Two Fourth-Century Sarcophagi Misinterpreted

Christological, Not Trinitarian

by

Steven Bigham

The Thesis

The question is whether or not the Catholic worldview—as it relates to anthropomorphic images of God, God the Father, the Holy Spirit and the Trinity—influenced the discoverers of the sarcophagi studied here—the Dogmatic Sarcophagus and the Sarcophagus of the Trinity-Spouses—in interpreting the images as Trinitarian. The answer defended here is “yes.” We hope to show that the “classical” Trinitarian interpretation of the images is not correct, and, in fact, their proper interpretation is Christological and not Trinitarian: the seated, bearded man is Christ the Ancient of Days, not God the Father, surrounded by Peter and Paul along with images of the historical Christ thrown back into scenes of the Creation. Those scholars who have rejected the Trinitarian interpretation have rightly done so noting that the first three-man images of the Trinity did not appear until the 12th century. The same logic leads to the conclusion that the seated figure is not God the Father. The Christological interpretation solves both theological and art historical difficulties associated with these images.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction	8

II. The Problem	8

III. The Dogma of the Image	9

IV. Christian Images as a Theological Art	11

V. Is There a “View from Nowhere”?	13

VI. The Christological Interpretation of the Three-Man Trinity on Two 4th-Century Sarcophagi	14

VII. Ockham’s Razor	20

Annex 1 - What Others Say about the Trinitarian Interpretation of the Sarcophagi	22

Present-Day Media Sources	22

Dated Sources	24

Annex 2 - Inventory of PaleoChristian Sarcophagi with Divine Figures	41

IMAGES	70

Fig1 The Dogmatic Sarcophagus, Vatican Museum, Rome, 325–350.1 “The ‘Dogmatic’ Sarcophagus This large sarcophagus, created by an eminent figure in the Roman Church, buried in St. Paul’s Basilica around 340, is a masterpiece of Early Christian art. Its name originates from the three figures involved in the Creation of Eve (the scene at the top left), in which it is suggested that the first depiction of the divine Trinity may be recognized; more generally, the iconographic structure seems to reflect the doctrinal climate that followed the Council of Nicaea in 325, which resulted in the first formulation of the Trinitarian ‘Creed.’” The Vatican Museums: https://m.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani-mobile/en/collezioni/musei/museo-pio-cristiano/sarcofagi-_a-doppio-registro/sarcofago-_dogmatico.html . Vaticano-The “Dogmatic Sarcophagus” in the Vatican Museums https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5TBkuRcKp4

Fig1.1 A Zoom on Fig1, the Upper-Left-Hand Section, the Dogmatic Sarcophagus, Vatican Museum, Rome, 325–350.

Fig2 The Sarcophagus of the Trinity-Spouses, Museum of the Antiquities, Arles, France, 325–350.2 This sarcophagus was unearthed in Trinquetaille, a section of Arles, France, in 1974, while men were doing road work. It was found in one piece with human remains inside. Its image of the Creation of Adam and Eve was immediately compared to a similar one on the Dogmatic Sarcophagus and interpreted as another anthropomorphic representation of the Trinity. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Arles-Mus%C3%A9e-Sarcophage-La_trinit%C3%A9.jpg

Fig2.1 A Zoom on Fig2, Creation of Adam and Eve, the Upper-Left-Hand Corner.

Fig2.2 A Zoom on Fig2, Adam and Eve Receiving Their Tasks after the Fall, the Middle of the Lid.

Fig2.3 A Zoom on Fig2, Cain and Abel Offering the Sacrifices to the Lord, the Right End of the Lid.

I. Introduction

The first sarcophagus (F1) was discovered in Rome, 1838, and the second (F2) in Arles, France, 1974; both, especially the first one, have been interpreted as showing the first, direct, anthropomorphic images of the Trinity. In examining the two zooms of the upper-left-hand sections of the sarcophagi (F1.1, F2.1 and F2.2), it is not difficult to see why that interpretation was made. As for Sarcophagus1 (F1), the three figures, one sitting in front of two small humans—Adam and Eve, she who was taken from the Adam’s rib—seem almost obvious. Sarcophagus 2 (F2) created a slight problem because, instead of three figures, there were four. It was not as easy to blend four figures into a Trinity, but due to the similarity between the two sarcophagi, the problem did not seem unsurmountable at the time. So the “traditional” interpretation, that of two anthropomorphic representations of the Trinity, has been maintained. It is true that some scholars have contested the Trinitarian interpretation, questioning whether the “man” behind the enthroned figure could really be the Holy Spirit, but no one has questioned the identity of the seated figure. He is God the Father, “obviously.”

II. The Problem

First of all, the very notion of portraying God the Father and the Holy Spirit in anthropomorphic images has always been for me a source of unease. In Christian antiquity, Trinitarian representations have always been symbolic up to about the year 1000: a hand from the sky (F3) or a chair throne in a Hetimasia image (F4) represented the Father; a dove (F4) or tongues of fire (F5), the Holy Spirit.

Secondly, I am anchored in the orthodox, patristic vision of God’s essential invisibility and, therefore, his unrepresentability. This vision was dogmatically expressed by the 7th Ecumenical Council, Nicaea II, 787, and buttressed by the doctors of the icon—Sts. John of Damascus, Theodore Studite and Nicephorus of Constantinople: the only possible iconic—portrait—image of God is that of the incarnate Logos-Son of God the Father, Jesus Christ: one that shows the Second Person of the Trinity in the visible aspects of his human nature. No other image of God is legitimate. Direct, anthropomorphic images of the Father, the Holy Spirit or the Trinity are, according to the dogma of the image, iconographic heresies. It is not difficult, then, to understand my unease on seeing two sculpted sarcophagus images, dated from 325 to 350, interpreted as anthropomorphic images of the Trinity.

Up until the present, my unease remained “on the back burner,” but I have recently decided to examine the question more deeply and to determine whether the “classical” interpretation, that of the first anthropomorphic images of the Trinity, is correct or not. The accepted explanation seems at first obvious. The three figures in front of a small, sleeping Adam from whom the Creator has taken a rib to form a little Eve easily lend themselves to the “natural” interpretation: the Creator Trinity models man—male and female—from the earth. If this interpretation of the two sarcophagi is correct, then these scenes are indeed the first, anthropomorphic images of the Trinity.

Some might say, “OK, so what is the fuss? We have known such Trinitarian images for centuries. Now two precursors have popped up from the early 4th century. Maybe more will be found. So we rewrite the history of Christian art, at least that of the images of God, and move on. No big deal.”

It is, however, a big deal because we are dealing with the dogma of the image defined by an Ecumenical Council, Nicaea II, which is recognized as authoritative for both the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches. In addition, the interpretation of the two carved scenes brings to light a major ecumenical problem: the self-understanding of each Church in relation to the other, a major problem in the dialogues undertaken to heal the schism between the Christian East and West, Catholic and Orthodox. It may not be obvious how similar stone carvings on two early 4th‑century sarcophagi could have such far-reaching importance, but I hope to show why this is so.

Each Church sees itself united to the faith of the apostles in two different ways: the Roman Catholic Church, by loyalty to the papacy and the interpretations of the apostolic deposit that the Pope infallibly proclaims; the Orthodox Church, by loyalty to the faith of the apostles as unfailingly made explicit by the ecumenical councils and the tradition of the fathers. The question of the possibility of creating an image of the Trinity, of God the Father and/or the Holy Spirit, is one of the highest dogmatic importance. Who has remained faithful to the faith of the apostles? Those who accept the decision of Pope Benedict XIV to allow such images but not to encourage them, or those who accept the decision of Nicaea II that the only possible image of God is that of the incarnate Son Logos Jesus Christ? The rest of this article will show the author’s point of view.

III. The Dogma3 The dogma of the image cannot be seen as just the final declaration of the Council of Nicaea II, the horos, although that text obviously is part of the official teaching. St. John of Damascus—before Nicaea II—and Sts. Theodore the Studite, Nicephorus of Constantinople—after it—along with the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, which was issued after the restoration of images in 843, have all contributed to elaborating the dogma of the image. One of its facets, like a diamond, is the proper interpretation of the 2nd commandment prohibiting any material, artificial image of God as well as how that commandment was partially modified when the invisible Logos himself became visible as man, therefore, allowing his representation in an image. After all, the first iconoclastic attack dealt precisely with the 2nd commandment: Making an artificial image of Jesus, being both God and man, was a violation of the commandment because such an image would be an “image of God,” prohibited by the 2nd commandment. For this study, we use the phrase “dogma of the image” both narrowly to refer to the proper way to make an image of God, but also broadly, with reference to other facets of the orthodox vision of the image. of the Image

When speaking about the so-called Trinitarian images on the Dogmatic Sarcophagus and other such Christian representations, we are in the domain of what I believe to be the Church’s dogma of the image, a dogma accepted by the Orthodox Church and, in theory, by the Roman Catholic Church as well. And as with any other Christian dogma, when talking about the subject it dealt with, we are bound to take into account the Church’s vision of the matter as defined by an Ecumenical Council. No serious theologian would speak about the Trinity, for example, and neglect the definition of the Nicaea I, 325, which states that orthodox Christians must speak in terms of one essence (ousia) and three Persons (hypostaseis). Or, in dealing with Christology, anyone who refused or neglected to see in Jesus, one (hypostasis) and two natures (physeis) would be considered to be outside the limits of orthodox Christianity.

The same is true for im4 S. Bigham, The Iconoclastic Attacks Against Images and Iconodule Answers, part 1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwk12ZPZ4Kg ages. The ecumenical Church, both East and West, defined the way God can and cannot be represented in an image as well as the vocabulary necessary to speak about those images. After all, that was the basic question in the Iconoclastic Controversy, 730–843: What is the proper, orthodox, way of representing God in an image? In short, the Doctors of the image—Sts. John of Damascus, Theodore Studite and Nicephoros of Constantinople—and the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Nicaea II 787, said that the only permissible image of God is that of the incarnate Son Logos of God the Father, and this on the basis of the incarnation. He who was invisible and without any possible created image before the incarnation became visible as the historical Jesus, and, therefore, being fully man, he could be represented according to the visible aspects of his full humanity. However, since the Father and the Holy Spirit remained unincarnate, they could not be represented iconographically since they have no visible aspects. They can only be represented symbolically, a hand coming out of a cloud, an empty throne, etc., or a dove, tongues of fire, etc.

It is a basic assumption that dogmas do not create or define something NEW. As for the incarnation, Christians have always believed that “the fullness of divinity dwelt in him,” (Jn 1:14) and other New Testament statements express the same belief. What the Council of Nicaea I, for example, did was to fashion a new vocabulary and way of speaking—in response to Arius’s statements that the Son Logos, and therefore, Jesus, was a creature and not fully God. The Council countered Arius by refining and restating the Apostolic faith as contained in the New Testament.

The same process stands behind the dogma of the image. Interpreting the 2nd commandment as prohibiting idolatrous images, but not all images, and affirming the long-standing practice and tradition of making iconic images of the persons of Jesus, the saints and the angels, but only symbolic images of the Trinity, the Father and the Holy Spirit, the Fathers of the Council, along with the Doctors of the image, established the vocabulary and way of speaking about images, about the unspoken tradition of the Church since the Apostles: the only acceptable image of God is one of the incarnate Son Logos, Jesus, and that right-believing Christians give worship, latreia, to God alone but can give veneration, proskynesis, to honorable and respectable objects and persons, including created images.

IV. Christian Images as a Theological Art

One of the presuppositions underlying the Christian artistic tradition and the dogma of the image is the following: images, at least for the first millennium of the Christian history, showed forth the Church’s theological vision, and this is true for Western and well as Eastern Christianity. If this is true, then Nicaea II did not create a new doctrine or practice but only codified what had been the previously unexpressed and unwritten practice and belief about images. So now we come to the interpretation of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus and other images supposedly of the Trinity, the Father, or the Holy Spirit, not as symbols, but as anthropomorphic, iconic images of their Persons.

If we place the so-called image of the Trinity found on the Dogmatic Sarcophagus in the context of the dogma of the image, we run up against an artistic problem: there are no securely identifiable iconic images of the Trinity as three men during the first 1,000 years of the Church’s history. If we accept the traditional interpretation of the three-man image of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus, we run into the problem of explaining why, during a short period 330 to 400, Christians made very explicit images of the Trinity, why those images disappeared for the next several centuries and why they surfaced “again” in the medieval, Latin West where they took root and flourished. As far as I have been able to determine, none of the authors I have noted have given a satisfactory answer to this problem. Many, however, have noted it.

Following the art history problem, we have the theological context. Let us assume—I say assume, but art historians do agree—that there were no three-man images of the Trinity, leaving aside for the moment the Dogmatic Sarcophagus, etc., anywhere in the Christian East or West. Is there a reason for that, or is it just accidental? Obviously, the point of view expressed here claims that there was a theological reason for it, a reason which was expressed by Nicaea II, but which had remained basically unexpressed up to that time: no iconic images of the Trinity, the Father or the Holy Spirit are possible because there is nothing visible about them to be painted; therefore, the only possible images of God are those of the incarnate Son Logos, Jesus. If we bracket the images of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus, etc., we can see that the theological vision of Nicaea II had indeed been adhered to, without knowing it, during the first millennium, both East and West. At least, there are no images to contradict this assertion. A three-man images of the Trinity in the years 325–350 would have been in sharp contrast with the art and theological vision in which they appeared.

As we see from Christian art, all through the first 1,000 years of Christian history, images were an expression of a Christological, theological point of view. Jesus the Christ appears everywhere, in different forms, according to his age or context: images of Old Testament events, of the New Testament events and of eschatological events. It is Jesus, in various forms, that we see represented. The most obvious element or sign used to identify Jesus is a cross in the halo around his head, though this does not appear in all early images; other signs or characteristics indicate that he is being represented. In medieval images of the Creation, even on cathedrals such as Rouen (F9, F9.1, F9.2, F9.3, F9.4, F9.5, F9.6, F9.7)5 Louise Pillion, Les portails latéraux de la cathédrale de Rouen, Paris, Librairie Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1907, pp. 165 ff. https://archive.org/details/portailslateraux00lefr/page/n5/mode/2up?view=theater , Reims, Chartres (F10, F10.1, F10.2, F10.3, F10.4, F10.5, F10.6)6 Étienne Houvet, Cathédrale de Chartres, Chelles: Faucheux, 1919. https://archive.org/details/cathdraledech02houv/page/25/mode/1up etc., it is Jesus the Son Logos who is represented as the Creator. Although everyone recognizes that the Creation is a Trinitarian act—the Father orders, the Son executes and the Holy Spirit perfects and sanctifies—the actual “doer” is the Son Logos, and so it is he who is shown in the Creation images of medieval cathedrals, Bible illuminations (F11, F12, F13, F14), mosaics, etc. Is not his exclusive presence a manifestation of the dogma of the image? We claim that it is indeed the case.

How, some may ask, is it possible to show Jesus in Creation scenes when “Jesus” had not become incarnate until, let us say, the year 1? Another theological principle that underlies the dogmatic and artistic vision of the first half of Christian history is that the theophanies of the Old Testament, where God speaks or makes himself visible, are manifestations of the Son Logos, Jesus in the incarnation. Christians East and West shared the vision that “and these very Scriptures speak about me!” (Jn 5:39) The Father in the Spirit acted through his Word. So when God appeared to Moses and spoke to him, who in fact did Moses hear? It was God the Word, the Son Logos, who said to Moses in answer to Moses’s question, “Who shall I say you are?” The answer came back, “I am the Existing one” or in Greek O Ω N. And these are precisely the letters found in Jesus’s cruciform halo. That is not an accident. The Church put those letters there precisely to affirm the theological vision that the One who spoke to Moses and this Jesus are the same Person, the divine Son Logos. So then, using the only possible image of God, that of Jesus, the Church, through her artists, projected the image of the Incarnate One back into the anthropomorphic manifestations of God in Old Testament, interpreting them as prefigurations of the incarnation.

On the basis of the preceding, what can we say, then, of the traditional interpretation of the three-man image on the Dogmatic Sarcophagus? We say that a Trinitarian interpretation of the three men is an impossibility on the basis of the theological worldview in which Christians and Christian artists lived during the first 1,000 years of Church history, both East and West. Some scholars have rejected the Trinitarian interpretation precisely on those grounds, and they are right. However, even though these scholars have reinterpreted the three-man image in various was, nearly all of them have kept God the Father as the real Creator, giving a secondary place to the Son Logos. But if we set that interpretation into the worldview of Christians of the time, we see that an anthropomorphic image of the Father is equally impossible. Christology, and not Trinitarian theology, is the key to the problem of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus image, and other such images.

V. Is There a “View from Nowhere”? 7 Thomas Nagel, The View From Nowhere, Oxford University Press, 1986.

There is a philosophical and scientific debate going on about whether it is possible to examine something, anything, from a totally objective point of view, that is, a “view from nowhere.” Some say, “yes”; some say, “no.” Those who say “no” claim that everything humans observe and interpret is done from within a worldview based on certain principles and assumptions which may or may not be acknowledged. Whether humans can observe and interpret phenomena from ABSOLUTELY nowhere, outside of all worldviews, is the question, but in most areas, the human ability to give meaning to a thing most definitely takes place from within a worldview. I personally lean toward the “no” side where there is no such thing as objectivity. What saves us from total subjectivity in scholarly and scientific research, in my view, is critical thinking. Even though we all view things from some point of view, we can, nonetheless, apply our critical minds to questions and seek answers from within our acknowledged “bubble.”

This principle of “no view from nowhere” is quite clearly at work in the question of the interpretation of the images on the two sarcophagi. What was the worldview of those who discovered the sarcophagi and proclaimed them to be the first anthropomorphic images of the Trinity? Sarcophagus 1 (F1) was discovered in Rome, 1838, and Sarcophagus 2 (F2), in Arles, France, 1974. The images in the upper-left-hand-corners were interpreted in the light of a Roman Catholic, and even to an extent Protestant, view of Christian art that, for nearly 1,000 years, had become familiar and accustomed to anthropomorphic images of God the Father, of even the Holy Spirit—to a lesser degree—and of the Trinity. (F6) Although in the medieval Roman Catholic world, such images were contested from within, Pope Benedict XIV settled the question once and for all in 1745 when he decided, reluctantly, to approve anthropomorphic images of God the Father—permitting but not recommending or encouraging them. The Holy Spirit continued to be represented by a dove, for the most part.8 François Boespflug, Dieu dans l’art. Sollicitudini nostrae de Benoît XIV (1745) et l’affaire Crescence de Kaufbeuren, Paris, Cerf, (coll. Histoire), 1984.

It is not difficult to imagine how Roman Catholic and other exegetes, on seeing the 1838 sarcophagus in Rome, naturally leaned toward a Trinitarian interpretation. Seeing the Holy Spirit represented as a man behind God the Father, though unusual, could be explained by the fact that such images were produced at the beginning of the Christian artistic tradition and therefore could be seen as an unsuccessful experiment. The discovery of the second sarcophagus in 1974, being so similar to the one found 1838—both probably from the same workshop in Rome—simply confirmed the correctness of the Trinitarian interpretation. The fact that there were four figures in the 1974 sarcophagus was not an insurmountable obstacle to seeing the three other figures as the Trinity. These images were, therefore, proclaimed, even still today, to be the first anthropomorphic images of the Trinity in Christian history.

However, if those sarcophagi are taken out of the 2nd-millennial, medieval, Western, Latin worldview on the question and placed in the worldview of the people who created them, it will be obvious that the traditional, Trinitarian interpretation, as we have said above, would have been impossible. The conclusion is obvious. The interpreters of these images in the 19th and 20th centuries are guilty of a very basic methodological error: interpreting something from the past in terms of present-day standards. They simply misinterpreted the images.

So, having said that the traditional, Trinitarian interpretation is erroneous, I now have the task of reinterpreting the images in terms, as I claim, of the ambiance, worldview, context and atmosphere in which the sarcophagus images were produced.

VI. The Christological Interpretation of the Three-Man Trinity on Two 4th-Century Sarcophagi

Earlier in this study, we noted that those who reject the traditional Trinitarian interpretation of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus and of the Sarcophagus of the Trinity‑Spouses did so because the first undeniable example of such an image dates to 1180, Strasburg (F6). A three-man Trinitarian image from 325 to 350, 800 years before the uncontested phenomenon appeared, is simply not credible. This is even more true when we realize that the theological mindset for the first thousand years of Christian history, in both the East and West, was strongly Christological, seeing the theophanies of the Old Testament as manifestations of the pre-incarnate Logos who would subsequently become the historical Jesus of Nazareth. They were and are, therefore, perfectly correct to reject the Trinitarian interpretation of these sarcophagi. All divine figures on the sarcophagi are therefore to be seen as one or another form of the divine Logos Christ.

It is well known in paleoChristian art that Jesus was represented in various forms, some of which are due to stylistic considerations: beardless youth vs. adult bearded Semitic man. Other differences, however, are due to the fact that the incarnate Logos was born and grew to adulthood as any other human being. He therefore passed through various stages from Emmanuel, the baby Jesus, through his appearance as a 12-year-old boy in Jerusalem with the doctors in the Temple to mature manhood in the gospel texts. So it is not surprising then that in the early centuries, when Jesus’s typical characteristics had not yet been codified in what today we call the icon, there was great variety in his representation.

In this study, however, we are not so concerned with “stylistic” variations as with those reflecting theological expressions. So we see Mary and the baby Jesus receiving the Wisemen. The mother-and-child image was one of the first to simply state that the Logos had become a child. That was sufficient, at the time, to proclaim the incarnation. We also see Jesus—young or mature, “beautiful” or rugged, bearded or unbearded—represented in scenes from the New Testament while he performed various miracles. These representations do not create theological problems even though the Church will eventually reject the youthful Greek image for the more rugged, Semitic model, and this is based on the need to represent Jesus in a way that most clearly reflects the historical reality. He was in fact an adult, Jewish man and not an adolescent Greek.

The theological problems arise when we have clear images of the historical Jesus, beardless, in situations that are not historical events of the New Testament: the Creation of Adam and Eve. Putting the “historical” Jesus—a “beautiful,” adolescent Greek—into a “non-historical” scene is explained by the Christological theological worldview of Christians at the time. Prefiguring the decision of Nicaea II, ancient Christians could only represent God (the Word) as the incarnate Logos, Jesus of Nazareth, so they retrojected the New Testament image of Jesus into the Creation event. His image of an adult man is also projected into images of Revelations.

What is to be said about the bearded man seated on the throne, identified by many as God the Father? It is a rather strange doctrine of the Trinity if only two Persons of that Trinity are shown. Rejecting a Trinitarian interpretation solves one problem, but maintaining a “paternal” interpretation causes another, or rather two: no images of the Father exist before the Western Middle Ages, and God, the Trinity of three Persons, represented by only two of the three seems unbalanced to say nothing of a possible iconographic heresy. The Christological interpretation, however, eliminates the problems.

We must ask, however: How is the enthroned, bearded man a representation of Christ? Here we get into the problem behind all representations of God the Father as shown in medieval and later images of the Trinity and in illustration of Old Testament events. The classical justification for images of God the Father is founded on an interpretation of the Ancient of Days in Daniel. (Dn 7:9-22)

Who is the Ancient of Days? He is seated on a throne and has features of an old man. He is “obviously,” according to some, a manifestation of God the Father who receives the One-like-a-son-of-man clearly identified as Jesus the Son of Man. On the basis of this “paternal” interpretation of the Ancient of Days, all images of the Father are theologically justified since what has become visible can be represented in images. Therefore, any image of an old, bearded man sitting on a throne is seen to be the Ancient of Days and, receiving before him One‑like-a-son-of-man, he is God the Father.

According to this interpretation, divine theophanies in the Old Testament are not solely of the Logos, but can sometimes be God the Father, sometimes God the Holy Spirit, sometimes the Trinity. Those who accept this interpretation stand on the opinion of St. Augustine of Hippo who did not follow the Christological interpretation of Old Testament theophanies. The Latin West eventually accepted Augustine’s interpretation, abandoning the Christological consensus patrum and Nicaea II’s dogma of the image, and began producing direct images of the Father and the Trinity.

We will not here go into the argumentation against the “paternal” interpretation of the Ancient of Days which has already been presented in The Image of God the Father and Who Is the Ancient of Days?9 S. Bigham, Smashwords ebook platform, 2023. After biblical, patristics, liturgical and artistic investigations, the conclusion of that study is that the Ancient of Days is in fact the eschatological Judge who is none other, according to the Scriptures, than Christ the Lord at the Second Coming. The two figures—the Ancient of Days receiving the One-like-a-son-of-man—are not therefore two different Persons of the Trinity, but two manifestations of the Logos: the Ancient of Days as the Christ in Glory, the eschatological Judge, and the One-like-a-son-of-man is Christ in his humble, earthly, incarnation who receives from the Ancient of Days the eternal Kingdom. We have therefore a double representation of one divine Person of the Trinity and not two distinct Persons. This Christological interpretation of Daniel’s vision preserves not only the consensum patrum that Old Testament theophanies are of the Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity, but also the image dogma of Nicaea II: the only possible image of God is that of the incarnate Word, Jesus the Christ.

The bearded figure on the throne in the two aforementioned sarcophagi is not God the Father but Christ the Ancient of Days, the eschatological Judge of Revelations/pre-eternal, pre-incarnational Logos accompanied by another image of the historical Jesus thrown back into the Creation scene. Although there is nothing in the images themselves or in patristic literature that overtly supports this interpretation, subsequent images in Christian history will in fact show Jesus as the Ancient of Days along with other images of him, often as Emmanuel (F24). So we have on the sarcophagi, a double manifestation of the Logos involved in the Creation of Adam and Eve or with Cain and Abel.

What of the two images of the Christ Logos side by side on the Trinity-Spouses Sarcophagus in Arles? Are we right to interpret the two figures as Christ the Ancient of Days and the historical Christ thrown back into the Creation scene? We note, first of all, that the two figures are a representation of Dn 7:9—13. The Ancient of Days was sitting and One-like-a-son-of-man came up to him. If our interpretation of the Ancient of Days and the One-like-a-son-of-man is correct, that is, that they are two forms of Christ Logos, then we have a scriptural foundation for the image. It is not unusual to have two or more images of Christ, in different forms side by side. (F7.1, F18—symbolic and iconic representation—F26, F26.1, F30, F30.1, F30.2) There are in fact many other images with several forms of the Logos together.

Jane E. Rosenthal, in her article “Three Drawings in an Anglo-Saxon Pontificial: Anthroplomophic Trinity or Threefold Christ?,” (F31.1, F31.2, F31.3) asks the same question as does this study, but about other images. Three Anglo-Saxon images (969–980s) in the Sherburne Pontifical have traditionally been interpreted as the Trinity. She argues that in fact they are images of three aspects of Christ. If she is correct, it will not be the first time that three figures have been mistakenly interpreted as the Trinity. Even though the Anglo-Saxon images and the Dogmatic Sarcophagus images are about 600 years apart, they have a point in common. They we both identified as three-man Trinitarian images in the middle of the 19th century. The first in Rome, 1838 and the second in England, 186810 J. O. Westwood, Facsimilies of the Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish Manuscripts, London, 1868, p. 129. https://archive.org/details/facsimilesofmini00west , when such images of the Trinity in Christian antiquity were thought to be completely normal. We know, should know, better today.

Another study11 Ernst H. Kantorowicz, “The Quinity of Winchester,” The Art Bulletin XXIX, 2 June 1947, pp. 74–85. supports our contention that Christological images in the first millennium have been misinterpreted as Trinitarian. Kantorowicz argues that many psalter illustrations (F32.1, F32.2, F32.3, F32.4, F32.5), especially those for Psalm 109:1, “Of David. A psalm. The LORD says to my lord: ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet’” have been misinterpreted. The traditional interpretation of the illustrations is that God the Father speaks to God the Son, but that interpretation, as Kantorowics notes, runs into many of the objections we have noted here. He argues that the two images are in fact doubles of Christ as the Son in Glory and the Son of Man, illustrating the divine and human aspects of Christ. It is only later in the medieval period, when direct images of the Trinity became acceptable that these Christ doubles became distinguished into the Father and the Son with a dove added to fill out a Trinitarian image and interpretation. (F33) The artist, however, only added to the confusion of the figures by putting a cruciform halo on the dove. The two Christ figures naturally had cruciform haloes, but when they were distinguished into God the Father and God the Son, the artist kept the cruciform haloes and for consistency put one on the dove as well. The only problem, he thereby created an iconographic heresy. A cruciform halo means that that person was crucified, so instead of having a double Christ with cruciform haloes, perfectly correct, we now have all three Persons of the Trinity having been crucified.

What then do we say about the two figures that surround either Christ the Ancient of Days on the Dogmatic Sarcophagus or Christ the Ancient of Days and Christ the historical Jesus on the Sarcophagus of the Trinity-Spouses? If we compare their physiognomies to other clear images of Peter and Paul, we will see great resemblance, and that is in fact what we propose: these two figures are the two princes of the apostles who have also been thrown back into the Creation scene. We also see them in many other paleoChristian images. (F15, F16, F16.1, F17, F18, F19, F20, F20.1, F21, F22, F23, F24, F27, F28, F29, F29.1) And with the Wisemen scene on the lower levels, we have a triple manifestation of the divine Logos: Ancient of Days, Emmanuel, and Christ the Wonderworker. We illustrate our interpretation below.

The Dogmatic Sarcophagus

The Trinity-Spouses Sarcophagus

So, in these two sarcophagi alone, we have 5 of the 7 forms that the Logos-Son-Jesus Christ takes in paleoChristian art:

The pre-eternal Logos as Ancient of Days in the moment of Creation;

The historical Jesus thrown back to the moment of Creation;

The pre-eternal Logos as the Ancient of Days receiving Cain and Abel’s offerings;

The historical Jesus as Emmanuel;

The historical Jesus preforming miracles;

The young, beardless Jesus as eschatological Judge (F25)

Jesus the Ancient of Days as the eschatological Judge (F17)

VII. Ockham’s Razor

As if the arguments presented above are not sufficient to establish the thesis of this study, Master William of Ockham has provided us with his razor which is very useful here. Simply stated, Ockham’s Razor is an interpretive principle that says that where there is a controversy with several solutions, the simplest one has the best chance of being true. If, to resolve the problem, it is necessary to make additional assumptions that themselves have to be examined and evaluated, then a solution which requires no further assumptions and which fits elegantly with the data, is more likely to be the right one. Ockham’s Razon does not ensure that the simplest answer is in fact the best, but it gives greater weight and probability to the simplest one, making the more complicated ones less likely.

So let us apply Ockham’s Razor to our problem: The Creation images on the two main sarcophagi studied, are they the first images of the Trinity, and/or God the Father in the Christian artistic tradition? Those who answer “yes” are in addition required to answer several questions:

Why is it that those images, so interpreted, appeared at the beginning of the 4th century, then disappeared and finally reappeared eight centuries later when they took root, and flourished?

Why is there no confirmation or references in the literature of the time to such images or the possibility of their being made?

Why does a supposedly Trinitarian image stand out like a sore thumb in the inventory of ancient Christian images?

How, for those who reject the Trinitarian interpretation but affirm the seated figure to be God the Father, do they explain the fact that such images do not reappear with theological justifications for another eight or so centuries?

How can the advocates of the Trinity/God the Father interpretation explain the fact that an Ecumenical Council, Nicaea II, 787, along with the Doctors of the Christian image, proclaimed that the only legitimate image of God is that of the incarnate Logos, Jesus Christ, if some other kinds of divine images had previously existed and could presumably have still existed during the Iconoclastic period?

How could Nicaea II affirm the statement of Pope Gregory II to Leo III, to the effect that “Why, then, do we make no representation of God the Father? The divine nature cannot be represented. If we had seen Him, as we have the Son, we could also make an image of Him.”12 C. J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, 626–787, 5, Clark, Edinburgh, 1896, p. 291. https://archive.org/details/bishophshistoryofthechurch1894v5/page/n299/mode/1up?view=theater&q=Father Image of God the Father . . ., p. 29.

Of course, many theologians and artists who support images of the Trinity and God the Father can say that there is no essential link between the theological worldview of a time and the images produced at that time. Such a point of view, however, breaks the link that is a fundamental principle of this study: verbal and written theology is seen to be reflected in the art produced to express that theology. If Christian art and Christian theology are two different and separate spheres of activity, so that they both exist and develop in isolation from each other, then the problem we are discussing here does not exist. Christian images, then, developed according to their own inherent principles, or perhaps according to none at all, and Christian thinking—preaching and writing—did the same thing in its own sphere.

If we apply Ockham’s Razor to our question, we see that the Christological interpretation of the so-called Trinitarian images is the simplest and most elegant and that it eliminates a theological and artistic discussion that fits quite nicely and naturally into the historical situation of western, medieval times when, in fact, images of the Trinity and God the Father emerged and flourished, provoking as well theological discussions.

The prime motivation of this study is not simply to contribute to an intellectual and art historical discussion that involves some obscure 4th-century images which have no bearing on Christian life in general or on the Christian worldview in particular. The purpose is in fact to defend and promote a much wider and deeper element of the Church’s Holy Tradition: the Gospel is preached in two forms, that is, not only in written and spoken words but also in images. It is the claim of this study that the essential link between word and image has existed from the beginning of the Christian artistic tradition and in addition that Nicaea II and the authoritative Doctors of the image proclaimed that Christian images represented the Church’s vision of salvation in lines and colors. Today, we call these images icons. Therefore, anthropomorphic images of the Trinity or of God the Father, supposedly found on the two major sarcophagi studied here, run counter to the universal dogmatic vision, both East and West, that existed during the first thousand years of Christian history. I have undertaken this study precisely to support and defend that ecumenical tradition that affirms the essential intertwining of preaching in both words and images.

Annex 1 - What Others Say about the Trinitarian Interpretation of the Sarcophagi

Present-Day Media Sources

Annex 1.1. Vatican Museums, The “Dogmatic” Sarcophagus https://www.museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/museo-pio-cristiano/sarcofagi-_a-doppio-registro/sarcofago-_dogmatico.html

The Museums acknowledge that the Trinity is “suggested” and “may be recognized” in the Creation scene. This is more a declaration that “some say that. . .” rather than “this is the first anthropomorphic representation of the Trinity.” It seems that the Museums are hedging their bets.

“Dogmatic” Sarcophagus: Its name originates from the three figures involved in the Creation of Eve (the scene at the top left), in which it is suggested that the first depiction of the divine Trinity may be recognized. . . The close relationship between the biblical narratives of the Old and New Testament also explains why the sarcophagus is also referred to as being “of the two Testaments.” The new Nicene Creed may have provided the doctrinal inspiration for the artist.

**********

Annex 1.2. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, “Dogmatic Sarcophagus.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogmatic_Sarcophagus

Wikipedia simply repeats the standard interpretation.

It [the sarcophagus] draws its name from its clear references to the dogmas of the Council of Nicaea (325), in particular to Christ being consubstantial with God the Father, as shown (for example) by the scene of a figure with the appearance of Jesus between Adam and Eve, though whether the figure is to be understood as Christ or God the Father is less clear—the dogmatic point works either way. . . Three similar bearded figures represent [. . .] the Trinity, the middle enthroned representing God the Father, creating Eve from the rib of Adam, who lies on the ground.

**********

Annex 1.3. Missionaries of Divine Revelation, “Our Faith Is Written on the Stone!” Via delle Vigne Nuove, 459-00139, Rome, Italy.

https://www.mdrevelation.org/our-faith-is-written-on-the-stone/#:~:text=At%20the%20heart%20of%20the%20Pio%20Clementine%20collection,some%20way%20testifies%20to%20the%20Faith%20we%20proclaim

The missionaries present the upper-left-hand Creation scene as a partial expression of their faith in stone and claim that the Nicaean-Constantinopolitan Creed proclaims the Trinity. In fact, the Nicene-CONSTANTINOPOLITAN creed would not come into existence until 381. At the time the sarcophagus was made, only the Nicene Creed existed. Nicaea I really only proclaimed that the Son was homoousios, of the same essence, with the Father. All it says about the Holy Spirit is this: [We believe] . . . “in the Holy Spirit.” It will take another 67 years to recognize that the Holy Spirit is also homoousios with the Father and the Son.

So, then, the theological atmosphere between the two councils would not have been that of the consubstantiality of the three Divine Persons, but rather that of the Father and the Son, a “binity” rather than a trinity. The Dogmatic Sarcophagus cannot be seen as reflecting the “Trinitarian, theological atmosphere” right after the Council of Nicaea I. The sisters also state that “artists for many generations used this same image of 3 identical male figures to denote the Dogma of the Divine Trinity.” This is not exactly true since the next image of the Trinity represented as three men will not appear until the 12th century, some years after the appearance of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus. (F6) Even if the Creation image were of the Trinity, it would be forgotten for nearly eight centuries. Their statement is true after the 12th century but not between the 4th and the 12th centuries.

. . . the sarcophagus testifies to the central dogma that emerged from the Council [of Nicaea, 325] and was enshrined in the Nicene Constantinopolitan Creed: The Blessed Trinity—the revelation by Christ that God is One: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The first image on the Dogmatic Sarcophagus is one of the earliest, most important iconographic representations of the Blessed Trinity. The Blessed Trinity, “the oneness of God in whom there are three persons: Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (Comp 48) is represented by 3 male figures with the same face to express that they are “of the same substance.” God the Father, the “Omnipotens Sempiterne Deus,” is sculpted seated on the throne with His right arm, which testifies to the power to create, on the Son through whom “all things were made.” (Col 1:16) The Son is in the act of creating Eve, and the Holy Spirit is the figure standing behind the throne. . . . Artists for many generations used this same image of 3 identical male figures to denote the Dogma of the Divine Trinity which has its roots back to antiquity.

**********

Dated Sources

Annex 1.4. Françoise Besson, “Le sarcophage de la Trinité,” ministère de la Culture, Panorama de l’art, L’histoire de l’art en un seul regard, Arles, France, 2013.

https://panoramadelart.com/analyse/sarcophage-de-la-trinite

Although Besson is aware that some say the Creation scene is one of the Trinity, she is not very sure that it deserves such a name.

An Enigmatic Scene

Are they Adam and Eve or the souls of the dead couple presented to God? Is this god, with two persons on either side, a Christian Trinity? Nothing allows such an affirmation with certainty, but this last hypothesis has given to this sarcophagus the name “of the Trinity.”

***********

Annex 1.5. Maria Giovanna Muzi, “Imagenes de Dios Padre en el arte Cristiano. Aspectos problematicos,” CuadMon 142/143, 2002, pp. 387–435, originally published in Italian in Theotokos 6, 1999, pp. 627–674. I have not been able to locate the Italian version. https://www.academia.edu/9903426/Im%C3%A1genes_de_Dios_Padre_en_el_arte_cristiano_Aspectos_problem%C3%A1ticos

Muzi lays out some of the problems associated with the traditional interpretation.

Let us consider the problem as a whole:

1. for more than a thousand years, with the exception of a small circumscribed group, no anthropomorphic images of the first person of the Trinity have been found;

2. from the end of the first millennium, both in the East and in the West, we witness the production of new iconographic models, detached from the biblical theophanies, relative to the mystery of the divine persons; the figure of the Ancient of Days, until then referred only to the Second Person, begins to be used as a specific image of the Father;

3. in the Russian Orthodox Church, from the 16th century, the new iconographic models of the Trinity, detached from the biblical Trinitarian theophanies, and in which the Father has an anthropomorphic aspect, meet with resistance at the theological levels, which culminated in the 1600s with the official condemnation;

4. in the West, from the end of the Middle Ages, the anthropomorphic figure of the Father appears, alone, on the upper part of the altar paintings; his presence becomes habitual in paintings and frescoes in the presbytery [altar area?] as well as in the cupolas and ceilings of the churches of the Baroque period and of the following centuries. No relevant reactions to such representations were produced, and it was not until 1754 that an official document of the Catholic Church confronted the question of licit or illicit images of God.

This is very significant for our present study because these same problems are at the heart of Orthodox critiques of such images.

If it were a presentation of the Trinity, it would be the first anthropomorphic image of the Persons of the Trinity separated from a biblical theophany; this would be a very rare and totally isolated case, since we have only three other sarcophagi with the same theme. The Trinitarian identification of this scene, however, has been questioned and rejected with a series of arguments by Engemann, taken up and expanded by Helga Kaiser-Minn in a monographic study dedicated to this argument. However, even if it is not a representation of the Trinity, the identification of the seated figure with God the Father and of the one on his left with the Creator Logos is certain, while the figure of whom only half of the bust is visible, behind the chair, the authors cited above think they recognize him as an angel. It is necessary, therefore, to accept that at the end of the third century and during the fourth century there were anthropomorphic representations of the First Person of the Trinity.

Muzi hesitates to affirm the traditional Trinitarian interpretation, but stands by the identification of the seated figure as God the Father.

The symbolic iconography of Eternity was immediately assumed in Christian art, as is shown by the physiognomy given to Christ in the first centuries, in which ample use was made of both the type of the adolescent and that of the mature man, while from the sixth century—but probably even earlier—we find the type of the Word incarnated as an Elder. Naturally, the attribution to Christ of the figure of the old man was supported by the Old Testament vision of the “Ancient of Days” (Dn 7:9-22), taken up by the Apocalypse, where his identification with the glorified, incarnate Word appears indisputable by virtue of the words pronounced by the One who appears: “Fear not, I am the First and the Last; I was dead, but now I am alive.” (Rev 1:17-18).

Muzi’s fourth point also fits in well with the overall thesis of this study when she speaks about the first images of God the Father—supposedly—apart from the two sarcophagi. Many have identified that first image is the one found in the Utrecht Psalter where two figures are portrayed, but she still says the following:

However, according to the exact analysis of Kantorowicz, it is not a question of the First and Second Persons of the Trinity but of a duplication of the Second, according to his two natures . . . the figure of the incarnate Word also appears duplicated in an early Christian stained-glass window, where on a single throne Christ appears on the left and St. Stephen on the right, and above them, in the center, Christ again crowns them both. It is not an error, as some authors consider, because Christ is definitely the one who crowns and is crowned. Here is why we are before the duplication of the figure of Christ: in this case, Christ the Son of Man is crowned by Christ the Son of God or Christ the haloed Logos. A miniature with the same theme is also found in the Canterbury Psalter.

**********

Annex 1.6. Helga Kaiser-Minn, “Die Erschaffung des Menschen auf den spätantiken Monumenten des 3. und 4. Jahrhunderts,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum, Erganzungs Band 6, 1991, pp. 1-138 + images. https://archive.org/details/dieerschaffungde0000kais/page/n3/mode/2up

Kaiser-Minn rejects the Trinitarian interpretation of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus seeing the seated figure as God the Father, the figure standing in front of him as Christ and an assistant behind the throne.

The Creation scenes of the sarcophagus Lat. 104 [the Dogmatic Sarcophagus]¸ with the fragment from Martres-Tolosane go back to the same design. This design corresponded, as far as the depiction of God is concerned, to the iconography of the Trinquetaille sarcophagus [our sarcophagus no. 2]: God the Father enthroned, his right hand raised in a speech gesture, with a throne assistant, and Christ standing, laying his hand on the creature. The duality of the Creator deity (which is also shown by the Campli sarcophagus) must be considered as the normal case.

The question of whether there is a depiction of God the Father at all in early Christian art can be clearly answered in the affirmative at the latest since the discovery of the sarcophagus from Trinquetaille. Because who else would be enthroned at the side of the Christ acting as Creator Logos and to cause Christ’s acting as Creator Logos and to cause Christ’s action by a speech gesture?

The depiction of God the Father in early Christian sarcophagus sculpture can be clearly defined from here: he is . . . exclusively depicted as enthroned, bearded, with hair covering his ears, falling long on the neck, a hairstyle unique to him. He appears so far only in three roles: as Creator, as Judge, and Receiver of sacrifices. (This corresponds to the themes in which on later representations Christ is depicted enthroned on the globe . . . (p. 30)

**********

Annex 1.7. Jane E. Rosenthal, “Three Drawings in an Anglo-Saxon Pontificial: Anthroplomophic Trinity or Threefold Christ?,” The Art Bulletin 63, 4, December 1981, pp. 547–562. https://www.jstor.org/stable/3050163

This article does not have a direct relation to interpreting the Dogmatic Sarcophagus, but it supplies a surprisingly similar example of the main thesis of this study. After analyzing three similar images, traditionally interpreted as an anthropomorphic Trinity, Rosenthal concludes that in fact they are three different images of Christ.

The three figures thus combine to produce a complete portrait of the threefold Christ who is king, god, and man. (p. 557)

***********

Annex 1.8. Deborah Markow, “Some Born-Again Christians of the Fourth Century,” Notes and Documentations, The Art Bulletin 63,4, Dec. 1981, pp. 650–655. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/271746894_Some_Born-Again_Christians_of_the_Fourth_Century

Markow is not in favor of a Trinitarian interpretation but does see the seated figure as God the Father. In both sarcophagi, the surrounding figures can be either angels or apostles. Either interpretation fits with her intention to see both Creation scenes as related to baptism and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. What is important for our study is that she rejects the Trinitarian interpretation.

It seems probable that the enthroned bearded male figure is, in both examples [the Dogmatic Sarcophagus and the Arles Sarcophagus], God the Father. He is distinguished as an elevated personage by being enthroned while others stand, and by being the figure upon whom their attention is centered.

**********

Annex 1.9. Joseph Engemann, “Zu den Dreifaltigkeitsdarstellungen der frühchristilichen Kunst,” Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 19, 1976, pp. 157-172.

Engemann does not see an anthropomorphic Trinity but God the Father, the Logos and two angels:

In conclusion, instead of the interpretation of three figures in each of the Creation scenes, the following interpretation can be proposed: On the sarcophagus in Arles, the enthroned God the Father and the Logos standing before him are assisted by two bearded angels, one of which leads Adam. On the sarcophagus in Rome [The Dogmatic Sarcophagus], the last-mentioned angel has fallen away, since Adam lies on the ground and is sleeping. An anthropomorphic representation of the triune God is not present in either of the two sarcophagi pictures. The interpretation of the figure standing to the right of the enthroned God the Father is completely certain on the sarcophagus in Arles, on the Roman sarcophagus only probable because there is no proven [parallel] from the context of this sarcophagus but only from the context of the Roman sarcophagus, and that only by analogy. (p. 170)

What is interesting for our study is that Engemann recognizes the similarity between the heads of the two “angels” and those of Peter and Paul elsewhere on the sarcophagus:

The head of the disciple with the fish in the scene of the multiplication of the loaves and fish can be compared to the head with a bald forehead; the type of head of the stenographer standing in front of the throne is used several times in the lower frieze of the sarcophagus, and the greatest similarity is with the head of Peter in the captivity. This multiple use is explained by the fact that these are the two most common types of heads and hairstyles used on sarcophagi as early as the 3rd century to distinguish different male persons of the same context from one another, and which were used to differentiate Peter and Paul from the middle of the 4th century onward. The use of these different physiognomies for the two companions of the one on the throne and in distinction of the latter’s hairstyle renders all statements about a “striking similarity” of the three figures invalid. These observations about the heads of the three bearded men therefore speak against an interpretation as Persons of the Trinity. (p. 161)

**********

Annex 1.10. Yves Christe, “À propos du sarcophage à double registre récemment découvert à Arles,” Journal des Savants 1, 1975, pp. 76-80.

https://www.persee.fr/doc/jds_0021-8103_1975_num_1_1_1319

For the first time in our research, we find someone who does not see the Trinity represented in the Arles sarcophagus, but rather, from left to right, Peter, God the Father, Christ, Paul. Speaking of the features of the two figures on either side of Christ and the seated figure, Christe says the following:

In the 4th century, these two physical types being most often characteristic of the “portraits” of Peter and Paul, I see no other solution than to recognize Peter in the figure standing behind the throne of God, and the apostle Paul in the one leading Adam to the Son’s absolution. . . As for Paul’s gesture, it is a prelude to Adam’s forgiveness [and that] of all men. So we’re looking at a kind of restoration of the new man through Christ, in the presence of Peter and Paul, in what may well be an ecclesiastical context. The Spirit is not represented; in the figure appearing in the background between Paul and Christ, we see nothing other than a figure of witness, apostle or disciple. (pp. 78–79)

**********

Annex 1.11. Jean-Maurice Rouquette, “Trois nouveaux sarcophages chrétiens de Trinquetaille (Arles),” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 118-2, 1974, pp. 254‑277. https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_1974_num_118_2_12999

Rouquette leans toward a Trinitarian interpretation though not specifically identifying the three divine Persons, at least not the Holy Spirit.

Abel and Cain, carrying a lamb and a sheaf of wheat, offer their gifts to God, bearded and seated on a rock, his feet resting on a footstool as a sign of honor. The two figures of Nebuchadnezzar and God the Father, both seated at opposite ends of the composition, close the picture symmetrically. (p. 267). . . On the left, the upper register begins with a scene from the Old Testament: the Creation of woman and the presentation of Eve to Adam with the multiple image of the Creator. Our first parents . . . stand . . . before God the Trinity, symbolized by three figures: a noble, bearded old man . . . behind him another bearded figure with his hand resting on the back of the armchair and facing him a beardless young man—Christ?

**********

Annex 1.12. Henri Marrou, “Observations on Rouquette’s Presentation,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres 118-2, 1974, pp. 273-277. https://www.persee.fr/doc/crai_0065-0536_1974_num_118_2_12999

Marrou almost enthusiastically supports the Trinitarian interpretation but makes a remarkable admission at the end of his presentation. He says that the carving is “scandaleuse” for theologians leaving open a possible tritheistic interpretation. I would like to add after his final sentence: “ . . . this way of presenting the Trinity was not eventually integrated into the common repertoire of Christian iconography” BEFORE THE 12TH CENTURY IN THE WEST.

As for the three first figures, I believe we must hold to the commonly accepted explanation for them: we have there an anthropomorphic figuration of the Trinity. . . Hence the significant attitude of the three: the Son places his hand on Eve’s head and turns toward the Father, who rests his right hand on the Son’s arm, under the gaze of the Spirit, represented by the third figure on the left, leaning on the back of the armchair. But what a bold evocation of mystery; it is easy to see why this way of presenting the Trinity was not eventually integrated into the common repertoire of Christian iconography [BEFORE THE 12TH CENTURY IN THE WEST.]

**********

Annex 1.13. F. W. Deichman, ed., Repertorium der christlich-antiken Sarkophage Rom und Ostia, Wiesbaden, 1967, pp. 39-41. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27684780?seq=4

Deichman accepts the traditional Trinitarian interpretation of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus.

**********

Annex 1.14. Nicole and Michel Thierry, Nouvelles églises rupestres de Cappadoce, Paris, C. Klincksieck, 1963, Plates 32 (A and B).

Nicole Thierry, La Cappadoce de l’antiquité au moyen-âge, Bibliothèque de l’Antiquité 4, Tournhout, Belgique, Brepols, 2002, Plate61 (A and B)

These two books are only indirectly related to the subject of this study but show that in Cappadocia, there was an image of Christ seen by the Wisemen in three different forms: Old man, adult man and Emmanuel. (F7, F7.1 and F7.2)

**********

Annex 1.15. Ernst H. Kantorowicz, “The Quinity of Winchester,” The Art Bulletin XXIX, 2 June 1947, pp. 74–85. https://www.mgh-bibliothek.de/dokumente/z/zsn2a009017.pdf

Kantorowicz recognizes that up to the time of the Utrecht Psalter, the 9th century, there persisted in parts of the West the artistic tradition of representing Christ according to two different images. This will also be important for our general thesis.

The Utrecht Psalter, however, does not make the distinction between God the Father and Christ (David) [as some scholars have suggested], but distinguishes between the Son of God and the Son of man, or else between the “Lord of David” and the “Son of David.” In other words, the plain-haloed figure is not God the Father but the youthful Filius Dei, co‑equal with the Father who receives as his throne sharer in heaven the cross-haloed one and likewise youthful Filius David, the incarnate Christ.

**********

Annex 1.16. Luciano De Bruyne, “L’imposition des mains dans l’art chrétien ancien,” Bulletin de théologie ancienne et médiévale 5, nos 685-820, Oct. 1947, pp. 237-284.

De Bruyne accepts the traditional, Trinitarian interpretation of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus.

The interpretation that sees in the sarcophagus God accompanied by two angels has had little success, and recent studies have always better confirmed the traditional interpretation that recognizes the most ancient image of the Holy Trinity. (p. 65)

**********

Annex 1.17. Adelheid Heimann, “Trinitas Creator Mundi,” Journal of the Warburg Institute 2, 1, 1938, pp. 42–52. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/750023.pdf

Heimann supports the classical interpretation of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus as the first anthropomorphic image of the Trinity. Taking Augustine as her literary source for believing that the Creation was a Trinitarian work, she claims that the D. S. image is a good representation of Augustine’s thinking on the Trinity; Augustine was perhaps a young man when the sarcophagus was sculpted. The similarity between the upper and lower left-hand images suggests a similarity of themes: Mary, Joseph and the Christ‑Child, on the bottom, parallel the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit above them. The three stars that one of the Wisemen points to also reflect the “threesome,” the Trinitarian, interpretation. The Creation scene is a pictorial rebuttal to pagan images which show Prometheus, the creator of man, with his hand on the head of the first man (F8); other pagan images show an emperor surrounded by secretaries or a poet by muses, thus inspiring, according to Heimann, the Christian artist to manifest the Trinity as three men.

Such an anthropomorphic image of the Trinity was rare in the 4th century—not reappearing until the 12th century—but Heimann feels that it was not impossible for Christian artists to conceive such an image.

It is interesting to note that Heimann is surprised at a Creation scene carved on Chartres Cathedral: “Why at Chartres the Son appears only once, and that on the fifth day, is a question which I cannot answer.” (p. 45) Obviously for her, the Creator is God the Father, despite there being a cruciform halo behind his head, and she wonders why a beardless young man appears with “the Father” only one time in the Creation scenes.

**********

Annex 1.18. Erich Dinkler, Die Ersten Petrusdarstellungen. Ein Archaologischer Beitrag zur Geschichte des Petrusprimates, Marburger Jahrbuch für Kunstwissenschaft, 1938-1939, 11/12, pp. 1-80, p. 43. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1348529

Dinkler dedicates one small paragraph to describing the “Dogmatic” Sarcophagus. The fact that he puts word Dogmatic in quotes indicates a certain distance from the traditional, Trinitarian interpretation, but he gives no detailed description of the figures in the Creation scene, nor does he see Peter in it.

In the upper-left half, the Creation of the human couple and the assignment of the work are depicted side by side. . .

**********

Annex 1.19. Joseph Wilpert, Monumenti dell’Antichita Cristiana: I. I Sarcofragi christiani antichi 2, Rome, Pontificio Instituto di Archeologia Cristiana, 1932.

Wilpert accepts and repeats the traditional, Trinitarian interpretation of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus.

I. The Creation of Man

1. There are five sculptures referring to Creation: two Roman and three of provincial art. The most complete [Creation scene] is found on “Dogmatic Sarcophagus,” at the head of the cycle represented there (plat. LXV). In accordance with the sacred text, all three divine Persons are in action: the eternal Father, seated on a draped chair with a footstool, makes an oratorical gesture; on the right, the Son holds his hand on the head of Eve, who stands with her arms stretched across her body; Adam lies asleep on the ground; the Holy Spirit, standing to the right of God the Father, rests his right hand on the back of the chair, expressing with this gesture his part in the Creation. We are thus at the last moment, when the “spiraculum vitae” is communicated to Eve. The three divine Persons are bearded and more or less identical. (p. 226)

**********

Annex 1.20. Karl Künstle, Ikonographie der christlichen Kunst, 2 vols. Freiburg im Breisgau: Herder, 1926-28.

Künstle sees the seated figure as the Logos and the figures on either side as angels.

. . . Christian art . . . had to refrain from depicting the Triune God in an image, first because of the Old Testament prohibition to make an image of God and then because the doctrine of the Triune God, as the New Covenant presented it, was artistically unrepresentable. I therefore reject the view of De Rossi and his students . . . that on the famous sarcophagus found . . . in St. Paul’s [the Dogmatic Sarcophagus] the three persons of the Trinity are represented. . . It would now be possible that the bearded figure, which places his right hand on Eve’s head, represented the second Person of the Godhead, but in the scene next to him, the pre-existent Logos in youthful form gives a lamb to Eve and a sheaf of wheat to Adam. This speaks against the Trinitarian conception of our group. It is quite impossible that the bearded man behind God the Father represents the Holy Spirit: in Christian antiquity, he was always depicted only symbolically. I see in the two accompanying figures of the Creator . . . angels . . . (p. 221)

**********

Annex 1.21. Oskar Wulff, Altchristliche und byzantinische Kunst (Band 1): Die altchristliche Kunst von ihren Angängen bis zur Mitte des ersten Jahrtausends, Berlin, 1914. https://archive.org/details/altchristlicheun00wulfuoft

Wulff does not see the Trinity but hesitates to identify the figures.

Free invention is mostly only apparently present, for example, in a representation of the human Creation on another sarcophagus from S. Paolo [the Dogmatic Sarcophagus], which depicts the Creation of the woman in two different moments and is based on the ancient scene of the Creation of man by Prometheus. Corresponding to the Wisemen’s worship below, in which the figure behind Mary as Joseph finds its explanation, a third-bearded figure is added behind God the Father’s throne . . . the heads of other filler figures are laid out in the rough in almost all scenes. With such craftsmanship, it would be daring to see in the bearded appearance of the Creator a universal type of God the Father or Christ. (pp. 123–124)

**********

Annex 1.22. Louise Pillion, Les portails latéraux de la cathédrale de Rouen, Paris, Librairie Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1907, pp.165 ff.

https://archive.org/details/portailslateraux00lefr/page/n6/mode/1up?view=theater

The Rouen Cathedral, like many other medieval cathedrals, has stone carvings of the Creation. The interest for our study is that Pillion describes the scenes of the six‑day Creation carved on the cathedral in these terms: “ . . . where GOD lovingly makes the body and soul of his creature” (p. 166), “Two main typical images of GOD the Creator. . .” (p. 168), “. . . We see GOD carry out his work. . .” (168), “ . . . on the disk that GOD holds in his hand” (p. 168). We easily could complete Pillion’s vocabulary with “God [the Father]” because when she talks about “GOD” creating the plants, she adds a footnote: “1. The Middle Ages saw in the Creator Christ, following the theological doctrine according to which ‘GOD’ [the Father] made everything by his Word. . .” (p. 150, note 1). We have here a recognition that medieval artists and churchmen still knew that “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” (Lk 24:44). They had not yet adopted the notion that the Old Testament was the domain of God the Father and that therefore he should be shown in images of the Creation. The following cathedrals also have Creation scenes where the Creator is Christ the Logos:

Laon—right window of the western facade archway (p. 166, note 1)

Chartres—northern bay, central porch, archway (p. 166, note 2)

Reims—archway of the north lateral rose window (p. 166, note 3)

Auxerre—cast model in the Trocadero Museum (p. 174, note 1)

**********

Annex 1.23. Georg Stuhlfauth, Die Engel in der altchristlichen Kunst, Freiburg I. B., 1897, p. 253 ff. https://archive.org/details/dieengelinderalt00stuh_1

Speaking of the Dogmatic Sarcophagus, Stuhlfauth says the following:

Here, too, there is no mention of the Holy Spirit—the bearded figure behind the armchair of God is only an end figure as it is also distinguished from God the Father and God the Logos by the bald forehead.

**********

Annex 1.24. Joseph Ficker, Die altchristlichen Bilderwerke im christlichen Museums des Laterans, Leipzig, 1890. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=tx5HAQAAIAAJ&pg=GBS.PA40&hl=fr

Ficker sees the figure behind the seated one as simply a “space filler” with no significance; the seated figure is God the Father and the figure standing in front of him is a double of the seated God the Father. It is very interesting that he sees one single person represented two times, but the doubled Person is, for him, God the Father.

People have wanted to recognize the Trinity here or to interpret the two bearded figures in front of and behind the throne as angels. Both interpretations are impossible. The figure behind the cathedra is treated quite incidentally and is also different from the others by the bald forehead. It can therefore only be a simple filler figure, as such are often used behind seated persons. A three-person representation of the three Persons of the Godhead is, moreover, impossible in that not at all naive, but rather dogmatically strongly reflecting the time, just as artistically such an old, bearded figure of Christ could not be thought for the turn of the 4th and 5th centuries. The type for Christ on the sarcophagus, thus immediately next to it, is the youthful, unbearded, long-haired one. The iconographic material also speaks against the interpretation of angels. There are no bearded angels in ancient Christian art. Therefore, it remains only to see both times the same creator [God the Father]. The look of the seated one is directed to the Adam figure; his hand movement refers to him; the moment represented when he puts the first human being into deep sleep or the later moment when he creates the woman. The completed human image stands in front of him in the second scene but is still lifeless; therefore, he lays his hand on his head, animating him. Thus, both the continuation of classical-antique elements as well as their independent use by the Christian artist appear here. (p. 44)

**********

Annex 1.25. Anton Heinrich Springer, Die Genesisbilder in des Kunst der frühen Mittelalters, Leipsiz, 1884.	https://archive.org/details/diegenesisbilde00sprigoog

Springer maintains a certain ambiguity in his interpretation. In speaking about the Dogmatic Sarcophagus, he says that “God” does this or “God” does that, not distinguishing between the Father and the Son, even calling them by the same name, “God.” See the quotation below and p. 683. However, in speaking about the Vivian Bible, 846, he says, it “begins with the Creation of Adam. God the Father, unbearded, as in all pictures of the Carolingian period. . . Next to him [the angel], Adam lies motionless, his arms pressed tightly to his body on the ground. God the Father bends over him to create Eve. On the right, God the Father stands. . .” (p. 684) In all other descriptions of the Creation scene in medieval images, Springer speaks of God the Father, but in one place, for the mosaics of Monreale Cathedral, he makes the following admission: “The scene, in which God the Father addresses the fallen [Adam and Eve], differs in that in the Capella Palatina before God the Father, who WEARS THE TYPE OF CHRIST, Adam and Eve are standing in front of him. . .” (p. 689) We are forced to conclude that “God,” in reference to the early sarcophagi, means “God the Father.”

**********

Annex 1.26. Raffaele Garrucci, Storia della arte cristiana nei primi otto secoli della chiesa, Taf. 365, Prato: Cav. Gaetano Guasti: Giachetti, figlio e C., 1879. https://archive.org/details/gri_33125015018761

Garrucci recognizes the Trinity in the upper-left corner, but she is the first scholar to name the seated figure Christ the Logos; then she names the figure standing in front of him the Holy Spirit and the figure behind the throne God the Father. It is a strange ordering of the Persons of the Trinity, but she at least recognizes the enthroned figure as Christ the Logos.

In the upper plane on the left, God the Holy Trinity is depicted in the act of creating man . . . the three divine Persons are thus arranged and posed. The Word sits on a chair covered with a veil, and rests his feet above a footstool. He stands before Adam and raises his right hand above him with his two fingers spread. The Holy Spirit places his right hand on Eve’s head. The Father who has wrinkles on his forehead and half-bald stands behind the chair of the Son, on which he rests his right hand. (p. 96)

The difficulty of the correct interpretation lies first in the small reclining figure, which obviously [?] represents a dead man and not the sleeping Adam. . . Then in the trinity of the creating Persons, usually referring to the Trinity. The participation of Christ in the Creation of man would have nothing striking. St. Basil (Hexaemeron IX, 6) expressly claims for Christ the co-Creation of man. But by this, just the distinction of Christ from God the Father by form, age, beardlessness was demanded because the equation with God the Father makes the doctrine incomprehensible. If one could count the figure behind the chair to be a mere filler figure of the background, as they so often occur on sarcophagi, also on the sarcophagus of St. Paul and divide the action: God awakens Adam to life and God animates Eve by laying on of hands, then the interpretation would have no difficulties. (pp. 678–679)

**********

Annex 1.27. Robin Margaret Jensen, Understanding Early Christian Art, Routledge, New York, 2000.

Jensen is rather noncommittal in her identification of the figures.

Most interpreters have identified the three men just to the left of the small nude couple as the Trinity, suggesting that Creation was an act of the triune deity. One of the three (the Son or Second Person?) places his right hand on the woman’s head (similar to John’s gesture in the baptismal scenes). (pp. 178–179)

**********

Annex 1.28. Robert Milburn, Early Christian Art and Architecture, Aldershot, UK, Scolar Press, Gower Publishing Company Limited, 1988.

Milburn clearly accepts the traditional, Trinitarian interpretation of both of our sarcophagi but says that on the D. S. the figure is “God . . . as a young man with curly hair. . .” He does not say about the other similar figures that “God . . . as a young man with curly hair. . .” multiplies the loaves and fish or cures the man’s sick son. This is a very good example of the intellectual gymnastics that are required when the Trinitarian interpretation is affirmed. In note 15, when speaking about the Trinity-Spouses Sarcophagus in Arles, he calls “God . . . as a young man with curly hair. . .” the Logos, that is, Jesus. Why does he not call “God. . .” on the D. S. the Logos? Regarding the figure with his hand on Eve’s shoulder, Milburn says he could be an angel or “more likely as a repeated illustration of one of the three Persons.” Which Person is more likely repeated?

In another section when speaking about images of the Traditio legis, Milburn makes an interesting comment for our study; it contributes, however, to the sense of confusion about the identity of the figures. He associates Christ who has a beard and long hair, on a sarcophagus that shows the Traditio legis, with the Ancient of Days. If it is possible for Christ to appear as the Ancient of Days on one sarcophagus, why is it not possible to apply that interpretation to others where the same figure appears?

[28.1] On this sarcophagus [the Dogmatic Sarcophagus], the story of Fall and Redemption is given a pleasantly personal twist. The upper register begins with the Creation of Eve, who receives a blessing from the three Persons of the Godhead15 [Note in the quoted text; see below.] shown as dignified, bearded men, while Adam lies supine on the ground. Closely attached to this scene is another, in which God, appearing this time as a young man with curly hair, stands between the naked Adam and Eve . . . (p. 68)

[Note 15] This interpretation was confirmed by the recent discovery of another sarcophagus apparently from the same workshop. There Adam stands with Eve before the throne of God. The figure of the Logos, young and beardless places his hand on Eve’s head. Of the other two Persons, grave and bearded, one is majestically seated and the other clutches the side of the throne. An additional figure, with his hand on Adam’s shoulder, can be seen as an angelic assistant or, more probably, as a repeated illustration of one of the three Persons . . . (p. 82)

[28.2]. . . Christ is portrayed as dominant before the columns and arches of a heavenly city and flanked by the company chosen to bear his words to the ends of the earth. While this Christ is usually shown as the pattern of youthful comeliness [F27 and F27.1], he may also appear in the form of a venerable, bearded figure [F28 and F28.1] . . . dispensing to his eager yet awed apostles the scroll of the Law which, as the Ancient of Days, he promulgates for all time. (pp. 72–73)

**********

Annex 1.29. Robin M. Jensen, “The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve in Early Christian Art and Literature,” Interpreting Christian Art: Reflections on Christian Art, Heidi Hornik and Mikeal C. Parsons, eds, Macon, GA, Mercer University Press, 2003, pp. 25–53. https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=BmWpMKaDBVUC&pg=GBS.PA34&hl=fr

In some instances, another figure, identified by his facial features as either Jesus or the Divine Logos (or both), steps into the scene and looks over Adam’s shoulder . . . as if he is catching the couple in their fateful act.

In this, her second writing on the subject, see number 27 above, Jensen affirms herself what she only tentatively stated previously.

Two small naked people stand (or lie) at the feet of a seated male who most likely represents God [the Father]. This older figure makes a gesture of speech or blessing with his right hand. To his left and behind his chair are two other figures, probably intended to correspond to the Son (Logos) and the Holy Spirit. The standing male (Logos) to the Father’s left has a special relationship to the two small nudes; in one example he places his right hand on the woman’s head. Scholars have reasonably concluded that this image presents the Trinity creating Adam and Eve (compare [F34, F34.1], which shows Cain and Abel bringing their offerings to a similar “Trinity” group.

Annex 1.30. Robin M. Jensen, “The Economy of the Trinity at the Creation of Adam and Eve,” Journal of Early Christian Studies 7/4, 1999, pp. 527–546.

Here in her third discussion of the sarcophagi, Jensen continues here to put a distance between herself and the traditional Trinitarian interpretation of the Creation scenes. Such a distance, maintained across three articles, can only indicate her reticence in adopting the Trinitarian interpretation. Even so, she has not really taken a stand on the identity of the figures represented. Her distance is a least a slight movement away from a firm identification of the figures as the Trinity, but toward what other interpretation?

Jensen says one thing that is helpful for my interpretation:

The Arles sarcophagus also shows a protective fourth male, this one balding and bearded, who puts his left hand upon the shoulder of the little man. This figure resembles many of the traditional fourth-century portraits of Paul. (p. 532)

. . . two sarcophagi . . . [which] have been identified as images of the Trinity creating Adam and Eve. (p. 531)

This Christ, however, differs in appearance from what is arguably the Second Person in the Trinity scene to his right . . . (p. 533)

. . . both of these scenes have been interpreted as representations of the Trinity creating Adam and Eve. If that was the intended identification of the artists or their patrons, these would be among the earliest known artistic representations of the Trinity. (p. 535)

Assuming that these carvings do represent the Trinity, the seated central figure must be the “Father”—the first person of the Trinity. The others two figures would then be intended to represent the “Son” and the Holy Spirit . . . (p. 536)

Author	Trinity yes	Trinity no, but seated figure, G. F., XP in front, assistant/ angel/filler figure in back	Trinity no, but G-F with assistants, apostles or ?	Trinity no, but G-F + XP Logos + 2 bearded angels for Arles and 1 bearded angel for the Dog. Sarc.	Trinity no but 1st Peter, 2nd G. D., 3rd XP, 4th Paul	No precise interpretation	Trinity no but XP seated+ angels	Trinity no but 2 images of G-F+ filler figure behind the throne
1. Vatican Museums, Dogmatic Sarcophagus	X
2. Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia, Dogmatic Sarcophagus	X
3. Missionaries of Divine Revelation	X
4. Françoise Besson	X
5. Maria Giovanna Muzi	?
6. Helga Kaiser-Minn	X
7. Jane E. Rosenthal	Not relevant to the question
8. Deborah Markow	X
9. Joseph Engemann	X
10. Yves Christe	X
11. Jean-Maurice Rouquette	X
12. Henri Marrou	X
13. F. W. Deichman	X
14. Nicole et Michel Thierry	Not relevant to the question
15. Ernst H. Kantorowicz	Not relevant to the question
16. Luciano De Bruyne	X
17. Adelheid Heimann	X
18. Erich Dinkler	X
19. Joseph Wilpert	X
20. Karl Künstle	X
21. Oskar Wulff	X
22. Louise Pillion	Not relevant to the question
23. Georg Stuhlfauth	X
24. Joseph Ficker	X	X
25. Anton Heinrich Springer	X
26. Raffaele Garrucci	X, but G-F on the left, XP seated, H-S standing in front
27, 29, 30 Robin Margaret Jensen	X
28. Robert Milburn	X	X

Annex 2 - Inventory of PaleoChristian Sarcophagi with Divine Figures

Annex 2.1. (F1 and F1.1) The Dogmatic Sarcophagus. See the beginning of the article.

**********

Annex 2.2. (F2, F2.1, F2.2 and F2.3) The Trinity-Spouces Sarcophagus from Arles, France. See the beginning of the article.

Kaiser‑Minn, Die Erschaffung des Menschens, pp. 22-23.

The right corner is closed, as on the left, by an enthroned figure: God the Father, bearded, with curls falling down on his neck, sits on a stone, his feet on a stone slab that serves as a footstool, and receives the sacrifice of Cain and Abel. The spandrel of the medallion is filled by the head of a background figure. In the lower spandrels are the heads of grape-eating hares.

If we compare the characterization of the divine persons in the two Creation scenes—that of Lat. 104 [the Dogmatic Sarcophagus] and that of the Trinquetaille sarcophagus—it is astonishing that the characterization of Christ and God the Father, which is so clear in the Trinquetaille sarcophagus, is missing in Lat. 104.

**********

Annex 2.3. The Campli Sarcophagus, a Fragmented, Grooved Sarcophagus from St. Peter’s Church, Campovalno near Campli, Italy.

3. The Campli Sarcophagus.

Kaiser‑Minn, Die Erschaffung des Menschen, fig. 3, pp. 4–5.

The Sarcophagus Fragment in Campli

The front of the sarcophagus of Aurelius Andronicus of Nicomedia “marmorum negotiator” [a marble salesman] in the church of St. Peter in Campovlano near Campli shows a Creation scene on the lower-left corner. The front of the sarcophagus is fragmentary: a sarcophagus with six original scenes, of which the two left-corner ones and the middle ones have been preserved. The scenes are surrounded by frames. . . In the depiction on the left below, a bearded man with long-streaked hair covering his ears and reaching far onto his neck is seated on a cathedra covered with a cloth (the pedestal decorated with a palmette pattern remains uncovered); he is dressed in a tunic, pallium and sandals. His right hand holds a modeling stick at chest level of a smaller slender figure standing in front of him on a cube-shaped pedestal, the surface of which is marked with some chisel marks and thus characterized as a rough rock. As far as can be seen, the naked body of the creature is partly broken away from the middle of the body downwards, but the base of the chest and above the long hair falling down on the back clearly show that a female figure is meant. Behind her stands a youthfully beardless man with shoulder-length curly hair. Like the bearded man, he is dressed in a tunic and pallium, which flows out over the edge of the picture in a strong movement. He has grasped the upper end of the pallium with his right hand. He looks in the direction of the seated man and the smaller figure on the boulder. The background has been left in a bossed state. Stylistic features of the Campli sarcophagus are hardly recognizable because of its unfinished and heavily worn condition. However, on the basis of the iconographic features—especially the figures and the Christ type—it is clear that the sarcophagus was made in the early Constantinian period. . . The content of the representation is thus the shaping of Eve: the last reworking of the creature formed from clay with the modeling material by God the Father in the presence of the Christ Logos.

Fig16.1 Zoom on the Fig16, Campli Sarcophagus, the Upper Left-Corner Scene. The Creation of Eve

**********

Annex 2.4. The So-Called Barlaam Sarcophagus, Museum of St. Sebastian, Rome.

The So-Called Barlaam Sarcophagus

Kaiser‑Minn, Die Erschaffung des Menschen, pp. 6–7.

The so-called Balaam sarcophagus in the Museum of S. Sebastiano in Rome is made of two pieces and was partly destroyed on the left side in later times. The scene on the left—not to be interpreted with certainty because of its fragmentary state—shows close iconographic resemblance to some other Creation scenes. . . On the left end is the representation of a woven basket chair or cathedra covered with a cloth and a footstool in front of it. The head and arms of the figure enthroned on it have been lost. The one on the throne is dressed in a tunic and pallium. The right arm is bent; the forearm and hand are broken. On the left thigh, a fragment of the end of a scroll is recognizable, which the one sitting on the throne holds in his left hand. Behind him is a stretched cloth, which emphasizes his importance. In front of the enthroned figure, two bare feet are recognizable; next to them at the lower part of the tree, there is a serpent coiling around it; and to the right of this, two more bare feet and legs up to the hip—undoubtedly a representation of the Fall. Between the left pair of feet, however, another foot is recognizable: thus, there was another person depicted between the one on the throne and the Fall. Since bare feet in the early Christian representations occur almost exclusively with naked or barely clothed persons, only Adam or Eve could have been represented as created beings. This would result in a sequence of scenes of the Creation and the fall of man, which, however, appear extraordinarily crowded here.

[Kaiser-Minn does not identify the Creator.]

4.1 Zoom of 4, the Left End Segment from the So-Called Balaam Sarcophagus

**********

Annex 2.5. Fragment, The Die Sarcophagus, Musée archéologique de Die et du Diois, Die, France.

A Fragment from a Two-Teered Sarcophagus, Die, France.

André Blanc, “Les sarcophages ornés de Die et de Valence,” Gallia 38, fascicule 1, 1980. pp. 215-238, pp. 234-235

https://www.persee.fr/doc/galia_0016-4119_1980_num_38_1_1796

The fragment of a two-zoned frieze sarcophagus in the Museum of Die (Valence) suggests with great probability a quite similar Creation scene as the one represented Latin 104 [the Dogmatic Sarcophagus]. A part of the upper register, whose two rims are preserved, shows a standing man in a tunic and pallium (head and forearms are broken away) at the left edge of the break. The right arm, as can be seen from the base of the forearm, was stretched out in front of the head of a small, naked figure standing in front of him (the head and the left side of the body are broken away): his right arm is tightly wrapped around his body. In front of his feet lies an equally small naked figure (parts of the head and the right shoulder are missing), also with his arms lying close to the body. Until then, the scene clearly corresponds to the Creation scene of Lat. 104 [the Dogmatic Sarcophagus]. On the left, also correspondingly, God the Father, enthroned, seems to have been depicted: remnants of the footstool cover the lower part of the legs of the reclining Adam; further up, folds of a robe from the leg section of the enthroned one can be seen. To the right, corresponding to Lat. 104, the representation of the assignment of work follows and that of the fall of man in the short formula of the tree with the snake (only recognizable at the tip of its tail on the central strip). . . Stylistically, the sarcophagus fragment in Die is close to the sarcophagus from Trinquetaille and, like it, can be dated to 325–350.

**********

Annex 2.6. Sarcophagus from the Calisto Cemetery of the St. Sabastiano Church, the Lateran Museum, Rome.

A Sarcophagus from the Calisto Cemetery of the St. Sabastiano Church, the Lateran Museum; Excavated in the Time of Aringhi near the Church of S. Sebastiano from the Cemetery Said to Be of Callisto.

Raffaele Garrucci, Storia della arte cristiana nei primi otto secoli della chiesa, Prato: Cav. Gaetano Guasti: Giachetti, figlio e C. 1879, Taf. 318.1, pp. 35–36.

This sarcophagus is now missing the first eight heads . . . which we have restored them from Aringhi’s print.

Nine representations are figured here, side by side, without niches or compartments. The center seems to be held by the composition representing Jesus with half-unfolded scroll in his hand and his right hand elevated in an attitude of speaking to Peter about his denial; Peter stands behind his back and has the rooster near him. The latter is half-bald, has the rod in his left hand and is raising the index finger of his right hand to his lip. In the background are two Apostles, one bearded on the left, the other beardless on the right.

6.1

The first representation on the left: Adam and Eve cover themselves with leaves; in the middle is a tree with snake entwined around it. Adam is bearded for which we have scarcely a match in a cemetery representation; he turns to the left where there is a bearded figure in a tunic and pallium, who has put his hand on his shoulder; both Adam and Eve seem to be making excuses. Before Eve are four pots or baskets, but they belong to the following representation.

[Garrucci does not identify the figure on the far left.]

**********

Annex 2.7. A Sarcophagus in the Lateran Museum.

Garroucci 312,1, p. 24

7. A Sarcophagus in the Lateran Museum, Rome.

7.1 (Fig20.1)

This sarcophagus has, it seems to me, an outstanding image: the group in which Jesus is depicted multiplying the loaves and fish held by two Apostles [Peter and Paul?], in front of whom are the six filled baskets, as in other representations.

[It is difficult to identify the “loaves and fish held by two Apostles.”]

7.2

In place of Christ bearing his symbols, here it is the Word who, standing behind the prevaricating couple, extends his hand and places it on the head of the Canaanite woman who asks for bread; that is, she asks to be incorporated by faith into Christ.

Adam on the left and Eve on the right: in the middle of the tree. The serpent is omitted. Adam covers himself with his right hand and nevertheless also overlays the leaf he holds with his left hand. Eve as she stretches out her hand to the apple of the tree is also covered with the leaf: behind Adam is a bearded man in a tunic and pallium, who attentively looks at Eve holding his right hand on the head of the genuflected Canaanite woman.

7.3

Ezekiel clutches a scroll in his left hand, while with the rod he holds in his right hand he touches the head of one of the young men lying dead: a naked young man stands there near already risen and standing. A bearded man meanwhile approaching from the left speaks to Ezekiel who is looking up, and a young man with a scroll in his hand stands to his right, looking up also. That bearded man is the Word, and the beardless youth is Christ, of whom Ezekiel was a figure, who, hearing the voice of the Father, calls man back to new life.

************

Annex 2.8. Sarcophagus Fragments.

Garroucci 396, In Garroucci’s Text, the Fragments Are Numbered 2–4 and 6.

8 Sarcophagus Fragments

8.1 Garroucci’s Fragment 2 from the Lid of the Cyriace Sarcophagus

Kaiser-Minn, Die Erschaffung des Menschen, pp. 2–3

The sarcophagus was made by the mother of Cyriace. The tabula is held by a winged Eros, naked except for a cloak. Behind him is a seated, youthful, beardless Creator in a long-sleeved tunic, in front of whom, between his legs, stands a long-haired nude figure with a female breast. She is as tall as the other figures. The Creator has placed his right hand with extended index and middle finger on the face of his creature. The tips of his fingers touch her eyes. Following this scene are Adam (short-haired) and Eve (long-haired and with the suggestion of a female breast). They have each raised their right hands to the top of the tree which stands between them and around whose trunk the snake winds itself. A bearded man in a tunic and pallium has turned to the right toward the next scene, from which another figure is recognizable, dressed in a tunica exomis and pileus, which identifies him as one of the three Wisemen.

According to the stylistic features: large-headed figures, heavy, thick robes with deep drilled furrows as folds, the lid of the sarcophagus can be dated to 300–333. Gerke places it in the late 3rd century. Iconographically, it is clear who are meant: Christ the youthful, beardless Creator and Eve with the long-haired, female form. Opinions differ about the rest.

8.2

Garroucci’s Fragment 3 In the next fragment on the left, between Adam and Eve, Jesus holds a lamb by the front feet and a sheaf of wheat. Jesus facing left extends his right hand: before him is perhaps the paralytic with the litter on his shoulders, of which a shapeless fragment remains: in the background is an Apostle looking on. [Is there not a second lamb more roughly sculpted at Eve’s side?]

8.3

Garroucci’s Fragment 4. Rome, in the Rondinini palace. Fragment of a cover in which only one of the three Magi in his costume remains on the left, in the act of offering his gift.

Next is Jesus between Adam and Eve, with the lamb in his right, held by the front feet, and with the handful of wheat in his left. Eve covers herself with the fig leaf and speaks moving her right hand. Adam also covers himself, and seems to want to take the wheat that is brought to him by the Lord: behind him on the left is a basket full of loaves.

8.4

Garroucci’s Fragment 6. Rome, in the Albani villa. A fragment of a cover where the divine Word is seen in the likeness of a full-bearded man, seated, with a scroll in his left hand resting in his lap and feet overlapping. He is in the act of speaking to Abel who in tunic comes to him carrying the lamb in his arms: in the background between both figures appears the head of Cain placed in perspective.

**********

Annex 2.9. The Saragossa Sarcophagus

Garroucci 381.5

9

On the left side, Adam and Eve cover themselves with fig leaves: in the middle of both is the Redeemer in perspective, in long hair, who turns to Adam holding a sheaf of wheat in his right hand and a lamb by its legs in front on the left. Next to Adam is a bearded figure who places his right hand on his shoulder. Eve does not look at Christ but raises her eyes upward. On the lip of the sarcophagus and above each figure is written a name; on the bearded figure ISAC . . ., then ADAN, above Jesus is the monogram XP and above Eve her own name EVVA.

**********

Annex 2.10. A Sarcaphagus Fragment, Garroucci 381, 6

10. A Sarcaphagus Fragment

“On the right flank, Adam and Eve hold fig leaves with their left hands, with which they have covered themselves; Eve has the apple in her elevated right hand, and Adam clutches a branch of the tree to which the apple is attached; the serpent coils around the trunk. Behind Eve appears a bearded figure in short hair, otherwise similar to the one we saw on the left side, and he carries a scroll in his left. By the tree on Adam’s side lies a sheaf of wheat, and on Eve’s side lies a lamb that faces upward looking at her.”

**********

Annex 2.11. A Sarcophagus from the Lateran Museum, Rome. Garroucci 301, 3

11.

11.1 A Zoom of 11. Adam and Eve, Jesus Blessing Adam.

Right side. Depicted is a garden with two trees, one of which is a Cypress tree; in front of it can be seen on the right the Word with a youthful appearance in regard to his future incarnation, with a scroll in his left hand, in the act of placing his hand on the head of Adam, now created, while the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove is suspended above the head of the creature. Adam holding his right hand close to his chest and extending his left hand toward the Word makes the first act of faith and love . . . to recognize and adore the supreme God who has raised him from nothing. Behind the Word is a pillar with a shutter and arch in vault denoting the heavenly palace, whence God descended to earth. The intervention of the heavenly dove determines the meaning of the imposition, showing that the elevation of the creature to the supernatural state of grace is thus intended to be expressed.

**********

Annex 2.12. A Sarcophagus Fragment from Martres-Tolosane, France, 350?

12. Kaiser-Minn, p. 19.

The sarcophagus fragment from Martres-Tolosane is . . . a part of a two-zoned frieze sarcophagus. It shows on the left a small naked male figure (face, left arm and legs from the thigh are broken off). Behind his head is the open left hand of a larger figure, of whom nothing else is preserved. To the right is the body of a third figure wrapped in a pallium (shoulder to the calf, without arms), who, as can be seen from the folds, turns his body to the right and slightly bends his left leg. The depiction corresponds to the right part of the Creation scene of the new sarcophagus from Trinquetaille: Adam standing straight, the hand of the Creator grasping his shoulder (here the back of his head) and to the right of it the figure of Christ turned slightly toward the next scene.

**********

Annex 2.13. The Adelphia Sarcophagus, Museo Archeologico, Syracuse, Italy, 4th-5th Century. Sarcofago_di_Adelfia.JPG (3,098 ×1408) (wikimedia.org)

13. Adelphia Sarcophagus https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Sarcophagus_of_Adelphia

The Sarcophagus of Adelphia is an early Christian sarcophagus, circa AD 340, now in the Museo Archeologico Regionale Paolo Orsi in Syracuse, region of Sicily, Italy. The sarcophagus was found in the Rotunda of Adelphia inside the Catacombs of San Giovanni, in Siracus. The iconography displayed is similar to the layout of the Dogmatic and Junius Bassus sarcophagi, although the quality of depictions is simplified.

The front side of the marble sarcophagus is split into two registers, typical of the style of the time, with both Old Testament and New Testament subjects and a central shell-shaped clipeus containing the portraits of the dead couple, embracing. The lid of the sarcophagus forms a third register. Of note, the depictions of Moses and Jesus, and perhaps God in Eden, are unbearded, as opposed to the bearded Abraham.

The name of the sarcophagus derives from the hypothesis that it was used for the burial of the Roman noblewoman Adelfia. The central medallion would represent a portrait of the couple, mentioned in the center of the lid by an epigraph arranged on three lines in a tabula ansata13 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_ansata#cite_note-1 on a red background:

(H)IC ADELFIA C(LARISSIMA) F(EMINA)

POSITA CONPAR

BALERI COMITIS

Here lies Adelphia, a famous woman, wife of Count Valerius.

13.1 A Zoom of 13 The Adelphia Sarcophagus. Jesus Gives Tasks to Adam and Eve.

13.2 A Zoom on 13. Adam and Eve with Possibly Jesus, behind Adam, Speaking to Them.

**********

Annex 2.14. The Lot Sarcophagus from the San Sebastiano Catacomb, Rome, 340–360.

14. The Lot Sarcophagus from the San Sebastiano Catacomb, Rome, 340–360. file:///C:/Users/Utilisateur/Dropbox/PC/Downloads/Brightly_Colored_to_Stay_in_the_Dark_Revealing_of_%20 (1).pdf

Bracci S, Magrini D, Manganelli del Fà R, Cuzman OA, Mazzei B., “Brightly Colored to Stay in the Dark. Revealing of the Polychromy of the Lot Sarcophagus in the Catacomb of San Sebastiano in Rome,” Heritage, 2020 3(3), pp. 859–860 https://doi.org/10.3390/heritage3030047

The Lot Sarcophagus, still preserved in situ, is made with a monolithic lid, a frieze on the front and a monolithic chest with a double register frieze on the front, interrupted in the center by a shell containing two portrait busts. . . The sculpted artwork dates to the mid-4th century, since the stylistic manner seems to demonstrate it was produced by a thriving Roman marble workshop. The Lot Sarcophagus was found in June 1950 during the excavation conducted by Father Ferrua, of a sumptuous mausoleum adjacent to the Basilica of St. Sebastian.

14.1 A Zoom of 14. Christ the Ancient of Days Receiving Cain and Abel’s Sacrifices

14.2 A Zoom of 14. Jesus Speaking to Adam and Eve

**********

Annex 2.15 A Sarcophagus with Frontal Scenes from Scripture, Museo Pio Cristiano, Inventory #31,551 ex 189, Vatican, Rome, 300–325

15. A Sarcophagus with Frontal Biblical Scenes https://www.christianiconography.info/sicily/sarc31551Pio.html

15.1 A Zoom on 16. Jesus Assigning Tasks to Adam and Eve

**********

Annex 2.16. The Trees Sarcophagus, Musée du Louvre MR 807, Ma 2,981, 300–350.

16. The Trees Sarcophagus https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:P1070861_Louvre_sarcophage_%C3%A0_arbres_Ma2981_rwk.JPG

16.1 A Zoom on 16. Christ the Ancient of Days Receiving the Offerings of Cain and Abel

***********

Annex 2.17. The Trees Sarcophagus, Anastasis Type

17. Sarcophagus “with trees” of the Anastasis Type, probably originates from the primitive St. Paul’s Basilica, built by the Emperor Constantine (306–337) over the tomb of the Apostle along the Via Ostiense, Vatican Museums, 340–350. https://www.museivaticani.va/content/dam/museivaticani/immagini/collezioni/musei/museo_pio_cristiano/06_03_Sarcofago_ad-alberi_Anastasis.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/cq5dam.web.1280.1280.jpeg

17.1 A Zoom on 17. Christ the Ancient of Days Receiving Cain and Abel’s Sacrifices

***********

Annex 2.18. The Sarcophagus of the Traditio Legis, Arles, France, 4th Century.

18. Arles_sarcophagus_with_christ.jpg (3572×1984) (wikimedia.org)

18.1 A Zoom on 18. Jesus Gives the New Law to Peter, Accompanied by Paul.

***********

Annex 2.19. The Louvre Trees Sarcophagus, The Louvre, Paris, 4th Century.

19. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Sarcophage_%C3%A0_arbres,_Louvre_00.JPG

19.1 A Zoom on 19. Christ the Ancient of Days Receives the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel.

IMAGES

Fig3 The Symbol of the Hand of God in the Ascension from the Drogo Sacramentary,

c. 850.

Fig4 Hetimasia, St. Marks, Venice, Italy, 12th Century.

Fig5 The Pentecost Icon

Fig6 Herrade de Landsberge. Hortus Delicearum, Folio 8, around 1180, Strasburg, Former City Library, Manuscript Burned in a Fire 1870. It is thought to be the first three-man representation of the Trinity http://www2.iath.virginia.edu/anderson/gaa/hd.8r.day2.sepwaters.jpg

Fig7 Two of the Three Images of Christ in Three Forms, The Church of Egri Tas Kilisesi, Cappadocia, Turkey

Fig7.1 The Three Images of Christ in Different Age

Fig7.2 A Complete Drawing of the Damaged Fresco

**********

Fig8 Prometheus creating the first man (Roman sarcophagus, 4th century AD) From a mausoleum at Pozzuoli (Puteoli), discovered intact at the beginning of the 19th century. Displayed at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples. https://www.flickriver.com/photos/chrisjohnbeckett/546841684/

Fig9 Three Creation Scenes, Rouen Cathedral, The Booksellers’ Portal, Three pillars of the right side, p. 167.

Fig9.1 The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth Fig9.2 the Creation of the Animals

Fig9.3 The Creation of the Plants	Fig9.4 Rouen, Creation of Man.

Fig9.5 The Creation of the Sun and Moon	Fig9.6 The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden

Fig9.7 The 6th Day, the Earth and	Fig10 Chartres Cathedral, the Creation of the Moon the Heavens Were Finished	and the Sun

Fig10.1 The Creation of Man

Fig10.2 Adam is Assigned His Work

Fig10.3 The Creation of the Animals

Fig10.4 The Creation of the Heavens and the Earth

Fig10.5 Adam and Eve Appear before “God”

Fig10.6 The Creation of the Heavens and the Angels

Fig11 Scenes from Genesis, The Great Canterbury Psalter, (also called the Anglo-Catalan Psalter or Paris Psalter), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, MS lat. 8,846, early 13th- and mid-14th-century

https://www.medievalists.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Great-Canterbury-Psalter1.jp

Fig12 The Pantheon Bible, Scenes from Genesis, Vatican Library Vat. lat. 12,958, f. 4v

1100–1120

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bible_du_Panth%C3%A9on_-_BAV_Lat.12958_f4v.jpg

,

Fig13 Day Five of Creation, French Manuscript Illumination, c1250.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=kES%2B5NbI&id=C3F4508A05D7820BCB19BB7D568A0316214303D6&thid=OIP.kES-5NbIwx-UkZ0ZLPhnYQHaHa&mediaurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi5.walmartimages.com%2Fasr%2Fbe721969-0563-46ed-866e-6abb8d1a3887_1.7a588c41ef974b7db3ea4c2ee3d4a96b.jpeg%3FodnWidth%3D1000%26odnHeight%3D1000%26odnBg%3Dffffff&exph=1000&expw=1000&q=Anglo-Saxon+Bible+illuminations+Genesis&form=IRPRST&ck=E8DE8E97E44860FEFB0F6E7FA84FF9B4&selectedindex=1&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0&pivotparams=insightsToken%3Dccid_gAyfjwIb*cp_361D42050C864BF739D2566462E668FD*mid_805E33D511878240866801AFE6AB630A5513977C*simid_608023140360391708*thid_OIP.gAyfjwIbWGC-wJMg226nbQHaIo&vt=2&sim=11&iss=VSI&cdnurl=https%3A%2F%2Fth.bing.com%2Fth%2Fid%2FR.9044bee4d6c8c31f94919d192cf86761%3Frik%3D1gNDIRYDilZ9uw%26pid%3DImgRaw%26r%3D0

Fig14 The Moutier Grandval Bible, St. Martin of Tours Abbey, British Library, Add.10546, 835.

https://blogs.bl.uk/.a/6a00d8341c464853ef0191044dab9e970c-pi

Fig15 Christ among the Apostles, between Peter and Paul, Peter and Paul below, Catacomb of St. Domitilla, 4th Century.

https://www2.cbn.com/news/world/ancient-art-reveals-biblical-depictions-jesus?utm_source=wnd&utm_medium=wnd&utm_campaign=syndicated

http://scihi.org/antonio-bosio-roman-catacombs/#google_vignette

https://www.oldest.org/artliterature/jesus-paintings/

Fig16 Jesus among the Apostles, Peter and Paul Seated, Catacomb of St. Domitilla, 4th-5th Centuries 1,600-Year-Old Paintings of Christ Discovered in Roman Catacombs | Live Science. https://www.oldest.org/artliterature/jesus-paintings/

Fig17 Christ in the Heavenly Jerusalem seated between Peter and Paul and the Other Apostles, Santa Prudenzia, Rome, 410–417. Basilica di Santa Pudenziana (stpudenziana.org) https://www.oldest.org/artliterature/jesus-paintings/

Fig18 Christ between Peter and Paul, Catacombs of Marcellinus and Peter, Christ Symbolized by a Lamb, 4th Century.

https://www.oldest.org/artliterature/jesus-paintings/ChristPeterPaul.jpg—Wikimedia Commons

Fig19 Sarcophagus Fragment, Christ between Peter and Paul, 375–400.

museivaticani.va/content/museivaticani/en/collezioni/musei/museo-pio-cristiano/nativita-epifania/frammento-di-architrave-con-cristo-tra-pietro-e-paolo.html

Fig20 Christ between Peter and Paul, Sarcophagus of Junio Bassus, 359. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Sarcophagus_of_Junius_Bassus

https://www.bing.com/search?q=Sarcophage+de+Junius+Bassus&filters=sid:%22a377654e-ccd7-ba4e-71ac-50683c4a2fac%22&elv=AXXfrEiqqD9r3GuelwApulov9eiS7wcNIVL9dfDum0jWJ1I4TwElilOeCPjyeiXDfQuoxWE8X0qlORRLkYMcG9E4p9BoGy*TNenxXkesQ3BC&FORM=IMGENT

Fig21 Christ between Peter and Paul, Mausolium of Santa Constanza, 4th Century. https://www.flickr.com/photos/lindseyandjenny/2307250695

Fig22 Christ in Aureole of Light, between Peter and Paul. Mosaic, Catacomb of Saint Domitilla, Rome, c. 366–384; https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Christ-in-Aureole-of-Light-between-Peter-and-Paul-Mosaic-Catacomb-of-Saint-Domitilla_fig2_257011537

Fig23 Christ between Peter and Paul, Throne of Bishop Maximian, Ravenna, 546–556. https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/14003448829918833/

Fig24 Diptych Christ between Peter and Paul, Diptych Saint-Lupicin, Left Side, Bibliothèque nationale, 6th century. https://tr.pinterest.com/pin/533535887103226986/

Fig25 The Young, Beardless Jesus as Eschatological Judge, apse mosaic in the basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy. St. Vitalis, an archangel, Jesus Christ, a second archangel, and Bishop of Ravenna Ecclesius, 547.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=vBlHYN6%2f&id=C3A066269B24FCF0CD948D4CFD4A2E09FD2F85B5&thid=OIP.vBlHYN6_-pucOoDslZZdlAHaE8&mediaurl=https%3a%2f%2fkeepcalmandwander.com%2fwp-content%2fuploads%2f2018%2f04%2fBasilica-di-San-Vitale-Ravenna-Italy-10.jpg&cdnurl=https%3a%2f%2fth.bing.com%2fth%2fid%2fR.bc194760debffa9b9c3a80ec95965d94%3frik%3dtYUv%252fQkuSv1MjQ%26pid%3dImgRaw%26r%3d0&exph=640&expw=960&q=apse+mosaic+in+the+basilica+of+San+Vitale%2c+Ravenna%2c+Italy.&simid=607996094937377649&FORM=IRPRST&ck=A19348CC81151F0263795BEED1E4D514&selectedIndex=33&ajaxhist=0&ajaxserp=0

Fig26 Christ with angels on apse mosaic from the Church of San Michele in Africisco, Ravenna, Bode Museum, Berlin, Germany, 545–546.

http://www.the-silk-route.co.uk/germanyberlinmuseums.htm

Fig26.1 A Zoom of Fig. 26

8538a6ef9c19a63d292723f55777dd6e.jpg (5,184 × 3,456) (pinimg.com)

Fig27 The Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, Museo Tresoro, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican, 349. https://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/zearly/1/1sculptu/sarcopha/1/6bassus3.html

Fig27.1 A Zoom on Fig. 27 Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus, Museo Tresoro, St. Peter’s Basilica, the Vatican, 349. https://www.wga.hu/frames-e.html?/html/zearly/1/1sculptu/sarcopha/1/6bassus3.html

Fig28 The Sarcophagus Tradio legis, Arles, France, 4th Century.

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/f3/0c/c4/f30cc4d1174d9759dfeff138f160d4c7.jpg

Fig28.1 A Zoom on Fig.28 The Sarcophagus Tradio legis, Arles, France, 4th Century.

Fig29 The Sarcophagus of Stilicon, Basilica St. Ambrogio, Milan, Italy, 350–400.

https://leblogdephil.com/1997/01/01/basilique-saint-ambroise-milan-le-sarcophage-de-stilicon/

Fig29.1 A Zoom on Fig29. Christ Gives the New Law to Peter Accompanied by Paul.

Fig30 Christ with angels on apse mosaic from the Church of San Michele in Africisco, Ravenna, Bode Museum, Berlin, Germany, 545–546.

http://www.the-silk-route.co.uk/germanyberlinmuseums.htm

Fig30.1 A Zoom of Fig.30 The Eschatological Christ, Judge, with Michael and Gabriel, but in the Form of a Young Man. https://i.pinimg.com/originals/2b/62/37/2b6237ca04abf9fac74817cddea4bcb6.jpg

Fig30.2 A Zoom of Fig30 The Eschatological Christ, Judge, in a Form Similar to the Ancient of Days but at the End of Time https://i.pinimg.com/originals/53/6e/87/536e87b08ca4819cf0685ebd82110977.jpg

Fig31.1 Christ the King Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 943, fol 5v

(photo Bibliothèque nationale)

Fig31.2 Christ the god, Paris, Bibl. Nat. Ms lat. 943, fol 6

(photo: Bibliothèque nationale)

Fig31.3 Christ the Man. Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS lat. 944, fol 6v

(photo: Bibliothèque nationale)

Fig32.1 Offices of New Minster, Winchester (Cotton MS Titus D. XXVII, fol 75v) Officium Trinitatis, Quinity of Winchester, c. 1012 to 1020, Cotton Ms. Titus D XXVII, fol. 75v, British Museum.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Quinity_of_Winchester,_c._1012_to_1020,_Cotton_Ms._Titus_D_XXVII,_fol._75v,_British_Museum.jpg

Fig32.2 Luttrell Psalter, fol 204, Psalm 109. https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/ttp/luttrell/accessible/images/page28full.jpg

Fig32.3 The Utrecht Psalter, fol 64v Psalm 109. https://psalter.library.uu.nl/page/136

Fig32.4 Historiated Initial to Psalm 109, In “The Grandisson Psalter” https://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/onlineex/illmanus/other/largeimage74237.html

Fig32.5 The of Godwin British Museum, London 11th Century, Psalm 109.

https://artsandculture.google.com/asset/seal-die-of-godwin-and-godgytha/igEzEG3ce8jbFQ

Fig33 A Leaf from The Winchester Psalter, Psalter: Psalm 109, Initial D with the Trinity

Flemish (Artist), 1275–1300. https://art.thewalters.org/detail/6304/leaf-from-psalter-psalm-109-initial-d-with-the-trinity/

Fig34 Sacophagus, Museo Pio Cristiano, 4th Century.A Sarcophagus Found in the Cemetary of Lucina, near St. Paul Outside the Walls, Museo Pio Cristiano/Vatican Museums/Vatican State, 330–360. Thanks to Robin Jensen. https://www.artres.com/CS.aspx?VP3=DamView&VBID=2UN365UAMG85H&SMLS=1&RW=1536&RH=747

Fig34.1 A Zoom on Fig34 Christ the Ancient of Days Receiving Cain and Abel’s Sacrifices.