WOMAN OF CANAAN. - The woman of Tyre, called C. in Mt. 15:21-28, and a Syrophoenician in Mk. 7:24-30, who implored and obtained from Jesus the deliverance of her daughter from the demon that tormented her, was rarely represented in ancient Christian art.
Although few female figures have been as much a subject of disagreement among interpreters as this one, who was given as rivals the woman with the hemorrhage, the adulteress, Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, the great sinner, etc., it may be considered very probable that C. must be recognized only in the well-defined figure of a woman who, standing and slightly bowed, receives on her veiled hands the right hand of the Lord to kiss it as a sign of thanksgiving. Only the sister of Lazarus received a similar attitude in a limited number of sarcophagi, where moreover any confusion with C. is excluded by the very scene of the Resurrection in which she appears. It does not seem, therefore, that the other figures of women, kneeling with hands outstretched toward the Lord, can be identified with C., and all the less so in that they, in several cases, receive the imposition of the hand from Christ.
Judging from the known monuments, C. was never represented in the catacomb frescoes; she appears, instead, in some sculptures of the second half of the 4th century; there C. represents in the female sphere what the Centurion symbolizes in the male sphere; that is, both depict the first Gentiles converted to the faith in Christ. Since this occurs in the midst of a specific group of scenes that precisely emphasize the doctrine of Christ as a pledge of triumph over death, it appears that the motif did not last long. Barely known to the other branches of early Christian art, C. could hardly be identified with the kneeling woman in the mosaic of S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna; here it must rather be a question of the Woman with the Hemorrhage or of the Great Sinner.
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Luciano De Bruyne