Tuesday 19 December 2017

How do you "see" the "trinity"?

I know, God is pure spirit, unthinkable, unimaginable.

Nevertheless, as we all know, Christianity [actually, the (in)famous Cappadocian scoundrels] has managed to both express a metaphysical thought about God's essence ...

"one substance (ousia) in three persons (hypostaseis)"

... and to express this "thought" in an image ... ...

Yes, I know, "God is not a man" (Num 23:19), and, nevertheless, images with an old bearded man, with Jesus and with a dove are recurrent, to express the compresence of the "trinity" at the  Baptism ...

Baptism of Christ, by Giovanni Bellini (1500-02)
... and at the Crucifixion ...

Masaccio's Trinity (Santa Maria Novella, Florence)
So, if in your musings you ever think of the "trinitarian god" as expressed by human figure(s), do you see it best represented by

1. Three faces representing God the Father, Son, and Spirit, fused together and sharing one neck and connected to one body?

Santísima Trinidad, attributed to Gregorio Vásquez de Arce y Ceballos (ca. 1680)
2. Three faces (and three heads) fully separated, each one having their own neck but connected to a single almost "pregnant looking" body. In both cases, the Unity (one body) and Identity (Three Faces) struggle to portray the often abstract theological and doctrinal truths about the Trinity?

La Santisima Trinidad (James Cordova, 1995)
3. Three faces/heads but each one now with their own separated bodies?

Representation of the trinity (Philippines)
To remain in the ... er ... "trinitarian" spirit of the post, please choose only one of the above ...

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