Conversion to Jesus as a healer God : visual and textual evidence

Depictions of Christ as miracle worker and healer were the most common portrayals of Jesus in Early Christian art – significantly more popular than depictions from other New Testament narratives, including scenes from Christ's passion. Considered together with the texts from scripture and writings of Early Christian teachers, the composition, context, and prevalence of these subjects suggest that these stories were a primary impetus to conversion to the faith of Jesus as the superior healing god and savior. They also signified the expectations of new adherents to Christianity that, through their baptism, they would be spiritually (if not also physically) healed, absolved of their sins, and saved for a future bodily resurrection. Thus, their inclusion on funerary monuments were not simply cues to the identity of Christ as Son of God and the deceased as adherents and members of His flock, but also to the new converts' hopes for a blessed afterlife.