2. The Good Shepherd
The image of Christ as the Good Shepherd is rooted in the Gospels. But even before the Christian era, a classic motif of Greek sculpture was the moskophoros, or “the bearer of the calf. The original sculpture of the moskophoros, considered a masterpiece of Archaic Greek sculpture, has been dated back to the year 570 BC, and was sculpted by an anonymous artist in Attica. The Romans adopted this familiar figure from the ancient world’s iconographic repertoire, decorating their villas with pastoral scenes of shepherds and their flocks. These images were easily adapted to represent Christ, the Good Shepherd who gives his life for his sheep. The image shown here can be seen in the Catacombs of St. Callixtus, on the Appian Way outside Rome.
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