Absent in Body, Present in Spirit: Apostolic Iconography in Greek Byzantine New Testament Manuscripts

Abstract

This article analyzes the phenomena that arise when the images of New Testament authors are placed before, alongside, and within the titles and incipits of New Testament texts in ancient manuscripts. Such images facilitate encounters with “specters” of the authors, invoking their bodily presence in the absence of their physical body. They are encodings of collective memory but also participants in perpetuating and sometimes modifying the physical appearance of apostolic figures. On occasion, the blending of textual incipits with apostolic images sublimate authorial identity and textual identity; the bodies of apostles become frames through which to view their written works. Although they are paratexts, apostolic icons can rearrange and aggregate other paratextual features including titles and even Euthaliana. Images of the apostles further interact with anonymous features of NT manuscripts, such as Euthaliana, providing authorization for works without ascription in the manuscripts themselves. Images of the apostles in NT manuscripts are therefore more than decoration or pious creativity. They are loci of presence, identity, memory, and authority.

ἐγὼ μὲν γάρ, ἀπὼν τῷ σώματι παρὼν δὲ τῷ πνεύματι.

Although absent in body, I am present in spirit.

—Paul the Apostle (1 Corinthians 5:3)

1. Abstractions

There is a resplendent image of Mark the evangelist in a thirteenth-century manuscript now housed at the National Library of Greece in Athens (GA 757, 72v).1 With soft shades of red, blue, and mustard, a manuscript artist depicts the evangelist sitting at his lectern reading/writing (?) his gospel with his left hand while in his right hand he holds a smaller book in his lap open to the viewer. What is curious about this icon is that someone has intentionally effaced Mark’s face and upper body in order to make room for four lines of a well-known epigram that often accompanies the gospel of Mark (found at least 172 times in our Greek manuscripts).2 We know that it was effaced because the space fits the four lines of writing neatly and symmetrically. It may have been that the paint over the evangelist’s face started to fade and so a copyist at some point scratched off more to make room for the epigram:3

Ὁ(σ)σα περὶ χρϊστοῖ ὁ θεηγόρος ἔθνεα πέτρος,

κηρυσσων ἐδίδαξεν ἀπὸ στομάτων ἐπϊτίμων,

ἐνθάδε μάρκος ἄγειρε κ(αὶ) ἐν σελίδεσσϊν ἔθηκε·

τόυνεκα κ(αὶ) μερόπεσσϊν ἐυάγγελος ἄλλος ἐδείχθη·

Everything concerning Christ (that) the God-inspired Peter

preached, he taught the nations from honorable mouths.

Here Mark collected (it) and he put (it) in writing.

For that reason, among humankind another gospel was shown.

On this manuscript page, image and text converge, generating new relationships between apostolic identity and textual ascription, authorship and authority, and physical embodiment and textual presence. Image and epigram are not separated from one another.4 They are not segregated into their own distinct spaces. They are intertwined with one another hierarchically—the text’s obfuscation of the evangelist’s face overrides visual notions of his identity and even, in this case, the activity of writing the gospel itself. Despite the obliteration of Mark’s face, the epigram’s ascription of his identity makes clear both his role in collecting and producing his gospel (the book in his right hand might be understood as his notes on Peter’s preaching).5 But by obscuring his face, the ascription becomes a part of his identity as author; it is a fragmented and textualized extension of his body as represented on the page. This corporeal extension allows external data unknowable from simply looking at an image of Mark—namely the apostolic origin of Mark’s gospel from Peter—to become a feature of his body itself, so that Mark’s identity and the authority of his testimony cannot be separated from Peter. Just because the epigram takes center-place (literally) does not mean, however, that Mark’s body is superfluous. What the image of Mark provides that the epigram cannot is the visual presence of the evangelist for the reader.

Scholarly focus on images in New Testament manuscripts is largely concerned with the description of the images and comparing similar features and artistic styles in their social, historical, and theological contexts.6 This article analyzes the phenomena that arise when the images of New Testament authors are placed before, alongside, and within the titles and incipits of New Testament texts in ancient manuscripts. Such images facilitate encounters with “specters” of the authors, invoking their bodily presence in the absence of their physical body. 7 They are encodings of collective memory but also participants in perpetuating and sometimes modifying the physical appearance of apostolic figures. On occasion, the blending of textual incipits with apostolic images sublimate authorial identity and textual identity; the bodies of apostles become frames through which to view their written works. Although they are paratextual, apostolic icons can rearrange and aggregate other paratextual features such as titles and even Euthaliana. Images of the apostles further interact with pseudepigraphic features of New Testament manuscripts, including Euthaliana and the Pastoral Epistles, providing apostolic authority/association to texts texts that are commonly viewed as pseudonymous. Images of the apostles in New Testament manuscripts are therefore more than decoration or pious creativity. They are loci of presence, identity, memory, and authority.

I focus here primarily on the authorial representations in Pauline letters as well as the Catholic epistles in two medieval New Testament manuscripts, GA 1751 and 1875.8 The rationale for this selection is because these manuscripts have icons adjacent to or embedded with the titles and NT text, not just on their own separate leaves. The selection of texts allegedly authored by Paul or Peter or James or John is due to the nature of the texts themselves. Unlike gospel literature, the names of some of their authors, pseudonymous or not, are a part of the very texts and so this allows us to analyse the relationships between image, title, text, and author. In the first section, I provide a detailed description and analysis of relevant pages from GA 1751 and 1875. Then I provide a synthesis of how the apostolic icons in these artefacts shape presence, identity, memory, and authority. Finally, I bring these processes into conversation with contemporary New Testament scholarship, focusing on aesthetic cognitivism, textual criticism, and the relationship between so-called New Philology and disability.

2. Dissections

2.1. GA 1751

Dating from the fifteenth century (ca. 1479), GA 1751 is a Greek miniscule from the Great Lavra Monastary on Mount Athos that contains Acts, some of the Catholic epistles (James, 1–2 Peter, 1 John, Jude), and Paul’s letters and Hebrews. The colophon on folio 168v identifies a certain Neophytos as the benefactor of the manuscript and John as the scribe. Three full-page apostolic images accompany the text, one of Peter (47v), one of Jude (62v), and one of Paul (64v).9

The first image on 47v is a visually striking image of the apostle Peter (Figure 1). Unlike Jude and Paul in this same manuscript, there is no square frame surrounding him. Instead, he is surrounded by the closing verses of the epistle of James (Jas 5:17–10). Inside of those verses is an arch-like frame within which Peter is kneeling. Interestingly, the artist in all three images of GA 1751 accentuate the knees of the apostles. He is wearing a long flowing robe that goes down to the floor. His physical appearance is typical of common depictions of Peter: he has long curly hair and curly beard. Around his head is a halo and to the left and right sides there are two bubbled spaces with text. On the left and right sides of his head, the text reads: (L) “The apostle Peter and chosen offspring (προαιτοκοσι),”and (R) “grey one of the apostles.” Not only is Peter frequently depicted with grey hair in ancient Christian iconography, but this title may be an indication of his status as being revered.10 Claudius Claudianus, the late fourth century poet, wrote a poem where Peter is described as being “grey,” possibly a reference to his revered status (Dijkstra 2016, pp. 156–58). In his hands is a unfurled roll or scroll that he holds up with his left hand and then down diagonally across his body with his right hand. His right hand has six fingers and, interestingly, the tips of both index fingers are visible through the parchment, which appears to be semi-translucent. It is only partially translucent because the section of Peter’s torso that the parchment covers remains unseen. The parchment contains a slightly jumbled incipit to 1 Peter: “Peter, apostle of Jesus Christ, to the elect diaspora of [Pon]tus, Galatia, Pon[tus], and Cappadocia” (Πέτρος ἀπόστολος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἐκλεκτοῖς παρεπιδήμοις διασπορᾶς του, Γαλατίας, Πόν καὶ Καππαδοκίας).11

Like many manuscripts containing Acts, the Catholic Epistles, and Paul’s letters from the medieval period, GA 1751 contains parts of the Euthaliana. As Allen argues in this same issue, the “Euthalian Apparatus” is a misnomer because no such single consistent authoritative apparatus exists in our ancient manuscripts. I draw on his nomenclature “Euthaliana” to denote “a variable collection of paratextual features that shape interpretive encounters with Acts and the Epistles.”12 For 1 Peter, Jude, and Paul’s letter to the Romans, the icons of the apostles appear next to two features attributed to the Euthaliana: a hypothesis—a kind of summary of the whole letter—and a chapter list (kephalaia) for the letter (the chapter list is excluded for Jude, presumably because of its brief length).13 Importantly, the images of Peter, Jude, and Paul are paratextual features not only to the letters purportedly written under their names but also the accompanying Euthaliana.

In the second image on 62v, the apostle Jude sits on a carpet with his knees out front toward the reader and his legs tucked in behind him (Figure 2). The whole image is framed by a large thick border. In the upper left and right corners there are circles with images inside, but the manuscript has either been damaged or the details were not captured by the microfilm. The border appears to be non-figurative and decorative, although a few orphan letters can be made out. On either side of him are two candles. Above those candles are the traditional saint abbreviations saying, “The apostle Jude.” He has short flowing hair and no beard; he is completely clean shaven. Around his head is a halo. Images of Jude’s physical appearance are not as consistent as Peter or Paul in our iconographic record. In the medieval period, however, we can find images of Jude that share similarities with the image found in GA 1751. Simone Martini’s portrayal of Jude (Judas Thaddeus, ca. 1315–1320 CE) has him clean shaven, with a sharp nose, pursed lips, and flowing red hair. The clean-shaven and youthful appearance of Jude may have been influenced by the conflation of Jude with Thaddeus, who, according to developments in ecclesial tradition, was sent to Abgar the king of Edessa to preach in Syria (cf. Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 1.13.5-22). The fifth-century Syrian text The Teaching of Addai (Doctrina Addai 13) records the apostle Thomas sending “Addai” (=Thaddeus) to go heal Abgar of his disease. In some images, Thaddeus is portrayed as youthful, with short hair and no beard; see, for example, a tenth century (after 944) encaustic from Saint Catherine’s Monastery.14

On GA 1751, with his right hand—which, notably, has seven fingers—Jude holds a long piece of parchment that extends from his collar bone down to his groin. On the parchment is the incipit to the epistle of Jude: “Judas, slave of Jesus Christ, brother of Jacob; to those in God the blessed father and for Jesus Christ kep-“(Ἰούδας δοῦλος Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἀδελφὸς δὲ Ἰακώβου, τοῖς ἐν θεῷ πατρὶ ἠγαπημένοις καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστῷ τετη-). With his left hand—which has only five fingers—he holds a carpenter’s square (which may be influenced by the occasional confusion of Jude with Thomas, the latter of whom is also depicted with a carpenter’s rule). On the opposite leaf lies a Euthalian hypothesis of the letter and the beginning of the text proper.

In the final image on 64v, Paul is sitting on a patterned seat that has skirting below it that is divided into triangular patterns (Figure 3). Surrounding Paul is a thick dark frame whose borders are only transgressed by the edge of his seat and his left foot, which hangs off the seat without touching the floor. Paul’s face appears very much in line with his most commonly portrayed features, short hair and a pointed beard.15 A halo surrounds his head. In the sky above, at the top of the frame, rings and flames of the sun bend down toward Paul’s head, and the divine hand appears to be pointing down to Paul. Strangely, the divine hand has seven fingers: two point down and four are tucked under God’s thumb. In Paul’s right hand he is holding open a writing tablet (or perhaps a codex), with the diptych open toward the reader. The tablet obscures part of Paul’s left arm, torso, and leg, and acts like a frame that extends his body to the text. Scrawled inside the writing tablet is the incipit to Paul’s letter to the Romans (Παῦλος δοῦλος Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ κλητὸς ἀπόστολος εἰς εὐαγγέλιον θεοῦ ἀφο-).16 With his left hand he gestures up toward the right corner of the page. By his left hand there is a candle whose light is illuminated as a circular halo around both the candle flame and Paul’s left hand. Another candle behind Paul on the left side of the image also has a circular halo. On the writing tablet, as well as within the two circles surrounding the candles and Paul’s left hand, there is writing. Around the left candle is written “The apostle Paul, the apostle [is] the mouth of Christ.” Around the right candle and his left hand is written a paraphrase of Rom 1:18: “You revealed the wrath of God from heaven upon all impiety.” The image is thus apocalyptic. The presence of the divine hand, the mention of divine revelation in Rom 1:18, and the label of the apostle as God’s mouth—even the writing tablet being opened toward the reader and not to Paul—all point to the apocalyptic focus of the image. While God’s fingers point to Paul, his fingers point upward to God’s wrath over the impiety of the earth. In the material context of the image on the full-page layout, however, he also appears to be pointing upward to the words at the top of the recto of the next page, the Euthalian hypothesis of Romans and a chapter list for the letter.

2.2. GA 1875

GA 1875 is a tenth-century minuscule now housed at the National Library of Greece in Athens. Like GA 1751, it too contains the Apostolos (Acts, Catholic Epistles, and Paul). Slavonic aspects of the manuscript (inserted titles, incipits on iconography) indicate that soon after the manuscript was produced it fell into the possession of a Slavonic owner.17

A lanky portrayal of the apostle Peter stands on the right column of 52v facing the incipit of 1 Peter (Figure 4). He wears robes of dark green and blue, some of which have faded or been torn off the parchment. The part of the robe over his right shoulder is split open with a slit that extends from collarbone to elbow. The outline of his feet has faded but he appears partially barefooted, perhaps wearing sandals. His right hand is in the air and with his index and middle fingers he points directly to the title of 1 Peter. In his left hand he holds a scroll that is unrolled, cascading down toward the ground. The artist has portrayed the scroll unrolling behind Peter’s hand holding the scroll, giving the effect that his hand goes through the scroll itself as he clutches the end caps. The text on the scroll is the opening of 1 Peter 1:1 in Old Church Slavonic. Around his head is a red halo, and above are the words “Saint Peter” written in red capital letters in Greek. Peter’s face appears with his common features: curly and wavy greyish hair, a thick beard, and a round face. His eyes, like his right hand, are directed toward the opening title.

The image of Paul next to the beginning of 1 Corinthians on 103r, like the image of Peter, takes up a whole column of the page (Figure 5). Unlike the Peter image, Paul’s title “Saint Paul” is not in Greek but rather in Old Church Slavonic. He gestures with his right hand, pointing his index and middle fingers toward the title above the adjacent column introducing the first letter to the Corinthians. In his other hand he holds a scroll which is unfolded down almost to his ankle. On the scroll, also written in Old Church Slavonic, is 1 Cor 1:1-2. He is wearing a dark blue robe with red stripes throughout, and the robe underneath it is a deep green, also with red stripes.18 He stands barefooted. Around his head is a red halo. His head, however, does not appear quite the same as generally depicted. He is balding on the top of his head but the hair on the side of his heads goes down almost to his shoulders in a wavy brown pattern. His is sharp, but it has clearly been drawn over by someone else who has made it look unevenly angular down from his right jawline diagonally to the left side of his chin.

The image of Paul before 1 Timothy at 143r, however, is slightly different (Figure 6). The beginning of 1 Timothy (1 Tim 1:1–19) which originally came after Hebrews in the manuscript was reinserted in to the middle of Philippians, thus dividing Phil 1:17 into two. We know this because the hypotheses for Timothy are directly after Hebrews ends (172r–173v) and the rest of 1 Timothy continues from 173r onward. On 143r, Paul is standing with his left hand out, gesturing toward the incipit of the letter in the adjacent column. There is no scroll. In his right hand he holds a book close to his chest. His facial appearance looks much more like the standard Pauline appearance of a balding head and a pointed beard, possibly even with two points. His eyes, like his hands, gaze upward to a column of text of the beginning of 1 Timothy to the right. Although his face is different, his clothing appears largely the same as the image before 1 Corinthians. He dons a flowing blue robe, this time with stripes of red on his arms and front skirt-piece. He stands barefooted and above his head, written in Greek and in red ink, the text reads “Saint Paul.” Scrawled in a different hand quite unevenly below Paul’s feet are the words in Greek: “Saint Paul. Paul the Apostle”.

It is possible that GA 1875 once also contained an image of James (47v), which may have been cut out, leaving half of the leaf. There is also a crude drawing of what may possibly be Paul at the end of the Euthaliana for 1 Corinthians (102v). Someone has attempted here to imitate the images of Peter and Paul already present in the manuscript. The figure stands with a scroll unfolding in his left hand. A few undecipherable characters are written on the scroll (only the letters βλα can be observed). If the figure is meant to be Paul, the physical depiction of his face does not match common portrayals of the apostle to the gentiles. He has hair down past his ears and no beard. His body is also wide—perhaps because he is plump, or it might be a wide robe—and he has two very small feet.

3. Extractions

When a reader picks up a manuscript, there is only one embodied presence, the reader themselves. But in the absence of the text’s author, the apostolic icon can serve as a kind of proxy for the author’s presence. His presence is made manifest by features that appear along with or as a part of the apostolic image itself. His title and name (“Saint Jude”), his clutching of a scroll or book, his writing scrawled upon an unfurled document, and above all the well-known physical features consistently used to depict these apostolic figures. All of these features direct the reader to identify the icon with the historic and traditional apostolic author, so that when a reader sees the image, they know the author is “there”.

That the image constitutes a “presence” is simply by virtue of the fact that the icons take up space that would otherwise have been blank or filled with text. In GA 1875, if the images of Peter or Paul were not present, there would only be empty space. It is not clear that the images were accounted for in the scribal preparation for the length of the text because throughout the manuscript there are other full-column gaps before the beginning of texts with no apostolic icon (e.g., before 2 John, 119v). In GA 1751, without the full-page images of the apostles, the pages would instead likely be filled with text. For GA 1751, it is more likely that that the images were accounted for in scribal preparation for two reasons. First, the images take up a whole page; it is not the same as GA 1875, where the artist may have used whatever space was available. Secondly, this would account for why Peter is embedded in the final verses of James; the icons were drawn first and then the scribe for James. We might conceptualize the presence of the author through the way the images offset text in both these manuscripts. This can happen explicitly such as in Codex G of the Vita Aesopi (Pierpont Morgan Library M.397, 22r). In this manuscript, the initial paragraph wraps around the drawing of the fabulist Aesop, who is depicted as a person with an asymmetrical head, strabismus, and possibly dwarfism on the right-hand side of the leaf. In the manuscripts under discussion here, it happens more subtly. In the case of GA 1751, the full-page images displace the texts to a completely different page. In GA 1875, the images of the apostles displace the hypotheses of the books to a previous page. We know this because when there is no apostolic icon, each epistolary hypothesis runs right into the beginning of the next sequential work (e.g., 2 Peter at 57v; 2 John at 65v; 3 John at 66v; Jude at 67v; Romans at 86r, etc.).

Of course, readers do not encounter the actual apostles, but representations of them.19 One might view the interaction between author, manuscript, and reader as a kind of text necromancy. The placement of apostolic iconography next to the texts they purportedly wrote facilitates encounters with specters of the authors themselves. The icon summons the author before the reader like the specters of Samuel through the medium at Endor before King Saul in 1 Sam 28:8-19. Saul relies on the medium to see Samuel as he is invisible to his eye but not to hers (1 Sam 28:12-14).20 Likewise, images on New Testament manuscripts facilitate spectral encounters with the purported apostolic authors.

The spectral encounters with the purported apostolic authors illuminate knowledge both about the authors and the manuscript medium itself. One illumination that occurs in these spectral encounters with apostolic authors is that when an apostolic icon is added, the placement of an embodied figure constrains and rearranges the relationship between paratextual features. In a manuscript, there may be many voices “speaking” at the same time but distinguished by colour, hand, and language. In the case of GA 1751 and 1875, there is the voice of the apostle in the letter itself, the voice of the scribe(s) who has placed titles, the voices of the Euthaliana, and any other paratextual features (honorific labels, scholia, OCS labels and ascriptions). With the presence of the apostolic figure, disparate paratexts of the manuscript can become subsumed under a single author and voice. For example, in GA 1875, Peter and Paul point and gaze toward the title of the letters they are adjacent to. Their presence causes the epistolary titles to become more than editorial ascriptions. They become authorial additions or, at least, authorial authorizations. At the same time, the scrolls in Peter and Paul’s hands carry the incipit to their epistolary works. These features thus become authorized by “Paul” or “Peter.” The placement of textual incipits on the scrolls of the apostles not only implies ownership of the larger epistolary text itself, but also the translation of the epistle into other languages. For GA 1875, some of the incipits are written in Old Church Slavonic, and their association with the immediate scrolls being written by the apostles imagine the translation of the text as coming directly from the apostolic authors. Textual translations also become authorized versions of the apostles’ letters, as though they were originally written in those languages. Therefore, these apostolic images are more than simply decorative; they are used to validate and promote traditions connected to apostolic texts that did not originate with the historical apostles themselves.

Apostolic icons can also aggregate Euthaliana around the figure of Paul. Although in parts of the manuscript tradition the hypotheses are explicitly attributed to a certain Euthalius, so far as I can tell, no explicit attribution to Euthalius or anyone else is given in the context of GA 1751.21 In this manuscript, the apparatus has been disassociated from traditions about its initial editors. The hypotheses and kephalaia for 1 Peter, Jude, and Romans, however, are encased between the images of the apostles and the beginning of the letters. Rather than following from the Euthaliana, as in GA 1875, the images of the apostles in GA 1751 precede the hypothesis and kephalaia lists for the letters attributed to Peter, Jude, and Paul. The positioning between apostle and epistle gives the impression too that the apparatus is also in some way apostolic, if not in origin then at least in authorization. The apostles claim ownership of the texts not only by the incipits written on the documents in their hands, but by preceding and in some cases gesturing toward the words of the apparatus, as in the image of Paul at 64v. Adjacent paratextual material becomes the apostles’ own. In these examples, Euthaliana are not only paratexts that shaped encounters with texts, but they are shaped by apostolic icons as well. What we find with GA 1751 and 1875 is, in Kelsie Rodenbiker’s words, “apostles in search of traditions.”22 Although Rodenbiker argues this in the context of pseudepigraphy, her insight can be applied to anonymous paratextual features such as the Euthaliana in GA 1875 as well. The Euthaliana get caught in the “orbit” around “a key figure of prestige who serves as a gravitational center,” namely the apostles (Rodenbiker 2021, p. 229).

Another phenomenon that arises when apostolic images are added into New Testament manuscripts is that the bodies of the authors can blend with the epistolary text. In the introduction to this essay, we saw with the image of Mark in GA 757 that the superimposition of text over the authorial body modified the body itself. The text is an extension of the author’s identity but also a part of the author’s body. The space between text and authorial image disappears and both text and author collapse and fold into one another. This phenomenon is evident in GA 1751. In this manuscript, the textual devices that the apostles hold—a section from a scroll or a tablet—can be perceived as frames to peer through the apostles’ bodies. The apostles’ bodies become the frames for the texts themselves. Instead of seeing flesh and bone, we encounter the incipits of their epistles. Apostles and epistles are one. The amalgamation of text and apostolic image in these medieval manuscripts also has implications for a longstanding problem among textual scholarship, namely the differentiation between text and paratext, which is a “notorious” vacuity from Genette’s initial work on paratexts (Birke and Christ 2013, p. 69). In GA 1751 and 1875, and even 757, we see a complete breakdown of space between so-called paratexts and texts, where the text becomes a major part of paratextual images. Drawing on the language of Leopold von Ranke, François Bovon argues that there are two depositions for “the great church” for Paul: “Paul survives either in the form of a document or in the form of a monument; that is to say, either as a text or as a figure” (Bovon 2009, p. 307). In GA 1751 and 1875, we find Paul as both text and figure, document and monument.

While the images of the apostles evoke their presence, they also involve the remembering of figures such as Peter, Paul, and Jude and the shaping of their collective memory. Both manuscripts in this study reproduce key features of Peter and Paul (the case of Jude being an exception here) in their depictions that more often than not matches basic features reproduced widely in other visual culture (e.g., manuscripts, art, iconography, and architecture). Readers do not need to have known depictions of Paul or Peter beforehand to understand that the images are of them; there are other paratextual titles to assist in their identification. But for readers who have encountered images of the apostles on catacomb walls, basilica mosaics, or other manuscripts and icons, they would immediately recognize who was being portrayed even before they necessarily noticed the labels and titles. The reproduction of well-known apostolic traits pulls in external traditions (hypotexts) to the manuscript. Put another way, the images draw on the previous knowledge of readers, creating an intelligible encounter between the reader who is familiar with the visual appearance of the apostle and the apostolic icon offered by the artist.

When readers recognize the apostles on these manuscripts, it reinforces for the reader the features already associated with the apostles. Recognition brings validation for the viewer that their impressions about the physical appearance of the apostle are correct. By continuing to remember Paul and Peter’s features in a particular way, these apostolic images perpetuate already established traditions of their physical appearance. Whether such physical features are historically connected to the actual apostles themselves is irrelevant. These manuscripts sustain historically-traditioned and wide-spread physical features of the apostles already present in other visual media.

But the images also augment some dominant iconographic tradition of the apostles. The image of Paul before 1 Corinthians in GA 1875 (103r) looks slightly different from its counterpart next to 1 Timothy, particularly his face. This is probably due simply to artistic inconsistency. Nevertheless, the effect is that the differing image inserts variant “memories” of Paul’s appearance into the historical tradition. Suddenly, each image represents two “parallel universes” where “Paul” exists with different bodily appearances.

So far, we have been thinking about phenomena that arise between reader and image and text in any chronological period. There is one pseudepigraphy-related phenomenon that arises expressly for contemporary readers of the image of Paul before 1 Timothy in GA 1875. It has been long argued that 1 Timothy (and the Pastoral Epistles in general, 1–2 Timothy and Titus) are pseudepigraphic literature; that is, they were not written by Paul himself but by someone writing under his name. Scholars who understand 1 Timothy to be historically connected to Paul (perhaps by a close associate) would no doubt find the image merely affirms their already held belief about the authorship of the text. Those who conceive of 1 Timothy as pseudepigraphic, however, are challenged by the presence of the apostle. The apostolic image was not placed there by the historical apostle; nevertheless, it gives the reader leave to read the text as Pauline. Two possible responses might arise from this encounter. The first is that one may acknowledge that the image is really an example of 1 Timothy’s reception, affirming the historically-traditioned perspective that Paul was the author of the Pastorals (or perhaps, minimally, at least 1 Timothy). Another, however, is to view this perpetuation of Pauline authorship as “uncritical” or “naive,” merely reinforcing tradition that some contemporary scholars would view as impossible from the data. To one scholar, the image of Paul before 1 Timothy is a witness to the longue durée. To another, it is a witness to how far historical critical scholarship has come. Despite these two alternatives, the image illumines a third way of understanding Paul’s relationship to 1 Timothy: the “Paul” associated with 1 Timothy is always constructed by the reader. That Paul is the “historical” Paul.

Functionally speaking, the images of the apostles serve as navigational tools for the reader. As Ruokkeinen and Liira have shown in relation to enlarged initials in medieval manuscripts, image-type paratextual features that stand out help to aid readers to navigate chapters, topics, and sections of a text.23 Unlike drop-capped initials, however, the apostolic images are much more sporadic. They help readers navigate to texts by certain apostles such as Peter, Jude, James, and Paul. They also help readers navigate to apostolic collections; for example, to the beginning of the Pauline letter collection. In the writing of this article, I relied on the apostolic icons to navigate digital manuscript “rooms” that use visual navigation through manuscript images. The navigational function is not only applicable for users of the physical text but also with catalogues that have been digitized. The efficacy of icons as navigational paratexts is of course dependent upon readers being able to quickly recognize the image (Wimmer 2020, p. 124). The recognizability of apostolic icons depends on the memory of readers but also adjacent titles to the images, which circumvent any potential ambivalence the image might convey despite the recognition/non-recognition of the reader.

4. Ruminations

We have seen how images on New Testament manuscripts are not just aesthetically important. 24 They are important places of knowledge: knowledge about authors, the interactions between authors and texts, the relationship and shifting dynamics between paratexts in a manuscript, and the phenomena of authorization and legitimation that arises both in ancient contexts but also among contemporary scholarly readers of texts. Apostolic icons facilitate encounters between readers and historically-traditioned versions of the apostles. They are historical insofar as they involve portrayals of the apostles that have been passed through Christian visual culture. But they are also ahistorical, insofar as they are not directly traceable to the historic persona they imitate. Because of this, we may understand the apostolic icons as arising out of the generative vitality of early Christian traditions.25 They are a kind of “re-written scripture” in the most literal sense. Rather than altering the text, however, they alter the physical space that scriptural texts occupy, the manuscript and its mis-en-page.

This study has been about what an iconographic paratext can be in some manuscripts, not what all iconographic paratexts are in the entire tradition. Just because some manuscripts with icons manifest the presence, reinforce authorial authority, and perpetuate memory, this does not mean that every time there is an image of an apostle these phenomena are at play. For example, although many medieval manuscripts of Aristotle’s philosophical works use Christian iconography, their function for the reader (apart from helping them to navigate the work) is distinct from their function in New Testament manuscripts.26

Unlike modern printed critical editions of the New Testament, handwritten manuscripts resist generalizations; they simply do not behave. As Yii-Jan Lin has brought to our attention, in New Testament textual criticism there are two alternative modes of organizing the data from manuscripts (Lin 2016). On the one hand there is the embodied and organic language often used by textual critics to describe the relationships and quality and behavior of manuscript texts (e.g., families, genealogies, stemmata, trees, branches, etc.). On the other hand, with the rise of computational methods of analysis (e.g., CBGM), there is a disembodying of the texts from their material selves (Lin 2016, p. 127). The combined trajectory of these two facets of textual criticism amount to a form of textual eugenicism. Since methods such as the CBGM are only interested in “readings, not manuscripts” (the words of Lin), the effort is focused not only on finding the purest readings leading back to an initial text while avoiding “corrupt” readings, but on disembodying the readings from their fleshly remains. The diversity, individuality, and complexity of the material bodies of the manuscripts become eclipsed by a hypothetical and artificial “Text,” which retains only a fraction of the paratextual marginalia. When these manuscript bodies are ignored, the phenomena that arise between paratextual and aesthetic features are also ignored. For example, from a critical edition point of view, miniatures such as those found on GA 1751 and 1875 also contain instances or translations of textual incipits. These are necessary and relevant data for text critical judgments. My point here is not to criticize the incredible work that is done through tools such as the CBGM method, but the exclusion of visual material found in New Testament manuscripts from the interpretation of those scriptural texts. In other words, perhaps we need to dispense with “textual criticism” and embrace “manuscript criticism.”27

Focusing on manuscripts as a whole, not just texts, helps scholars to consider things that they take for granted in their approach to such material. One thing often taken for granted is accessibility. The perception of the phenomena analyzed in this article is dependent upon ability, the ability to see the text. Recently, Emma-Jayne Graham has argued against the overemphasis on sight in archaeology and classics (Graham 2021). One of the reasons why the physical description of the manuscript images above was so detailed is to allow readers who are blind/visually impaired to access the material remains and thus offer a new perspective on how they might relate to the titles and text in these medieval manuscripts.

How did those with disabilities encounter such manuscripts? Is there something analogous for medieval readers to our alt-text descriptions available for those who use screen reading technology today? Or were readers with disabilities dependent upon sighted readers as prostheses? It is not as though we lack sources for disabled users of ancient texts and manuscripts. In certain Jewish circles, such as among those who generated the Dead Sea Scrolls, persons with visual impairments were prohibited from reading the Torah (e.g., 4Q267 5 III) otherwise they might distort it.28 Some texts even went as far as saying that the one without the ability to see and hear can never truly know how to practice the law (4QMMT B52-55).29 Cicero observed the life of his friend Diodotus, a Stoic philosopher who lived at his house for a time. Diodotus had books read to him all day long (Tusc. 5.38.113). Nicholas Horsfall shows how in Rome, so long as one had a lector (reader) and notarius (notary), “twenty-four hours per day are available for work, if their owner so wishes” (Horsfall 1995, p. 54).

What would it mean to encounter the images and texts of these manuscripts haptically? What does it feel like to run one’s hands over the images, to feel the difference between text and image, if a difference is perceptible? Sozomen notes that Didymus “the Blind,” the well-known church father who became blind in the early days of his youth, learned the alphabet by running his fingers over planks of wood where they were etched (Hist. eccl. 3.15). For what reason might he have done this except to encounter the feel of the letters on inscriptions, wax tablets, and perhaps even manuscripts? In our time, technology is beginning to enable us to do this textual work haptically. There are already scholars today who are working to make manuscripts accessible to those with low-vision or who are blind. Daniel Smith and Geoffrey Smith have been conducting experiments and research using swell paper that embosses the letters of reproduced manuscripts so that blind researchers can feel and read the text, and thus study them in a new way.30

These questions cause us to think about titles and paratextual features beyond visual encounters. What are we missing by focusing singularly on the experience of non-disabled readers, both ancient and contemporary? There is a whole world that is being missed when we ignore these different ways of encountering manuscripts, title, text, and image. Such experiences in the past may only be partially recoverable, fragmented, and incomplete, but they are no less significant to our understanding of how the material culture of the New Testament means. Given the rise of new technology, by de-privileging sighted encounters with manuscripts there is also a new opportunity to expand the epistemological horizons of the study of papyrology, philology, and the study of the New Testament material culture. If scholarship is concerned with how such manuscripts were used or can be used, then part of that concern must involve the use of these artefacts by those with disabilities.