The Good Shepherd

Image, Meaning, and Power

Jennifer Awes Freeman

• Publisher: Baylor University Press
• Year: 2022
• ISBN:
  9781481315395
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Ancient Religion

A statuette of Egyptian King Pepi formidably wielding a shepherd's crook stands in stark contrast to a fresco of an unassuming Orpheus-like youth gently hoisting a sheep around his shoulders. Both images, however, occupy an extensive tradition of shepherding motifs. In the transition from ancient Near Eastern depictions of the keeper of flocks as one holding great power to the more "pastoral" scenes of early Christian art, it might appear that connotations of rulership were divested from the image of the shepherd. The reality, however, presents a much more complex tapestry.

The Good Shepherd: Image, Meaning, and Power traces the visual and textual depictions of the Good Shepherd motif from itsearly iterations as a potent symbol of kingship, through its reimagining in biblical figures, such as the shepherd-king David, and onward to the shepherds of Greco-Roman literature. Jennifer Awes Freeman reveals that the figure of the Good Shepherd never became humble or docile but always carried connotations of empire, divinity, and defensive violence even within varied sociopolitical contexts. The early Christian invocation of the Good Shepherd was not simply anti-imperial but relied on a complex set of associations that included king, priest, pastor, and sacrificial victim—even as it subverted those meanings in the figure of Jesus, both shepherd and sacrificial lamb. The concept of the Good Shepherd continued to prove useful for early medieval rulers, such as Charlemagne, but its imperial references waned in the later Middle Ages as it became more exclusively applied to church leaders.

Drawing on a range of sources including literature, theological treatises, and political texts, as well as sculpture, mosaics, and manuscript illuminations, The Good Shepherd offers a significant contribution as the first comprehensive study of the long history of the Good Shepherd motif. It also engages the flexible and multivalent abilities of visual and textual symbols to convey multiple meanings in religious and political contexts.

1

“The Shepherd Who Brings Peace”

Shepherd-Kingship in the Ancient Near East

The story of the Good Shepherd begins in the fertile region between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers during the fourth millennium B.C.E. Shepherding was an essential aspect of ancient agrarian and pastoral societies because flocks were valuable sources of food, material for clothing, and dung for crop fertilizer, as well as ritual sacrifice. One of the shepherd’s central responsibilities was to protect his flock from theft and predators, and so his tools were a crook or staff, a sling, a bag of stones, and often a sheepdog. During this period, agricultural abundance enabled the establishment of early urban centers, among which the city of Uruk in southern Mesopotamia was one of the most important. This urban development in turn necessitated an agricultural abundance to support inhabitants and laborers. Visual motifs of domesticated plants and animals on buildings and objects in this context were not merely ornamental, but in fact were a rhetorical device “to create a receptive social environment in which the authority structures needed for a requisite surplus could be reinforced.”1 Relatedly, the shepherd’s staff became a cultural symbol of guidance and protection that would be used for millennia. The fact that the positive symbolism of the shepherd was prominent even when shepherds themselves were not always viewed favorably demonstrates the ability of symbols to take on their own life and power beyond their quotidian origins. It also points to the complexity of cultural constructs in which the labor and products of shepherds might be prized, but shepherds—and farmers—themselves were not equally appreciated, even as the symbolism of their role was coopted by the most powerful people in that culture.

While the origins of the shepherd-king motif and attendant pastoral imagery are in the agrarian culture of the ancient Near East, they find expression in the overlapping spheres of the practice of religion and the exercise of political power. Over the next three millennia leading up to the time of Jesus, the shepherd took on connotations of divinity, political authority, and cultic power even as it sometimes functioned to romanticize the nomadic and pre-urban age. In the figure of the shepherd-king these elements coalesced to portray a divinely appointed ruler with different facets across cultures and periods: in Mesopotamia the shepherd-king was a deliverer of justice through laws and material goods; in Egypt he was a divinized authority whose rule extended into the afterlife; and in the context of the Hebrew Bible, the shepherd-king was a leader of God’s people, an essential actor in the keeping of the covenant.2

The Shepherd-King as Source of Justice in Mesopotamia

An early image of a priest-king is found impressed on a small clay tablet over which a protocuneiform script records barley distribution, perhaps by a large temple in Uruk (3100–2900 B.C.E., fig. 1.1). Seals like this were made by rolling cylinders over clay strips on tablets, doors, or jars as a way of regulating goods, which was necessary during this period of urban development and commerce. The seal’s image, which also appears on the sides of the tablet, is of a male figure with two dogs on leashes, potentially hunting or herding animals. His belted, midcalf garment, pulled-back hair, cap, and pose identify him as the priest-king. While his role in the temple placed him at the top level of society, the temple dependents, who were recipients of grain distribution like that recorded on this tablet, were at the bottom.3 Scholars have further posited that this composition presents the priest-king as a good shepherd protecting his herd.4

Fig. 1.1 Cuneiform Tablet, 3100–2900 B.C.E.

New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art

The concept of the priest-king, who had both cultic and political responsibilities as a mediator between the gods and humanity, overlaps significantly with that of the shepherd-king. In contrast to Egyptian ideas of kingship, addressed below, the human kings of Mesopotamia were not considered divine but rather as important vessels for deities. Similar to the way a cult statue operated as a site for a deity’s presence, so the king’s body served as the image or body of a god. This certainly ascribed the king a significant degree of unique power, but the human king was also expected to uphold the deity’s desires.5 The earliest references to a shepherd-king date back to at least the Old Akkadian period (2335–2193 B.C.E.) and possibly as early as 3000 B.C.E.6 Numerous Mesopotamian rulers employed this appellation, describing themselves with phrases such as “born for shepherding,” “the shepherd of the city,” and “the shepherd of the country.”7

The Sumerian King List, composed circa 2100 B.C.E., names almost 150 mythical and historical rulers, spanning thousands of years. Among the rulers named, three bear the title of shepherd. The first of these is Dumuzi, the shepherd god who married the goddess Inanna (later known as Tammuz and Ishtar, respectively).8 When Dumuzi fails to properly mourn Inanna, who had been struck dead during her trip to the underworld, demons drag him there to serve as her replacement. She allows him to spend half of the year with her, which results in the changing of the seasons.9 Ritual reenactments of these stories may have been performed by the king and a high priestess, though the scant evidence has been debated by scholars.10 The character of Dumuzi came to embody kingship, divinity, the afterlife, and agriculture. These themes are brought together in an incantation prayer that invokes Dumuzi’s protection and guidance:

O Lord Dumuzi, awe-inspiring shepherd of Anu,11

Lover of Ishtar the queen, eldest son of Nudimmud,12

O mighty one, leader without rival,

Who eats pure loaves baked in embers,

Who is clad in a cloak and carries a staff,

Who drinks water from a . . . waterskin,

Creator of everything, lord of the [sheep]fold,

You are the lofty prince, the noble one!

Drive away from me the “evil gazer,” the worker of evil,

[Who] has fixated upon me

And is trying to cut short my life.

Herewith I bring you my life!13

The shepherd-god who protects the living and is a guide to the afterlife will continue to echo centuries later in the figures of Orpheus, Hermes psychopompos, and Jesus.

A poem dating at least to the first half of the second millennium B.C.E. pits Dumuzi against the farmer god Enkimdu. Inanna’s brother, the sun god Utu, tries to convince her to marry Dumuzi:

O my sister, let the shepherd marry thee,

O maid Inanna, why art thou unwilling?

His fat is good, his milk is good,

The shepherd, everything his hand touches is bright,

O Inanna, let the shepherd Dumuzi marry thee. . . . 14

After Inanna rejects Dumuzi in favor of Enkimdu, Dumuzi waxes poetic about the superior nature of shepherding to farming until the poem ends in their reconciliation. That Inanna must choose between a farmer and a shepherd god suggests a tension between two different ways of life.

The second shepherd-king named on the Sumerian King List is “Etana, a shepherd, the one who to heaven ascended, the one who consolidated all lands.”15 According to tradition, Etana was the first king of Kish in Sumeria and is said to have reigned for over one thousand years. The textual record of Etana’s legend is fragmentary but employs the shepherd title several times. It begins when the gods build a city for humanity and need someone to rule it; they create kingship and appoint Etana, stating:

Let [ ] be their (the people’s) shepherd,

Let Etana be their architect.

[ . . . ]

Ishtar [came down from heaven? to seek] a shepherd,

And sought for a king [everywhere].

Innina [came down from heaven? To seek] a shepherd,16

And sought for a king [everywhere].

Enlil examined the dais of(?) Etana . . . 17

Enlil, one of the supreme Mesopotamian deities, is mentioned here because he was known to grant kingship. When Etana becomes concerned with producing an heir, he prays to the god of the sun, Shamash (Sumerian Utu), for help and, through a series of events, rides an eagle, who addresses Etana as “king of the wild beasts,” to heaven in search of a plant to enable his wife to give birth.18 Ultimately, Etana has a son, Balih, who serves as his successor. Etana’s story is one of dynastic succession that ties kingship to divinity and presents both the king and the gods as trustworthy guides.

The association between livestock and deities was expressed not only through the figures of divine shepherds but also in the actual sacrifice of sheep and other animals.19 This association extended to royalty as well, as “a proportion of the food of the god was also considered as the royal portion and sent to the royal palace.”20 Sculptures of male figures carrying a lamb or ram in arms date as far back as 3000 B.C.E. but have been interpreted to be worshipers carrying their sacrifice and not shepherds—as seen, for example, in an eighth-century B.C.E. relief from the palace of Sargon II, now at the Louvre.21 Some votive statues from the period also depict worshipers holding animals clasped to their chests.22 Livestock such as sheep were also used for prognostication, in which livestock such as sheep and gazelles were sacrificed, as well as extispicy (divination with lamb entrails).23 Even as livestock was an essential material and spiritual resource and the concept of the shepherd was employed in political and religious discourse, shepherds themselves were not necessarily appreciated as equally prominent or civilized people in comparison to farmers or urban dwellers.

Ultimately a tale of the human condition, the long narrative poem known as the Epic of Gilgamesh (ca. 1800 B.C.E.) tells the story of the partially divine king Gilgamesh, whose name follows Dumuzi the Fisherman on the Sumerian King List, and who is referred to as the son of Lugalbanda (the third king on the Sumerian King List to be given the epithet “Shepherd”).24 To temper Gilgamesh’s tyranny, the gods create a wild and powerful counterpart, Enkidu, out of clay. After being seduced by a temple prostitute, who introduces him to civilization at a shepherd’s camp, Enkidu fights and ultimately befriends Gilgamesh. Together they go on a journey to slay the guardian of the Cedar Forest in order to harvest its timber—and for fame. After rejecting the advances of Ishtar, Gilgamesh kills her bull, for which the gods punish Gilgamesh with the death of Enkidu. This sends Gilgamesh off on ...