Ox and donkey
Ox and donkey have been an integral part of the pictorial representations of the Christmas story since early Christian times .
swell
The Lukan Christmas story ( Luke 2.1–20 EU ) mentions the manger in which the newborn child is placed, but no animals. Only the pseudo-Matthew Gospel , which was probably created after 600 , an embellishment of the birth stories of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, reports in chapter 14:
“Tertia autem die nativitatis Domini egressa est Maria de spelunca et ingressa est stabulum et posuit puerum in praesepio, et bos et asinus adoraverunt eum. Tunc adimpletum est quod dictum est per Isaiam prophetam dicentem: 'Cognovit bos possessorem suum et asinus praesepe domini sui.' "
“On the third day after the birth of the Lord, Mary left the cave and went into a stable.
She put the boy in a manger, and an ox and a donkey worshiped him. What was said by the prophet Isaiah came true: 'The ox knows its owner and the donkey the manger of its master.' "
As part of the Legenda aurea (13th century), the pseudo-Matthew Gospel had a great influence on late medieval iconography .
The ox and donkey at the manger are older than Pseudo-Matthew. They appear in the earliest surviving representations of Christmas events (4th century) and are based there directly on the typological interpretation of Isaiah 1,3 EU and on the parenesis of the church fathers .
meaning
The apparently stupid animals ox and donkey , which have been part of the Christmas image since the 4th century, know their master and where they eat. They are smarter than people who, despite their reason, are blind to it. “The ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's manger; But Israel has no knowledge, my people have no understanding. ”( Isa 1,3 EU ) The church fathers interpret the motif as an allegory more specifically: The ox stands for the people of Israel and is sometimes depicted with a yoke, which symbolizes the Jewish law , and the donkey represents the heathen. Judaism, although recognizing its Lord, does not recognize him in the child, while the Gentiles turn to the right faith. Gregory of Nyssa develops the idea further: Between the Jews bound by the law and the heathen burdened by idolatry lies the Son of God who frees them from their vices. Only from the 5th century - after the Council of Ephesus - did Mary appear at the manger. From the 6th century the animals take a back seat and Mary and the child become the focus of the Christmas picture. These traditions then flow into the pseudo-Matthew Gospel in the 7th century.
literature
- Heinrich u. Margarete Schmidt: The forgotten visual language of Christian art. Beck, Munich 2007, ISBN 978-3-406-54768-3 , pp. 86-93.
- Joseph Ziegler: Ox and donkey at the manger. Biblical-patristic considerations on Is 1,3 and Hab 3,2 (LXX) . In: Münchner Theologische Zeitschrift 3,.
Web links
- Ox and donkey - photo + interpretation. In: ekd.de. Archived from the original on August 10, 2014 ; accessed on January 5, 2019 .
- Ox and donkey. In: die-bibel.de . Archived from the original on August 11, 2014 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Konstantin von Tischendorf (Latin), translated by Hans Zimmermann: Pseudo-Matthäusevangelium: Ch. 1–15: Legend of Mary. In: 12koerbe.de. January 23, 2015, accessed January 5, 2019 .
- ↑ Julia Ricker: Where do ox and donkey come from? Monumente 6, 2015, p. 53.