Reading a page from the Book of Kells: Folio 34r

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We have covered a lot of ground this week, and now is a good time to see how you might read and interpret a page yourself with the tools you have got thus far. In a sense you have got many of the “words and grammar” of the Book of Kells, and now is the time to see if we can put these together to read the story the book is telling us.

We will be working on folio 34r.

 Fig 1. The Chi Rho page, folio 34r. © The Board of Trinity College, University of Dublin.

• Please open folio 34r on the digital version of the Book of Kells or use this image.
• We would recommend viewing the folio in different window while going through this exercise. This will help you examine the image while reading our instructions.
• You can do this, by right clicking the link using your mouse and selecting ‘Open in New Window’.
• This new window can be resized using the corner of the window to see the folio side by side with the text.

Take some time simply to admire the beauty of this page. It contains a depth of meaning. This page is a celebration of the name of Christ, of the birth of Christ, the Word of God, into the world. This event marks the beginning of Christianity, and the scribes greet this good news (evangelium, gospel) with a wonderful display of art.

We will now do two things:

1. We are going to ask you to trace out the letters on this page, and
2. To search out the Eucharistic symbols on this page. Both letters and symbols are linked.

If you get stuck trying to find any of the letters or symbols, click on the links below which show where they are on the folio.

The Chi Rho (Χρι)

Folio 34r is from the beginning of the gospel of Matthew (1: 18). In English the text reads:

‘This is how Jesus was born’, in Latin Christi autem generatio.

This page is usually referred to as the Chi Rho page because the two letters Χ (chi) and ρ (rho), of the Greek alphabet are the focus points of this page. You will remember that these two letters are the first two letters in the name “Christ” in Greek Χριστος (Christos in Latin).

• Using your mouse, open folio 34r and trace out the very large and decorative Χ (chi) and then the ρ (rho) beside it. The ρ (rho) ends in a red-headed man, many scholars suggest this is Jesus Christ.

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• Then trace the i (iota), the third letter from the Greek form of the name Χριστος. The iota links through the rho at the head of Jesus Christ.

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So now we have read the name of Christ - Christi

• Next look below the iota, at the bottom right of the page see the letter - h, which is short for autem (‘in this way’, or ‘this is how’, followed by the Latin generatio.

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So the words on this page read:

• Christi autem generatio
• Χ (chi) … ρ (rho) … I (iota)
• h (autem)
• generatio

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You will also have noted the small lozenge within a bigger lozenge where the two lines of the Χ (chi) crosses. Another of the many symbols for Jesus Christ we are becoming familiar with.

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Now to look for some Eucharistic symbols on folio 34r.

The ones we are most familiar with are the chalice and the host – can you find them?

The chalice

If you look carefully in the right hand frame, you will observe a chalice, turned upside down sprouting Eucharistic vines. The vines are interlaced with peacocks. What might this mean? What is the peacock the symbol of?

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The host

Next look at the Eucharistic host found in the mouths of two mice, at the bottom left of the page.

To delve a little deeper, and reading the page theologically, we need to remind ourselves of what the people who created this page believed. Christians, their core belief is that Jesus Christ was born, took on human flesh, lived, died and was resurrected to eternal life (the Christian feast of Easter).

Catholic Christians believe that the bread and wine in the Eucharistic celebration become what they term the ‘real presence of Christ’. So, in a sense, in the Eucharist they ‘eat’ (consume) Christ, God made human – in this way they come to share the divine gift of eternal life with God. This is the Christian faith so amazingly portrayed on this page.

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From this perspective there are three particular eucharistic images on this very rich page worth paying attention to, and they are three images of animals.

Can you find the animals on this page?

On right hand side of the rho at the bottom of the iota, there is an otter with a fish in his mouth; and on the left side of the rho there is a wonderful picture of cats and mice; right up at the top of the chi, near the lozenge, we have butterflies (or moths).

The moths

Let’s start with the creatures of the air, the moths, to the left of the lozenge at the top of the Χ (chi). Looking carefully we can see two moths, joined together in eating something – they are eating the chrysalis from which were born. The chrysalis is in the shape of a lozenge. So we might say that the moths are eating the chrysalis from which they got life; as Christians eat the Eucharist, the real presence of Christ, from which they believe they are reborn to eternal life.

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The fish and the otter

Moving now to the fish and the otter. Again this is richly Eucharistic. Remember that just as wherever early Christians saw the (ΧΡ) “Chi (χ) Rho (ρ)” ☧ christogram they read Christ, so too the fish was another Christogram, or symbol of Christ, ‘Jesus Christ, son of God, Saviour‘ –icthus. The otter has a fish, Christ, in his mouth – he is drawing nourishment, from the fish, from Christ, as Christians do.

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The mice and cats

The next image with Eucharistic symbolism to turn our attention to is that of the mice and cats. Let your eye just move across to the left of the otter and fish. As most of us know mice and cats don’t get on too well together normally, but here we have them happily together at play. Looking closely you see that between the two mice there is a small whitish circle – we surmise that it is a Eucharistic host, not unlike what Christians use today for communion. The mice are gaining their sustenance from Jesus Christ present in the Eucharist, just as Christians are called to do.

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And, going to a deeper level of meaning – the Eucharist seems to be bringing peace. We have cats and mice together, not killing one another. This scene might be seen as the Irish reading of the line from the bible, from the prophet Isaiah:

‘The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them.’ (Isaiah 11:6)

The cross

Looking again at the page see if you can find some crosses. There is a stepped cross at the base of the ρ (rho), and a blue saltire cross, between the Χ (chi) and the ρ (rho).

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The whole of the Christian story is encapsulated in the images and words on this page: Jesus Christ was born, died on a cross, and continues to care for his followers by providing them with Eucharistic sustenance, the ‘food’ which will lead them to eternal life.

If you look at this clip, from the Academy Award nominated animation The Secret of Kells (2010, Best Animated Feature), you will see the Chi Rho page in full animated splendour. This should help you to trace the chi and the rho on the page.

Intertwined men and animals

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The pages of the Book of Kells are filled with the tangled, contorted bodies of literally thousands of men, lions, birds and snakes. Used to form the initial letters of words at the start of significant sections of texts, or to fill decorative frames, or the backgrounds of the most ornate pages, these intricate and imaginative drawings have captured the imaginations of viewers of the manuscript perhaps more than any other aspect of it.

But what do they mean?

Although described by some scholars as ‘drolleries’ or marginalia, these small drawings are used as a form of punctuation, drawing attention to particular passages in the text. In some cases they may have had a more direct link with the text. For example, on fol. 253v, the phrase that concludes the parable of Jesus Christ and the Steward (Luke 16:13).

No slave can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.

This is connected to the next verse.

You cannot serve both God and money

This condemns the Pharisees as followers of wealth by incorporating two men pulling each other’s beards – a depiction both of conflict and the man (below) with two masters.

 Fig 1. Detail from Folio 253v © The Board of Trinity College, University of Dublin.

On fol. 283r (Luke 23:34–39), a passage which describes Jesus Christ’s crucifixion, the line in which one of the thieves crucified beside him urges him to prove that he is Christ by saving himself.

[[34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”]][a] And they cast lots to divide his clothing. 35 And the people stood by, watching; but the leaders scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah[b] of God, his chosen one!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine, 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” 38 There was also an inscription over him,[c] “This is the King of the Jews.” 39 One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding [d] him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? [e] Save yourself and us!”

In the Book, this starts with an initial ‘U’ formed by two lions with a chalice between them, perhaps an allusion to the two thieves, flanking the chalice containing Christ’s sacrificial blood.

 Fig 2. Detail from Folio 283r © The Board of Trinity College, University of Dublin.

Initially it is difficult to see any Christian meaning in the dense meshes of interlace used in the frames and backgrounds of some of the more ornate pages. Although each is different in its colour and exact form, there are some consistencies – all of the human figures are male, and the creatures are typically based on lions, peacocks and snakes. The Physiologus, a (probably) fourth-century AD Greek text containing animal lore, and the seventh-century Etymologies by Isiodore of Seville, may both have helped to unlock the symbolism of the animals depicted in the Book of Kells.

The lion had many symbolic meanings. The Physiologus describes it as a symbol of Jesus Christ ‘our saviour, the spiritual lion of the tribe of Judah’ and both the Physiologus and Etymologies recount how lion cubs were born dead, and after three days, the male lion breathed life onto them – thus creating an equation with Christ, who died and was resurrected after three days. Similarly there was a belief that when a peacock died, its flesh remained intact or ‘incorrupt’, an analogy with Christ, as indeed were the ‘all seeing eyes’ of its tails when opened. The snake sheds its skin once a year, so again was seen as an analogy with rebirth and the resurrection of Christ.

 Fig 3. Entangled men making up part of the design on the cross page fol. 33r. © The Board of Trinity College, University of Dublin. Fig 4. Lions making up some of the letters of the opening of the Gospel of John fol. 292r. © The Board of Trinity College, University of Dublin.

Fig 5. Snakes forming the top of the letter ‘I’ at the opening of the Gospel of Matthew fol. 29r. © The Board of Trinity College, University of Dublin. Fig 6. Peacocks forming a panel at the bottom of the genealogies in the Gospel of Luke fol. 202r. © The Board of Trinity College, University of Dublin.

Looking more at artistic traditions across the world, knots and intertwined strands were often hung or carved at doorways. The idea was that they confused the evil spirits and so acted as protection.

Could this be the reason that such intricate designs were included in the Book of Kells?

It probably depended on the how each individual viewer understood the motif. For example, commenting on what sounds like a very similar design in c. 745AD St Boniface, writing to Cuthbert, archbishop of Canterbury, criticised the

‘ornaments shaped like worms, teeming on the borders of ecclesiastical vestments; they announce the Antichrist and are introduced by his guile and through his ministers in the monasteries to induce lechery, deprivation, shameful deeds, and disgust for study and prayer’.

In the comments section below

• Find another example of these intertwined men and/or animals in the Book of Kells.
• What do you think it might mean?

© Trinity College Dublin