The Return from Egypt

‘Christ on the Cold Stone’ is the name given to a particular representation of Christ which enjoyed popularity in the piety of late medieval northern Europe. Such representations show Christ sitting on a stone, stripped, crowned with thorns, and marked with the wounds of his flagellation, awaiting his crucifixion. In this particular version, a skull by his left foot indicates that Christ is at Golgotha (‘which means the place of a skull’; Matthew 27:33). A heavy and tightly woven crown of thorns binds his head, while his hands and feet are bound by a sinuous rope.

Of course, the representation of a forlorn Christ on a bleak rock is not authorized by the Gospels, for in their telling of the story of Christ’s Passion there is no such pause in the proceedings. Instead, the representation is an attempt to summarise the Passion, as art historian Émile Mâle puts it, and indeed to summarise the meaning of Christ’s life taken as a whole: for it is as a prisoner that Christ most truly takes on the human condition in which we are ourselves tightly bound by our histories, circumstances, needs, desires, and longings. 

That Christ should end his earthly life as a prisoner is fitting, then, for the meaning of that life is in his sharing in the human condition, becoming a prisoner for the sake of prisoners. In many depictions of the child who travels from Egypt towards Israel, the child already sees or senses that his path lies finally towards Jerusalem (‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you!’; Matthew 23:37), and thus contemplates the nature of his calling—not from bondage to the freedom of the promised land, as at the first exodus, but, at this second exodus, from safety to bondage.

Only for us, for whom this journey is undertaken, do the words, ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son’ (v.15), resonate with the joy of that first and original calling. For Christ, the calling is to the cold stone.

El Greco’s Joseph defies the conventions observed in many depictions, in which a decrepit figure plays a merely supporting role in the doings of the Holy Family. Here Joseph takes centre stage, alone with Jesus, and he is a tall, lean man in his prime—the better to fulfil the responsibility he bears, for it is he who is instructed to, ‘Rise, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel’ (Matthew 2:20).

Joseph, carrying a crook, shepherds the child on the journey. They make their way away from the city in the background, Toledo, El Greco’s home in his exile from Crete. However, this journey from exile is not joyous or even simply arduous, as any such journey might be—especially for those who, like these two, go barefoot. Joseph’s downward and humble gaze seems not so much outward as inward. He appears preoccupied, perhaps troubled; and he draws the child into his protective embrace. The child looks out at us rather solemnly and reaches out to his father—seeking his father’s protection, or perhaps offering a reassuring touch (or even reaching prematurely for the crook?). In any case, father and son are bound together in a solidarity of ‘tender sadness’ (Bronstein, 1991: 66) and mutual concern as they make their way under that threatening, glowering, sombre sky—as if both already sense the end of the journey on which they are set, hinted at by the blood-red robe of a martyr worn by the child.

And yet, in curious contrast to the gravity of their circumstances, there is a joyous and gravity-defying circus of tumbling cherubs above Joseph’s head, ready to garland him with laurels, wreaths, and flowers—tokens of heavenly esteem. And Joseph, Jesus, and the cherubs are all bathed in a bright light, which renders even more stark the contrast with the dark scene through which they move. The cause of the celebration is clear enough, for even as he leads the child towards Israel, Jerusalem, and death, Joseph is gloriously fulfilling his great responsibility to shepherd the Good Shepherd.

References

Bronstein, L. 1991. El Greco (Domenicos Theotocopoulos) (London: Thames and Hudson)

Joseph carefully lifts the Christ child into a boat as his mother oversees his embarkation. The boatman holds the boat steady against the current while his oar directs our eyes towards the sinister clouds which loom overhead. These clouds support the four cherubs who in turn support the weighty cross, which Jesus alone glimpses—awkwardly craning his neck to see what is above (and before) him. His parents are insouciant; yet the scene, with its clouds casting deep shadows, is full of foreboding. The boatman could be Charon, ferrying souls across the Styx. And the mournful donkey—already loaded for the fateful crossing—is not only marked on his back with a cross which echoes the one in the sky; he also refers us forward to the first donkey actually mentioned in Matthew (21:2)—the one which will carry Jesus into Jerusalem to face his Passion.

It is sometimes suggested that it is the age of the child in the picture which determines that this scene is the return from Egypt and not the more traditional depiction of the flight. But it is surely the picture’s ominous under- and over-tones which really settle the matter. The words of the Prophet Hosea ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’ (Hosea 11:1) are found by Matthew to be fulfilled in Christ’s return to Israel (2:15). Yet, in Hosea this is a joyful exclamatory description of God’s great deeds at the exodus, but for Christ the calling out of Egypt is a call to the cross which looms over him. Israel is called from bondage and suffering in Egypt to the freedom of the promised land; Christ is called from safety in Egypt to bondage and suffering in Israel.

In his dream, Joseph hears an angel declare that ‘those who sought the child’s life are dead’ (v.20). The angel spoke the truth, but not the whole truth. For Christ the fulfilment of the prophecy of his calling out of Egypt is not a joyous, but a solemn moment.