Images: Wikimedia; Web Gallery of Art
Clavis number: ECMA 138
Other descriptors: Lateran sarcophagus
Location: Museo Storico del Tesoro della Basilica di San Pietro, Vatican City
Accession number: not provided
Category: sarcophagi
Related literature: Acts of Paul, Acts of Peter, Testament of Job
Featured characters and locations: Abraham (patriarch), Daniel (prophet), Isaac (patriarch), Jesus Christ, Job, Paul (apostle), Peter (apostle), Pontius Pilate.
1. DESCRIPTION
Material: white marble
Size: 55.5 × 95.75 × 56.75 inches (sarcophagus); 15.75 × 85.5 × 195.9 inches (lid)
Images: The sarcophagus has two registers, or rows, of five niches depicting canonical and noncanonical scenes. The upper middle zone depicts a young Jesus with two apostles, Peter and Paul, by his side with a scroll in his left hand, and he is “enthroned,” or standing on top of, the bearded personification of Caelus (the sky) with the cloth of heaven, signifying Jesus’ rule over Roman mythology of Caelus: Jesus is the ruler of Heaven. The upper right two niches depict the prosecution of Jesus Christ by two soldiers before Pilate. The upper left niches depict the sacrifice of Isaac and the arrest of Peter, who appears with two guards.
The lower column scenes begin in the middle, with Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. To the right of Jesus’ niche is Daniel between the lions, and then Paul being led to his martyrdom by two soldiers (its location being by the Tiber as indicated by a clump of reeds). To the left of the Jesus niche is the Fall of Man with Adam and Eve, where the serpent and the tree are present. To the outer left is Job sitting on a pile of refused with his wife and a friend who are standing. His wife appears to be offering him bread while holding her nose, likely due to the stench of the refuse. The spandrels feature allegorical lambs in various biblical scenes (three Hebrews in the fiery furnace, Peter striking the rock, the multiplication of loaves and fishes, the baptism of Christ, Moses receiving the law, and the raising of Lazarus). At either end of the sarcophagus appear Erotes harvesting grapes and wheat. They appear to be children; the images depict Roman style art converted into a Christian context.
Inscription (on upper edge): IUN•BASSUS•V•C•QUI VIXIT ANNIS•XLII MEN•II•IN IPSA PRAEFECTURA URBI NEOFITUS IIT AD DEUM•VII•KAL•SEPT•EUSEBIO ET YPATIO COSS.; “Junius Bassis, cir clarissimus, forty-two years and two months old, performing the duties of city prefect went newly baptized to God on 25 August during the consulate of Eusebius and Hypatius.”
Date: 359 CE
Provenance: Found in 1597 or 1595 under the confessio of St. Peter’s Basilica. More fragments with inscriptions were found in 1940–1943 during excavations under St. Peter’s. The original still resides at St. Peter’s, where it cannot be photographed of filmed. A replica is presented at the Vatican in Rome.
2. RELATION TO APOCRYPHAL LITERATURE
The niche of Job with his wife, Sitis, offering bread and a third person is related to the Testament of Job 5–6. Job describes his wife buying three loaves of bread for the cost of cutting off her hair, deceived by the trickery of Satan (5:17–23). Sitis looks for Job outside of the city, as he is ill and left the city out of fear and sickness, plague -tricken with worms on his body, sitting on a “dunghill” for seven years in the cold air (5:6–11), waiting for the Lord to give his next commands to him. The third person in the scene may be Satan, as Test. Job. 5 indicates he gleefully sold the bread to Sitis in order to follow her to find Job so that he could beg him to speak ill of God and thereby win his challenge against God (6:26–30).
The arrest of Paul is reported in the various accounts of Paul’s martyrdom, the earliest being found in the Acts of Paul.
Caesar locked them in prison and tortured them—the ones whom he used to love very much. He also sent word that the soldiers of the great king should be sought out, and he issued an edict to the effect that all those found to be Christians should be killed. Among the many, Paul was also brought in chains. All his fellow prisoners paid attention to him and to what Paul answered, so Caesar understood that he was the leader of the armies. (Acts of Paul 14:2–3; trans. David L. Eastman, The Ancient Martyrdom Accounts of Peter and Paul [WGRW 39; Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015)
The arrest of Peter is reported in the various accounts of Peter’s martyrdom, the earliest being found in the Acts of Peter.
While Peter was saying these things and all the brothers and sisters were weeping, four soldiers arrested and took him to Agrippa. Agrippa, on account of his illness, ordered him to be crucified. (Acts of Peter 38:7; trans. Eastman).
3. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bovini, Giuseppe, and Hugo Brandenburg. Repertorium der christliche Sarkophage I: Rum und Ostia. 2 vols. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1967 (vol. 1, no. 680).
Cameron, Alan. “The Funeral of Junius Bassus.” Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik 139 (2002): 288–92.
Cartlidge, David R., and J. Keith Elliott. Art and the Christian Apocrypha. London and New York: Routledge, 2001 (pp. 143–44, 170–71).
Dijkstra, Roald. “Apocryphal Legends about the Apostles in Early Christian Art and Poetry: A Survey.” Pages 85–112 in The Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles in Latin Christianity. Proceedings of the First International Summer School on Christian Apocryphal Literature (ISCAL), Strasbourg, 24–27 June 2012. Edited by Els Rose. Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. (p. 107).
Dresken-Weiland, Jutta. “The Role of Peter in Early Christian Art: Images from the 4th to the 6th Century.” Pages 115–34 in The Early Reception an Appropriation of the Apostle Peter (60–800 CE): The Anchors of the Fisherman. Edited by Roald Dijkstra. Euhormos 1. Leiden: Brill, 2020 (pp. 116–20).
———. “Christian Sarcophagi from Rome.” Pages 39–55 in The Routledge Handbook of Christian Art. Edited by Robin M. Jensen and Mark D. Ellison. New York: Routledge, 2018.
Elsner, Jas. “Inventing Christian Rome: The Role of Early Christian Art.” Pages 71–99 in Rome the Cosmopolis. Edited by Catharine Edwards and Greg Woolf. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
Elsner, Jas. “Image and Rhetoric in Early Christian Sarcophagi: Reflections on Jesus’ Trial.” Pages 359–86 in Life, Death and Representation: Some New Work on Roman Sarcophagi. Edited by Jas Elsner and Janet Huskinson. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011.
Gerke, Friedrich. Der Sarkophag des Iunius Bassus. Berlin: Gebr. Mann, 1936.
Himmelmann, Nikolaus. Typologische Untersuchungen an römischen Sarkophagreliefs des 3. und 3. Jahrhunderts n. Chr. Mainz: Zabern, 1973 (pp. 13–28).
Löx, Markus. “The Death of Peter: Anchoring an Image in the Context of Late antique Representations of Martyrdom.” Pages 135–71 in The Early Reception and Appropriation of the Apostle Peter (60–800 CE): The Anchors of the Fisherman. Edited by Roald Dijkstra. Euhormos 1. Leiden: Brill, 2020 (esp. 155–63).
Malbon, Elizabeth Struthers. The Iconography of the Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus: Neofitus Iit Ad Deum. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Weitzmann, Kurt, ed. Age of Spirituality: Late Antique and Early Christian Art, Third to Seventh Century. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1979 (pp. 427–428).
4. ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Dick, Bernard. “Dogmatic Images.” A History of Christian Art.
Farber, Allen. “Early Christian Manuscripts: Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus: Christianity becomes legal.” Khan Academy.
“Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.” Khan Academy (includes video).
“Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.” Wikipedia.
“Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus (CIL VI, 32004).” Judaism and Rome.
Smarthistory. “Sarcophagus of Junius Bassus.” Youtube.
Entry created by Sarah Clarke, under the supervision of Tony Burke, York University, 31 March 2021.