Christianity in Rome, showing Noah, in the
orante attitude of prayer, the dove and an olive branch in the
Christian Trinity depicted as a dove of peace in a church memorial
stained glass window The use of a
dove as a symbol of peace originated with
early Christians, who portrayed
baptism accompanied by a dove, often on their
sepulchres. The
New Testament compared the dove to the
Spirit of God that descended on Jesus during
his baptism. Christians saw similarities between baptism and Noah's Flood. The
First Epistle of Peter (composed around the end of the first century AD) said that the Flood, which brought salvation through water, prefigured baptism.
Tertullian () compared the dove, who "announced to the world the assuagement of divine wrath, when she had been sent out of the ark and returned with the olive branch, to the Holy Spirit who descends in baptism in the form of a dove that brings the peace of God, sent out from the heavens". At first the dove represented the subjective personal experience of peace, the peace of the soul, and in the earliest Christian art it accompanies representations of baptism. By the end of the second century (for example in the writing of Tertullian) it also represented social and political peace, "peace unto the nations", and from the third century it began to appear in depictions of conflict, such as Noah and the Ark,
Daniel and the lions, the
three young men in the furnace, and
Susannah and the Elders. The dove appears in Christian inscriptions in the
Roman catacombs, sometimes accompanied by the words (Latin for ). For example, in the
Catacomb of Callixtus, a dove and branch are drawn next to a Latin inscription , meaning In another example, a shallow relief sculpture shows a dove with a branch flying to a figure marked in Greek as (, or ). The symbol has also been found in the Christian catacombs of
Sousse, Tunisia (ancient
Carthage), which date from the end of the first century AD. The Christian symbolism of the olive branch, invariably carried by the dove, derives from Greek usage and the story of Noah in the Hebrew Bible. The story of Noah ends with a dove bringing a freshly plucked olive leaf (Hebrew: ), a sign of life after the Flood and of God's bringing Noah, his family and the animals to land.
Rabbinic literature interpreted the olive leaf as "the young shoots of the Land of Israel" or the dove's preference for bitter food in God's service, rather than sweet food in the service of men. Neither represented peace in Jewish thought, but the dove and olive branch acquired that meaning in Christianity. Before the
Peace of Constantine (313 AD), in which Rome ceased its persecution of Christians following Constantine's conversion, Noah was normally shown in an
attitude of prayer, a dove flying toward him or alighting on his outstretched hand. According to Graydon Snyder, "The Noah story afforded the early Christian community an opportunity to express piety and peace in a vessel that withstood the threatening environment" of Roman persecution. Medieval
illuminated manuscripts, such as the
Holkham Bible, showed the dove returning to Noah with a branch.
Wycliffe's Bible, which translated the Vulgate into English in the 14th century, uses "" ("a branch of olive tree with green leaves") in Gen. 8:11. In the Middle Ages, some Jewish manuscripts, which were often illustrated by Christians, also showed Noah's dove with an olive branch, for example, the Golden
Haggadah (about 1420). English Bibles from the 17th-century
King James Bible onwards, which translated the story of Noah direct from Hebrew, render the Hebrew as rather than , but by this time the association of the dove with an olive branch as a symbol of peace in the story of Noah was firmly established.
Secular representations '' •
Late 15th century In the late 15th century, a dove with an olive branch was used on the seal of , the
Florentine committee known as The Ten of Liberty and Peace, whose secretary was
Machiavelli; it bore the motto (Peace and the Defence of Liberty). •
Late 18th century In 18th-century America, a £2 note of North Carolina (1771) depicted the dove and olive with a motto meaning: "Peace restored". Georgia's $40 note of 1778 portrayed the dove and olive and a hand holding a dagger, with a motto meaning "Either war or peace, prepared for both." •
Early 20th century A German war loan poster of 1917 showed the head of an eagle over a dove of peace in flight, with the text, "Subscribe to the War Loan". •
Mid-20th century Picasso's lithograph,
La Colombe (The Dove), a traditional, realistic picture of a pigeon, without an olive branch, was chosen as the emblem for the
World Peace Council in Paris in April 1949. The dove became a symbol for the peace movement and the ideals of the
Communist Party and was used in Communist demonstrations of the period. At the 1950 World Peace Council in
Sheffield, Picasso said that his father had taught him to paint doves, concluding, "I stand for life against death; I stand for peace against war." At the 1952 World Peace Council in Berlin, Picasso's
Dove was depicted in a banner above the stage. The dove symbol was used extensively in the post-
war peace movement.
Anti-communists had their own take on the peace dove: the group distributed posters titled (), showing the peace dove metamorphosing into a
Soviet tank. ==Broken rifle==