the trinity
FEast: sunday after pentecost
Bio
The Trinity is the idea that within Christianity, God is three persons in one. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are divine, eternal, and consubstantial. The Father begets the Son, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from both. The one nature defines what God is, while the three persons define who God is. Each has unique attributes, but act as one. The Gospel of John is the only New Testament book that implies the Trinity, and the idea was mostly developed by early, 2nd century Christians attempting to better understand the nature of God. Plural pronouns in the Old Testament also suggest this, as does the story of the three angels appearing to Abraham and Sarah, who serve them.
This latter story is the subject of a famous icon by Andrei Rublev, who depicts three figures at a table. It is held that God the Father is on the left, with the other two facing him, and a house behind him to symbolize Heaven having many rooms. The one behind the table is God the Son because of the royal/ sacrificial colors he wears, and a tree behind him is symbolic of the cross and Jesus’ vine and branches metaphor. The two figures on the end also form the shape of a chalice, with Christ within it. The figure on the right, then, is the Holy Spirit, who has a mountain behind him symbolic of spiritual ascent.
Blue, a color symbolizing divinity, is on the clothing of each, most visible on the Son, because that is the figure that humans were most able to see and understand. In other historic icons of the Trinity, the Spirit may instead be represented as a dove, and the Son as a lamb. For the first 8 centuries of the Church, God was only represented as a hand coming from the clouds. The image of God the Father as an older man only comes from the book of Daniel’s title for God “Ancient of Days”. This is even contested, with some citing that this refers to Christ, not God the Father. God is also sometimes depicted with a triangle shaped halo to represent the three persons. Later, an eye in this triangle shape, called the Eye of Providence, became a popular symbol for the Trinity. There are also some depictions of one figure with three faces that connect, showing God as a Triple Deity. The Triquetra, a triangle shape made of three overlapping and intertwined arc shapes, is also used frequently to represent the Trinity, especially in Medieval manuscripts.
St. Patrick is famously known for contributing to this idea of the Trinity by teaching the people of Ireland by holding up a three leaf clover to illustrate the point.
Prayer
You are so hard to comprehend - and yet so simple. That, itself, is a mystery. Remind us in our everyday lives that not everything is meant to be obvious, that the obscure can sometimes be enough on its own. Show us how to appreciate that. Open our minds to endless possibilities without feeling like we need certainty.
Amen.
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Art Reflection
I based this off of Rublev’s famous trinity icon, in which the three persons of God are represented in the figures of the guests that Abraham and Sarah receive. My figures are seated on the same positions as the figures in that piece. They are seated at a table, with an open space in the middle for the viewer. The figure on the left is God the father. I made their clothing large and gender neutral with their face turned away to leave the viewer without much of a clear picture of what this Person looks like, since again, I personally don’t picture God the Father as a person as often. They hold keys, symbolic of the house with many rooms in Heaven, and in the traditional icon, this takes the form of a house in a the background behind this figure. The blue in their clothing barely shows since blue, as the color of divinity, is in the clothing of all three; however, it is the least visible in this Person because as humanity, we are able to see the Person of God the Father the least clearly. The middle figure, God the Son, has the most blue showing since humanity was able to see Jesus fully while on Earth. He also wears the color of reddish brown, symbolizing earth and sacrifice, and jewelry to denote royalty. He also has the symbol of a tree on his shirt, which in the original piece is a tree in the background, symbolic of his role as Tree of Life and of the wood of the cross. On the right is the Holy Spirit. They have the middle amount of blue visible to humanity, and green is also very present, as a color symbolic of creation. They look at the viewer, welcoming humanity and ready to offer gifts from their bag. They have a white feather in their hair, referencing the dove symbol often used for the Holy Spirit, and there is a glass of water and a lighter (fire) on the table in front of them, two other traditional symbols. Grapes and a can of anchovies lie on the table in front of the Son, symbols of fish and wine that are commonly used to symbolize him, and a clay pot rests in front of God the Father, a symbol of creating from the void. There are string lights above them; a symbol of heaven, and a carpet below that is symbolic of Earth. In the same way as the color blue is used in their clothing, how much of their feet are touching the carpet is also a symbol for how much each Person is visible to humanity. This last detail is not part of the original icon, and I have added that in. Lastly, the shape that all three form mirrors the shape of the cup on the table, with God the Son inside of it, again a symbol of sacrifice.