rt has often served as the forefront of revolution. This is true for the most monumental artwork in Santa Sabina, the door.

The door is 5,35m high and 3,35m wide. The door is made out of panels of cypress, they are carved with figures and ornaments in relief. The detail is very fine and the wood is of a density which carries the fine work well and has preserved the work for the centuries of the door's use. The door is set into a lintel and jamb cut from a single block of Pharos marble, this forms a border 0,46m wide around at the jambs and 0,92m at the lintel. This marble is also engraved with decorative patterns, reflecting some of the themes on the decoration of the door itself.

The door consists of the four vertical panels. Set on the panels are seven courses of alternating height. Except for the bottom two courses and two central panels of the third course, the other courses all contain panels of bas relief depictions of biblical scenes from both the Old and New Testaments. These panels carved panels are on the outside of the door. On the inside there is some decorative detail which mirrors that around the bas relief panels of the courses.

Artists and art historians have argued for centuries about the door's age and origins. The dates range from the fifth to the twelfth centuries. It is now generally accepted that the door is contemporary with the rest of the church, the latest date being the early sixth century. It is also argued that the door is the work of a single artist either from Greece, but certainly working in the developing Byzantine style of Christian iconography.

One of the reasons for a later dating of the door, up to the twelfth century, has to do with one of the finest panels of the Biblical History. That panel (pictured below) is found on the top course at the left edge. It is a crucifixion scene. Here Jesus is pictured hanging between the two thieves, though on a larger scale. His head is lifted and turned slightly to His right, His eyes are open and fix on the beholder.

For centuries Christians did not picture the awesome event of the crucifixion, since that form of capital punishment was still redolent with the calumnies and blasphemies of the pagan Roman persecution of Christianity. Our earliest representation is at the hands of a pagan mocking this new faith. This pagan graffiti shows an ass-headed human figure crucified backwards, so that the buttocks are visible, at that level a man is placed in a posture of adoration with a Greek inscription, "Alexamenos adores his god". The graffiti was discovered in the last century among the ruins of the Caesars' palaces on the Palatine hill, which stands across the Circus Maximus from the Aventine.

Together with this history of pagan sport made of the Christian faith, many of the early Christians in Rome had lost close relatives to this most agonising form of death, and even the Lord's participation in inhuman agony could not soften their revulsion at depicting so great a horror. This being the case, the door of Sta Sabina would have been one of the first artistic expressions of the crucifixion, still agonisingly alive in the minds of Roman Christians. A real challenge to see this horror redeemed. The panel shows an artistic license in an attempt to compromise with the sensibility that forbade the depiction of the crucifixion, the figure of Jesus is so large in comparison with the rest of the panel that the cross He hangs on is entirely obliterated, save for the uneven cross arms which form part of a complex gibbet for all three figures. Though Roman crucifixion rendered the victim nude on the cross, the figures here are depicted with their loins covered, another compromise to soften the blow of depicting such a revolutionary theme.

Also noteworthy is that Jesus is depicted as a Jewish sage, with beard and long hair, while the two thieves are depicted as gentiles, clean- shaven and hair shorn short.

Another puzzle for those used to contemporary depictions of the crucifixion, now so often lacking in artistic merit as to recall the pagan graffiti more readily than the mystery of salvation, is that there is no halo around the head of Jesus. This follows an ancient custom of depicting the nimbus around Christ's head only in scenes referring to post-resurrection events. While His true humanity still veiled His true divinity from human sight, no crown of glory is visible.