The depiction of Jesus in pictorial form dates back to early Christian art and architecture, as aniconism in Christianity was rejected within the ante-Nicene period.Philip Schaff commenting on Irenaeus, wrote, 'This censure of images as a Gnostic peculiarity, and as a heathenish corruption, should be noted'. Footnote 300 on Contr. Her. .I.XXV.6. ANFSynod of Elvira, 'Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration', AD 306, Canon 36Kitzinger, Ernst, "The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm", Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 8, (1954), pp. 83–150, Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University, JSTOR It took several centuries to reach a conventional standardized form for his physical appearance, which has subsequently remained largely stable since that time. Most images of Jesus have in common a number of traits which are now almost universally associated with Jesus, although variants are seen.
The conventional image of a fully bearded Jesus with long hair emerged around AD 300, but did not become established until the 6th century in Eastern Christianity, and much later in the West. It has always had the advantage of being easily recognizable, and distinguishing Jesus from other figures shown around him, which the use of a cruciform halo also achieves. Earlier images were much more varied.
Images of Jesus tend to show ethnic characteristics similar to those of the culture in which the image has been created. Beliefs that certain images are historically authentic, or have acquired an authoritative status from Church tradition, remain powerful among some of the faithful, in Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism, Anglicanism, and Roman Catholicism. The Shroud of Turin is now the best-known example, though the Image of Edessa and the Veil of Veronica were better known in medieval times.
The representation of Jesus was controversial in the early period; the regional Synod of Elvira in Spain in 306 states in its 36th canon that no images should be in churches.Lisa Maurice, Screening Divinity, Edinburgh University Press, Scotland, 2019, p. 30 Later, in the Eastern church, Byzantine iconoclasm banned and destroyed images of Christ for a period, before they returned in full strength. In the 16th-century Protestant Reformation, the followers of John Calvin in particular saw images of Christ as idolatrous and enforced their removal.Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy, Harvard University Press, USA, 2017, p. 185 Due to their understanding of the second of the Ten Commandments, most Evangelical Protestants still avoid displaying representations of Jesus in their places of worship.Cameron J. Anderson, The Faithful Artist: A Vision for Evangelicalism and the Arts, InterVarsity Press, USA, 2016, p. 124Doug Jones, Sound of Worship, Taylor & Francis, Abingdon-on-Thames, 2013, p. 90
Early Christianity Before Constantine
Except for Jesus wearing tzitzit—the tassels on a tallit—in Matthew 14:36Matthew 14:36 and Luke 8:43–44,Luke 8:43–44 there is no physical description of Jesus contained in any of the canonical Gospels. In the Acts of the Apostles, Jesus is said to have manifested as a "light from heaven" that temporarily blinded the Apostle Paul, but no specific form is given. In the Book of Revelation there is a vision the author had of "someone like a Son of Man" in spirit form: "dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head were white like wool, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like burnt bronze glowing in a furnace (...) His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance" (Revelation 1:12–16, NIV). Use in art of the Revelation description of Jesus has generally been restricted to illustrations of the book itself, and nothing in the scripture confirms the spiritual form's resemblance to the physical form Jesus took in his life on Earth.
In the first-century AD, many Jews understood Exodus 20:4–6 ("Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image") as a proscription against any depiction of humans or animals. Consequently, no figure art was produced for, or by, the Jewish communities in Judea and Galilee during Jesus' lifetime, or in the decades that followed. But attitudes towards the interpretation of this Commandment changed through the centuries, and by the third century, some Jewish communities were producing figure art. The frescos decorating the interior of Dura-Europos synagogue (c. 240 AD) depict many scenes from the Tanakh. They are the earliest-known examples of Jewish figure art.Harold W. Attridge, Gohei Hata, et al. Eusebius, Christianity, and Judaism. Wayne, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1992. pp. 283–284.
During the persecution of Christians under the Roman Empire, Christian art was necessarily furtive and ambiguous, and there was hostility to idols in a group still with a large component of members with Jewish origins, surrounded by, and polemicising against, sophisticated pagan images of gods. Irenaeus (d. c. 202), Clement of Alexandria (d. 215), and Lactantius (c. 240–c. 320) disapproved of portrayals in images of Jesus. Eusebius of Caesaria, in his 4th century work The History of the Church, makes reference to a statue of Jesus that existed in the city of Caesaria, erected before his time, purportedly near the house of the Haemorrhoissa as a memorial to Jesus's having healed her affliction, around the base of which was "a certain strange plant, which climbs up to the hem of the brazen cloak, and is a remedy for all kinds of diseases." However it is also noted that Eusebius himself did not approve of such images and depictions of Christ, considering them to be idolatrous.
The 36th canon of the non-ecumenical Synod of Elvira in 306 AD reads, "It has been decreed that no pictures be had in the churches, and that which is worshipped or adored be not painted on the walls",English translation found at Catholic University of America, accessed 5 September 2012 which has been interpreted by John Calvin and other Protestants as an interdiction of the making of images of Christ.John Calvin Institutes of the Christian Religion Book 1, Chapter V. Section 6. The issue remained the subject of controversy until the end of the 4th century.Hellemo, pp. 3–6, and Cartlidge and Elliott, 61 (Eusebius quotation) and passim. Clement approved the use of symbolic pictograms.
The earliest surviving Christian art comes from the late 2nd to early 4th centuries on the walls of tombs belonging, most likely, to wealthyThe Second Church: Popular Christianity A.D. 200–400 by Ramsay MacMullen, The Society of Biblical Literature, 2009 Christians in the catacombs of Rome, although from literary evidence there may well have been panel icons which, like almost all classical painting, have disappeared.
Initially Jesus was represented indirectly by pictogram symbols such as the ichthys (fish), the peacock, or an anchor (the Labarum or Chi-Rho was a later development). The staurogram seems to have been a very early representation of the crucified Jesus within the sacred texts. Later personified symbols were used, including Jonah, whose three days in the belly of the whale pre-figured the interval between Christ's death and resurrection; Daniel in the lion's den; or Orpheus charming the animals.Orpheus as a symbol for David was already found in hellenized Jewish art. Hall, 66 The image of "The Good Shepherd", a beardless youth in pastoral scenes collecting sheep, was the most common of these images, and was probably not understood as a portrait of the historical Jesus at this period.Syndicus, 21–3 It continues the classical Kriophoros ("ram-bearer" figure), and in some cases may also represent the Shepherd of Hermas, a popular Christian literary work of the 2nd century.Cartlidge and Elliott, 53–55. See also The Two Faces of Jesus by Robin M. Jensen, Bible Review, 17.8, October 2002, and Understanding Early Christian Art by Robin M. Jensen, Routledge, 2000
Among the earliest depictions clearly intended to directly represent Jesus himself are many showing him as a baby, usually held by his mother, especially in the Adoration of the Magi, seen as the first theophany, or display of the incarnate Christ to the world at large.Hall, 70–71 The oldest known portrait of Jesus, found in Syria and dated to about 235, shows him as a beardless young man of authoritative and dignified bearing. He is depicted with close-cropped hair and wearing a tunic and pallium—the common male dress for much of Greco-Roman society, and similar to that found in the figure art in the Dura-Europos Synagogue.
The appearance of Jesus had some theological implications. While some Christians thought Jesus should have the beautiful appearance of a young classical hero,Zanker, 299 and the Gnostics tended to think he could change his appearance at will, for which they cited the Meeting at Emmaus as evidence,Every, George; Christian Mythology, p. 65, Hamlyn 1988 (1970 1st edn.) others including the Church Fathers Justin (d. 165) and Tertullian (d. 220) believed, following Isaiah 53:2, that Christ's appearance was unremarkable:Syndicus, 92 "he had no form nor comeliness, that we should look upon him, nor beauty that we should delight in him." But when the pagan Celsus ridiculed the Christian religion for having an ugly God in about 180, Origen (d. 248) cited Psalm 45:3: "Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, mighty one, with thy beauty and fairness".Cartlidge and Elliott, 53 – this is Psalm 44 in the Latin Vulgate; English bible translations prefer "glory" and "majesty" Later the emphasis of leading Christian thinkers changed; Jerome (d. 420) and Augustine of Hippo (d. 430) argued that Jesus must have been ideally beautiful in face and body. For Augustine he was "beautiful as a child, beautiful on earth, beautiful in heaven."
From the 3rd century onwards, the first narrative scenes from the Life of Christ to be clearly seen are the Baptism of Christ, painted in a catacomb in about 200,Schiller, I 132. The image comes from the crypt of Lucina in the Catacombs_of_San_Callisto. There are a number of other 3rd-century images. and the miracle of the Raising of Lazarus,Painted over 40 times in the catacombs of Rome, from the early 3rd century on, and also on sarcophagii. As with the Baptism, some early examples are from Gaul. Schiller, I, 181 both of which can be clearly identified by the inclusion of the dove of the Holy Spirit in Baptisms, and the vertical, shroud-wrapped body of Lazarus. Other scenes remain ambiguous—an agape feast may be intended as a Last Supper, but before the development of a recognised physical appearance for Christ, and attributes such as the halo, it is impossible to tell, as tituli or captions are rarely used. There are some surviving scenes from Christ's Works of about 235 from the Dura Europos church on the Persian frontier of the Empire. During the 4th century a much greater number of scenes came to be depicted,Syndicus, 94–95 usually showing Christ as youthful, beardless and with short hair that does not reach his shoulders, although there is considerable variation.Syndicus, 92–93,