Before I met Jonathan in the flesh, I might have a photograph of Jonathan
there, and my living them filling thing comes in and he moves into the
house. I don't need the photograph, you know, it's redundant Jonathan himself,
and so there's it's interesting because you know, I'm so bound up in
the question of symbolism. But you in the Orthodox, especially in the Orthodox
iconographic tradition, there's some aspect of it, which is you could call anti
symbolic, in the sense that moving towards saying Christ is the finality of these
images. And so when you have Christ, you're not necessarily wanting to represent
him in these shadows, but you have the thing itself. Doesn't mean that
symbolism doesn't continue to exist in this typological way, but there's a sense in
which Christ is the is the end of the of the symbolic pyramid. This
is Jonathan Pegel. Welcome to the symbolic world. My name is Margarita Mooney
Clayton. I'm an associate professor in the Department of Practical Theology here at Princeton
Theological Seminary. I'm also the founder and executive director of Schala Foundation, which
is a nonprofit whose mission is to renew culture through liberal arts, education,
beauty and worship. I'm joining you here today from the studios at Princeton Theological
Seminary, where I have the pleasure of hosting Aiden Hart, an iconographer born
in England, raised in New Zealand, now residing in England, and Jonathan
Pagot from Quebec, Canada, who was also an iconographer and icon sculptor.
Both Aiden and Jonathan are here this weekend for the conference on Art, the
Common Good and the Sacred being hosted by SCALA and Princeton Theological Seminary, And
before we do that public event, I wanted to sit down with them and
talk to the two of them as artists about how they think about the relationship
between scripture, image and symbol. Specifically, we're going to talk a bit
about one particular icon, that of the transfiguration. But before we jump into
that particular icon, I wanted to say that for the class I'm teaching on
esthetics in Christian Education, I read very carefully Aiden Hart's book, Beauty,
Spirit and Matter, Icons in the Modern World, and what struck me about
this book was this idea that images remind us that life with Christ is above
all a relationship between persons, and in that book, Aiden explains that in
the tradition of icons, it's both Christ's divinity and his humanity are supposed to
be represented. So just as the words of scripture are supposed to reveal to
us who God is, so images are supposed to help us understand Christ's divinity
and his humanity. Aiden also explains in this book some timeless principles of liturgical
art, and those principles, let me see if I get these right.
Aiden. I don't have them memorized, but I have them written down.
One timeless principle of liturgical art is that, well, what I just said,
that God became man the incarnation, right, so Christ showed himself as
a man. Second that, in the Transfiguration, which is what we're going
to talk about today, we got a glimpse of dimonized man, and I
want to unpack what that means and what that looks like. In the icons
of the Transfiguration. You're taking on a big stance here theologically when you say
that matter can be grace bearing, so I want to talk about that.
And then you also say a fourth principle is that human beings are fulfilled in
relationship. That's why it's important to see the faces of others. And fifth,
the fifth principle of liturgical art is that we have what's called the noos
a noetic faculty, the eye of the heart. That we don't just know
about God. With the news, we can know God. Did I get
those five principles? Right? Yeah? Yeah, more or less? Yes,
the news uh in lives them by the Holy Spirit. And no man
can see God, so it's almost to say say God sees himself through the
news. So it's always a syner to a union of the two. But
yes, that's five points are really important. Well, let's stay on the
news that Let's let's sail on the news for a second, because this was
a I admit this was a new concept to me. Like the news,
How do you describe the news, Jonathan? I think, I mean the
way to understand that the news, let's say, practically, is to understand
that there's an there's a capacity that humans have to grasp things directly. Maybe
the best way to understand it that is pre discursive. It's not it's not
a discursive it's not a description, it's not a it's a it's a contact
that is direct and full. Uh. And so the news is necessary for
you to exist. But there's something about our thoughts and about our desires and
about our passions that clouds us from being able to you live in that space.
And much of the spiritual practice, you know, in the Orthodox Church,
for example, is there in some ways to purify the news, that
is, to kind of still the thoughts, still the images, still the
buzzing and the warring, so that we can enter into the heart. You
know, he talked about the eye of the heart, enter into the heart.
And then it's in that position that all of a sudden the news can
be open to revelation to the Holy Spirit, and then you can grasp things
directly, like you can see them pierced with God. But then ultimately the
contention is that you can also you know, see the divine light. You
can enter into God himself. Wow. See, okay, these are big
claims. I do actually remember distinctly my senior year of college at Yale,
after I had taken classes in psychology and sociology, and I remember walking into
church and thinking, this is a collection of rituals that human beings say means
certain things, and other people in other points of time have come up with
rituals that they say mean certain things, And how do I know that any
of these symbols or any of these rituals are actually anything more than a human
creation. So when I read your book now, I'm still a practicing Catholic,
I always have been. But as I'm teaching my students about these images,
the students might be captivated, maybe their news is being activated, They're
having an encounter, but they're posing this question, how do I know that
this image that I'm looking at is actually revelation or how do I know that
it's not something from my imagination? But another thing I loved reading in your
books, Aiden, is that working as an iconographer, you have a way
of approaching this question about what do we depict in art and why? So
that's what I wanted to talk to you about today. Can we just pick
the two of you pick? I thought, let's go with the transfiguration because
that figures so centrally in your book Beauty, Spirit and Matter, And I
wonder if we can unpack the events of the transfiguration, the encounter of the
symbols, the meanings, and from there just have a conversation about how do
we know when symbols come together to reveal who God is or what's the human
invention. That's a big question, I know. Well, let's start with
the transfiguration. You know what happens to the transfiguration, Well, the Lord
does. Going straight from the gospels, three of the gospels related ironically,
the One or the three Disciples. John who was there, didn't write about
it in his gospel, but the other three gospels describe it. Christ takes
Peter, James, and John up to a high mountain. It doesn't describe
what the mountain is in the scriptures, bit by tradition it's table, and
this says that he's transfigured. And then Moses and Elijah appear with him,
and they're conversing about his coming glory, which means his crucifixion. And then
dear Peter, who always likes to blurt things out, says, Lord,
it's good to be here. Let's make three tints, and then the voice
of the Father speaks, and then Moses and nags a go and they come
back down again. So that's the basic story, but there's so much packed
into that. I think that's one reason because it's so pregnant that traditionally,
I don't know how often it happens when an iconographer is fully trained, that's
the first icon they paint. Why would that be it? It's everything the
incarnation communion. But also because much of the theology of the of the icon,
you know, and the theology of Orthodox mysticism, is related to the
question of light and to this notion of divine light. And so the image
of the transfiguration, right is that is that's what's going on in that in
that image, it's about light, and icons are about light, I mean,
especially painted icons. That's what they're dealing with. And this light it
least to Orthodox theology, it's God himself. God doesn't create a gift of
light and give it to us like the sun. We can't of course into
the orb of the sun, but the sun comes to us. So the
light in the warmth coming from the sun is Sun, isn't it. So
this is the glory of God himself, the Chakina glory to use the Hebrew
coming to us. So it's symbolic, but it's much more than somebodic it's
actually encounter with the living God. A lot of the old Testament is experiencing
God via something. Moses and Elijah, who appear with Christ, they get
an inkling of God. So Moses hears God's still sees God in the mount
sign's sort of thunder and lightning, and he hears God but doesn't actually see
the Lord, and alied to Likewise, she comes to the mouth of the
cave and hears God is a still small voice, a partial evelation, but
there transfiguration. They see the Lord face to face, incarnate Lord face to
face. That's the opposite of symbolism, symbolism to the face of God.
Give me the op It's the opposite of symbolism in the sense that that which
they're seeing is the combination of symbolism. Maybe it's the best way to understand
it. It is our footsteps. Aden's got it exactly right. That is,
you know, it happens on a mountain, just like Elijah, just
like Moses. There's a sense in which you know it's going up towards that
space where heaven and earth meat. But now what is seen there is the
source of revelation itself. It's the culmination of revelation at the same time,
and that's one of the reasons why. For example, Moses and Elijah are
brought to see right the very source of creation. It's almost you could almost
say that it's a little moment of eternity, right, It's like it's their
encounter with God that is happening, the promise when they ask God. Right
when Moses asked, he said, God, show me, show yourself to
me. And God has said, well, I'll show you my back.
And now he's getting the fullness of what he asked for. And this isn't
just Jonathan and I dreaming things up. If we look at the because people
say, well, all the stuff, how do you know? It's in
the turgical text, the face that the icon is brought out and put in
a what's called an analoi on the face of the transfiguration, and then we
hear all these incredible hymns. It just full of theology. I have a
book called the Fest of Manam which has the translations into English of all the
fixed feasts, and it's just got underlining and notes. It's just profound theology.
So it's from these texts that we're talking about, really, these patristic
texts that have been tried and tested and always related to the scriptures. The
translation into English has notations underneath referring to every Biblical verse referred to directly or
tangentially in the text, and only about five references there, so there are
that much hinmographical text has got about five biblical references, so it's rooted in
the scripture. So Moses died, God buried him. It says Elijah went
to heaven. So it talks about Moses and Elijah represent all the living and
the dead, but together with Christ. And in the icon the top half
you have Christ with Moses and Elijah who are in heaven. Down below you
have Peter, James and John who on earth. But the war within the
rectangular the icon. So in fact this is the Church. Yeah, the
Church living in dead prophets all together they are let's slow down for many here,
because we have five scripture references, but all of this hymnology. So
you're saying that the icon evolved both from the scriptural references. But as it
was, there's also imagery or poetry. Let's say, in these liturgical texts
that talk about the feastis it makes profound truth through poetry and it's I mean
they're expressing typology and so it's not that the poet just thought up nice images.
Is that the poet is versed in the Psalms, its versed in the
Old Testament, and that these insights through noedic experience, the insights of seeing
all of a sudden the transfiguration hinted at right, glimmers of it in Moses,
glimmers of it in different parts of the Old Testament, and then seeing
that this is all being connected in the story of the Gospel. It's interesting
to what it's st hymnography is actual a kind of the Bible interpreting itself,
right, referring to these old images, bringing them back and showing you how
they connect and how all this is brought together in the person of Christ.
So one hymn talks about when you are transfigured at Christ, you reveal the
original beauty of the human nature. And this refers back to a lot of
the fathers. Say that if I'm Syrian, for example, that when it
says Adam and even naked, they've been clothed before. They've been clothed in
light, the glory of God. So when they sin, where they lost
that light? Like if I pull out a plug or turn off a switch,
these lights go out, so it's a lamp, but yet it's not
a lamp because it's not radiant through electricity with light. So this shining Christ
is actually the new atom. He's put back on the garment of light.
In other words, he's not just human. He's shining with divinity. And
it's that it's really there. It's really there in the story because this is
also happening during the Feast of Tabernacles. So the question that Peter asks,
it's almost a joke in this in the story. You know, Peter says,
can we give you a garment? Can we cover this? Like?
Can we make a house for it? And and Christ? This is this,
this moment is beyond that, right, This is not this is not
a This is more than a moment that can only be held within the tent
of even the tent of the tabernacle, because that's what being alluded to.
You hear the glory of God appearing to us. Can we build a tent
around it to contain it? And not this one? Right, It's so
what you're saying, is that dialogue between Peter and Jesus just that simple thing.
Can we put a tent around it is actually a reference. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, he can realize. No, no, it doesn't matter,
right, It's like he was just in the moment in saying it.
But then when you see it in retrospect, just like the disciples themselves at
Pentecosts, all of a sudden, you know, saw all these things that
Christ had done, and how they connected. They participated in that too,
spoke throughpannacle. Except re first to the Feast of Tapernacles, and that was
to remember when I lived in the jest and God was with them in the
desert, because of course during the daytime the Lord led them forth as a
pillar of a cloud. At night in a pillar of flyers. So the
feasture Tapernacles was tore month that God was with them and the desert. So
here, in fact, he's prophesying in a way page we're saying, this
is the fulfillment. The pillar of fire is here. Before I said to
God himself and then Jesus response that no, we cannot put a tent around
it is to say, this is not the symbol of the glory. This
is the exactly, this is the real thing. Like that's this, this
is the real thing. Before I met Jonathan in the flesh. I might
have a photograph of Jonathan there and my living themforing thing comes in and he
moves into the house. I don't need the photograph, you know, it's
redundant. I've got Jonathan himself. It's interesting because you know, I'm so
bound up in the question of symbolism. But you in the Authodox, especially
in the Orthodox iconographic tradition, there's some aspect of it which is you could
call anti symbolic in this sense that they moving towards saying Christ is the finality
of these images, and so when you have Christ, you're not necessarily wanting
to represent him in these shadows, but you have the thing itself. Doesn't
mean that symbolism doesn't continue to exist in this typological way, but there's a
sense in which Christ is the end of the symbolic pyramid. Areas the price
or time for symbols represent to do well, And to go back to the
anecdote I shared with you before about myself as a senior in college, it's
a little bit frightening when you begin to realize that there's other rituals, and
there's other symbols, and there's other meanings and there's other ways of thinking about
worship, because I think for me, as a young person, I wanted
to believe that these rituals and these symbols truly were what I had been told
they meant, and that I could have this encounter with God. Because the
alternative is to say, well, none of this means anything, and all
of this is just made up, and whatever I choose to believe the symbols
mean is what they mean, and that's what it means to me, and
it's all the same, right, And that wasn't very satisfying to me either,
because if I just make up the meaning, then I'm not really getting
the meaning of my life because I can just claim it to be one thing.
You know. But what I hear you saying is, well, there's
a rich history of symbols and symbolic thinking, but Christianity is actually claiming this
isn't just about symbols. We're actually claiming you can meet God in his glory.
Is that right, Well, that would be the point of symbols also,
I mean the point of You could say that the point of creation is
so that it can meet God, and so even the symbols or the symbolic
hierarchy or these these these inklings are there as they're there to act as a
ladder. That's the only thing they're Therefore, they're not just for our just
enjoyment in thinking about concepts, but they have to if they don't provide levels
of insight that can bring you closer to a divine encounter than there, they're
kind of pointless, you know, you can be just turning around, going
around in circles. In fact, the word symbol is a combination to Greek
words and volus, which means literally to throw you together. So the aim
of a symbol is to draw us together with the architectures Christ. So once
you're together, then the symbol is fulfilled its function. You don't discard it.
You're sort of thankful for that tree or whatever that brought you closer to
God. I came to believe in God's existence through trees. Now, I
used to hide in trees as a child, playing hide and go seek,
and it's sort of quiet where I came to be. There must be a
God who made these incredible things called trees. So when I was a hermits
living in twenty acres of van, I planted five thousand trees and thanksgiving to
God and thanksgiving to the trees, if you like, for being, like
said John the Baptist, leading me to God. So it's not as so
now matters Standard's job. I can spit it out. It could of makes
the symbol richer. It remains there, but beside Christ instead of In Eastern
and Western Christianity you have these three stages of movement toward Christ. In the
West it's called purification, illumination, and union, and in the East it
tends to be called practical theology. From praxis something you do. You've got
to act and make an effort to repent. And then Fisher kei theology or
natural theology, perceiving God and the natural in the created world. And then
mister Keith for your logi or mystical theology. So the first is repentance,
being purified, as Jonathan was saying, you can't see unless you'd get the
cataracts off. But the second, which is related to symbolism, is perceiving
the words of God within each created thing. So this plant behind us,
it didn't just come out of nothing. God spoke plant whatever it is,
rubber plant, and the rubber plant comes into existence. But that word that
the Lord spoke actually keeps that in existence. So when I see the rubber
plant, I don't see a plant. It's a gift of love to me.
My wedding ring, it's just hung of gold. But when I look
at that, I see my wife's love for me. And then following these
footsteps the log or implul these words embedded in creation, I eventually come to
feet and a look up and there's the facial of the Lord. The logosso
sound we can't see. We can't look at the sun straight away, but
gradually our eyes suggust until eventually we can look at the face of the Sun
himself. Well, speaking of that kind of gradual assent maybe to the face
of God, I would say that the transfiguration is a feast in the church
or a part of the scriptures that I always struggle to relate to. It's
not that long, not that many words going on there, And I wasn't
until you know, a little bit later in life that there was something about
the transfiguration that captured my imagination and I wanted to try to understand it more
because I wanted to believe that in the midst of these struggles that I was
having in these issues and these problems that God still loved me and he loved
the people around me, and that things were going to be okay. And
I think that this as a very visceral human desire, right that in the
midst of struggle and suffering, you begin to ask, okay, or is
this faith that I've been given? Is it really real? Like? Can
I really see God even in the midst of all of this difficulty? But
I will say the transfiguration is not something I remember being taught about much in
catechism or having much of a way to think about it. So when I
picked up your book, as I mentioned Beauty, Spirit and Matter, I
said, Oh, finally here's someone's kind of unpacking the meaning of this to
me. So let's let's talk a little bit about You mentioned that what an
iconographer begins to train, this is the first one once they finish their training.
Once they finished the training, the first one they would paint. So
what are the pieces of the icon? We mentioned Moses and Elijah? Who
are what does it describe the icon of the transfiguration? Like, what's that?
What are the elements in it? I know Moses and Elijah, there's
some rays. There's Simon, Peter, Simon is Peter right, Simon,
James and John, Peter, James and John. Okay, Peter, James
and John. There's some mountains, okay, So just describe the image for
me. Describe it well. So there's variation in the image, but usually
there's a a mountain. Sometimes there's three peaks, and Christ is in the
center and then there's a glory around him. His vestments are white, and
then you have Elijah and Moses on either side of Christ. Below, then
you have in the mountain, you will have the three disciples that are reacting
to the to their vision. Usually James and John are kind of tumbled over,
falling back, you know, looking away, and then Peter is sometimes
kind of looking towards Christ. It depends on the icon, but there's a
sense of which he's gesturing towards Christ, and that's when he is asking the
question about about the tabernacle. There are some little details that are interesting that
that appear in the transfigression. For example, often you'll have one or two
of the disciples losing their sandal during the during the the kind of being bowled
over by this this vision. And so those are the basic elements of the
of the transfiguration, and from the the glory can be a circle that can
be Verius shaped. You have raised coming up, that's sometimes underneath Moses and
Knowledge've got caves with golden some later on have the discamples going up and com
one size and coming down the other. And that's quite important. It's not
important, but it has important. It's important in the ideas of how revelation
works. Right, It's like this Moses going up and bringing something down with
him, and so having that image is definitely They don't stay up there in
a state of extasive. They're down high scopy, crucified. That've got to
carry the grace of God into the world, all right. So in that
one image, I'm hearing movement up and down. I'm hearing Old Testament,
I'm hearing dialogue. I mean, there's a lot happening in one image.
Now, sorry, we're going to have to go back to basics here.
What are Moses and Elijah doing there? Well, there's several things that they're
doing. One is that they are fulfilling the question they asked. Most of
them asked, you know, Moses asked to see guy, and both of
them had a partial revelation, you know, Elijah heard that soft, that
quiet voice, and Moses saw the back of God as he walked by.
And so they're there to see the fullness of the glory of God. That's
what they're there for. They're there to kind of finalize their their movement towards
revelation. So it's like, it's what it's saying, is this is the
final this is it? Like this is the fullness of revelation is being shown
here. You know, if there's an image without saying it that is saying
this is God, it's the transfiguration. Because why are Moses and Elijah there
looking at you know, standing next to Christ in the center, who is
who is revealing this glory completely? And so so that's why there That's one
of the reasons. The Law and the prophet and Elijah the prophet. So
Christ is a fulfillment of the Law and the prophets. They not commandments,
but the tint of meeting and the temple of all types which types of really
physical prophecies, all of Christ. So this is a fulfillment to of them.
Okay, so they're beholding the glory of God and Christ. That's the
fulfillment of their everything prophesied about all the low everything is there, Okay,
okay, And then Jesus has invited Peter, James and John to be there.
And you said that sometimes Peter is shown looking at him. Yeah,
he's kind of gesturing towards Either he's looking or somebody he's gesturing. It depends
on the amide, but most of the time he's looking towards Christ and gesturing
towards him. And each of the three postures relate to the age. So
the oldest one is Peter, he's looking at Christ. John is the youngest.
He's probably about nineteen. He's the one normally looking away. James is
middle aged. He's sort of between the two. But what's interesting is that
John is the mystic. I mean, I don't like the word, but
his symbol is the egle, so the eagle flies really high. But interestingly,
he's often curled up. And there's a lot of teaching about the Jesus
peer when you do the Jesus pay off, and you make a circle out
of your body, but you don't want your thought to shoot out there,
want to meet God, the Holy Spirit in your heart, so you create
a circle. So he's seeing the Lord that mystically through his heart, as
it were. So the plaintive story is about Layan monastic people experiencing the Lord
through that in a prayer. So it's three different ways of encountering God,
and they're not contradictory. They're just different ways. So it's not that one
posture is superior to the other. It's that they're different ways of letting the
mist of seeing this. Each of us are three distinct people, and each
of us will experience God in distinct ways. Wow, and why would the
sandal be falling off? I think I have noticed that before. Why is
the sandal falling off with us? At least for me? That now this
becomes the land of speculation. But I do think that it has to do
with Saint Gregory of Nissa's vision of what's called the removing of the garments of
skin. There's an image in the Ascent of Moses as he goes towards the
Burning Bush where God says, remove your sandals where you're in a holy place,
and say, greg sees that as this kind of ascetic practice where you
remove the passions, you remove the externals in order to enter into the heart
once again. And so I've always when I see that sandal falling off,
I feel like this is a gesture towards that saying like this is this is
this removing of the of the outer garments and moving into the holy place.
And it's not that fish is bad, is it. It's not saying,
oh, the fish is bad, and the anyway you can see God it
is to get rid of that bad material stuff called the flesh. It's Jonathan
used the ter impassions. We need to think of passions pejoratively. But the
passions are a God given energies, but you've got to direct them toward God.
Well, I'd say there be two other elements as well. Is that
you've already alluded to Jonathan that the lord talves mooses to take his sandals off,
he's encountered God and his holy ground. So this shows us that Christ
is the burning bush, a bush's physical stuff. But then it's got this
fire which doesn't consume it. So obviously the fire is not a created fire.
It must have been a divine fib because otherwise it would have consumed the
bush. And thirdly, if you're afraid and you're shaking your sand, might
fall off. So that's also to show that this light is actually not just
bright physical light, but this is divine light. It's a completely different order.
It's an encounter with something that's completely beyond anything we can imagine in the
created order. So this sort of fear and the shock and this falling over
and the disorder of the disciples is to emphasize that this light is divine light.
And you see this in icons of the Mother of God with Christ.
Sometimes the sandal falls off Christ's feet, and that's because as God he knows
he's going to die and rise, but also as a human he's afraid of
death. So the child is shaking out of fear. So it's a normal
thing to be afraid of death. So this sort of sandal falling off,
when the bladema richon it's called, it's an indication of a thing in Christ
humanity in that case. In this case, it's a fair Christ divinity.
Wow, and the supernatural nature of this lies. Okay, So now let's
go to Christ in this image. You know, as I mentioned at the
start, you say that, you know, one of the purpose of icons
is to reveal Christ in his humanity and in his divinity. So it would
seem to me that the icon of the Transfiguration, we're clearly seeing Christ in
his divinity. But are we also seeing Christ in his humanity? What does
Christ look like in the Transfiguration when you paint the Transfiguration, I mean,
he looks like it's an image of Christ. It's a recognizable image of Christ.
Christ has certain characteristics that makes us recognize that it's him, So it's
definitely representing him in his humanity. You can't represent the divinity of Christ.
You can't represent it. You can gesture towards it. You can here's a
place where you can kind of symbolize or gesture towards Christ's divinity. And that's
what the Glory. That's the role that the Glory plays in this image,
right, the rays of divine light that emanate from him. But the important
thing theologically, a person of Christ. We're depicting icons only, and the
fathers who defended icons against the iconic class we're always affirming we're not depicting the
divinity of Christ. We're depicting the person of Christ. But the person of
Christ is divine, that he's not a human created being whom God popped into
it was he was a good lad the personhod the hypostesis to use the week
term of Christ is that of the second person of the trinity. So you're
seeing this man uses Christ, whose personhood is divine. But as I mentioned
earlier, what is interesting is that the texts say that he has shown us
what it is to be truly human, which is to be not merely human,
but to be deified, to be God bearers. So I think the
miracle is not so much a Christ is transfigured, but the fact that he
wasn't trans In fact, the miracles that he clothed himself as it were,
to hide his divinity. And one of the aspects of the of the mandola
or the glory that is around Christ is usually that it's represented as a darkness
that moves towards light. And so usually in the middle it's dark and on
the outside it's white and moving different tones of blue towards the towards the light.
And that has to do with this this idea that God is beyond,
is beyond the description God cares, Yeah, and so there's a there's a
divine darkness is what how Saint Gregory divine darkness? Yeah, what is that
tell me more about that. I thought I thought you said it was about
light. Well that's it. So there's a So it's represented in Apoia.
It's always represented paradoxically, So there'll be different ways of saying. It's something
like a light so bright that it blinds you, something like that, or
or or the idea of or that which is beyond light, even that is
the source of light. So how do you how do you figure that you
know that which is beyond description, which is beyond name, which is beyond
all capacity to frame, and that is the highest aspect of of of God
in the mystical experience and in the descriptions, even in theological descriptions. This
idea that that I talked about Saint Gregor of Nisa and the ascension of Moses,
and when Moses goes up, he moves into the divine darkness and says
that there's darkness covered the mountain, and there's lightning, darkness and light.
And in the story of the Transfiguration you get that because it says it says
a very contradictory thing. In the story, it says, it says they
were they were covered by they were covered by a cloud of light. It's
like, what what is that? It's like two contradictory things. A cloud
is something that is shape, it sucks to light, and then but it's
a cloud and it's it's light at the same time. So even in the
actual text, there seems to be a kind of a porria that's presented that
that is implying both light and dark at the same time. So it sounds
are freaky the doctness are gone or the doc's bad, isn't it? But
really what we're just saying is that is the unknowable unknowability of God. In
orthodoxtriology, we discern distinguished between the essence of God, which even in the
age to come, is unknowable, and the energies of God. It's rather
unfortunate translation, but basically it's it's the living person or God in his nobleness.
Like if I say it I've known you for two years, I know
you entirely, you'll be bit offended by that. Even if I know for
two thousand years, Margharita will always be unknowable to some extent. You know,
each of us is created in God's image, so each of us it's
eternal in the sense that we never entirely know. I mean both of us
are married, well married, but we know we're never going to know us
faust than the entirety. So these anoble essence in a way, and the
physistory of humanity. Surely it's true of gone dark to come out point of
view, it's not darkness in God himself. But we can know we're getting
closer to knowing. You can know your oh yeah, of course, yeah,
and vigorous share. Donathan's referred to a lot. He uses the term
from glory to glory a large of course, at Saint Paul's term that in
the age that can we if growing closer to God. It's in a term
on message journey. In the transfiguration, Christ is filled with light, and
I believe you've told me in that also it's important to depict the garments are
also filled with light. It's not just his face, it's not just the
rays emanating out from his news maybe, but his garment is transfigured. That's
what the scriptures say. It's saying that face shines with that. But all
the all three gospels talk about the garments they do. This is I don't
know if you want to speak to this is one of my favorite subjects.
Yeah, I mean, it's just the clothes we wear, and they're just
an animate aren't they. They're not personable, they're just waven linen. But
this inanimate matter and participates in this uncreated glory. So that this is and
in Greek one of the terms used for what we now call nature rather sadly,
but this is called it the created world. It's cosmos. God created
the cosmos, and cosmos in Greek means adornment. Cosmetics comes to that.
So Christ's cosmos, Christ's garment is really the whole of the created world,
which is wrapped around himself, and he's filled with light again, So maximistic
Confessa talks a lot about this. At each stage of Christ, he's gathering
something which have been discarded by the fall. Adam and Eve discarded creation by
not giving thanks. It just sort of became dead. Then if I take
this garment off, it just becomes dead, it just flops. But it's
on me, it takes on my form, it actually participates in my personhood.
So really what's happening in the transfiguration is that the person of God who's
taken on our humanity before also it's the second atom is transfigured. But through
the second atom, who's like a priest between the Creator and the rest of
creation, the whole of the cosmos participates in his transfiguration. And Saint Paul
talks about this in Roman's eight, the whole of creation sort of a groaning
waiting for the redemption of the children of God, because it too then be
filled with glory all of creation. But I mean, are my clothes part
of creation? They are, But there's a very deep there's a very deep
understanding of even in terms of the story of the Fall. You know,
garments are very important because Adam and Eve are clothing glory. Right, That's
the way that at least s an Ephrem presents it in some of the many
of the Church Fathers. And then in the Fall is when they kind of
see themselves as naked, as lacking, and then they feel like they have
to add something to themselves, and so these dead garments of skin get added
to them. But that doesn't stop there. It becomes also civilization. Right,
So Cain goes further down into the Fall and he builds this city,
and he builds these walls and technology and these weapons and the idea is that
that is somehow a reaction or it's a movement of the fall that's going deeper
and deeper down into basically going all the way to the flood in the biblical
narrative, and the surprise of Christ is that he fills all of that with
light. So the final image, let's say, of the transfiguration is the
heavenly Jerusalem, which is now it's like, now it's really just the entire
world that is filled with glory. But the hint of that, or the
promise of that is exactly like Aiden said, is that this garment that Christ's
war is now no longer let's say, a dead garment of skin, but
is now fill like it's full of the of the very glory by participation in
the person of Christ, because the garment takes on the form of the person
wearing it, and it's only transfigure because it's part. Often it's not him,
but it sort of takes on his image. So what you're saying,
I think Aiden has really profound theological implications that the person of Christ has his
garments are part of the person of Christ. Is that what I hear you
saying distinct but yes, like act you put it, well, they helped
to reveal the person. Yeah, I mean the whole creation is in God's
image. I mean, we are persons with freedom, so we are more
than the image of God. But everything in creation, even to a rock,
it's a symbol, reflects some aspect of God's life. So in fact,
the whole creation was created as a temple for us to worship God.
Don't talk much about this, you're talking about how do we know the rituals
have significance. If it's true worship, it should reflect heavenly worship. This
is why God had revealed to Moses exactly how to build the tens of meeting
and exactly how to model the year liturgically, because it wasn't just man's invention
reaping it up. He had to reflect, had to be an icon of
heavenly worship. So the Holy Creation is created by God as a temple for
us to worship Him in, and it reflected the truth of who God is.
Okay, so in some ways, I mean, because we believe that
human means are created in the image of God, and my clothes aren't created
in the image of God, but yet they somehow reflect God's glory, which
is differently that they take on your shape and your image of God. So
that obviously a lot of image of God than you have because there's an animate
you could understand. I mean, if if you want a simple example that
it's not that it doesn't I see, it's kind of confusing, but you
can you can imagine that. Let's say when you go you go to church
and then you have a chalice, right, It's like, here's this is
kind of a child. It's like we have cups, we have things,
but then all of a sudden, there's this possibility of taking something which we
use in common day life and then bringing it into service and bringing it into
worship. Then it participates in this movement towards God. And so you know,
so in some ways you could say that for let's say that it's a
liturgical movement, but think about it in terms of with the promise is that
this will fill the whole world, right, that is what the promise is.
That the reason for creation is that it can be theophanic, that it
can be a place where God reveals himself. I mean, in some ways
that's the reason for creation. Without that, why did God create the world?
Like God? Here the world out of this, it's there to reveal
for him. Okay, So all of creation from you know, plants and
trees and clothing can participate in the glory of God. Is that well,
God created it, But it says in Hebrews that by the word of His
power all things sustained. So God just didn't create and then he walks away,
and that thing has its own God remains in that and gives it life.
So Bishop chlistos Ware says that Christians aren't pantheists, but they are panenttheists.
God is in everything, sustaining it. This is the meaning of the
logoi. The words means in the second stage of the spiritual life is to
discern see here the words of God within each created thing. There was a
high Reichy. Obviously an animal is higher up on the hierarchy than a stone.
But nonetheless, everything in its own way is an image of reflection,
takes on some elements of God's form inverted calma. So that means that the
word monocost means one who is alone and all of us call to the monarchy
monastic in the sense that wherever I look, if I look at Jonathan,
look at you, look at look at a tree. I'm seeing God in
that you're not God, that I see God coming through you. So everything
becomes iconographic. And this is I think the essence of the fall that I
think it's Ffram who suggests that the tree of knowledge good and evil, it's
the whole created world, and it would become knowledge of good Fadom and Eve.
I ask if we give thanks for it. So when you give thanks,
you see the person the giver in that gift. If I just grab
that gift and turn my back, then it becomes knowledge of evil, becomes
dead for me. Yeah, this is why the Eucharist, I think it's
wonderful. But the central Christian act is the Euchist to give thanks. That
everything then is a means of beholding the Lord. So then we're all living
like monarchy monastics, and that we're living alone with God. In fact,
the whole Uverse is gathered in. So wherever I look is the Lord.
I've interested in this class on the Virgin Mary, and I like the verb
kind of gathering. And it sounds like from what you were saying a moment
ago, Jonathan, that the transfiguration of the clothing the matter were meant to
gather all of the creation of God and sort of bring it back, give
thanks kind of, you know, bring it back to God. So all
of these things God created at this point in time, but they're meant to
be gathered and brought back thereby participate in this in this glory. See that
did help me, right because as a young person, well what's the alternative
to that? Well, you use things and you do things, but it's
completely unrelated to your march towards God. Right, you just go towards God
in your head. But all these things that you're interacting with, nature,
objects, etc. That's sort of superfluous to the spiritual journey. And what
I hear you saying is no, no, no, All of those things
are part of our spiritual journey. They don't have a soul, they don't
have a noose. But we're meant to gather. We're meant to steward and
to appreciate the presence the creation of God and all of matter and steward that
gather it, bring it back to Him. And that to me was very
moving to think that that's a beautiful way to think about life. Life rather
than using and throwing away or consuming just for pleasure that all of these things
can come together. So I guess in the time that we have left,
I wondered if you know, you could share with me what this feast means
to you, or what the transfiguration means to you. I mean, was
there a moment in time when you asked yourself, like, what really is
the meaning of the transfiguration? What does this look like in my life?
Why do I need to meditate on this or to ponder this particular feast.
I think that Christ, in the Gospels there are moments in his story,
and each moment reveals an aspect of the mystery that Christ is, you know.
And so to me, the transfer I see in some way the transfiguration
and the Crucifixion as almost kind of standing in contrast with each other. You
know, there's here's this moment of where Christ is revealed in his divinity through
a kind of glory, you know, really using all the symbolism or the
Old Testament, all the symbolism of the of the glory of God, the
Shakina, all all this this imagery is brought there, and then you have
this other contrasting images where the glory of God, the glory Christ is actually
being shown on the cross as well, but in a very strange, inverted
and hidden way. And so to me, I love that, like there's
something about have it holding those two stories intention which I think is important for
us, you know, in terms of even in terms of the turgical artists,
for example. And so we we understand that the beauty of the church,
right, the beauty of all the things that we make, you know,
the frescoes, the mosaics, all of this is in some ways participation
in the in the in the transfiguration, and so and that we're called to
kind of hold these two things intention you know, one which is the self
sacrifice, when which is the helping the poor, to care for those in
need, to kind of give ourselves, to empty ourselves for others. But
then there's also the possibility and the importance of celebrating that glorious aspect where all
creation comes together and celebrates God. And so to me, the image of
the transfiguration as an artist is in some ways a guiding light to say,
like, no, there is this possibility of participating in that. And like
you said, gathering the elements, gathering bits of wood, bits of gold,
bits of stone, and being able to hopefully offer something up so that
it participates in that process. Oh that's beautiful, John, And let me
see if I heard what you're saying that for you and your vocation is to
be a liturgical artist. You make sculptures, you do design and iconographic that
the image of the Transfiguration, the meaning of the feasts of the Transfiguration,
in some ways is like it gives meaning to your vocation or gives inspiration that
what you're doing as an icon carver and iconographer, you're taking created material and
you're working with it and putting it together in ways that participate even further in
the glory of God, and it gives meaning. Is that you hope like
someone it's the anchor. It's it's it's it's part of the anchor of what
makes the liturgical artists do what they do. At least for me, is
this idea of kind of stewarting and gathering the materials and then creating an image
that's kind of bringing creation back to God in an act of thanksgiving. I
liked very much what you said that part of our calling as people of faith
is to serve the poor and to care for the needy. But we're also
called to gather and to co create with God and to make beautiful things that
give glory, that that celebrate that so celebrate that lead us into this place
of rejoicing and celebrating that God's presence has come into the world and therefore matter
has been can be sanctified and can be gathered and brought back. I think
that goes beyond liturgical artists, right for any kind of location, For anyone
working in the world, doing anything like this is so inspiring because otherwise,
you know, then your faith and your work are just completely separate from each
other. So that's that's a very inspiring message. Thank you. What about
for you Aiden? As you're talking us, thinking perhaps of three things,
face, unity, and matter. I think I sort of nominally raised an
Anglican, but never really had a conscious faith that. When I was fifteen,
I had a conversion experience. As this man was speaking about the faith.
I saw a face full of light, but also there were there was
a crowd behind, there were people behind, and this is what converted me.
So it was the face of Christ, but also it wasn't just him
isolated and that sort of ended my heart and I've sort of measured everything against
that in a way. So when I countered the Transfiguration Icon, there you
have it, the face of Christ, but not alone. But being an
artist, I started off as a Baptist, which I really loved. I
got to know the scripture as well, but I felt mattage hasn't really got
a place here the material world. It's sort of just not mentioned really,
So my journey kept going. And when I discovered the icon tradition and the
Orthodox affirmation of the material world. When I saw the Transfiguration Icon and started
reading about the theology, I realized, Ah, now I've got the face
of Christ, got the king to the church. Here's matter transfigured. You
were describing this process of taking God given matter up and making it even more
articulate than the worship of God. That artistic process here is all in the
Transfiguration icons. That's why the idea of Christ's garment being cosmos means a lot
so much to me. The garments aren't a raw flax. Someone has taken
the flax, spun it, woven it. So here this idea of a
man as prophet, priest and king, and I understand kingship. It's like
an artist like Jonathan's got to be master of his stereotype when he's carving it,
but he's not master to crush it and grind it. He is master
of it to raise that hunk of inanimate stone to become the faith of Christ.
So kingship to me is the kingship of an artist to make creation more
articulate and the praise of God. So that's what the transfigation says for me.
That's very inspiring. And I know we'll hear more from you on Priest,
prophet and King in your lecture tomorrow at the PTS and Scholar Foundation conference.
And you know, Jonathan, I wondered if you could just give us
a few minutes, just a few words. Really, what are you speaking
about tomorrow at the scholar friends like PTS. Well, actually it has a
little bit to do with what we're saying. You know, there's something about
especially modern, especially contemporary art, there's a sense in which the artist is
there to question, right. The artist is there to to poke at the
system and to try to break, you know, the structures that are there.
And what I want to explore tomorrow is how traditional art and how especially
liturgical art is in some ways there to celebrate and to bring together and to
kind of build identities. And so we're going to look at that the dangers
of that also, there are dangers in that, and so we're going to
try to look at in scripture and how it all kind of comes together in
the person of Christ and like most stories. So that's great. And you
know, as I mentioned at the start, the Scholar Foundation's mission is to
restore culture through liberal arts, education, beauty and worship. And this event
that I've put together this weekend is going to bring together artists with educators,
with scholars to experience the beauty of the campus here at Princeton Theological Seminary,
the University Chapel, Sacred Music. And I wondered if you could comment on
what was it that attracted you to be a part of Scholar's mission. What
do you find about Scholar's mission that made you interested in being a part of
this. I think the world is hungry for exactly the things you mentioned.
You know, people are heavy because the world is quite ugly, especially in
America and Europe. You have more luck than we do, We have more
chance than we do. The suburbs, this plastic world in which we live.
And also this world of consuming I think it in some ways it's sad,
but it also is a kind of hunger, and people are looking for
meaning and looking for beauty, and so if we can help people move in
that direction, it's wonderful. Great. Well. I would encourage everybody watching
this to look at Aiden Hart's website aiden Heart Icons. They are beautiful images,
wonderful essays. Please do check out his books Beauty Matter and the Sacred.
Also his book Festal Icons, which was really zaty Spirit Matter, Beauty
Spirit Matter. Excuse me, Beauty Spirit Matter. Thank you. His book
Festal Icons was released just in twenty twenty two, Is that right? And
his book on drawing icons are Techniques of Icon on Wall Painting Techniques of Icon
and Wallpapers. It's the best book on painting icons that exist. I mean,
I think it's pretty unanimous. So if you're interested in icons of that
book is the book to get. If you enjoy these videos and podcasts,
please go to the Symbolic world dot com website and see how you can support
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