Robin M. Jensen > Quotes

“Undoubtedly, pagans regarded Jesus’s death by crucifixion as a folly. Augustine reports that the third-century philosopher Porphyry counseled the pagan husband of a Christian wife to seek the advice of Apollo. Through his oracle, the god replies that the husband probably will find it easier to write upon water or to fly like a bird than to dissuade his foolish wife from her commitment to a dead deity who was condemned by right-minded judges and who suffered an offensive and humiliating execution”
― Robin M Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Ultimately, the cross sign at baptism incorporates the wearer into Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. By receiving the sign of the cross, the newly baptized bore the mark of having undergone death to an old life, being reborn into a new life, and able to anticipate eternal life.55 This ritual symbolism was concretely alluded to in the cruciform shape of many early Christian baptismal fonts. The candidate imitated Christ’s death as she descended into the cross and then his resurrection as she emerged and stepped out.”
― Robin M Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Now you may hear, beloved hero, how I had to abide the deeds of bullies, sorrowful cares. The time has now come that people on this plain far and wide and all this wondrous creation worship me, pray to this sign. On me God’s Son suffered a time; thus glorious I now tower under the heavens, and I may heal all and some of those in awe of me.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“What makes this particularly remarkable is the link between the object and the text. The poem speaks in the first-person voice of the cross and, in this case, the actual stone cross voices its own story (albeit in carved runes).”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Thus, the Opus Caroli Regis, while provoked by the decrees of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, is better understood as a document that addressed concerns regarding the role of religious images in Frankish territories. While condemning superstitious adoration of icons, the document also decries the actual destruction of religious images that have even limited pedagogical or decorative value. Yet, although the work equally denounced both iconoclasts and iconophiles, it ultimately contributed to the condemnation of Nicaea II at the synod of Frankfurt in 794, albeit over Pope Hadrian’s official ratification of the Council’s decrees”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Feminist critique of the cross as a symbol has been a hallmark of modern theology, as writers have argued that the image of the crucifixion has been used as a justification for abuse and even violence against women and marginalized peoples. The argument focuses on the way that the traditional Christian emphasis on Christ’s suffering has been used to encourage meek and submissive self-sacrifice (especially of women) or simply to validate and even glorify suffering more generally. Some even take the position that the cross and the medieval atonement theory that lauded it are sadomasochistic.34 A more widespread view among feminist theologians is that Christian theology has been suffused with patriarchal values and often used to oppress women and that Jesus’s admonition to “take up your cross” could be understood as a justification for tolerating abuse.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“This cross-on-throne motif is often known by its Greek title, hetoimasia, which means “preparation.” Often described as an “empty throne,” it has parallels in the iconography of earlier Greco-Roman emperors and gods, as well in as other ancient religions, including Buddhism. It became a popular means of depicting the throne prepared for Christ at his Second Coming—and yet, as it frequently holds a cross or a Gospel book or even the Lamb of God, this throne is not actually “empty.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Jesus’s crucifixion was an inescapable fact and, for Paul, it must therefore have a profound meaning. Thus the crucifixion became, for Paul, the primary proof of Jesus as Son of God and the central event in salvation history, and he came to be regarded, over time, as arguably the most vehement and eloquent expositor of the crucifixion’s significance.”
― Robin M Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“The Mayan people had a different kind of encounter with the Christian cross. According to a legendary Mayan prophet, Chilam Balam, the arrival of white conquerors would be presaged by a cross symbol. The conquerors naturally interpreted this prophecy as a divine message that the Maya should renounce their own gods, convert to Christianity, and submit to Spanish rule. Analysis of the authenticity of this prophecy (and of the existence of Chilam Balam) has suggested that the claim, rather than a wholly fabricated justification for colonial subjugation of the natives, contains a kernel of truth.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Owing to our first-formed parent’s injury, the maker grieved; when he bit the baleful apple and thereby collapsed in death, he himself the wood then marked out that wood’s damage to repair. —Venantius Fortunatus”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“The apse of Rome’s Basilica of Santa Pudenziana contains the oldest surviving example of a golden, gemmed cross in mosaic. This church, known up to the sixth century as the Titulus Pudentis, was reconstructed at the end of the fourth century. Its apse mosaic—the earliest extant in any Roman church—was installed during the papacy of Innocent I (402–417).”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“In this time, the cross also moved beyond its status as holy artifact and began to be lauded as an autonomous character in the story of Christ’s Passion. In some cases, it was given a voice and a personality, to the extent of becoming both a hero and a martyr, even a partner to Jesus in his Passion. Like a much-expanded version of the Gospel of Peter’s walking and talking cross, it moves beyond simple animation and monosyllables to possess memories, emotions, and even physical sensations.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Cranach was one of Martin Luther’s close allies and, in the mid-sixteenth century, he produced altarpieces for Lutheran churches in Wittenburg, Weimar, Schneeburg, Kemberg, Regensburg, and Dessau. Unlike other reformers, Luther never forbade images, especially of the crucifixion, and many of Cranach’s paintings and altarpieces functioned as didactic exercises, almost schematic diagrams of Lutheran soteriology.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“These various feasts commemorate distinct yet intersecting events and serve different purposes. They not only commemorate the cross’s fourth-century rediscovery but also its return from Persian captivity in the mid-seventh century. In addition, the feast honors the cross itself as an instrument of Christ’s Passion, an object worthy of veneration in its own right, and a relic through which miracles are accomplished.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“This moderate and restrained removal of images gradually gave way to more active iconoclasm. Inevitably, the crucifix became targeted for destruction. As an object used for personal devotion and veneration, it was—to certain reformers’ minds—particularly inclined to lead the faithful into idolatrous acts and so especially deserving of desecration (or perhaps more aptly, ritual purification). In Advent of 1526, the gilded cross—possibly a gift from Charlemagne—that had been a prominent adornment of the Strasbourg Cathedral was removed and probably melted down to provide alms for the city’s poor.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Similar in some respects to the Ravenna sarcophagi are stone crosses found in Armenia and Georgia. Although the earliest date from the ninth century, such crosses continue to be made into the modern period. These memorial steles, called khachkars, typically display crosses enclosed within interlacing designs of vines, fruit, and flowers. The cross’s arms generally flare and are tipped with buds. Only a few of the later examples show a corpus on the cross.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Although its meaning is disputed and scholars have offered diverse interpretations, it generally appears in the form of a square of five words arranged in an acrostic: ROTAS OPERA TENET AREPO SATOR. One of the most vexing problems is the translation of the word arepo, which could mean “plough,” according to some scholars. Rotas probably means “wheels,” sator means “sower,” tenet is a verb meaning “holds,” while opera is taken as a form of the adverb operosus, so “carefully.” Put together, the five words arguably construct the sentence, “The sower with his eyes on the plough holds the wheels with care.” Of course, this legend contains nothing specifically Christian or even religiously significant; quite possibly it was a simple word puzzle or game. However, if one rearranges the letters, they can be plotted on the form of a Greek (equal-armed) cross to form the words Pater Noster twice, intersecting at the central N. The remaining four letters, two alphas and two omegas (note the inclusion of Greek letters), are then set into the four corners and thus make a Christian symbol.”
― Robin M Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“One of the oldest surviving Christian buildings in Ravenna, the so-called Mausoleum of the Empress Galla Placidia, was built sometime in the early fifth century. This small, cross-shaped structure was originally attached to the south end of the narthex of the mostly destroyed Church of Santa Croce. In light of the fact that she was actually buried in Rome, Galla Placidia may have commissioned the small oratory to house a relic of the True Cross (as its shape and the church’s name suggest), rather than as an imperial mausoleum.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Most ancient gnostics seem to have held a docetic view of Christ, typically of a savior whom they identify with a heavenly being from the realm of light. In some gnostic systems this heavenly being descended upon Jesus at his baptism and departed from him as he died upon the cross. Human salvation was understood to be a release of fragments of this light, trapped in the earthly, material world and in certain human bodies. This release was aided by a savior figure who was not ensnared by any corporeal reality.”
― Robin M Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“The tree of life motif is especially prominent in the medieval poem “The Dream of the Rood.” Probably first written in the late seventh or early eighth century, the extant version of this Anglo-Saxon epic poem was discovered among a collection of other Old English religious literature in the Cathedral library at Vercelli in northern Italy. The text recounts the Passion from the cross’s point of view, making it the chronicler of its own story, starting from its youth as a green sapling, and concluding with its being hewn down and fashioned into the instrument of crucifixion.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Apart from its origins in a purported miraculous vision, the source of Constantine’s famous christogram remains rather mysterious. It bears some similarities to the symbol of the sun god found in the area around the Danube (home of Constantine’s ancestors) and, again, the Egyptian ankh—a symbol of life.8 Rare instances of this symbol in Christian contexts are thought to predate Constantine, mostly on small, personal objects (such as signet rings and tomb inscriptions).9 Moreover, the sign must have been incomprehensible to most western observers, especially to those who knew no Greek or were unaware of this title for the Christian savior god.”
― Robin M Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Added to the problem of establishing their dates, it is difficult to know if workshops fabricated these gems exclusively for Christian patrons or whether they could have been owned or used by anyone—Christian or otherwise—as magical amulets. The existence of two other crucifixion gems, one of them a possible forgery, supports the latter possibility.”
― Robin M Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Although Pope Urban called for a crusade in order to free the Holy Land from the control of Muslim Turks, one of the tragic results of the call to crusade was the persecution of the Jews who lived near or along the routes to Jerusalem. Presumably, the crusaders, impatient to vent their hostility against distant religious enemies, chose those near to hand as they went on their way. For Jews who found themselves attacked as convenient (and more vulnerable) Christ-killers, the cross was a symbol of Christian hatred. Despite efforts by some secular and religious leaders, Jews, particularly those in the Rhineland, were violently massacred or forcibly baptized by crusaders seeking to avenge the death of Christ on those they found closer to home. Thus, the war against the infidel was fought before the crusaders ever reached the Holy Land, and the first and perhaps most tragic casualties were the Jews living in their own cities and towns.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“the tree of life motif became more elaborate in the art of the high and late Middle Ages.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Some early Christian epitaphs with crosses have been dated to the third century, but it was the middle of the fourth century before the cross emerged as a regular feature in Christian iconography. Two precipitating events may be most responsible for this development: the Emperor Constantine I’s vision of the cross (or christogram) before his decisive battle against his enemy Maxentius, and the discovery and subsequent distribution of the relics of the actual cross in Jerusalem.”
― Robin M Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Underlying all this controversy was a characteristically Western debate over holy images. The Opus Caroli Regis allowed veneration to be extended to certain material objects that it termed “res sacratae” (holy things). Among these were the Ark of the Covenant, saints’ relics, the consecrated eucharistic elements, the sign of the cross (but not its physical representation), and the Bible—objects regarded as having been sanctified by God and capable of mediating God’s presence or power.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Distinctive crusader crosses also distinguished national contingents. According to Jonathan Riley-Smith, at the planning meeting for the Third Crusade (1189–1192), the French decided to wear red crosses, the English white, and the Flemish green.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“The long-standing question of how Christ’s two natures were joined in the one person of Jesus was theoretically resolved by the Council of Chalcedon in 451, which recognized the presence of two distinct but inseparable natures in Christ, a position that preserved the impassible divine nature from suffering and death. The Second Council of Constantinople reaffirmed this position in 553. However, many Christians resisted Chalcedon’s declarations, including those who claimed that both Christ’s divine and human natures suffered the agony of crucifixion and that in so doing divinity overcame death and conferred immortality upon humanity.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“The stations begin with Pilate’s condemnation and end with Jesus’s burial, but traditionally include some episodes that are not found in the New Testament. Because of this variance from scripture, in 1975, Pope Paul VI authorized a new set of stations based more closely on the Gospels, beginning at the last supper and ending with the resurrection. While the stations are ordinarily accompanied by pictorial illustrations, an absolute requirement is that each includes the figure of the cross.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy

“Showing Christ as African, Asian, or Central American underlines the universality of his humanity. The depiction of the Holy Spirit as a hummingbird rather than a dove on the Mexican cruz de ánimas (Fig. 9.2) is a modest but striking instance of using meaningful visual language for a particular culture.”
― Robin M. Jensen, The Cross: History, Art, and Controversy