Divine Incognito

Pentecost, from the Ingeborg Psalter (Psalterium Ingeburgae reginae)

Sophia, Wisdom of God, by an unknown artist

1 Corinthians 2

Commentaries by Clementine Kane

Works of art by Graham Sutherland and Unknown artist

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The Mind of Christ

Commentary by Clementine Kane

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An image of the Spirit descending at Pentecost articulates in concrete terms the more abstract ideas of 1 Corinthians 2. In this page from an illustrated thirteenth-century psalter, we see the disciples assembled around Mary as the Spirit descends. The book was produced in France for Ingeborg, the Danish wife of the French king Phillip II (Deuchler 1970: 57). In this version, Mary is rendered as a crowned medieval noblewoman, perhaps modelled on Ingeborg herself.

The disciples, subtly individualized, respond with gestures rather than facial expressions to the event unfolding above and through them. Crimson streaks flow to each head from the throat of a haloed dove symbolizing the Holy Spirit. The dove itself bears a cruciform halo as if to underscore the connection between God the Son and God the Spirit.

Christ presides over the bestowal of the Spirit—the gift of his ongoing presence to believers. The figure of Christ is situated both within the architectural space of the room and beyond it, as delineated by an orange crescent and undulating blue emanations. He is the source of the gifts given by the Holy Spirit, although his image is a surprisingly rare inclusion in the imagery of Pentecost.

In the final verses of this chapter, Paul unites the two themes he has introduced—the startling simplicity of his message and the need for mature spiritual wisdom granted by God. To receive the gifts of the Spirit of God is to acquire the ‘mind of Christ’ (1 Corinthians 2:16). For Paul, each person needs the indwelling of the Spirit to understand the things of God; without this infusion, Jesus’s death is ‘a stumbling block’ and ‘folly’ (1:23).

The moment of Pentecost pictured in this manuscript is the moment of the bestowal of the ‘mind of Christ’. Although the figures are rendered in a way that reflects the context of the work’s patroness, the golden background sets this scene apart from any particular time and space, perhaps emphasizing the availability of this spiritual transformation both to the first followers of Christ and the viewers of the manuscript.

References

Deuchler, Florens. 1970. ‘The Artists of the Ingeborg Psalter’, Gesta, 9.2: 57–58

Knowing Nothing

Commentary by Clementine Kane

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The Apostle Paul, eschewing the powerful rhetorical modes of his day, reiterates his simple, shocking message: Jesus Christ, crucified, is the way of life.

The starkness and simplicity of Paul’s message is reflected in Graham Sutherland’s spare crucifixion. Inspired by long meditation on Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim Altarpiece, Sutherland’s Christ is a sharply drawn modern interpretation (Newton 1966: 282). The geometric abstraction describes his suffering; the measured lines constrict his body. Set against a deep blue background, the absence of any other figures or reference suggests an atemporal quality to this event. Outside of a particular time, it can speak to all times.

Despite the extreme angles of his arms, Christ’s body does not sag under its own weight but is suspended between heaven and earth. His body is still and collected, his arms stretched out for the love of the world. Yet, the intensity of his experience is marked in his clenched face and the spearhead of his sharply drawn ribcage, which seems to emphasize the agony of each breath.

But this is a meditation not on suffering but on suffering with—compassion—that marks the intersection of the human and the divine in the Christian tradition. Paul, being confirmed to his Lord, also embodies compassion:

And I was with you in weakness and in much fear and trembling. (v.3; emphasis added)

Paul does what leaders are so often unable to do and admits his own weakness, his fear, and his reliance on something greater than himself.

As a Roman Catholic convert in twentieth-century England, Sutherland was confronted with the severe realities of the Second World War and was no stranger to the struggles of the Christian faith. The convergence of brutal suffering and spiritual struggle seems also to be a defining feature of Grünewald’s grim work in its inspiration of Sutherland’s painting. It was only in deep contemplation of the Isenheim figure that Sutherland could alchemize the fear and suffering of his generation into a crucifix for the twentieth century—as, perhaps, for any time in need of a God who ‘suffers with’.

References

Davies, Hugh and Horton Davies. 1978. Sacred Art in a Secular Century (Collegeville: Liturgical Press)

Kistemaker, Simon J. 1993. Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids: Baker Books)

Newton, Eric and William Neil. 1966. 2000 Years of Christian Art (New York: Harper & Row)

A Spirit of Wisdom

Commentary by Clementine Kane

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The Apostle Paul longs for his community to be spiritually mature and filled with the wisdom of God. This wisdom is both revealed by the Spirit of God and an inherent part of God, a relatedness that is evoked in the icon of Sophia, the Wisdom of God.

Sophia (Greek: ‘wisdom’) is neither an angel nor a saint, but rather the personification of an attribute of God. This icon, of the Novgorod ‘Angel of the Lord’ type, dates from the sixteenth century (Fiene 1989: 457). The figure of Wisdom is enthroned, winged, and crimson hued. On either side, forming a deësis, Mary holds the Christ Child and John the Baptist presents a scroll. Christ Pantocrator (Ruler of All) presides over the figure of Wisdom and above him angels unfurl the banner of the starry cosmos beneath an empty throne, an apophatic representation of God the Father.

The question of who or what ‘Sophia’ is has elicited varying answers throughout Christian history. Often Sophia is identified with the preincarnate Christ, the divine Logos ‘[through whom] all things were made’ (John 1:3). The Russian Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov suggests that the figure of Sophia represents something deeper, the very oneness of God in which the three persons are united (Bulgakov 2008: 107). Another view, espoused by early Church Fathers such as Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130–202 CE) and Theophilus of Antioch (died c.183 CE) held that Sophia was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit.

The icon of Sophia, the Wisdom of God, does not clearly correspond to any of these three interpretations, but makes an enigmatic contribution to the body of art, literature, and philosophy around the figure of Sophia. The Spirit of Wisdom is complex: intimately a part of God who ‘searches everything, even the depths of God’ (1 Corinthians 2:10), and yet also the gift of God to his children.

Though the core of Paul’s message is simple, his ensuing teachings expand in complexity and require spiritual maturity to apprehend. In like manner, this icon yields a constellation of meanings, speaking differently to different viewers who must use wisdom to interpret it.

References

Bulgakov, Sergius. 1993. Sophia, The Wisdom of God: An Outline of Sophiology (Hudson: Lindisfarne Press)

______. 2008. The Lamb of God. (Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdmans)

Fiene, Donald. 1989. ‘What is the Appearance of Divine Sophia?’, Slavic Review, 48.3: 449–76

Florensky, Pavel. 1997. The Pillar and Ground of the Truth: An Essay in Orthodox Theodicy in Twelve Letters (Princeton: Princeton University Press)

Schipflinger, Thomas. 1998. Sophia-Maria: A Holistic Vision of Creation (York Beach: Samuel Weiser)

Hidden and Revealed

Comparative commentary by Clementine Kane

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The Apostle Paul contends with the preachers of his day to teach salvation through the self-sacrificial death of Jesus. Though his message is simple, it is not simplistic. Paul expertly weaves together threads that anticipate what would later be formalised in trinitarian theology, seeking to articulate the subtleties of the wisdom that is imparted to spiritually maturing believers. The trinitarian implication of his reasoning is this: We have the mind of Christ (1 Corinthians 2:16) so that we will understand the gifts bestowed on us by God the Father, and taught by the Holy Spirit (vv.12–13).

None of the images in this exhibition is simplistic either. Each is replete with its own complexities. Whether its author is known or unknown, each is the result of rich contemplation over centuries as forms developed and were passed from the minds and hands of one artist to another, changed in subtle ways and given to a new context and audience.

Every line of Graham Sutherland’s crucifixion is carefully calculated to convey in the barest terms an image of suffering for the twentieth century. As any artist knows, paring one’s work down to its essence is often more difficult than adding in everything one could say. Initially, Paul focuses on the paradoxical display of power that is the cross of Christ—‘power made perfect in weakness’ (2 Corinthians 12:9). This is the point when God is simultaneously most present to and most absent from humanity. For Sutherland—an artist of faith working in a time that must often have felt similarly spiritually abandoned—an image of God ‘suffering with’ was an appropriate response to the incomprehensibility of a second world war. The belief that the cross is ultimately a symbol of triumph can only reside ‘not in the wisdom of men but in the power of God’ (1 Corinthians 2:5).

Long the source of debate, confusion, and multiple meanings in Christian tradition, the icon of Sophia stands as a symbol of the mystery of God, and of the wisdom that is inherent in the triune life of God and also its gift through the Spirit. The divine Sophia, personified in this icon, is perhaps something of God’s self which is imparted to us through the Holy Spirit, yet still inaccessible in its fullness. Though we may have the mind of Christ, only the Spirit can penetrate the depths of God. We are given wisdom not to ‘[know] the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him’ (2:16) but to ‘understand the gifts bestowed on us by God’ (v.12). Christians believe that these gifts, first given at Pentecost, are what birthed the Church, and continue to give life to each person within it who has been reborn in water and the Spirit (John 3:5). That the gifts of the Spirit are given of God in Christ is more vividly shown in this small manuscript painting than in almost any other depiction of Pentecost.

In his poem cycle dedicated to Sophia, Thomas Merton writes: ‘Thus Wisdom cries out to all who will hear (Sapientia clamitat in plateis) and she cries out particularly to the little, to the ignorant and the helpless’ (Merton 1977). Had Paul read these words, he might have thought they were written directly to him. The simplicity of his foundational belief in Christ’s death, held in fear and trembling, flowered into a rich theological meditation.

The first two artworks in this exhibition contain a sense of the hidden divine: redemption hidden in the apparent defeat of a crucifixion, and the hidden wisdom of God which theologians and artists endeavour to articulate. In the third painting, the divine is revealed. The corollary of the cross is the risen and ascended Christ; the wisdom of God is revealed through the gift of the Spirit. Like Paul’s words, these artworks communicate both with complexity and directness. What was once hidden is now made manifest. But to understand it requires maturity.

References

Kovacs, Judith L. 2005. 1 Corinthians (CB): Interpreted by Early Christian Commentators (Grand Rapids: W. B. Eerdmans)

Merton, Thomas. 1977. The Collected Poems of Thomas Merton (New York: New Directions)

Next exhibition: 1 Corinthians 3:10–17