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The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art (Princeton Paperbacks)

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Mathews is primarily concerned to refute a particular early 20th-Century German and Eastern European ideological theory that the portrayal of Jesus in art was derived directly from the detailed portrayal of Roman emperors in art and that this artistic portrayal of Jesus as emperor legitimates imperial political structure, with an emperor, in the contemporary era (of 1920-1950).

Mathews shows that the early artistic portrayal of Jesus presented him as a counter-Jupiter and all-ruler (pantokrator), not as a worldly emperor (kosmocrator). Jesus was also portrayed in early Christian art as androgynous and as the most powerful magician, and as a philosopher. The portrayal of Jesus in art consciously and deliberately presented him as anti-emperor.

Sometimes Mathews confusingly asserts that the way Jesus was portrayed had absolutely nothing to do with the emperor, but in other chapters, originally published as separate articles, he asserts that Jesus was portrayed consciously and deliberately as a non-emperor. Mathews' extremist manner of expression and apparent self-contradiction reveals his succumbing to political fear of 20th-Century re-institution of emperors, resulting in a polemical mode of expression, which lacks precision. Mathews' overweening concern to refute an early 20th-Century political theory causes him to misstate or inconsistently describe his theory about how Jesus was portrayed and what the portrayals meant in the first few centuries.

He ought to strike most of his invective against the very specific, quirky, and particular early 20th-century theory of artistic derivation that he confusingly labels with the ambiguous term "the emperor mystique", and instead explain consistently his positive position about how the Jesus figure did relate to or refute the figure of the emperor -- and, more to the point, how the Christ religion overall was artistically portrayed in relation to how the Roman imperial system of Pax Romana was artistically portrayed.

Mathews ought to engage with the latest theories of Roman imperial theology/ideology, starting with the work of S.R.F. Price, and contribute directly to that effort, rather than devoting so much coverage to a particular 1930s-era view. That's the hardest aspect of reading this book: today's reader comes to it expecting commentary on Price and Horsley, but instead, finds a concern that seems to affirm most of Price and Horsley while being positioned as somehow "against the Emperor Mystique".

This book is dissonant and confusing polemics until you figure out how to harmonize it with the sensible views of Price and Horsley. By the phrase 'the Emperor Mystique', Mathews doesn't have Price and Horsley's view in mind as one naturally expects these days, but rather, a particular quirky, specific theory of artistic-elements derivation of Jesus' portrayal, a theory that was in service of 20th-Century pro-emperor politics.

No scholars are currently asserting that the artistic portrayal of Jesus is directly derived from the portrayal of emperors in their "purely political" function. Rather, what Price, Horsley, and N.T. Wright are stressing these days is that the New Testament books were highly intent on presenting a rebuttal and sociopolitical alternative to the religiously legitimated political ideology and imperial theology of Pax Romana and Roman imperial Ruler Cult -- a view that is supported by Mathews' Christ Pantokrator (almighty all-ruler), magician, and personally caring philosopher.

The book presents a somewhat useful picture of Jesus as philosopher, counter-Jupiter, and healer-magician, but unfortunately that clarification is tangled up with confusing polemics in a self-contradictory, overheated manner of expression, all the more confusing because you get that battle (tilting against a long-dead windmill of 1930s German politics) where you expect instead an engagement with more recent scholarship clarifying the relationship of Christianity and the late-antique Roman empire.

As a rebuttal to the particular artistic-derivation theory of Grabar, the book succeeds, but it doesn't engage with the more general, recent, systematic studies of Christianity as rebuttal and alternative to the system of the Roman empire.

This is a bold and clear reinterpretation of Early Christian Art. It moves the reader through a cany reseeing that respects and illuminates both the message and the people who received it. Mathews explains in an open and well documented way how Christian images fought and defeated the pagan gods. As an art historian trained with the rather confusing cannon of earlier scholarship I found it delightful reading.

While Mathews has crafted an thorough polemic against what he calls the "Emperor Mystique" prevalent as a key hermenuetic of early christian art, he stimulated me to go beyond the declared intent of his thoughtful book. The author opens the door to the polyvalence of the symbolism of the art of the church, particularly from the third through the sixth centuries. Mathews presents the adaptation of Greco-Roman art forms and their translation into the competitive contexts of christian origins. While I was persuaded that Alfoldi and Grabar probably went too far in their attempt to link the art of the church with an exclusively imperial model, I still believe that many christians would have recognized elements of this model in viewing the paintings and mosaics of the church. Religious symbolism can function in multiple ways, both singly and in combinations depending on various religious, political, social, and economic agenda. This book is a useful complement to Averil Cameron's "Christianity and the Rhetoric of Empire."

It is now a common assumption in the art-historical world that much of early Christian art (particularly from the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries) portrays the Roman Emperor as some sort of demigod and intercessor between our world and that of the divine, imbued with ultimate power. This is what the author called "Emperor Mystique." In fact, this idea might even shore up the even more commonly held belief that the Church and the state were united for much of the middle ages. In "The Clash of Gods," Mathews critically examines this assumption and comes to what I thought were some fascinating conclusions.

According to Mathews, it is largely the work of three scholars that is responsible for the rise of the Emperor Mystique: art historian Andre Grabar, medievalist Ernst Kantorowicz, and archaeologist Andreas Alfoldi. Along with collectively contributing to the Emperor Mystique, they come from Czarist Russia, Wilhelmine Germany, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire respectively, and all harbored a great love for imperial greatness and yearned, in some way, for its return. In order to do this, they all retroactively read signs of vanished empire into the early Christian art they were studying. As Mathews says, "The need to interpret Christ as an Emperor tells us more about the historians involve d than it does about Early Christian art" (16). The scholarly apparatus that Mathews brings to bear on his argument is impressive. The vast majority of the book looks at individual pieces of art, arguing for an interpretation against that of the Emperor Mystique, none of which I will recapitulate here. It could even be convincing, but I will confess to not knowing enough about the art of the period in question to say one way or another.

One thing that I can say is that Mathew's argument seems to exhort the reader into an either/or reaction toward the three aforementioned scholars. As Peter Brown, the Princeton professor of the post-Constantinian Christian world, said in a review of the same book, Mathews thinks that "either representations of Christ betray artistic conventions that must mirror faithfully the visual content of contemporary court ceremonials and imperial representations - and, further, must communicate the overbearing message associated with such ceremonials and representations - or they communicate, often, the exact opposite."

Another tacit assumption of the book that Mathews does nothing to repudiate is that the thesis would, in some ways, suggest that we dismiss not only the Emperor Mystique, but also the entire body of scholarship of Kantorowicz, Grabar, and Alfoldi. Grabar and Alfoldi might not be as read today, but Kantorowicz's "The King's Two Bodies" is still considered an indispensable text in historical medieval theology. I certainly do not want to suggest that the book is a hatchet job. It is not. I think Mathews achieves something lastingly important by giving us a book-length treatment that resists what is still, in some quarters, a widely held assumption. I would just regret to see this book read as something more than an unfortunate interpretive misreading that was made by a group of otherwise superb, astoundingly learned scholars.