EPPH - Every Painter Paints Himself

Dürer, Titian, Art and Blasphemy

For those who have trouble - I certainly did - understanding how artists like Dürer (top) and Titian (below) could have portrayed themselves as Christ, here is a poem attributed to an 11th-century spiritual master of the Greek Orthodox Church.¹ The truth he writes about - that we are Christ - has always been known to (or believed by) the most spiritually elite Christians but not to the majority who follow the dogma of institutionalized Churches. Yet even he wonders whether his words about “Christ the Beloved” will seem blasphemous to his readers. No wonder, that in large part, the tradition has been kept secret from the masses. Here's the poem.

Christ’s Body
by Simeon the New Theologian
—————————————
We awaken in Christ’s body
as Christ awakens our bodies,
and my poor hand is Christ.
He enters my foot and is infinitely me.

I move my hand, and wonderfully
my hand becomes Christ, becomes all of Him
(for God is indivisibly
whole, seamless in his Godhood.)

I move my foot, and at once
He appears in a flash of lightning.
Do my words seem blasphemous? - Then
open your heart to Him.

And let yourself receive the one
who is opening to you so deeply.
For if we genuinely love him,
We wake up inside Christ’s body

Where all our body, all over,
every most hidden part of it,
is realized in joy as Him.
And he makes us utterly real.

And everything that is hurt, everything
that seemed to us dark, harsh, shameful,
maimed, ugly, irreparably
damaged, is in him transformed

and recognized as whole, lovely,
radiant in his light.
We awaken as the Beloved
in every last part of our body.²

 

1. For 50 examples of artists representing themselves as Christ, see the theme Artist as Christ. For those illustrated above, see Durer's Self-Portrait as Christ (1500) and Titian's Noli Me Tangere fragment (1553-4).

2. Cited by Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus (Boston: Shambhala) 2008, pp. 135-6. In an endnote she writes: "I was first introduced to this poem by Fr. Curtis Almquist, SSJF, at a clergy conference of the Episcopal Diocese of Colorado in May 1997. I have continued to use the translation he gave to us and have been unable to substantiate its source." (p. 205, n.10).