New Testament Angels in Early Christian Art : Origin and Sources

Abstrakt

Let me begin with two simple comparisons. The first, of the sarcophagus of an anonymous woman in the Capitoline Museum in rome (Fig. 1) 1 with the sarcophagus of the so-called Prince in the Archaeological Museum in Istanbul (Fig. 2); 2 the second, of the relief with the siege of verona on the arch of Constantine in rome (Fig. 3) 3 with the mosaic of the Annunciation on thetriumphalarch of Santa Maria Maggiore also in the Eternal City (Fig. 4). 4 In the first case, we see respectively two confronted genii holding a clipeus with the portrait of the deceased and two angels holding a wreath with the monogram of Christ. In the second comparison, the relief features a flying victory crowning Constantine with a wreath and the mosaic – the archangel Gabriel bringing the divine message to Mary. In all four cases we observe winged creatures acting on their ability to mediate between heaven and earth. They areclothed in flowing robes and, with the exception of the naked, evidently male, genii, they are “unisex”. When one puts these representations side by side it becomes evident that Christian angels derive directly from the pagan victories or any other kind of pagan genii with wings. 5 But this is true only for some Christian angels and mainly those after 400. Before that date Christian angels are wingless and recognisable solely by their iconographic context or by inscriptions. Thus their identification can not always be certain.