as discussed at the beginning of this essay, were ignored

summarily dismissed by her critics. To date, the response to Brooten’s diversify our methods and source data has not been particusuccessful with respect to the history of women and early Christian larly or

1985 call to

material remains. The lack of response to Brooten’s call can be explained by at least two main factors. First, there is a homogenous pool of male scholars who have dominated the field of Christian art and archaeology for approximately two hundred years.39 In all this time even though a few women have published some articles on early Christian material remains, to my knowledge the question of gender imbalance or gender bias in the interpretative writing on the data has never been raised as an issued To take on either of the major research institutes in this field vis a vis the issue of gender would be a rather daunting task. Perhaps the best we can do to stir up the pot at the moment is to submit articles to gender-friendly academic journals. Secondly, the required skill sets to interpret the available data is equally daunting. By the time a North American scholar has acquired a knowledge of ancient languages, modern European languages, the histories of early Christianity and early Christian art, skills in

questions whether

women of the Roman Empire would likely have perceived the Christians as a more receptive community for their needs and desires than the traditional cults to which they were already accustomed. 39. This number is more like 450 years if one counts the publication of Antonio Bosio’s, Roma sotterranea. Opera postuma (Rome), 1632 as the beginning of published scholarship on early Christian art. 40. In 1976, an emerging academic, Alice Mulhern, published an article on the significance of the orante (female figure) in early Christian art based on her unpublished PhD dissertation. Mulhern surveyed a variety of orantes, male and female, depicted in the posture of prayer concluding that the figure of the orante is metaphorical but not necessarily ahistorical given that the gesture of the orante seems to be reserved primarily for the representation of dead persons. What puzzled her most about this ubiquitous figure was its’disappearance’ during what art historians call the ’Byzantine period’ (6th-7th century CE). According to Mulhern, scholars can come to some understanding of the meaning of the orante figure for the early Christians only if they are able to explain why this figure disappeared. See Alice Mulhern, ’L’Orante, vie et mort d’une image’, Dossiers d’Archéologie 18 (1976), pp. 34-49. While this article was not a direct challenge of the status quo, had Alice Mulhern not died a premature death, her scholarship may have gone on to take a feminist direction.

294

Feminist

Theology

archaeology and photography as well as the required theories necessary data, the willpower needed to overcome years of entrenched bias is sometimes lacking. Also, as Jensen suggests, such interdisgender ciplinary adaptability is becoming harder and harder to sustain. Therefore a model whereby feminist scholars from different disciplines working together as a team to inform and critique each other’s research as a new knowledge base is built up could be a more practical solution for the to frame the

future. The next section proposes a methodological approach for working with art and archaeological data. As stated above this approach is based on understanding early Christian remains within their various physical and social contexts: artistic, cultural, archaeological, and finally in relation to contemporary texts where relevant. Part II

Early Christian Art as a Social Discourse Perhaps because of the desire to make strong connections between early Christian art and early Christian doctrine, or perhaps because of our preoccupation with the written word, past scholarship has overlooked the degree to which early Christian art is aural in its representation. By this I mean that the art made in the environs of the Mediterranean basin in antiquity mimics the lively social interaction of life lived in close proximity to others. At a time when there were no phones, no fax machines, no email, no radio or television to transport the human voice from household to household, all forms of discourse, including news, gossip, literature, religion and philosophy, occurred out in the open. Face-to-face contact was the primary means of human communication whether it took place one-on-one or in a crowd gathered around skillful orators in the market place. Information travelling via the spoken word was so integrated into the social life of Mediterranean people that even cups and wine containers used as tableware participated in conversation through speech inscribed on their ’lips’ and ’bellies’. The simplest way antique art accomplished an auditory capacity was through the writing or inscribing of speech on commercial and household items.41 For example, in a collection of everyday varnished ware 41. For a fascinating study on the conversation inscribed in Greek tableware, see Francois Lissarrague, The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet: Images of Wine and Ritual (trans. Andrew Szegedy-Maszak; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990). For Roman tableware, see Susanna Künzl, Die Trier Spruchbecherkeramik: Dekorierte Schwarzfirnsware des 3. und 4. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. (Trier: Rheinisches Landesmuseum, 1997).


an

Historical Resource

295

from third to fourth century Roman Trier, we find white Latin letters either painted on or incised into the clay. These decorated pots and cups were primarily used for consuming wine. Predictably, many of the are of inscriptions snippets speech about drinking. Since the ancients mixed their wine with water, many of the inscriptions simply say: ’MISCE VINUM’ (mix wine) or’PARCE AQUAM’ (hold the water) if someone wanted a particularly strong drink. It is also possible in some cases to identify the speaker from the inscription. ’ACCIPE’ also written as ’EXCIPE’ or ’ESCIPE’ (accept) identifies the host speaking to his guest. The host also exhorts his guest to drink with inscriptions like: ’BIBE’ and ’POTA’ or simply accept the contents as a means to find happiness: ’ACCIPE ET UTERE FELIX’42. Sometimes it is the guest who speaks: ’SITIO’ and’ADHVC SITIO’ (I still have thirst). Some inscriptions mimic a dialogue between the cup and the drinker: ’REMPLE ME, IMPLE ME (another one, fill me) the cup says to the drinker who replies: ’REMPLE MI, IMPLE MI’ (another one for me, fill me up). There are also examples of conversations on tableware between the host and the guest: ’MISCE VIVAS’ (Guest: Give me mixed wine; Host: Cheers or May you live!). As with’MISCE VIVAS’, if there is not much space on the pot, the inscription is truncated (some words are left out). Short forms are also used: ’DA ME’ probably means ’DA MERUM’ (give unmixed wine).43 Today, hundreds of artifacts with inscribed speech on Greek and Roman pottery, grave markers, and wall paintings, many in excellent condition, can be found in museums around the world. Wherever there was social intercourse in the antique Mediterranean world, there were objects echoing the discourse. Christian art and artifacts from the Mediterranean basin also include many inscriptions, etched, inscribed and painted onto their surface. The language of the inscription varies. Latin and Greek are common as is Greek transliterated as Latin. For example, frescoes in the catacomb of SS. Marcellino e Pietro, Rome have a number of inscriptions that can be understood as speech painted onto their surface. A phrase such as ’AGAPE MISCE NOBIS’ combines a transliteration of the Greek word (AGAPE), meaning ’high esteem’ or ’good will’ in Plato’s time and’consecrated love’ by the second to third century, with the command, in 42. an

Dr Siegfried Loeschcke, Denkmäler vom Weinbau aus der Zeit der Römerherrschaft Mosel, Saar und Ruwer (Trier: Römischen Abteilung der Deutschen Weinmuseums,

1933), p. 47. 43. For a discussion of these inscriptions and others, see Matthias Bös, ’Aufschriften auf Rheinischen Trinkgefässen der Römerzeit’, Kölner Jahrbuch für Vor- und 3 (1958), pp. 20-25. Also see, Loeschcke, Denkmäler vom Weinbau, pp. Frühgeschichte, 38-58.

296

Feminist

Theology

Latin, ’mix wine for us’. Similar Latin and transliterated Greek inscriptions can be found from the same catacomb written on banquet scenes of male and female figures about to enjoy a meal.44 Inscriptions also appear in abundance on gold-leaf decorated glass with inscriptions from catacomb excavations now found in the collection of the Vatican library.45 The base of the glass typically holds the inscription, making

the letters circular and at times, difficult to read. The imperative command,’VIVAS’ (live) is a common inscription which also shows up as ’ZES’ a transliteration and abbreviated form of the Greek, ’ZESES’. The above examples suggest the importance of hospitable social interaction to the ancients. If the study of female figures made during the period of early Christianity is to be more historically accurate, then the material remains that have come down to us will need to be understood within a cultural milieu of busy social discourse in which the oral and not the written word ruled. In improving our understanding of this material, scholars need to think in terms of replacing Christian artifacts back into their various contexts: social, cultural and physical (i.e. archaeological) for the purpose of adequate comprehension and explanation.

Early Christian Art and Artifacts in their Social-cultural Contexts When reintroducing social and cultural environments to visual data, one needs to strike a balance between the dynamics of representation and the historical period. Dynamics of representation are those interpretive strategies used by an artist to transform an idea or event into two-dimensions. These strategies of course are circumscribed by the technology and art methods available to craftspeople in any given historical age. For example, since one and two-point perspective were not invented until the Renaissance, artists in antiquity did not have methods to suggest three dimensions as part of their ’tool kit’ of interpretative strategies. Except for funerary portraits and statues that monumentalized the upper classes, Roman public art (such as that found on historical reliefs and coinage) is dramatic and active. Scenes of processions, sacrifice, battles, revelry and the good works of emperors are based on the substitution of the visual word for the spoken word. Like the artist, the historian needs to think of visual data from antiquity as representations of the visual word: scenes of ongoing action as 44. See J. Tulloch, Image as Artifact: A Social-Historical Analysis of Female Figures with Cups in the Banquet Scenes from the Catacomb of SS. Marcellino e Pietro, Rome (PhD thesis:

University of Ottawa, Canada, 2001). 45. See Guy Ferrari (ed.), Charles Rufus Morey (1877-1955): The Gold-Glass Collection of the Vatican Library: With Additional Catalogues of Other Gold-Glass Collections (Citta del Vaticano: Biblioteca apostolica vaticana, 1959).


an

Historical Resource

297

social communication. Due to the rhetorical nature of antique art, events rarely presented as single scenes. Typically they occurred as ’registers’, one line of figures above another sometimes organized chronologically to tell a story. To present an event as a single two-dimensional scene or still image, as some of the early Christian art in the catacombs do, would have been a tall order for the artist accustomed to depicting a story or event in several scenes. It would have called on all his/her creative resources to transform speech and action into one effective twodimensional image. In order to do this the artist would likely have given some consideration to the following questions: were

. . . . . . . . . . . .

.

. *

At what or at whom do the figures look? Is each figure looking at the same thing? Do any of the figures look at the viewer? What sort of hand gestures are the figures making? Do the figures hold anything? What is it? Are there inscriptions in or near the scene? How are the words used? Are they descriptive text or speech? If speech, who does the speaking? Are there mythological figures present? If so, who? Or what? What time of day is it? How is time represented? Are the figures standing? Sitting? Or reclining? How is motion represented? What does the movement (imageaction) tell us? What is the relationship between the movement (image-action) and the inscriptions (speech-action)? Does the speech happen before, during, or after the image-action? How is the status of individuals represented in the image?

The answers to all these questions help determine the lines of communication, status, function, and inter-relationships between figures in art. In discussing images of wine and ritual of the Greek banquet, Francois Lissarrague concisely sums up the process of transforming the action of social discourse into two dimensions: ’ ... conversation is represented by the play of glances and gestures that convey the exchanges between the guests and their partners’.46 Answers to the above questions also help to determine if the conversation is taking place in ’ordinary’ or ’mythical’ time. Classics professor Martin Kilmer, who, for more than 30 years has studied the problem of 46. Francois Lissarrague, The Aesthetics of the Greek Banquet: Images of Wine and Ritual (trans. Andrew Szegedy-Maszak; Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990), p. 22. This quote is in reference to banquet scenes painted on the surface of a krater (a large bowl for mixing wine with water).

298

Feminist

Theology

how time is represented in Archaic, Classical Greek and Roman narrative art, suggests there are at least three modes of time which can be clearly identified and applied to a reading of an image with inscribed speech. Each mode of time implies a set of logics that flow from the chronological relationship of the conversation to the action of the scene(s). These modes are: (I) speech occurs before the implied imageaction of a scene; (II) speech occurs at the same time as the implied image-action of a scene; (III) speech occurs after the implied imageaction of a scene. Based on modes of time identified in classical Greek and Roman art, we can define’ordinary time’ as a mode represented in the image that is the same for each figure in the scene. This usually means that when the image is made, all the figures in the scene are portrayed as though they were all alive and acting’at the same time’ that is, at a congruent moment in sequential time. Second, ’mythical time’ can be defined as a mode of time which does not follow an ordinary logical time sequence. For example, in mythical time as represented in Roman funerary art, it is possible for a deceased figure to speak to a living figure depicted within the same scene or to a flesh and blood person outside the frame of the image. This mode (especially in religious art) may also be known as ritual, sacred or non-ordinary time. The above series of questions are particularly suited for visual data that have more than one figure engaged in an interaction with other figures and where inscriptions, identified as speech, appear within the boundaries of the picture plane or the sphere of image-action. However, even if the purpose of the image was to communicate a sacred story or a sacred ancient art was received within a cultural atmosportray figure, of Art understood as social whether sacred discourse, phere conviviality. or secular, would have drawn the viewer in as a participant much the same way someone who overhears an interesting comment is drawn into a conversation. Contemporary critical theorist Mieke Bal brings insight to the process of understanding historical art by suggesting that meaning in pictures is rendered to viewers as a type of visual performance. Art or artifacts are understood to perform meaning(s) not simply embed them. 47 Classics scholar Jane Harrison (1850-1928) writing about sacred Greek art and ritual almost 100 years ago argued that ancient art and ritual are both presentations of human desire to a transcendent being. ’In ritual, the thing desired, ...is acted, in art it is represented’.48 According to Harrison, 47. Mieke Bal, Reading Rembrandt: Beyond the Word-Image Opposition (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), pp. 270-71. 48. Jane Harrison, Ancient Art and Ritual (original publication 1913. This edition: Bradford-on-Avon, 1978), p. 6.


an

Historical Resource

299

it is desire that each has in common, the desire to utter, to give out a strongly felt emotion or desire by representing, by making or doing or

enriching the object or act desired’.49 The idea of art as a performative utterance fits well within the cultural acoustics of Rome in the early centuries of the Common Era. In the interest of space, we must now turn our attention to the relationships between early Christian art and the archaeological context from which much of it derives, tombs for the dead.

Early Christian Art and Artifacts in their Archaeological Context The original physical context of an ancient painting or artifact is almost as important as the object itself. The physical context assists the historian with numerous important details about the context of the object. Location, measurements, scale, dates, placement of the object if in situ, inscriptions, bones, cups, plates, frescoes, furniture, oil lamps, and so on are all important documents for understanding human activity and ideas organized around a sepulcher environment. In the sepulcher environment of the Roman catacombs, and the Mediterranean basin in general, actual speech from antiquity is everywhere present through the medium of inscriptions. This speech serves a number of functions including: the introduction of the newly deceased to the realm of the dead as spoken by his/her family members or other survivors ; requests for the protection of the deceased, again spoken by his/her family members or other survivors; as well as curses, often spoken by a grief-stricken husband, against anyone who attempts to desecrate his spouse’s place of rest. Thousands of inscriptions from the catacombs begin with an address to the spirits of the dead, D (is) M (anibus) S (acrum), including some Christian epitaphs.5o From his study of themes in ancient Greek and Latin inscriptions, Richmond Lattimore expounds on the subject of this common form of funerary address. At their clearest, the Manes are a power radiating in some undefined manner from the actual tomb of the dead man, for it is the tomb itself which is

consecrated to them; or else they are spirits, bogeys almost, who hold in their hands the fortunes of living men and can turn their underworld survival, if they have any, into pleasure or pain. At their vaguest, the Manes are any shred of substance or energy which can be carried over after death, the irreducible minimum of all possibilities of

immortality.51

49. Harrison, Ancient Art , 10. The notion of utterance in Harrison’smodel is similar to Bal’s theory of visual rhetoric as discussed in Reading Rembrandt, pp. 60-93. 50. On pagan survivals in Christian epitaphs, see Richmond Lattimore, Themes in Greek and Latin Epitaphs (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1962), pp. 301-339. 51. Lattimore, Greek and Latin Epitaphs, pp. 94-95.

300

Feminist

Theology

also emanated from the deceased to the living. By means of inscribed words, the deceased would address the passing wayfarer on existential themes including: life, death, friendship, sex and drinking.52 Thus the varieties of ancient speech available from the Roman catacombs give the historian not only the specific information on individual inscriptions but also an overall impression of how burial places were perceived by the ancients. The catacombs under Rome were clearly loci of social discourse in which the dead and the living spoke to one another in an environment where the veil between life and death was thin enough to ’utter the thing desired’ and be heard. It is wise to also consider the probability that art depicting the deceased and supernatural entities, including Christian saints, would have been perceived by Roman-Christians as also enlivened in some way either with the presence of the spirit(s) of the departed or through a Christian saint’s possession of special powers (e.g., protection or the ability to intercede on behalf of another person). Given the physical context of the tomb, a place seen as a gateway to heaven or the underworld, early Christian responses to funerary art may have ranged from attraction to fear. Figures painted on the walls of tombs may have been understood as among any of the following:

Speech

funerary portraits of the deceased; living or other deceased family members shown with the newly departed; representations of entities from supernatural realms. Some, all or none of these meanings could be mixed into a single painted burial site. It is also possible that painted human figures were simply decorations in an otherwise gloomy environment. This interpretation however is unlikely as ancient artists were typically employed by craft workshops with large inventories of abstract designs depending on what was required by the client. Regardless of the specific reaction evoked by the image, the ordinary Roman-Christian living in antiquity would have . .

.

interacted with visual artifacts at a burial site much the same way as a Roman-pagan: that is, as though the image was addressing him/her. 53 52. Lattimore, Greek and Latin Epitaphs, pp. 230-34. See also, Guntram Koch with Karol Wight, Roman Funerary Sculpture: Catalogue of the Collections (Malibu, CA: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1988), pp. 24-25. 53. On the subject of ancient viewing see David Freedberg, The Power of Images: Studies in the History and Theory of Response (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989); Jas Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: The Transformation of Art from the Pagan World to Christianity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); James A. Francis, ’How to Look at Art: Plato, Julian the Apostate, and Pierre Bourdieu


an

Historical Resource

301

archaeological site, the historian must also keep in mind the polyvalent views of gender and class differences: ’Different social classes and groups have constituted clearly distinct social spheres in their use of the arts’.54 Though rich or poor, male or female, humans who may experience a shared religious faith differ in their ability to express that faith through material ways, e.g. the cost of funerary monuments. Thus, the individual or family’s access to finances, cemetery managers, craftspeople etc. would have shaped tributes to one’s beloved. The archaeological context, therefore, can never be assumed to be homogenous. As a final consideration of context, generally speaking, one must be cautious about its use as an absolute anchor for fixing meaning. As Norman Bryson states in’Art in Context’55, the concept of context is no more of ’a given’ or ’a series of givens’ than is a written text or an artwork: both are produced by subjective processes. Instead of’context’ Bryson suggests that the word ’frame’56 might be a more appropriate term for the historian to use. It is a reminder of something one constructs, not simply something one finds.57 Considering that many early Christian inscriptions, reliquary boxes and sarcophagi are no longer found in situ, the historian is frequently in the position of having to reconstruct or frame the original physical site of a work. Context therefore should not be used as a ’legislative force’ to order the ambiguities At any

of artifacts or texts but rather as an aid that assists the scholar to position the work historically.58 The above considerations of approach are designed to bring the historian to the best understanding of visual material in early Christian art and archaeology achievable. Since it is not possible to predict which of

Explain

it All to You’. A

presentation

to

the American

Academy

of

Religion

in

Boston, 1999. Quoting David Freedberg, Francis points out that scholars who study early Christian art have forgotten that we are studying images before the time, ’the

god had departed from the image’. Quoting texts from both literate pagans and Christians from Late Antiquity, Francis demonstrates that pagan and Christian viewers alike perceived the image and its referent as collapsed, e.g. Athanasius, Bishop of Alexandria (295-373 CE), and somewhere ’between animism and art’, e.g. Emperor Julian (361-363 CE). 54. Peter H. Feist, ’History of Art and History of Culture’, in Lajos Vayer (ed.), Problemi di Metodo: Condizioni di Esistenza di una Storia dell’Arte (Bologna: International Congress of the History of Art, XXIV, 1979), p. 65. 55. Norman Bryson, ’Art in Context’, in Mieke Bal and Inge E. Boer (eds.), The Point of Theory: Practices of Cultural Analysis (New York: Continuum,1994), pp. 66-78. 56. After Jonathan D. Culler, Framing the Sign: Criticism and its Institutions (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), p. xiv. 57. Bryson, ’Art in Context’, p. 67. 58. Bryson, ’Art in Context’, p. 78.

302

Feminist

Theology

the visual data will become significant when beginning, the historian must start by casting the largest net possible. In doing so, one could apply a method that involved the following steps.

Step 1. Site visit. Step 2. Description of the specific artifact/inscription(s). Step 3. Review of all available archaeological reports on site. Step 4. Visit to relevant photo archives to review availability of other photographic documentation of site. Step 5. Review documentation of surrounding images and objects in immediate vicinity and outer perimeter of site. Step 6. Temporary separation of artifact and inscription for purpose of analysis. Step 7. Identification of iconographical elements on artifact. Step 8. Identification of elements of inscription. Step 9. Comparison of iconographical elements with similar visual data. Step 10. Comparison of inscription with similar inscriptions. (This may involve visits to other museums.) Step 11. Preliminary translation of inscription. Step 12. Summary of Findings. Step 13. Interpretation. Step 14.

Resonance with

contemporary texts?

Demonstrating this method through an example would be illustrative but beyond the scope of this article. Such examples can be found in my thesis cited earlier.

Conclusion

Despite previous setbacks in the interpretation of female figures in early Christian art and archaeology, this material remains a viable storehouse of data for the study of women in early Christianity. When freed from narrow classification criteria, gender ideology and a subservient role to the literary tradition, early Christian art and archaeology can find its own distinctive influence on historians’ understanding of the past. Unlike the early Christian literary tradition, in which women are largely invisible, misrepresented or omitted entirely, female figures in early Christian art play significant roles in the transmission of the faith. Scholars interested in pursuing research in this area will find significant challenges ahead as much work is needed to open up the field to non-art and archaeological specialists. Despite the obstacles, there has never been a better time for feminist scholars to wade into the data and come to their own conclusions. Even Fabrizio Bisconti, member and secretary of the Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra, states that’the history of


303

the art of the catacombs still needs to be written’.59 The much-needed social context that cultural and social historians can bring to Christian remains will greatly improve future efforts at interpretation. Finally, historians and their students will find themselves at the forefront of an exciting intellectual movement as the discipline of religious studies moves more confidently toward the study of material culture6° not only as a resource for understanding religious practices but also as a unique fount of cognitive knowledge.

Appendix A 61 Vatican Museums: Citta del Vaticano Tel: +39/06/69884587 Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana Citta del Vaticano Tel: +39/06/69879403 Roman-Christian catacombs with small on-site Catacombs of Priscilla Via Salaria,430 00199 Rome, Italy

museums:

Tel/Fax: +39/06/86206272 Catacomb of Callixtus Via Appia Antica, 126 00179 Rome, Italy Tel: +39/06/51301580 Catacomb of Sebastiano Via Appia Antica, 136 00179 Rome, Italy Tel: +39/06/7887035

Catacomb

of Domitilla

Via delle Sette Chiese, 282/0 00147 Rome, Italy Tel: +39 / 06 / 5110342, 06 / 5133956

59. Bisconti, ’The History of Scholarship’, p. 135. 60. See: Vivian-Lee Nyitray (ed.), ’Teaching about Material Culture in Religious Studies’, Religious Studies News: AAR edition 18.3 (2003), pp. i-xii. 61. Further information on these sites may be found on the web page for the International Catacomb Society: http://www.catacombsociety.org

Feminist

304

Theology

Jewish Catacombs in Rome: The Villa Torlonia Office of the Terza Circoscrizione Piazza delle Finanze,1 00185 Rome, Italy Tel: +39/06/488-0530 The Vigna Randanini Via Appia Pignatelli, 4

Rome, Italy Fax:

+39/ 06/ 68806897

Pontifico istituto di archeologia cristiana (Pontifical Institute of Christian Archaeology): Via Napoleone III, no. 1 00185 Rome, Italy Tel:

+39/06/4465610

Deutsches Archaologisches Institut, Rom: Via Sardegna, 79 00187 Rome, Italy Tel: +39/06/4888141 Museo Nazionale Romano delle Terme: Piazza del Cinquecentro Roma

Tel:

+39/6/4882298

Individual Early Christian Churches and Basilicas: There are too many to list all of them but some of the best include: Santa Maria Maggiore, St. Pudenziana, San Clemente, SS Giovanni e Paulo and San Lorenzo in Lucina.