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Pro EcclEsia Vol. XXiii, No. 3 309
“I SAW THE LORD”: OBSERVATIONS ON THE CHRISTIAN RECEPTION
HISTORY OF ISAIAH 6Bogdan G. Bucur
In the pages to follow I shall examine exegetical, doctrinal,
hymnographic, and iconographic productions that illustrate the rich
reception history of Isa 6 in early Christianity. It appears that
the earliest, Christological interpreta-tion of this text was
superseded by a Trinitarian one and that the exegetical shift
occurred first in doctrinal and exegetical writings, while
hymnogra-phy and iconography proved more conservative. In the
second part of this article, I argue that the current scholarly
concepts fail to distinguish prop-erly between the various types of
exegesis involved in each of these cases and that this failure is
especially obvious in the case of the earliest and most enduring
Christian exegesis of Old Testament theophanies.
ISAIAH 6: CHRIST AND THE TWO SERAPHIM
The details of Isaiah’s vision correspond, quite transparently,
to the fur-nishings of the Temple: the throne is the visionary
counterpart of the ark of the covenant, the living seraphim
correspond to the two cherubim on the mercy seat, and the enthroned
Lord unveils to the prophetic gaze the otherwise invisible divine
presence above the mercy seat. The thunder-ous noise causing the
Temple to shake and the dense smoke (6:4) and glory (6:1) filling
it recall the phenomena at Sinai, which are implicitly interpreted
as caused by angelic praise and by a superabundance of
Dr. Bogdan G. Bucur, Associate Professor of Theology, Duquesne
University, Fisher Hall 624, Pittsburgh, PA 15282. E-mail:
[email protected]
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310 Bogdan G. Bucur
(presumably luminous) “glory.” In short, to use Jon Levenson’s
inspired characterization, in Isa 6 “art became the reality to
which it pointed” and “the Temple mythos came alive.”1
What did the prophet see? The Gospel of John identifies the
kyrios in Isaiah’s vision with the kyrios of Christian worship:
“[Isaiah] saw his glory” (John 12:41), just as “we have seen his
glory” (John 1:14).2 More-over, the book of Revelation seems to
extend the thrice-holy hymn sung by Isaiah’s seraphim to the Son.3
This Christological interpretation is echoed by prominent writers
of the pre-Nicene era such as Justin Martyr, Irenaeus of Lyon, and
Clement of Alexandria.4 Since Isaiah calls the Lord
1. Jon D. Levenson, Sinai and Zion: An Entry into the Jewish
Bible (New York: Harper Col-lins, 1985), 123.
2. Incidentally, while the MT reads, “I saw the Lord sitting on
a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the
temple,” the LXX reads, “I saw the Lord seated on a throne high and
lifted up . . . and the house was full of his glory,” while the
Targum to Isaiah has, “I saw the glory of the Lord . . . and the
temple was filled with the brightness of his glory.” On John 12:41
in relation to Isa 6, see C. H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the
Fourth Gospel (Cambridge: Cam-bridge University Press, 1953), 207,
261; Nils A. Dahl, “The Johannine Church and History,” in The
Interpretation of John, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1997),
147–67, first published in Current Issues in New Testament
Interpretation, ed. W. Klassen (New York: Harper and Row, 1962),
124–42, esp. 154–55; A. T. Hanson, Jesus Christ in the Old
Testament (London: SPCK, 1965), 104–8; Hanson, The Prophetic
Gospel: A Study of John and the Old Testament (Edinburgh: T & T
Clark, 1991), 167, 170, 242, 263, 339; Jey J. Kanagaraj, Mysticism
in the Gospel of John: An Inquiry into Its Background (Sheffield:
Sheffield Academic, 1998), 224–26; April D. DeConick, “John Rivals
Thomas: From Community Conflict to Gospel Narrative,” in Jesus in
Johannine Tradition, ed. R. T. Fortna and T. Thatcher (Louisville,
KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 303–21, at 308; Darrell D.
Hannah, “Isaiah’s Vision in the Ascension of Isaiah and the Early
Church,” Journal of Theological Studies n.s. 50 (1999): 80–101, at
81; Raymond F. Brown, The Gospel According to John, 2 vols. (Garden
City, NJ: Doubleday, 1966), 486–87; C. Κ. Barrett, The Gospel
According to St. John, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 1978), 432; Rudolf
Bultmann, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, trans. G. R.
Beasley-Murray et al. (Philadelphia: Westminster; Ox-ford:
Blackwell, 1971), 452n4; Rudolf Schnackenburg, The Gospel According
to St. John, trans. C. Hastings et al. (London: Burns and Oates,
1980), 2:416–17; and Jarl E. Fossum, The Name of God and the Angel
of the Lord: Samaritan and Jewish Concepts of Intermediation and
the Origin of Gnosticism (Tübingen: Mohr, 1985), 295n112.
3. In Rev 4:6–9, the four living creatures—a fusion of Isaiah’s
seraphim and Ezekiel cher-ubim—“give glory and honor and thanks” to
God by singing a version of the thrice-holy: “Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty, Who was and is and is to come!” In the next
chapter, however, worship and praise seems to be directed both to
“Him who sits on the throne” and to the Lamb bearing the seven
spirits (5:8–14). Cf. 7:10 (God and the Lamb receive the
acclamation of the martyrs); 14:4 (God and the Lamb receive the
self-offering of the martyrs as “first fruits” of humankind); 20:6
(God and Christ receive priestly service from those who are worthy,
and reign together with them); 21:22–23; and 22:5 (the Lamb is or
embodies the divine glory and light).
4. Irenaeus, Haer 4.20.8 (SC 100:650): “according to this
invisible manner, therefore, did they [the OT prophets] see God, as
also Isaiah says, ‘My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.’”
But Irenaeus is very clear about patriarchs and prophets having
been graced with visions of the Son (Haer 3.6.1–2 [SC 211:64, 66,
68, 70]), whom he refers to as “the visible of the Father” (4.6.6
[SC 100:450]). Clement of Alexandria (Pedagogue 1.7.56–60)
identifies the Logos, “our pedagogue, the holy God Jesus” (ὁ δὲ
ἡμέτερος παιδαγωγὸς ἅγιος θεὸς Ἰησοῦς) with the “Lord” who spoke to
the prophets, in the course of such theophanies as are recorded in
Isa 6 and Jer 1.
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Pro EcclEsia Vol. XXiii, No. 3 311
κύριος σαβαωθ (6:3) and describes him as enthroned (6:1,
καθήμενον ἐπὶ θρόνου), it is noteworthy that Justin Martyr, citing
Ps 98:1–7, and Irenaeus, citing Ps 79:2, “both interpret the phrase
from the LXX Psalter, ὁ καθήμενος ἐπὶ τῶν χερουβιν, as a reference
to the Word.”5 Needless to say, the identification of Jesus with
the God who guided Israel in the pil-lar of fire, gave the
covenant, reigns in Zion, and rides upon the cherubic throne was
bound to appear blasphemous to Trypho and his teachers.6
Eusebius of Caesarea retains the Christological interpretation
of Ps 79:2 (he connects it with the cherubim of Exod 25 and the
visions of Ezek 1 and 10), as does Ambrose of Milan in the opening
of his hymn: “In-tende, qui regis Israel super cherubim qui
sedes.”7 As a matter of fact, the Christological reading of Isaiah
continues unabated during the con-ciliar era, in the writings of
Cyril of Jerusalem,8 Eusebius of Caesarea,9
5. Hannah, “Isaiah’s Vision,” 81. Justin, Dial. 37.3; 64.4;
Irenaeus, Haer 3.11.8 (SC 211:194); Cf. Epistula Apostolorum 3.
6. Trypho appeals to his teachers, who have apparently already
warned the community against such blasphemous promotion of Jesus as
“Lord” (Dial. 38.1). For an in-depth discus-sion, see Bogdan G.
Bucur, “Justin Martyr’s Exegesis of Old Testament Theophanies and
the Parting of the Ways Between Christianity and Judaism,”
Theological Studies 75 (2014), 34–51.
7. Eusebius, Com. Ps. 79 (PG 23:956 B, D); Comm. Isa. 1.41 (GCS
55:36). See also the dis-cussion in Angela Russell Christman, What
Did Ezekiel See: Christian Exegesis of Ezekiel’s Vision of the
Chariot from Irenaeus to Gregory the Great (Leiden: Brill, 2005),
30–31. For the biblical exegesis of the Ambrose’s hymn, see Édouard
Cothenet, “L’arrrière-plan biblique de l’hymne de St. Ambroise
‘Intende, qui regis Israel,’” in L’Hymnographie: Conférences
Saint-Serge XLVIe Semaine d’études liturgiques, Paris, 29 juin–2
juillet 1999, ed. A. M. Triacca and A. Pistoia (Rome: Edizioni
Liturgiche, 2000), 153–60.
8. Cyril of Jerusalem, Cat 14.27: “And this throne the Prophet
Isaiah having beheld before the incarnate coming of the Savior,
says, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and
the rest. For the Father no man hath seen at any time, and He who
then appeared to the Prophet was the Son.”
9. Eusebius, Comm. Isa. 1.41 (GCS 55:36–38): the Lord Sabaoth of
Isa 6 could not have been the God and Father, since Scripture
states that “nobody has ever seen God” (John 1:18) or “the Father”
(John 6:46); “whom, then, did the prophet see [Isa 6:1] if not ‘the
only begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father’ [Jn 1:18] . .
. ? Thus also ‘the Lord appeared to Abraham’ [refers to Gen 12:7,
17:1, and 18:1]. . . . He was seen by Abraham, having been
fashioned in human form, and was under a tree and had his feet
washed and shared in a meal. Likewise, he was presented as a man
wrestling with him . . . the prophet [i.e., Isaiah] testifies that
he saw his glory, that is to say, he saw the glory of our Savior
Jesus Christ. . . . It was the glory of the Word which Ezekiel saw
as through a glass darkly. . . . Although the vision of the prophet
Isaiah was different from that of Moses and Ezekiel, he too saw the
glory of our Savior.” All these theophanies anticipate the
Incarnation, since in all of them the Son descends from his own
greatness, “making himself small” (σμικρύνων τε αὐτὸν) so as to
become visible and perceptible by human (GCS 55:36). In fact,
Eusebius interprets the “dialogue” between the seraphim as an
exclamation of their stupor at the future descent of the Word of
God to the humble realities of human life (Comm Isa 1.41, GCS
55:39). See also Eusebius, Dem. Ev. 7.1 (GCS 23:297–98): before
delivering his prophecy of the virginal birth (Isa 7:14), Isaiah
bears witness of his glorious vision of Christ’s divinity by
writing: “I saw the Lord sitting upon a high and lofty throne, etc.
(Isa 6:1)” Dem. Ev. 9.16 (GCS 23:438). “Notice how Saint John
proceeds saying, ‘These things said Isaias, when he saw his glory,
and spoke of him.’ As the prophet had seen the Christ and the glory
of Christ in the vision in which he said, ‘I saw the Lord of
Sabaoth sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up,’ and that which
follows.”
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312 Bogdan G. Bucur
Jerome,10 John Chrysostom,11 (Ps?-) Asterius the Sophist,12 and
the Ps-Macarian Homilies.13
10. In Ep. 18A 4.1 (CSEL 54:78), Jerome ascribes the Origenian
view to several, most erudite interpreters, both Greek and Latin.
His dissent from their opinion is exegetical: judg-ing from John
12:39–41 and Acts 28:25–27, the enthroned figure was Christ, who
therefore cannot be identified with one of the seraphim. The same
exegesis is set forth, this time in a more strident polemical tone,
in Comm Isa 3.6.1–8 (CCSL 73:83–90). Jerome repeats his
fun-damental view twice (CCSL 73:84, and again at 73:87): “visus
est autem Filius in regnantis habitu.” Nevertheless, he finds it
important to state that the vision of the Son does not imply an
intrinsic visibility of the natura of the Son, as opposed to that
of the Father (John 1:20; Exod 33:20); rather, he insists, the
divinitas of the Son remains inaccessible to Isaiah, since “una in
Trinitate natura est.” Ultimately, the theophany is a matter not of
divine nature but of divine will: “Ergo Dei natura non cernitur,
sed uidetur hominibus ut voluerit” (CCSL 73:85). It should be said
that Jerome’s Christological interpretation of Isa 6 is thoroughly
wedded to a Trinitarian one. He starts by placing “seeing the Lord
(i.e., Christ) as he reigns in majesty” in apposition to “knowing
the mysteries of the Trinity” (CCSL 73:84); later, he finds in the
triple sanctus of the seraphim a demonstration of the “mysterium
Trinitatis in una diuinitate” (CCSL 73:86); finally, he takes the
plural in Isa 6:8 (“who will go for us?”) to mean that “Domino
iubente, Trinitas imperat” (CCSL 73:90). Nevertheless, Jerome is
em-phatic in his rejection of the older Trinitarian reading: he
rejects the “impious” suggestion of “some” (i.e., Origen) who
understood the seraphim as the Son and the Spirit, and prefers the
view—actually, his own (Ep. 84, CSEL 55:123–24)—that the two
represent the old and the new covenant (CCSL 73:87).
11. Chrysostom, On the Equality of the Father and the Son 11 (SC
396:304–6): Isa 6, together with Dan 7 and 3 Kgs 22 are proof texts
for the Son’s divinity, expressed visually by his be-ing seated on
the divine throne.
12. A beautiful Paschal homily (Hom. 16.15) ascribed to Asterius
calls on the believers to join in the angelic praise of the risen
and ascended Christ, and thus to fulfill together with their
heavenly counterparts the prophecy of Ps 8:2 (“Out of the mouth of
babes and sucklings hast thou ordained perfect praise”). The
heavenly pattern of worship is a tapestry of biblical passages
including, predictably, Isa 6:3, along with Ezek 3:12 and Ps 23:7.
In a similar passage (Hom. 29.9–10), the psalm verse “The heavens
declare the glory of God” (Ps 18:2) is interpreted as a reference
to the perpetual worship offered by the angelic hosts, culminating
with the cherubim of Ezek 3:12 and the seraphim of Isa 6:3. The
object of their worship becomes clear when the long list of
patriarchs, prophets, and apostles who have also “declared the
glory of God” is brought to completion by quotations that point to
Christ: John 1:14 (“we have seen his glory”) and Titus 2:13 (“the
appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus”).
The Greek text for the homilies is from Marcel Richard, Asterii
Sophistae commentariorum in Psalmos quae supersunt (Oslo: Brogger,
1956), 115, 232–33. Analysis in Hansjörg Auf der Maur, Die
Osterhomilien des Asterius Sophistes (Trier: Paulinus, 1967),
83–94. The identification of the author as Asterius of Amasea has
been disputed by Wolfram Kinzig, In Search of Asterius: Studies on
the Authorship of Homilies on the Psalms (Göt-tingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1990), who argues that the homilies are the work of
an unknown pro-Nicene theologian in the area of Antioch.
13. For example, Ps-Macarius, Hom. 4.13, a passage strikingly
similar to Eusebius’s Comm Isa 1.41 (GCS 55:39): “Thus he appeared
to each of the holy fathers, exactly as He wished and as it seemed
helpful to them. In one manner he appeared to Abraham, in another
to Isaac, in another to Jacob, in another to Noah, Daniel, David,
Solomon, Isaiah, and to each of the holy prophets. Still in another
way to Elijah and again differently to Moses. . . . To each of the
saints, likewise, God appeared as he wished (ὡς ἠθέλησεν ὤφθη). . .
. And when it pleases him, he diminishes himself (ὡς θέλει
σμικρύνων ἑαυτὸν) by taking on a bodily form. He transforms himself
to become present to the eyes of those who love him, showing
himself in an unapproachable glory of light.” Greek text in Die 50
geistlichen Homilien des Makarios, ed. Hermann Dörries, Erich
Klostermann, and Matthias Kröger (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag,
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ISAIAH 6: IMAGE OF THE TRINITY
A different reading became prevalent among early Christians in
Alexan-dria, prompted by the influence of Philo. Consider the
following passage from Philo’s homily On the Godhead, preserved
only in Armenian:
After this it is said: Three men stood above him (Gen 18:2). . .
. This [Creator] appears to his own disciple and righteous pupil
surrounded on either side by his powers, the heads of armies and
archangels, who all worship the Chief Leader in the midst of them
(Isa 6:1–3). The One in their midst is called Being; this name,
“Being,” is not his own and proper name, for he himself is
unnamable and beyond expression, as being incomprehensible. . . .
Of his two body-guards on either side, one is God, the other Lord,
the former being the symbol of the creative, the latter of the
royal virtue. Concerning the three men, it seems to me that this
oracle of God has been written in the Law: I will speak to you from
above the mercy seat, from between the two Cherubim (Exod 25:21).
As these powers are winged, they fittingly throne on a winged
chariot [Ezek 1] over the whole cosmos. . . . In the midst of whom
he is found [the text] shows clearly by calling them “cherubim.”
One of these is ascribed to the creative power and is rightly
called God; the other to the sovereign and royal virtue and is
called Lord. . . . This vision woke up the prophet Isaiah and
caused him to rise.14
This text identifies the central figure among Abraham’s three
visitors as ὁ ὤν (Exod 3:14, LXX), while the other two powers
(ποιητική and βασιλική, also known as θεός and κύριος), represented
by the two cherubim of Exod 25:22 (LXX 25:21)—compare Cherub.
27–28, discussed earlier—and the two seraphim of Isa 6:3. This
connection, inasmuch as it became known to the church, especially
at Alexandria, opens up the bib-lical imagery of the ark as well as
Isaiah’s throne theophany to the same kind of theological
reflection as Gen 18.
One Christian continuation of Philo’s “noetic exegesis” of Isa 6
occurs in Clement of Alexandria.15 Like the later Alexandrian
liturgical tradi-tion, Clement identifies the seraphim of Isa 6
(which he calls τὰ ζῷα τὰ δοξολόγα) with the cherubim of the ark in
Exod 25 (which he calls τὰ πνεύματα τὰ δοξολόγα) and with the two
ζῷα found in the peculiar
1964), 37; English tr. by George A. Maloney in Pseudo-Macarius,
The Fifty Spiritual Homilies and the Great Letter (New York:
Paulist, 1992), 55–56.
14. Text and discussion in Folker Siegert, “The Philonian
Fragment De Deo: First English Translation,” Studia Philonica 10
(1998): 1–33. The Greek terms are taken from Siegert’s Greek
retroversion in his original publication, Wohltätig verzehrendes
Feuer, quoted above. See also Francesca Calabi, God’s Acting, Man’s
Acting: Tradition and Philosophy in Philo of Alexandria (Leiden:
Brill, 2008), 73–110.
15. See Bucur, “Clement of Alexandria’s Exegesis of Old
Testament Theophanies,” Phro-nema 29 (2014), 61–79.
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314 Bogdan G. Bucur
LXX reading of Hab 3:2, “you will be known between the two
ζῷα.”16 His main point, however, is that the seraphim and the
cherubim should be decoded allegorically as references to the life
of the perfected soul.17 For him, it is the “Gnostic” who “rests”
in a state of ceaseless contemplation and perpetual praise of
God.18 Elsewhere, Clement speaks of deification as a transformation
into one of the “first-created” angels or “gods.”19 This
“interiorization” of the liturgical and apocalyptic imagery of Isa
6, later pursued by Origen, Didymus, and Evagrius, will accompany
the main threads—Christological and Trinitarian—of the history of
interpretation.20
16. See the Anaphora of Serapion and that of the Liturgy of
Saint Mark, quoted below. On the reception history of Hab 3:2 LXX,
see Bogdan G. Bucur and Elijah N. Mueller, “Gregory Nazianzen’s
Reading of Habakkuk 3:2 and Its Reception: A Lesson from Byzantine
Scrip-ture Exegesis,” Pro Ecclesia 21 (2011): 86–103. The main
interpretation of the verse is Chris-tological: “God known between
the two living beings” is interpreted as Christ on Tabor, appearing
between Moses and Elijah (Tertullian, Ps.-Leo of Rome, Anastasius
the Sinaite, the Venerable Bede), or Christ on Golgotha, crucified
between the two thieves (Hesychius of Jerusalem, Anastasius the
Sinaite, the Venerable Bede), or Christ as a the newborn baby
be-tween the ox and the ass (Gospel of Ps.-Matthew, Cyril of
Alexandria, Eleutherius of Tournai, Symeon the New Theologian), or
Christ between his earthly life and his life after the
Resur-rection (Cyril of Jerusalem), or Christ between the human and
the divine natures (Eusebius of Caesarea), or Christ between the
Old Testament and New Testament (Cyril of Alexandria, Augustine,
Jerome), or and Christ between the present life and future life
(Theodoret). The Christological reading of Hab 3:2 LXX is further
reflected in its liturgical use in connection with the celebration
of the Resurrection (Gregory of Nazianzus, John Damascene) and in
its iconography. The latter shows Christ enthroned, similarly to
representations of Isa 6, but with Habakkuk and Ezekiel as
recipients of the vision; alternatively, it shows a luminous, often
angelomorphic Christ, escorted by two angels, by the four cherubim
of Ezekiel/Rev-elation, or by an entire angelic court. By contrast,
Origen’s Trinitarian reading (Peri Archon 1.3.4: “we think that
that expression also which occurs in the hymn of Habakkuk . . .
ought to be understood of Christ and of the Holy Spirit”) has
failed to capture the exegetical imagina-tion of early
Christianity. This is not without irony, given the rich reception
of his work on Isa 6, which occurs in same passage of On First
Principles 1.3.4.
17. It has been noted that, although “Clement seems to reflect a
Philonic influence,” he “develops the theme in such a different way
that he seems here to be essentially indepen-dent; echoes may
reflect only a broadly common tradition.” Annewies Van den Hoek,
Clem-ent of Alexandria and His Use of Philo in the Stromateis: An
Early Christian Reshaping of a Jewish Model (Leiden: Brill, 1988),
134.
18. Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.6.36.3–4 (SC 278:84): “He
[the Gnostic] all day and night, speaking and doing the Lord’s
commands, rejoices exceedingly . . . and is ever giving thanks to
God, like the living creatures who give glory (τὰ ζῷα τὰ δοξολόγα),
figuratively spoken of by Isaiah (διὰ Ἡσαΐου ἀλληγορούμενα).”
Strom. 7.12.80.4 (SC 428:246): “[The ark] signifies the repose
which dwells with the spirits who give glory (ἀνάπαυσιν . . . τὴν
μετὰ τῶν δοξολόγων πνευμάτων), which the cherubim represent darkly
(ἃ αἰνίσσεται Χερουβίμ). . . . But the face is a symbol of the
rational soul, and the wings are the lofty min-isters and energies
of powers right and left; and the voice is delightsome glory in
ceaseless contemplation (ἡ φωνὴ δὲ δόξα εὐχάριστος ἐν ἀκαταπαύστῳ
θεωρίᾳ).”
19. Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 7.3.13.1–2; 7.10.56–57 (SC
428:68, 184, 186); Prophetic Eclogues 56.5, 57.5 (GCS 17:153–54).
For a detailed analysis of these and other relevant pas-sages,
their background and possible connections, see Bucur, Angelomorphic
Pneumatology, Clement of Alexandrian and Other Early Christian
Witnesses (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 42–51.
20. See Bucur, Angelomorphic Pneumatology, 50, who refers to
Eric Osborn, “Philo and Clem-ent: Quiet Conversion and Noetic
Exegesis,” Studia Philonica 10 (1998): 108–24, and the larger
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Pro EcclEsia Vol. XXiii, No. 3 315
The Trinitarian exegesis of Isa 6 occurred quite early.
According to Darrell Hannah, “already by the end of the first
century or, at the latest, in the opening decades of the second,
Christians were reading the vision of the sixth chapter of Isaiah
in a ‘trinitarian’ manner.”21 In the mid-second-century Martyrdom
and Ascension of Isaiah, the prophet gazes upon a triad composed of
“the glorious one” or “the Father of the Lord,” whose glory it is
impossible to behold, and his two attendants, the Lord Jesus and
the an-gel of the Holy Spirit (AscIsa 10.2–6). Obviously, the
“Father” corresponds to the enthroned Lord in Isa 6:1, while the
angelomorphic Son and Spirit correspond to the two seraphim.
Moreover, Mar. Asc. Isa. 9 speaks about the worship that God
receives from his two attendants, called the angel of the Logos and
the angel of the Holy Spirit. Even if the two are not explicitly
termed “seraphim,” the fact that this text is an implicit
commentary on Isa 6 leads to the identification of Son and Spirit
with the two seraphim.
Aside from Irenaeus of Lyon’s appropriation and “correction” of
this imagery, we find the same passage in the Ascension lurking
behind the well-known passage in Peri Archon.22 Origin writes, “My
Hebrew master also used to say that those two seraphim in Isaiah,
which are described as having each six wings, and calling to one
another, and saying, ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God of hosts’
[Isa 6.1] were to be understood of the only-begotten Son of God and
of the Holy Spirit.”23 Origen is not simply reporting the opinions
of his “Hebrew master”—that is, a Jewish-Christian teacher—on Isa
6. He certainly appropriated this Trinitarian exegesis, bow-ing to
the authority of the anonymous magister, and followed to his own
exegetical judgment, as is evident from his homilies on Isaiah and
Ezekiel:
These seraphim which stand around God, which only mentally say
“holy, holy, holy,” guard the mystery of the Trinity because they
themselves
phenomenon discussed by Alexander Golitzin, “Earthly Angels and
Heavenly Men: The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Nicetas Stethatos,
and the Tradition of Interiorized Apocalyptic in Eastern Christian
Ascetical and Mystical Literature,” Dunbarton Oaks Papers 55
(2001): 125–53. Didymus, Zech 1.331–32 (SC 83:368); Evagrius,
Thoughts 41 (SC 438: 290, 292); De Seraphim, ed. and trans. J.
Muyldermans, “Sur les Séraphins et sur les Chérubins d’Évagre le
Pontique dans les versions Syriaque et Arménienne,” Mus 59 (1946):
370–74, 377–79.
21. Hannah, “Isaiah’s Vision,” 101.22. Irenaeus, Dem. 10 (trans.
Behr, 46): “This God, then, is glorified by His Word, who is
His Son, continually, and by the Holy Spirit, who is the Wisdom
of the Father of all. And the power(s), of this Word and of Wisdom,
who are called Cherubim and Seraphim, glorify God with unceasing
voices.” The theological corrective is very significant: the two
cherubim/seraphim are no longer identified with, but instead
subordinated to, the Son and the Spirit. See Georg Kretschmar,
Studien zur frühchristlichen Trinitätstheologie (Tübingen: Mohr,
1956), 64–67, 73; Jean Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish
Christianity (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1964 [1958]),
134–40; Emmanuel Lanne, “Chérubim et séraphim: Essai
d’interprétation du chap. X de la Démonstration de s. Irénée,”
Recherches de science religieuse 43 (1955): 524–35.
23. Origen, On First Principles 1.3.4. Greek text in Herwig
Görgemanns and Heinrich Karpp, Origenes vier Bücher von den
Prinzipien (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesell-schaft, 1985),
164, 166.
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316 Bogdan G. Bucur
are holy.” . . . Who are these two seraphim? My Lord Jesus and
the Holy Spirit. . . . [about the seraph who touches the prophet’s
mouth with a liv-ing coal:] this seraph was my Lord Jesus Christ,
who is sent by the Father to take away our sins. . . . He came that
you might know the unity of the divine Trinity. . . . Whoever
believes in one person of the Trinity believes in all three
persons.24
In his Contra Celsum, Origen again presupposes the Trinitarian
interpre-tation of Isa 6, as he claims that the visions of Isaiah
and Ezekiel are the source of the enigmatic triad of Ps-Plato’s
Second Epistle (king of all—the second things—the third things).25
Even though he had himself translated these homilies into Latin,
Jerome later deemed this Trinitarian interpreta-tion heretical,
most likely because of its subordinationist connotations.26
Indeed, pro-Nicene theology would consecrate a different type of
Trinitarian interpretation of Isa 6. Following Origen’s lead (“the
seraphim . . . guard the mystery of the Trinity”), writers such as
Gregory of Nyssa, Basil of Caesarea, Evagrius and John Chrysostom
take the threefold cry of the seraphim (and perhaps the triadic
structure of the vision—God and two seraphim) as in some way
suggesting or adumbrating the mystery of the Trinity.27 Their point
is that the seraphs are distinct from the Persons of the Trinity,
uttering their thrice-holy song as angelic powers, subordi-nated to
the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.28 Gregory of Nazianzus makes it
clear that the single object of worship, the “God” addressed by the
angelic hymn, is Father, Son, and Spirit: “When I say “God” I mean
Father and Son and Holy Spirit. . . . This then is the Holy of
Holies, which is veiled by the seraphim and glorified with a
threefold ‘holy,’ converging in one lordship and divinity, which
another who preceded us has explained
24. Hom in Isa 1.2 (GCS 8.244). Cf. Hom Isa 1, 5 (247); 4, 1
(257); Hom Ezek 14, 2 (452). 25. Origen, Cels 6.18 (GCS
2.88.28).26. Jerome, Ep. 61.2 (CSEL 54:577; English trans. in
NPNF): “Origen is a heretic, true; but
what does that take from me who do not deny that on very many
points he is heretical? He has erred concerning the resurrection of
the body, he has erred concerning the condition of souls, he has
erred by supposing it possible that the devil may repent, and—an
error more important than these—he has declared in his commentary
upon Isaiah that the Seraphim mentioned by the prophet are the
divine Son and the Holy Spirit.”
27. Gregory of Nyssa, C. Eun 1.23.310–12 (SC 524:118): through
those whom Isaiah calls seraphim, “the mystery of the Trinity was
proclaimed with clarity” (ἐναργῶς τὸ τῆς τριάδος ἐκηρύχθη
μυστήριον). Basil of Caesarea, Eun. 3.3 (SC 305:154): “I think also
that Isaiah wrote that the seraphim were crying out ‘Holy!’ three
times for this reason: because holiness in nature is observed in
three hypostases” (ἐν τρὶσι ταῖς ὑποστάσεσιν ὁ κατὰ φύσιν ἁγιασμός
θεωρεῖται). Evagrius, De Seraphim (Muyldermans, 373–74);
Chrysostom, Commentary on Isaiah 6:3 (SC 304:268): the seraphic
hymn is addressed to the Trinity (τῇ Τριάδι τὸν ὕμνον ἀναφέρουσαι)
and expresses the accuracy of the dogmas.
28. Cf. Basil of Caesarea, Spir. 16.38 (SC 17bis: 384): the
seraphim require instruction and direction in their performance of
the Trisagion, and this is provided them by the “choir-master”—the
Holy Spirit! Cf. Cyril of Alexandria, Twelfth Festal Letter (12.2
[SC 434:42, 44]), where Isaiah’s seraphim are introduced precisely
to emphasize the subordination of angelic beings in relation to the
Creator.
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Pro EcclEsia Vol. XXiii, No. 3 317
in a most beautiful and exalted way.”29 The Trinitarian exegesis
of Isa 6 (directed against the subordinationism of the “Arians”) is
continued and refined by Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret of
Cyrus, whose formula-tions are sometimes very similar. For
Theodoret, the triple exclamation, “holy, holy holy,” is a clear
reference to the Trinity, while the singular “Lord Sabaoth”
indicates the oneness of the divine nature.30 Cyril also notes that
the threefold sanctification of God ends in unity (“holy, holy,
holy is the Lord”).31 Nevertheless, his position on Isa 6 is more
ambiguous and illustrates well the transition between
Christological and Trinitarian interpretations of the text. Even
though, as we have seen, he can refer to the angelic Trisagion as
somehow pointing to the Trinity, in the same commentary on Isaiah
he also affirms the traditional Christological inter-pretation.32
Most interesting is his treatment of Isa 6 in his Dialogues on the
Trinity: in arguing for the divinity of the Son, he begins by
offering the traditional exegesis of the biblical passage, which he
then modifies so as to affirm that the Son shares the very divine
unity and lordship denoted by the singular “Lord Sabaoth.”33
Anti-Eunomian polemics brought to the fore a distinct emphasis
on the paradox that Isa 6 is both an overwhelming visionary
experience and an experience in which the ultimate reality of God
is not exhausted, but strictly denied. In Against Eunomius, for
instance, Basil of Caesarea is at pains to show that even as the
prophet was allowed a contemplation of the divine glory (ἐν θεωρίᾳ
τῆς δόξης τοῦ θεοῦ γενόμενος), God’s οὐσία remained utterly
inaccessible to him.34 John Chrysostom will pro-ceed similarly, as
will Theodoret of Cyrus—the latter using the same pair of οὐσία and
δόξα alongside φύσις and σχῆμα to distinguish the tran-scendent and
the immanent element in divine theophanies.35
29. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 38.8 (PG 36:320). English trans.
Nonna Verna Harrison, Saint Gregory of Nazianzus. Festal Orations
(Crestwood, NY: SVS , 2008), 66.
30. Theodoret of Cyrus, Comm Isaiah 3:70–71 (SC 276:260): Τὸ
ᾅγιος ᾅγιος ᾅγιος τῆς τριάδος δηλοτικόν, τὸ δὲ Κύριος Σαβαὼθ τῆς
φύσεως τῆς μιᾶς σημαντικόν.
31. Cyril of Alexandria, In Is. 6:1–3 (PG 70:176a): Τρὶς δὲ τὸ
Ἅγιος λέγουσαι, κατακλείουσι τὴν δοξολογίαν, εἰς τὸ, «Κύριος
Σαβαὼθ,» ἐν μιᾷ θεότητος φύσει τὴν ἁγίαν τιθέντες Τριάδα; also Trin
3.607d–608a (SC 246:70, 72).
32. Cyril of Alexandria, Comm. Isa. 1.4 (PG 70:172, 176): “No
one can deny that the prophet saw the Son in the glory of God the
Father, as John said: ‘Isaiah said this because he saw his glory
and spoke of him’”; “In announcing that the whole earth is full of
his glory, the seraphim are predicting the mystery of the economy .
. . when the Only Begotten Word of God became human, the entire
earth was filled with his glory.”
33. Cyril of Alexandria, Dial. de Trin 3.607e (SC 246:70). Cf.
Dial. de Trin. 5.577 (SC 237:360). Cyril of Alexandria, Dial. de
Trin 3.607e (SC 246: 72): ἐκέκραγεν ἕτερος πρὸς τὸν ἕτερον τὸν ἐν
τριττῷ μὲν ἐν ἀρχῇ, καταλήγοντα δὲ εἰς ἑνάδα καὶ εἰς κυριότηταμίαν
ἁγιασμόν. Ἆρά σοι δοκεῖ τὸ ἰσοπαλὲς ἐν δόξῃ διακεκτῆσθαι λοιπὸν ὁ
Υἱός.
34. Basil of Caesarea, Eun. 1.12 (SC 299:212). 35. Chrysostom,
On the Incomprehensibility of God, Hom 3:155–66 (SC 28bis:200): the
an-
thropomorphic appearance in Isa 6:1 is not a vision of the
divine οὐσία, but a matter of “condescension” (συνκατάβασις).
Commentary on Isaiah 6.1 (SC 304:256, 258): Isaiah did not see what
God is (ὅπερ ἐστὶν), the naked essence (ἡ οὐσία γυμνὴ); rather God
descended as much as the prophet could ascend, allowing him to
contemplate God as he appeared in a
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318 Bogdan G. Bucur
Finally, the trinitarian reading of Isaiah 6 is further
complicated by the fact that, around 400 CE, Augustine had come to
understand the σχῆμα / species of theophanic phenomena as created,
evanescent manifestations, which do not offer a transformational
encounter with God, but are merely “symbols” and “signs”
(similitudines, signa) of the trinitarian res. According to the
threefold hierarchy of vision discussed in Gen. litt. 12,
theophanies exemplify either the bodily vision (e.g., Exodus 19;
33; Acts 10.10-12), or the spiritual vision (e.g., Isa 6.1-3; Rev
1.13-20); they do not grant the higher, intellectual, vision.
Understood as a second-level (spiritual) vision, Isaiah 6 is
relegated from the top to the bottom of the ladder leading to the
vision of God, and from the center to the periphery of Christian
theology.36
ISAIAH 6 IN HYMNOGRAPHY AND ICONOGRAPHY
The hymnographic exegesis of Isa 6 has known a shift from the
Christo-logical to the Trinitarian perspective. Romanos the
Melodist, who flour-ished in the sixth century, reads Isa 6
Christologically, as do some of the Byzantine festal hymns.
Come forth, you nations . . . and look today on the King of
Heaven on a humble colt as on a lofty throne treading the path to
Jerusalem. . . . look on the one whom Isaias saw who has come for
our sake in flesh;
How shall He whose throne is heaven and whose footstool is the
earth, be held in the womb of a woman? He upon whom the six-winged
seraphim and the many-eyed cherubim cannot gaze has been pleased at
a single word to be made flesh of this His creature . . .;
You, who ride on the cherubim and are praised by the seraphim,
mounted like David on a colt, O loving Lord. And children sang your
praise in a manner fitting God;
form (σχηματισθέντα); in conclusion, the vision was a
“condescension” (συνκατάβασις).Theodoret, Comm. Isa. 3:35, 41–42
(SC 276: 256, 258); Eranistes 1.49–52 (Greek text in Theodoret of
Cyrus, Eranistes. Critical text and prolegomena by Gerard H.
Ettlinger [Oxford: Clarendon, 1975], 74–76).
36. For Augustine’s theology of theophanies, its relation with
earlier Christian exegesis, and its polemic context, see Jules
Lebreton, “Saint Augustin, théologien de la Trinité: Son exégèse
des théophanies,” Miscellanea Augustiniana 2 (1931) 821-836;
Laurens Johan van der Lof, “L’exégèse exacte et objective des
théophanies de l’Ancien Testament dans le ‘De Trini-tate,’” Aug(L)
14 (1964): 485-499; Jean-Louis Maier, Les missions divines selon
Saint Augustin (Fribourg: Librairie de l’Université, 1960); Basil
Studer, Zur Theophanie-Exegese Augustins: Untersuchung zu einem
Ambrosius-Zitat in der Schrift ‘De Videndo Deo’ (Rome: Herder,
1971); Michel René Barnes, “Exegesis and Polemic in Augustine’s De
Trinitate I,” AugSt 30 (1999): 43-60; idem, “The Visible Christ and
the Invisible Trinity: Mt. 5:8 in Augustine’s Trinitarian Theology
of 400,” MT 19 (2003): 329-356; Bucur, Theophanies and Vision of
God in Augus-tine’s De Trinitate : An Eastern Orthodox
Perspective,” Saint Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 52 (2008):
67-93; Kari Kloos, Christ, Creation, and the Vision of God:
Augustine’s Transformation of Early Christian Theophany
Interpretation (Leiden: Brill, 2011).
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Pro EcclEsia Vol. XXiii, No. 3 319
“Isaias was cleansed when he received the coal from the
seraphim,” cried the Elder to God’s Mother; “You, with your hands
as with tongs, make me resplendent as you give me the one you
carry—Lord of the light that knows no evening and Lord of
peace;
Christ, the burning coal foreseen by godly Isaias, in the hands
of the Mother of God, as in a pair of tongs, is now given to the
Elder.37
By contrast, the hymns of the Sunday Midnight Office, composed
in the ninth century by Metrophanes of Smyrna, popularized a
Trinitarian read-ing of the passage:
The seraphim glorify the one source in three hypostases, without
begin-ning, eternal, maker of all things, incomprehensible, whom
every tongue faithfully honors in songs.
With mouths unsullied, cherubim and seraphim glorify You, the
one God of threefold light, with equal-matching glory; with them,
Lord, also accept us sinners, who magnify your might.
Isaias when he saw in image (εἰκονικῶς) the one lordship, God in
three persons, being glorified by the unsullied voices of the
seraphim, was sent to go and proclaim the Being with triple light
and the Unity with triple sun.
When Isaias saw You seated upon a lofty throne, being praised
with thrice-holy hymns, he came to know the triple substance of the
one Deity.38
The iconographic depiction of Isaiah’s vision shows a man,
explicitly identified as Jesus Christ, seated on the “high and
lofty throne” of Isa 6:1. Below (and on page 320) are two of the
most representative examples of Isaiah’s Vision:
The visual exegesis of Isaiah 6 shows a human figure, seated on
the “high and lofty throne” and flanked by two seraphim. Note,
however, in the second manuscript illumination, the conflation of
Isaiah 6 with Ezekiel 1 (which mentions four rather than two
heavenly creatures), and Daniel 7 (which depicts the enthroned
figure as having white hair). One of the sera-phim is depicted a
second time to illustrate Isaiah 6:6-7 (“one of the sera-phim flew
to me, holding a live coal . . . touched my mouth with it and said
. . .”), and it is noteworthy that in interacting with the prophet,
to whom he “administers” the living coal, the seraphim has become
anthropomorphic.
The figure on the throne is explicitly identified as Jesus
Christ (note the inscription IC XC, right and left of the halo). It
follows that not only Isaiah’s prophetic gaze is deciphered
christologically, but also the object of the
37. Palm Sunday Matins: Sticheron at the Praises; Great Vespers
of the Annunciation: Glory Sticheron at Lord I have cried; Palm
Sunday Vespers: Apostichon; Canon of Presenta-tion, Ode 5; Small
Vespers of Presentation, Apostichon. English translation by Ephrem
Lash, online at www.anastasis.org.uk.
38. Canon of Midnight Office for Sunday Tone 1, Ode 1, troparion
1; Tone 5, Ode 9, troparion 2; Tone 3, Ode 5, troparion 1; Tone 4,
Ode 6, troparion 2. English translation by Ephrem Lash,
www.anastasis.org.uk.
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Vision of Isaiah: Bibl. Apost. Vat., codex gr. 699, fol. 72v.
(second half of ninth century)
Vision of Isaiah. Codex Athos Vatopediou 760, fol 280 v
(elev-enth century)
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Pro EcclEsia Vol. XXiii, No. 3 321
seraphic acclamation, “holy, holy, holy!”: YHWH Tsebaoth/ Kyrios
Sabaoth, the warrior-king of Israel commanding multitudes of
(angelic) armies.
As in the hymns quoted above, this type of exegesis of Old
Testament passages expresses an identification of the Lord of
Christian worship—Jesus Christ—with the Lord of patriarchs and
prophets, the Lord God of Israel.
Whether because of the obvious difficulty of producing a
Trinitarian visual representation or because of a certain
theological conservatism, Byzantine iconography seems never to have
moved beyond the Christo-logical interpretation.
The element that lent itself most naturally to a liturgical and
hymno-graphic usage is the angelic chant, “holy, holy, holy is the
Lord Sabaoth!” Indeed, both rabbinic and Christian exegesis (as
well as liturgical texts at Qumran and Gnostic texts) understood it
as a human appropriation of the angelic pattern of worship revealed
in Isa 6. The oldest Christian interpretation of “holy, holy, holy”
was, in Syria-Palestine, Christological. Liturgically, the
Christological understanding of the Trisagion is echoed in the
exclamation “one is holy, one is Lord: Jesus Christ to the glory of
God the Father.” By contrast, Alexandria inherited the tradition of
Philo, Ascension of Isaiah, and Origen. It is clear that the
terrible clashes between Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonians with
respect to the addition “crucified for us” to the Trisagion were
actually bringing out an older disagreement in the exegesis of Isa
6. Kretschmar notes that “when the trinitarian interpretation of
the Sanctus starts to enter Syria—with Theo-dore of Mopsuestia—the
‘one is holy’ is immediately expanded into ‘one is holy: the
Father; one is holy: the Son; one is holy: the Spirit.’”39
The analysis of the Trinitarian interpretation of Isa 6 in early
Christian-ity requires, I believe, a further distinction. The
Eucharistic prayer of Sera-pion of Thmuis and the Anaphoras in the
Apostolic Constitutions and in the Liturgy of Saint Mark seem to
come closer to the Ascension of Isaiah and Irenaeus: God the Father
is worshipped by all ranks of heavenly pow-ers, culminating with
the worship offered by the Son and Spirit. The latter seem to be
identified with the two living beings of Hab 3:2 LXX, as well as
with the cherubim/seraphim of Isaiah and Ezekiel.40 By contrast, in
the
39. Kretschmar, Trinitätstheologie, 177.40. Eucharistic Prayer
of Bishop Serapion. Greek text and English translation in Maxwell
E.
Johnson, The Prayers of Sarapion of Thmuis: A Literary,
Liturgical, and Theological Analysis (Rome: PIO, 1995), 46-47: “Let
the Lord Jesus speak in us and let holy Spirit also hymn you
through us. For you are above all rule and authority and power and
dominion and every name being named, not only in this age but also
in the coming one. Beside you stand a thou-sand thousands [Dan
7:10] and myriad myriads of angels, archangels, thrones, dominions,
principalities, and powers. Beside you stand the two most-honored
six-winged seraphim (τὰ δύο τιμιώτατα σεραφείμ). With two wings
they cover the face, and with two the feet, and with two they fly;
sanctifying. With them receive also our sanctification as we say:
Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth; heaven and earth are full of
your glory.” Liturgy of Saint Mark: “Before you stand thousands and
ten thousand times ten thousand armies of holy angels
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322 Bogdan G. Bucur
Byzantine Liturgy of John Chrysostom, worship is given by the
angels, culminating with the cherubim/seraphim, to God as
Trinity.41
JESUS AS THE LORD OF ISAIAH 6: WHAT KIND OF EXEGESIS?
From the materials presented in the foregoing pages, it seems
clear that two broad exegetical avenues can be distinguished in the
Christian recep-tion of Isa 6. The first one is a reading of the
theophany as a “christoph-any,” characteristic of the widespread
early Christian identification of the Logos-to-be-incarnate as
subject of all Old Testament theophanies.42 This is the earliest
Christian interpretation of Isa 6, and, judging from its adop-tion
by later hymnography and iconography, also the more popular one.
The second reading, with roots in second-century Alexandria,
discerns in the three characters of the narrative—the enthroned
Lord and the two seraphim—a symbolic image of the Trinity.
My concern in this article is mainly with the straightforward
identifi-cation of the Septuagint kyrios with the New Testament’s
kyrios Jesus. To call this reading “Christological,” although
correct, only provides a cate-gory for understanding that the text
was read with a specific doctrinal aim in sight, but does not
afford a grasp of how the text came to be read in that way. It is
my contention the current scholarly concepts fail to adequately
grasp the distinctiveness of this exegesis and that they thereby
obscure
and archangels. Before you stand your two most honorable
creatures (τὰ δύο τιμιώτατα σου ζῶα), the many-eyed Cherubim and
the six-winged Seraphim (τὰ πολυόμματα Χερουβεὶμ καὶ τὰ ἑξαπτέρυγα
Σεραφείμ); with tο they cover their feet, etc.” Apostolic
Constitutions 8.12.27 (SC 336:192): “You are worshipped by every
bodiless and holy order; you are wor-shipped by the Paraclete; but
especially your holy servant Jesus the Christ—our Lord and God,
your angel and the captain of your host, and the eternal and
unending high priest: the well-ordered hosts of angels and
archangels worship you . . . the cherubim and the six-winged
seraphim . . . together with thousand thousands of archangels, and
ten thousand times ten thousand of angels, incessantly, and with
constant and loud voices they cry; and let all the people say with
them: Holy, holy, holy, etc.”
41. Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom: “You are God, ineffable,
incomprehensible, invis-ible, inconceivable, ever existing,
eternally the same; you and your only-begotten Son and your Holy
Spirit. . . . We thank you also for this liturgy which you have
been pleased to accept from our hands, though there stand around
you thousands of Archangels and tens of thousands of Angels, the
Cherubim and the Seraphim, six-winged and many-eyed (τὰ χερουβεὶμ
καὶ τὰ σεραφείμ, ἑξαπτέρυγα, πολυόμματα), soaring aloft upon their
wings, (aloud) singing, crying, shouting the triumphal hymn, and
saying: Holy, holy, holy, etc.”
42. See in this respect Georges Legeay, “L’Ange et les
théophanies dans l’Ecriture Sainte d’après la doctrine des Pères,”
Revue Thomiste 10 (1902): 138–58, 405–24; 11 (1903): 46–69, 125–54;
and the following articles by Bucur: “Justin Martyr’s Exegesis”;
“Clement of Alexan-dria’s Exegesis of Old Testament Theophanies”;
“Matt 17:1–9 as a Vision of a Vision: A Ne-glected Strand in the
Patristic Reception of the Transfiguration,” Neotestamentica 44
(2010): 15–30; “Exegesis of Biblical Theophanies in Byzantine
Hymnography: Rewritten Bible,” Theological Studies 68 (2007):
92–112; and “Ps-Dionysius East and West: Unities,
Differentia-tions, and the Exegesis of Biblical Theophanies,”
Dionysius 26 (2008): 115–38.
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Pro EcclEsia Vol. XXiii, No. 3 323
the importance of the earliest and most enduring Christian
exegesis of Old Testament theophanies.
Current State of Affairs
In his study of Eusebius’s exegetical method in the Commentary
on Isaiah,43 Michael Hollerich uses the problematic terms
“allegory” and “typology,” and the no less (in)famous distinction
between Antioch (“typological”) and Alexandria
(“allegorical”)—although the latter is helpfully nuanced thanks to
some insights gleaned from Jacques Guillet.44 In the end, Euse-bius
appears situated more or less in between the two alternative
camps.45 Left out of the account—because the chosen conceptual
lenses create a blind spot—is precisely Eusebius’s interpretation
of Isa 6 as Christo-phany. Once the conceptual equipment of
“allegory vs. typology” and “Alexandrian vs. Antiochian” is
discarded, the blind spot disappears, and a scholar such as Jörg
Ulrich is able to discern the theophanic dimension of Eusebius’s
exegesis—that is, his consistent and fully traditional
interpre-tation of theophanies as manifestations of the Logos.46
What Ulrich does not provide, however, is a name for this
particular type of exegesis.
Since there is significant overlap in the reception history of
the vi-sions of Isaiah and Ezekiel, it would certainly be
informative to also consult Angela Christman’s study of the
reception history of Ezek 1, noted earlier. Despite her very clear
distinction between three strands of interpretation—“typological,”
“allegorical,” and “moral”—an unfor-tunate confusion governs the
understanding of theophanies. Christman uses the term “typology” to
designate both “the Ezekiel-Christ typology” and the identification
of the anthropomorphic figure on the throne with Christ, on the
grounds that both readings assume that “the entire Bible is
Christ.”47 Evidently, the overarching category of “typology”
obscures the
43. Michael J. Hollerich, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on
Isaiah: Christian Exegesis in the Age of Constantine (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1999), esp. 94–102.
44. See Hollerich, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on Isaiah,
94n107, 98–99; Jacques Guil-let, “Les exégèses d’Aléxandrie et
d’Antioche: Conflit ou malentendu?,” Recherches de science
religieuse 34 (1947): 257–302.
45. “With Origen and the Alexandrians, Eusebius shares a strong
sense of the unity of the scriptures—Isaiah as an apostle and
evangelist. . . . Eusebius shared the Antiochene orienta-tion to
the historical and the empirical, and so the literal sense of
Scripture. . . . In a word, Eusebius showed his Alexandrian
breeding by his notion of how the prophets understood revelation,
and his affinity with Antioch by his grasp of what they understood
as revelation” (Hollerich, Eusebius of Caesarea’s Commentary on
Isaiah, 100–101).
46. Jörg Ulrich, Euseb von Caesarea und die Juden (Berlin: de
Gruyter, 1998), esp. the chapter titled “Christologische
Auslegungen der Heiligen Schriften der Juden und Christen”
(176–81). Ulrich, Euseb von Caesarea und die Juden, 183 (emphasis
mine): “Daher werden sämtliche alttestamentliche Theophanien von
Euseb (wiederum in Übereinstimmung mit der antiken christlichen
Tradition der Exegese) ganz selbstverständlich und konsequent als
Logophanien beziehungsweise Christophanien gedeutet.”
47. The “Ezekiel-Christ typology” is from Origen, HomEzech 1.4.1
(SC 352:58): Inasmuch as he is called “son of man” and is preaching
in captivity, “[Ezekiel] typus erat Christi”;
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324 Bogdan G. Bucur
distinction between understanding Jesus as the very rider of the
merkavah and the understanding of Ezekiel as “type” of Jesus. This
observation ap-plies perfectly to the Christological reading of Isa
6.
Studies of the iconography of Isa 6 exhibit the same problem.48
For Kessler the vision of Isaiah in Vat. Gr. 699, fol. 72 v is a
“typical” example of art that “make typologies explicit.”49 As a
matter of fact, Kessler uses “type,” “typology,” and “typological”
throughout his article to designate “the most vivid
pictorialization of the relationship between the Old Tes-tament and
the New” in the ninth-century manuscript of the Christian
Topography.50 This refers to the depiction of Jesus in the vision
of Isaiah, just as to “the annual blood sacrifice,” which is “the
type of Jesus’ pas-sion, or to the relationship between the world
and the Mosaic tabernacle.” Taking all these cases as instances of
the same exegetical phenomenon—“typology”—and its iconographic
expression, Kessler concludes with “the analogy between artistic
process and typology.”51 Similarly, for Glenn Peers “Christ himself
is depicted in the illustration, showing the Christian belief in
the prefiguring nature of this Old Testament vision”; this means,
more specifically, that “in this vision shared by both prophet and
viewer, the viewer is made superior by his or her knowledge of the
event’s typological significance since Christ is depicted enthroned
as the Lord of the Old Covenant.”52
A Critique of the Status Quaestionis
The terms “typology” and “typological” do not account
satisfactorily for the straightforward identification of Jesus
Christ with the “Lord” of the
Origen, Selecta in Ezechielem 1 (PG 13:768 D): Ὁ Ἰεζεκιὴλ τύπον
φέρει τοῦ Χριστοῦ κατὰ πολλὰ. Christman notes (What Did Ezekiel
See?, 24) that “Origen is the first to articulate this typology.”
The identification of the anthropomorphic figure on the throne with
Christ would be “another reading of the vision that is typological”
(Christman, What Did Ezekiel See?, 29 and 33).
48. Representations of Isa 6 occur mostly in manuscript
illuminations. Famous examples include Vat. Gr. 699 (7th c.); Bibl.
Nat. MS. Grec. 510, f. 67 v. (ca. 880); Roda Bible MS. Bibl. Nat.
lat. 6, vol. III, f. 2 v. (11th c.); and Cod. Athos Vatopediou 760,
fol. 280 v (11th. c.). For scholarship on these materials, see
David Rini, “L’iconografia del profeta Isaia nelle arti del
Medioevo” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Pisa, 2004), esp.
49–66; Leslie Brubaker, “‘Christian Topography’ (Vat.gr.699)
Revisited: Image, Text, and Conflict in Ninth-Century Byzantium,”
in Byzantine Style, Religion and Civilization: In Honour of Sir
Steven Runciman, ed. Elizabeth M. Jeffreys (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2006), 3–24; Glenn Peers, Subtle Bodies:
Representing Angels in Byzantium (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2001), 44–48, 53; Peers, “Angelophany and Art
after Iconoclasm,” Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes
Hetaireias 26 (2005): 339–44; and Herbert L. Kessler, “Medieval Art
as Argu-ment,” in Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in
Medieval Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
2000), 53–63.
49. Kessler, Spiritual Seeing, 54.50. Kessler, Spiritual Seeing,
56.51. Kessler, Spiritual Seeing, 56.52. Peers, “Angelophany and
Art,” 339b, 340a.
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Pro EcclEsia Vol. XXiii, No. 3 325
biblical narrative, affirmed by so many early Christian writers.
It is one thing to say that the three characters in Isa 6 (the
enthroned Lord and the two seraphim) provide an image of Philo’s
triad (ὁ ὤν—θεός—κύριος) or of the Christian Holy Trinity, it is
another to say that the anthropomor-phism of Isa 6 “foreshadows”
the Incarnation, and it another altogether to affirm that Isaiah
encountered the Word of God in a theophany that also points to the
Logos-to-be-made-man. There is a need for better distinc-tions that
would sharpen our focus.
A first distinction should be drawn between interpretations,
such as Philo’s, in which the connection between sign and signified
does not presuppose and require a link between Old Testament and
New Testa-ment, and the two other interpretations, for which such a
link is funda-mental. Older scholarship (most famously Jean
Daniélou) tried to bring out this distinction through a sharp
opposition between “allegory” and “typology.”53 Even if most
scholars today reject the opposition between the terms as
historically unfounded and therefore misleading, and prefer to view
typological exegesis as a species of allegory,54 it is clear that
the
53. “Typology”—a nineteenth-century scholarly coinage, by the
way—is said to answer to the specifically Christian necessity of
relating the Old Testament to the life of the church; it depends on
history, gives value to “history” (that is, the biblical account),
and respects history and the literal sense. By contrast,
“allegory,” which has its origin in the exegesis of Homeric
literature (and, later, of Plato’s dialogues) and seems to have
been adopted by Christians in Alexandria together with the
Philonian corpus, evacuates or seeks to obliterate the historicity
and relevance of the Old Testament text. See Erich Auerbach,
“Figura,” Ar-chivum Romanicum 22 (1938): 436–89, English
translation in Auerbach, Scenes from the Drama of European
Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), 11–76,
esp. 29, 36, 42; G. W. H. Lampe, “The Reasonableness of Typology,”
in G. W. H. Lampe and K. J. Wooll-combe, Essays on Typology
(Naperville, IL: Allenson, 1957), 9–38; Jean Daniélou, “Traversée
de la Mer Rouge et baptême aux premiers siècles,” Recherches de
science religieuse 33 (1946): 402–30; Daniélou, “Qu’est-ce que la
typologie?” in L’Ancien Testament et les chrétiens, ed. P. Auvray
et al. (Paris: Cerf, 1951), 199–205; Daniélou, “Typologie et
allégorie chez Clément d’Alexandrie,” Studia Patristica 4/ Texte
und Untersuchungen 79 (1961): 50–57; Theology of Jew-ish
Christianity 2:237–53; Raoul Mortley, Connaissance religieuse et
herméneutique chez Clément d’Alexandrie (Leiden: Brill, 1973), ch.
4 (39–49): “Symbolisme, allégorie et mythe”; Siegert,
“Homerinterpretation, Tora-Unterweisung, Bibelauslegung: Vom
Ursprung der patrist-ischen Hermeneutik,” Studia Patristica 25
(1993): 159–71, esp. 170–71.
54. Henri de Lubac, “‘Typologie’ et ‘allégorisme,’” Recherches
de science religieuse 34 (1947): 180–247; Henri Crouzel, “La
distinction de la ‘typologie’ et de ‘l’allégorisme,’” Bulletin de
littérature ecclésiastique 65 (1964): 161–74; Manlio Simonetti,
Lettera e/o allegoria: Un contributo alla storia dell’esegesi
patristica (Rome: Institutum Patristicum “Augustinianum,” 1985),
24–25n32; “Allegoria,” in Dizionario patristico e di antichità
cristiane, ed. A. de Bernardino, 3 vols. (Casale Monferrato:
Marietti, 1983–1988), 1:140–41; Andre Louth, Discerning the
Mystery: An Essay on the Nature of Theology (Oxford: Clarendon,
1983), 118; David Dawson, Allegorical Readers and Cultural Revision
in Ancient Alexandria (Berkeley: University of California, 1992),
15–17, 255–58; and John O’Keefe, “Allegory,” and Richard A. Norris
Jr., “Typology,” in The Westminster Handbook to Origen, ed. J. A.
McGuckin (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 49–50,
209–11. Frances Young prefers the term “figural allegory” (Biblical
Exegesis and the Formation of Christian Culture [New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1997], 198), and distinguishes between
its several subtypes (192).
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326 Bogdan G. Bucur
underlying distinction is real and must be expressed somehow.55
Some scholars do, indeed, propose other terms for the same
distinction.56
More important, however, is another distinction, this one drawn
be-tween the interpretation of Isa 6 as either “foreshadowing” the
Incarna-tion or presenting a symbolic image of the Trinity, on the
one hand, and the interpretation of Isa 6 as a Christophany, on the
other. In the latter case, everything turns on the strong claim to
a real encounter or real “presence”; in the former, the divine
presence is not an epiphanic self-evidence but rather a “weaker”
symbolic presence, a matter of exegetical and theological
convention.
In short, the terms “typology” and “typological” do not account
sat-isfactorily for the Christological interpretation of Isa 6
because they do not capture the epiphanic dimension of the text as
read by many early Christian exegetes. Scholarship has rarely
seized upon this aspect. In a book published in 1965 and met with
undeserved neglect, A. T. Hanson pointed out the distinction
between what he called “real presence,” on the one hand, and
“typology,” on the other, and argued that the former is typical of
New Testament authors.57 His views were echoed four decades later
in Charles Gieschen’s essay on “the real presence of the Son before
Christ” in pre-Nicene writers.58 In a separate but related analysis
of liturgi-cal symbolism, Alexander Schmemann made very similar
observations.59
55. An excellent study of this problem by Peter Martens
concludes with the following rec-ommendation: “first, that we
discontinue using ‘typology’ and ‘allegory’ as labels for better
and worse forms of nonliteral exegesis respectively; second, that
we find alternative labels for these two forms of nonliteral
interpretation; and third, that we develop a conversation around
the criteria for successful nonliteral scriptural interpretation”
(316). Peter Martens, “Revisiting the Allegory/Typology
Distinction: The Case of Origen,” Journal of Early Chris-tian
Studies 16 (2008): 283–317.
56. Dawson uses “figural” and “figurative,” and ranges Origen’s
terms typos, hyponoia, and allegoria under the former. David
Dawson, Christian Figural Reading and the Fashioning of Identity
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002). Lewis Ayres
distinguishes between grammatical and figurative readings.
Acknowledging Dawson’s opposition of figural and figurative (he
describes the latter as “an exegesis that begins with the plain
text but loses the link with it” [38]), Ayres writes: “I prefer to
speak more simply of figural and bad figural exegesis”—whereas the
decision about what makes “good” or “bad” figural reading “is
established within a tradition’s development and internal argument”
(38). Lewis Ayres, Nicaea and Its Legacy: An Approach to
Fourth-Century Trinitarian Theology (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2006), 34–38.
57. A. T. Hanson, Jesus Christ in the Old Testament (London:
SPCK, 1965). 58. Charles Gieschen, “The Real Presence of the Son
before Christ: Revisiting an Old
Approach to Old Testament Christology,” Concordia Theological
Quarterly 68 (2004): 103–26.59. Alexander Schmemann speaks of a
shift from one type of symbolization to another:
in his words, from symbol to symbolism, from
“ontological/real/eschatological symbol” to “illustrative
symbolism.” In the older type of symbolization, “the empirical (or
‘visible’) and the spiritual (‘invisible’) are united not logically
(this ‘stands for’ that), nor analogically (this ‘illustrates’
that), nor yet by cause and effect (this ‘means’ or ‘generates’
that), but epiphani-cally. One reality manifests and communicates
the other, but . . . only to the degree to which the symbol itself
is a participant in the spiritual reality and is able or called
upon to embody it.” By contrast, “illustrative symbolism” is the
sign of something that does not exist logi-cally, but only by
convention, just as there is no real water in the chemical symbol
H2O.
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Pro EcclEsia Vol. XXiii, No. 3 327
Today, Larry Hurtado provides the clearest distinction among
three exe-getical approaches to the Old Testament characteristic of
“second-century proto-orthodox Christians” (such as Justin Martyr):
first, “proof texts” drawn from the prophets; second, “a wider
‘typological’ reading of the Old Testament as filled with figures
and events that foreshadow Jesus”; and, third, “the interpretation
of Old Testament accounts of theophanies as manifestations of the
pre-incarnate Son of God.”60
Jesus as the Kyrios of Isaiah 6: “Rewritten Bible,”
“Performative Exegesis,” and the Mind of the Church
Given the ideological freight of terms like “symbolic,”
“typological,” or “epiphanic”—to say nothing of “real presence”!—it
might be more profit-able to find a new conceptual tool. I have
argued elsewhere that the ex-egesis of biblical theophanies in
Byzantine hymnography often follows the logic of “rewritten Bible”
literature.61 This term, coined by Geza Vermes in 1961, has since
been used by scholars dealing mainly with Second Temple
Pseudepigrapha such as the Book of the Watchers (in 1 Enoch), the
Book of Ju-bilees, the Genesis Apocryphon, the Targums, Josephus’s
Jewish Antiquities, or Pseudo-Philo’s Liber antiquitatum
biblicarum.62 I submit that the Christologi-cal and “epiphanic”
reading of Isa 6 documented above could be viewed as a form of
“rewritten Bible.” Indeed, numerous early Christian texts (and
images) identify the central character of the passage—“the Lord”—as
Jesus Christ in the same way that the Wisdom of Solomon identifies
the heavenly agent at work in the Exodus events as Lady Wisdom and
that the Book of Jubilees has Moses receive the law from the Angel
of the Presence.
Vermes himself seems to have used “rewritten Bible” ambiguously,
both for a literary genre and for an exegetical strategy, and
notable schol-ars have since then chosen one direction or the
other.63 My view is that, if
See Alexander Schmemann, “Symbol and Symbolism in the Byzantine
Liturgy: Liturgical Symbols and Their Theological Interpretation,”
in Liturgy and Tradition, ed. Thomas Fisch (Crestwood, NY: SVS,
1990), 115–28. Cf. Schmemann, The Eucharist, Sacrament of the
Kingdom (Crestwood, NY: SVS, 1983), 38–39. Cf. also For the Life of
the World (Crestwood, NY: SVS , 1973), 141: “In the early tradition
. . . the relationship between the sign in the symbol (A) and that
it ‘signifies’ (B) is neither a merely semantic one (A means B),
not causal (A is the cause of B), nor representative (A represents
B). We called this relationship epiphany.”
60. Larry Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in
Earliest Christianity (Grand Rap-ids: Eerdmans, 2003), 565–66.
61. Bucur, “Exegesis of Biblical Theophanies in Byzantine
Hymnography.” 62. For a presentation and discussion of numerous
examples, see Geza Vermes, Scripture
and Tradition in Judaism: Haggadic Studies (Leiden: Brill,
1961), 67–126; Michael Segal, “Be-tween Bible and Rewritten Bible,”
in Biblical Interpretation at Qumran, ed. Matthias Henze (Grand
Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 10–28; Rewritten Bible Reconsidered:
Proceedings of the Con-ference in Karkku, Finland, August 24–26,
2006, ed. Antti Laato and Jacques van Ruiten (Åbo: Åbo Academy
University Press; Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008).
63. I am indebted here to the astute and richly documented
article by Anders Klostergaard Petersen, “Rewritten Bible as a
Borderline Phenomenon—Genre, Textual Strategy, or Ca-nonical
Anachronism?,” in Flores Florentino: Dead Sea Scrolls and Other
Early Jewish Studies,
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328 Bogdan G. Bucur
it is to be used for the Christian texts discussed above—some of
which are doctrinal treatises, others exegetical writings, and
others hymnographic and iconographic productions—the phrase can
only refer to an exegetical strategy, displayed in works belonging
to a variety of genres and serving a variety of polemical,
doctrinal, liturgical, and artistic aims.
There is much at stake for Christian theology in such an
interpretation of the Old Testament. Affirming that the early
Christian interpretation of Isaiah 6 as a “christophany” follows
the logic of “rewritten Bible” literature allows us also to view
the theological claims of Christian exegetes as related to those of
the various Second Temple groups involved in the production of such
literature. Specifically, while scholars view the process of
“rewrit-ing” as an ongoing exegetical engagement with the text,
driven by specific theological and polemical agendas, the ancient
authors would claim, by contrast, the full reality—not simply a
literary, exegetical reality—of the narration.64 “Rewritten Bible”
implies a strong claim to being the result of “charismatic
exegesis”: not one or the other type of biblical interpretation,
classifiable on the basis of its distinctive form, content, or
function; but, as David Aune put it, “essentially a hermeneutical
ideology that provides divine legitimation for a particular
understanding of a sacred text.”65
In “epiphanic” readings of the sacred text, and especially in
homileti-cal and hymnographic texts, the exegesis proposed to the
hearers or read-ers claimed to have been prompted by a
prophetic-charismatic experience mediated by liturgical
performance.66 Thus, by reading or hearing the biblical text of
Isaiah 6 in conjunction with chanting about the prophet’s encounter
with Christ, contemplating the scene in icons and manuscript
illuminations, and partaking of the “live coal” in the Eucharist,
Christians were acknowledging and renewing their participation in
the spiritual “now” of the Body of Christ, as contemporaries of the
prophet and his saintly exegetes. It is this kind of environment
that the Old Testament (in our case, Isaiah 6) is “re-read” and
appropriated as Christian Scripture.
in Honour of Florentino García Martínez, ed. Anthony Hiljorst,
Emile Puech, and End Eibert Tigchelaar (Leiden: Brill, 2007),
285–306.
64. For polemical agendas of “rewritten Bible” literature in the
Enochic tradition, see Andrei Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition
(Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2005); for the comple-mentarity of the
various currents of Mosaic traditions, see Hindy Najman, Seconding
Sinai: The Development of Mosaic Discourse in Second Temple Judaism
(Boston: Brill, 2003). For a convincing argument regarding
“religious experience” as a factor in the composition of
apocalyptic writings, see Michael Stone Ancient Judaism: New
Visions and Views (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmanns, 2011), ch. 4:
“Visions and Pseudepigraphy” (90-121); for the same in early
Christianity, Larry Hurtado, “Religious Experience and Religious
Innovation in the New Testament,” JR 80 (2000) 183–205.
65. David E. Aune, “Charismatic Exegesis in Early Judaism and
Early Christianity,” in The Pseudepigrapha and Early Biblical
Interpretation (ed. James H. Charlesworth and Craig A. Evans;
Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1993) 126-150, at 130.
66. I have discussed this in some detail in Bucur, “Exegesis and
Intertextuality in Anasta-sius the Sinaite’s Homily on the
Transfiguration,” SP 68 (2013): 249-260.
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Pro EcclEsia Vol. XXiii, No. 3 329
“The temple myth come alive”: Levenson’s apt phrase about
Isaiah’s vision and its relation to Temple worship, also reveals
something about the mind of the Church at worship. John Chrysostom
writes (On the Sera-phim 6.3) expressed it as follows: “that altar
is a type and image of this altar, that fire of this spiritual
fire. But the seraphim did not dare touch it with their hands, but
only with the tongs; you take it in your hands.” Indeed, by using
the Trisagion hymn in their worship, early Christians, like their
Jewish predecessors and contemporaries, claim to join in the
heavenly worship and to praise God with words “borrowed” from the
angels a number of early Christian writers—Ephrem of Nisibis,
Theodore of Mopsuestia, Cyril of Alexandria, as well as the Liturgy
of Saint James—identify “the fiery coal” with the Eucharist; the
Greek term for the Eucha-ristic spoon is λαβίς, “tongs”—obviously
alluding to Isa 6:7;67 and the Byzantine Liturgies prescribe that,
upon partaking from the chalice, the priest exclaims, echoing the
words of the seraph, “behold this has touched my lips, and shall
purge away all my sins!” In short, early Christians viewed liturgy
as a “coming alive” and “re-enactment” of Isaiah’s vision, with the
Eucharistic mystery as a fuller, truer, and saving counterpart to
the prophet’s visionary reception of the living coal, the priests
acting the part of the seraph—hence, within the same interpretive
framework, being greater than Isaiah—and the prophetic calling no
longer reserved to rare individuals, but issued to all.
CONCLUSIONS
The rich reception history of Isa 6 in early Christianity is
marked by a transition from a Christological interpretation to a
Trinitarian one and, simultaneously, by a gradual move from an
“epiphanic” reading of the text as a record of direct divine
presence and action to a more speculative understanding of the text
as signifying certain theological and spiritual realities. While
the latter became dominant in doctrinal, polemical, and exegetical
writings after the fourth century, hymnography and iconogra-phy
generally continued to prefer the Christological
interpretation.
The current scholarly concepts fail to distinguish properly
between the types of exegesis involved in each of these cases. My
concern in this article has been especially with one of the ways in
which early Christians read Isa 6—namely, the straightforward
identification of the prophet’s kyrios “on a high and lofty throne”
with the kyrios Jesus exalted in Chris-tian worship. Since early
Christian writers did not feel the need for a spe-
67. Even though the communion spoon came into use towards the
end of the first mil-lennium, its designation as “tongs”
presupposes the robust exegetical tradition which views the coal as
a foreshadowing of the Eucharist
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330 Bogdan G. Bucur
cial term to describe their identification of the Old Testament
“Lord” with Christ, one may wonder why it would be necessary or
useful to introduce yet another scholarly label. The need arises, I
believe, from the fact that scholarship has generally ignored this
most fundamental theological as-sumption of a very large strand of
early Christian literature and has often conflated and confused it
with other exegetical phenomena. This is not a trivial issue:
without recognizing the phenomenon and crafting an ap-propriate
concept to designate it (as with all scholarly concepts, of course,
assuming the risk of obscuring certain other elements), we fail to
grasp an important factor in the development of early Christian
theology.
I have argued that, to single out and name the identification of
Jesus as the “Lord” of Isa 6, a distinction should be made within
what is usually called “typological” or “figural” exegesis. An
appropriate term to describe this strand of Christian exegesis of
Isa 6 has yet to be found. I suggest, however, that the phrase
“rewritten Bible,” current in the study of Second Temple
Pseudepigrapha, may advance scholarship by refining our percep-tion
of the phenomenon under discussion, so as allow a closer
integration between biblical exegesis, visionary experience, and
liturgical expression.