The Horned Moses in Medieval Art and Thought

Michelangelo’s representation of the prophet Moses with horns is an enigma to most people of the present day who think of horns as symbols of evil or dishonor. Yet, not only Michelangelo, but many artists, before and after him, depicted Moses with horns, a symbol that then must have had a deeper and favorable connotation. The present volume tracks a solution through folklore and anthropology, as well as art history, and the problem of Moses’ horns leads to an absorbing quest into the symbolic imagination of medieval man. Jerome’s alleged mistranslation of the Hebrew word 'qeren' in Exodus 34:29 has traditionally been pointed to as the origin for the prophet’s horns. But six centuries passed between the appearance of 'horned' in the Vulgate in the late fourth century and the first artistic representation of a horned Moses in the eleventh century. The author has therefore looked for other, more cogent, explanations of the mystery. The image of a Judaic-Christian prophet with horns on his head becomes far less puzzling when the cultural contexts in which the image was created are taken into consideration. Mrs. Mellinkoff explores, among other topics, how horns figure in ancient and barbarian, Anglo-Saxon, arts; the commentaries of theologians; the possible relevance of the bishop’s horned mitre; and the confusion that may have arisen from a belief widespread in the Middle Ages that horns were a demonic attribute of Jews.