In 685 AD, at the age of sixteen, Justinian II became the sole emperor of the Byzantine Empire, and coins began to be struck bearing his image and name. However, it is unlikely that they bore the image of Christ as well. That had to wait until 692 AD, and the Trullan Ecumenical Council, whose Canon 82 ran:
“In some pictures of the venerable icons, a lamb is painted to which the Precursor points his finger, which is received as a type of grace, indicating beforehand through the Law, our true Lamb, Christ our God. Embracing therefore the ancient types and shadows as symbols of the truth, and patterns given to the Church, we prefer grace and truth, receiving it as the fulfilment of the Law. In order therefore that that which is perfect may be delineated to the eyes of all, at least in coloured expression, we decree that the figure in human form of the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world, Christ our God, be henceforth exhibited in images, instead of the ancient lamb, so that all may understand by means of it the depths of the humiliation of the Word of God, and that we may recall to our memory his conversation in the flesh, his passion and salutary death, and his redemption which was wrought for the whole world.”
From then on, the coins of Justinian bore a bust of Christ on the obverse, and a full-length image of the standing emperor on the reverse. He is holding a distinctive commemorative cross, with barred ends and mounted on a stepped dais, which may have been part of the royal regalia. It first appeared on coins a hundred years previously, and seems to have been an important indicator of imperial power.
Three years after the Trullan Council, in 695 AD, a popular uprising deposed the autocratic young emperor, his nose was slit open, and he was forced into exile. Thus the coins of this reign had little opportunity to develop in iconographical terms, and can be seen as a fairly united collection. Those illustrated below are all from this short time period, and all from different dies; although it is obvious that they all derive from a single common source, they differ in detail, so are clearly not slavish fac similes.
From the generic similarities, we may deduce the characteristics of the image from which all these derived. As it so closely resembles the Pantocrator image, it was almost certainly not created ex nihilo specifically for the coins, although it is not impossible that there was an intermediary stage between extant iconography and the coin’s design.
Here is a man, then, face on, but with his body turned slightly to his right, with long hair to the shoulders, a full beard and a thin, downturned moustache, wearing a tunic with a hem at the neck and a shawl round his shoulders falling straight down over his right forearm, whose hand is raised in a distinctive gesture, and looping over his left shoulder. His left arm is not visible, but seems to be holding a closed book, with small studs all over the cover, of which the only upper half or so can be seen. Behind his head protrude the arms of a cross, ending in short serifs, but there is no outline of a halo. The hair curves in an oval around the head, slightly wavier on its left than its right, and the ears are visible but not prominent. The nose is quite sharply triangular at base, with slightly concave sides.
This description is not far from the earliest Pantocrator known, the famous encaustic from Sinai, but it is more likely that the coin images derive from a more public presentation, such as one of the mosaics of the Hagia Sophia or the Chalke Gate to the Imperial Palace. Unfortunately none of them survived the great iconoclasm of 726 – 787, but we may be able to envisage them fairly accurately from similar themes elsewhere, such as one of the Pantocrators in the Church of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, Ravenna, or from their later replacements. The Deësis in Hagia Sophia, from the 1260s, resembles the coin images quite closely, as does the Pantocrator in the Church of Santa Maria Assunta, Torcello, in Venice.
In specific detail, the fingers of Christ’s right hand on the coins most closely resemble the Sinai and Hagia Sophia Pantocrators, held in a slightly corrupted version of a gesture supposedly spelling out the letters I C X C (first finger upright, second and fourth fingers curled, third finger making an X with the thumb). Also, there is no suggestion of a halo on the coins, which is very unusual in paintings.
Justinian II returned from exile in a bloody coup in 705 AD, and coins with his name on began appearing again. The face of Christ re-appeared (having been omitted in the interim), but this time in a younger format, with a quasi-triangular head crowned with two rows of tightly curled locks of hair, and a thin, curly beard framing his cheeks and chin. The moustache is short, thin and does not droop. The rest of the design, clothes, book, hand gesture and cross, is almost unchanged. This design appears to derive from another version of the Pantocrator, also emerging in about the 6th century, a version of which is also found at St Catherine’s monastery, Mount Sinai, but which seems to fallen out of favour under the dominance of the long haired version. It is sometimes called the “Sync-Palestinian” style.
Justinian’s violent reign came to an end in 711 AD, as a result of a counter-coup. He and his infant son were executed, bringing the Heraclian line of emperors to a close. Christ was dropped from the coins of successive emperors for over a hundred years, after which time Pantocrator iconography had broadened, into full length images of the enthroned Christ, Christ holding an open, rather than a closed book, Christ gesturing with his hand outside the outline of his body, and almost always, Christ with a halo around his head. All these appear, singly or in combination, on coins of subsequent emperors.
In 944 AD, the celebrated Image of Edessa was brought to Constantinople. It is interesting to note that the coins from before and after this event do not change in appearance as a result of it.