Women's and Gender Studies Newsletter

The College of New Jersey October 1995

by Celia Chazelle

One of the most beautiful and enigmatic of the surviving early medieval crucifixion-images occurs in the Drogo Sacramentary, a Carolingian manuscript probably made for Drogo, Bishop of Metz sometime between 840 and 855. The miniature appears within the small O initial of a Palm Sunday prayer that reads:

"Allmighty eternal God, who made our savior an example of humility for the human race to imitate, [who made him] assume flesh and undergo the cross; grant quickly that we may deserve to have reminders of his patience [suffering] and be consorts of his resurrection."

Fixed to a cross with a large serpent wound at its base, Christ rests his feet firmly on the suppedaneum beneath them, his eyes apparently still open (the picture's small size makes it difficult to be certain); but his body twists at the hips and his head drops onto his shoulder, recalling how, according to the Gospel of John, Jesus bowed his head when he gave up the spirit. Two tiny figures of the resurrected rise from the ground near the cross; personifications of the sun and moon and angels acclaim Christ from above, Mary watches from the far left, making a gesture of grief, and John the Evangelist looks on from the right. Based on contemporary writings we know that the female figure nearest the cross is a personification of Ecclesia, the Church, who lifts a chalice to catch the blood from Christ's side wound.

While some elements of this miniature have precedents in works of art from before the ninth century, it is one of a group of crucifixion-images made in the ninth-century Carolingian Empire that break with older imagery in several ways: by the snake beneath the cross, the chalice catching Christ's blood, the figure of Ecclesia raising the chalice to his side, and the representation of Christ as suffering, dying, or dead on the cross, his head dropped onto his shoulder and his body slumping. Such images diverge from the western tradition before the ninth century in which the crucified Christ is consistently portrayed as fully alive and erect on the cross, his head upright and eyes open, evidently to indicate that he is the impassible divine victor over death and evil.

The signification of the Drogo Sacramentary image has puzzled previous scholars, yet it is elucidated by the readings for the ninth-century Carolingian Good Friday liturgy, in particular the gospel text: the passion narrative in John, chapter 19. Not only is it John 19 that identifies Mary and John as special witnesses of the crucifixion, as they are shown in this picture; the same gospel passage sheds light on the seated old man to the cross's right. Although numerous scholars have disputed his identity, this is most likely Nicodemus, who according to John 19 came forward after Christ's side had been pierced, to help remove him from the cross. The round disk that Nicodemus holds is probably a paten, reflecting the notion expressed in the allegorical interpretation of the liturgy completed by Amalarius of Metz, in the 830s, that the priest with his paten symbolizes Nicodemus with Christ's dead body. Nicodemus, still waiting to receive the body, thus balances Ecclesia with her cup, whose presence in the image recalls St. Augustine's interpretation of John 19, in which the flow of blood from Christ's side is linked with the foundation of the Church and the eucharistic chalice.

John 19 describes Nicodemus as he "who had at first come to [Jesus] by night," an allusion back to John 3, where it is reported that Nicodemus, a Pharisee and "ruler of the jews," sought out Christ as his teacher, to pose him questions that led Jesus to identify himself as the light overcoming darkness and to compare his forthcoming crucifixion to the story of the brazen serpent (Numbers 21.9). The Drogo Sacramentary miniature combines its representation of the crucifixion with the scene in John 3; while Nicodemus waits with his paten to receive the body that hangs on the cross, he sits like a pupil before his teacher. His posture underscores the irony of their relationship: the old man who still lives seeks instruction from the young crucified savior, the Pharisaic scholar of the old law from the bringer of the new, the ruler of the Jews from the king on the cross. The abandoned torch beside Nicodemus and the extinguished candle beside Mary recall the light restored through Christ, according to John 3, which renders unnecessary the torch and candle, symbols of darkness. Nicodemus, who first came to Jesus "by night", and now significantly sits on the moon side of the cross, gazes upon the light of his revelation. In keeping with Jesus' prediction in John 3 that he would be raised up, "as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert," the contorted body on the cross echoes the twisting from of the brazen serpent. His cricifixion vanquishes the serpent of sin that lies beneath, just as the brazen serpent defeated the snakes that bit the sinful Israelites. Mortals who believe in Christ, follwoing John 3.15, are therefore raised from their graves, fulfilling the promise in the same chapter of John that they will receive eternal life.