The Healing of the Paralytic in the Dura Europos Church (Yale Art Museum Catalogue) may be any one of the paralytics healed by Christ, but the baptismal context and the water theme of its adjacent image of Peter Walking on Water, suggest it is rather likely the healing of the paralytic at the Pool of Bethsaida, which finds representation in the second image from the Ottonian Codex Egberti.
Today’s Gospel Reading about Christ and the Canaanite Woman has been rarely depicted, and although the inclusion of a dog or dogs typically helps in identification. This, the earliest, from an Ottonian manuscript, relies on an inscription to identify the woman.
In the Gospel Reading, Matthew 12.38-50, Jesus responds to the request of the scribes and Pharisees for a sign by referring to the story of the prophet Jonah.
Today’s Gospel reading tells of Christ Cleansing the Temple from the Gospel of Matthew and coming immediately upon his Entry into Jerusalem, followed by his Healing of the blind and the lame in the Temple. As pictured above at the Monastery of Saint John, it appears a few panels after Christ’s Baptism and thus at the start of his public ministry, and therefore more precisely the cleansing recounted in the Gospel of John. Christ approaches the Temple, represented by the frame of a broad doorway, from the left, and the three wavy lines above his head to the right represent the scourge, a detail exclusive to the Gospel of John.
Today’s Gospel tells of the Last Judgment, as the separation of the sheep from the goats followed by Jesus enumerating the first six works of mercy. Here the parable of the welcoming of the sheep and the rejection of the goats appears on what was once the lid of a sarcophagus.
In today’s Gospel reading, we read about the Temptation of Christ. A rather dramatic story that nevertheless did not receive visual representation until well into the Middle Ages. Among the earliest, this illumination from the Stuttgart Psalter (folio 107v) illustrates Psalm 90, coming between verses 11 and 12.
[11] For he hath given his angels charge over thee; to keep thee in all thy ways. Quoniam angelis suis mandavit de te, ut custodiant te in omnibus viis tuis.
[12] In their hands they shall bear thee up: lest thou dash thy foot against a stone. In manibus portabunt te, ne forte offendas ad lapidem pedem tuum.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus instructs us not to make a show of our fasting and to lay up our treasures in heaven, not on earth. These words form part of the Sermon on the Mount. Christ teaching is among one of the earliest motifs of Christian art, but mostly without a specific narrative context, and of course, from the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes figure most prominently. Here the Sermon on the Mount painted by French Catholic painter, James Tissot (1836-1902).
This week the Gospel begins with Jesus prophesying his Passion, but continues with the healing of the blind man as Jesus comes to Jericho. The Gospels recount several healings from blindness – the man born blind in John 9, whom Jesus heals with clay and instructs to wash in the pool at Siloe; two blind men in Galilee in Matthew 9; the healing of the blind man in Bethsaida in Mark 8; and the healing of the blind man as Jesus leaves Jericho in Mark 10, who is named Bartimeus. Understandably, distinguishing representations of the various Gospel healings from another can be tricky and may depend not on visual clues, such as a the water for the man born blind or the pair of blind men in Matthew. In the image above, from the Ottonian manuscript, the Codex Egberti, you can read the text that precedes the story in the Gospel of Luke.
This week we read the Parable of the Sower. This subject for representation, although possible intended by the 4th century engraving above, did not become common theme until the 16th century, when its bucolic potential was first realized. Images of the sower would culminate in the 19th century, first with paintings by Millet, then by those of Van Gogh.
Nihil sub sole novum 
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