Orpheus and early Christianity: The Jerusalem Orpheus mosaic
Orpheus and early Christianity: The Jerusalem Orpheus mosaic

Summary/Abstract: The spread and enforcement of Christianity is accompanied by a slow process of creating its own symbols in fine arts and architectural forms. To a large extent, this process is closely related to the traditional means of expression inherited from paganism. An interesting example in this regard is the composition with Orpheus Taming Wild Animals on the Orpheus mosaic found in Jerusalem in 1901. The history of the figurative scheme goes back to the end of the Archaic and the beginning of the Classical Era, and illustrates eventually a sustainable literary tradition with extremely scarce, devoid of narrative details. The religious concepts of this ancient Orphic tradition are probably integrated and absorbed by early Christianity and preserved in a funeral context until the 6th century BC. The aim of the analysis is to offer new details to the interpretation of the scene, which – in combination with the fragmented poetic evidence – allows the reconstruction of a possible mythological precedent for the journey of Orpheus to the World Beyond where he attained the mystic theological knowledge that allowed him to lay the foundations of the mysterial initiations. Those eschatological notions were projected in some early Christian communities in the period between the 2nd and the mid-6th century, as indicated by sacral and funerary monuments.

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