DOI issue:
Nr. 2-3
DOI article:Dobrzeniecki, Tadeusz; Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie [Contr.]: Maiestas Domini from the Faras Cathedral in the National Museum in Warsaw: (prolegomena to the iconography)
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.18864#0089
The transition from the Semitic to the Hellenistic form of expression of the doctrine contents
is not only the concern of the representatives of the official Church but also a universal phenome-
non, known as well to the sects of this period. Ali of Christianity with the exception of Syria37,
adopted Greek culture. It goes mainly for the gnosticism and originally it had no connection with
Hellenism. Valentin and Basilides in Alexandria made of gnosticism a philosophical system38.
In cosmopolitan Alexandria the great religious currents of the Classical world met Greek culture
and the hermetism appeared which was a hellenization of ancient Egyptian religion. The oldest
preseryed commentary to the Gospel of St John was written in Alexandria by Origenes, who was
persuaded to do so by a gnostic, he had converted to Christianity39.
V. Since light was for Ancient man a natural phenomenon experienced daily, it was
particularly suitable for defining the Supremę Being experienced by religious mankind.
But the character of religion does not admit the identification of light with God40. The
developed universal Hellenistic religions, for example, in Philo's system, do not make such
an identification. Here, natural light is a symbol of divinity sińce in the sensual sphere it
makes visible the non-sensual, transcendental essence of divinity; without this light, language
is the only means of representation. The definition ofGod as light includes implicitly the compa-
rison having as the tertium comparationis not the light as a natural phenomenon, but as a property
of God, the highest being in the supernatural order and the attribute of light in the natural order.
In the development of Early Christian Christology an important role was played by the compa-
rison of Jesus Christ to the sun having thefirst source in the formuła of the Gospel of St John :
"God is the brightness and it is no darkness in Him". The implication of this formuła was a view,
known in AIexandria, that God is the "bright spiritual sun". A Hnd century apologist Theophilus
of Alexandria wrote in his didactic commentary on the work of creation as follows : "The sun
is a symbol of God, the Moon —: a symbol of man. The sun preserving its fuli shape is the image
of divine perfection, the Moon is narrowing from month to month, the intensity of its light
weakened and in such a way it is the symbol of man."41. From the direct comparison of God
with light and the sun, the statements referring to Logos, based on the Old Testamental pra-
ise of Wisdom.
The main ideological content of the images of Christ in the Nubian murals (Faras and Dongola,
figs. 4, 5) are an echo, distant in time, of the confrontation of Christianity with the Ancient
cult of sun42. Christianity developing on the background of Mediterranean culture from the
very beginning formed a relation to the cult of the sun exercised in the whole richness of its
forms by the people, of that region.
Franz Cumont incisively described the mood of Late Antiąue Heliolatry, with the Christians
of the first four centuries encountered. In the complexity of this encounter, in the way of bringing
the Church in touch with the solar monotheism and the theosophic astral mystics of Neopla-
tonism, the essential ideological premises are included of the Christian art, which found its original
expression in Nubian iconography.
37. G. Quispel, Makarius, das Thomascuangelium muł das Lied von der Perle, Leiden, 1967 (Supplements to Novum Tesla-
mentum 15), pp. 5—8: Dic Eigenart der syrischen Christentums.
38. F.M.M. Sagnard, La Gnose valentlnienne et le temoignage de saint Irenee, Paris 1947 ; R. Wagner, Die Gnosis von Alexandria.
Stuttgart, 1968.
39. Origenes, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, tlberseizt und eingefuhrt von E. Gogler, Ziirich—Koln, 1959, pp. 15 — 90 : Ein*
fiihrung. Die Voraussetzungen des Werkes.
40. Klein, Die Lichlterminologie, op.cit., pp. 204—210.
41. F.J. Dólger, ''Sonnensclieibc und Sonncnstrahl", Antike und Christentum, Bd. VI, 1950, pp. 74—75.
42. H. Rahner, "Das christliche Mysterium von Sonne und, Mond" Eranos-Jahrbuch Bd. 10, 1943, pp. 305—404 ; the same.
Das christliche Mysterium der Sonne in Die Sonne. Licht und Leben. Herausgegeben von J. Jobe, Freiburg i .Br, 1975, pp,
59—79.
79
is not only the concern of the representatives of the official Church but also a universal phenome-
non, known as well to the sects of this period. Ali of Christianity with the exception of Syria37,
adopted Greek culture. It goes mainly for the gnosticism and originally it had no connection with
Hellenism. Valentin and Basilides in Alexandria made of gnosticism a philosophical system38.
In cosmopolitan Alexandria the great religious currents of the Classical world met Greek culture
and the hermetism appeared which was a hellenization of ancient Egyptian religion. The oldest
preseryed commentary to the Gospel of St John was written in Alexandria by Origenes, who was
persuaded to do so by a gnostic, he had converted to Christianity39.
V. Since light was for Ancient man a natural phenomenon experienced daily, it was
particularly suitable for defining the Supremę Being experienced by religious mankind.
But the character of religion does not admit the identification of light with God40. The
developed universal Hellenistic religions, for example, in Philo's system, do not make such
an identification. Here, natural light is a symbol of divinity sińce in the sensual sphere it
makes visible the non-sensual, transcendental essence of divinity; without this light, language
is the only means of representation. The definition ofGod as light includes implicitly the compa-
rison having as the tertium comparationis not the light as a natural phenomenon, but as a property
of God, the highest being in the supernatural order and the attribute of light in the natural order.
In the development of Early Christian Christology an important role was played by the compa-
rison of Jesus Christ to the sun having thefirst source in the formuła of the Gospel of St John :
"God is the brightness and it is no darkness in Him". The implication of this formuła was a view,
known in AIexandria, that God is the "bright spiritual sun". A Hnd century apologist Theophilus
of Alexandria wrote in his didactic commentary on the work of creation as follows : "The sun
is a symbol of God, the Moon —: a symbol of man. The sun preserving its fuli shape is the image
of divine perfection, the Moon is narrowing from month to month, the intensity of its light
weakened and in such a way it is the symbol of man."41. From the direct comparison of God
with light and the sun, the statements referring to Logos, based on the Old Testamental pra-
ise of Wisdom.
The main ideological content of the images of Christ in the Nubian murals (Faras and Dongola,
figs. 4, 5) are an echo, distant in time, of the confrontation of Christianity with the Ancient
cult of sun42. Christianity developing on the background of Mediterranean culture from the
very beginning formed a relation to the cult of the sun exercised in the whole richness of its
forms by the people, of that region.
Franz Cumont incisively described the mood of Late Antiąue Heliolatry, with the Christians
of the first four centuries encountered. In the complexity of this encounter, in the way of bringing
the Church in touch with the solar monotheism and the theosophic astral mystics of Neopla-
tonism, the essential ideological premises are included of the Christian art, which found its original
expression in Nubian iconography.
37. G. Quispel, Makarius, das Thomascuangelium muł das Lied von der Perle, Leiden, 1967 (Supplements to Novum Tesla-
mentum 15), pp. 5—8: Dic Eigenart der syrischen Christentums.
38. F.M.M. Sagnard, La Gnose valentlnienne et le temoignage de saint Irenee, Paris 1947 ; R. Wagner, Die Gnosis von Alexandria.
Stuttgart, 1968.
39. Origenes, Das Evangelium nach Johannes, tlberseizt und eingefuhrt von E. Gogler, Ziirich—Koln, 1959, pp. 15 — 90 : Ein*
fiihrung. Die Voraussetzungen des Werkes.
40. Klein, Die Lichlterminologie, op.cit., pp. 204—210.
41. F.J. Dólger, ''Sonnensclieibc und Sonncnstrahl", Antike und Christentum, Bd. VI, 1950, pp. 74—75.
42. H. Rahner, "Das christliche Mysterium von Sonne und, Mond" Eranos-Jahrbuch Bd. 10, 1943, pp. 305—404 ; the same.
Das christliche Mysterium der Sonne in Die Sonne. Licht und Leben. Herausgegeben von J. Jobe, Freiburg i .Br, 1975, pp,
59—79.
79