SUSANNA. - Protagonist of a story that forms part of the complex of biographical traditions about the prophet Daniel (v.), daughter of Hilkiah (which is usually connected with that of Jer. 29:3), wife of the Israelite Joakim in Babylon, praised for beauty and virtue.
The name appears in the Septuagint as Σουσάννα from the Hebrew šūfan "lily"; perhaps it is an Aramaized form in -nā', while the flower was šūfantā'.
The tragic affair in which she found herself closely reflects certain special conditions of Judaism in exile. The various deported groups, except as regarded their political position as subjects and tributaries and their business relations with outsiders, which were to be regulated by local law, governed themselves with their own laws and leaders. Among the Jews the "elders," already authoritative in past tradition, ended up being in fact the true guides of the exiled communities, as is evident from Ezekiel (8:1; 14:1; 20:1) and from Jeremiah, who reproaches them for their abuses (29:22-23).
Two elders governed precisely the community to which Joakim belonged, who, being well-off, placed his house at the disposal of the two leaders for hearings. In the afternoon his wife S. would go into the garden attached to the house with some maidservants; on that occasion the two elders observed her and ended up becoming enamored of her. Having discovered each other, they made an agreement with the precise intention of giving vent to their passion. The opportunity was offered one day by the fact that, S. having sent the maidservants away to take a bath, she found herself alone; immediately the two came near her and put the alternative to her: either to yield, or to be brought by them to trial with an infamous accusation, of which they would give sworn testimony; the removal of the maidens would have been a good indication against her. S. perceived the danger, but declared that she preferred to die without having offended God. And she cried out. The elders cried out too; people came running. But the two formulated the accusation: the woman was sinning with a young man, who, surprised, had fled swiftly. S. was brought to trial, condemned to death for adultery and led to execution. At this point there occurred the sudden change of scene: the youth Daniel, who was among the crowd, proclaimed the iniquity of the affair; heard by the people, he persuaded everyone to resume the trial (even such an intervention of popular judgment is in keeping with the customs of the time), in which the two elders were found to contradict each other, and they themselves were condemned. S. was acquitted and exalted.
The original of the story was Semitic, but now only the Greek version remains. The passage is therefore "deuterocanonical." In the Greek Bible the passage is generally placed at the beginning with its own title S. before the book of Daniel: the event is supposed to be earlier than Dan. 1:1. In the Latin version, however, it is added at the end, as ch. 13.
The ethical-exemplary value of the story is self-evident, offering the model of the virtuous woman, who prefers death to sin and in the face of danger "cries out." Artistically, moreover, the manner in which the affair is conducted, from tension to rapid resolution, is of a refined technique.
Giovanni Rinaldi
ARCHAEOLOGY
The oldest pictorial cycle relating to the story of S. is on the two long walls of the so-called Greek Chapel in the cemetery of Priscilla (2nd century); there S. is depicted surprised by the two elders, the accusation and the thanksgiving for her deliverance (Wilpert, Pitture, pl. 14). In Callistus is the judgment of S. (ibid., pl. 86); other scenes of S. are in the cemeteries of Domitilla (ibid., pl. 142, 1), in the Maius (ibid., pl. 220) and in that "inter duas lauros" (ibid., pl. 232, 3). Typical is the scene in Praetextatus in the arcosolium of Celerina: S. is painted as a sheep between two wolves indicated by the inscription in black SENIORIS (ibid., pl. 251); above the sheep one reads the name SVSANNA.
Among the mosaic scenes one must remember that, now lost, of S. Costanza in Rome, of which some good ancient copy survives (cf. R. Michel, Die Mosaiken von S. Costanza in Rom, in Studien über christliche Denkmäler, 12 [1912], p. 25, passim).
Scarce in number are likewise the sarcophagi so far known with the scene of S., but almost all with several representations, as a complete cycle: a fact explicable by the different greater possibility and space available to the sculptor. Daniel the prophet is the preeminent figure, in tunic and pallium, often seated as judge before the tent (velum) that separates him from the people. The elders in various attitudes may be beardless (Gallic sarcophagi) or bearded (Roman sarcophagi). The sarcophagus of Gerona (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, pl. 196, 1) has, among all of them, the most extensive cycle of the episode of S. The scenes follow one another without interruption from right to left, beginning with the attempt of the elders and ending with their capital execution. The other sarcophagi with the same scene present no other variants of note; some, moreover, are still doubtful (cf. bibl.).
Of notable interest for the treatment of S. are the very well-known glass disk of Lothair II figured with the entire biblical cycle, now in the British Museum (cf. Ph. Lauer, Le joyau carolingien de Waufsort sur Meuse, in Bull. de la Soc. nat. des antiq. de France, 1908, pp. 102-107); the two glass cups of Homblières and of Podgoritza (cf. J. Pilloy, Coupe gravée en verre trouvée à Abbeville, commune d'Homblières (Aise) dans une sépulture du IVe siècle, in Gazette archéol., 1884, pp. 224-30, pls. 32-33; G. B. De Rossi, Insigne tazza vitrea figurata, in Bull. d'arch. crist., 2nd series, 5 [1874], pp. 153-55, pl. 11; id., L'insigne piatto vitreo di Podgoritza oggi nel Museo Basilewski in Parigi, ibid., 3rd series, 2 [1877], pp. 77-85, pls. 5-6); and the double scene represented together with Daniel among the lions on the front face of the ivory casket of Brescia (v.). Hippolytus sees in S. the representation of the Church of Christ between two hostile peoples, that of Israel and that « ex gentibus » (In Daniel, 1, 14, 5-6). In the Commendatio animae the Lord is invoked to free the soul « sicut liberasti Susannam de falso crimine ».
Bibliography7 works
Pasquale Testini
ICONOGRAPHY
The Baroque painter Baldassarre Croce frescoed in the church of St. Susanna martyr in Rome in the early years of the 17th century the scenes sung by Daniel about the heroine S.; among them also the episode of the young woman who is surprised in the bath by the two elders.
Only this episode, among all the stories of S., enjoyed great success in the art of the 16th and 17th centuries, which conceived it as a profane genre scene. Its oldest depiction dates back to the last years of the 15th century and can be seen among the frescoes of Pinturicchio in the Borgia apartment of the Vatican Palace. As notable 16th-century paintings that have as their subject "S. in the bath and the two elders," the following are cited: the panel by Lorenzo Lotto, formerly of the Benson collection in London; two paintings by Jacopo Tintoretto, one of which is in the Nemes collection in Munich and the second in the Museum of Vienna; two paintings by Paolo Veronese, one of which is in the Louvre in Paris and the second in the Accademia di S. Luca in Rome; and also two paintings by Jacopo Bassano known as da Ponte, one of which is in the Museo civico of Bassano and the second in the Museum of Nîmes (France). For 17th-century painting, mention should be made of the painting by P. P. Rubens of the Pinacoteca Sabauda in Turin and another in the Galleria Borghese in Rome, that of Gherardo delle Notti of the Galleria Borghese in Rome, that of Guido Reni in the Uffizi, that of Artemisia Gentileschi in the Museum of Naples. - See pl. CVIII.
Bibliography
Witold Wehr