Ephesians concludes with a stirring exhortation to remain steadfast in love, faith, and hope, using the powerful metaphor of the ‘Armour of God’. The elements of a Roman soldier’s outfit are enumerated one by one as symbols of the internal fortification that Christians might need to fend off the devil, such as the ‘breastplate of righteousness’. These are not intended for ‘flesh and blood’ battles. Instead, God fortifies faithful souls with a panoply of spiritual defences that transcend arenas of mortal combat.

The three artworks explored here all feature poetic or artful, rather than military, armour. The Greek word for ‘armour’ used in Ephesians is panoplia, from which we get the English word ‘panoply’ (Muddiman 2006: 287). The term can mean defensive weaponry, ceremonial ornaments, or a complete set of accessories.

Mirror Shield Project employs defensive arms (shields), making it most directly comparable to the martial metaphor in Ephesians. In contrast, the Arma Christi emphasizes the notion of arms as a complete set of accessories, showcasing the toolkit of Christ’s Passion and victorious Resurrection. Albrecht Dürer’s engraving represents the medieval European tradition of heraldry, in which shields and helmets were used as ornaments of honour.

The threefold connotations of armour as defensive weaponry, ornament, and toolkit are used to great metaphorical effect in Ephesians. On one level, believers are called to prepare for what sounds like a physical battle against the devil’s missiles, whilst also ‘tooling up’ for the spiritual fight through prayer. On another level, the author asks the faithful to display their faith openly, like an ornament on a shield, by declaring the word of God.

The ‘Armour of God’ metaphor equates military might with unwavering nonviolence. This subversion of armorial norms is a crucial element in all three artworks.

The visual tradition of the Arma Christi allows viewers to contemplate the abuses that Christ endured, whilst acting as a reminder that his bodily sacrifice utterly subverted the earthly dynamics of power: the tools that caused Christ’s death become his ornaments of victory.

In Dürer’s fictitious coat of arms, the paradoxical elevation of a lowly rooster above a noble lion signals that this is an open-ended heraldic design for anyone and everyone, inviting viewers to think allegorically and consider their own internal, spiritual heraldry.

Mirror Shield Project uses inversion as a method of peaceable combat, reflecting violence and authority back on itself. The glistening surfaces of the shields as they snake across the landscape pit the enduring beauty of nature and human artfulness against the utilitarian weapons of the state.

It may be tempting to seek one’s own, individual sense of comfort in the Armour of God, but the rest of Ephesians makes it clear that this is a collective armour, under which all of humanity may shelter (Muddiman 2006: 285). Mirror Shield Project is also a collaborative endeavour; Cannupa Hanska Luger created an instructional video about how to make a mirrored shield, inviting people far and wide to participate in the performance (Luger 2024). Likewise, Dürer’s armorial design transforms the elitist language of heraldry into an open-ended artwork for any viewer. Just as the author of Ephesians uses emotive rhetoric to inspire the letter’s addressees to equip themselves with the word of God, so Luger and Dürer encourage their viewers to adopt and adapt their designs, thus perpetuating the subversive, peaceful power of art.

Another temptation is to assume that the Armour of God is a special metaphor intended for a ‘chosen’ community of the faithful. But the central element of the Arma Christi, the cross of the crucifixion, is a reminder that God’s armour is even more radically inclusive than this. The cross is a universal coat of arms, which offers redemption as much to those who trust in it as to those who hammer nails into its surface. Similarly, Mirror Shield Project invites all of us to self-reflect and seek redemption for the violation of nature by humankind, even those directly assailing the activists from above.

Ephesians conveys a more apocalyptic mood than earlier Pauline letters, suggesting that the entire cosmos is locked in a spiritual war between good and evil. It may have been written after Paul's lifetime, using his epistolic authority to help soothe an anxious church (Atkins 2023: 43). In times of crisis, then and now, it is essential to remember that the Armour of God is not meant to fortify its wearers against temporal, earthly opponents, but rather against the dark ‘powers’ that seek to inhibit their love and their imaginations.

References

Atkins, Christopher S. 2023. ‘Textualizing Pauline Revelation: Self-Referentiality, Reading Practices, and Pseudepigraphy in Ephesians’, Harvard Theological Review, 116.1: 24–43

Luger, Cannupa Hanska. 2024. ‘Mirror Shield Project’, available at https://www.cannupahanska.com/social-engagement/mirror-shield-project [accessed 25 May 2024]

Muddiman, John. 2006. The Epistle to the Ephesians (London: Continuum)