Seeing Christ on the Cross in Late Antique Syria and Mesopotamia: Crosses, Crucifixes, and the Question of Iconicity

Abstract

This article begins with an account of cross-directed prayer from late antique Mesopotamia that describes seeing Christ on the cross. Using this passage as its frame, the article pursues two tracks. First, it examines the literary and material evidence for such seeing, drawing a distinction between the figuration of crosses (the degree of anthropomorphic imagery on their surfaces) and the iconicity of crosses (the degree to which viewers saw Christ’s body via physical crosses). It is argued that iconic descriptions of crosses in Syriac literature are more ambiguous than has hitherto been assumed, and that the documented material evidence for crosses in Syria and Mesopotamia indicates a general lack of figural imagery on crosses in the region. This raises the question, pursued in the second part of the article, of how social interactions between crosses and Syriac-speaking Christians may have contributed to their iconic status. Two brief case studies are presented, one following the movements of the processional cross during the eucharistic liturgy and the other examining physical interactions between monastics and crosses in their cells. Both case studies are used to advance the thesis that crosses functioned as social entities in some settings and that the social status of crosses as media of divine presence in turn shaped their iconic function as media through which Syriac-speaking Christians “saw” Christ’s body.

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