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Mr Cope is an Anglican priest and a tutor in the extra-mural department of the University of Birmingham. His deep understanding of imagery and symbolism is based on his wide knowledge of theology, and he makes use of Jungian concepts and terminology to highlight archetypal themes in the Bible.
The literary sources of inspiration of Christian iconography were the myths and the symbolic images of the Old Testament, particularly those in the Book of Genesis. Artists used allegory and a kind of biblical typology to express their thoughts and feelings in the various art forms. Many of these interpretations were sanctioned by Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels and later were emphasized by St Paul in order to relate events or situations in the Old Testament to Christianity, at the same time illustrating the change in attitude. One interesting example is the archetypal theme of the brothers or twins which appears in the well-known stories of Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau, and reappears in the story of the Prodigal Son and Thomas the Twin—whose twin remains unknown.
Post-Darwinian, post-Freudian man has two important difficulties with regard to the Christian faith. The relationship of Adam and Eve leads inevitably to the problem of sex which, in the wider sense, includes the problem of the masculine attitude to the feminine principle, the great Mother. The transformation of Eve into Mary, the mother of all living, and into the Mother of God, who is both Virgin and Mother, has aroused, particularly in modern times, endless emotional disputes and shoulder-shrugging. Mr Cope