Dec. 24, 2000

JEWISH IMAGES IN CHRISTIAN ART

So what's a distinguished immunologist doing writing a book on art history? Henry Claman, professor of medicine and immunology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, is having a wonderful time.

His book, Jewish Images in the Christian Church: Art as the Mirror of the Jewish-Christian Conflict 200-1250 C.E., was published earlier this month by Mercer University Press in Macon, Ga.

"It is a challenge to veer from a lifelong career in medical teaching, research and practice," Claman says in the preface, "to write a book on medieval society, religion and art. It is even more challenging to get it published!" Forty-four rejections, he told me.

He conceded that a theologian who wrote a book on immunology would probably have just as hard a time getting into print.

Claman looks primarily at "public" art -- paintings, mosaic, sculpture and stained glass -- displayed in churches and cathedrals and intended for the edification of worshipers nearly all of whom were illiterate. Over the period he considers, which ends with the public burning of the Talmud and other Jewish books in Paris, the artistic representation of Jews becomes steadily more negative even as their situation in Christian Europe deteriorates.

The frontispiece of his book shows two figures from the west facade of Notre Dame de Paris (the same photograph is on his Web site, henryclaman.homestead.com).

On the left (which would be to Christ's right) Ecclesia, the Church personified, stands erect, wearing a crown and halo and holding a staff and a chalice. On the right, Sinagoga slumps, her face averted. Her staff is broken, her crown lies tumbled at her feet and she is blindfolded. The blindfold is the body of a snake, and the serpent's head twines in her hair. She represents the Jews.

A steady diet of this kind of thing is bound to have an effect on impressionable minds.

At the same time, much religious art uplifted Old Testament prophets and kings, who are not uncommonly shown with haloes.

"How does one reconcile the handsome and authoritative figures of David, Isaiah and Jeremiah with banishment of the Jews from France and England and the public burning of the Talmud?" Claman asks. "Is it not inconsistent to venerate the Jewish Ark of the Covenant, and yet discriminate against one's Jewish neighbors down the street?"

The paradox is resolved, Claman says, because the religion of the Jews of the Hebrew Bible was, in Christian eyes, the necessary precursor of Christianity, and much of the Old Testament was reinterpreted as Christian prophecy. The New Testament superseded the Old.

But their Jewish contemporaries were descended from the Jews of Christ's time, who willfully refused to see matters in that light (hence the blindfold) and were held responsible for Christ's death. That was seen as reason enough to persecute them.

Claman's book ends with 1250 but the interpretive tradition retains its power. Think of Handel's Messiah, not only a favorite concert piece but an improbable sing-along success. An Internet-based campaign to "help get a 'Handel on Hunger' " urges taking collections during Messiah performances for organizations that help the hungry.

"Community choruses or church choirs can virtually fulfill Old Testament prophecy via the 'Messiah 2000' project at least spiritually and musically," it says, citing Isaiah 40:11, "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd."

Carolyn Jennings is a member of the music faculty at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., and was director of the church choir I sang in when I lived there. She composed a hauntingly beautiful piece for two sopranos weaving together the Old Testament words of Hannah the mother of Samuel with the words of Mary the mother of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, beginning, "My soul doth magnify the Lord."

She called it "A New Magnificat."

A choral version was performed at the St. Olaf Christmas festivals in 1980 and 1996.

Unlike Ecclesia and Sinagoga, the voices in Jennings' piece are of equal power and grace. I was delighted with Claman's illuminating exploration of times when that was not so.

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