A strange constellation of objects floats in the flattened space around Christ’s crucified body: hammer and nails; discarded dice; a bloodied dagger; flails; a classical column bound with rope; a crowing rooster; disembodied hands—some furtively exchanging coins, others clasped together in prayer or guilty evasion.

These untethered symbols are the Arma Christi, the arms of Christ, a medieval pictorial tradition in which the story of Christ’s Passion is distilled into an array of iconic motifs, rather like a series of deeply loaded, devotional emojis.

But this is a paradoxical armoury, featuring ‘weapons’ of limited use in battle. Instead, Christ’s arsenal is stocked with all the objects that contributed to his own torture and persecution. The central item is the cross of the crucifixion, on which he was killed. The daggers, swords, flails, and nails are not readied for physical combat against Christ’s enemies, but rather glisten with his own blood. Little vignettes are displayed like war trophies, but instead of celebrating moments of triumph, they represent instances of defeat, such as Judas’s kiss of betrayal and Pontius Pilate washing his hands. Like the ‘Armour of God’ described in Ephesians 6:10–17, the arms of Christ are metaphorical, readied to strengthen one’s internal resolve in spiritual, not physical, warfare.

Christ’s sacrifice subverts earthly notions of power and might by defeating death through love, forgiveness, and faith. Viewers of Roberto Oderisi’s devotional painting could contemplate each symbol of the Passion as a reminder of Christ’s spiritual endurance in the face of torture and execution, thus fortifying themselves through prayer.

Similarly, Ephesians culminates in a rousing call for its addressees to stand firm in their faith, girded-up internally by the immaterial word of God rather than the material arms of earthly combat.

References

Cooper, Lisa H., and Andrea Denny-Brown (eds). 2014. The Arma Christi in Medieval and Early Modern Material Culture. With a critical edition of ‘O Vernicle’ (Farnham: Ashgate)