As Jesus of Nazareth moved from place to place, performing great miracles and teaching in a new way, large crowds formed who traveled with him. So it came to be that 5000 hungry people were sitting in the remote wilderness of Bethsaida, without food. Jesus’s disciples stressed: “What could be done?” Yet Jesus remained calm and went through four specific acts, a sort of ritual preceding the result, which was the multiplication of food.

Order Out of Chaos: Why the Groups of Fifty Mattered

Thousands of people – men, women, children – followed Jesus to see what he did next and to learn from him. When the disciples told Jesus that the crowds complained of hunger, Jesus’ first response was a practical and prophetic one: He told the disciples to have the crowds sit down in “companies” of fifty and a hundred.

Firstly, this is a practical action: counting the crowd and creating a sense of order where there was none. Yet, secondly – and more importantly – in the ancient mind, this reflected the organization of Israel in the wilderness. Doing so framed Jesus as a “New Moses,” an echo of a deliverer.

Step One: Taking the Resources of the Poor

Among the crowd was a little boy with five barley loaves and two fish. Barley was the food of the poor, much cheaper and less prestigious than wheat. There’s something to be said about the act of “taking” what was insufficient—a boy’s lunch—and placing it in the center of the divine mission.

Jesus often pulled children into the middle of what he was doing, saying that adults must become like children to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Yet, in this particular miracle, Jesus gently invited the child to co-labor and become part of the miracle. In doing so, he empowered the child, giving him agency as a valuable contributor.

The taking was the first step in the miracle. Who knows if Jesus could perhaps feed the crowd without the boy’s lunch? Probably. Yet he chose to ask, invite, open his hands, and receive.

Step Two: The Jewish Berakhah (The Blessing)

There’s a special kind of prayer or blessing called the Jewish Berakhah that is done before and after meals and throughout the day, in moments where one thanks God as the giver of all gifts. Upon receiving the child’s lunch in the wilderness, with 5000 hungry people watching him, Jesus paused, connecting the miracle to the Creator, and blessed the food. When Jesus “looked up to heaven” and gave thanks, he distinguished the miracle from pagan magic. While the first verb was receiving (asking & taking), the second indicates something profound: Gratitude or thankfulness precedes multiplication.

Steps Three and Four: The Breaking and the Giving

Jesus physically broke the barley bread, tearing it apart with his hands. Something interesting appears here in the Greek text since the imperfect tense is used, indicating a continuous ongoing action (ἐδίδου – edidou). The bread was multiplying in his hands as he broke it. An act of faith often precedes a miracle – like Peter stepping out of the boat and onto the water or the widow gathering jars before the oil multiplied.

After breaking the bread, there’s a transition from the hands of the Master to the hands of the disciples, highlighting the “delegated” nature of the miracle. Jesus included the disciples in the miracle’s action. Furthermore, generosity and sharing were the acts that led to multiplication. In a truly upside-down way, the Kingdom of God says: Give, and it will be given to you. 

This amazing miracle, proclaiming Jesus’ identity, is the only miracle recorded in all four Gospels.

Twelve Baskets of Fragments: The Economy of Abundance

After the miracle, the crowds were satisfied, having eaten all they could, and 12 baskets of leftovers were gathered by the disciples. Some have indicated this connects to the twelve tribes of Israel mentioned in the Old Testament. 

Others have suggested that each of the disciples used their personal travel basket to collect the leftover pieces. It was common practice for first-century Jews to carry a “kophinos” when traveling – this was a sturdy wicker basket used to carry clean food and hay for bedding. It held roughly two gallons (about 7.5 liters). 

The Feeding of the Crowds in Christian Art

Turning to art history, the miraculous feeding of the 5000 became a coded symbol for the Eucharist (the Lord’s Supper) in the days of the Early Church, where simple loaves and fish signified communion bread and wine.

Yet in later years, such as during the Renaissance, the scene became panoramic, crowded masterpieces. Take, for example, Tintoretto’s depiction (above) that shows the hustle and bustle of the crowd compared to the boy’s composure as he holds his lunch.

The pre-miracle ritual found in these four verbs proves that this miracle was not an accident, but a deliberate act of creation and compassion.

From a religious perspective, the lesson found in the miracle of abundance is that what one desires, one must ask for and receive (taking), and if one remains thankful (blessing) and willing to surrender it in faith (breaking) or even share it with others (giving), one creates holy ground where miracles are possible. 

What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem? Theologian and Christian apologist Tertullian posed this question, asserting that the philosophers of the ancient Greeks had nothing to do with the Gospel of Jesus Christ. However, many of the early Church Fathers recognized some truth in the philosophies of the great Greek thinkers, noting similarities with the Christian faith in some respects, although they saw them as incomplete because they were not informed by God.

Yet even when they saw the flaws in the content of pagan philosophies, they appreciated the methodology that the philosophers used in presenting their beliefs and employed many of the same tactics in formulating their own arguments about Jesus Christ. They also borrowed the vocabulary from the field of philosophy and applied it to their theology.

Mars Hill: The Apostle Paul (c. AD 5 to 64/67)

Socrates (c. 470 to 399 BC) taught his followers on a small hill in Athens that the Greeks called the Areopagus, named after Ares, the god of war. It stood just below the Temple of Athena, goddess of wisdom, war, and handicraft, who was the most popular deity in the city. This is also where Paul went to meet with the pagan philosophers of his day. The most prominent schools of philosophy in Paul’s day belonged to the Epicureans, named after their founder, Epicurus (341 to 270 BC), and the Stoics, followers of Zeno of Elea (c. 495 to c. 430 BC). Representatives of both were present in the crowd that the apostle addressed.

By the 1st century AD, some 10,000 people were living in Athens, but there were some 30,000 gods worshiped, and their idols were everywhere. Paul used this fact to begin his discussion (found in the Book of Acts, chapter 17) by remarking on the religiosity of the Athenians. He then followed the trend of Greek philosophers in two ways.

In his first step, he used the culture of the pagan philosophers to couch his argument by quoting both an Epicurean poet (Epimenides) and a Stoic one (Aratus) with regard to their beliefs about a divine being. He pointed to the altar of the unknown God that existed in the city and told them that he had come to reveal the God that they did not know.

Paul then imitated his Greek precursors by building a logical case for Christianity with a Socratic dialogue, a form of discourse employed to great effect by Plato, in which there is a series of back-and-forth questions and answers to get at the truth. And the crowd was with Paul until he stated that Jesus rose from the dead, something the philosophers found untenable.

In forming his argument, Paul established what it is that the pagans believed, using their own words, remarking on aspects of their philosophies that rang true, pointing out their common ground with Christianity. Then he outlined what he saw as flaws in their belief systems and told them that one key element was missing, namely, Jesus Christ.

In this manner, Paul, using the tactics of the Greek philosophers, set the tone for the apologists who followed him right up to today, when you will find many defenders of the Christian faith employing the same methodology.

Logos: John the Evangelist (c. AD 6 to around AD 100)

“In the beginning was the Word (Logos) and the Word (Logos) was with God and the Word (Logos) was God.” John opens his gospel with this statement. He was writing for an audience of both Jews and Gentiles. By starting with the phrase “in the beginning,” the apostle would have gotten the attention of the former as it would take them right back to the first verse of Genesis (“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth”).

His use of the word “Logos” would have made the pagans sit up and take notice because it was a word commonly employed by Greek philosophers to describe a divine intelligence that governed and gave order to the cosmos. The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 540 to 480 BC), was the first to use it as such. Later, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle linked it to human reason, which they considered intrinsic to the soul.

John took the term and used it to describe Jesus as the second person of the Triune Godhead who had always existed and who took on flesh to enter the world and provide salvation for all, both Jew and Gentile. In applying it to Christ, John was attempting to create a bridge between the pagans and Christianity, using their own language and understanding to do so, taking them beyond their limited beliefs about the Logos, redefining the word for them.

Seeds of Truth: Justin Martyr (c. AD 100 to 165)

Justin Martyr was a Greek from Samaria. He studied the Stoic, Pythagorean, and Platonist philosophies of his day. He recounted his conversion to Christianity in his apologetic work entitled Dialogue with Trypho. He met an elderly Christian man who, he noted, “corrected” his Platonist beliefs and told him about the Hebrew prophets and Jesus. Justin wrote, “A flame was kindled in my soul . . . I found this (Christian) philosophy alone to be safe and profitable.”

Scholars have stated that Justin, out of all the early Christian apologists, had the greatest appreciation for Greek philosophy. In fact, he saw some philosophers as a type of Christian before Christ, like Abraham of the Old Testament, and he considered their work a precursor to Christianity. For example, he noted that Socrates wrote correctly about the need for humanity’s deliverance from the power of demons. Justin remarked, as well, that Plato was accurate in teaching that God is a transcendent, immutable, incorporeal being. And he commended Plato for recognizing that there was a creator who brought the cosmos into being and for his understanding of the existence of a Logos that governs all.

These ideas, Justin asserted, came from “seeds of truth” planted by God in all men. He believed that Plato had read the Jewish Scriptures and drew his ideas from them. Legend has it that Plato visited Egypt and was exposed to the Old Testament teachings there.

However, Justin noted, their philosophies were incomplete and contained errors. Only the coming of Christ brought clarity and understanding. Only the coming of Christ completed and corrected their imperfect views of God and the world.

Justin lived in a time of great persecution of Christians. He boldly defended the Christian faith from false accusations about it and used the philosophy of the Greeks to do it. He argued that, because God had not totally hidden his truth from unbelievers and that they had access to it, they had no excuse for persecuting Christ’s followers. In the end, Justin was executed because of his daring apologetics.

Philosophy as Handmaid to Theology: Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 150 to 215/220)

Philosopher/historian Clement of Alexandria agreed with Justin Martyr in the assertion that all truth is God’s truth and that philosophers such as Plato were correct in some aspects of their beliefs, although not all of them. He echoed Justin’s words in proclaiming that Greek philosophy was the precursor to Christianity. He wrote, “Philosophy was to the Greek world what the Law was to the Hebrews, a tutor escorting them to Christ. So philosophy is a preparatory process; it opens the road for the person whom Christ brings to his final goal” (Stromateis 1.28). As such, philosophy was viewed as “the handmaid of theology,” a phrase that is often attributed to philosopher and theologian Thomas Aquinas (c. AD 1225 to 1274), but was coined by Clement.

Christians actually borrowed the word “theology” from the Greek philosophers. Plato was the first to use it in The Republic (c. 380 BC) to describe myths and stories about the many Greek gods. Aristotle employed it later to represent the study of the divine and metaphysics in general. Clement was one of the first Christian writers to use it. He and his fellow early Church Fathers altered the word’s meaning to refer specifically to the study of the one true God as revealed through the Logos. Like Justin Martyr, Clement noted that the great Greek thinkers were missing Jesus and, therefore, their philosophies were incomplete.

Father of Allegorical Interpretation: Origen (AD 184 to 253)

Origen has always been a bit troublesome for the Christian Church as he sometimes strayed from orthodoxy, especially in his allegorical interpretations of scripture, which opened the door to some misunderstandings and misapplications of God’s Word. He most certainly borrowed this approach to hermeneutics from Jewish scholars as they sought to delve more deeply into scripture. Philo of Alexandria, for example, was renowned for the practice.

However, the technique was also a major component of Greek philosophy. In fact, they were standard fare from Plato, who scholars have lauded for turning boring tenets into entertaining and memorable stories. Many people are familiar with Plato’s Cave in which men, chained to the wall, their backs to its entrance, see only shadows and think that is reality. They never turn to see the source of those shadows behind them. Metaphorically, the philosopher is describing the fact that we are all born in ignorance. Only by using critical thinking can we obtain the knowledge and wisdom necessary to break us free and allow us to move out of the darkness of the cave.

Origen admired the Greek philosophers and this approach so much that he employed it regularly and, as a result, was dubbed the father of allegorical interpretation as he popularized the hermeneutical tool. His goal in using it was to go beyond the letter (literal meaning) to the spirit (spiritual meaning) of any given Biblical text.

One of his most well-known interpretations is that of the Parable of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). He makes the man who is robbed, Adam. The priest who passes him by is supposedly the Law of Moses. The Levite who also goes by without offering help represents the Prophets. The Samaritan who comes to the aid of the man is Jesus. He suggests that the donkey that bore the man to safety was Christ’s physical body, which bears the man’s wounds (sins), and the inn where he is housed represents the Church. The Samaritan’s promise to return refers to Christ’s Second Coming.

It is noteworthy that Greek philosophers, in general, used allegories to interpret myths. The tales of their many gods revealed them to be immoral, but only if one took their deeds literally. Allegorizing them removed their offensiveness and made their follies instructive rather than shameful. So the impetus for using the hermeneutical tool differed considerably between Origen and such philosophers.

Trias, Trinitas, Trinity: Athanasius (c. AD 296 to 373)

Athanasius is most noteworthy for his defense of the Trinity in the face of Arianism, a heretical belief that Jesus was not God Incarnate, but a created being. The word “trinity” is not in the Bible. In fact, it is not originally a Christian term. It originates from Plato, who believed there was a divine triad consisting of God, ideas, and the World-Spirit. He did not fully explain how that worked, but his philosophical successors took his idea and developed it, asserting that there were three “substances” which they defined as the supreme God or “the One,” from which came “mind” or “thought” and a “spirit” or “soul.” They saw these three elements as part and parcel of the same God.

This Platonic God was referred to as a trias, which means three in Greek. Theophilus (Patriarch of Antioch from AD 169 to 183) gives us the first use of it to describe the Biblical God. Tertullian (c. 160 to 225) used the Latin version (trinitas) in his writing, which is translated as trinity in English. The early Church Fathers appropriated the term and gave it a whole new meaning, the meaning that Athanasius upheld of one God who existed in three persons, namely, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Athanasius made the statement that “the Word (Jesus) became man so that we might become God.” This reflects a concept from Plato wherein man’s goal was to become god-like through his exercise of virtue. Athanasius, however, found that approach morally lacking. He explained that, from the Christian perspective, we cannot make ourselves good no matter how hard we try, which is why Christ came to die for our sins. Believers become like Jesus in a lifelong process of sanctification upon conversion and the infilling of the Holy Spirit, as noted in such scripture passages as Romans 8:9 and 2 Corinthians 3:18, which speak of followers being transformed and conformed to the image of Christ. Athanasius asserted that people could only be “divinized” if they “partook of the divine image” of the Trinitarian God of the Bible.

Platonism as a Stepping Stone to Christianity: Augustine (AD 354 to 430)

Some scholars have suggested that, if not for Plato, Augustine, the great Church Father from Roman North Africa, might never have become a Christian. He was caught up in Manichaeism, a sect that taught that the material world was evil while the spiritual world was good. One ascended to God through knowledge and virtuous living. However, Augustine found such an idea unsatisfactory.

Then he came upon Neoplatonism, a school based on Plato’s work, founded by the Roman Egyptian philosopher Plotinus (c. AD 204/5 to 270). Augustine saw that Plato suggested an immaterial cause behind the material world, namely, the Logos. He connected this with the opening statement of John’s Gospel. He realized that the Incarnate Christ was the Logos and, suddenly, it all made sense to him.

He dismissed the dualist idea of good and evil as individual equal forces and saw that evil was actually the lack or privation of good. He concluded that life was not about trying to be noble and obtain knowledge about a distant god in an attempt to get close to him. Rather, life was about connecting with God personally through Jesus. Thus, Greek philosophy became a stepping stone to Christianity for Augustine. As with other Church Fathers before him, he realized that the philosophers had provided only partial answers and that it took Christ to complete them.

Conclusion

Ultimately, both philosophy and theology have one goal: to find the truth. While both use reason to do so, Christians assert the need for divine revelation to find it fully and conclusively. The Early Church Fathers recognized that philosophy does not teach people what to think as much as it teaches us how to think, and employed the methodology and vocabulary of the Greek philosophers in their defense of Christianity.

One of an artist’s biggest challenges lies in the seemingly impossible task of making something ethereal tangible. It’s easy enough to paint the Apostles, the Temple, or even Jesus Himself— but what happens when artists need to depict the invisible, the Holy Spirit as the very presence of God?

The Iconographic Struggle to Frame a Divine Mystery

The Trinity is not a simple concept to understand.

The premise of the Trinity is that God is 3-in-1. The Creator (Father) God became man and dwelt amongst us. He is called the Son of God (Jesus). An important facet of this is that Jesus did not leave when he ascended into heaven; he left behind a part of himself (the Holy Spirit). The Spirit is just one part of the Trinity, but by far the hardest to visualize. 

In a sense, creating artworks about these three divine beings is a theological endeavor that is both daring and brave. How does one accurately depict on a canvas that which is unfathomable? 

For many years, the Church regulated images of the Spirit to avoid heresy or “pagan” misunderstandings. Yet the inspired artist does have some ideas to pull from based on biblical metaphors for the spirit. These are wind, fire, water, oil, and the dove. 

The Dove as the Universal Symbol of Divine Peace

The white dove, basking in glorious light, is perhaps the most popular symbol for the Holy Spirit of God. This imagery is based on the narrative of the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River as described in the Synoptic Gospels. As John the Baptist lowered Jesus under the water and lifted him back up, something strange happened:

“And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove” — Luke 3:21-22

As the dove landed on Jesus after his baptism, bridging the celestial and terrestrial realms, so too does the Holy Spirit fulfill the same purpose. The Spirit is God-with-us. 

In the Peter Paul Rubens Biblical painting “Annunciation” (above), the dove is surrounded by a stream of light connecting heaven to earth, signifying the Incarnation. Such artistic choices cemented the dove as the de facto face of the Spirit in the Western imagination.

Fire and Wind in Masterpieces of the Pentecost

When the Holy Spirit is not depicted as a dove, it (or he) is often shown in fire and wind. This is based on the event of Pentecost described in the Book of Acts, where the promised Helper filled the disciples.

“Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.” — Acts 2:2-3

Wind is the perfect example of an invisible force that artists can depict, but how does one paint “tongues of fire”? Like the flames that did not devour the burning bush before Moses, these Holy Spirit flames were not destructive or threatening. 

In El Greco’s painting of the event (above), the Apostles have calm reactions as the warm, flickering flames linger above their heads. 

The Controversial Human Depictions of the Holy Spirit

Contrary to popular belief, the Holy Spirit is present from the first page of the Bible, where the Spirit is described as hovering over the waters in the abyss. There’s a fascinating story that follows, where the Lord appears to Abraham as three men (Genesis 18). Some controversial depictions of the Holy Spirit show a three-headed figure. 

The painting above shows the somewhat disturbing visual of the Trinity (as three identical faces on the same head). 

Pope Urban VIII eventually banned such three-faced human representations of the Holy Spirit in 1628, and Pope Benedict XIV officially banned anything other than the “approved” dove and fire symbols for the Spirit in 1745.

Light and Radiance as the Ultimate Metaphor

Beyond such literal attempts to paint the Holy Spirit, the more successful metaphor has been toward abstract “glories” of light. In recent years, artists have opted to paint the Holy Spirit in a more subdued, reverent way— through the use of light.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini depicted the Spirit skillfully in his artwork (above). The nimbus or halo of light around the dove is used to distinguish a “divine” bird from a common animal. Bernini’s dove is a work of stained glass that interacts with light, signifying how the church is led by the Spirit to share God’s message. This artwork signifies that natural sunlight is the Spirit’s medium. Chiaroscuro (the masterful use of light and dark) is often used in depictions of the Holy Spirit, where the Spirit is light, contrasted against the darkness of sin.

How Iconography Changed Our Vision of the Divine

The Holy Spirit iconography used throughout the centuries changed our vision of the divine. The symbols that we use to express concepts of faith are often far removed from their original, intended purpose. 

Take, for example, the cross of Christ. Crucifixion was a horrific, socially abhorred act at the time— yet now, little crosses adorn jewelry, chapels, or even bumper stickers. Humanity’s constant need to qualify and understand the divine makes it harder for us to have an accurate perspective when we do catch a glimpse of it. It seems that the more we try to make the Holy Spirit relatable, the more abstract it becomes.

On the other hand, it is a wonder how mere mortals can use the elements of nature to try to represent the most mysterious part of the Godhead. They must surely be inspired, or one might say, Spirit-filled. For why else would one undertake such an impossible task?

Plato was a high-born Athenian. While not the first philosopher on record, he is certainly one of the most famous and influential scholars in the field, not just in his time, but right up until today. He wrote primarily about epistemology, politics, ethics, and metaphysics, and the early Christian Fathers noted common themes between his work and Christianity. However, the Church leaders never accepted Platonic philosophy as it stood, but always altered it in light of their Biblical beliefs. Scholars have noted that they “Christianized” it for their own purposes, especially with regard to Plato’s theory of the forms.

How Early Church Fathers Viewed Plato’s Work

Some early Christian Fathers condemned Plato’s philosophy entirely. Theophilus of Antioch called it nothing but “worthless and godless opinions” (To Autolycus, Book 3, Chapters 2, 3). Tertullian claimed that “heresies are instigated by philosophy” (Against Heresies, Chapter 7). He quoted Colossians 2:8, wherein Paul warned Christians not to be taken in by “hollow and deceptive philosophy.” However, Paul was not condemning the field itself, but the type of philosophy that “depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.”

In fact, Paul himself made use of ancient philosophy as he argued for the Christian faith. We see this in Acts 17 when he posited his argument for the Gospel of Jesus Christ before the philosophers meeting at Mars Hill, using the Socratic Dialogue methodology borrowed from Plato to make his case.

Some early Christian Fathers, such as Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria, believed that Plato had taken some of his ideas from Moses and the Old Testament prophets and that his philosophy was actually a precursor to Christianity, as it contained elements of God’s truth. However, they regarded Platonism as incomplete, needing a Christian understanding of God to finish it off.

Besides borrowing Plato’s methodology to convince non-believers of the truth of Christianity, these early theologians also took on the language of Plato. The very word “theology” came from the Greek philosophers, as did the word “Logos” that the apostle John used in the opening of his Gospel. However, they redefined the terms.

Where Plato used “theology” to describe the tales of mythological figures, the Christians used it to refer only to the study of the triune God of the Bible. And where the Greek philosopher employed “Logos” to refer to a distant unknowable divinity, John used the word to describe Jesus, the second person of the Trinity.

Forms

Plato believed that human beings are born knowing certain ideas that he called forms. These ideas do not just exist in our minds, he said, but exist totally outside our thoughts as well. They represent universal, objective truths that are ideal, perfect, and desirable. They have no substance and are metaphysical in nature. Everything in the visible, material world is merely an imperfect reflection of them. While Plato’s description of them varied, at one point, he indicated that all forms are part of one form, namely, the Good, which gives all the other forms meaning. Therefore, it is the Good that human beings are meant to seek.

However, Plato purports that while we might be born with knowledge of this, we have forgotten it all. It is through education that we must uncover and recollect a form. It is a teacher’s job to help us do that. Once we are aware of a form’s existence, we can embark on an intellectual journey to gain full knowledge of everything we have forgotten and connect with the divine and become god-like.

The Soul and the Mind

Plato borrowed the idea of a soul from Greek literature. Homer, for example, used the word to describe a wind that filled living beings. Plato redefined it, making it the seat of the mind and reason in a human being. They represent the bridge between the material world and the forms as they allow us to intellectually grasp them.

Beyond the human soul and its containment of rational thought, there is, Plato asserted, a mind that is responsible for creating this Earth and all therein. In his work, Timaeus, he used the word “demiurge” to describe such a mind that did not just make the cosmos, but sustains it as well, continuously giving it order. In fact, it was the orderliness of the world that made Plato think that there must be an intelligence behind its creation. This mind, however, is not the source of the forms, although he supposedly did spend time contemplating them.

Basil the Great (c. AD 330 to 379)

Basil is one of the renowned Cappadocian Fathers. He served as Bishop of Caesarea in the region of Cappadocia in what is now modern-day Turkey. Born into a well-to-do Christian family, he was given an excellent classical education that included philosophy. In his Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature (also called To The Youth), he encouraged students to study pagan authors, including Plato, advising them to pick out what was virtuous and good in their writings. However, at the same time, he warned them to dismiss what was untrue, immoral, or idolatrous in them. As with the earlier Church Fathers, he saw elements that complemented Christianity, but found non-Christian material as well.

Basil echoed Plato in his belief that “a rational force is implanted in us as a seed,” a seed, he said, that “impels us toward love.” He even wrote that men, by nature, desire “the Good.” However, Basil believed that “the Good” is God and “since all creatures desire the Good, all creatures desire God.” Like Plato, Basil believed that teachers were needed to help students attain the Good, but that came through study of scripture, which he dubbed “the school of commandments.” As he put it, the seed “is fully cultivated and skillfully nurtured by the grace of God, brought to its full perfection” (The Love of God). Mere philosophy could not do that.

Gregory of Nyssa (c. AD 335 to c. 394/39)

Gregory was Basil’s younger brother. He, too, was one of the Cappadocian Fathers and served as Bishop of Nyssa. Like his brother, he adopted and adapted Plato’s work, most notably in his writing about moral transformation, which mirrored Plato’s “Ladder of Love” in his Symposium. However, also like Basil, he put a Christian twist on the theme. He quoted from the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). He believed that, because humankind is made in the image of God, the purification of the heart would reveal the divine image within us. That is how Christians connected with God, not through the study of philosophy.

Gregory used the vocabulary of Plato in talking about forms and referred to God as the “transcendent Form” behind everything. However, he was clear in noting that God was not just A form along with many others, but was THE form that stood alone. He also pointed out that, from a Christian perspective, God was both the Good and the mind/reason, thus Christianizing the terms and their meanings.

Gregory of Nazianzus (c. AD 329 to 390)

This Gregory was also a Cappadocian Father. He focused on the many descriptions of God found in the Bible, including the mind. He wrote, “Are not Spirit, and Fire, and Light, and Wisdom, and Righteousness, and Mind, and Reason, and the like, the names of the First Nature?” Unlike Plato, Gregory did not believe that intellectual, philosophical study would help us uncover buried knowledge and connect with the divine. However, that does not mean that our minds played no role in uniting with God. Indeed, the theologian pointed out that our minds will help us to know him, not just as an abstract concept like that imagined by Plato, but as a being we can know personally, owing to the fact that we were made in his image.

He agreed with Basil that it was through the study of scripture that we could achieve the goal of coming to God and of becoming god-like, not through the practice of philosophy. Philosophy’s only role was to supply frameworks and language for talking about God. And while he agreed with Plato that “every rational nature longs for the Good,” he, too, explained that the Biblical God is the Good.

Augustine (AD 354 to 430)

Augustine praised Platonism, considering it to be superior to all other secular philosophies because, as he saw it, the idea of forms brought people closer to the Christian understanding of God than any of the rest. He wrote, “Able men, who have thought deeply on these things, have gathered that the first form is not to be found in those things whose form is changeable . . . They saw that there is some existence which is the first form, unchangeable” (City of God, Book VIII, Chapter 6). Augustine praised Plato for recognizing that an intelligence of some kind had created the world, noting that Platonists “most rightly believed” that a creator was “the first principle of things, which was not made, but made all things.”

Augustine noted, however, that while Plato outlined his philosophy admirably, he did not have the full truth. The philosopher failed to take it one step further beyond an abstract concept of the first form and recognize that the living God is the form about which he wrote. Plato rightly believed that there was indeed an invisible world behind this visible one, but he could not name or identify any unseen being who might occupy it. It took Augustine and his fellow theologians to do that.

Conclusion

Ultimately, Christianity owes a great deal to Plato. While the early Christian Fathers saw errors in his work, many of them recognized that he was on the right track with some of his beliefs. They just took what he wrote further, redefining such ideas as his Forms, and using his methods of argumentation and the vocabulary of philosophy to express Biblical theology.

The Gospels portray Jesus as the Son of God— a miracle worker, a friend, a rabbi, and a leader. Given his popularity, many archetypes of him arose. Yet there is a major time jump in the New Testament account of his life. We read about the birth of Jesus, and suddenly, he’s a full-grown thirty-year-old man.

What happened in between?

The Influence of the Silent Years on the Messianic Mission

On the one hand, Jesus is seen as the ultimate incarnated Son of God. Yet on the other hand, he was fully human and tested in every way.

“…God sent his Son, born of a woman…”— Galatians 4:4

The Gospels jump from Jesus as a baby to a 12-year-old boy and then suddenly he’s a full-grown adult. These silent years of Jesus’ life must have been foundational for his ministry that followed, informing his language, understanding, and worldview.

The hidden years in the life of Jesus were part of what the Father intended for him. The prophets understood this when they wrote about a child and a son who would come (Isaiah 9:6).

Education in Nazareth and the Mastery of Scripture

“Nazareth! Can anything good come from there?“— John 1:46

Jesus grew up in a culture of oral tradition centered around the local synagogue. Young Jewish boys would learn to memorize the Torah (“teaching” which was made up of the first five books of the Old Testament).

Nazareth was a humble community, centered around agriculture and hard work, with a strong religious life. Archaeological findings agree with this based on Jewish ritualistic remnants found, like stone jars used for purification, as well as the lack of imported or pagan items.

When reading the Gospels, it becomes clear how this early immersion in the Law and the Prophets gave Jesus the foundation needed to debate those teachers at the Temple. Note: Jesus also had direct access to God (the Father), so technically this “schooling” was not needed for him to do what he was sent to do.

Living as a Tekton and the Value of Physical Labor

Jesus likely spent the majority of his life working with his hands— with his father, Joseph, who was a tekton, meaning artisan or builder. For many generations, people believed that he was a woodworker, but the lack of wood in the region of Galilee indicates a higher likelihood that he worked with limestone. Therefore, Jesus worked with his father as a stonemason. This was hard, manual labor.

In a literal sense, this season of working with his father might have colored Jesus’ view of social justice. Some say that witnessing Roman wealth influenced his parables on inequality and hypocrisy— yet again, we need to remember the Bible tells one story. God’s big story. It was not Jesus who witnessed people’s struggle and changed God’s message from wrath into compassion.

“the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing.”— John 5:19

Growing Up in a Large Family With Many Siblings

Jesus was God incarnate in a very real sense. He lived a real human life, and he could empathize with believers’ real-life struggles because he lived them. There is perhaps no better example of this than the fact that Jesus had siblings.

While Jesus was conceived by the Spirit and born to Mary as her first, she and Joseph had other children later on. Jesus’ childhood was likely filled with many siblings, cousins, and close family members, given the culture he grew up in.

His brother, James, famously refused to believe that he was the Messiah until much later. He eventually wrote the Book of James and became a prominent voice in the early days of the Christian movement.

In his teachings later in life, Jesus spoke in ways that people could understand and relate to, often using the language of the “family of God.”

Religious Pilgrimage and the Early Awakening at the Temple

There is just one story of the childhood of Jesus in the New Testament. That is the famous one where Jesus’ parents search for him only to find him debating the scholars at the Temple. Other sources not included in the King James Bible describe young Jesus building clay birds and breathing life into them, as one example.

Annual trips to Jerusalem were part of Jesus’ world growing up. It was on one such journey that Jesus went missing for three whole days. Luke 2 states that the boy Jesus had an early realization of a unique mission apart from his parents. 

“Why were you searching for me?” Jesus asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”(Luke 2:49-50).

It’s fascinating to keep this encounter in mind and contrast it with how Jesus’ relationship with the Temple and its leaders turned sour later on.

Why the Ordinary Life of Jesus Was Essential to His Divinity

Many leadership gurus have wondered whether the “hiddenness” of Jesus’ early years was a deliberate part of his positioning later on. It seems that many leaders have seasons of obscurity or humble servanthood that precede promotions to positions of power. Whatever the case may be, the ordinary day-to-day of Jesus’ life as a young boy impacted the kind of leader he became later in life.

Jesus was the “Son of God,” and he was also the “Son of Man.” He had a real childhood with familiar challenges and a specific socio-cultural context that shaped who he became.

“And the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was on him.”— Luke 2:40

The Twelve Disciples chosen by Jesus Christ were a group of misfits— men from diverse backgrounds with differing temperaments. It is rather miraculous that they succeeded in the important task of spreading the Christian faith globally, given the challenging group dynamics and personalities that often clashed, according to the Gospels and Epistles.

The secular tool known as the Enneagram can serve as a lens for identifying the possible personality types of each disciple based on what the Bible tells us about them.

Why We Profile the Personalities of the Apostles

Much has been said about these men who authored the Gospels and walked with Jesus, but it is often written “behind the text”— details that reveal themselves only upon closer inspection. Knowing that Luke was a medical doctor (Colossians 4:14) explains why his Gospel is the most detailed, often including diagnoses of people Jesus healed.

In a similar way, the text often reveals clues as to the disciples’ personality types. While the Enneagram has been critiqued by some for lacking “Christian roots,” it remains a popular framework for understanding personality. The point of this article is not to be a sermon, but rather a playful attempt to view the disciples as complex human beings (with a divine mission).

Let’s look at Peter, John, Matthew, and Thomas through the lens of the Enneagram to understand them better.

Was the Apostle Peter a Classic Enneagram Type Eight?

Peter was a humble fisherman whose life was transformed by discipleship, but it was a slow process.

It was Peter who impulsively walked on water towards Jesus (Matthew 14:28-30), who proudly claimed that he’d protect Jesus at whatever cost (Matthew 16:21-23), who cut off the servant’s ear in the Olive Grove (John 18:10-11), and who leaped off the boat to swim towards the resurrected Jesus standing on the shore (John 21:7).

From this and other descriptions in the Gospels, we could gather that Peter was most probably the “Challenger” (Enneagram 8). He had impulse control issues, boundless courage, and notable stubbornness.

Even his name, Peter, was given to him by Jesus himself when he commented on the man’s challenging nature, calling him a “rock” (Matthew 16:18). His original name was Simon, but Jesus called him to become a strong church leader.

Why John the Beloved Fits the Individualist Archetype

Another fisherman who exhibits great personality growth and internal healing in the New Testament is the Apostle John.

At first, Jesus called John and his brother, James, the “sons of thunder” (Mark 3:17). In the beginning of his discipleship, it was John who suggested calling down fire from heaven to destroy a village (Luke 9:51-56), who told Jesus to do whatever he demanded (Mark 10:35-37), and who claimed they could face whatever Jesus had to (Mark 10:38-39).

This tracks closely with an Enneagram 4, the “Individualist”, who exhibits self-absorption, envy, and profound empathy. John’s writing style is poetic and abstract compared to the other Gospel writers. He reveals the ability to sit with pain instead of rushing ahead. Of course, he also described himself as the “beloved disciple,” much to the disdain of the others, indicating his need for special status.

Matthew the Tax Collector and the Reformer Mindset

Matthew the tax collector was most likely an Enneagram 1, the “Reformer.” It is clear from his Gospel that his mind worked in a linear, systematic way, with a clear legalistic right and wrong.

When Jesus called Matthew to follow him, he not only offered him discipleship but also saved him from his inner turmoil. Matthew was a perfectionist, working in a socially loathed position that would have been morally complex and deeply disturbing for someone with such a strong sense of right versus wrong.

It was Matthew who wrote the phrase “it might be fulfilled” more than sixty times, who arranged Jesus’ teachings into five clear portions, and who gave step-by-step instructions for resolving conflict (Matthew 18:15-17).

Transformed by his rabbi, Matthew focuses on hospitality, freedom of worship, and abundant grace.

Reinterpreting Thomas the Doubter as a Type Six Loyalist

For our final example of what the Twelve Disciples’ personalities might be, let’s consider the disciple Thomas.

It was Thomas who prepared for worst-case scenarios yet showed incredible loyalty (John 11:16), who anxiously demanded clear instructions (John 14:5), and who isolated under stress (John 20:24). Yet what he is most known for is refusing to believe that Jesus had resurrected, up to the point of sticking his fingers into the holes in the resurrected body of Jesus for tangible proof (John 20:25).

Thomas was not merely a skeptic; he was seeking security, safety, and certainty. Upon receiving it, he achieved peace by traveling to India as a missionary.

How the Diverse Personalities of the Twelve Formed a Global Movement

Much more can be said about the possible psychological profiles of the Twelve, and this article is much too short for a conclusive overview. What is noteworthy is how Jesus managed the friction between these conflicting personality types, such as seating the tax collector (Matthew) opposite the political revolutionary (Simon the Zealot). Two people who would naturally hate one another became part of the same team.

Yet some have said that it might be precisely this “balanced body” of different types that allowed the Christian movement to handle various challenges, from its organization to martyrdom.

What the Personalities of the Apostles Teach Us Today

Traditionally, the Apostles have been viewed as powerful figures in a hierarchical way throughout church history— a perspective that has had a “flattening effect” in our reading of the text. The Enneagram is a tool for understanding underlying motivations that shine through the outward behaviors of the disciples.

Identifying the possible flaws, growth areas, blind spots, and strengths of each of these men strengthens the reader’s connection to their world. Instead of bulldozing through the text as one has a hundred times before, this practice requires a slower, more mindful reading, looking for clues about each person’s humanity. That is how one might find each of the Apostles’ personality types.

In this group, diversity was a strength rather than a weakness.

The ideal of the Papacy is to provide a spiritual leader and moral guide for the Christian faithful. Unfortunately, in the Middle Ages, many popes were more focused on factional violence, political intrigue, and extravagant decadence. While there were saints among the ranks of the medieval popes, there were certainly sinners as well. This list explores eight of the most controversial popes in the Middle Ages and the early Renaissance, whose actions range from theological error to outright criminality.

1. Honorius I (625-638)

Honorius was a well-respected bishop before ascending to the Papacy. His tenure did not see the turmoil or outrages of some other figures on this list. However, the contents of his letters to his eastern colleagues saw him become the only pope to be officially branded as a heretic.

A controversy raged in Christendom in the 7th century about the nature of Christ’s will. Did he have only one, divine will or one divine and one human will? This had echoes of the earlier Monophysite controversy, where it was debated whether Christ had only a divine nature or a divine and a human nature. It was decided at the Council of Chalcedon that Christ had two natures, and as such, official orthodoxy was that Christ also had two wills.

In a letter to Sergius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, Honorius wrote, “We confess one will of our Lord Jesus Christ, since our (human) nature was plainly assumed by the Godhead, and this being faultless, as it was before the fall.” This seemed to endorse the Monothelite position that Christ had only one will. Whether that was what Honorius intended or not, that is how it was read by Sergius, and that is how the third Council of Constantinople saw it in 681. That council saw Honorius posthumously anathematized and declared a heretic.

2. Sergius III (904-911)

Sergius III’s pontificate is often marked as the beginning of the “Saeculum Obscurum,” Latin for “Dark Age.” This era saw the Papacy consumed by factional infighting and moral decay.

A supporter of Pope Stephen VI, and likely a bishop at the Cadaver Synod, he continued the attack on Pope Formosus’s legacy. He convened a synod in Rome to reaffirm the outcome of the Cadaver Synod (overturning a previous annulment of the proceeding) and once again declared all acts and ordinations made by Formosus null and void.

The intense factionalism that Sergius promoted led to some extraordinarily hostile sources about his reign. He was accused of murdering his predecessors Leo V and Christopher, of being under the sexual thrall of the women of the Theophylact family, and of fathering the future Pope John XI with Marozia, a teenage daughter of that family.

While modern scholarship disputes some of the more serious claims, like the paternity of John XI, he was, without a doubt, a violently partisan figure that acted in a nakedly political manner. His successors would continue the trend.

3. John XII (955-964)

John XII is one of the youngest popes in history, appointed to the seat in his late teens. He was a member of the Tusculum family, which dominated the Papacy for much of the 10th century.

After a dispute with the Holy Roman Emperor Otto I, a synod was convened in Rome in 963 to try John for a long list of charges. John fled rather than face the accusations of sacrilege, simony, perjury, murder, adultery, and incest. John was also accused of toasting the devil, invoking pagan gods while gambling, ordaining deacons in a stable, and generally behaving more like a secular warlord than a cleric.

The synod, unsurprisingly since it was called by supporters of Otto, found John guilty in absentia, declaring him deposed. This was the first time that a pope had been removed from office via a legal procedure.

John refused to accept the sentence and excommunicated all who took part in the trial. A few months later, John managed to retake Rome and reinstall himself as Pope. However, this triumph would be short-lived as John would die soon afterward.

There are two versions of the story of his death, neither likely true, but they have achieved legendary status. One is that during an affair with a Roman nobleman’s wife, he had a stroke and died on top of her. The other is that the woman’s husband walked in on the Pope and his wife and, in a rage, grabbed John and threw him out of a nearby window.

4. Urban II (1088-1099)

Urban II was a reform-minded pope who, while not controversial in his own time, has certainly become so in the centuries after his death.

Urban spent the first years of his Papacy strengthening the Gregorian reform movement that had begun after the dark days of the Saeculum Obscurum. Gregory took a firm stand against the selling of church offices (known as simony) and clerical concubinage. He strengthened the centralization of the Church and increased the authority of the Papacy.

His most consequential action, though, was the preaching of the First Crusade at the Council of Clermont in 1095. Urban promised the remission of sins to those who took part in a holy war to aid the Byzantine Empire and retake Jerusalem from Muslim control. The concept that war against the enemies of the Church, specifically Muslims who had in previous centuries made serious inroads into the formerly Christian world, was not new. However, a full plenary indulgence, the removal of punishment for sins in exchange for papally directed military service, was a new innovation.

The crusading movement would continue for centuries, its legacy shaping the way that the Christian and Muslim worlds interact with each other up until the present day.

5. Boniface VIII (1294-1303)

Boniface VIII was determined to exert Papal Supremacy over the monarchies of Europe. He forbade secular rulers to tax clergy without explicit papal approval in 1296, enraging Edward I of England and Philip IV of France, both of whom were in desperate need of war funding.

Boniface’s feud with Philip IV continued when Philip arrested Bishop Bernard Saisset for treason. Boniface responded by summoning French bishops to Rome for a reform council and asserting papal superiority over kings. Boniface laid out in his decree Unam sanctam that, “it is altogether necessary to salvation for every human creature to be subject to the Roman Pontiff.” 

Philip then escalated matters dramatically. He sent his minister, Guillaume de Nogaret, to Anagni in September of 1303. In what became known as “the Outrage of Anagni,” Nogaret slapped the elderly pope and imprisoned him, possibly even torturing him. Boniface died only a month after his release. There was a rumor that his treatment had caused him to go mad, and at his death, he gnawed off his own hands. That rumor was disproven when Boniface’s body was exhumed, and his hands were perfectly fine.

Boniface’s attempts at exerting papal authority backfired spectacularly. They resulted in his own imprisonment and, in a sense, the imprisonment of the Papacy at large with the start of the Avignon Period where the Papacy was under the thumb of the French king.

6. Urban VI (1378-1389)

The conclave of 1378 found itself under immense political pressure. The Papacy had only just returned to Rome from Avignon, and there was a fear that it would return there. An armed mob surrounded the Vatican Palace where the conclave was being held, and loudly demanded a Roman pope, or at least an Italian. The “or else” was unsaid, but implicit.

So, the cardinals chose Bartolomeo Prignano, an Italian from the Kingdom of Naples, and he took the name Urban VI. They quickly came to regret their decision.

Urban seemed to take delight in berating and publicly humiliating his cardinals. His hostility caused a faction to say that because his election had been made under fear, it was invalid, and they elected a rival pope at Avignon. This was the beginning of the Great Western Schism, the greatest crisis of legitimacy in the Catholic Church until the Protestant Reformation.

The schism did nothing to calm Urban’s violent and tyrannical tendencies. In 1385, Urban arrested six cardinals, convinced they were plotting against him. These cardinals were later tortured and executed on his orders. Egidio da Viterbo later called this action “a crime unheard of through the centuries.” 

7. Alexander VI (1492-1503)

While a cardinal, Rodrigo Borgia had a long-term mistress and openly acknowledged his illegitimate children with her. While clerical affairs were not new, most had the public decorum not to be so brazen about it. In the conclave of 1492, Borgia allegedly secured his election as pope with hefty bribes, including money, lands, and offices exchanged for votes.

Upon becoming pope and taking the name Alexander VI, Borgia set out to use the office to benefit his family. Like clerical mistresses, nepotism was commonly practiced in the Church in the Late Medieval Period, but once again, Borgia took it to a level that had not been seen since the days of the Saeculum Obscurum. He made ten relatives cardinals, including his teenage son Cesare, and his former mistress’s brother, who would later be elected as Pope Paul III. He was generous in granting lands and titles in the Papal States to his family, and was more than happy to sell church positions to his allies.

Johann Burchard, papal master of ceremonies, wrote in his diary that Alexander and his children presided over an orgy in Cesare’s apartments known as the “Banquet of Chestnuts.” Modern historians believe that the lurid details from Burchard’s telling, including a contest to see who bedded the most prostitutes in one night, may have been exaggerations, though they do tend to believe that decadent entertainment did occur.

8. Leo X (1513-1521)

A quote often attributed to Leo summed up his attitude toward being pope: “God has given us the Papacy, let us enjoy it.” 

Leo, a scion of the Medici family, was used to the finer things in life and spent papal funds lavishly. Leo had a large reserve of money left to him by his predecessors, but two years of his spending on art, architecture, ceremony, patronage, and gifts had burned through it all, and the Papacy was left in deep debt. To cover the shortfall, Leo sold everything from papal jewels and statuary down to tableware. Most infamously, he also greatly expanded the sale of indulgences.

Angered by what seemed to be the brazen greed of selling the remission of sin, Martin Luther wrote his 95 theses and nailed them to the church door of Wittenberg. Leo greatly mishandled Luther. At first, he ignored him. Then, when that was no longer possible, rather than offering reform, he came down with the full force of papal authority and threatened Luther with excommunication. Luther, famously, burned his bull of excommunication, deepening the crisis. By the time of Leo’s death, the Protestant Reformation was well underway, splitting half of Europe from Rome’s authority.

Christians were appalled by the immorality of the plays presented in Roman theaters. They feared for the spiritual well-being of people who found this entertainment captivating, thereby leading a number of the early Church Fathers to speak out against it.

Origin of Roman Theater

Roman theater’s roots lay in Greek theater. Scholars cite Thespis (6th century BC), a Greek poet, as the father of the genre of tragedy, as it was he who stepped out of the chorus and introduced audiences to one sole actor, called the protagonist, who related a story to them. The word “thespian,” used as a synonym for “actor,” comes from his name.

The Greek playwright, Aeschylus (c. 525 – c. 455 BC), added a second character, called the antagonist, with other playwrights expanding the number of players as time passed.

The first plays were performed at the spring religious festival of the god Dionysus (called Bacchus by the Romans) in Athens at the Acropolis. They included sacrifices made to the god. In fact, most of the dramas presented by the Greeks focused on mythological stories with their deities at the center of them.

Comedies related to mythological stories as well, but they did not revere the gods. The presentations were lewd, crude, and were usually sexual in nature, with the actors’ costumes exaggerating their sexual organs.

This is the theater that the Romans inherited and adopted for themselves. Whether comic or dramatic, all the plays were tied to religion in one way or another. By Christ’s time in the 1st century AD, two popular genres had emerged. The mime offered ridiculous stories, told with lots of sexual innuendo and was profane in both content and language. The pantomime was a presentation of mythological stories acted out in dance and music. However, it was not just the immorality and lewdness of the plays that offended the Church Fathers, it was the fact that some of these plays ridiculed Christians and Christianity outright.

Clement of Alexandria: Theater as Cesspool

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215 AD) was the first early Church Father to weigh in on the issue. In his treatise, Exhortation to the Greeks (a term used for pagans), he condemned the plays that were based, as he put it, on “the cesspool” of mythology retold by “drunken poets.” He noted that these stories drew people into “the company of demons.”

Tertullian: Church of the Devil

Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 220 AD) did not mince words either when it came to his criticism of Roman theater. He wrote, “How despicable it is to go from the church of God to the church of the devil . . . to raise your hands to God, and then to wear them out clapping for an actor.” He exhorted Christians to abstain from theater-going, citing the first verse of Psalm 1, which states that “blessed is the man who has not gone into the assembly of the impious, nor stood in the way of sinners, nor sat in the seat of scorners.”

Tertullian stated that God, the Bible, and the Church offered experiences far superior to anything the theater might present. “What nobler than to tread underfoot the gods of the nations — to exorcise evil spirits — to perform cures — to seek divine revealing — to live to God?” he opined.

John Chrysostom: Is Your Body Made of Stone?

The fact that the theater was so spectacular became a problem for the Church, one that John of Antioch, nicknamed Chrysostom (c. 347 – 407 AD), identified, noting that people who attended the theater came to church expecting to be amused. “They sit there like critics,” he said, demanding “tragedies and musical entertainment.”

His nickname, Chrysostom, literally means “Golden Mouth,” and it was given to him because he was a particularly fine orator. Yet, he felt embarrassed when people praised his preaching, not wanting to be compared at all to the actors in the theater and their eloquence. The true theater is spiritual, he noted, and the greatest story ever told is that of Jesus Christ and the good news of the salvation he offers to humankind. Yet, he noted, people chose to go to the theater rather than church, even on Good Friday.

Chrysostom was most concerned about how plays could provoke sexual lust, writing about a prostitute who was “finely dressed” and “flirted seductively with the audience.” He said he could not see how the men in attendance could not be aroused by this, writing, “Is your body made of stone? Or iron? . . . If someone lights a fire in his lap, will he not burn his clothing?”

He concluded by saying that “each man takes home with him much of what he has seen there, so it sticks to him like the infection of a plague.”

Augustine: Shameful Insanity

If any of the Church Fathers understood immorality and debauchery, it was Augustine (354–430 AD). He lived a licentious lifestyle before his conversion in 386 AD. The morality of the Christians, which he saw was rooted in the love of the Lord, impressed him greatly, and he became ashamed of his own moral failures.

In his Confessions, Augustine noted that he had wasted a lot of time attending theatrical performances in his younger years and had been negatively aroused to sinful passions because of them. For this reason, he spoke out against them, saying that they would take people away from God, rather than to him. Ultimately, Augustine condemned the plays presented in Roman theaters as “shameful insanity.”

Greek and Roman Moralists and Philosophers Weigh In

Christians were not the only people appalled by the debauchery of popular theater. Greek and Roman philosophers and moralists spoke out against them as well. For example, Aelius Aristides (117–181 BC), a noted Greek orator, wrote a letter to the leaders of the city of Sparta condemning dancers as morally bereft and a bad influence on the public.

Actors were considered the lowest of the low in Roman society, not just by Christians, but by pagans as well. Actors were, for the most part, either foreigners or slaves, and were dismissed as sexually immoral.

A Christian liturgical work from the 3rd century AD, entitled The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus of Rome, reveals that actors had to give up their livelihood if they wished to be baptized and join the Church. Notably, they were listed along with prostitutes, astrologers, craftsmen who made idols, gladiators, and soldiers.

Genesius of Rome: An Actor’s Conversion Story

Legend has it that one Genesius of Rome (4th century AD), an actor, came to Christ through his appearance in a play he wrote that ridiculed the Christian sacraments. During the performance in which he presented baptism as a ludicrous practice, he fell to the floor of the stage, pretending to be sick. He called for water with which to be baptized because he feared he was dying. The audience included Emperor Diocletian, and the crowd roared with laughter at the farce.

However, at the moment when an actor poured water over his head, Genesius stood up and declared his faith in Jesus Christ. The other actors thought their fellow thespian was adlibbing and continued to mock Christians and the sacrament of baptism. But Genesius was sincere in his newfound belief, and when Diocletian realized this, he ordered the actor’s clothes to be ripped from him, calling for him to be whipped and beaten right then and there to make him change his mind.

Genesius refused to do so, and the emperor had him thrown into prison where, as the story goes, he was tortured daily, enduring the rack, as well as being torn with iron hooks and burned with torch flames. However, he did not acquiesce, and he was beheaded in 303 AD.

The Church designated Genesius the patron saint of actors as well as clowns, comedians, musicians, dancers, lawyers, epileptics, printers, and victims of torture; an interesting mix, to be sure.

Other Spectacles Considered Offensive

Christians abhorred other forms of Roman entertainment as well, including gladiatorial games, chariot races, and the contests between man and beast in the arena. They condemned the violence, the cruelty, and the bloodshed in these events, events over which the crowds went wild. Tertullian condemned them all, saying, “Everything in the pagan spectacles is idolatry.”

Anyone associated with these events, whether they be gladiators and their instructors or the men who tended the horses and other animals used in the games, had to renounce these occupations before being baptized into the Church. Everything that they stood for went against what Christ taught and, therefore, had to be abandoned.

Why Christians Did Not Create Their Own Theater?

It is noteworthy that the Jews were a literary people. They emphasized the hearing and memorization of God’s Word. This non-visual tradition worked against any attempt to produce Christian theater.

However, the main reason that Christians did not create their own theatrical presentations came from the command in Exodus 20:4 that said, “You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” The pagans made idols of animals and birds as well as humans and their various gods, but the followers of God would not make a mask of him and portray him in a play.

Conclusion

It would be many centuries before Christians began to realize that they, too, could put on plays, ones that would honor God, encourage and teach Christ’s followers, and preach the good news of salvation. The first known Christian play was performed in the 10th century AD. It consisted of a religious dialogue performed during an Easter mass in which Mary Magdalene and two other women found Christ’s tomb empty. The trope is called Quem Quaeritis, Latin for “whom do you seek?” The question an angel asked of the women when they arrived.

By the Middle Ages, performances of dramas based on Biblical stories such as Daniel in the lion’s den and Moses leading the Israelites out of captivity in Egypt, miracle plays that focused on the lives of the saints and Mary, the mother of Jesus, and passion plays about the death and resurrection of Christ were standard fare.

While most people will say their faith is not based on or dependent on facts, there is certainly value in determining the historical claims and eyewitness accounts surrounding the life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Focusing on the resurrection is not just a theological concept, but a piece of mysterious and intriguing history. Most Easter celebrations and Bible-believing Christians focus on the ascension of Christ, forgetting the forty days that came between the resurrection and his ultimate ascension to heaven.

The Roman Guard and the Witness of the Enemy

The Bible is full of humor and irony. Jesus Christ himself often “cracked a joke.” One such example is found in considering who was present at the tomb where Jesus was resurrected.

The tomb was guarded by Roman soldiers (“custodia”) tasked with preventing the theft of the body. Why? Because Jesus predicted his resurrection many times (John 2:19), and if someone could steal his body, they’d prove his message was true.

Yet before anybody had the chance to attempt such a theft, an angel came down with a violent earthquake: “going to the tomb, (he) rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.” (Matthew 28:2-4)

The guards, the enemies of Christ, shared what they witnessed with their leaders, and they were bribed to keep quiet. But the guards were not the only ones who saw the empty tomb.

Mary Magdalene and the Scandal of Female Testimony

Jesus was (in)famous for putting outcasts central in his ministry. Sinners, widows, children, and women were often at the receiving end of his mercy. It is fascinating that all four Gospels place women at the tomb first, despite the 1st-century Jewish legal reality where a woman’s testimony was often inadmissible in court.

In an eyewitness account, the “Criterion of Embarrassment” assesses how awkward, seemingly out-of-place details are more likely to be true. Critics and scholars of the Bible have surmised that if the story were a fabrication, women would never have been the primary witnesses.

“So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. “Greetings,” he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him.” – Matthew 28:8-9

Peter and the Inner Circle

Earlier, when Jesus was betrayed by his disciple, Judas Iscariot, and arrested in the olive grove, all of his disciples deserted him. They went into hiding at this point, denying they knew him, and watching from afar as he was crucified.

Peter famously denied Jesus three times before the rooster crowed for the morning, just as Jesus predicted he would.

Upon resurrecting from the dead, Jesus is not upset with them, though. He appears to the Twelve on numerous occasions, showing them the marks in his hands and feet, and even allowing those who doubted— like Thomas— to touch his body.

Now that these men saw their rabbi in the flesh, a major psychological shift is evident. They go from hiding in fear to public proclamation, witnessing sincerely that he rose from the dead.

The Road to Emmaus and the Mystery of the Two Travelers

Yet Jesus did not only show himself to the famous Apostles. He also appeared to ordinary followers whose names were preserved for historical verification.

On the Emmaus Road, Cleopas and his companion were walking and discussing everything that had happened in the days that had passed. A man joined them and talked with them about how all these events relate to the Scriptures they know so well; how Jesus Christ fulfilled the law and the words of the prophets and defeated death.

They invited him to dinner, and it was only when he broke the bread that they suddenly recognized him as the Christ; then he disappeared from their midst before they could do anything more.

Sharing this sort of encounter with others was not only embarrassing but also dangerous.

The Five Hundred and the Power of Mass Testimony

These appearances are all between one and a maximum of 12 people seeing the risen Jesus. Yet there’s a very interesting verse found in 1 Corinthians 15:6:

“…he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep.”

This verse has a ‘public’ nature. When Paul wrote it, many of these five hundred were still alive. He was effectively challenging his readers to go and interview them.

So many of those who believed in Jesus saw him after his resurrection.

The Witness of the Skeptic: James, the Brother of Jesus

Of all the people who might have found it challenging to believe that Jesus was the promised Messiah, it was probably hardest for his siblings. Imagine your brother claiming that he is the chosen one— Joseph in the Old Testament is evidence of how that usually goes, and he was sold into slavery by his brothers!

Yet, after Jesus rose from the dead, he also appeared to his brother, James (1 Cor 15). The conversion of James into a leader of the Jerusalem Church is one of the strongest “hostile witness” arguments. He even wrote the Book of James, which is now included in the Bible.

The Empty Tomb in the History of Art

Suppose you are an artist inspired to try to depict the resurrection of Jesus— it’s surely not an easy task. One minor detail of the resurrection that has received a lot of attention in art is a phrase the resurrected Christ says to Mary Magdalene: “Noli Me Tangere” (Touch Me Not).

Despite all that has been said in this article, this must be clear: The rising of Jesus was mostly “unseen.” Nobody saw the moment the corpse drew a breath… This unseen nature of the resurrection is especially evident in art.

During the Renaissance, the scenes are dramatic and dominated by light, while the Byzantine period focuses on the eerily quiet empty tomb.

Scholars and skeptics alike have been surprised by the diverse nature of the witnesses— men, women, soldiers, skeptics, and crowds. All seem to tell the same story.

The strength of the resurrection story historically relies on the “embarrassment” of its witnesses and their willingness to die for their testimony. The soldiers were bribed to keep quiet (Matthew 28), and the women were suspected of speaking nonsense (Luke 24:11). Many of those who claimed to have seen the risen Christ died a martyr’s death soon thereafter.

“After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God.” – Acts 1:3

Visit any museum housing ancient statues, and you will notice that many of them no longer have noses. It is possible that some of them have simply fallen forward, and the noses were broken off. However, it is also possible that Christians destroyed their noses in an attack against the pagan idols that they believed were demonic. This iconoclasm, that is, the destruction of religious images, came into play in the 4th century AD when the Emperor Constantine the Great made Christianity an official religion, thereby ending almost two centuries of intermittent persecution of it.

How Greeks and Romans Viewed Their Statues

Most ancient statues were made of either bronze or one of many varieties of marbles. Some people believed that they embodied the gods that they portrayed. In other words, they saw them as the gods themselves. People placed these divine images in prominent places at weddings and public festivals. Ancient accounts state that people carried the statues through the streets, where onlookers pressed through crowds just to touch them, crying over them, embracing them, and giving them offerings.

Caretakers tended to the idols, washing, dressing, and perfuming them as if they were real. One manuscript describes a scene in Magnesia, where statues of the twelve Olympian gods, clothed in the finest of garments, were positioned around a large dining table, as if enjoying a divine banquet.

Another account describes how people would bring offerings to the statue of Asclepios, god of medicine, to request his intervention for the ill or wounded. And when someone recovered, people would bring, as offerings, casts of the body parts that had been healed, including hands, feet, and even internal organs, in thanks.

Additionally, pagans would often revere sculptures of military figures and political leaders as if they were gods. We see this with the Romans and their Imperial Cult, wherein emperors were deified, sometimes in life as well as in death.

However, many people saw the statues, whether of a god or human hero, as man-made works of art, aesthetically pleasing, but nothing more. The Phoenician philosopher, Porphyry (c. AD 234 – c. 305), disdained the belief that the deities actually inhabited the sculptures, saying that only the “light-minded” would believe such a ridiculous idea.

How Christians Viewed the Statues

Some Early Christian Fathers, including Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 to 115-220 AD), Tertullian (55/160 to c. 220/240 AD), and Athanagoras of Athens (133 to 190 AD), considered statues to be demonic representations of false gods that enticed people away from Christ. In John 14:6, Jesus stated clearly that he was the one and only way to eternal life, and to Christians, this meant that the pagans, in worshiping their idols, would be separated from God for eternity if they continued to be deceived by the devil. Hence, the attack on pagan beliefs, rituals, and statues.

Bishop Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335 to 394) put it this way: “The pagan who is devoted to the vanity of idols is transformed into the stone he looks upon and becomes other than human.” His statement harks back to Psalm 115:8, which states that those who make idols become like them as do their worshipers. In other words, the pagans would become, spiritually, as dead and powerless as the stone statues they revered.

Christians mocked the very idea that a god could exist in the form of a man-made piece of art. The unknown author of the Epistle to Diognetus, a 2nd-century Christian apologetic work, wrote, “What makes a stone statue any different from the stones we walk on?” And Athanasius (c. 296 to 373), in his Against the Heathen, ridiculed the pagans who did not realize that the idols they worshiped were mere “carver’s art.”

The Politics of Destroying Statues

Destroying and defacing statues was never a policy of the Christian Church. Politically, however, it was a different story. Constantine the Great (272 to 337) was the first Roman leader to interfere noticeably with pagans and their rituals when he made Christianity a legal religion with the Edict of Milan in 313.

While he did forbid public sacrifices by pagans and ordered the destruction of several key temples, including the Temple of Aphrodite and the Temple of Jupiter in Jerusalem, he did not issue a proclamation demanding that all pagan temples be closed or destroyed. Nor did he order the eradication of Greek and Roman idols.

Theodosius the Great, who came to power as emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in AD 379, was the political leader who officially banned pagan religions and their rituals and sacrifices with the introduction of his Theodosian Code. Given that statues were part and parcel of religious events, they were included in the banishment. Theodosius commanded the destruction of some temples, such as that of Serapis in Alexandria in AD 391-392. However, he had some of the buildings repurposed. The Temple of Dionysus in Alexandria, for example, was converted into a church.

This practice of taking pagan temples and making churches of them continued for some time. The famous Parthenon in Athens, once the temple of Athena, the Greek goddess of wisdom, war, and handicraft, became a Christian church dedicated to the Virgin Mary in the late 6th century and remained so until it was converted into a mosque by the Ottomans in 1458.

What About Reliefs, Paintings, and Icons?

Pagans believed that the gods could also inhabit reliefs. A relief is a work of art wherein the figures project from a supporting background. Christians took exception to them along with statues. Notably, however, they did not attack paintings, frescoes, mosaics, and the like, even if they did present mythological deities. Scholars suggest that the three-dimensionality of statues and reliefs allowed for the embodiment of a god or a demon, whereas a flat picture did not in the minds of their audiences.

It should also be noted that Christians themselves made their own religious paintings called icons. The earliest examples we have are found in the Roman catacombs from the late 2nd and 3rd centuries. Later, they appeared in churches. However, Christians are quick to point out that there is no worship involved with Christian images. They are venerated, meaning that they hold an honored position of respect as they reflect back on Christ and notable figures of the faith, but nothing more. Today, Eastern Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics employ them. Protestants rarely do so.

So What About Those Noses?

Christians were not the only ones to practice iconoclasm. It was particularly common in Egypt. In fact, you could find examples of it throughout the entire Roman Empire, especially in times of invasion when outsiders wanted to destroy foreign gods to assert their power over a conquered people.

If you believed that a statue embodied a god, and you wanted to destroy that statue’s power, you would smash or mutilate it. Hacking off ears meant the statue would no longer be able to hear supplications and prayers. If you removed its arms, it could not accept the sacrifices brought to it. Without feet, the god could not move. Damaging the lips prevented it from speaking. And, most importantly, to break off the nose was to take away the breath of life from it; in essence, killing it.

The Christians who attacked statues went one step further. They did not just smash a nose or remove ears from a work of art; they would often carve or chisel a cross into the forehead of a statue or over its eyes. And they did not commit these deeds surreptitiously. They wanted the pagans to see the vandalism as a demonstration that their God was more powerful than their mythological deities.

The Christian historian, Rufinus, describes how Christians knocked off the head of the statue of Serapis when they destroyed his temple in Alexandria. They chopped off its arms and legs as well. Then they took the torso to the city’s amphitheater and set it on fire for everyone to witness.

Of course, not every statue missing a nose, limbs, or head was vandalized. There are many natural reasons that some works of art are missing body parts. One lies in the fact that the Mediterranean area was prone to earthquakes and other natural disasters, which would have toppled over many a statue, resulting in breakages. One example is that of the Colossus, a 32-meter (104 feet) high bronze statue of Helios, the sun god, located in Rhodes, that snapped off at the knees during an earthquake. And it was not unusual to find statues missing heads simply because necks were fragile, as were arms, especially if outstretched.

Conclusion

To some Christians, destroying and defacing statues and repurposing or dismantling the pagan temples that housed them provided visual proof that Christianity had triumphed over paganism. It is true that many of these religions fell out of practice, and many of their adherents entered the Christian fold in the centuries following Constantine’s edict, making Christianity a legal religion that spread quickly and widely.