Assyrian Church of the East Icons from MS 344 (Part 2 of 3)

As promised, here is the next installment of icons from BN MS 344. See my earlier post about icons here and some background on the topic of icons in the Assyrian Church of the East here. This is the next six icons from that set, and there will be one more set of six forthcoming as there are eighteen icons in total.

Folio 3bisv is this icon of the Transfiguration of Christ on Mount Tabor. He is surrounded by uncreated divine light, which is described by Mar Ishodad in his commentary on Mark: 

Now the Light of our Lord was not created as the Light of the Righteous; for because of His unity (ܚܕܝܘܬܐ)with the Word, by the light of the Word He shines as with a vesture (ܐܝܟ ܕܒܬܠܒܫܬܐ ܡܙܠܓ); for Humanity received all these possessions of the Word (ܟܠܗܝܢ ܓܝܪ ܡܪ̈ܢܝܬܗ̇ ܕܡܠܬܐ ܩܒܠܬ ܐܢܫܘܬܐ ܣܛܪ ܡ̣ܢ ܟܝܢܐ) except [its] nature." [Gibson, Margaret Dunlop. The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv on the New Testament. Vol I: The Gospels in English. Cambridge: CUP, 1911), 135.]

Christ shines in the uncreated light of his divinity and the light is pouring out from him upon the disciples. The light is one of the maranyatha, which literally means 'of the Lord,' but is a technical word describing the aspect of God which shines forth and is imminent in mankind as opposed to his nature, which is purely transcendent and beyond us. This is a cognate teaching to the energies and essences distinction as presented in Saint Gregory Palamas. 

In this icon, the disciples seem more concerned with the activity at their level. Moses and Elijah are on either side of Christ and below him are Peter, John, and Jacob. The Syriac inscriptions read, starting from the word outside of the frame: Elijah, then between Elijah and Christ is written "Nusardil," which seems a strange thing to inscribe here. It makes me wonder if Nusardil ever coincided with Transfiguration. Since the next word is Moses, it would make sense that one would write Elijah between that figure and Christ and Moses where it is written. Perhaps he wrote Nusardil before writing the names and then the inscriber ran out of room. The iconographer seems very careful and skilled but the scribe almost scribbles in explanations. On the bottom row, beneath Moses is written Jacob, but the word misses the letter "w." And then the name John is written between John and Peter, whose name is inscribed above his head. Note the interesting use of red and yellow in the frame. The mandorla around Christ is red as is the divine light streaming down and it seems to fill up the frame that is red up to the level of Christ's feet; the heavenly level is filling up the earthly. It may be that the inscriber mixed up Moses and Elijah here.

Next is the Washing of the Feet of the Disciples (4r). Only one line is inscribed in Syriac: "Peter as his Feet are Washed." All twelve are there,  the rest seated and waiting their turn. I find the glances, one to another, a wonder feature of this icon. For a rather simple style, it is very expressive. Peter is raised, almost hovering over the vessel as Christ is on a lower level, but not quite bowed down. Christ preserves a divine upright posture yet is humble before his disciples. This icon begins a holy week series as each one of these icons matches the thematic of the liturgical progression from Holy Saturday to the Resurrection. Curiously, there is no representation of the Upper Room Passover Meal or Mystical Supper.

Next is this stunning icon of the Crucifixion of Christ (4v). The one Syriac inscription outside of the frame is "Christ Crucified on the Cross." The icon itself depicts the centurions giving Christ gall to drink as well as piercing his side. The sun and moon depict the darkening of the sun and reddening of the moon, based on Joel 2.31: "The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord." Saint Ephrem is explicit that the sun went dark and the moon became red. (De cruxifixione 4; also hymns 5, 6, and 7 of the same).

Much of what is depicted comes from Syriac apocryphal literature, which you can discover in The Cave of Treasures  [=COT] and Solomon of Basra's Book of the Bee [=BOB]. We have names for the thieves: Titus, the repentant, is on the right and Dymachus, the unrepentant, is on the left; this tradition comes from the Syriac Infancy Gospel (unlike COT and BOB, this text is not a well attested text in the tradition). The inscription tablet on the cross is tilted up, raised up on the side of the good thief, perhaps signifying his ascent to Paradise. In the hymns of the Church of the East, Titus the repentant thief is a frequent motif, so there is a textual context for focusing on his person and connecting it to the cross, if that is what is going on here.

Christ's legs are crossed rather than side by side as the legs of the other two thieves. This may be a Christological representation of the two natures being unified as it is God the Son who dies according to his human nature. The two thieves have their feet and legs parallel. 

Below the cross is what looks like a face. It represents the skull of Adam that was buried by Noah after the flood in the place that became Golgotha, named for Adam's skull. In the Cave of Treasures and in the Book of the Bee, Noah has Shem and Melchizedek place the body of Adam in the center of the Earth, at Golgotha (COT, 124-129). Perhaps in this icon, the skull at the foot of the cross is represented as a life-like face instead of a skull as a representation of a living Adam, who is brought back to life and vested with the robe of glory when the blood and water from the side of Christ poured forth into his mouth, reviving him (COT, 231-232).  The Book of the Bee has Longinus as both the sick man healed in John 5.14 as well as the soldier who pierced the Lord with a spear (BOB, 94). 

The representation of a skull at the foot of a crucifix may have its origin the the Syriac accounts of Golgotha as the resting place of Adam, who is revived and proclaims the Lakhumara, the Church of the East equivalent of the Greek Trisagion.  The Lakhumara is also called the Prayer of Adam: "Thee Lord we confess, and thee we glorify, for thou art the quickener of our bodies and thou art the savior of our souls;" it is the prayer that Adam offers up as Christ descends to hell and saves those therein. (BOB 30-35). The connection between Adam, or his skull, buried beneath the cross and the salvific work of the cross expresses not only the abstract idea of Christ as second Adam, but also makes this concrete in Christ recapitulating Adam on the cross. Although the Cave of Treasures as a whole is probably not St Ephrem's work as it purports itself to be, there are many parts of the text that seem to have been written by him as they present his theology and, sometimes, in his style. The connection between the Friday on which Adam was cast out of Paradise and the Friday on which salvation was accomplished appears magnificently in Ephrem's hymn:

On Friday Adam and Eve sinned, and on Friday their sin was remitted.
On Friday Adam and Eve died, and on Friday they came alive.
On Friday Death reigned over them, and on Friday they were freed from his dominion.
On Friday Adam and Eve went forth from Paradise, and on Friday our Lord went into the grave.
On Friday Adam and Eve became naked, and on Friday Christ stripped Himself naked and clothed them.
On Friday Satan stripped Adam and Eve naked, and on Friday Christ stripped naked Satan and all his hosts, and put them to shame openly.
On Friday the door of Paradise was shut and Adam went forth, and on Friday it was opened and a robber went in.
On Friday the two-edged sword was given to the Cherub, and on Friday Christ smote with the spear, and brake the two-edged sword.
On Friday kingdom, and priesthood, and prophecy were given unto Adam, and on Friday priesthood, and kingdom, and prophecy were taken from the Jews.
At the ninth hour Adam went down into the lowest depth of the earth from the height of Paradise, and at the ninth hour Christ went down to the lowest depths of the earth, to those who lay in the dust, from the height of the Cross.

One final commentary on the existence of Church of the East depictions of the Crucifixion. I have often heard members of the Assyrian Church of the East express that our tradition does not have depictions of the crucifixion. This chiefly applies to crosses with a corpus, but the concept would extend to icons if we are being conceptually consistent. I never actually read any argument against a depiction of the crucifixion. Globally, most ancient crosses lacked a corpus. The earliest depictions of the crucified Lord were icons, and there is no textual evidence for the Church of the East rejecting crucifixes. In general, crucifixes became more common over the history of the Christian Church, which makes sense as a corpus is a sculpture or carving that is much more complex and expensive to produce than the cross itself. My guess is that as Latin missionaries came to the East, the native members of the Church of the East found their insistence of a corpus on the cross (by then required in the Roman Rite) unnecessary and so a Latin requirement of a corpus translated itself to an Assyrian requirement of no corpus.  I imagine that during the first 1500 years of the Church of the East, they generally used the nicest cross they could manage to bring into their possession. 

Next is the Burial of Jesus by Joseph and Nicodemus (5r). Next to Joseph of Arimathea, who holds Christ's head, is written "Joseph," and Nicodemus' name appears near his head. These inscriptions seem to be in iron gall ink and in a different hand from the India ink inscriptions. Christ is arrayed in scarlet, which is mentioned in the Cave of Treasures (225). I believe the two pole-like objects on either side of the cross are the sponge and the spear, though I am open to suggestions given that they seem to be flaming at the top. As Holy Week goes forward, the burial of Christ is commemorated in the Gospel of Matins of Holy Saturday (Matt 27.62-end).

The Harrowing of Hell (5v) has the inscription within the icon: "Hell (Gehenna)...This is Adam." Outside of the frame: "This is Christ." Christ is grasping Adam by the arm and pulling him out of hell along with the righteous. Christ's staff is the cross, which he plunges into Satan's head. Christ seems to be standing on the doors of hell. I am not sure what the menorah like item below Adam and Eve is.

This icon depicts what we commemorate on Great Saturday. The hymn sung at From the age to the ages of ages of Great Saturday depicts the Harrowing of Hell as the resurrection of the Old Testament: "In the sorrow of our Lord sorrow and wonder grasped angels and men and the dead of the graves were aroused and from their tombs they went forth singing: glory to the Son that hast descended unto us and for us was hung upon the cross and called out in his living voice and did shake the earth and heavens. Rise up first Adam and see the Only-begotten Son for he suffered as a sinner at the hands of the Jewish people. Rise up injured Abel, killed by his hurtful brother, and see the savior of the world that died for the life of the world...Blessed is thy death [Christ's]! Glorious is they resurrection! Forgive and absolve by thy grace thy slaves who confess thy divinity. Holpen us in thy might and always pour out thy mercies upon the assembled in the churches that confess thee for thou has arisen in truth and unto thee with thy Father offer glory, worship together with thy Holy Spirit, eternally." (Hudra, vol. II, 514-515) 

Finally, for this week, the Holy Myrrh-bearing Women at Christ's Tomb (6r). At the beginning of the switch from Holy Saturday to Easter, the gospel reading is of the Myrrh-bearing Women (Luke 24.1-12). The Myrrh-bearing women are also the theme of the Third Sunday of the Resurrection, which falls 14 days after Easter, the First Sunday of the Resurrection. This icon has the vertical Syriac inscription: "This is Gabriel; this is the tomb; guards." It labels the three tiers of action as winged Gabriel points to the empty shroud to inform the women, holding myrrh, that Christ is risen. On the lowest tier are the guards. Only the named myrrh-bearers are depicted: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, but not the others who were with them. Notice the onion dome again. Maybe this was a common feature of East Syriac architecture. 

The women came to see the tomb. Wonder and amazement seized them as they saw Christ who was placed in the tomb, and they also saw the guards who guarded the tomb. They took heart when they saw the angel that descended and rolled the stone from the tomb. Darkness enveloped the guards and the women were weeping and they did not know what had happened. Christ meet the women and appeared as the gardener, [so they asked:] O Lord, if thou hast taken him, tell us where he is that we may go and receive him. We ask of thee, have mercy upon us. (Hudra II, 611)

All page numbers in this post were given in reference to these editions:
Budge, Ernest A.Wallis. The Book of the Bee: The Syriac Text. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886.

Budge, Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis. The Book of the Cave of Treasures: A History of the Patriarchs and the Kings, Their Successors, from the Creation to the Crucifixion of Chirst : Translated from the Syriac Text of the British Museum Ms. Add.25875. 1927. 

Gibson, Margaret Dunlop. The Commentaries of Isho'dad of Merv on the New Testament. Vol I: The Gospels in English. Cambridge: CUP, 1911.