As you may have guessed, I appreciate the Church’s use of icons. Grateful the my prayerbook contains numerous (albeit black and white) reproductions of famous icons, along with extended commentaries, I thought you might enjoy learning about The Icon of the Transfiguration. I think I’m correct in saying that what follows has been written by Frederick J. Schumacher, the editor of the four-volume set I use for Morning and Evening Prayers.In the book of Exodus (33.20-22) the Lord says to Moses: “You cannot see my face; for man shall not see me and live. Behold, there is a place by me where you shall stand upon the rock; and while my glory passes by I will put you in a cleft of the rock, and I will cover you with my hand until I have passed by.
Irenaeus (130-200), commenting on these verses explained:
Two things are thus indicated: that it is impossible for man to see God, but secondly that through the wisdom of God, man shall see him in the last times standing upon the rock; that is, in His coming as a man. For this reason the Lord conversed with Moses face to face on the top of the mountain [of Transfiguration] in the company of Elijah, as the gospels relate, thus fulfilling the ancient promise. (Against Heresies, IV, Chapter 20)
When St. Catherine’s Monastery was built at the foot of Mt. Sinai in the sixth century, one of the fist images of the transfiguration was created, and this icon in the Orthodox tradition has remain basically the same ever since.
The icon portrays the gospel accounts of the fulfillment of what Moses and Elijah on Mt. Horeb (Mt. Sinai) did not see (Matthew 17.1-8; Mark 9.2-8; Luke 9.28-36). Here Christ stands on the top of the mountain (according to tradition, Mt. Tabor) in the middle of a perfect circle (mandorla), symbolic of the transcendent God. In the center of the third inner circle sometimes there is a star, but here rays of light represent the “luminous cloud” once seen on Horeb, symbolic of the Holy Spirit and the source of divine light (Exodus 24.15-18; 34.5). The light of God’s glory transfigures Christ, the Word made flesh, as the light of God shines through him. In the words of Gregory Palamas (1269-1359),
The Father by his voice bore witness to His beloved Son; the Holy Spirit, shining with Him in the bright cloud, indicated that the Son possesses with the Father the light, which is One like all that belongs to Their richness (Homily 34).
In this light stands Moses to the right with a book or the tablets of stone in one hand representing the law, and Elijah to the left representing the prophets. They both point to Christ, acknowledging that they have in Him seen the face of God, and that through His coming death and resurrection will begin the New Covenant foreshadowed in and prepared for by the law and the prophets. In Mark’s account of the event, when Father said, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him,” the disciples, depicted in the lower part of the mountain, no longer saw Moses and Elijah (9,7-8).
Looking at the three apostles, we see three rays of divine light, symbolic of the Trinity, coming from the circle and overwhelming them. To the right Peter appears to have just spoken to Jesus saying, “Lord, it is well that we are here; if you wish, I will make three booths here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah” (Matthrew 17.4) when one of the three rays of light falls upon him and supporting himself with his left hand, he raises his right had to protect himself. It is Peter who would later preserve his recollection of the event itself: “We were with him on the holy mountain” (2 Peter 1.16-18). John in the center falls, turning his back to the light. It would be he who would pass the vision on in the words: “God is light and in him is no darkness at all” (I John 1.5). And James flees from the light in either a backward or downward fall.
Christ at the top of the rocks that form the mountain appears to be in composite continuity with the rocks of mountain, recalling Paul’s words, “the rock was Christ” (I Cor. 10.4). Christ is the mediator between God and all who look at this icon. Christ is the mountain, the absolute meeting place between God and His people.
The ancient iconographers began their writing (painting) of icons with the icon of the Transfiguration. It became a direct initiation into the divine light, revealed on Mt. Tabor, that they would need to express through all subsequent icons. Whether in an icon of a feast day or of a saint, the divine light of God was to be shining through the image so all who would look on the icon would behold the light and the beauty of the Triune God. To the fullest extend, the icon of the Transfiguration is bathed in sunlight of high noon where there are no shadows, as in the Kingdom of God itself. The icon of the Transfiguration is thus a foretaste of the future where God’s Kingdom is fulfilled and “there will be no need for sun or moon to shine upon it, for the glory9 of God is its light, and its lamp is the lamb” (Revelation 21.22-25; 22.5).
In the Orthodox tradition the significance of the light on Mt. Tabor is expressed in Matins:
Today on Tabor in manifestation of your Light, O Word, you are the unaltered Light from the Light of the unbegotten Father, and we have seen the Father as Light and the Spirit as Light, guiding with light the whole creation.
Image: The Icon of the Transfiguration
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