Here's an interesting factoid:
In the early days of the Christian church, when they were still a 'mystery cult' and had to practice in secret, the faithful found themselves running into a huge snag when trying to win converts. They were forbidden by their faith to make graven images, so their god was abstract, conceptual, faceless. The Romans, used to gods they could see and touch, were unable to make the leap to believing in a god who had no statues to prove his existence.
The Christians found a way around this paradox by making allegorical figures based on metaphors from the Bible. Soon their hidden temples had walls covered in paintings of shepherds and so on. Did this violate the graven images law? Sure. But not really. If any smartass called them on it they could just say it was a picture of a shepherd, not Jesus, and thus get away with idolatry and help win converts.
On a
totally unrelated note, this is a lion. He is a prince and is
certainly not meant in any way to reflect any other lion I might still have stuck on my mind. I took my time on it, just because I wanted to do a good job. I'm pleased with how it turned out despite some awkward foreshortening carried over from the reference.
