The Second Coming in St. Gallen Codex 51: putting you in the picture
This juxtaposition of the death of Christ ‘made flesh’ and his triumphant return as a divine being is unique among the surviving early medieval Irish manuscripts, and the depictions of both scenes may count as the earliest in Irish art. The Crucifixion in Cod. Sang. 51, p. 266 has been discussed at length in an earlier blog (An Irish Crucifixion). The depiction belongs to a peculiarly Irish Crucifixion tradition that is attested across manuscripts, metalwork and carved stones from early medieval Ireland. Particularly distinctive of this tradition is the treatment of Longinus, the soldier who pierces Christ’s side with a lance, and Stephaton, the bystander who is said to have dipped a sponge in wine vinegar and put it on a stick for Christ to drink. While representations of this scene in artworks from outside of Ireland place Longinus to the right and Stephaton to the left of the cross, Irish depictions show the reverse positioning, perhaps because of an Irish tradition that Longinus’ spear caused Christ’s heart to burst. An 8th- or 9th-century Crucifixion plaque from Rinnangan, Co. Roscommon, which is also on display in the Words on the Wave exhibition, offers a close parallel in metal for the scene in Cod. Sang. 51.
The Second Coming of Christ, as distinct from the Last Judgement it directly preceded, was a less common subject in early medieval art. Cod. Sang 51, p. 267 shows the triumphant Christ in the centre of the upper section of the page, where he holds a book and a cross and raises his right hand in blessing, his two outer digits bent across the middle and index fingers to form a cross. Trumpet-blowing angels appear in the panels either side of Christ in accordance with the Gospel of Matthew (24:30-31), which records that at the Second Coming ‘they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.’ Though the Second Coming leads directly to the Last Judgement, the St. Gallen depiction lacks the depictions of the groups of the saved and the damned that are typical of medieval representations of the Last Judgment. Instead, the lower half of the page is filled by the twelve apostles, who gaze up to the returned Christ, all carrying books but displaying no distinguishing attributes. Jennifer O’Reilly (2019, 332–46) suggested that the presence of the Apostles in the St. Gallen depiction may stem from the statement that ‘this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come’ (Matthew 24:14); the role of Apostles in spreading the word of God around the world, a prerequisite for the Second Coming, may have prompted their inclusion.
The only other depiction of the Second Coming in an early medieval Irish manuscript, the so-called Turin Gospels (Torino, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, MS O. IV. 20, fol. 2r), differs from the St. Gallen depiction in many details. Christ stands in the centre of the page, holding a cross and raising his left hand in blessing, and is surrounded by 96 much smaller figures. The Turin representation features only a single trumpet-wielding angel, who stands at the top-righthand corner of the page. The Turin Gospels belonged to the monastery at Bobbio in Northern Italy that was found by the Irishman Columbanus in the early 7th century. Although the text of the Gospels may have been written around 700, it has been suggested that the illuminated pages might not have been added until the early 9th century (Meehan 2024, 151–2). The Turin manuscript may, like Cod. Sang. 51, have been written in Ireland and brought to the Continent later, or it might have been produced by Irishmen at Bobbio or elsewhere. Given the possibility that the illuminated pages are later than the text, it is also conceivable that they were added on the Continent to a manuscript brought from Ireland. Both the St. Gallen and Turin Gospels again highlight the flow of people, objects and ideas between Ireland the Continent in the early medieval period, the underlying theme of the Words on the Wave exhibition.
An interesting link between the Second Coming scenes in the St. Gallen and Turin Gospels is the form of the trumpets being blown by the angels in the respective depictions. In both cases the trumpets shown are long, straight-sided instruments that taper to the mouthpieces and are divided into several transverse sections, marked in alternating blue and white colours in Cod. Sang. 51. These conical trumpets have been compared to the ‘River Erne Horn’ discovered in Coolnashanton, Co. Fermanagh, in 1959 and now housed at the Ulster Museum in Belfast (reg. BELUM.A9637). This 8th- or 9th-century yew wood trumpet has a bronze mouthpiece and decorated bronze binding strips that divide its body into transverse sections. Though much longer and narrower, the ‘Bekan Horn’ from Co. Mayo in the collections of the National Museum (reg. 2823:W144), which has been radiocarbon-dated to c. 700, is similar in design, being a conical instrument made of yew with spiral bronze bindings. As elsewhere in the Words on the Wave exhibition, we see here the early medieval manuscript illuminators using the objects and dress of their own day to illustrate the Gospel narrative.
Dora, C., ‘The Irish Gospels of St Gall and its family’, in C. Dora and F. Schnoor (eds), The cradle of European culture. Early medieval Irish book art, 74–85. (St. Gallen, 2018)
Meehan, B., 'Early Gospel-books at St. Gallen', in M. Seaver, D. Ó Riain and M. Sikora (eds), Words on the wave: Ireland and St. Gallen in early medieval Europe (Dublin, 2025), 26–35
Meehan, B., ‘New light on the Turin Gospels (Torino, Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria, MS O. IV. 20) and related manuscripts’, Peritia 35 (2024), 123–154
O’Reilly, J. ‘The St Gall Gospels: art and iconography’, in J. O’Reilly, Early medieval text and Image 1: the Insular Gospels; edited by C. A. Farr and E. Mullins (Abingdon, 2019), 279–350
Purser, J., ‘Reconstructing the River Erne Horn’, Ulster Journal of Archaeology 61 (2002), 17–25.
https://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/en/list/one/csg/0051
