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Paper short abstract:

Following the iconographical motif of the staff in Early Christian and traditional Greco-Roman iconography, this paper will analyse the way and the reasons why a tool could have been used in Early Christian art to manifest divine power, contributing to the construction of a miracle-worker figure.

Paper long abstract:

While the ancient texts describe Jesus performing miracles with a verbal command or a gesture of the hand, the first Christian images of the 3rd and 4th centuries, whose repertoire is rich in representations of Jesus making wonders, often present him holding a wand or a staff. He touches the body of Lazarus with this object to resurrect him, the baskets of bread to multiply them or the jars at his feet to turn water into wine. In a similar iconographical construction and also interpreted as wonder-making figures, Moses and Peter use the same instrument in the scenes of the miracle of the spring.

Many theologians and art historians have interpreted this “wand” as a way of presenting Jesus as a philosopher or a magician (e.g. Smith 1978, Mathews 1993). Without insisting on this debate, this paper will focus on the tool of the staff itself rather than interpreting the way it could have put Jesus in categories whose bounderies where not as clear and as real as one could think during Late Antiquity. Why did the Christians use this iconographical detail although it does not appear in the texts? Is the motif of this “miracle-working staff” a Christian invention or does it belong to a more ancient tradition? The analysis of the iconographical motifs of the virga and of the staff and the meaning they bring to the images, both in early Christian and traditional Greco-Roman iconography, will bring to light interesting dynamics around the notion of tools manifesting divine power.