of art intended for a specifically Christian context might include representations of Orpheus (Figure 88),
who like Christ was credited with bringing the dead back to life, or the oriental sun god Sol Invictus
(Figure 89), whose commemorative festival day, December 25, was appropriated for use as Christ's
birthday.
“You are the brimstone that God rained down into the midst of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and
Zeboim and Segor. You are the brimstone that served God's purposes; in the same way serve the
purposes of me, _____, in regard to Ms _____. Do not allow her to get any rest or sleep until she
comes to me and performs the secret rites of love sacred to Aphrodite.” (From a collection of do-it-
yourself magical spells contained on a Greek papyrus, P. Osl. 1, written in the fourth century after
Christ)Even Christianity could not hold the two halves of the empire together, and a division opened up between
the church in Rome and the church in Constantinople. Each church claimed (and claims) to be the true and
legitimate bearer of the faith, just as the emperor in Rome and the emperor in Constantinople each
claimed to be the true successor to Augustus, the founder of the Roman Empire. The emperor in
Constantinople, however, was able to make that claim for nearly a millennium longer than his Western
counterpart, for the empire based in Rome came to an end in the second half of the fifth century, when
Germanic barbarians removed the emperor of Rome and began to rule Italy in his place. Nearly a
thousand years later, remnants of Greek culture were reintroduced to the West; at that time a number of
scholars from Constantinople emigrated to Italy, bringing with them their books and their knowledge of
the Greek language and contributing to the “revival of learning” in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century
Europe. One of the products of this revival was Lucas Cranach's painting of the judgment of Paris, with
which we began (Figure 1). In the East, however, there was no Renaissance, or re(dis)covery of Classical
civilization. There was no need. Classical Greek civilization had never been lost or forgotten. Rather, it
had been in the process of continual transformation, which is, indeed, the chief function of human culture,
to allow a civilization to define itself in terms of continuity with the past at the same time as the past is
being reconfigured to accommodate a changing present.
SARCOPHAGUS Literally “flesheating,” a stone coffin, often embellished with sculptures or
bearing inscriptions (figures 87 and 88).