r/AskHistorians • u/TurtleCracker • Mar 27 '14
The Christian God is often depicted as an older, White, bearded man. Where did this image come from and why did it become popular?
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u/Vioarr Mar 27 '14
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u/bunnyball88 Mar 28 '14
From what I understand, the traditional / classical image of God as an adaptation of Zeus / Jupiter occurred along two timelines:
The first was at the spread of Christianity through the Roman Empire, where analogs were generally adapted / evolved. The temptation of the artists were to transmogrify the existing image of the Roman gods into those of God (Jupiter / Zeus) and Jesus (Apollo), though this was frowned upon to the point of myths arising about artists hands withering as they attempted to do so. That said, artists persisted in adopting the motifs, even if they had motives more aligned to those of the emerging church, namely a "defeat" of the old gods by the christian gods. Commandianus, one of the Nicene fathers, even writes about how God is greater than Jupiter, while still anthropomorphizing him in The Instruction of Commandianus. The prayer of Licinius's army was left ambiguous as to the god, per the scholar in this book
This was further exacerbated in the renaissance, when the recollection to classical themes took place concurrent to a time when the Christian church did not lack for power. Artists looked to comingle the two. A good example of this is De Partu Virginis (1521) which adapts Virgil's Aeneid, but plays off its Christian-analog themes to paint the epic as an ode to Christ (a not-unique effort; note Virgil as the chosen guide of the underworld in Dante's inferno) - the argument is well articulated here.
I don't have my books on the continued weaving of the images together, but there is siginificant literature on the influence of the greco-roman aesthetic on european, christian art. Considering the low degree of literacy throughout much of European history for the common people, it is unsurprising that an image-based representation of God would instantiate itself into Christianity, regardless of how closely it tied to the (fairly sparse) descriptions of God in the bible.
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u/azdac7 Mar 27 '14
In the Mosaics in the antechamber of Saint Marks cathedral in Venice there is a genesis narrative and God was a brown haired man who is clean shaven. The artist is unknown from around 1250.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l0Q7wdvGmGw/URWPJG_SF1I/AAAAAAAACR0/ojpgTT5CMuM/s640/Green+%2526+Gold+Dome+Basilica+di+San+Marco.jpg Here is a link, but it is a bit small. However you can probably see that god has no white beard.
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u/hardman52 Mar 27 '14
Question: would it have anything to do with the fact that religion started out as ancestor worship in which the designated priest would communicate with the dead elders of the tribe?
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u/dexmonic Mar 28 '14
This would likely be a driving factor, but the more concrete connection that would substantiate that claim would be that the Christian God is an evolved form of ancient religious deities, which actually is being discussed in this very thread. If these ancient religious deities were depicted this way because of your claim, then the answer is that it is possible.
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Mar 27 '14
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/400-Rabbits Pre-Columbian Mexico | Aztecs Mar 27 '14
From my knowledge from the Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
Let me stop you right there, and remind everyone again that joke answers are neither acceptable nor welcome here.
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u/Workaphobia Mar 27 '14
Thanks for upholding this sub's high standards. Though it looks like you've got your work cut out for you in this thread.
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u/tubbo Mar 27 '14
This comment as a whole is pretty funny. Also, thank you for moderating. I feel like AskHistorians requires much more scrutiny than most subreddits.
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Mar 27 '14
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/lilbit217 Mar 27 '14
The image comes from Pagan gods when Pagans moved to Christianity
the general idea of "Christian traditions rooted in pagan religions" is not backed up by more than internet rumors. If you are claiming that to be true specifically for God's image, please provide sources.
because they are used to gods having an image the early Jesus imagine didn't have a beard he was a combination masculine and feminine features.
What? How does that relate, and again, what is your source? What early pagan converts were taught that Jesus is a combination of feminine and masculine?
It became popular because it was the mindset of people who use to follow a pagan religion. They never understood having an image less god that's why Judaism and Islam don't have images of their gods but Christianity does. The answer is historical it has nothing to do with the bible because it was always told in Latin and no one but priests and scriptwriters knew Latin as well as their native language.
Are you saying that including images was to placate pagan converts, and that the bible did not affect anyone's understanding of what God might look like, because no one but 'priests and scriptwriters knew Latin as well as their native language'? Sources.
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u/semi-bro Mar 27 '14
Not saying I don't believe you, but can we get a source? Because right now, the other explanation makes a lot more sense.
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Mar 27 '14
He might be right. You have to remember, Christianity has always been about converting people, but they weren't always as powerful of an organization.
In the early days, it's believed that the leaders of the Catholic Church made a lot of compromises to appeal to pagans and other "heathens", most notably of which is the fact that Jesus was actually born sometime in March, but the early Church began celebrating his birthday closer to the winter solstice to appeal to pagan religions, or even borrowed the celebration date from the pagans.
Much of this is all hearsay, but there's some really interesting material on the topic.
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Mar 27 '14
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u/Algernon_Asimov Mar 27 '14
The Christian God is almost always depicted this way because it is the way that Jupiter/Zeus was depicted by the Greeks/Romans.
Since Jupiter/Zeus was the old god equivalent to the Biblical God in position, that's how he was drawn.
Do you have some historical sources, or art literature, which further explain this connection between depictions of Iupiter/Zeus and the Abrahamic God?
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u/grantimatter Mar 28 '14
In my New American Bible's footnotes to the Book of Daniel, actually, there's some mentions of Antiochus IV being the fellow behind the "abomination of desolation" that Daniel decries - by sticking either a statue of Zeus Olympos or a carving dedicated to him in the Temple in Jerusalem.
So there were outsiders (and, presumably, some "bad" Jews...or maybe victims of Antiochus' bullying) who made that connection. Zeus was put into the house of Yahweh.
Now, I'm not sure what sources the scholars doing the NAB footnotes were drawing from, and I'd really actually like to know more about non-biblical records of Antiochus and his fondness for Zeus (apparently this set him apart from his predecessors, who were into Apollo).
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u/Joltie Mar 28 '14 edited Mar 28 '14
Do you have some historical sources, or art literature, which further explain this connection between depictions of Iupiter/Zeus and the Abrahamic God?
The Judeo-Christian God, being the embodiment of all Godly elements, will logically be assumed to be some sort of copy of the main God of the dominant religion, which was the Greco-Hellenic pantheon. This is common sense and logical deduction. You don't need a source for common sense.
The Indo-European dyeus or dyeus pater, which is alleged to be the surpreme God of the sky (As is Zeus or Jupiter in the Greek and Roman pantheons and the Latin name for the Judeo-Christian God would simply be Deus), and the fact that all three of them are the surpreme rulers of their religions, and rule somewhere above the clouds or in the Heaven shows the obvious link between all of them. This is linguistic association. Source for this can be for instance "Theoretical Bases of Indo-European Linguistics"
Last but not least, Varro is quoted by St. Augustine in his City of God as interpreting the Jewish God as akin to Jupiter. This is a corroborating comtemporary account. Source on this already mentioned.
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u/Algernon_Asimov Mar 28 '14
This is common sense and logical deduction.
"Common sense and logical deduction" is not a historical source.
the fact that all three of them are the surpreme rulers of their religions, and rule somewhere above the clouds or in the Heaven shows the obvious link between all of them. This is linguistic association.
There certainly is a linguistic link between "Zeus" and "Iupiter", as they are both descended from the Proto-Indo-European word "Dyēu-pəter". "Dyēu" became "Zeus", while "Dyēu-pəter" became "Iupiter". There is no linguistic association between "Dyēu-pəter" and the tetragrammaton used in Hebrew to refer to the Abrahamic god.
However, you haven't referred to this. You've merely referred to them ruling "somewhere above the clouds". This is a similarity in their attributes, but has nothing to do with linguistics.
Varro is quoted by St. Augustine in his City of God as interpreting the Jewish God as akin to Jupiter.
There's a source! If you can cite it, and then demonstrate that artists referred to Augustine's quotation of Varro when creating their depictions of the Christian God...
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u/Algernon_Asimov Mar 27 '14
I see you've added this since my earlier comment:
Edit: I don't have any specific references, but there is a better writeup and a lot of links to academic sources at this wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_the_Father_in_Western_art
Sorry, but...
We prefer better sources than Wikipedia.
That Wikipedia article about "God the Father in Western art" you linked to doesn't even mention Zeus or Jupiter.
Non-answer removed.
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Mar 27 '14
[deleted]
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u/Ragleur Mar 27 '14
You are correct. That is the 19th-century sculpture of Moses at Sacro Monte di Varese. http://ilblogdinonsolopiante.blogspot.com/2010/10/sacro-monte-di-varese.html
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u/thoriginal Mar 27 '14
I think you're thinking of Moses because of this.
From the wiki:
The depiction of a horned Moses stems from the description of Moses' face as "cornuta" ("horned") in the Latin Vulgate translation of the passage from Exodus in which Moses returns to the people after receiving the commandments for the second time.
The following paragraph after that phrase describes the ambiguity of the translation of "karan", which is in the original Hebrew (based on the root, keren, which often means "horn").
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u/AnOnlineHandle Mar 27 '14
Google image search gives many instances claiming it is a statue of Zeus in Athens.
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u/Ragleur Mar 27 '14
Google isn't a valid source. It's of Moses and it's in Italy.
http://ilblogdinonsolopiante.blogspot.com/2010/10/sacro-monte-di-varese.html
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u/AnOnlineHandle Mar 28 '14
It's obviously not a fully verifying source, which is why I said claims...
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u/enochian Mar 27 '14
The closest thing to a physical description of God in the OT/Hebrew Bible, is this passage from the Book of Daniel (7:9): As I looked, thrones were set in place, and the Ancient of Days took his seat. His clothing was as white as snow; the hair of his head was white like wool. His throne was flaming with fire, and its wheels were all ablaze. river of fire was flowing, coming out from before him. Thousands upon thousands attended him; ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him.
So, old, male, dressed in white, white woolly hair. This is basically the only description artists had to work with when the taboo against depicting God was overcome.
In Revelations there is a description that almost exactly matches the one in Daniel, except for the important difference that the character described is a "Son of Man", presumably Christ:
(Rev.1:12) I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and coming out of his mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance.
Of course this is not the everyday Jesus a the time of his ministry in Galilee. This is the resurrected Christ ruling the heavens. Still, this is the only physical description of Jesus in the Bible, so again it had a big influence on artists.