Sarcophagus of Marcia Romania Celsa

Circa 330
Musée de l'Arles Antique, Arles

Discussed in Erich Dinkler's introduction to "The Christian Realm: Abbreviated Representations" in Weitzmann.

The upper part is the lid, with the young men in the fiery furnace on the left and the Magi on the right. The selection of episodes in the main frieze is very much like that in the sarcophagus of Marcus Claudianus. The episodes are (left to right):

  1. Peter's water miracle
  2. The arrest of Peter
  3. Jesus, Peter, and the Rooster
  4. Peter and another apostle with an orant
  5. The Cana miracle or the loaves and fishes? (Jesus' gesture is as one usually sees in Cana scenes from this period, but the containers below seem to be bulging at the top, as though full of loaves.)
  6. Christ healing the blind man (the small fellow in the foreground, being presented by Peter)
  7. The raising of Lazarus — Peter looking on from behind Christ, Lazarus in mummy, Martha or Mary at Christ's feet.

View a detail photograph of the raising of Lazarus.
Read more about images of the Magi, St. Peter, Lazarus, the Miracle at Cana, and the other miracles.

Source: this page at Wikimedia Commons.