Ebook: The Golden Age of Justinian: From the Death of Theodosius to the Rise of Islam

Translated by Stuart Gilbert and James Emmons.

It was the fifth and sixth centuries that saw the flowering of the Christian art of Antiquity. However important the stimulus given to Christian art by Constantine, over half a century elapsed before the initial efforts and experiments of the pioneers resulted in a mature art of sufficient scope and power to meet the needs of the Christian community disseminated throughout the Roman Empire.

The necessary conditions for the rise and diffusion of a 'complete' Christian art were created by Theodosius I, who threw the weight of his great authority into the task of consolidating the Church and its unity by stamping out paganism and the Arian heresy, and making Christianity the sole religion of the Empire. It was in his time, moreover, and under his immediate successors, that the Fathers of the Church powerfully strengthened the authority of the Church and raised the prestige of Christianity. They laid the foundations of a 'Christian humanism' — a Christian culture which, instead of rejecting the heritage of classical antiquity, accepted it wherever this seemed feasible. On the lower levels of religious practice, a similar adaptation was made, if less explicitly, and took widespread effect as a result of the massive influx of pagans into the Church.

The same was true of Christian art. The great Doctors of the Church were quick to see the services art could render to the cult of the Cross and the martyrs. In Rome Pope Leo I was instrumental in the creation of a new, more elaborate iconography, for the decoration of the apses of the great basilicas. At the same time, local varieties of religious worship, more or less popular in character, led to a proliferation of devotional images, influencing both their content and their form.