Reading Saving Paradise: The Prologue - Part I

Searching for the early Jesus  

from Saving Paradise, pages ix-xxii

As the Prologue to Saving Paradise opens, Brock and Parker write:   

“In July 2002, we traveled to the Mediterranean in search of the dead body of Jesus. We began in Rome, descending from the blaze of the summer sun into the catacombs where underground tunnels and tombs are carved into soft tufa rock. The earliest surviving Christian art is painted onto the plaster-lined walls of tombs or carved onto marble sarcophagi as memorials to the interred.

“In the cool, dimly lit caverns, we saw a variety of biblical images. Many of them suggested rescue from danger. For example, Abraham and Isaac stood side by side in prayer with a ram bound next to them.  Jonah, the recalcitrant prophet who was swallowed and coughed up by a sea monster, reclined peacefully beneath the shade of a vine. Daniel stood alive and well between two pacified lions. Other images suggested baptism and healing, such as the Samaritan woman drawing water from a well…

 Jesus with woman at the well

(A fresco in Roman catacombs – mid 4th century)

 [But]  “We could not find a dead Jesus, not even one. It was just as the angel had said to the women looking for Jesus at his tomb, "Why do you look for the living among the dead?" (Luke 24:5). "He is not here" (Mark 16:6). He most certainly was not.

“From Rome we went to Istanbul, and then to a remote part of northeastern Turkey where the crumbling remains of ninth- to eleventh-century monastery churches could be found upon high mountains. We  failed to find even one dead Jesus. Returning to Italy, we lingered for several days in Ravenna to examine its beautifully restored fifth- and sixth-century mosaics.

“In the sixth-century St. Apollinare Nuovo Church, at the edge of the old city, we found the earliest surviving life story of Jesus depicted in images. Near the ceiling on both sides of the basilica nave, thirteen rectangular mosaics marched from the chancel toward the main door. We examined each of the twenty-six panels closely.  On the right wall near the chancel, an image of the Last Supper began the thirteen scenes of his Passion.

 

Earliest images of the life of Jesus: The Last Supper 

Mosaic at St. Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna 

“We expected to see the Crucifixion on panel eleven. Instead, we were confronted by an angel who sat before a tomb. The apparition spoke to two women swaying forward like Gospel choir singers. We too leaned forward in astonishment and remembered what the angel had said: "I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here." (Matt. 28:5-6) 

 

Earliest images of the life of Jesus: No crucifixion; instead, the empty tomb

Mosaic at St. Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna   

"After we realized that the Crucifixion was absent, we began to pay attention to what was present in early Christian art. We found one arresting image in an unlikely place, the most important church in Western Christendom and still the cathedra (seat) of the bishop of Rome, St. Giovanni in Laterano… “What we saw in the apse of this basilica astonished us. Though the apse mosaic image has changed and been restored over the centuries, parts of it likely date to the fourth to sixth centuries. We arrived at St. Giovanni during Mass. It was conducted from a high baroque altar - residue, to modern eyes, of one of the more incongruent restorations of the seventeenth century -placed where the nave and transept intersect. The altar displayed a triptych painting with the Crucifixion in the center. It completely hid the apse….  We walked quietly down the right aisle, tiptoed up the transept stairs, ignored the velvet rope blocking further progress, and sneaked behind the altar. When we spotted the apse, we gasped in wonder....  

Continue reading on the next post: 

Reading the Prologue, Part II