Signs of faith: the Passion.

In recent years it has become popular for Christians to say of ourselves that "we are an Easter people." But this should not imply that Christianity is a feather pillow of feel-goodism, letting us gloss over the agony that led to the glory of the Resurrection.

Early centuries

In its early stages, Christian iconography avoided some of the episodes in the Paschal event. It was not until the 5th century that images of Jesus crucified first appeared, but even these lacked signs of physical suffering. The oldest extant example is found on the carved wooden doors of the church of Santa Sabina in Rome. Crucifixion images for private devotion gained popularity in the 6th century, but they tended to be idealised, and incorporated other symbols for theological purposes. For example, the dead Christ, clearly wounded by Longinus' spear, might still be posed upright with eyes open and hands in the "orant" position as a sign of His divine immortality.

Crucifixion images played a part in the iconoclastic controversy of the 8th century. The "pro-icon" camp produced them in abundance, for the first time showing Jesus expired with eyes closed and head down. The crucifix, with a separate "corpus" affixed to it, appeared around the year 1000. But the figures were still seen in gilt robes or jewelled crowns.

Medieval Europe

The cross from which Christ spoke to St. Francis, in the ruins of San Damiano in 12th century Assisi, was of the twodimensional kind popular at the time, painted with a sublime and stylized figure of the crucified Jesus.

It is not until the 13th century that the crucifixion image takes on the tragic character familiar to most of us. Christ is definitely dead, his sufferings graphically illustrated. His feet, once shown straightforward and nailed separately, are now crossed over and nailed together, with his legs correspondingly bent and burdened. The figures at the foot of the cross now suffer as well, Mary Magdalene in mourning, and the Blessed Virgin swooning in anguish.

In medieval Europe graphic depicition of Christ's suffering seems to have accelerated with the coming of disasters like war and plague. Jesus is shown not ony crucified, but emaciated and covered in open wounds. His battered appearance told the beleaguered common man that here was a God who truly understood what it meant to suffer. One of the most famous and grimmest of these is Mathias Grunewald's Isenheim Altarpiece of 1515, painted for a monastic church attached to a hospice for victims of skin diseases. The corpus is both heroic and shocking, its twisted greenish limbs covered in lacerations and boils.

Arma Christi

A popular iconographic subject for meditation was the Arma Christi, the instruments of Christ's passion. These commonly include the crown of thorns, the pillar and scourge, the hammer, nails, sponge, hyssop branch, dice, robe, and "INRI" scroll. Sometimes these are arranged around a conventional crucifixion scene, or they may be the main subject of a picture, in which case they are even more numerous: Judas' silver, a rooster (Peter's betrayal), a sword and ear (Peter's attack in the garden), hands and fists (the buffeting), ropes, ladders, pincers (to cut the thorns or hold the nails) and the vernicle (Veronica's veil). Episodes leading up to the crucifixion become "snapshot" emblems: the agony in the garden, Judas' kiss, Pilate's hands being washed, Peter arguing with the servant girl.

The custom of having a crucifix on or above the altar in Catholic churches predates by centuries the first recorded directive about it, found in the Roman missal of Pope Pius V in 1570. Despite some variation over the years, the history of the central crucifix has been dominated by the image of a realistically crucified Saviour.

Twentieth century

Our century has seen a return to the image of a triumphant Christ posed in relation to (but not really fixed upon) his cross -an image considered less than satisfactory by Msgr. Peter Elliott in his liturgical manual, Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite. "In the context of the Roman liturgy," he writes, "`cross' means `crucifix.' A figure of the risen Christ behind an altar cannot be regarded as a substitute for the cross. . ." (p. 24)

A powerful sign

Now that ignorance and doubt about the Real Presence in the Eucharist appear to be at a crisis level, the absence of an image of the "perfect immolation of the God-Man" (as Pope Pius XII calls it in his encyclical Mediator Dei) represents a squandered opportunity for the most direct kind of teaching. A genuine crucifix is a powerful sign. By what better means could we take St. Augustine at his word, that we might, "See how we were bought: Christ hangs upon the Cross, see at what a price He makes His purchase . . . He who buys is Christ; the price is His Blood; the possession bought is the world."

Claudia Sommers, an Associate Editor of Catholic Insight, attended an exhibit entitled "The Body of Christ in the art of Europe and New Spain, 1150-1800" at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas. The exhibit runs until Easter Sunday, 1998.