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Author Topic: Marian devotion in ancient coin  (Read 1529 times)

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Offline antvwala

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Marian devotion in ancient coin
« on: April 14, 2011, 04:11:28 am »
Marian devotion in ancient coin

The first coin I've found that it appears in the image of Mary of Nazareth is a rare solid Leo VI of the mint of Constantinople, S.1273.
It's really the first? Do you know any older? Can you tell me something more than the image represented? Why then is a Marian image?

The first image of Christ on a coin, I believe, is a solid of Justinian II, second reign (705-711), Sear 1413. Then it seems to me that the image of Christ disappears from the coinage, until Michael III, over a hundred years later. It 's so?

Thanks

Antvwala

Offline Abu Galyon

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Re: Marian devotion in ancient coin
« Reply #1 on: April 14, 2011, 11:19:10 am »
The first image of Christ on a coin, I believe, is a solid of Justinian II, second reign (705-711), Sear 1413. Then it seems to me that the image of Christ disappears from the coinage, until Michael III, over a hundred years later. It 's so?

Sear 1248, usually attributed to the first reign of Justinian II, is the earliest image of Christ on a coin that I’m aware of. Soon after Justinian II's murder Leo III's reign begins, the first iconoclastic emperor. And though the seventh ecumenical council (Nicea, 787) defends the veneration of icons and orders their restoration where removed, the iconoclastic controversy continues until the accession of Michael III (with his mother Theodora as regent) and the election of Methodius as Patriarch in 843 (“The Triumph of Orthodoxy”). Because iconoclasm was such a bitterly divisive issue, one wouldn’t expect to find any images of Christ (or the BVM, or any other saint) on coins struck between about 717 and 843. 

Bill R

Offline antvwala

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Re: Marian devotion in ancient coin
« Reply #2 on: April 14, 2011, 04:12:41 pm »
Thank you, Bill!

Antvwala

Offline Obryzum

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Re: Marian devotion in ancient coin
« Reply #3 on: April 14, 2011, 08:27:59 pm »
Actually, the first known image of Christ on a coin was much earlier, in the middle of the 5th century, more than 200 years before the Justinian II first reign gold coins.  Many people are unaware of it because it was a ceremonial issue commemorating Marcian's marriage to Pulcheria, and not a coin for general circulation.  There is only one known surviving specimen:

http://www.hunterian.gla.ac.uk/collections/museum/coins/collections/treasures/marcian.shtml

Offline antvwala

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Re: Marian devotion in ancient coin
« Reply #4 on: April 15, 2011, 03:32:52 am »
Thank you, Obryzum. :)
Antvwala

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: Marian devotion in ancient coin
« Reply #5 on: April 15, 2011, 04:45:55 pm »
That's only twenty-odd years after Mary was first officially hailed as Theotokos (God-bearing), at a synod held in Rome in 430. The title had been growing in popularity, but many theologians were unhappy, insisting, for instance, that Mary should also be called Anthropotokos (Man-bearing) to balance it, or that she should be called Christotokos (Christ-Bearing). Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, preferred Theodochos, God-receiving. He took the view that the divine and human elements in Christ remained separate, and that Mary was the mother of Jesus' humanity, but not of his divinity, which rather ruled out Theotokos. He was opposed by Cyril of Alexandria, a rather unscrupulous character who resented the influence of Constantinople, and held that the divine and human natures were merged in Christ, hence the synod, which he called to discredit Nestorius.

From what little I know about him, he was rather strict about keeping women in their place, and quarreled with Pulcheria. He was condemned as a heretic at the First Council of Ephesus in 431, but his followers flourished in Persia, and the Nestorian church at its height reached as far as China. Since Pulcheria was so powerful, you can see why she'd have been keen to emphasise Marian devotion!
Robert Brenchley

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Offline antvwala

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Re: Marian devotion in ancient coin
« Reply #6 on: April 16, 2011, 01:10:23 pm »
Thank you, Robert.
Do you know coins with Mary's image prior of the solidus of Leo VI?

Antvwala

Offline Robert_Brenchley

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Re: Marian devotion in ancient coin
« Reply #7 on: April 16, 2011, 04:53:30 pm »
No, but I've got no refs covering the Byzantine period.
Robert Brenchley

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Offline antvwala

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Re: Marian devotion in ancient coin
« Reply #8 on: April 19, 2011, 06:03:17 am »
Thanks.
And in merovingian coins? I have read that they are Christ's heads in merobingian coins....

Antvwala

Offline wileyc

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Re: Marian devotion in ancient coin
« Reply #9 on: April 19, 2011, 11:43:47 pm »
Coinage of the duchy of Benevento in southern Italy has solidi and tremisses that imitate Justinian II with a bust of a 'young' Christ on the reverse attributed to Duke Gisulf I (689-706).

cw

Offline antvwala

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Re: Marian devotion in ancient coin
« Reply #10 on: April 20, 2011, 06:07:43 am »
Thanks.
That is a tremissis of Agilulfus (mint Aventicum) that Lucia Travaini thinks to have a Christ's bust. I think that it is an imitative coin of Focas.

Antvwala

Ref. Lucia Travaini, La zecca merovingia di Avenches e le prime monete con il voldo di Cristo, Quaderni Ticinesi, XXXII, 2003

 

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