July 21, 2011

Among the heretics


We had a road trip to Ravenna yesterday to check out some Christian mosaics dating from the 4th century. El Cabrero is all about mosaics and prefers Byzantine iconography to all the fancy Renaissance stuff.

One high point of the day was a visit to the baptistery of the Arians, a heretical sect (according to the Catholics and Orthodox anyhow) which regarded the Son as being a creature rather than as being of one substance with the Father. I'm amazed the Orthodox let anything of theirs survive.

Anyhow, about is an Arian mosaic of the baptism of Jesus, which is incidentally the only time I recall seen him represented with full frontal nudity.

1 comment:

Elizabeth Gaucher said...

This is fantastic. Thank you!