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Art and the Church -> Materials for Use in Churches

Christmas - Sarcophagus, The Ox and the Ass

The Sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus: The Nativity for All People
 
 
The Origins and Meaning of the Ox and Ass
 
By Nigel Halliday
 
What are the key elements in a nativity scene? Jesus in a manger, Mary and Joseph, angels, a stable, a star, shepherds, magi, an ox and an ass. Which of these iconographic elements, apart from the baby in the manger, has the longest historical pedigree?  
 
It may be surprising to find that the answer is: the ox and the ass. Even before Mary and Joseph are depicted at the manger, we have Roman carvings of Jesus, tightly wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, attended by an ox and an ass. The earliest example is on a Roman sarcophagus dated to about 330–350 AD, only just after Constantine had made it safe to be a Christian in public, and probably round the time when the church settled on 25 December as the date to celebrate the nativity.[1]
 
Marcus Claudianus, the occupant of the sarcophagus, must have been wealthy to have commissioned such a tomb.  And he clearly had a solid hope in Christ:  The carvings on the bottom register of the sarcophagus dominate the space. They show Jesus’ miracles with an Orant figure with raised hands at the centre. Amidst the subjects shown to the right, the healing of a blind man and the resurrection of Lazarus are particularly relevant to this context.
 
 
But of special interest for us is the Nativity on the top register at the far left: a figure, perhaps a shepherd, stands next to a crib, in which a tightly-swaddled baby is attended by a donkey and an ox. A similar example is found, from a few decades later, on a sarcophagus in the church of Sant’Ambrogio in Milan. 
 
 
The Gospel accounts of the birth of Jesus make no reference to an ox and ass. Their presence could be implied by Jesus being placed in a manger, but the specifics are omitted. And in any case, the manger having been commandeered, one might assume the animals would be ushered out of the picture.
 
But why always and specifically an ox and an ass, and never, for instance, a sheep or a horse? There are two main, and intertwining, explanations for their significance. The first is that they refer to the opening lines of Isaiah, where the prophet calls out the disobedience of Israel:
 
‘The ox knows its master,
    the donkey its owner’s manger,
but Israel does not know,
    my people do not understand.’ (Isaiah 1:3)
 
The second draws on the Old-Testament food laws, which declared the ox to be a clean animal, and the ass unclean. Although such distinctions were intended to help Israel serve as a light to the Gentiles by discriminating between good and evil, the Jews came to despise Gentiles as themselves unclean, resulting in a social division as great as any in all human history. The presence now of a clean animal and an unclean one together at the birth of Jesus points to the staggering achievement of Jesus in his death and resurrection, dissolving the deepest of human conflicts in his one great kingdom.
 
By the time the sarcophagus was made, the two themes had already become intertwined. For instance, Origen of Alexandria (d. 251), expounding Luke’s account of the nativity, wrote:
 
That was the manger of which the inspired prophet said, “The ox knows his owner and the ass his master’s manger.” The ox is a clean animal, the ass an unclean animal. The ass knows his master’s manger. The people of Israel did not know their Lord’s manger, but an unclean animal from among the Gentiles did.[2] Later, Augustine of Hippo, preaching one Feast of Epiphany, went further to connect the ox and ass with the shepherds and the Magi.[3]
 
Ever after, no nativity scene has been complete without ox and ass. Sometimes they are dumb animals paying little or no attention to the main event. Other times, as in the delightful Nativity by an unknown artist now in the Rijksmuseum, they push their way forward to be front and centre, and could indeed be recognizing their master and creator. Sometimes, they are even shown licking the infant, metaphorically feeding on Him instead of the straw.
 
 
One can imagine the profound effect the Gospel had on Marcus Claudianus: that in His death and resurrection Jesus had overcome the barriers between Marcus, presumably a Gentile, and the Jews; as indeed between all such human divisions, between slaves and free, men and women, old and young, black and white, left and right, building one people for God, across all nations, tribes and tongues.
 
Once excluded in the darkness, now by the grace of God Marcus had been brought into the light, into wisdom and understanding, into the people of God and a sure hope of acceptance and resurrection to eternal life.
 
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The Sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus from San Giacomo in Settimiana, c. 330-40, marble (Rome: Museo Nazionale Romano)
 
Sarcophagus of Stilicho, c. 400 (Milan: Basilica of Sant’Ambrogio)
 
Unknown artist: Nativity (in the manner of  Hieronimus Bosch), c. 1550 - c. 1600, oil on panel, 58cm × 76 cm (Amsterdam: Rijksmuseum)
 
Nigel Halliday is a British freelance art historian, lecturer and teacher. He studied History of Art at Cambridge University and the Courtauld Institute, London. He teaches the whole canon of Western art from Giotto onwards, but his main interests have been nineteenth- and twentieth-century art. He also has particular interest in Michelangelo and Rembrandt and the influence of Protestant belief on their work. He is a Research Fellow of the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology in Cambridge, England. www.nigelhalliday.org
 
ArtWay Visual Meditation 8 December 2024
 
[1] The first literary reference to Christmas being celebrated on 25 December was in 336AD. See Ronald Huggins: ‘The ox and the donkey’, Midwestern Journal of Theology 9.2 (Fall 2010), pp. 179–93.
[2] Origen, Homilies on Luke 13.17, cited by Huggins, p. 183.
[3] Augustine, Sermon 204, cited by Huggins, p. 193.