Jesus' Sayings about the Last Judgment
6th century
Mosaic
Church of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, Italy
In Matthew 25:31-32 Jesus tells the disciples, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit upon his glorious throne, and all the nations will be assembled before him. And he will separate them one from another, as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats." The text goes on to place the sheep on Christ's right and the goats on his left, as shown in the mosaic.
This is one of the 13 mosaics of the life of Christ along the upper band of the left wall of the nave. As in many representations of the Last Judgment, Christ's hands tell the story. Here he extends his right hand in welcome to the sheep but keeps his left out of view.
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Photographed at the church by Richard Stracke, shared under Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.