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Early Christian Signs & Symbols (cat. 12-15)

12 Gem with the Good Shepherd Brown chalcedony Early Christian, 5th century AD Height: 7/8 inches (2.2 cm.) Private Collection

This gemstone engraved with an image of the Good Shepherd and the bucolic scenes on our chariot fitting (cat. 1) illustrate the pastoral origins of Early Christian imagery. Such scenes were part of the common artistic language drawn on by both Early Christian and pagan artists. The metaphor of a king or deity as shepherd leading his flock is a very ancient one, as is the image of a shepherd carrying his sheep over his shoulders. To the early Christians the meaning was clear, for Jesus himself said, "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep" (John 10:11). In the parable of Luke 15:3-7, Jesus relates that when the Good Shepherd has found the lost sheep, "he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing", an image according well with the gem. Although shepherds in bucolic settings were common in pagan decorative and funerary arts of the third century (cat. 4), reflecting the concerns for the idyllic Golden Age and the afterlife, the traditional image of the shepherd was appropriated by Christian iconographers and endowed with new meaning, as a reference to Jesus. Gems engraved with this image date from the late third to fifth centuries and were often inscribed with explicitly Christian symbols or inscriptions.

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