Maiestas Domini: A Forgotten Motif?

From the Roman Basilica...

During my first visit to Europe back in 2011, my destination was Norcia, Italy, to the birthplace of St Benedict.  The Church of San Benedetto is built over an ancient Roman basilica where St Benedict's father presided as a magistrate, later turned into a church.  It was in Italy that the Roman basilica was adopted as the basic architecture of the Christian temple--fundamentally, to house a sizeable assembly for liturgical celebrations.

Originally, the Roman basilica served as a kind of 'town hall' where municipal business was conducted.  In fact, the Latin Basilica is related to the earlier Greek basilikē, meaning "royal"; students of the Greek New Testament may recognise it from the expression basileia tou Theou, "Kingdom of God."  When it was used for civil proceedings, the magistrate would be seated on a distinctive chair within the apse in order to conduct business; when the formerly underground Christian movement adopted the basilica as her basic structure for the "house of the Church," the accent with respect to the seated magistrate shifted:  Instead of a man presiding over the proceedings was the God-Man presiding over the Church and all creation, and instead of the magistrate's chair was the painting or mosaic in the apse of Christos Pantokrator--Christ the Ruler of All.

...To Romanesque...

If you've been to Italy, where the Roman basilica floorplan is as common as pasta, you will know, too, that the apse often shows Christ enthroned.  My favourite one is at San Paulo furori le Mura with Christ flanked by several of the Apostles and--charmingly--a diminutive Pope Honorius III prostrate before His right foot (see image above).  You may also be aware of the famous Cefalù Pantokrator in Franco Zeffirelli's absolutely awful Brother Sun, Sister Moon passing for Old St Peter's in Rome but is, really, in Sicily.  Until Hagia Sophia was again confiscated from the Christians earlier this year, the Pantokrator could still be partially seen.  To this day, Orthodox churches still maintain the Pantokrator-motif (unless there is the Platytera).

An interesting variant of the Pantokrator motif can be seen at the intensely anti-Arian Sant' Apollinare in Classe in Ravenna, where the Cross is seen to transform all of creation, and in the middle of the Cross is a figure of Christ Himself.  We see something like this, too, in the church of the Irish Dominican friars, San Clemente in Rome, where Christ reigns from the Cross and vines emanate from Him to transform the world by the power of His redemptive work.

In the Western Church, the Greek Christos Pantokrator became the Latin Maiestas Domini, "The Majesty of the Lord," or, colloquially, "Christ in Majesty."

Moving north to France in the early Middle Ages, we see a significant architectural change which, in fact, maintains the "Christ in Majesty" motif.  Often, over the main entrance into the church we often see a sculpture of Christ enthroned, sometimes in judgment.  We see this among the last remaining Romanesque churches, namely Moissac Abbey, where "Christ in Majesty" is depicted in a collage of scenes taken from the Apocalypse of St John.

...To Gothic

The depiction of "Christ in Majesty" over the main entrance into French churches earned it the name of "Royal Portal" in Gothic architecture--not because it was the privilege of French monarchs to enter in that way, but because it is where the royal, kingly symbols of Christ was depicted.  Thus at the first Gothic church at the Abbaye de Saint-Denis near Paris, we see this continued.  Later, at both Vézelay and Chartres, the "Christ in Majesty" motif in the central tympanum over the Royal Portal came to accent more the dominion of Christ than the Last Judgment (which was placed elsewhere), with a connexion to evangelical preaching.

With the invention of stained glass, the apse of Gothic churches came, once again, to sustain various images of "Christ in Majesty"--such as the central lancet window in the apse at Chartres and another above the high altar, having an ancient-looking Christ Child enthroned on the lap of the Virgin Mary, symbolizing the God who united Himself to creation, over which He rules.  At St-Denis we see, instead of a lancet window, Maiestas Domini in a rosace window.

Moving to England, we see still another shift in style, but permanence of meaning:  Sometimes, instead of over the main entrance, we see "Christ in Majesty" at the topmost tier of the church's façade, such as at Salisbury Cathedral, right under the peak.  Additionally--and this is a distinctive feature of English Gothic churches--instead of an apse is often a stained-glass window covering the entire (usually flat) east end.  The most famous instance of this is at Yorkminster, where the "Great East Window" depicts the main contours of salvation history from Genesis to the Apocalypse with the "Ancient of Days" at the uppermost peak and, in the central lancet windows, several depictions of the majestic Christ.  The Great East Window at Wells Cathedral focuses on my personal favourite--the Tree of Jesse (Is 11:1-3)--highlighting the anointing of Jesus as the source of His authority.

Biblical Underpinning

Why all this stress on Christ's majesty and dominion?  It would be too facile to explain it within the rubric of mediaeval feudalism.  Rather, it stresses a basic Biblical, Gospel truth:  The Lordship of Jesus.  My own doctoral research explores how Jesus' anointing by the Holy Spirit--thus being named Christ--constitutes one of the fundamental aspects of His Lordship (again, see Is 11:1-3).  In fact, the Lordship of Jesus is a kind of diptych with one panel being His own anointing, "The Spirit of the Lord will rest upon Him...", and Pentecost, where He "...received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit" (Acts 10:36) outpoured the Gift upon the newborn Church.  But it is the Ascension which hinges the two panels together, as the consummation of His own anointing, after which He shares His anointing with His Christians from His throne.

The Ascension of Jesus isn't simply about His translation, but above all about His enthronement:  "And so, the Lord Jesus, after He had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God" (Mk 16:19); "Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God..." (Acts 2:33); "When He made purification for sins, He sat down at the right hand o the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to the angels as the Name He has obtained is more excellent than theirs" (Heb 1:3-4).  This was all foretold by the prophet Daniel:

I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a Son of Man, and He came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.  And to Him was given dominion, and glory, and kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him; His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom one that shall not be destroyed (Dan 7:13-14).

As a corollary to this, Jesus Christ was invested with the title of "Lord," hardly an honourific but a declaration of His peerless power:  "Therefore God highly exalted Him and bestowed upon Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father" (Phil 2:9-11).  The Lordship of Jesus was at the heart of the apostolic preaching; St Peter spoke of Jesus as "Lord of all" (Acts 10:36) and St Paul, having arrived at Rome, "welcomed all who came to him, preaching the Kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ quite openly and unhindered' (Acts 28:30-31).

Hence the same Apostle to the Nations also wrote:

None of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself.  If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.  For to this end Christ died and lived again, that He might be Lord both of the dead an do the living (Rom 14:7-9).

Yet, contrary to Biblical truth and flying in the face of all sound doctrine, many Christians hear an altered 'gospel' of Jesus as a therapist or life-coach rather than Lord of lords and King of kings (Apoc 17:4; cf 19:16).  Our post-democratic society is suspicious of authority, preferring instead a slick and glitzy perpetual pep rally about how we are the masters of our own destiny, and many Christian leaders have 'evangelised' this message instead of Christ's, Who came to preach "the Gospel of the Kingdom" (Mt 4:23).

But being one's own master is candy-coated chattel slavery.

Ecclesiastical architecture's variegated "Christ in Majesty" motif serves to remind both the Church and creation the very essence of the Gospel, that Jesus is Lord, and that "he who is not with Me is against Me" (Mt 12:30), and that the Gospel presents two modalities of Jesus' Lordship, each depending on which choice we make.  Either we yield to His Lordship and discover a sweet and gentle sovereignty over our lives and a wonderful freedom, or we simply ignore it, in which case He is still Lord but we remain frozen and ossified in our rejection of Him eternally as unfree slaves of ourselves.

The beautiful paradox of Christ as Lord is that, the more we yield to Him, the freer we become.  As I will be explaining in my dissertation, the Gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit is how Christ rules in us, and it is this precisely this grace which so re-organises the Christian soul that there is an intense interior freedom, such a freedom that cannot be found anywhere else (and especially not in Occam's "freedom of indifference!).  "Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom" (2 Cor 3:17).  As St Thomas Aquinas wrote:

...the governance of things by God must be understood as a certain motion by which God directs and puts in motion all beings toward their proper ends.  If then impulsion and movement are, by reason of love, the work of the Holy Spirit, the governance and development of things, is fittingly attributed to him.  This is why it says in the Book of Job (33:4):  "It is the Spirit that has made me," and in Psalm 142:10, "Your good Spirit leads me on a level path."  And since the governance of subjects is the proper activity of a lord, lordship is fittingly attributed to the Holy Spirit.  "The Spirit is Lord," says the Apostle (2 Cor. 3:17); so too in the Creed:  "The Holy Spirit is Lord" (Summa contra Gentiles, IV.20.3571).

The paucity of the Maiestas Domini motif--both in contemporary Christian art and Christian education--suggests, I make bold to say, a subtle attempt to preach a 'gospel' that isn't Gospel at all.