Lamb of God sheep representing the apostles flanking the central Agnus Dei, as in Santi Cosma e Damiano, Rome (526–30). The Moravian Church uses an Agnus Dei as their seal with the surrounding inscription "Vicit agnus noster, eum sequamur" ("Our Lamb has conquered, let us follow him"). Although the depiction of Jesus as the Lamb of God is of ancient origin, it is not used in the liturgical iconography of the Eastern Orthodox Church. The reason for this is that the depictions of Jesus in the Orthodox Church are anthropomorphic rather than symbolic, as a confession of the Orthodox belief in the Incarnation
Agnus Dei (Barber) that version to the conductor, who premiered it in New York with the NBC Symphony Orchestra. In setting it to the liturgical Agnus Dei, a part of the Mass, Barber changed the music only a little. As with the other arrangements of "Adagio for Strings", it was published by G. Schirmer. Graham Olson describes the composition for Allmusic. After reflecting the history and pointing out the "Adagio"s associations with mourning, nostalgia, love and passion, qualified as "sentimental Romanticism", he writes about the choral setting: "Barber brought to the surface the work's sense of spirituality." He observes similarities to works of