Ascension of Jesus in Christian art churches. In some representations there may be no mountain and he may be climbing a mandorla, or be lifted towards Heaven in a mandorla by angels. In Romanesque depictions sometimes just the feet of Christ are shown as he disappears up into the clouds; this depiction became the most popular in Northern Europe, where it lingered in provincial wood reliefs until well after the Reformation. Sometimes the last two footprints of Christ on the rock are seen; these were shown to pilgrims at what is now the Chapel of the Ascension on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem. The scene
Ascension of Jesus sat on pillars in the celestial sea. Humans looking up from earth saw the floor of heaven, made of clear blue lapis-lazuli (Exodus 24:9-10), as was God's throne (Ezekiel 1:26). Ascension stories were fairly common around the time of Jesus and the gospel-authors, signifying the deification of a noteworthy person (usually a Roman Emperor), and in Judaism as an indication of divine approval. Another function of heavenly ascent was as a mode of divine revelation reflected in Greco-Roman, early Jewish, and early Christian literary sources, in which particular individuals with prophetic or revelatory gifts are thought to have experienced a