ASOCIEREA SIMBOLULUI NUMIT CRISMON CU ALTE IMAGINI SIMBOLICE SI TEXTE
THE ASSOCIATIONS OF THE SYMBOL NAMED CHRISMON WITH OTHER SYMBOLIC IMAGES AND TEXTS

Summary/Abstract: The associations of the symbol named chrismon with other symbolic images and texts. The chrismon represents the name and the abbreviation of Jesus Christ and it occurs in association with basic symbols of early Christianity. The research works related to the associations of the chrismon encountered on different objects have been the topics for numerous researchers in the field. Nevertheless, it hasn’t come to my knowledge of studies which should synthetize these efforts and gather the results of the discoveries to present them in an integrate manner. The difficulties derive from the strenuous access to the objects which make the repertory of the work, as well as from the lack of catalogues which should contain colorful images with these objects. The author proposed himself to analyze the causes which led to the elaboration of the associations and their use by both the persons who created them and the ones who employed them. The appeal to distinct symbols was, among other things, a measure to dissimulate, to avoid the state’s control, to assert and develop the dogma of faith, to propagate and expand faith, but also to express the high level of artistic manifestation existing in the Roman society. The study tries to analyze each of these symbols and associated texts, starting from the eventual taking-over from pagan art or the dogma of other beliefs, going on with the scriptural and patristic foundation on which the acceptance by Christians is based and finishing with the evolution of associated symbols in Christian iconography. The significances of the associations are extremely complicate, being in many cases related to a certain word order of the text and to the message which is revealed by its understanding. They are constantly found being organized in the form of ample subjects of association. But these subjects or ample topics are not being created by chance, by no logical order and by a unitary symbolic interpretation. The entire typology of the chrismon can be found in association with other images and symbols. We refer here both to the main typology, represented by the simple, complex chrismon having a horizontal stick, and to the secondary typology, in which the simple chrismon having a horizontal stick, the complex type with horizontal stick, the Latinized type, as well as the variants of the chrismon appear. The following classification of symbols associated with the chrismon was used: in the first category, the symbols representing persons were included: the Christ and Mary, the Good Shepherd, the apostles and saints, the angels and Christian family; in the second category there are symbols representing animals: the fish, the lamb and the sheep, the donkey, the horse and the camel, the serpent, the birds and the butterfly; in the third category there are the vegetal symbols: the palm, the bay stick and the olive tree, the plants, the crown and the ribbon and the vine leafs; in the fourth category

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