Images of “Magic” in the Early Christian and Late Antique

Paper Instructions:
6 pages, single-spaced (normal 12 pt. font and normal margins) with appropriate labeled images attached at the end, 10 bibliographic sources. The essential requirement is simply that you treat an artistic creation in relation to the classical Roman conventions and concerns that determine or influence it. Your paper should include a review of scholarship, with the intent of identifying the major questions related to your work or theme and contextualizing your interpretation, the careful analysis of relevant pictorial imagery and form, and an argument that draws upon your research. The research and scholarship are entirely ART HISTORY-based and other types of sources should not be drawn from.

Topic Instructions:
Images of “Magic” in the Early Christian and Late Antique Periods focuses on the idea and argument of why Jesus was depicted as a “magician” in certain artworks from these periods. The argument is based on “Jesus is depicted as a magician….because…” If you could focus specifically on the 432 CE door panel at Santa Sabina Church that depicts Jesus performing miracles with a staff AND on the Sarcophagus of Sabrinus from c. 310-320 CE, that should be enough to form a foundation for this paper. Did early Roman Christians get the idea of magic/staffs from Moses using a rod to perform tasks like parting the Red Sea, or were they inspired by the pagan imagery of the larger Greco-Roman world? In addition to the scholarship review, these artworks should also be discussed both with formal and contextual art analysis. Images of the artworks should be attached AFTER the bibliography.

I will submit this paper on my own so no need to worry about any links/log-ins.