Enfeebled Bodies and Empowered Souls: Depictions of the Sick and Jesus as Christus Medicus on 3rd and 4th Century Roman Sarcophagi, with Contemporary Applications
Katherine van Schaik, MD-PhD Candidate, Harvard University
Christus medicus is a term which refers to the idea of Jesus as a healer, encompassing literary and iconographic references to Jesus’s ability to heal both sick souls and ailing bodies. Analogies between Jesus and a physician are found in biblical and patristic texts, and in the earliest Christian art (2nd-4th century CE) which shows Jesus in the act of healing. The Christus medicus images – usually of the healing of the blind, the paralytic, and the woman with the uterine hemorrhage – commonly decorate fourth century CE Christian sarcophagi. This paper concerns itself with an aggregate study of some of the 46 intact Christus medicus sarcophagus reliefs in the Museo Pio Cristiano in the Vatican Museums, in order to identify their iconographic origins in pre-existing ‘pagan’ images of healers and the sick, and to consider how such origins might have affected a third- or fourth-century viewer’s interpretation of the scenes. In the 2nd-4th century CE world of the Mediterranean, multiple religions and spiritual ideologies combined to yield written and visual descriptions of divinities – not just Jesus – as healers of spiritual sickness and bodily disfigurement. Interactions with these healers, and faith in their abilities, facilitated physical cures or otherwise permitted perceived handicaps to become means by which individuals might achieve a closer relationship with the divine or accomplish specific goals. It will be argued that ancient ideas of bodily disability and consequent spiritual ability laid foundations for modern conceptions of disease as an enabling force. Beginning with the ancient Judeo-Christian conceptions of individuals with limited physical capabilities – as depicted on the Museo Pio Cristiano sarcophagi – this paper will explore ideas of imposed bodily limitation, and ways in which such limitations create new possibilities for spiritual enlightenment, social interaction, and acquired physical skills. Such new possibilities in our modern world are observed in the cases of the amputee who decides to become an athlete; the blind patient who develops enhanced auditory capabilities; the Parkinson’s patient who acts as a congressional lobbyist; and the neurosurgeon who experiences a coma secondary to bacterial meningitis and writes a book about meeting God. Limitations and possibilities – physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual – have been and always will be part of human sickness and health. The goal of this paper is to consider a subset of early Christian ideas about such limitations and possibilities, as a way in which we might observe how these ideas become manifest in contemporary society.
Christus medicus is a term which refers to the idea of Jesus as a healer, encompassing literary and iconographic references to Jesus’s ability to heal both sick souls and ailing bodies. Analogies between Jesus and a physician are found in biblical and patristic texts, and in the earliest Christian art (2nd-4th century CE) which shows Jesus in the act of healing. The Christus medicus images – usually of the healing of the blind, the paralytic, and the woman with the uterine hemorrhage – commonly decorate fourth century CE Christian sarcophagi. This paper concerns itself with an aggregate study of some of the 46 intact Christus medicus sarcophagus reliefs in the Museo Pio Cristiano in the Vatican Museums, in order to identify their iconographic origins in pre-existing ‘pagan’ images of healers and the sick, and to consider how such origins might have affected a third- or fourth-century viewer’s interpretation of the scenes. In the 2nd-4th century CE world of the Mediterranean, multiple religions and spiritual ideologies combined to yield written and visual descriptions of divinities – not just Jesus – as healers of spiritual sickness and bodily disfigurement. Interactions with these healers, and faith in their abilities, facilitated physical cures or otherwise permitted perceived handicaps to become means by which individuals might achieve a closer relationship with the divine or accomplish specific goals. It will be argued that ancient ideas of bodily disability and consequent spiritual ability laid foundations for modern conceptions of disease as an enabling force. Beginning with the ancient Judeo-Christian conceptions of individuals with limited physical capabilities – as depicted on the Museo Pio Cristiano sarcophagi – this paper will explore ideas of imposed bodily limitation, and ways in which such limitations create new possibilities for spiritual enlightenment, social interaction, and acquired physical skills. Such new possibilities in our modern world are observed in the cases of the amputee who decides to become an athlete; the blind patient who develops enhanced auditory capabilities; the Parkinson’s patient who acts as a congressional lobbyist; and the neurosurgeon who experiences a coma secondary to bacterial meningitis and writes a book about meeting God. Limitations and possibilities – physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual – have been and always will be part of human sickness and health. The goal of this paper is to consider a subset of early Christian ideas about such limitations and possibilities, as a way in which we might observe how these ideas become manifest in contemporary society.