Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House Charles A. Bobertz Eunice Dauterman Maguire, Henry P. Maguire, and Maggie J. Duncan-Flowers . Art and Holy Powers in the Early Christian House. Illinois Byzantine Studies, II. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989 Pp. xii +251. $24.95. This book was published in conjunction with an exhibition appearing at the Krannert Art Museum of the University of Illinois (Urbana) and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology of the University of Michigan in 1989-1990. As the authors in their preface put it, "The purpose of the book and the exhibition is to present the domestic art of people who lived in the early Christian period, primarily from the third to the seventh centuries, and to show how that art represents the interpenetration of two kinds of reality: the visible, which obeyed physical laws, and the unseen, which coexisted with the visible, and which was subject to the operations of beneficent powers and malevolent demons" (preface). The key word here is "interpenetration." Yet the book goes even farther than this stated goal, for it brings before us vividly, in plate after plate, figure after figure, the impossibility of understanding the Mediterranean world of late antiquity as something less than a whole culture. It was a place and time in which serious theological reflection was created and tempered amidst deserts, ships and teeming cities. While uniquely creative and interpretive, such theologizing was at the same time subject to the ordinary and physical. So also the reader of this nicely organized volume will be struck by the incremental nature—almost change without change—of the transition from pagan to Christian culture in the centuries covered. Whether it is the reference, in a section of the book devoted to the ways and means of late antique medical practice, to the Christian pilgrim who visited the relics of St. Artemios and was subjected to a miraculous surgery while he slept (p. 199), or the use of the image of the rayed serpent by Christians in the centuries after Galen (who comments on its medicinal qualities, no. 132, p. 211), the book admirably cautions us against a too easy reliance on familiar dichotomies, e.g. pre- versus post-Constantinian, pagan versus Christian culture. Having perused this volume, one is more likely, for example, to agree with Ramsay Macmullen that the ethos of pagan antiquity survived long after the conversion of Roman emperors. This book on the archaeology of the early Christian house, so filled with pictures of treasures, is itself a treasure. Corresponding to the divisions in the original exhibition, [End Page 467] the book is divided into nine divisions, each with its own introductory essay. A separate essay introducing the volume also contains a good bibliography and index. Respectively, the nine divisions are furnishings, lighting, storage and security, eating and drinking, clothing, jewelry, grooming, health and play. All together there are 151 pictured items (many unpublished), 53 figures (paintings, mosaics etc.) and 8 color plates. There is a detailed description of each item, its date and a short bibliography. There are usually enough references to enable one at least to begin a separate investigation of a particular item or theme presented. There is an index of household objects featured in the volume. A general index would have been helpful. The introductory essay confirms the importance of art historians and their work to all who would study late antiquity. In describing the plethora of inlays and designs which were part of the material domestic life of early Christians, everything from the ubiquitous concentric circles to biblical images and scenes from saints' lives, the essay powerfully conveys the daily concern of early Christians for health and safety in the midst of an often threatening world. These constant attempts to manipulate unseen powers, whether for good or ill, protections or vengeance, are, we are reminded, as much a part of the Christian tradition as Augustine's arguments with Pelagius. In addition, the individual essays that preface the nine divisions of the book help to put the various aspects of early Christian life into sharp relief. Contemplating, for example, the hooks and scalpels of unsanitary and unanesthetized ancient surgery...