Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (15.1974)

but even more often in the representations of the Maiestas Domini, sińce the Dove above the
head of Christ demonstrates his highest majesty. Such a justification was formulated by Efrem
the Syrian, who wrote about St John the Baptist that on the Jordan ...vidit Spiritum super
caput Filii manentem ut demonstraretur supremam Maiestatem6".

In the statement of Efrem a commonly accepted view is included having deep roots in the
Biblical Christology as well as the representational tradition to which the tympanum at Strzelno
belongs and a miniaturę in a Greek manuscript, finished in 1339: Christ is here enthroned between
the Intercessors — the Virgin and St John the Baptist with the sigles IC XC (Christos = Anoin-
ted)70: this chrism is demonstrated by the Dove who is resting (= mansit) on the head of Christ
in profile in the way identical with that of the tympanum of Strzelno, where it is standing over
Jesus' head (fig. 7).

The Greek miniaturę has not any obvious threads of the dogma of the Trinity, there is also
no reason to look after it in the Strzelno tympanum. The Dove standing in profile over the
head of Christ appears also in the representations of the Tree of Jesse, based on the prophecy

69. I quote after Ristow, op. cit, p. 30: Hymnus dc Epiphania IX, l(in) T. J. Lamy, Sancli Ephracm Syri Hymni et Sermones,
Malines, 1882, I, col. 90.

70. Nikolas Myrepsos, De compositione mcdicamenlorum libri XXIV, Paris Bibl. Nat. Gr 2243, fol. 10: Byzance ul la France
medu'vale, Manuscrits a peintures da Ile au XVIe sihcle, Bibliothccpie Nationale, Paris, 1958, pi. XXIV.

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