Jesus' first bath

[SyroMalankara]

Of course, I was referring specifically to the replication of an older icon such as the one displayed here, or any others of God the Father. For a long while, when Russia was going through a bit of a Western art phase, they depicted God the Father regardless of the Canon (perhaps they were simply unaware since it was so commonplace in the West). It took a counsel of their own to rectify this, and you no longer see such depictions other than what has already been produced. The point is, these matters are handled post facto. Have you seen any icons of St. John the Forerunner pointing to a lamb? Such a depiction of an allusion to Christ was canonically ‘outlawed’ early on, yet many such depictions have adorned church temples for centuries.

As for the historicity of the icon, I am unaware of any church hymnography that refers to the washing of Christ, but I certainly invite any that may be made available.

Just as an aside - while Byzantines are averse to depicting God the Father or the Ancient of Days or Old man with beard (call it any or all), the Copts and Ethiopians have icons of this up to modern times.

 

[Andonios]

Just as an aside - while Byzantines are averse to depicting God the Father or the Ancient of Days or Old man with beard (call it any or all), the Copts and Ethiopians have icons of this up to modern times.

That’s certainly interesting. How far back do these depictions go, and if they are within the last 1000 years, I am curious as to their origin of influence.

“Byzantines” a strange misnomer. EO and I’m guessing EC’s have no problem depicting Ancient of Days because Ancient of Days is Christ.

 

[SyroMalankara]

That’s certainly interesting. How far back do these depictions go, and if they are within the last 1000 years, I am curious as to their origin of influence.

Some are within the last 1000, some are before:

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“Byzantines” a strange misnomer. EO and I’m guessing EC’s have no problem depicting Ancient of Days because Ancient of Days is Christ.

My mistake. Byzantines was to differential between Eastern Orthodox/Byzantine Catholics from Oriental Orthodox and non-Byzantine Eastern Catholics (Syriacs, Copts, Armenians, Chaldeans, etc)

 

[ronyodish]

I would not make extra-biblical Eastern Icons unless there is a prior tradition of depicting this event in the form of an Eastern Icon. Those who paint Icons must paint them according to the tradition of the Church and not make up things.

You can make the Icon since there is a 12th century Icon of the event that you described. Since tradition supports the Icon, there is nothing wrong with it.

https://scontent-a-atl.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/1379715_592943457436699_350927562_n.jpg
Source: flickr.com/photos/27305838@N04/8406713004/

It’s a beautiful icon.

The Assyrians have a similar icon:

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God bless,

Rony

 

[Andonios]

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This shows the Prophet Moses being handed down the Law. Who is the Giver of the Law, but Christ? In most traditional EO icons, the portrayal is only made manifest through the hands of the Giver so as not to reveal a preIncarnate Christ, however, showing Him as the Ancient of Days is not entirely improper.

As for the other, this isn’t a traditional or ancient portrayal at all, but rather influence from the Jesuit interaction in the region starting int he 17th Cent.

See link for more info:
iscte.pt/~mjsr/html/expo_jesuits/art.htm

 

[SyroMalankara]

How about these EO icons, I know they are less common today, since the Russian ban in 1667, but wonder-working nontheless:







Also, see this: htuomc.org/mosaic.html

The icon of the Holy Trinity is a most important one for the Orthodox Church. In this icon, the fundamental truth of one God in three Divine Persons (the teaching on the Trinity) is revealed and acknowledged. According to St. Paul an many Church Father this belief is codified in the statement that we believe “in the Father through the Son and in the Holy Spirit”

 In iconography, the Trinity is often depicted in the form of the Biblical scene of three angels appearing to Abraham by the oak of Mamre (Genesis 18:1-8). The icon is found on the iconostatis of our Cathedral. This image shows the first appearance of God to man and initiates the beginning of the promise of redemption. This if often referred to as the Old Testament Trinity.

 The fulness of the revelation of the Trinity however takes place in the New Testament with the events associated with the incarnation of Jesus Christ and the various appearances of the Holy Spirit in the form of the dove. This thus is the New Testament Trinity as found in the exterior mosaic of the Cathedral. The mosaic depicts God the Father as the old and wise Father, and below him God the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, and God the Son as the incarnate Christ the Teacher holding the Gospel with the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha and omega - "I am the beginning and the end". The icon shows clearly the unity of the three divine persons who are three, subject to their own Existence and Life, yet one in Divine Nature and being, one in Divine action and Will and one in Divine Knowledge and Love.

 The mosaic depicts the Trinity in the spiritual world, yet a world that is attached to our universe. Christ is in fact stepping with His left foot on the world (the globe) proclaiming that He is truly the "king and ruler of the universe". Surrounding the Trinity on both sides are a series of eight angels who are know as the hosts of bodiless powers and serve the function of being the messengers of God. They are in fact the mediators between God in the Trinity and the world. 

 The mosaic as such illustrates in color a theology of the important teaching of the church on the Trinity. It is this same teaching that at each liturgy of the Orthodox Church is proclaimed with the singing or the recitation of the fourth century Nicean-Constantinopolian Creed - I believe in One God, in Three Divine Persons.

Leo Mol - Artist of the Mosaic
Holy Trinity Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral is most honoured that Leo Mol, a widely known Ukrainian artist, accepted the commission of the mosaic of the Holy Trinity. The artwork was prepared in Winnipeg by Leo Mol, the mosaic stone was cut and executed in Rome, Italy by Marco Montecelli and Carlo Maloni and the final installation was done by Milano Tile Co. of Winnipeg, supervised by Alfredo Maida. (taken from the Celebration Program of the Millennium of Ukrainian Christianity and the Blessing of the Holy Trinity Mosaic - October 23, 1988)

 

[Garaj]

Хрїстóсъ воскрéсе!
Χριστός ἀνέστη!

I am not sure of the icon of the bathing of the Saviour but in Greek and Slavic icons of the Nativity, there is usually women seen bathing the newly born child Jesus. This scene is generally in one of the bottom corners. Am I to assume that it is forbidden to paint just his portion of the Nativity icon as a subject?

ХРИСТОС ВОСКРЕС!
Christ is Risen!

Garaj

 

[MorEphrem]

I would think that Trent condemned it b/c it is not from a Scriptural sources.

Veronica’s veil.

Anyway, iconography is an Eastern practice. Latin councils are irrelevant in the East.

 

[Andonios]

Some of what I’m about to present has been discussed in part, but I recently obtained a wonderful book from Fr. Constantine Cavarnos called “Guide to Byzantine Iconography” that presents a wonderful discussion on this very matter.

Certain details of the icon should be noted. The Child Christ is shown either asleep, or awake, looking at the Theotokos. The latter half-reclines on a mattress near the Child, usually in front of the manger. Her expression and that of Joseph are meditative. This is consonant with the statement in the Gospel of Saint Luke that the shepherds *told the others* the supernatural things that they had seen and heard at the countryside–that is, the Angel, the Angelic message and chanting–and that "Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heard."
The depiction of the Theotokos kneeling before the Child in attitude of adoration, seen in some Orthodox icons of the post-Byzantine period, is of Western origin. It first appeared in the West in the fourteenth century and became established in the seventeenth. This type of representation of the Theotokos begins to be used by some Greek iconographers in the mid-sixteenth century. 
Other innovations, too, appeared in the West. For example, a man-made dwelling replaced the cave; the Infant was shown naked, instead of swaddled; Joseph, instead of being depicted seated in one of the corners of the foreground, is shown near the manger, opposite the Virgin Mary, like her kneeling before the Child; the donkey and the ox are left out of the composition, and so is the bathing scene; many superfluous and distracting things were introduced, such as horses, camels, dogs, crowds of people, and so on. Sometimes the nativity scene is so overcrowded that the Divine Child can hardly be seen!
In some Byzantine icons of the Nativity, such as the mosaic in the monastic church of Hósios Lukás (eleventh-century), the Theotokos is represented seated. In this way, the iconographer sought to emphasize that she gave birth to Christ without labors, painlessly. The idea of a painless, supernatural birth finds expression in Byzantine hymnography, too. Thus, in the *Akáthistos Hymn*, the poet says, addressing himself to the Theotokos, "Holy one, thou didst bring forth without labours." The fact that usually she is shown partly reclining is not to be taken as an indication of exhaustion following childbirth, but simply of the natural need of all human beings to rest at night.

To be continued…

 

[Andonios]

**And now we get to the particular point of interest/contention…
**

The bathing scene, which appears at the lower right or left hand corner of the icon, calls for considerable discussion. As we noted, this scene is based on passages in the Apocryphal Gospels of James and Matthew. Both speak of the presence of two women, who were called by Joseph to attend Mary during the birth. The Gospel of James says that one of the women, named Salome, was a midwife, while the other was her assistant. The bathing scene occurs in frescoes as early as the sixth and seventh centuries, at Castelseprio of Milan. But it probably appeared also elsewhere even earlier, and it can be scene in frescoes of Cappadocia of the tenth and eleventh centuries, in the mosaics of Hósios Lukás, and in frescoes and mosaics of the centuries that followed, in many regions, including Mount Athos. 
At Athos, the bathing scene was erased from the mural Nativity scene in many churches–for instance, in the main church of the monasteries of Dionysiou, Lavra and Stavronikita. The monks did this because there had arisen in the eighteenth century much discussion on the Holy Mountain as to the rightness of including this scene in the representation of the Nativity. Those who were against the inclusion of the bathing scene argued: (1) that it is not mentioned in the canonical Gospels; (2) that the Lord was absolutely clean and did not need any washing; and (3) that the Theotokos gave birth in a manner altogether transcending the order of nature and without any pains, and hence needed no assistance from a midwife.
In his widely known book, *Explanation of the Art of Painting*, the Athonite monk Dionysios of Fourna omits the bathing scene in his account of how the Nativity of Christ should be depicted, even though the great iconographers Manuel Panselinos (fourteenth-century) and Theophanes the Cretan (sixteenth-century), both of whom he admired, included the scene in their paintings of the Nativity. Another prominent figure who was against the inclusion of the washing scene was Nicodemos the Hagiorite (1749-1809). He wrote against it in his famous *Rudder*. What is said and wrote strengthened the trend on Athos at that time against the bathing scene. 
It should be noted that representing the Infant Jesus as being bathed in depictions of His Nativity was forbidden by the Council of Trent (1545-1563) of the Roman Catholic Church as dogmatically reprehensible. This Western idea evidently found its way to Mount Athos in the eighteenth century through Roman Catholics who travelled in Greece, and also in Russia. Saint Nicodemos was acquainted with this idea, probably even before he went to the Holy Mountain, from the Jesuits who were active in other parts of Greece, and thought that the Roman Catholics were right in banishing the bathing scene as being unscriptural, inconsistent with Church doctrine, and contrary to right reason. 
Dionysios of Fourna, swayed by Western ideas concerning the depiction of the Nativity, made** no mention of the bathing scene in his book. And in describing the position in which the Theotokos should be represented in the Nativity icon, he abolishes the Orthodox reclining position of the Theotokos, instructing the iconographer to show her kneeling. Thus, in Dionysios these Western ideas became codified and influenced subsequent Orthodox iconography.
In response to this idea of avoiding the use of the bathing scene in the Nativity icon, Kalokyris makes the following telling remarks:
(1) The fact that the scene is not mentioned in the New Testament but is taken from Apocryphal Gospels is not a good reason for omitting it. Other scenes, such as "The Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple," are also not mentioned in the New Testament, but there never arose any dissension about them in the Orthodox Church. From the doctrinal point of view, there is no difficulty at all. That the Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ without the pangs of childbirth, and had no need of the attendance of midwives, and that Jesus was clean and spotless are not grounds for regarding the scene of bathing Him unacceptable. The inclusion of this scene is meant to show simply that Christ *condescended* to undergo a *human custom*, just as He later *condescended* to be subjected to the practice of *circumcision* and to *baptism*, of which He had no need. Hence, from a very early period, Christian iconography accepted the bathing scene as something innocent and as *emphasizing* the *real Incarnation* of the Saviour and bringing it closer to us.
(2) Significantly, none of the Oecumenical Synods which made official declarations about the representations of Christ opposed the bathing scene. 
(3) During the period of Iconoclasm, when so many themes pertaining to iconography were discussed, the bathing scene was never mentioned as an issue.
(4) Finally, in the period that followed Iconoclasm, when icon painting became a means of expressing *dogmas* of the Church, no objections were raised about depicting this scene. 
Quite noteworthy with regard to the bathing scene is also the fact that Photios Kontoglou, the most recent codifier of the proper way of depicting holy scenes and personages of the Christian Church, has *included* in his *Ekphrasis of Orthodox Iconography* the bathing scene in his description of the way in which the Nativity should be depicted. 
In this, and in many other ways, Kontoglou rectified errors contained in the book of Dionysios of Fourna, deviations from the Orthodox tradition of iconography due to Western influence.

 

[Andonios]

Further reference from the Pedalion (Rudder):

97. MANY ICONS VIOLATE ORTHODOX PIETY RE ICONS
Hence artists making icons ought not to depict the Theotokos on the occasion
of the feast of Christmas at the Nativity of Christ, to be lying upon a bed and
apparently exhausted by the pain; but, on the other hand, neither ought the words
“Epilochia of the Theotokos” (meaning the Puerperium) to be even so much as
mentioned in print in the Menaion on the second day after Christmas but only
the words “Synaxis of the Theotokos.” For according to St. Gregory of Nyssa,
who is in agreement on this point with this Synod, the birth of Christ alone
occurred without any comingling of childbed; accordingly, the term childbed
and synonyms thereof cannot properly be applied to the incorrupt and fully
conserved body of the Virgin who never had any experience of matrimony
whatsoever.

For certain women, on the other hand, to be depicted as washing Christ in a
basin, as is to be seen in many icons representing the Nativity of Christ, is
absurd, an absolute impropriety, and the invention of carnal men; for this reason
it ought by all means be discarded. Since, however, it is a fact that the divine
melodists and hymnographers and song-writers often call the childbirth of the
Theotokos a locheia in Greek (for which we substitute in English the inept word
childbed), let this term be applied catachrestically to her childbed-less childbirth
as a painless childbed and be taken in the sense of being used to avoid calling it
a simple childbirth. (Note of Translator Certain thoughts cannot be expressed
adequately due to the lack of English words corresponding to the highly specific
terms of the Greek, an adequate translation of this part of the book is impossible.
It would seem, however, that the English term “Nativity” might well enough be
substituted for the Greek term “locheia” (of or connected with childbirth) in this
case.)