Megiddo Archaeological Discovery Provides the Missing Link
Christians Worshipped Jesus as God Before Nicaea
When I take students to the Roman catacombs, as I have done twice in the past year, I’ve seen that consistently one of the first things they notice is that the art depicting early Christian images differs significantly from that found in the art of later eras. In the catacombs we see no crosses, for example. Instead, we find anchors and fishes. And we find Old Testament stories such as the Hebrew children in the fiery furnace or Jonah and the whale. The earliest known depiction of the Virgin Mary with the Christ child is among the images, as seen in the Priscilla Catacomb in Rome and dating to the 200s, along with another image of the magi approaching the Madonna and child.
One particularly popular image emphasized in the first few centuries of the church is that of Jesus as the Good Shepherd. This image dominates in catacombs and on sarcophagi (see Figures 1 and 2). Christological representations of the Good Shepherd comprise some of the earliest examples of Christian art, primarily because catacombs are the oldest known Christian religious sites. Frescoes of Christ as the Good Shepherd appear in the catacombs of San Callisto (3rd c.), of Domitilla (3–4th c.), and of Priscilla (late 3rd c.). The catacombs of Domitilla also contain a 4th c. statue of Christ the Good Shepherd. Additionally, the shepherd image is common on early Christian sarcophagi.
It’s unsurprising that we find Good Shepherd imagery in these early Christian funerary places, as the art was crafted to bring comfort in contexts of emotional and psychological stress. The symbolic source of the Christian image of the Good Shepherd is rooted in Scripture, presumably from the Gospel of John, where it is recorded that Jesus said this of himself:
I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep… I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me— just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep (John 10:11–15, NIV).
John the Gospel writer was doubtless rooting his imagery in Psalm 23, best known to most in the English-speaking world as the King James translators rendered it:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake…. (Psalm 23, KJV).
This shepherd image appears repeatedly in the Old Testament and stands as a metaphor for God leading the children of Israel (Ps. 23, 78, 119; Is 53; Jer 23, 50). Other allusions to God as shepherd appear in the New Testament in places besides John 10, as well (Matt 9, 10, 18; Luke 12; 1 Pet 2). The image’s meaning has been consistent over centuries of Jewish and Christian thought: the Good Shepherd symbolizes God’s guiding care of his people, protecting them from harm, and leading them to peace and rest. Even today a funeral program is far more likely to include the text of Psalm 23 than the high Christology of a text such as Philippians 2.
But back to the catacombs—in addition to the absence of crosses, visitors note the absence of Jesus depicted as the emperor or sitting on a throne. Yet that is precisely how he appears in the earliest known mosaics in Christian spaces after Christianity became legal. For example, the 4th-century apse mosaic in Rome’s Basilica of St. Pudensiana shows the reigning Christ on the throne adorned in imperial apparel.
A shift in the representation. In the St. Pudensiana basilica’s apse mosaic, Christ as emperor extols his protection over the church of Pudensiana (his scroll says so) in the presence of his disciples and Praxedes and Pudensiana.
The memorialized women are sisters who lived in the 100s. They are said to have descended from Pudens, whom Paul mentions in 2 Timothy 4:21. And they were “bone collectors”—that is, they washed the bodies (or body parts) of martyrs and gave them a proper burial. Two ancient churches in Rome still bear the sisters’ names. The one named for Pudensiana (above) contains Christianity’s oldest apse mosaic—the first after Christianity is legalized. It depicts the heavenly scene in Revelation 4.
The discredited theory. The educational titan Khan Academy says of this mosaic, “We see in this image a dramatic transformation in the conception of Christ from the pre-Constantinian period.” This is one example of how, using the art as evidence, historians apparently unconvinced by the biblical record looked to what they saw in the visual record and concluded that early Christians viewed Jesus as less than divine. Instead, they argued, worshipers promoted Jesus to divinity status when he was declared to be God post-Constantine.
According to this interpretation of history, the alleged progressive development in Christian symbology and artistic representation had early Christians understanding the person of Christ to be a peaceful, pastoral figure represented ideally as the Good Shepherd. But the so-called later Christ, modeled after the Roman emperor cult, was depicted as a conquering royal. Typically, historians observing what they viewed as a development in doctrine assigned this shift to Constantine’s legalization of the Christian religion in the Edict of Milan, AD 313.
Here is a timeline summary of how they saw the evidence:
Previous Timeline:
AD 200–300 – Jesus is only a man, a good shepherd, as seen in catacomb art
AD 313 Edict of Milan – Emperor Constantine removes Christianity’s illegal status and legalizes it along with other religions, allowing freedom of religion.
AD 325, May to July – The First Council of Nicaea meets, comprised of Christian bishops who convene in Nicaea (now İznik, Turkey) at the call of Roman Emperor Constantine I. The council’s main accomplishment is the settlement of the divine nature of God the Son. Jesus gets an upgrade to deity.
AD 401 – Apse mosaics depict Jesus on the throne in the apse mosaics in the Basilica of Pudensiana, Rome. There Jesus is shown as the emperor on his throne for the first time, seemingly because he has evolved as such in Christian thinking since Constantine.
So to summarize, for some the visual record has been used to argue that an evolution of thinking brought Jesus a promotion in status. The absence of visual art suggesting otherwise was seen as supporting the theory.
The Missing Link
The claim that Christ’s image evolved is not only unfounded. It has now been discredited by a 2005 discovery that is now ready for prime time: The Megiddo Mosaic. This mosaic, uncovered in a prison floor in Megiddo, Israel, is on display at the Museum of the Bible in Washington DC through July 6.
The mosaic, dating to a time before Christianity was legal and when no official church buildings existed is thought to be from a worship hall. It includes images of fish and geometric forms. And it contains several inscriptions, including one that says, “The God-loving Akeptous has offered the table to God Jesus Christ as a memorial.” This “Akeptous Inscription” contains the earliest known inscription identifying Jesus as God—a reference to “God Jesus Christ” that predates Nicaea by about 95 years. What had been missing in the visual record has now been found.
What follows is a more accurate timeline that incorporates the new evidence:
More Accurate Timeline:
AD 200–300 – Jesus is seen as the good shepherd in funerary/grief spaces
AD 230 – Jesus is referred to as God in a worship space. In the Megiddo mosaic writing, a woman asserts that Jesus is God. This mosaic predates Christianity’s shift in legal status by 80+ years. So the evidence in the Megiddo mosaic’s inscription demonstrates that Christians did indeed worship Jesus as God, and well before Nicaea. So here Jesus is referred to as God in a public worship space while he continues to be referred to as the Good Shepherd in funerary spaces.
AD 313 Edict of Milan – Emperor Constantine removes Christianity’s illegal status making it legal along with other religions, allowing freedom of religion.
AD 325, May to July – The First Council of Nicaea meets, comprised of Christian bishops who convene in Nicaea at the call of Roman Emperor Constantine I. The council’s main accomplishment is articulating the divine nature of God the Son. (The year 2025 marks the 1,700th anniversary of Nicaea, by the way.)
AD 400s – Once Christianity is declared legal and has become the state religion, as the apse in the Basilica of Pudensiana demonstrates, Christians are free both to legally hold formal public gatherings and to commission art for their spaces—including images that depict Jesus as the emperor on his throne.
As suggested, use of the shepherd image in funerary contexts continued even after the inauguration of Constantine’s reign of religious tolerance, indicating further that its purpose was to provide comfort in the context of death and dying. For example, in the fifth century the so-called mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna prominently displayed Good Shepherd imagery in its mosaic art (below).
In summary, Constantine’s Edict of Milan in 313 announced the acceptance of Christianity. Sixty-seven years later, in 380, Emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire. Consequently, art depicting Christian belief expanded beyond the underground (literally) as artisans began to create works for public spaces. Sometimes these works bore the purpose of communicating doctrine. Yet the newfound freedom of expression and the demand for art with a teaching element does not mean Christ-followers and/or the artisans replaced older symbology with new, “evolved” imagery. Nor does it mean that doctrines or teachings evolved and were thus reflected in art.
So, to summarize, here is what has changed: thanks to an archaeological discovery we now we have evidence in the church’s visual record (indeed, the visual record of women in the church) that Jesus Christ was worshipped as God even before Constantine’s edict. The visual evidence aligns with the written record: The early Christians had a nuanced understanding of their Lord, who was both personal caregiver and reigning deity.
These Christians chose to highlight the differing traits of their Lord depending on the need of the religious space. The tender love of a Good Shepherd provided comfort in the halls of the dead, whereas the equally true Almighty Bringer-of-Justice was revered in the spaces designated for worship. A parsimonious explanation for any apparent difference between these two representations is that the early church was wisely sensitive to the need for different theological emphases, that is differing aspects of their Lord’s character, in differing circumstances.
Incidentally, another exciting part of this mosaic is that it commemorates four women with these words: “Remember Primilla and Cyriaca and Dorothea, and lastly, Chreste.” The Museum of the Bible notes that “the wording of this inscription is unusual in that, typically, the request is that God remember individuals. Here, the community itself is called to remember these women.”
Have a look:
Special thanks to Rachel Mathew for research aid.