Historias breves
160 ] Por el agujero de la memoria construyendo PAZ
through a process of liturgical consecration and rededication; and in the case of Sant‟ Apollinare Nuovo, through a final element of change: „the modification and purgation of the images‟.640
From the Liber Pontificalis we learn that bishop Agnellus „reconciled all of the churches of the Goths that had been built at the time of the Goths and king Theoderic and which held by the perfidious Arians and by the doctrine and faith of the heretics‟.641
However the mosaic panels of the upper register of the church escaped this process and they were left intact.
640 Urbano 2005, 92. 641
The English translation was taken from Urbano 2005, 82. The Latin text reads: “Igitur iste
In the previous chapter it was argued that the choice to depict the Road to Emmaus in Sant‟ Apollinare Nuovo, a scene rarely depicted in Byzantine art and usually forming part of extensive post-Resurrection cycles, was the result of Arian influence. The scene, as we have seen, has a more terrestrial value and was used by the early Church Fathers as part of arguments intended to prove that Christ possessed not only a divine nature but also a human one. Whether the mosaic panel of the Road to Emmaus has a hidden theological agenda will be discussed below.
The two other scenes from the post-Resurrection cycle, namely the Maries at the Tomb and the Incredulity of Thomas, present no distinctive modifications from earlier models that one may label „Arian‟; on the contrary, these scenes share many stylistic and iconographic elements that were absent in earlier representations but became standard in the fully developed Middle Byzantine depictions of these themes.642 However, one particular detail is somewhat suspicious: the standing sarcophagus in the Maries‟ panel. This is the second oldest instance, Dura being the first, that Christ‟s sepulchre is depicted as a sarcophagus.643 If we consider that there was both a Roman and a Palestinian influence in Ravenna,644 then the absence of a mausoleum or of an elaborate structure becomes conspicuous. However, the colonnade that surrounds the sarcophagus does provide a distant memory of the Constantinian rotunda and a burial
haereticorum secta doctrina et credulitate tenebantur”, Liber Pontificalis 86: 38-41 in Deliyannis 2006, 253.
642 For example the winged seated angel of the Maries becomes standard in later representations, which is also the case for the full number of disciples that appear in the Incredulity. The latter scene however portrays Christ raising his left hand instead of his right.
643 Here of course the sarcophagus is surrounded by a colonnade, covered with a dome. Part of a sarcophagus is also visible on the British Museum ivory panel that depicts the Maries at the Tomb. 644 Von Simson 1987 and Baumstark 1910 respectively. While Von Simson argues for a Roman influence on the mosaic decoration, it should be noted that the only other pre-Iconoclast example of the Road to Emmaus comes from Rome and Santa Maria Antiqua but post-dates our example, thus the possibility exists that it is the arts of Ravenna that have actually influenced the iconography of Rome.
place fit for God.645 Most probably Christ‟s sepulchre on this panel shows the diversity of examples available to the artists in Ravenna, instead of a hidden theological agenda.
Both the Maries at the Tomb and the Incredulity were depicted flanking the Road to Emmaus, something that attests once more to their popularity as visual synonyms of the Resurrection. These Maries and the Incredulity „proved‟ Christ‟s Resurrection and they were usually coupled together as on the Monza ampulla no. 9 (fig. 4),646 and the British Museum ivory (figs. 21-22),647 and many later examples. Thus the inclusion of the Road to Emmaus between these two images at Sant‟ Apollinare must have served another function. Before trying to establish what this function might have been, it should be noted that all other surviving examples of the Road to Emmaus, aside from manuscript illumination, come from the West.648 The wall-paintings from Santa Maria Antiqua and the reliefs from the cruciform reliquary of Paschal I are two such
examples.649 Thus the depiction of the Road to Emmaus could have been a „local‟, Italian tradition, of which Sant‟ Apollinare Nuovo was just one example. This, of course, does not fully explain the choice of this scene in the mosaic decoration.
It has been established by scholars that the Christological cycle portrayed in the two upper registers on the opposing walls of Sant‟ Apollinare belonged to the original
645 See for example the similarities between the two sepulchres on the contemporary ivory pyxis from Palestine, Weitzmann 1979, 581, no 520 and this mosaic, Bovini 1961, fig.37.
646
Grabar 1968, 24: the Crucifixion with the Maries appears on the one side, while the Incredulity on the other.
647 Kitzinger 1960, 21, Weitzmann 1979, no. 452.
648 See for example Nordhagen 1968, for the frescoes of John VII (705-707) in Santa Maria Antiqua; Cecchelli 1926-27 for the cruciform reliquary of Paschal I (817-824); and the much later mosaics of Monreale, Demus 1949.
Arian decoration.650 Is it then possible to argue that the scenes reflect an Arian theology? And if so, why they were kept intact? To answer the first question one usually has to maintain that the differences in the facial characteristics of Christ in the scenes from his miracles and life are indicative of a theological agenda. In the passion cycle Christ appears bearded, while in the miracle cycle he is beardless. Thus the miracle register supposedly depicts Christ‟s divine and the passion scenes his human nature.651 Urbano on one hand believes that „the panels representing the resurrection appearances in the „passion‟ cycle do not depict a suffering Christ but rather a (bearded) glorified Christ appearing to his followers‟.652
Von Simson on the other, believes that the great Christological controversies of the fifth century, and especially Nestorianism, found their way into the mosaic panels of Sant‟ Apollinare Nuovo.653 While this argument still remains unsettled among scholars, Von Simson‟s closing remarks on the subject are of some importance: „but the essence of these mosaics is what may be called their „ecumenical spirit‟: they draw their inspiration from the earliest and deepest sources of the Christian faith‟.654
This ecumenical spirit could explain why these scenes were left intact. They were not promoting an Arian theology but a theology that was open to interpretation.
While Urbano argues that the idea that a beard indicates Christ‟s humanity, is „itself problematic and unconvincing‟ that does not necessarily imply, and the author himself agrees, that the scenes were not theologically charged.655 In the previous chapter, we have seen how the same events from the New Testament were used by both Orthodox
650 Bovini 1961, 6; Von Simson 1987, 71.
651 See for example the classic study, Von Simson‟s 1989, 71-76. 652 Urbano 2005, 104
653 Ibid, 73-74. 654
Von Simson 1987, 75. 655 Urbano 2005, 104.
and heretics to promote their respective theologies. Theodoret explained what the process of refutation would be when the heretics use the Maries at the Tomb.656 The same, to a lesser extent, could be said about the Incredulity of Thomas, where the words spoken by Thomas were manipulated by Theodore of Mopsuestia to show that Christ had only a human nature.657 If a New Testament episode could be used by either side to prove their argument, then the images themselves could perform the same task. Thus when a church changes hands, the same images could be interpreted by the new owners as corresponding with their version of theology. This may explain why the mosaics on the upper tier remained unaltered; they suited both traditions and they were theologically but not dogmatically charged. To conclude, „there is no convincing evidence that Arian Goths developed a distinctive artistic tradition of employed significantly different symbology or iconography in Italy as an expression of an Arian theology or identity‟.658
It is plausible then that the Road to Emmaus had no „heretical‟ implications. As this scene appears in no other monument outside Italy before Iconoclasm, its choice in the upper register of Sant‟ Apollinare could be seen as part of a local tradition that grew independently from pilgrimage iconography, but not from pilgrimage.659 The House of Kleopas, one of the two disciples of Emmaus, is already mentioned as a pilgrimage site by Jerome in his Letter to Eustochium (AD 404) and also by a certain Theodosios in his Topography of the Holy Land (first quarter of the sixth century).660 Jerome‟s
656 Theodoret, Letter CXLIV to the Soldiers, NPNF 3: 311. 657
Tanner 1990, 120.
658 So Urbano 2005, 88 note 43.
659 The scene of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, could have served as an antitype for the road the pilgrims took for the Holy Land; it also served as a reminder that they will also „meet‟ Christ in the Holy Land, the same way the two pilgrims met Christ on the road to Emmaus. See the final chapter and also below.
influence on the understanding of the Holy Land by western Christians was immense and this is reflected by the fact that his description of the site of the Ascension was reproduced by Paulinus of Nola and Sulpicius Severus within ten years of the letter being written.661 Thus the city of Emmaus on the mosaic panel was a constant
reminder of one‟s journey to meet Christ, either spiritually or in reality, by visiting the Holy Land.662 This mosaic panel has a final detail of some interest. The second of the two disciples on the mosaic panel, unnamed in the Gospels, preserves the facial characteristic typical of Peter.663 While the Gospels provide no name for Kleopas‟ companion, Origen had identified him with Peter,664 thus a loose connection between Rome, Peter, and the Road to Emmaus in Ravenna can be established.