The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art (review)

Reviewed by: The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art Graydon F. Snyder Paul Corby Finney. The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. Pp. xxviii 1 319. $45.00. Finney, Associate Professor of Ancient History at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, has published a useful study on early Christian art and, primarily, the attitudes of the earliest Christians about art. The work stems from a long interest in the subject which first resulted in a Harvard doctoral thesis in 1972. The present publication includes part of that thesis plus additional research. Because, perhaps, of the time span involved in the composition, there are several foci in Finney’s presentation, though eventually he does present one clear thesis. But first the parts. Constantly lurking behind his argument is the question of the so-called tunnel period in Christian history (about 100–180 CE). Why is there no Christian art, or any material remains for that matter, during the second century? According to Finney the previous (Harnackian) consensus held that the first Christians, living according to the second commandment, were strictly iconoclastic. The appearance of art only indicates that Christian folk had finally succumbed to pagan influences. In contrast to the consensus, Finney claims that the apologists for Christianity were not really iconoclastic, but politically shrewd. They aligned themselves with the Greco-Roman intellectuals of the day by condemning with them vulgar, “pop” art (chapters 1–3). In the fourth chapter Finney takes on the complex issue of the emperor’s image. As Finney admits, the evidence is too thin to warrant a conclusion (p. 69). He begins with the “Render Unto Caesar” pericope of Mark 12:13–17. Probably he makes the argument even thinner by describing in detail the Roman coin to which Jesus must have referred (p. 70), then admitting the story stems from the later redactor, Mark, not Jesus (p. 72). Actually Finney fails to utilize the point he gained. From the perspective of form criticism Mark 12:13–17 is a controversy story. He is correct in saying that the Jews who actually held such a coin were in violation of the image commandment. So despite Finney’s misgivings the pericope does show that Christians and Jews in Rome (?) during the sixties were tender about the Emperor’s image. In another thin argument, Finney holds that Pliny’s test of loyalty to the Emperor, which depended on prayer to Trajan’s image and to the images of the gods, actually suppressed the use of portraiture among early Christians (p. 86). It is not clear to me, however, that the problem of images would have been restricted to “heads.” There are, of course, pictures of Jesus, Mary and the apostles in pre-Constantinian art. Following this digression Finney returns to the issue at hand—the nature of Christianity and early Christian art before 200. In chapter 5 he rightly shows that [End Page 263] the first Christians were not iconoclastic, but simply used whatever artistic expressions were available to them. This is why we cannot discern Christian art before 180 (p. 109). Finney does toy with the possibility that the early Christians were too poor to afford art (p. 108), but fortunately does not make this argument integral to his thesis (from the very beginning of the mission to the Gentiles there were owners of house-churches, 1 Corinthians 16.19). If the beginning of Christian art is simply selective adaptation of what was available, then it stands to reason some workshops must have shifted their production to meet the new demand. They must have made more Good Shepherds, anchors, doves, and orantes than previously. If we had their inventory we could see the shift (p. 115). Finney tries to show that with a lengthy, detailed discussion of early Christian lamps. Though Finney must be right, and though his discussion is learned and interesting, eventually there is no way to demonstrate a production shift on the basis of one or two Constantinian lamps (p. 125). For his primary example of early Christian art before 200 Finney chooses to describe in detail the cubicles in the catacomb of Callistus. Many...

Topic: Historical and Religious Studies of Rome
Subfield: History
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences