STEVEN ZUCKER: We're in
St. Peter's Basilica, and we're looking at a famous
early Christian sarcophagus. It's the tomb of Junius Bassus. Now it's a little complicated
because what people generally see is the copy that the
Vatican has in their museum. But we're in the Treasury, and
this is the actual sarcophagus. BETH HARRIS: And
so Junius Bassus was a Roman prefect in around
the mid fourth century. STEVEN ZUCKER: Right. We know he had his
position in 359. BETH HARRIS: So we're looking
at a very early moment, soon after Constantine
has made it legitimate to be a Christian
in the Roman Empire. And Constantine is in
the process of, in a way, making Christianity or leading
toward Christianity becoming the official religion
of the Roman Empire, which will happen in
the end of the 300s. STEVEN ZUCKER: So this is
an early example, then, of a kind of openness and
really a magnificent rendering of the iconography of
Christian tradition. BETH HARRIS: Right. And what's interesting is
that it doesn't look the way that we expect to, in a
way, because Christ is here in the center represented with
probably Peter and Paul, or two figures on either side of him. STEVEN ZUCKER: It looks
likely Peter and Paul, yes. BETH HARRIS: But he
looks very useful, like the young
philosopher-teacher. STEVEN ZUCKER: He's even
holding a scroll in his hand. BETH HARRIS: And he's seated
and frontal, though not entirely frontal. So I guess what I'm saying is
that things that we normally associate with
representations of Christ, where he looks like an
emperor who's older, and he's got a beard-- here
he's represented very youthful. Although he's
seated and frontal, he does have a kind of
naturalism and movement to his body. His left leg comes
forward a little bit. His head is slightly turned. And he's got his foot above
an image of a river god. STEVEN ZUCKER:
Which is interesting because it shows
Christianity surmounting the old polytheistic traditions
of the ancient Romans. BETH HARRIS: Using the
iconography of ancient Roman pagan art in a new
Christian context. STEVEN ZUCKER: I really
am interested by the point you made earlier about
Christ not fulfilling the physical attributes
that we come to expect. And this is so early
that, in a sense, those traditions
hadn't yet developed. BETH HARRIS: Exactly. STEVEN ZUCKER: They
hadn't yet been really constructed and accepted. So this is a very
flexible moment. BETH HARRIS: Right. That iconography
is being developed. And here, he looks much more
like a pagan figure, in a way. STEVEN ZUCKER: That's
certainly true because of the classical
garb that he wears. And it's interesting
stylistically because this sculpture is really
showing a pretty high-pitched naturalism in terms of the
rendering of the bodies, the contrapposto that we
see the figures standing in, and even some of the sort
of emotional attributes of figures. BETH HARRIS: There is
a kind of naturalism, although we see the
beginnings of a kind of early Christian style. There are some hints
of what's to come. The heads are a little bit
too large for the bodies. The bodies are starting to be a
little bit on the stubby side. So it's a very interesting
transitional moment. STEVEN ZUCKER: We see some
other scenes from the Bible. And we're seeing early
expressions of it here, but these are ways of
representing the scenes that will become very familiar to us. BETH HARRIS: So we have Adam
and Eve on the lower register. STEVEN ZUCKER: Right. BETH HARRIS: And also
other Old Testament scenes that would
have prefigured the events in Christ's life. Right. So that idea of saying that
events in the Old Testament, such as the sacrifice
of Isaac, prefigured Christ's own sacrifice
for the salvation of mankind, so that way of
saying that Christ's life is a fulfillment of the
prophecy and the events of the Old Testament. STEVEN ZUCKER: What
we're witnessing here is the invention of
a new iconography. This Is the invention
of a new visual language for the telling of
this critical stories. BETH HARRIS: What
I'm also noticing is just how deeply carved it is. It is essentially
a relief sculpture. But the figures are in
very, very high relief. Some of them seem to be entirely
separate from the marble ground. And I love these columns with
capitals and bringing together of the classical and the
beginnings of the Christian.