The Invisible God The Earliest Christians on Art

by Finney, Paul Corby

• ISBN13: 9780195082524
• ISBN10: 0195082524
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-08-04
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This revisionist study challenges the received opinion that in its earliest manifestations Christianity was a form of religiosity opposed both on principle and in fact to the use of pictures. Paul Corby Finney argues that the well-known absence of Christian pictures before A.D. 200 is due to a complex interplay of social, economic, and political factors, and is not, as is commonly assumed, a result of an anti-image ideology. The book documents the origins of Christian art based on some of the oldest surviving Christian archaeological evidence, and it seeks to show how the Christian products conformed to the already-existing pagan types and models. This study will interest scholars and students in the fields of church history, ancient history, archaeology, art history, classics, and historical theology.

Author Biography

Paul Corby Finney is Associate Professor of Ancient History at the University of Missouri/St. Louis.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. vii
Acknowledgments	p. xiii
Abbreviations	p. xvii
The History of Interpretation	p. 3
Notes	p. 11
The Apologists' Attack on Greek Art: History and Literature	p. 15
Notes	p. 31
The Content of the Attack on Greek Art	p. 39
Notes	p. 59
The Emperor's Image	p. 69
Notes	p. 88
Christianity Before 200: Invisibility and Adaptation	p. 99
Are Bellori 3.29 and Wulff 1224 the Same Lamp?	p. 132
Notes	p. 135
The Earliest Christian Art	p. 146
Painting in the Randanini and Torlonia Catacombs	p. 247
Notes	p. 263
Invisible Divinity and Visible Religion	p. 275
Notes	p. 293
Selected Bibliography	p. 299
Illustration Credits	p. 309
Index	p. 313
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