To continue, Hermes as the "good shepherd" i mentioned before, in one of his earliest depictions dating back to 500bc is shown as the "lamb bearer" , probably the most primitive character in which Hermes appeared, he always remained indentified with the pastoral.
That i have failed in my thesis of the comingling much later of paleo-Christian ideas taken from the Hellenes? Hardly, now make sure you remember that these were produced some 800yrs earlier than the first Christian art depicting Jesus as the "good sheherd" in the roman catacombs etc.
Hermes
He is the lord of the herds, epimélios and kriophoros, who leads them to the sweet waters, and bears the
tired ram or lamb on his shoulders, and assists them with the shepherd's crook, the kerykeion.
Painted terracotta cult image of the Kriophoros from Thebes in Boeotia,
ca 450 BCE ( Musée du Louvre).
Sometimes it was a calf here is the Moschophoros of the Acropolis, ca 570 BCE.
 |
