Arma Christi

Last updated March 05, 2024

The instruments of the Passion. Left to right: the cross of the penitent thief Dismas, ladder, sponge on reed, hammer, angels, Cross of Christ, cock, star, pincers, ladder, spear, cross of the wicked thief Gestas, and two hyssop plants growing from the ground (eglise Saint-Pierre de Collonges-la-rouge). Passion-instruments.jpg — The instruments of the Passion. Left to right: the cross of the penitent thief Dismas, ladder, sponge on reed, hammer, angels, Cross of Christ, cock, star, pincers, ladder, spear, cross of the wicked thief Gestas, and two hyssop plants growing from the ground (église Saint-Pierre de Collonges-la-rouge).

The instruments of the Passion (cont). Left to right: chalice, torch, lantern, sword, flagellum, pillar of flagellation, Veronica's veil, 30 pieces of silver, dice, reed sceptre, hand which struck Christ, torch, pitcher of gall and vinegar. Passion-instruments-2.jpg — The instruments of the Passion (cont). Left to right: chalice, torch, lantern, sword, flagellum, pillar of flagellation, Veronica's veil, 30 pieces of silver, dice, reed sceptre, hand which struck Christ, torch, pitcher of gall and vinegar.

Arma Christi ("weapons of Christ"), or the Instruments of the Passion, are the objects associated with the Passion of Jesus Christ in Christian symbolism and art. They are seen as arms in the sense of heraldry, and also as the weapons Christ used to achieve his conquest over Satan. There is a group, at a maximum of about 20 items, which are frequently used in Christian art, especially in the Late Middle Ages. Typically they surround either a cross or a figure of Christ of the Man of Sorrows type, either placed around the composition, or held by angels.

History

The prime member, the Cross, had been introduced to Christian art in the 4th century as the crux invicta, a symbol of victory. As a group they have a long tradition in iconography, dating back to the 9th century; the Utrecht Psalter of 830 is an example, though the only one from the Early Middle Ages known to Gertrud Schiller. This reflected an increase in theological interest in the sufferings of Christ at the time.^[1] The Middle English poem Arma Christi, which appeared before the end of the 14th century, exists in fifteen manuscripts, attesting to its popularity, of which seven are engrossed in highly unusual scroll form, designed to be displayed in church as a pictorial aid to public devotion; manuscripts of Arma Christi are generally accompanied by illustrations of the instruments, viewing of which, according to the texts, granted indulgence of a certain number of days in Purgatory to come.^[2]

Relics of the most important items had a long history, dating back to the Empress Helena's discovery of the True Cross in the early 4th century. Relics claiming to be the Holy Lance, Holy Sponge, Holy Chalice and nails from the cross were all venerated well before 1000, and were to proliferate in later centuries. There was a wave of new relics in the West at the time of the Crusades, and a further wave as the Instruments became featured more prominently in devotional literature and practices in the 14th century.^[3]

In art the Instruments either surrounded an image of Christ in andachtsbilder subjects such as the Man of Sorrows, or might appear by themselves - often the image of Christ's face on the Veil of Veronica was the focal point of the image. In both cases the purpose of the representations was to symbolize the sufferings of Christ during his Passion. They had the practical advantage for less accomplished artists of being much easier to represent than human figures, and were no doubt often treated as a subject an apprentice could be left to do. Possibly the earliest representation of the isolated instruments laid out across a space is in a drawing in a German manuscript of about 1175, where they are to one side of a Christ in Majesty.^[4] In devotional books they were sometimes, by the Late Middle Ages, shown one at a time, accompanying one of the many texts that devoted meditations in turn to the episodes in which each had been used, before culminating in a figure subject with Jesus.^[5] Miniature versions of the objects were attached to rosaries and crucifixes, and used as aids to contemplation of the suffering of Christ.

The Instruments

Depictions of the Instruments of the Passion may include many combinations of those following (though the cross of Jesus is almost always represented). A primary group of the most frequently used instruments can be distinguished:

The Cross on which Jesus was crucified (True Cross), either depicted alone or with the crosses of the two thieves
The Crown of Thorns
The pillar or column where Jesus was whipped in the Flagellation of Christ
The whip(s), in Germany often birches, used for the 39 lashes
The Holy Sponge set on a reed, with which gall and vinegar were offered to Jesus
The Holy Lance with which a Roman soldier inflicted the final of the Five Wounds in his side
The Nails, inflicting four wounds on the hands and feet
The Veil of Veronica

Other common ones are:

The reed which was placed in Jesus' hand as a sceptre in mockery
The purple robe of mockery
The Titulus Crucis, attached to the Cross. It may be inscribed in Latin (INRI, Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum), Greek, Hebrew, or some other language.
The Holy Grail, the chalice used by Jesus at The Last Supper, and which some traditions say Joseph of Arimathea used to catch his blood at the crucifixion
The Seamless robe of Jesus
The dice with which the soldiers cast lots for Christ's seamless robe
The rooster (cock) that crowed after Peter's third denial of Jesus
The vessel used to hold the gall and vinegar
The ladder used for the Deposition, i.e. the removal of Christ's body from the cross for burial
The ropes used for the Raising of the Cross
The hammer used to drive the nails into Jesus' hands and feet
The pincers used to remove the nails
The vessel of myrrh, used to anoint the body of Jesus, either by Joseph of Arimathea or by the Myrrhbearers
The shroud used to wrap the body of Jesus before burial
The sun and moon, representing the eclipse which occurred during the Passion
Thirty pieces of silver (or a money bag), the price of Judas' betrayal
A spitting face, indicating the mockery of Jesus
The hand which slapped Jesus' face
The chains or cords which bound Jesus overnight in prison
The lantern or torches used by the arresting soldiers at the time of the betrayal, as well as their swords and staves
The sword used by Peter to cut off the ear of the High Priest's servant. Sometimes a human ear is also represented.
Sometimes the heads or hands of figures from the Passion are shown, including Judas, Caiaphas, or the man who mocked Christ spitting in Christ's face. The washing hands of Pontius Pilate may be shown. The Lorenzo Monaco painting below has several such images.
The trumpet played for mocking Christ on the Way to Calvary.^[6]

Other contexts

The principal group of the Instruments appear in other contexts as well. The lance and sponge on a stick are held as though they are standards or weapons by the archangels flanking the throne of Christ in a 6th-century mosaic from Ravenna (now Belin), and are often shown in this way thereafter, especially in scenes of the Last Judgement. In Eastern Orthodox art they are often on or around the Hetoimasia or "empty throne" of judgement.^[7] The Crown of Thorns sometimes hangs alone on the cross; it has been suggested that the Celtic cross originated from this motif. The minor Instruments generally did not developed a sufficient ability to be recognised and understood in this way, and appear only in groups.

Pietà with Arma Christi, Lorenzo Monaco, 1404
Votive panel, Wrocław, 1443
Hans Memling, The Man of Sorrows in the arms of the Virgin, 1470s
Fictive coat of arms of Jesus Christ in the Wernigerode Armorial (Southern Germany, c. 1490)
Arma Christi crucifix, St. Wendelin, Bremenried, Weiler-Simmerberg, Bavaria
Christ in the dark with the Arma Christi, 19th-century Russian icon
Triumph of the Christ Child by Ambrosius Francken I, 1605–10, Angels carry away the Arma Christi.
Wayside cross with the Arma Christi near Stammham, Eichstätt

Notes

↑ Schiller, 184-185
↑ Rossell Hope Robbins, "The 'Arma Christi' Rolls", The Modern Language Review34.3 (July 1939:415-421)
↑ Schiller, 189-191
↑ Schiller, 187
↑ Schiller, 192-3
↑ Ballester, Jordi, "Trumpets, Heralds and Minstrels: Their Relation to the Image of Power and Representation in the Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Catalano-Aragonese Painting", Music in Art: International Journal for Music Iconography (2018) 43/1–2, 5–19.
↑ Schiller, 186-187

Related Research Articles

The Passion is the short final period before the death of Jesus, described in the four canonical gospels. It is commemorated in Christianity every year during Holy Week.

A number of alleged relics associated with Jesus have been displayed throughout the history of Christianity. While some individuals believe in the authenticity of Jesus relics, others doubt their validity. For instance, the sixteenth-century philosopher Erasmus wrote about the proliferation of relics, and the number of buildings that could be constructed from wooden relics claimed to be from the crucifixion cross of Jesus. Similarly, at least thirty Holy Nails were venerated as relics across Europe in the early 20th century. Part of the relics are included in the so-called Arma Christi, or the Instruments of the Passion.

The Holy Sponge is one of the Instruments of the Passion of Jesus. It was dipped in vinegar, most likely posca, a regular beverage of Roman soldiers, and offered to Jesus to drink from during the Crucifixion, according to Matthew 27:48, Mark 15:36, and John 19:29.

Man of Sorrows, a biblical term, is paramount among the prefigurations of the Messiah identified by the Bible in the passages of Isaiah 53 in the Hebrew Bible. It is also an iconic devotional image that shows Christ, usually naked above the waist, with the wounds of his Passion prominently displayed on his hands and side, often crowned with the Crown of Thorns and sometimes attended by angels. It developed in Europe from the 13th century and was especially popular in Northern Europe.

Relics that are claimed to be the Holy Nails with which Jesus was crucified are objects of veneration among some Christians, particularly Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox. In Christian symbolism and art, they figure among the Arma Christi or Instruments of the Passion, the objects associated with the Passion of Jesus. Like the other Instruments, the Holy Nails have become an object of veneration among many Christians and have been pictured in paintings.

A doubting Thomas is a skeptic who refuses to believe without direct personal experience – a reference to the Gospel of John's depiction of the Apostle Thomas, who, in John's account, refused to believe the resurrected Jesus had appeared to the ten other apostles until he could see and feel Jesus's crucifixion wounds.

In Catholic tradition, the Five Holy Wounds, also known as the Five Sacred Wounds or the Five Precious Wounds, are the five piercing wounds that Jesus Christ suffered during his crucifixion. The wounds have been the focus of particular devotions, especially in the late Middle Ages, and have often been reflected in church music and art.

Ecce homo are the Latin words used by Pontius Pilate in the Vulgate translation of the Gospel of John, when he presents a scourged Jesus, bound and crowned with thorns, to a hostile crowd shortly before his Crucifixion. The original New Testament Greek: "ἰδοὺ ὁ ἄνθρωπος", romanized: "idoù ho ánthropos", is rendered by most English Bible translations, e.g. the Douay-Rheims Bible and the King James Version, as "behold the man". The scene has been widely depicted in Christian art.

The Descent from the Cross, or Deposition of Christ, is the scene, as depicted in art, from the Gospels' accounts of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus taking Christ down from the cross after his crucifixion. In Byzantine art the topic became popular in the 9th century, and in the West from the 10th century. The Descent from the Cross is the 13th Station of the Cross, and is also the sixth of the Seven Sorrows of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Andachtsbilder is a German term often used in English in art history for Christian devotional images designed as aids for prayer or contemplation. The images "generally show holy figures extracted from a narrative context to form a highly focused, and often very emotionally powerful, vignette".

The Holy Face of Lucca is an eight-foot-tall (2.4 m), ancient wooden carving of Jesus crucified in the cathedral of San Martino, Lucca, Italy. Medieval legends state that it was sculpted by Nicodemus who assisted St. Joseph of Arimathea in placing Christ in his tomb after the crucifixion. The same legends placed its miraculous arrival in Lucca to AD 782.

The Pensive Christ is a subject in Christian iconography depicting a contemplating Jesus, sitting with his head supported by his hand with the Crown of Thorns and marks of his flagellation. It is, therefore, a picture of Jesus shortly before his crucifixion, although more an andachtsbild or devotional subject than intended to show an actual moment in the narrative of the Passion of Christ. The Pensive Christ is much more common in sculpture than in painting, where the similar Man of Sorrows is more often depicted.

The Flagellation of Christ, in art sometimes known as Christ at the Column or the Scourging at the Pillar, is an episode from the Passion of Jesus as presented in the Gospels. As such, it is frequently shown in Christian art, in cycles of the Passion or the larger subject of the Life of Christ. Catholic tradition places the Flagellation at the beginning of Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, and the modern alternate Stations of the Cross locate it at the fourth station; it represents a Sorrowful Mystery of the Rosary. The column to which Christ is normally shown to be tied, and the rope, scourge, whip or birch are elements in the Arma Christi. The Basilica di Santa Prassede in Rome is one of the churches claiming to possess the original column or parts of it.

The Lamentation of Christ is a very common subject in Christian art from the High Middle Ages to the Baroque. After Jesus was crucified, his body was removed from the cross and his friends mourned over his body. This event has been depicted by many different artists.

The life of Christ as a narrative cycle in Christian art comprises a number of different subjects showing events from the life of Jesus on Earth. They are distinguished from the many other subjects in art showing the eternal life of Christ, such as Christ in Majesty, and also many types of portrait or devotional subjects without a narrative element.

The Descent from the Cross is a panel painting by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden created c. 1435, now in the Museo del Prado, Madrid. The crucified Christ is lowered from the cross, his lifeless body held by Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus.

The Mass of Saint Gregory is a subject in Roman Catholic art which first appears in the late Middle Ages and was still found in the Counter-Reformation. Pope Gregory I is shown saying Mass just as a vision of Christ as the Man of Sorrows has appeared on the altar in front of him, in response to the Pope's prayers for a sign to convince a doubter of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

Crucifixions and crucifixes have appeared in the arts and popular culture from before the era of the pagan Roman Empire. The crucifixion of Jesus has been depicted in a wide range of religious art since the 4th century CE, frequently including the appearance of mournful onlookers such as the Virgin Mary, Pontius Pilate, and angels, as well as antisemitic depictions portraying Jews as responsible for Christ's death. In more modern times, crucifixion has appeared in film and television as well as in fine art, and depictions of other historical crucifixions have appeared as well as the crucifixion of Christ. Modern art and culture have also seen the rise of images of crucifixion being used to make statements unconnected with Christian iconography, or even just used for shock value.

Man of Sorrows is a small Early Netherlandish oil on wood panel painting completed c. 1485–1495. It is attributed to Geertgen tot Sint Jans and in the tradition of the devotional images of the "Man of Sorrows", which typically show Christ before his crucifixion, naked above the waist, bearing the wounds of his Passion. The panel has an unusually complex and suffocating spatial design, and depicts the mocking of Jesus, and his grieving mother. The panel is steeped in both complex iconography and deep pathos. Christ is in obvious pain and holds his wounds up for the viewer. He looks out while white robed weeping angels bear the Arma Christi -objects associated with his crucifixion and death- float around him. The attending saints include Mary and the Magdalene.

The Man of Sorrows is a tempera and oil on panel painting of Jesus Christ by the Florentine artist Sandro Botticelli (1445-1510), thought to have been painted sometime between 1500 and 1510.

References

Schiller, Gertrud, Iconography of Christian Art, Vol. II, 1972 (English trans from German), Lund Humphries, London, ISBN 0-85331-324-5

External links

Weapons of Christ

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[1] Schiller, 184-185

[2] Rossell Hope Robbins, "The 'Arma Christi' Rolls", The Modern Language Review34.3 (July 1939:415-421)

[3] Schiller, 189-191

[4] Schiller, 187

[5] Schiller, 192-3

[6] Ballester, Jordi, "Trumpets, Heralds and Minstrels: Their Relation to the Image of Power and Representation in the Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Century Catalano-Aragonese Painting", Music in Art: International Journal for Music Iconography (2018) 43/1–2, 5–19.

[7] Schiller, 186-187

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