Road to Emmaus appearance
Encyclopedia
The Road to Emmaus appearance refers to one of the early resurrection appearances of Jesus after his crucifixion
Crucifixion of Jesus
The crucifixion of Jesus and his ensuing death is an event that occurred during the 1st century AD. Jesus, who Christians believe is the Son of God as well as the Messiah, was arrested, tried, and sentenced by Pontius Pilate to be scourged, and finally executed on a cross...

 and the discovery of the empty tomb
Empty tomb
Empty tomb most often refers to the tomb of Jesus which was found to be empty by the women who were present at Jesus’ crucifixion. They had come to his tomb to anoint his body with spices...

. Both the Meeting on the road to Emmaus
Emmaus
Emmaus was an ancient town located approximately northwest of present day Jerusalem...

and the subsequent Supper at Emmaus, depicting the meal Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 had with the two disciples after the encounter on the road, have been popular subjects in art .

Biblical accounts

The Gospel of describes the encounter on the road and the supper, and states that while a disciple named Cleopas
Cleopas
Cleopas was a figure of early Christianity, one of the two disciples who encountered Jesus during the Road to Emmaus appearance in the Gospel of ....

 was walking towards Emmaus
Emmaus
Emmaus was an ancient town located approximately northwest of present day Jerusalem...

 with another disciple, they met Jesus. They did not recognise him, and discussed their sadness at recent events with him. They persuaded him to come and eat with them, and in the course of the meal they recognised him.

The Gospel of has a similar account that describes the appearance of Jesus to two disciples while they were walking in the country, at about the same time in the Gospel narrative. although it does not name the disciples or the destination as Emmaus:


Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.


The Gospel of Luke states that Jesus stayed and had supper with the two disciples, after the encounter on the road:

As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over." So he went in to stay with them.



The detailed narration of this episode is at times considered one of the best sketches of a biblical scene in the Gospel of Luke
Gospel of Luke
The Gospel According to Luke , commonly shortened to the Gospel of Luke or simply Luke, is the third and longest of the four canonical Gospels. This synoptic gospel is an account of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. It details his story from the events of his birth to his Ascension.The...

. In this account, when Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...

 appeared to Cleopas
Cleopas
Cleopas was a figure of early Christianity, one of the two disciples who encountered Jesus during the Road to Emmaus appearance in the Gospel of ....

 and one other disciple at first "their eyes were holden" so that they could not recognize him. Later "in the breaking of bread" "their eyes were opened" and they recognized him. B. P. Robinson argues that this means the recognition occurred in the course of the meal, but Raymond Blacketer notes that "Many, perhaps even most, commentators, ancient and modern and in-between, have seen the revelation of Jesus' identity in the breaking of bread as having some kind of eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...

ic referent or implication."

Many of the Gnostics believed that Jesus, being not really human, was able to change his appearance at will, and these accounts, along with others in Gnostic New Testament apocrypha
New Testament apocrypha
The New Testament apocrypha are a number of writings by early Christians that claim to be accounts of Jesus and his teachings, the nature of God, or the teachings of his apostles and of their lives. These writings often have links with books regarded as "canonical"...

 were cited in support of this belief.

In art

Both the encounter on the road, and the ensuing supper have been depicted in art, but the supper has received more attention. Medieval art tends to show a moment before Jesus is recognised; Christ wears a large floppy hat to help explain the initial lack of recognition by the disciples. This is often a large pilgrim
Pilgrim
A pilgrim is a traveler who is on a journey to a holy place. Typically, this is a physical journeying to some place of special significance to the adherent of a particular religious belief system...

's hat with badges
Pilgrim badge
A pilgrim badge is a badge typically made of base metal such as lead alloy or pewter from the medieval period worn by Roman Catholic pilgrims who had travelled to sites of Christian pilgrimage, such as in England Canterbury Cathedral, the site of the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket...

 or, rarely, a Jewish hat. However, the depiction of the next part of the episode, the supper at Emmaus, which shows Jesus eating with the disciples, has been a more popular theme, at least since the Renaissance
Renaissance
The Renaissance was a cultural movement that spanned roughly the 14th to the 17th century, beginning in Italy in the Late Middle Ages and later spreading to the rest of Europe. The term is also used more loosely to refer to the historical era, but since the changes of the Renaissance were not...

. Often the moment of recognition is shown.

Rembrandt's 1648 depiction of the Supper, at the Louvre
Louvre
The Musée du Louvre – in English, the Louvre Museum or simply the Louvre – is one of the world's largest museums, the most visited art museum in the world and a historic monument. A central landmark of Paris, it is located on the Right Bank of the Seine in the 1st arrondissement...

 builds on the earlier etching he did six years earlier, in which the disciple on the left had risen, hands clasped in prayer. In both depictions the disciples are startled, and are in awe, but not in fear. The servant is oblivious to the theophanic moment taking place during the supper.

Both Caravaggio
Caravaggio
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio was an Italian artist active in Rome, Naples, Malta, and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings, which combine a realistic observation of the human state, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, had a formative influence on the Baroque...

's painting in London and his painting in Milan (which were six years apart) imitate natural color very well, but were criticised for lack of decorum
Decorum
Decorum was a principle of classical rhetoric, poetry and theatrical theory that was about the fitness or otherwise of a style to a theatrical subject...

. Caravaggio depicted Jesus without a beard and the London painting shows fruits on the table that are out of season. Moreover, the inn keeper is shown serving with a hat.

Some other artists who have portrayed the Supper are Jacopo Bassano
Jacopo Bassano
Jacopo Bassano , known also as Jacopo dal Ponte, was an Italian painter who was born and died in Bassano del Grappa near Venice, from which he adopted the name.- Life :...

, Pontormo
Pontormo
Jacopo Carucci , usually known as Jacopo da Pontormo, Jacopo Pontormo or simply Pontormo, was an Italian Mannerist painter and portraitist from the Florentine school. His work represents a profound stylistic shift from the calm perspectival regularity that characterized the art of the Florentine...

, Vittore Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio
Vittore Carpaccio was an Italian painter of the Venetian school, who studied under Gentile Bellini. He is best known for a cycle of nine paintings, The Legend of Saint Ursula. His style was somewhat conservative, showing little influence from the Humanist trends that transformed Italian...

, Philippe de Champaigne
Philippe de Champaigne
Philippe de Champaigne was a Flemish-born French Baroque era painter, a major exponent of the French school.-Early life:Born in Brussels of a poor family, Champaigne was a pupil of the landscape painter Jacques Fouquières...

, Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer
Albrecht Dürer was a German painter, printmaker, engraver, mathematician, and theorist from Nuremberg. His prints established his reputation across Europe when he was still in his twenties, and he has been conventionally regarded as the greatest artist of the Northern Renaissance ever since...

, Benedetto Gennari
Benedetto Gennari
Benedetto Gennari was an Italian painter of the early-Baroque period, active mainly in Ferrara and Cento.His birthplace is poorly recorded: it is known he entered the studio of his brother-in-law Guercino in Bologna at the age of 16. He adopted a style influenced by Caravaggio, and by age 19, was...

, Jacob Jordaens
Jacob Jordaens
Jacob Jordaens was one of three Flemish Baroque painters, along with Peter Paul Rubens and Anthony van Dyck, to bring prestige to the Antwerp school of painting. Unlike those contemporaries he never traveled abroad to study Italian painting, and his career is marked by an indifference to their...

, Marco Marziale
Marco Marziale
Marco Marziale was an Italian painter from Venice, known to have been active from 1492/1493 to 1507. He was a pupil of Giovanni Bellini, as stated in some of his inscriptions signing works, and was also influenced by Giovanni's bother Gentile, with possibly some elements of the style of Perugino also...

, Pedro Orrente
Pedro Orrente
Pedro Orrente was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period.Born in the village of Murcia. Orrente appears to have studied with el Greco in Toledo, where he painted a San Ildefonso before the apparition of St Leocadia and the Birth of Christ for the cathedral. He often moved, painting in Murcia and...

, Tintoretto
Tintoretto
Tintoretto , real name Jacopo Comin, was a Venetian painter and a notable exponent of the Renaissance school. For his phenomenal energy in painting he was termed Il Furioso...

, Titian
Titian
Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio Tiziano Vecelli or Tiziano Vecellio (c. 1488/1490 – 27 August 1576 better known as Titian was an Italian painter, the most important member of the 16th-century Venetian school. He was born in Pieve di Cadore, near...

, Velázquez
Diego Velázquez
Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary Baroque period, important as a portrait artist...

 and Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese
Paolo Veronese was an Italian painter of the Renaissance in Venice, famous for paintings such as The Wedding at Cana and The Feast in the House of Levi...

. The supper was also the subject of one of his most successful Vermeer forgeries by Han van Meegeren
Han van Meegeren
Han van Meegeren , born Henricus Antonius van Meegeren, was a Dutch painter and portraitist, and is considered to be one of the most ingenious art forgers of the 20th century....

.

In literary art, the Emmaus theme is realized as early as in the 12th century by the Durham poet Laurentius in a semidramatic Latin poem.

Jungian Perspective

Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...

 regarded the road to Emmaus appearance as an instance of the mythological
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...

 theme of the magical traveling companion that still appears spontaneously in dreams today. Commenting on a dream of Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Pauli
Wolfgang Ernst Pauli was an Austrian theoretical physicist and one of the pioneers of quantum physics. In 1945, after being nominated by Albert Einstein, he received the Nobel Prize in Physics for his "decisive contribution through his discovery of a new law of Nature, the exclusion principle or...

 Jung stated that the road to Emmaus appearance was similar to Krishna
Krishna
Krishna is a central figure of Hinduism and is traditionally attributed the authorship of the Bhagavad Gita. He is the supreme Being and considered in some monotheistic traditions as an Avatar of Vishnu...

 and Arjuna
Arjuna
Arjuna in Indian mythology is the greatest warrior on earth and is one of the Pandavas, the heroes of the Hindu epic Mahābhārata. Arjuna, whose name means 'bright', 'shining', 'white' or 'silver' Arjuna (Devanagari: अर्जुन, Thai: อรชุน, Orachun, Tamil: Arjunan, Indonesian and Javanese: Harjuna,...

 in the Bhagavad Gita
Bhagavad Gita
The ' , also more simply known as Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, but is frequently treated as a freestanding text, and in particular, as an Upanishad in its own right, one of the several books that constitute general Vedic tradition...

, and to Moses
Moses
Moses was, according to the Hebrew Bible and Qur'an, a religious leader, lawgiver and prophet, to whom the authorship of the Torah is traditionally attributed...

 and El-Khidr in Sura 18 of the Koran.

See also

  • Chronology of Jesus
    Chronology of Jesus
    The chronology of Jesus aims to establish a historical order for some of the events of the life of Jesus in the four canonical gospels. The Christian gospels were primarily written as theological documents rather than historical chronicles and their authors showed little interest in an absolute...

  • Gospel harmony
    Gospel harmony
    A Gospel harmony is an attempt to merge or harmonize the canonical gospels of the Four Evangelists into a single gospel account, the earliest known example being the Diatesseron by Tatian in the 2nd century. A gospel harmony may also establish a chronology for the events of the life of Jesus...

  • Resurrection appearance of Jesus
  • Resurrection of Jesus
    Resurrection of Jesus
    The Christian belief in the resurrection of Jesus states that Jesus returned to bodily life on the third day following his death by crucifixion. It is a key element of Christian faith and theology and part of the Nicene Creed: "On the third day he rose again in fulfillment of the Scriptures"...

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