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October 2, 2002
Glenn Peers Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. 250 pp.; 19 b/w ills. Cloth $37.50 (0520224051)
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CrossRef DOI: 10.3202/caa.reviews.2002.40

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Few in antiquity or Byzantium would have questioned that angels have power. Portraying that power, however, posed a special challenge for Byzantines. In a world where both language and image were bound up in materiality, angels captured all that could and could not be said of God. If Christ was understood to be the Word of God made flesh, then there might be license for making pictures of Christ, at least in his earthly guise....