A broad range of Christological images was available in the British Isles in the fifth to tenth centuries. Some of these belonged to Christianity of every period, namely, Christ the Judge and Christ the Wonder-Worker. Others were peculiar to certain times and places; for example, the image of Christ the true Sun, a favourite image of the late Roman world, was utilised by some of the earliest Insular writers. The kingship of Christ, ambiguous in the gospels, took on broader form in the time of Constantine as Christ ‘king of kings’, then narrowed again to simple kingship – or high kingship – in the barbarian realms. The notion of the ascetic Christ, Christ crucified or Christ the Perfect Monk, was emphasised in the fourth century and became a central image of the middle ages. All of these have some foundation in the canonical gospels. Out of the apocryphal writings came the tale of the harrowing of hell, which gave rise to the Heroic Christ. The apocrypha must also be credited for broadening the image of Christ the Wonder-Worker.

Clearly, none of these images had its origins in the Insular world (including the period of the common Celtic Church). However, inevitably, the Insular world favoured some images above others, and in some cases even imparted to them a peculiarly Insular form. Here we have selected four images for special consideration: Christ the Perfect Monk, the Heroic Christ, Christ the Wonder-Worker, and Christ the Judge. These images function together in a kind of symbiosis. The Christ who will judge us at the end of the world has also given us a model for our salvation: Christ the Perfect Monk. Up until the end of our lives it is possible to follow Christ as our guide and to invoke his aid. Only when we are no longer in our present bodies must we fear him as our Judge. In between these two are images representing different aspects of the supernatural: God’s redemptive aid and his power to heal. Thus Christ moves from the realm of the human and accessible through the heroic and beneficent to the divine and transcendent being who is beyond all supplication.

The most substantial and enduring images of the common Celtic Church, and indeed of the Insular world, were the first and last of these.