The Icon of the Theophany as 'paschal' mystery

 

They found Him on the other shore (Joh. 6:25)

 

 

It is no coincidence that Icons are sometimes said to be ‘written’ rather than ‘painted’ for each contains a whole doctrine; one of the most remarkable examples of this is certainly Rublev’s Icon of Trinity which is not only an artistic masterpiece but at the same time a veritable theology. But seeing that this Icon has been interpreted countless times we cannot hope to be able to add anything substantial to it and want to put our attention rather to one of the Icons that is often overlooked, namely the Icon of the Theophany of Our Lord, depicting Christ’s baptism in the river Jordan.

 

Read from left to right we see a tripartite structure. On the left St. John the Baptist is depicted with his hand inclined over the head of the Lord in a gesture of anointment (of which the primary ‘type’ is ofc the anointment of David in the OT, but also Jakob anointing the ‘stone’ [1] at Beth-El). This ‘anointment’ is effected with the ‘oil’[2] (= ‘liquid fire’) of the Holy Spirit sent down from the Father to his Son ‘with whom He is well pleased’, setting the model for all baptism by ‘fire’ (Matt. 3:11), i.e. for our rebirth by ‘water and the Spirit’[3] (John 3:5) qua participation in the baptismal mystery.

 

The Anointed One (the Christos) Himself naturally occupies the central position of the composition, shown with a gesture of blessing. He blesses the waters and, by blessing, purifies them, for as the Holy Fathers have said, in the baptism of Christ it is not He that is cleansed by the baptismal water but the waters are cleansed by Him so that they may be consecrated to serve for our purification. We may further see this ‘purification’ of the waters indicated by the two figures riding maritime creatures to the foot of Christ, looking back at him in astonishment, and moving away in a fugitive movement. They (often two: one male and one female) can be seen as personifications of the river Jordan (male) and the Sea (female), recalling the Psalm: “The sea beheld and fled; Jordan turned back” (113:3).

 

Often we find in these depictions also an obvious reference made to the Leviathan (sometimes Christ is even shown as standing on a den of snakes, recalling the ‘crushing of the serpent’s head’ and Lk. 10:19). It is thus the archetypical image of the Solar Hero descending into the depth of the ‘waters’ (the ‘light which shone into the darkness’ from Joh. 1:5, but also naturally the Fiat lux! spoken over the primordial waters in Gen. 1:3) to vanquish the chaos dragon and ushering in the ‘dawn’ of a new creation (likewise Vitra, the dragon slain by Indra in the vedic myth is said to have ‘kept the waters captive’ and the greek Python defeated by Apollon is called ‘guardian of the subterranean waters’) – “You did crush the heads of the dragons in the water”, thus the Psalmist (73:14). Archetypical image indeed (‘primordial, Jungian, realer than real’ and so on), for the image of the Divine Sun plunging into the waters to arise again (‘Epiphany’) reaches perhaps back to the oldest religious expressions known to man. As many of the ancient mysteries taught, through the bath of the Sun God, the waters are purified and, upon regeneration, turn into ‘fountains of wine’ (we’d like to recall here also the alchemical symbolism of the ‘fiery water’, which – ‘solvent’ and ‘coniunctio of opposites’ – is certainly related). Not only is this chymical wedding also a figure for the ‘mystical wedding’ of the soul and the Eucharistic Lord; the ‘marriage’ of the Sun and the waters is of course also a figure of the marriage between Christ and the Church, which receives its ‘wedding gown’ through the sacrament of baptism. As one Liturgical text for the Feast of Epiphany proclaims:

 

“Today the Church is united with her heavenly bridegroom, because in the Jordan Christ has washed away her sins: the Magi come to offer their presents and at this royal wedding, the water is changed into wine …”

 

Nuptial imagery is not only central to that of the first ‘epiphany’ (cf. the marriage at Cana, also celebrated on this feast) but also the parousia of the ‘second coming’, for marriage is not only a rite of unification but also one of ‘passing over’ (pesach). Hence baptism is an anticipation for the ‘8^th day’ of Resurrection and the mystical marriage of the lamb and his heavenly bride the Church.[4]  

 

The theme of ‘rebirth’ and ‘new creation’ is ofc. central to that of baptism, further reinforced by the image of the Spirit ‘hovering over the waters’ as it did in principio (Gen. 1:2). Now ‘dove’ in hebrew is ‘Jonah’ , which further enforces the theme of baptism as a first prefiguration of the Resurrection (recall also that the ‘gates of Hades’ in medieval iconography are often depicted as the jaws of a giant fish) and, in a way, makes it already a ‘sign of Jonah’ (Matt. 12: 39-41). Now the figure of Jonah (arab: Dhûn-Nûn; whereas ‘nûn’ means ‘fish’ in both arab and hebrew, or even ‘whale’ more specifically) is also closely linked with the image of the ‘fish’ (and in fact ‘fish’ and ‘dove’, corresponding to the ‘Word’ and the ‘Spirit’ are often almost interchangeable).[5]  ‘Nun’ being also a hebrew letter (נ) having the gematric value of 50 (7x7=49; cf. the symbolism of the ‘jobel year’ as the beginning of a ‘new cycle’) is a further indication of the theme of ‘rebirth’, i.e. of pesach into a ‘new creation’ (recall also the ‘dove’ in Noah, carrying the olive branch) [6] and it is no coincidence that in the OT it is Joshua-ben-Nun (as a figura for Christ, the ‘Joshua-ben-Joseph’) who leads the Israelites through this same river Jordan out of the Exodus into the ‘promised land’.

 

We are finally reminded of Christ as the ‘fish’, ICHTYS (Jesous Christos theou hyios soter), and as ‘fisher’ pulling us out of the ‘rivers of death’ (a charism exercised also by the Apostles as ‘fishers of men’)[7]. Indeed the composition of the Icon even seems to recall the verse about God ‘drawing out Leviathan with a hook’ [8] (Job 41:1), the ‘descending ray’ of the spirit evoking a ‘fishing line’, also a common symbol for the ‘thread spirit’ (sûtratman), on which all things are strung ‘like rows of gems on a thread’ (Bhagavad Gîtâ VII:7) and which originates ultimately from the unfathomable ‘dazzling darkness’ of the abyss of the Father at the top of the Icon. We thus see that the titular ‘Theophany’ is also an epiphany of the Trinity, which ‘reveals’ Itself on the vertical axis of the Icon. Read from top-down (Father – Hl. Spirit – Son) we see the Spirit in his ‘hypostatic maternity’, i.e. as ‘revealer of the Son’ both quoad nos and in divinis. Read bottom-up it is the Spirit who ‘binds back’ all things on the ‘horizontal plane’ to their common Origin (the Father, fons omnium). Being the ‘Spirit of Love’, instead of sûtratman one could speak with the Platonic tradition about the ‘flaming band of love’ (desmon puribrithe erotos), which binds the kosmos together, i.e. the Love in which all things turn back to the One and, in this universal epistrophé, receive their contingent being and unity/identity from its plenitude.

 

Over all we have thus (as in all Icons) a cruciform composition of a horizontal plane and a vertical axis. Christ, as the Universal Man, having overcome the ‘lower states’ (depicted as ‘walking on the waters’) is positioned in the middle of this Cross,  ‘recapitulating all things’ (Eph. 1:10) and returning them to their ‘centre’ (for the incarnated Theanthropos truly is the ‘centre’ in which God and man, vertical and horizontal, ‘intersect’). The notion of the centre is ofc. closely linked with that of the ‘heart’ (cor) – esp. the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the centrum omnium cordium[9] – and that of the ‘cave’, which (as the place of ‘burial’ and ‘rebirth’, i.e. the place of ‘pass-over’ from one state to the other par excellence) is a most important feature in all traditional iconography.

 

Thus the ‘flat’, byzantine perspective of the rocks featured on each shore makes it seem as if Christ were actually descending into the ‘heart’ of a mountain (which is every sacred mountain from Eden and Ararat to Tabor and Golgotha), as if He were standing in a ‘watery tomb’, literally ‘buried in baptism’, like the Apostle says (Col. 2:12).

 

Closely linked with symbolism of the ‘cave’ also that of the tree we see at the left hand corner of the image, recalling the “tree planted by the water” (Ps. 1:3-6) the Psalmists speaks of (and likewise the Cross as ‘tree of life’ from which spring the edenic streams of ‘living water’), but also (with the addition of the axe in some version) serving as a sobering reminder to the neophyte that

 

“… even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees; therefore every tree which produces not good fruit is cut down and cast into the fire” (Matt 3:10).

 

Furthermore, the ‘tree’ at the entrance of the ‘cave’ evokes the symbolism of the ‘golden bough’ (cf. Aeneas’ descend into Hades), which is also present in Christian iconography through the palm leafs of the martyrs as a symbol of immortality and victory over death. Lastly there is in Christianity a strong connection between ‘vegetal symbolism’ and the terrestrial paradise, which, through baptism, is opened to us anew (recall in this context also the palm leaves which accompany Christ’s entry into Jerusalem – another ‘descend into Hades’ as well as a ‘journey to the centre’ –  before passing through his passion, death and resurrection).

 

It has been said that every Icon contains at the same time all Icons and we see in the Icon of the Theophany both clear correspondences to the Icon of the Resurrection (which is almost identical in composition, a fact sometimes even more stressed by depicting Christ in the Jordan as standing on the cruciform ‘gates of Hades’ always featured in the Resurrection Icon) and the Icon of the Nativity (which likewise takes places in the dark depths of a mountain cave and which also features the ‘descending ray’ of the Spirit), linking baptism once more to the central theme of (re-)birth. But also the Icon of the Transfiguration (on Mt. Tabor) and that of the Crucifixion (in which we see the skull of Adam in the ‘cave’ of Mt. Golgotha being ‘baptised’ with the blood of Christ) find their echoes here, so that we could say that the Icon of the Theophany gives us almost a complete synthesis of all of Christs earthly ministry, from birth to resurrection.

 

In the vein of the notion of ‘reintegration to the centre’, we may also interpret the ‘male’ and ‘female’ figures (left & right) at the foot of Christ (central) here as restoration of primordial androgyny (this symbolism is even more evident in the Icon of Resurrection and the Dêesis-Icon), which is another coincidorum oppositorum on the ‘horizontal’ axis.

 

The male figure is also sometimes holding a mantle; an obvious allusion Elisha as a figura Christi. As the Prefestal Troparion of the Feast of the Theophany tells us:

 

“The River Jordan was once turned back by the mantle of Elisha, when Elijah had been taken up, and the waters were divided hither and thither. And for him the watery path became dry, Truly as a type of baptism, whereby we cross the flowing stream of life. Christ hath appeared in the Jordan to sanctify the waters.”

 

The ‘splitting of the waters’ not only recalls the parting of the Red Sea by Moses (as another prominent figure of baptism, in which, as the Holy Fathers tell us, our sins are ‘drowned’ like the Egyptians of old), but the figura of Elisha may also draw our attention to the fact that Christ is depicted almost naked (“I saw naked Him whom none can see, and shuddered in fear”, says one liturgical text; older Icons even featured a complete nude depiction). Like Elisha he has taken of his ‘mantle’ (the ‘garments of skin’, which according to St. Gregory of Nyssa represent our fallen, animalistic nature) and stands revealed in the titular Theophany, having restored the Edenic ‘nakedness’.  

 

Both the androgyny and the ‘nakedness’ may thus be read as an restoration of the ‘Primordial Man’ (el-insân el-qadîm), i.e. the ‘horizontal integration’, corresponding to the ‘Lesser Mysteries’, this restoration of the ‘primordial state’ being ofc. most fitting for the initiatory Sacrament of Baptism.

 

“The Lord refashions broken Adam in the streams of the Jordan. And He smashes the heads of dragons lurking there. The Lord does this, the King of the ages; for He has been glorified.” (Vigil for the Theophany, First Canon)

 

But as the Holy Fathers tell us, Christ does not merely effect a ‘putting off’ of the ‘old man’, but the Incarnation (in which we enter in through baptism) is also God ‘clothing our nakedness’. Thus we see on the right shore a group of (three, sometimes four) angels holding out fresh clothes [10] for the Saviour, which might be interpreted as the unstained ‘garments of glory’ (which are also symbolized by the white gown during that the neophyte wears in the rite of baptism – ‘Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow’, Is. 1:18). After the catharsis, the ‘purification’ and putting off the ‘old man’ (the ‘clear water’), we are thus invited to henosis, the unification (‘putting on Christ’) in the hieros gamos, symbolized by ‘wine’ and corresponding to the Sacrament of the Eucharist and to the ‘vertical realization’ of el-insan el-kâmil , the Universal Man (again, the alchemical symbolism of ‘whitening’ and ‘reddening’, water – wine, finds an almost exact correspondence here)[11].

Having reached the right end of the icon, we may conclude that the tripartite structure of the ‘horizontal’ axis, could also be said to be symbolizing the ‘three worlds’ (triloka), with the left shore being the ‘material world’, the middle the psychic waters of the subtle realm, separating it from the ‘spiritual realm’ of the right shore (the shore of the ‘angels’). Christ is placed in the middle as ‘mediator’ and pontifex (‘bridge’) between ‘heaven and earth’, recalling also the patristic saying that Christ died suspended in the air to clear the ‘atmosphere’ (the intermediary realm) of demons (also marking his superiority over other all other ‘daimonic’ intermediators). Now the ‘bridge’ both links and separates, showing Christ also as the ‘guardian’ of the ‘narrow gate’ and his role as Supreme Judge on the Last Day. The image of the bridge once more reminds us of the central mystery of baptism (and of Christianity in general one could say), namely that of ‘passage’ (pesach), for just as Joshua ‘parted the Jordan’ to lead his people into the promised land, so, inversely, during Christ’s baptism ‘the heavens cracked open’[12], for He is the Pontifex Maximus leading his people from their paradisiac Exodus back to their celestial promised land; over the waters “to the other shore of the beyond” (Katha Up. 3,1), in a pesach from “non-being to being, from darkness to light, from death to immortality” (Br. Up. 1,3,28; cf. also Maitri Up.  6,28 & Chand. Up. 7,26,2).

 

That we may thus pass over to yon further shore, so help us Almighty God. Amen.