DOI chapter:
Plate 1-XCIII
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.62036#0082
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PLATE XVI.
THE SECOND PERSON OF THE TRINITY REPRESENTED AS
ORPHEUS.
This was a much less frequent image of the Saviour than that of the Good Shepherd,
and was evidently adopted from Heathen Mythology, but its application to Christianity
was natural and obvious : the beasts of the forest, allured by the sound of the Lyre,
might well be thought to represent those who were attracted to Christianity by
the sound of the Gospel. In the 3rd century, the Emperor Alexander Severus placed
a statue of Orpheus in his private chapel, with those of Abraham and Moses, and
this circumstance, together with that of the Orphic Hymns praising the one God,
may have contributed to the Christian adaptation of the subject. The wild beasts
were not an unfit image of the human passions, which were to be brought into
subjection to the Gospel; and, as this subject was frequently placed with that of
the Good Shepherd, it is not unlikely that the two bore an allusion to the “ Lost
Sheep of the House of Israel,” and to the calling of the Gentiles to the privileges
of the Gospel.
Figs. 1. and 3. From paintings in the Cemetery of St. Calixtus, in the Catacombs of Rome. (1.)
2. From a coin of Antoninus Pius, 2nd century. (16.)
PLATE XVI.
THE SECOND PERSON OF THE TRINITY REPRESENTED AS
ORPHEUS.
This was a much less frequent image of the Saviour than that of the Good Shepherd,
and was evidently adopted from Heathen Mythology, but its application to Christianity
was natural and obvious : the beasts of the forest, allured by the sound of the Lyre,
might well be thought to represent those who were attracted to Christianity by
the sound of the Gospel. In the 3rd century, the Emperor Alexander Severus placed
a statue of Orpheus in his private chapel, with those of Abraham and Moses, and
this circumstance, together with that of the Orphic Hymns praising the one God,
may have contributed to the Christian adaptation of the subject. The wild beasts
were not an unfit image of the human passions, which were to be brought into
subjection to the Gospel; and, as this subject was frequently placed with that of
the Good Shepherd, it is not unlikely that the two bore an allusion to the “ Lost
Sheep of the House of Israel,” and to the calling of the Gentiles to the privileges
of the Gospel.
Figs. 1. and 3. From paintings in the Cemetery of St. Calixtus, in the Catacombs of Rome. (1.)
2. From a coin of Antoninus Pius, 2nd century. (16.)