Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, http://hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.332873
In book 2, chapter 19, Molanus discusses how one should deal with artworks depicting matters from unestablished textual traditions. Foremost is that no false stories are depicted, but in the case of artworks based on uncertain stories, propriety and probability should prevail in the judgement and above all the common opinion of the whole Church.
The third example of such an iconographic tradition surrounded by uncertainty in the Scriptures is whether the stones Christ turned into bread were handed by him by the tempter or whether they were on the ground. Molanus argues that what is normally shown in paintings, namely that stones were handed over by the tempter, is most likely correct since it is more probable.
“The tempter said to our Saviour: ‘If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.’ Now we do not know whether he pointed at stones that were laying on the ground or whether they were, as the paintings usually show, stones that he held in his hand. The second possibility is the more probable; it is more likely that he handed Our Lord the stones he was ordering to be transformed into bread.”
“Tentator dixit Salvatori nostro, si filius Dei es, dic ut lapides isi panes siant, nescimus autem an demonstraverit lapides humi iacentes, an vero, ut picturae fere exprimunt, lapides quos in manibus habebat. Posterius videtur probabilius, verisimile enim est quod Domino nostro lapides mutandos porrexerit.”
Molanus 1996, 176.
