The Ark Returns to the Temple - The Entrance of the Theotokos

 

On November 21 (regardless of when November 21 falls for you), Orthodox Christians as well as some more traditional Roman Catholics celebrate an ancient Christian holiday known in the East as The Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple, and in the West as the Presentation of Mary. Although it concerns historical events not specifically found in Holy Scripture (which should not trouble anyone; the Gospels are particular works written with particular purposes, not catch-all historical records), this feast is deeply “biblical” in the way that it gathers up Old Testament imagery.

In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul describes the end goal of God’s whole economy of salvation as being to build a temple “built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone… in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.” The purpose of creation—and of all of human history—has been to establish this cosmic temple, a place where Heaven and Earth meet and where humanity can commune with God.

This was the purpose of the Paradise of Eden, until our first parents violated the commandment and were expelled. The whole long history of the people of God, from Adam to Christ, is the story of many attempts to re-establish Paradise, the Mountain of God, within the midst of humanity. That’s how a man named Moses found himself on top of Sinai (another instance of “the Mountain of God”), in the thick darkness of the cloud, being given the plans for a very special building. This building—called the Tabernacle or “Tent of Meeting” because it was the place where God met with His people—was made to very particular dimensions and filled with very particular furnishings. Some of these furnishings—censers, altars, menorahs, etc.—will be familiar to us, since they have continued by be used by traditional Christians in their worship of the God of Israel.

One of the furnishings was something called an “Ark.” We know from archeology and history that there were many “arks” in the ancient world. These were ritual chests which functioned as both reliquaries (holding items sacred to the cult of a particular god) and also a portable throne for a god. Such chests were carried on poles and often overlaid with gold, and crucially, they usually had a lid which bore the image of the deity. The “Anubis chest” from the tomb of King Tutankhamun in the Valley of Kings is a good example. If you google a picture of this chest, it looks very similar to depictions of the Ark of the Covenant, with one exception: it has an idol of the god Anubis on its cover.

When God commands Moses to make an Ark (and shows him the pattern for doing so) he is not asking him to make something that he had never seen before. What is unique about the Ark are its contents (which prefigure Christ and His mother, as attested throughout the Tradition of the Church) and its lid. This lid bears not a depiction of the God of Israel, for as yet Israel could still not depict their God. Rather, it bears two guarding cherubim, an angelic order understood in the ancient world as guarding the throne of the deity. The message of this Ark was clear: this box is the throne of the God of Israel, whom the Hebrews could not depict. What we see in the Old Testament is that where the Ark goes, there goes the presence of God.

When the Ark is built, it is brought into the Tabernacle. There, the glory of God fills the tent to such an extent that even Moses is not able to enter:

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the ten of the congregation. And thou shalt put therein the ark of the testimony, and cover the ark with the veil… Thus did Moses: according to all that the Lord commanded him, so did he. Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (Exodus 40)

Fast-forward a bit through time, and the Ark doesn’t actually stay in the Tabernacle. It gets taken out, is captured, returned, and eventually makes its way to Jerusalem at the time of the king and prophet David. David’s son Solomon builds a temple for God—something God had not requested or commanded, but which he condescends to allow out of love for David and for his heir. When Solomon builds his temple and the Ark is brought into it, the glory of God fills the new temple, just as it had the tabernacle in Moses’ time (3 Kingdoms 7-8).

Centuries pass, and the Ark goes missing (taken to Ethiopia, some say, or swallowed up by the earth). The beautiful temple which Solomon built is destroyed by the Babylonian (that’s Neo-Chaldean for those of you keeping score in the back) Empire, and the people of God go into exile for 70 years. When they return, they build a new temple. When the foundations of the new temple are laid, every celebrates except for the old men, who weep because they still remember the glory of what was lost (Ezra 3). And most importantly, the new or “Second Temple” was missing the Ark. The glory of God never filled the Second Temple the way it had the Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple. Even according to the record of the Jews, something was missing.

The historian Josephus records that when Pompei the Great entered the Jerusalem Temple, in 63 BC, that he barged into the Holy of Holies (a place no Gentile was allowed to enter) but found it empty. In fact, this seems to have impressed Pompei even more than finding the Ark would have, leading the Romans to the impression that the Jews worshipped God “in mind only.”

Suffice it to say that, when the story of Mary, the Mother of God begins over half a century later, things were in bad shape in Jerusalem. The Temple and its environs were for the most part controlled by a sect known as the Sadducees, who had maintained their power since the time of Pompei by collaborating with the Romans. The truly faithful in Israel had dwindled down to just a handful of families—the most important of which was of course the parents (Joachim and Anna) and cousins (Zacharias and Elizabeth) of Mary, the Mother of God. Her family. Christ’s family. Our family. And it was into this family that Mary, a very special girl, was born—a miraculous gift given to two parents long past the age of childbearing.

Like another Anna (aka Hannah; they’re the same name in the Scriptures), the righteous Anna gave her miraculous child to serve God at the Temple. It was common in those times (in a practice which goes back to the beginning of the Second Temple period and possibly further) for the vestments and furnishings of the temple to be made and cared for by a group of consecrated widows and virgins who lived near the temple, and Mary was to be one of these. She was young, so young, when she was first brought to the Temple, but already she loved God deeply. In a scene that is seen as a fulfillment of the prophecy concerning her in Psalm 44/45, she is led to the steps of the temple by the young women of her clan, carrying lamps to light her way. At the steps of the temple her Kinsman, Zacharias, does something very strange: Inspired by the Holy Spirit, he leads this little girl up the steps into the temple—a place which as a woman she is not supposed to enter—and then leads her into the Holy of Holies, the innermost sanctum of the Temple itself—the place where the Ark was once kept.

And then something happens to the Second Temple that had not happened since the time of Solomon: the shekinah, the Glory of God, fills the temple, just as it had done in the Old Testament when the Ark was brought. The Holy Spirit now filled the Temple because it had descended upon Mary, the new and living Ark, the true Ark of which the one which Moses built was only a type.

In all of this, the hymns of the Orthodox Church see the fulfillment of the words of the Prophet David concerning his descendant, the “queen” who stood at the King’s “right hand” that: “Virgins shall be brought to the King after her: her companions shall be brought unto Thee / With gladness and rejoicing shall they be brought : they shall be brought into the Temple of the King.” (Psalm 44:15-16, LXX). For no Queen of Israel before her was this ever true, and yet the tradition of the Church records that the Virgin Mary was accompanied by the young women of her people, and that she was brought into the “Temple of the King.” Elsewhere, she is referred to as an “acceptable sacrifice,” and we are told that she was brought “into the Holy of Holies [because she was] a sacrifice acceptable to God.”

Mary will become a literal ark—her womb carrying not merely relics, but God Himself—and also a throne, as her lap will be the seat in which Christ sits when the Magi from the East come to pay him homage. In this sense she is revealed as being very literally “more honorable than the Cherubim, more glorious than the Seraphim,” that is, the angels who guard and carry the Throne of God, for she has become the throne itself.

But as glorious as all of this is, it is as we sing in the Troparion of the feast, only the “foreshadowing of the good pleasure of God.” In her, Human Nature is revealed as the true and proper Tabernacle of God the Word, but it is God the Word Himself who will, as we sing at Christmas, forever raise up the image—the icon—which fell with Adam.

Dragons in the Water: Hymns of the Forefeast of Theophany

Christmas is a wonderful time to be a medievalist. It's really the only time of year that society at large, however faintly, takes an interest in old songs and old traditions. Ours was a very liturgical Advent and Christmas, and it's only now that I find myself with time to sit down and write again (though I've done a bit of fiction writing over the holidays--but I don't usually post that here).

Before I get on with the subject of today's post, I wanted to go ahead and drop one small note about another project I'm working on: The Cave Dwellers Podcast. The Cave Dwellers has the potential to morph into something more as the year wears on, but for now it's simply a place for my daily narrations of my attempt to read through the complete works of Plato (spurious dialogues included) in a year.  Since we're only 3 days into the read (it's only weekdays; you get weekends off) it's not too late to join me. By "narration," I mean a simple-yet-effective technique used in Classical Education/Charlotte Mason Education circles of telling back information in my own words in order to synthesize it. Anyway, I'll be doing that for the rest of the year, in case you want to follow along.

Now, about those dragons.

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Monday (January 6) is the Feast of Theophany in the Eastern Rite (usually known as Epiphany in the West, where the focus of the feast is slightly different). This is one of the ancient Church's great feasts of light, along with The Nativity (Christmas) and the Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas, aka Groundhog Day). After Easter, it's the most ancient of the Great Feasts, with the practice of keeping vigil all night before the feast day dating back at least to 140 AD. Alas, it's little known or celebrated in modern times outside of Orthodox and Catholic circles.

The Byzantine hymnography and iconography for this feast yields some rich examples of the traditional understanding of the feast in reference to ancient paganism, Old Testament typology, and the use of paradox which seems to be a defining note of Eastern Rite hymnography.

Fresco of the Theophany, St Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral, Dallas TX

Consider this Doxastichon (a special kind of hymn sung between the "Glory to the Father... Both now and ever..." following the chanting of Psalm 129 (LXX) during Vespers) of the Forefeast of Theophany:

Make ready, O river Jordan: for behold, Christ our God draws near to be baptized by John, that He may crush with His divinity the invisible heads of the dragons in thy waters. Rejoice, O wilderness of Jordan; dance with gladness, O ye mountains. For the eternal Life hath come to call back Adam. O voice that criest in the wilderness, O John the Forerunner, cry out: 'Prepare ye the ways of the Lord, make his paths straight.'

The reference here to "dragons in thy waters" might seem curious to modern ears, and downright puzzling to anyone who goes to any of the four Gospel accounts of Christ's baptism looking for any dragons in the story. This is not a scriptural reference, but rather a memory the Church's tradition preserved, through her hymns and iconography, until its source was recently discovered by modern archaeologists. As Fr. Stephen De Young points out in an article published this time last year, this reference to dragons or monsters in the water (present in almost all of the icons of the feast as well) refers to the ancient Semitic sea and river gods Yam and Nahar, whose subjugation to YHWH is an important part of both the Exodus narrative, but also to much of the later Hebrew prophetic works (see Isaiah 27). The Hebrew scriptures presented a direct challenge to the sacred stories of rival religions in the Levant (such as the Baal Epic), and for centuries before the modern rediscovery of Ugarit and the Baal Cycle, that challenge continues to inform the liturgical hymns and iconography of this feast.

Icon of the Theophany

And then there's this wonderful bit of juxtaposition from yet another Doxastichon, this one coming at the end of Psalm 92 (LXX) during Vespers:

Let the desert of Jordan rejoice exceedingly and blossom as the lily. For the voice of one who crieth hath been heard within it: 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord.' For he who weighed the mountains in scales and the wooded valleys in a balance, who fillest all things as God, is baptized by a servant. he who bestoweth rich gifts hath now become poor. Eve was once told, 'In sorrow shalt thou bring forth children,' but now the Virgin hears: 'Hail, thou who art full of grace, the Lord who hath great mercy is with thee.'

Look at the contrasts here: A desert blooms; the one who weighed the mountains is baptized by a servant; the one who gives gifts is now poor; Eve's sorrow replaced by Mary's joy. This last contrast hints at one of the most important ideas of Theophany, its origins found as early as the writings of St Paul in the New Testament (see Galatians 3:27 and traditional understandings thereof): Christ's baptism is, in some sense, a re-creation of humanity (or at least enables the re-creation of human persons through their baptism). This is developed beautifully in the Troparion and Kontakion of the forefeast:

Prepare, O Zebulon, and adorn yourself, O Naphtali; River Jordan, cease flowing and receive with joy the Master coming to be baptized. Adam, rejoice with our First Mother and do not hide yourself as you did of old in Paradise; for having seen you naked, He has appeared to clothe you with the first garment. Christ has appeared to renew all creation.

Today the Lord enters the Jordan and cries out to John: “Do not be afraid to baptize me. For I have come to save Adam, the first-formed man.”

The "first garment" seems to be a reference to a very ancient tradition found in Rabbinical sources, as well as the Syriac Peshitta, of "garments of light" (perhaps a way of describing the unmarred imago dei in which they were made) in which Adam and Eve had been clothed before the fall. Fourth century Church father and poet St. Ephraim the Syrian vividly imagines Christ as having left the "garment of light" for us in the water during his baptism; by being baptized ourselves, we follow him down into the water and put on the garment of light (one might say, of righteousness) which he has left for us.

Finally, consider this imagined dialogue between Christ and the Baptist, sung at Matins on the eve of the feast:

Christ: Why dost thou doubt, O Baptist, concerning the dispensation that I fulfill for the salvation of all? Set now aside the old and think of the new. Believe in God who has come down to earth, and drawing near, obey me. For I have come as God, to cleanse in my compassion fallen Adam. 

John: Taking our sins upon thy shoulders, thou art come, O Jesus, to the streams of Jordan: and I am afraid at thy dread coming. How, then, dost thou bid me baptize thee? Thou thyself hast come to cleanse me, and how dost thou, the Cleanser of all, seek baptism of me? 

Christ: My nature is beyond understanding: but clothed in the form of a servant have I come forth to Jordan. Doubt not at all concerning me. Come, fear not, draw near me. Place thy right hand upon my head and cry aloud, 'Blessed art thou, our God made manifest: glory to thee.' 

John: Beyond all thought and without measure is thy poverty, O Word of God! I know that, for my sake who am fallen, thou has from pity clothed thyself in Adam, and all the posterity of Adam thou makest new again. Obeying thy command I cry to thee in faith, blessed art thou, our god made manifest: glory to thee!

All of the hymns of this wonderful, ancient feast, encourage us to dance with the mystery rather than define it. In the Gospels, Christ rather cryptically tells the Baptist that He must be baptized in order to "fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15). These ancient hymns, which document the Church's lived-out experience of Theophany, help us examine these mysterious words from a variety of perspectives largely lost to modern interpreters of Scripture.