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# The Lamb on the Cross in Church Embroidery and the Book with Seven Seals
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/dovolno-chasto-v-zapadnykh-tserkviakh-mozhno-vstretit-izobrazhenie-agntsa-lezhashchego-na-kreste-v-okruzhenii-zolotykh-luchei-ono-simvoliziruet-zhertvu-i-smert-iisusa-khrista/
- Published: 2018-09-14T20:53:49.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T19:03:58.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Faith, Art, Ethnography

Quite often in Western churches one comes across an image of a lamb lying on a cross amid golden rays: it symbolises the sacrifice and death of Jesus Christ.

In fact, until the fifth century Jesus himself was not depicted on the crucifix; now and then his presence was indicated by a lamb beside the cross, or a lamb with a cross above it (such a lamb, for instance, appears on the seal of the Abbey of Cluny). A little later the lamb came to be shown with a cross or upon a cross, and in time there arose the tradition of depicting it crucified.

In this fragment of church embroidery we see a lamb lying on a cross set upon a golden surface. One might take it for a platter or for the sacred liturgical vessel, the diskos (paten), tied to one of the Church's chief mysteries, the Eucharist. On the diskos the principal prosphora is consecrated, which is sometimes also called the Lamb. The seven drops beneath the diskos may then signify the same as the seven horns or seven eyes of the Lamb in the scenes of the Apocalypse: the seven spirits of God, or the seven gracious gifts of God. All the more so as the slain lamb is often depicted on the diskos itself, as on other church vessels.

But look closer and it is not a vessel before us after all, but a book. That very apocalyptic book with seven seals, which contains the whole history of the world, all that was, is and is foreordained, the memory of everything and the fates of all. No one living on earth was able not only to open this book, but even to look upon it. Nor could the 24 elders, or sages, open the book, and it is they who are symbolised by the 24 golden rays around the cross.