Our icon of St John the Baptist as Angel of the Desert
In the beginning, God created heaven and earth", the opening words of Scripture. In many of the prayers of the Christian church, like the Nicene Creed, God is designated as the Creator of the visible and the invisible. This polarity - heaven and earth, visible and invisible, body and soul, matter and spirit is a basic duality that is central to the Christian faith. The visible body anchored on earth in matter, longs for liberation to attain the invisible heaven and the realm of the spirit. On the simplest and most fundamental level, an icon is conceived as a functional visual doorway, one that permits us to travel through the image to attain a spiritual level of existence, where that which is represented on an icon in a material form exists as a spiritual essence. It is a transcendental image, which enables us to travel between various levels of reality.
The theory of the medieval icon is relatively simple and presupposes a basic Platonic premise that there are two levels of existence - earthly or terrestrial one, and a divine or celestial one. What the medieval image is meant to do is to permit you - through meditation on it - to move from the earthly level to the divine level. In simple terms - an image of Christ, does not carry within itself any magical properties, but is simply a spiritual portrait of Christ, by meditation on the image of Christ, your thoughts ascend to the heavenly or divine level where Christ himself exists, so that through the image your prayers can reach Christ. Each image is based on a heavenly prototype and by venerating the image your prayers are passed onto the prototype - whether it be Christ, the Virgin Mary or John the Baptist. The actual lump of wood on which the image may be painted – i.e. its 'physical nature' or material aspect, has no importance or mystical quality - so in this sense the icon is not an idol, it has no inherent magical quality.
To avoid charges of idolatry - the makers of icons had two major considerations to bear in mind.
(i) To preserve tradition - the original appearance of the image, believing that the earlier the image, the closer it was to the original prototype. You should keep in mind that it was held as a central prerequisite for an icon of a saint, that the image was immediately recognisable as that saint, in case the worshipper needed to call on that saint in a hurry for divine intervention.
(ii) To avoid making the image appear as a representation of reality - it was not trying to copy anything existing in the real material world - but it sought to evoke divine prototypes. Hence the use of plain, anti-naturalistic fields of gold, a rejection of a three-dimensional world in preference to a two-dimensional anti-realistic space.
St John the Baptist is one of the most important saints in both the Eastern and Western calendars and is also one of the earliest whose features were to be preserved in Christian art. John the Baptist appears on many icons in the role of the Prodromas or Forerunner and is the holiest of saints in Eastern Christianity, he is the last of the prophets of the Old Testament and the first of the martyrs of New Testament. Prophet Malachi (iii:1) refers to the Forerunner, the Evangelist Matthew (Mt xi:10) says “this is he, of whom it is written, Behold I send my messenger before thy face, which shall prepare thy way before thee”.
So I am drawing your attention to Saint John the Baptist here in the role of the desert prophet, one who comes to announce the coming of Christ. This is a very ancient role for this saint, one which bridges the two testaments. It was the Baptist, above all other saints, who was chosen as the pathway to human salvation….this is the most profound role for John the Baptist – that of a doorway through which the faithful need to pass to achieve salvation.
So from a very early date in art and theology much is set in place for St John the Baptist. He is the forerunner who announces the coming of Christ, he is the prophet of the desert who wears his camel hair cloak and who has gaunt elongated features, who is bearded and with unruly hair and he is the one to whom humankind can turn in prayer for salvation through his intercession at the Last Judgement.
Now let us consider another icon.; John the Baptist 13th century Byzantine icon from the church of Wadi Natrun, Egypt, a rather early example where you can see him quite clearly with wings shown as the Angel of the Desert as in our icon in Canberra and the inscription on the scroll is again identical to the one we have in this church. The use of wings designates the role of a messenger. John the Baptist as Angel of the Desert denotes both the idea of his role as the prodromas – the messenger and also refers to his ascetic life, as referred to in the liturgy as “terrestrial angel and celestial man”. In the Vespers for 29th August [this is the feast day commemorating his death] there is a reading from the Canticles of St Germanus of Constantinople in reference to John the Baptist as Angel of the Desert. “How shall we call thee O prophet? Angel, apostle or martyr? Angel for thou has led an incorporeal life. Apostle, for thou hast taught nations. Martyr, for thou hast been beheaded for the Christ”.
The purpose of my observations tonight is to encourage you to look at the new spiritual treasure housed in your church with spiritually informed eyes. Your icon is a classic image of St John the Baptist as Angel of the Desert, where his message and ascetic features of the elongated face with long dishevelled hair and straggly beard designate him as a man of the desert, the prototype of the great Christian anchorites. Through the symbolism of his right hand he signifies Christ as the “Lamb of God” to whom he points with his left, thus designating himself as the Forerunner, while the scroll calls on repentance and reminds us of his role as the Intercessor. The wings remind us that he is the messenger, while the reed cross foretells us of his martyrdom. The image is both simple and profound.
16/17th centuries
Tempera on gesso with gold background
Panel 55 x 42.5 cm
Provenance: Greek Island (Cyprus?), Temple Galleries, London, Private Collection, Canberra, St John’s, Reid, Canberra, Australia
Prof Sasha Grishin ANU on 6th August 2006