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.

Personal Opinion on Icons and Living Tradition

When I decided to restart this blog, it was partially motivated by emails I have received asking me to revive it. The most popular posts have been about icons, so I re-started there. Icons occupy a space between liturgy and theology. They express a close connection between temporary matter and eternal divinity wherein God informs his creation, literally. His divine form--the face of Jesus Christ--is depicted on a board. I plan an article on Mar Gabriel of Qatar's commentary, which will expand on this topic as well as St Ephrem's theology on how God incarnates himself and reveals himself.

I do not advocate for icons being immediately restored in the living liturgy of the Assyrian Church of the East. I believe that the sources on our icons need to be well understood. Understanding icons in the East Syriac tradition means understanding them more deeply than just as a liturgical element. Like a cross, an icon is not just a decoration or empty sign. It has a mystical quality wherein the divine reality is made present before us, but this is a deeper teaching of the Church. It goes to how our salvation is, at heart, an intimacy with the divine. Before we attempt to revive icons liturgically, we need to be revived theologically.

A superficial and hasty understanding of divine things should never lead us to action. Prayer, which takes time and struggle, is required to properly live out theology. There is a story of Pope Paul VI, who oversaw the development of a new Order of the Mass for the Latin Catholic Church. In 1969, as part of this liturgical reform, Pope Paul VI suppressed the Octave of Pentecost, which is very ancient and celebrates the work of the Holy Spirit by extending the feast for eight days. On the Monday after Pentecost 1970, Pope Paul VI went to vest and was surprised that ordinary green vestments were laid out for him instead of red for the Octave of Pentecost. "What on earth are these for," exclaimed the pontiff, "it is the Octave of Pentecost. Where are the red vestments?" His sacristan responded: "It is now ordinary time. It is green now. The Octave of Pentecost was abolished." The Pope responded: "Green? This is impossible. Who did that?" The sacristan responded: "You did, holy father." And Pope Paul wept.

Historical or not, the story is true in that the ancient gifts of the Holy Spirit are the most precious treasures we have and once lost are difficult to recover. A love for Christ means a love for his Church and that includes our precursors in the race as much as our fellows contesting with us. Icons present the Assyrian Church with a starting point for conversing with the fathers and grappling with the tradition. They are, by far, the most popular topic to write about and that is a good thing since it gets us thinking through the faith. Unlike what happened with the Latin rite, we have maintained the authority and power of Sacred Tradition as inviolable and based on the historical record. We all accept that the Church of the Fathers is our Church, but our contemporary practice often differs from the historical record. What we lack from the tradition we lack due to the brutality of the past centuries and we crave an authentic restoration of our spiritual inheritance. There is nothing that suggests than anyone suppressed or abolished icons, the use of the bema in liturgy, liturgical fans, or the Presanctified Liturgy (just a few concrete and easy examples). But they have not been practiced in living memory, a living memory that, for over a century, has been preoccupied with each generation seeking refuge in a new context.

Perhaps the next century will see the dynamic of the account of Pope Paul VI play out in reverse. Instead of one day waking out of the holy hum-drum of two millennia of consistency with the work of the Holy Spirit to discover that the very celebration of the Holy Spirit has been curtailed, we would slowly awaken to the gifts and treasures buried for us in the very words that we never stopped repeating. Such a revival should be based on a revival in understanding the theology, especially mystical theology, of our fathers. If we do not see the mystical power of the incomprehensible God putting on the garment of names, of the incarnation, then we will not properly receive the spiritual gift that should accompany the visual gift of the icon, or any other part of sacred tradition. The iconographer's brush and the theologian's reed do the same thing and if your eye cannot see the incomprehensible mystery revealed in the one, it will be blind to the same in the other. 

Saint Ephrem expressed the bedrock theological principle that only a 'luminous eye' can see the kingdom of heaven where it is depicted, and in icons with images as much as in books with words, the kingdom is present, and so our own preparation to venerate an icon or read sacred scripture is the more arduous task than obtaining either physical object.

For the mirror is a figure of the holy preaching of the outward Gospel. Within itself is depicted the beauty of the beautiful who look into it, and again in it the defects of the ugly who despise it are rebuked. And just as this natural mirror is but a figure of the Gospel, so too the Gospel is but a figure of the beauty that is above which does not fade and at which all the sins of the created world are rebuked. For in it reward is given to all who have kept their beauty from being defiled with mud. For to everyone who peers into this mirror his sins are visible, and everyone who considers it, sees there the lot which is reserved for him, whether good or bad. There the kingdom of heaven is depicted visible to those who have a luminous eye; there the lofty ranks of the good are to be seen on high, there the raised ranks of the intermediate can be distinguished, and there the low ranks of the wicked are marked out. There the fair faces, prepared for those who are worthy of them, can be recognized, there Paradise is visible, joyous with its flowers. In that mirror Gehenna, too, is visible, all fiery, ready for those who deserve to live there. (Letter to Publius, 1-2 quoted from Brock, 77)

Icons, it seems, represent a good starting point for many to penetrate the space between the written and enacted life of the Church of the East. It is not the only one, nor necessarily the best one. Icons were a part of a traditional architecture and layout of Church of the East temples and as such had a scaffolding or framework, both physical and intellectual, that supported their role in our spiritual life. This all can be revived, and we owe it to our heritage to study the richness of our inheritance and use it fully. We also owe our heritage a good read and much reflection before acting. We would have to live out the written liturgy as we are able, which assumes a process of assimilating old rubrics to new dynamics. Throughout the liturgical year, many feasts and memorials presume a more complex and rich repertoire of liturgical movement. For instance, the vigil of Easter with its multiple gospel readings and, possibly, Vesperal liturgy of the Resurrection. Or the weekdays of lent with presanctified liturgies that presuppose a movement from bema to altar that makes these awkward given the current layout. One can easily find things in the tradition and develop a constantly jarring pattern of making a fad of liturgical restoration. However, there is much to consider, analyze, and discuss in every detail of the tradition. Discussing and even lovingly disputing aspects of the tradition will bear us the fruits we need to live out the tradition.

My point in retelling the story of Pope Paul VI is that stunning yourself with your liturgical choices is symptomatic of two mistakes. One is that if you are shocked with a liturgical practice, assuming you know the tradition well, something is definitely wrong. Second is that if you feel you have made a liturgical choice, something is wrong. This does not mean we cannot revive practices that persecution repressed. If a learned member of the Church of the East sees a bema in use, they shouldn't be shocked but presently surprised: "that's right!" There is nothing less wise than an unnecessary liturgical imposition since it violates the pious and true compass that preserves the Church: a love for the faith of the fathers. Such a faith compass will embrace and enliven any authentic aspect of the tradition, in prayer.

Icons are far better represented in the tradition than I have made obvious in this blog, but it would shock many in the Church of the East to see icons in their churches. This does not mean that they should not, one day, perhaps soon, be restored. It also means that we need to understand the tradition that we receive far deeper than just knowing its mechanics. Proving that the Assyrian Church of the East traditionally had and used icons is not a hard thing. It has already been done: Herman Teule, “The Veneration of Images in the East Syriac Tradition,” in Die Welt der Götterbilder, pp. 324--346. The more important work is understanding the theology that surrounds icons, that gave birth to them. 

Above quote from Saint Ephrem taken from:
Brock, Sebastian. The Luminous Eye: The Spiritual World Vision of Saint Ephrem the Syrian. Cistercian: Kalamazoo, 1992) ,77.

For the Italian of the Pope Paul VI story:
http://blog.messainlatino.it/2010/05/le-lacrime-di-paolo-vi-e-lottava-di.html