Moses: The Iconography
In the picture at right Moses has horns on his head. This feature was introduced in the early 11th century in English manuscript illustrations. It soon spread to France and eventually to all the Latin west. The horns reference Exodus 34:29, which uses the Hebrew word qeren to describe Moses' face as he returned from his forty days on the mountain with God. When preparing the Vulgate translation of Exodus, St. Jerome saw that one Greek translation took qeren to mean "radiant" while another used a word for "horned." Jerome preferred the latter because of its metaphorical value, so he translated qeren as cornuta, "horned." Horns symbolize power throughout the Old and New Testaments, and in classical iconography they signified divinity (example).1

For some 12th- and 13th-century scholar-theologians the two horns symbolized the two rays of light that are the Old and New Testaments. Following this suggestion, some artists represented the horns as two groupings of light rays, as in the second picture at right.2 In 1570 Molanus objected strenuously to the literal horns, quoting one of the bishops at the Council of Trent: "The Jews laugh and curse us when they see Moses with a horned visage in our churches."3 Consequently, the twin light rays became the favored way of illustrating Moses' radiance, as in this 20th-century window. In modern Judaism images of the prophets are usually discountenanced, but Moses is pictured with the twin rays in a number of Chagall windows and in this print, a 19th-century guide to prayer directed toward the Wailing Wall.

Before the English innovation of the horns, the attribute most commonly used for Moses had been his rod (example). In the second millenium the rod continued as a secondary attribute, as in the first picture at right.

Finally, some images do without the horns and rod, instead giving the prophet the two tablets of the decalogue (example), or identifying him only by a label, especially in works influenced by the Byzantine tradition (example). (Horns never migrated into Orthodox iconography.)

NARRATIVE IMAGES

In addition to his portraits, Moses appears very frequently in narrative images because, as Berlin puts it, "his value as a figure or type permeates literature and art" (265).

The Baby Moses is Adopted

Moses' story begins when as a baby he is placed in a basket in the Nile to avoid Pharaoh's order that all Hebrew boy babies be killed. Pharaoh's daughter finds the child and decides to adopt, choosing as his nurse a woman who she does not know is actually Moses' mother Jochebed. (Exodus 2:1-10) The earliest known image of this is one of the panels in the synagogue frescos at Dura Europos. Subsequently it became a fairly common topic in Christian art. In the commentaries Pharaoh's daughter was taken to be a figure of the Church of the Gentiles.4

There are a few images for the child's time in the Pharaoh's court. One in Venice illustrates a Jewish midrash that tells how the Pharaoh put little Moses to a test. And a mosaic in Rome's Santa Maria Maggiore works from St. Stephen's remark in Acts 7:22 that Moses was "instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians." In comments on that remark the exegetes see Moses as a type of Christ,5 and indeed the mosaic's picture of Moses among his teachers is strikingly similar to later images of the boy Jesus' colloquy with the "doctors" in the Temple (Luke 2:41-52).

The Burning Bush (Exodus 3:1-4:)

Moses was tending his father-in-law's sheep on Mount Horeb when God appeared to him from a burning bush and commissioned him to lead his people to freedom. In San Vitale, Ravenna, this event is depicted on the right wall of the space leading into the presbytery, where the Mass is celebrated (third picture at right). The walls feature various Old Testament prefigurations of the sacrifice of the Mass and of Christ, who was considered in some ways "the new Moses" (Jensen, Baptismal Imagery, 152).

Crossing the Red Sea (Exodus 14:26-29)

This is a popular subject because of I Corinthians 10:1-2, "Our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea. And all in Moses were baptized, in the cloud, and in the sea." Many images give the drowning Egyptians equal or greater attention than the escaping Israelites (example). But in Re­nais­sance and Baroque images, it is the safety of the Israelites on the shore that is emphasized; the death of the Egyptians is either put in the background (example) or ignored altogether (example). Both approaches to the subject can be explained by the notion that the event prefigures baptism, in which death and sin are defeated and the new Christian enjoys the safe harbor of grace.

In celebration of God's victory over the Egyptians, Moses breaks forth into song and Miriam takes up a timbrel and leads the women in dance and chanting (image).

The Manna and the Water from the Rock (Exodus 16-17)

In Exodus 16:1-35 the Israelites complain to Moses that they have nothing to eat. Then the Lord sends them bread in the form of "manna" which "appeared in the wilderness small, and as it were beaten with a pestle, like unto the hoar frost on the ground." But by the next chapter in Exodus the people are complaining again, this time about the lack of water. So God tells Moses to strike a certain rock, and water gushes from it.

Jesus himself is responsible for the typological interpretation of the manna, in John 6:31-34:
They said therefore to him: … Our fathers did eat manna in the desert, as it is written: He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say to you; Moses gave you not bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world. They said therefore unto him: Lord, give us always this bread. And Jesus said to them: I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger: and he that believeth in me shall never thirst.
Images that draw this relationship can be seen in medieval (example) and modern (example) contexts. Because the subject is so well suited to large canvases there was also a flurry of non-typological interest in the second half of the 16th century. (Here are examples by Palma the Younger, Tintoretto, and Corona.)

As for the water miracle (Exodus 17:1-7), Christian exegetes took the water as a type of baptism and the rock as Christ, following 1 Corinthians 10:4, "they [the Israelites] all drank the same spiritual drink; and they drank of the spiritual rock that followed them, and the rock was Christ." Jensen (Baptismal Imagery, 75, 155-56, 189-91) studies the rather small number of paleo-Christian images (one example) that seem to associate the miracle with baptism and suggest it was neglected because the crossing of the Red Sea provided a more powerful "symbol of baptismal cleansing." In medieval images the manna and Red Sea crossing continue to attract more attention, but in Tintoretto's Moses Strikes Water from the Rock the miracle is the central panel in a cycle featuring types of Baptism. At about the same time it is celebrated in Bresciano's outdoor fountain in Rome.

The Ten Commandments

In Exodus 19-32 God delivers the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai, partly in the form of two tablets. In 4th-century sarcophagi Moses usually receives a scroll, God's hand is the only part of him that we see, and the mountain is suggested by just a few bulges and the position of Moses' feet (example). In this 6th-century mosaic, which covers a much larger area than a sarcophagus could, the mountain is more fully realized but the hand is still all we see and the Law is still represented by a scroll. By the time we get to Meyring's baroque altarpiece in San Moisè, Venice, God is fully portrayed, the mountain is an enormous pile behind the altar, and the Law is represented by tablets.

Another way of presenting the episode is to show Moses displaying the tablets to the Israelites (example).

The Bronze Serpent

In Numbers 21:4-9 those darn Israelites are complaining again, so God sends "saraph serpents" that bite them and kill many. Moses prays for mercy, so God says, "Make a saraph and mount it on a pole, and if anyone who has been bitten looks at it, he will recover." Moses makes a serpent of brass and mounts it on a pole, and God's promise is fulfilled. In John 3:14-15, Jesus makes this episode a type of his own crucifixion: "And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of man be lifted up: That whosoever believeth in him, may not perish; but may have life everlasting." Images of Moses' brass serpent emphasize Jesus' interpretation by making the pole look like a cross, as in this example and this one. Tintoretto uses his painting of the episode as a substitute for a Crucifixion in the iconographic plan for the upper hall of the Scuola Grande di San Rocco.

Other Desert Episodes

One less commonly pictured episode is the investiture of Aaron and his sons in Exodus 28-29 (second picture at right) has Moses simply standing by while a youthful figure of Christ performs the investiture. The ivory is also interesting as a transitional portrait of Moses as an older person with a full beard but without the horns that will become conventional.

Another rather rare subject is Aaron and Miriam's questioning of Moses' authority in Numbers 12:1-15. This angers God, who calls the three together, confirms Moses' primacy, and leaves Miriam with a case of leprosy (image)

During their time in the desert the Israelites were attacked by the Amalekites. Their victory was assured when Moses stood on a hill above the battle and kept his hands up throughout the day. Christians interpreted his stance as a type of Christ's posture on the Cross.6 This idea informs a 5th-century mosaic at Santa Maria Maggiore.

Author of the Pentateuch

Moses was for a long time believed to be the author of the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. As yet I have seen only a couple of images based on this belief. In a mosaic in Cefalù, Sicily, he is placed among a number of prophets holding scrolls representing phrases from their writings. His scroll has the first verse from the Book of Genesis. In the altarpiece at Notre-Dame de Montréal, he figures in one of four sculptures of Old Testament episodes prefiguring the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross and in the Mass.

The Transfiguration

The synoptic gospels have an episode in which Jesus takes Peter, James, and John to a high mountain, where "he was transfigured before them. And his face did shine as the sun: and his garments became white as snow" and Moses and Elijah appeared with him (Matthew 17:1-8, c.f. Mark 9:2-8 and Luke 9:28-36). In the Transfiguration mosaic at Sant'Apollinare in Clase, Moses is a young man in a classical dalmatic and pallium with a full head of blond hair and no attributes other than the label to his left. For other images of this episode see the page on the Transfiguration.

Narrative Cycles

Finally, the Old Testament cycle in Rome's Santa Maria Maggiore includes twelve mosaics that trace Moses's story in considerable detail.

Prepared in 2014 by Richard Stracke, Emeritus Professor of English, Augusta University.


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15th-century fresco in Croatia (See description page)


Detail from Tintoretto's The Fall of Manna (See the description page for the entire canvas.)


Detail from a 6th-century mosaic in Ravenna's Basilica of San Vitale (See the description page for the complete tablet.)

MORE IMAGES

  • 325-75: A detail in a dome painting in Egypt pictures the drowning of Pharaoh's army in the Red Sea.
  • 387-390: Moses' water miracle is pictured on the right on this side of the so-called Sarcophagus of Stilico.
  • 6th century: Mosaic in San Vitale, Ravenna: Moses tending his flock, the burning bush.
  • 11th century: Moses receives the tablets of the Law on a panel on a brass door of the Basilica of San Zeno, Verona.
  • 12th or 13th century: Episodes involving Moses and Aaron are used typologically in five of the panels in a window in Canterbury Cathedral.
  • Circa 1200: An unusual plaque picturing the bronze serpent as a dragon-like creature perched on a classical column.
  • Second half of the 13th century: A manuscript illumination includes Moses (with horns and tablets) among other prophets.
  • 1304-10: Narrative images of the Exodus and Ten Commandments in the De la Twyere Psalter.
  • 1385-1415: Moses Receives the Ten Commandments, Regensburg Cathedral.
  • Circa 1408-1410: Lorenzo Monaco reduced the horns to a pair of hanging forelocks in this painting, in which the twin tablets are Moses' primary identifier.
  • 1475: The Moses panel in the rood screen at Santa Maria Gloriosa dei Frari, Venice.
  • Circa 1489-1515: A portrait of Moses is among the fifty prophets and patriarchs in the coffered ceiling of Santa Maria dei Miracoli, Venice.
  • 16th century: The Fall of Manna is one of four paintings of types of the Eucharist in identical frames in a Venice church.
  • 1515-20: In this Netherlandish panel manna falls softly on the Israelite camp in the form of broad snowflakes while the people collect it by holding up their baskets.
  • 1516: Michelangelo's famous statue of Moses in the Church of St. Paul in Chains, Rome.
  • 1554: Jacopo Bassano's painting of the miracle of the quails.
  • 1563: Tintoretto's Moses Receives the Ten Commandments, a very tall painting with an ecstatic Moses at the luminous top, the cloud in the middle, and the golden calf at the dark bottom.
  • Late 16th century: Moses reminds St. Peter about the Ten Commandments in Saraceni's Paradise.
  • 1683: Villalpando's grand canvas, Moses and the Brazen Serpent and the Transfiguration of Jesus, relates the bronze serpent to the salvation brought by Christ's passion and to the revelation that he is indeed the Son of God. In it Moses appears twice with two "light ray" horns.
  • 17th or 18th century: Painting of Moses and Aaron worshiping the Trinity.
  • 1722-23: Giuseppe Angeli's Fall of Manna pictures the cloud of "glory of the Lord" that appears when Aaron announces that God will send the people bread and meat.
  • 1748-50: Morlaiter's heroic-looking statue of Moses in the Gesuati, Venice.
  • 1807-13: The relief sculptures on the west façade of Milan's cathedral include the burning bush and the water miracle.
  • Circa 1875: Altarpiece with Moses and four other Old Testament figures taken to be types of Christ.
  • Undated (Baroque?): The Giving of the Ten Commandments at San Moise, Venice.

BIOGRAPHY

SARCOPHAGI


Moses often appears in sarcophagi of the 3rd and 4th centuries. Here are some examples:

NOTES

1 Mellinkoff, chapters 1-6. Colunga and Turrado 75. Also see Berlin 397.

2 Mellinkoff, chapter 7.

3 Molanus, 527-30 (IV, xv).

4 E.g., Isidore of Seville, Allegoriae, §58: "The daughter of Pharaoh, who took up Moses who had been exposed on the bank of the river, is the Church, who found Christ at the river of sacred washing [i.e., Baptism]" (my translation). Origen makes essentially the same point but calls the daughter the Church of the Gentiles (Glossa Ordinaria, I, 485).

5 Glossa Ordinaria VI, 1055-56.

6 Glossa Ordinaria, I, 647-48.

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