Divine Inspiration in Byzantium

The iconography of the divine inspiration of Scripture in late antique Christian culture is characterized by marked innovations in respect to earlier imagery from the Greco-Roman world's visualizing of similar subject matter. These innovations seem to have largely remained uncommented on in scholarship. They are important, however, as they reveal fundamentally changed attitudes toward the authenticity and authority of sacred texts. During late antiquity, all of the extant images illustrating divine inspiration in the realm of Christianity are related specifically to the origins of the four canonical Gospels, thus attesting to the pivotal importance of these writings for Christian religious identity and rites. Iconographical analysis of the earliest Christian images in comparison with relevant iconography from the pagan and Jewish realms reveals concepts regarding the authenticity of holy writings that are peculiar to Christianity alone. Images emphasize that divine revelations were documented accuratelyin writing for posterity, and some even present these records as resulting from divine dictation. Visual arguments put forth in the earliest Christian images of inspiration find parallels in the patristic concepts of the absolute truth and infallibility of Holy Scripture addressed in the introduction--