Evangelist

EVANGELIST. - A title, in the writings of the New Testament, of the preacher or propagator of the Gospel (v.). While the terms "Gospel" (εὐαγγέλιον) and "to evangelize" (εὐαγγελίζειν) are very frequent, the word e. (εὐαγγελιστής) is found only three times in the New Testament, and it designates precisely one who devotes himself to spreading the message of Jesus. The first time the title is applied to the deacon Philip (Acts 21:8), perhaps to distinguish him from the Apostle of the same name. The other two instances are found in the writings of St. Paul.

In his last letter the Apostle urges Timothy to be a good E. (II Tim. 4:5). In Ephesians (4:11) Paul enumerates certain gifts or charisms, each of which has its own determined purpose (apostolate, prophecy, office of the E., governance of communities, teaching); but nothing prevents the same person from having been invested with several charisms at the same time. These are not incompatible offices, but rather a greater emphasis on one particular characteristic. In relation to the Apostles in the strict sense, the E. stood in the relationship already noted by Pelagius in his commentary (ed. A. Souter, Texts and Studies, IX, Cambridge 1926, p. 364): "Every Apostle was an E.; but not every E. was an Apostle." According to Eusebius of Caesarea (Hist. eccl., V, 10, 2; CB, I, p. 450), the E. would have been the continuators of the Apostles, in the sense that those to whom the term was still attributed — a term that would soon change meaning — survived the Twelve as their younger contemporaries.

In Hippolytus (De Antichristo, 56; CB, I, p. 37) and in Tertullian (Adversus Praxean, 21) the title E. is already reserved for the authors of the four Gospels. And this will be its specific and ordinary meaning in later times.

Angelo Penna

1. Archaeology

In cemetery painting, all have recognized in a fresco of the cemetery known as that of Mark and Marcellian, painted on the back wall of a cubiculum, Jesus Christ among the four E. The Lord, of youthful appearance, nimbed, in tunic and pallium, seated on a throne, is in the act of speaking, holding open with his left hand the volume of his Law; at the right and left above are two 1; below is the scrinium. The four figures surrounding him are also in tunic and pallium; the first on the left points to a star, and so Wilpert recognizes in him St. Matthew, who speaks of its appearance (Mt. 2:2 ff.); then would come St. Mark, and on the other side Luke and John (Wilpert, Pitture, p. 230, pl. 162, 2).

On the sarcophagus of Apt (France) the four E. are in tunic and pallium; on two of them the names "Iohannes" and "Mar(eus)" can still be read; Matthew has a beard and long hair, the other three have a youthful appearance and are beardless (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, I, 54, pl. 37, 2-3).

On the sarcophagus of Concordius, bishop of Arles, containing the scene of the delivery of the Law to St. Peter, the four E. are distinguished by their names inscribed on the volume or on the book; the second from the left is "Marcus," the fifth "Matteus," the ninth "Lucanus," the eleventh "Ioannes"; Luke and Mark are bearded, Matthew and John beardless (Wilpert, ibid., I, 54 and pl. 34, 3).

Christian art expressed the four Evangelists symbolically in several ways; the most common was that taken from the prophecy of Ezekiel (1:5-13) and from the Apocalypse (4:6-8): the lion is the symbol of Mark, the calf of Luke, the man of Matthew, the eagle of John. Thus they appear in Rome, for example, in the apse mosaic of St. Pudentiana, in the triumphal arch of St. Paul, in the apse of Sts. Cosmas and Damian, in Ravenna in the mosaic of Galla Placidia, in the chapel of St. Peter Chrysologus, in the baptistery of the Arians, on the front of the apse of St. Apollinaris in Classe. In St. Vitalis, above each of the four Evangelists, the corresponding symbolic figure is represented; in Milan in St. Victor, in St. Matrona and St. Priscus near St. Maria Capua Vetere, etc. The same symbols are also found in some ivories; for example, in Milan on an evangeliary cover; in the surviving leaf of the Trivulzio diptych are the symbols of Luke and Matthew.

The four rivers that gush from the mountain on which Jesus Christ in person or under the appearance of the divine lamb is seated are "Evangelistae viva Christi flumina" at which the deer, that is the faithful, quench their thirst (St. Paulinus of Nola, ep. 32, 10: PL 61, 330); a fine example is offered on one of the sides of the African silver capsella, now in the Sacred Museum of the Vatican Library (G. B. De Rossi, La capsella argentea africana, Rome 1889, p. 30).

The four Evangelists were symbolized as sheep, in a fragment of a sarcophagus slab in the Museum of the Baths. The divine lamb is in the center, on the mountain, from which the four rivers gush. From the right two sheep approach; on the first is written "Marcus", on the second "Ioan(n)" and Evangelist. In the missing part on the left there must have been the other two sheep with the names of Matthew and Luke (Wilpert, ibid., I, p. 54, pl. 36, 1).

Singular is the symbolic representation of the Evangelists on a mutilated sarcophagus lid from Spoleto, today in the Lateran Museum: from the right a boat with a pilot and three beardless rowers; the pilot who sits in the stern in tunic and pallium is Jesus, as the iconographic type and the inscription IESVS show; the three rowers are indicated by the names: MARCVS, LVCAS, and (IOH)ANNES; in the missing part MATHEVS must have come first, and Wilpert adds PETRVS because he sees in the scene the representa-

depiction of what is narrated in Lk. 5:4-6 (G. B. De Rossi, Bull. di arch. crist., 2nd series, 2 [1871], p. 123, pl. VII).

Enrico Josi

2. Art

With regard to the symbolic representations of the four Evangelists, which appear from the earliest centuries of Christian art and which have been mentioned above, it should be observed how they continued to be used throughout the Middle Ages, often becoming a decorative element, also rendered in sculpture, on the facades of Romanesque and Gothic churches (S. Rufino in Assisi, S. Pietro in Tuscania, S. Trophime in Arles, the cathedral of Chartres, etc.). On the facade of the cathedral of Orvieto the symbols of the Evangelists are in bronze (14th century); on that of Siena in marble (14th century). A simultaneous depiction not of the symbols, but of the four Evangelists themselves, appears first in the East. The "golden altarpiece" of the basilica of St. Mark in Venice, a masterpiece of Byzantine goldsmithing executed in its oldest part in Constantinople in 876, has at its center Christ, surrounded by four enamel roundels with the Evangelists, who appear there without their symbols. The pendentives of the main dome of the Venetian Basilica also have depictions of the four Evangelists as musicians.

In the late 14th century and the 15th century, simultaneous depictions of the Evangelists and their symbols become more frequent in the triangular compartments of groin vaults; thus Spinello Aretino frescoed them in S. Miniato al Monte in Florence on the vault of the sacristy. Sometimes they are shown in the act of teaching, each one to a Doctor of the Church, as in the frescoes of the vault in the chapel painted by Masolino in the church of S. Clemente in Rome. In the Vatican Palace, the "blessed" Angelico painted the four Evangelists in 1450 in the triangular compartments of the vault of the chapel of Nicholas V, Benozzo Gozzoli in 1452 in those of the right nave of the church of S. Francesco in Montefalco, and Pinturicchio in 1485 in those of the Bufalini Chapel in S. Maria in Aracoeli in Rome. Typical is the depiction of the four Evangelists in an altarpiece by Antonio and Giovanni da Murano, preserved in the church of S. Pantaleone in Venice, where they assist at the Coronation of the Virgin.

Lorenzo Ghiberti adorned four compartments of his first door for the Florentine Baptistery with the Evangelists; Luca della Robbia followed him in the bronze door of the old sacristy in S. Maria del Fiore.

In the Pazzi Chapel in Florence there are four terracotta medallions with the Evangelists by the same Luca della Robbia. The very rich musicians of the vault of the chapel of St. Helena in the basilica of S. Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome, executed in 1508 according to the cartoons of Baldassare Peruzzi, have the representation of the Evangelists in the four corner roundels. In the internal mosaic decoration of the dome over the Vatican Basilica of St. Peter in Rome, executed at the end of the 16th century according to the designs of Cavaliere d'Arpino, the four pendentives were adorned with immense medallions with the E., each accompanied by its respective symbol. Later the four E. were often painted in various Baroque churches on the pendentives of the domes, as can be seen, for example, in the church of S. Andrea della Valle in Rome in the frescoes painted there in 1623 by Domenichino.

The iconography of the four individual E., however, did not arise from these simultaneous depictions of all four Saints; it was formed and established much earlier for each E. separately, preceding in time their simultaneous depictions. See on this subject also the entries relating to the four saint E. - See plates LVIII-LIX.

Witold Wehr