The date of the Second Coming is indicated on the halo of Christ
On the icons of Christ, the time was always indicated - the date and place of his Second Coming, as well as His new Name.
The information was contained in the letters located in the halo of the Savior's head, as well as in the abbreviated record of His name - I.C.X.C.
What is the object of study
And what should be taken into account when evaluating the discovered hidden meaning?
The object of the study is the inscription, which is inherent only in the image of the face of Jesus Christ.
These are the letters - WON, located on a halo around the head of Christ, and the letters of the initials of Christ, located behind the halo on both sides of the head - I.C. and X.C.
The inscription is found in two versions - in Greek and in Church Slavonic.
In Greek writing, the order of the letters is as follows: O (omicron) W (omega) N (nu).
In Church Slavonic it is different: W (from) O (he) N (ours).
In modern reading in Russian, the inscription is read as UNO.
One way or another, it is believed that these three letters mean the word Existing, one of the names of God.
Letters I.C. and X.C., meaning the initials of Jesus Christ, are usually unchanged and represent an abbreviation of the first and last letters of his name.
It turned out that the letters, in their first historical record on the halo of Christ, in accordance with the rules of writing in the Church Slavonic language, meant numbers. This is evidenced by the “titlo” sign found on old icons, which was used to write numbers in letters, to reduce words, and since the 15th century - as a sacred system for writing words.
Over time, as a result of the loss of paramount importance, the title over the letters on the halo of Christ ceased to be renewed and depicted, and the letters WON began to be read as UN, equating them with the word Existing, with reference to the icon-painting tradition.
The reality is that modern exegesis (interpretation of Holy Scripture) DOES NOT KNOW EXACTLY when the letters on the halo of Christ were introduced into church tradition, and, consequently, their initial meaning.
Based on the instructions of the Holy Scriptures, God has no accidents, everything happens according to His Will, from which it follows that under strict control is also what directly connects God with a person, or what is associated with Him - His Word and the icon-painting Face.
From here comes the opposite - that which does not lead to God is not sanctioned by Him as useful for Him and man, and would not have been allowed by Him in a natural way even before a person with his mind would impose a ban on something. Thus, everything that exists in the world, actions or information, has a place to be, but what color it will acquire - positive or negative, depends on the various qualities of a person.
When analyzing the Biblical text, from the standpoint of the full application of the ancient Greek and Church Slavonic alphabets, i.e. with the involvement of their alphanumeric correspondence, it turned out that the initial meaning of the inscription on the halo of Christ reflected part of the sacred information of the text of Holy Scripture.
As can be seen from the figure, the numerical values of the letters on the halo of Christ hid the date of His Second Coming, and the name Jesus Christ, familiar to everyone, contained an indication of the place of His Coming into the World - to Russia.
Let's look at the Date of Arrival first.
In the sacred layer of the Sacred Text, the date and place of the Coming of God to Earth, the main expected event for all believers, is not just dryly indicated. The Scriptures explain how this will happen and what stages of history will precede and accompany the immediate Coming of God. One of these stages is the discovery of the Word of God in the language of the people whose territory God has chosen for His next Visit. This event is a test for the people "chosen" by Him - whether it is worth God to visit the place where His Word of God ahead of them is rejected by this people.
Therefore, when the Opening planned from above of the sacred - the true meaning of the Holy Scriptures about where and when the Coming of God into the world of people will take place, in confirmation of this, events marking His Coming began to occur all over the world. An analysis of these events, in turn and in due time, led to the discovery of the same hidden information on the main shrine for all believers - an icon depicting the face of the Savior.
The figure, taken as an example, shows a modern list of the icon of Jesus Christ and two alphabets with alphanumeric correspondence - Church Slavonic (in force to this day) and modern Russian. The alphabets are chosen depending on the execution of the inscription on the halo and on the Russian language in which the Sacred Texts revealed their Secret.
As can be seen from the transcript, the letters depicted on the halo concealed a certain date - August 11, 1999. This date, as a hidden indication of the Coming of God, can be found in the text of the Biblical Scripture:
Matthew 1:18. The birth of Jesus Christ was...
Zech. 8:11. And now .. I'm not the same as in the old days ..
Since the Nativity of God, His Resurrection and His Coming, in the symbolic language of the Scriptures mean the same thing, then the date - 11.8.1999, applies equally to all these events.
More details about the date of the Nativity of Christ can be found on the website in the article “The Coming of the New Year or the Christmas of NEW GOD?”.
The Secret Code of the Holy Scriptures is arranged in such a way that the information contained in Them is duplicated many times in the text of the Scripture itself, then in the texts of other “non-believing” Scriptures, and then, progressively, in various sources of the peoples of the world, as related to to spiritual verbal monuments of history, and to secular areas of other knowledge, far from religion. This is a real information matrix that repeats the structure of the universe.
Therefore, when the Code of the Sacred Texts is discovered, and with the help of it all the surrounding information and ongoing events begin to be read, then with each new example, the doubt in the discovery of the Code decreases, because a systemic pattern is revealed, and vice versa - the mistakes made in various areas of society become obvious, be it religion or politics.
How to see the date of His Coming in the letters on the halo of Christ?
Since the information about the Coming of God into the world of people was considered prophetic in its historical time, therefore it was designed to be read at the moment of the fulfillment of the prophecy, i.e. during the very Coming of God into the world, but ahead of the time of His immediate Appearance.
One of the indications of the language of the people, with the help of which the information about the Coming of God will be read, as indicated by the decoding example, is the name itself - Jesus Christ, which turned out to be an anagram of the words RUSSIAN, or IS RUSSIA.
Further, already relying on the Russian alphabet, on its alphanumeric correspondence, and having in the luggage for analysis examples of the connection between the Nativity of Christ and the number-date 118 from the Biblical text (Mat. 1:18, Zech. 8:11.) and other sources , a reading of the exact time of the Second Coming was discovered.
As can be seen from the decoding example, the Greek tradition of writing letters on Christ's halo - OWN, or their numerical value - 785, and the reverse reading - 587, only indicated the sign of the time that determines the Coming of God. On the contrary, the writing of the order of letters in the Russian tradition - WON, their bchz - 875, and the reverse reading - 578, gave an indication of the first persons of the state, with whom the Advent was to occur, and through them on the exact date - 11.8.1999, as in writing numbers as well as writing numbers in words. An additional combination of numbers, obtained from the correspondence of the three letters WON (or OWN) - 875, indicated the secular name of the first clergyman of Russia - the Patriarch of All Russia, thereby also determining and confirming the exact date of the Coming.
785 - The global crisis of the world economy - the time of the Coming of God to Earth
587 - this is a sign of the Coming of God to the planet Earth
875 - The Coming of the Lord to Earth will take place during the time of Vladimir Putin Dmitry Medvedev
578 - 1181999 - the Coming of God to the planet Earth will take place
758 - August 11, 1999 (08/11/1999)
875 - The Coming of the Lord to Earth will take place during Ridiger Alexei Mikhailovich
It should be noted the order of finding the correspondence to the letters WON will take the time of the Coming of God. To do this, such a sequence of alphanumeric correspondence was taken, as if numbers were located on a halo instead of letters, and (!) without zeros, i.e. direct substitution - 875= WON - in the Russian tradition of writing, according to the numbering of the Church Slavonic alphabet; and the phrases “signs of time” were already counted according to the modern Russian alphabet, according to its continuous numbering - from A-1 to Z-33.
Such an approach to decoding is due to the indication (even within the content of the icon itself) precisely of the features of the Russian alphabet, of what it is on the date of the Advent - on August 11, 1999.
As mentioned above, the Code of the Holy Scriptures is arranged in such a way that the information read with its help is necessarily duplicated several times, starting directly from the place of its discovery. On the example of the parsed inscription on the halo of Christ, this duplication was hidden in the word-name of God - Existing. Through the alphanumeric correspondence of the Russian alphabet, it is equal - 88 - to the word Rus, which is consistent with the secret information hidden in the name of Christ that He is Russian.
88 - Existing
88 – Russia
Also, next to the place of indication of the date of the Advent, which was read in the letters of the halo located around the head of Christ, an entry duplicating this date was found. The reading code was the same sequence: first, correspondence with the Church Slavonic numbering, then reading through the Russian alphabet through bchz.
The duplication of the Advent date was hidden in the letters A (alpha) and W (omega), which were placed on the icons of Christ even before the halo was introduced into the tradition, and which are sometimes found in modern execution, in addition to the letters WON.
In the Greek alphabet, the letters A (alpha) and W (omega) have the corresponding numerical values 1 (one) and 800 (eight hundred). If we write the numbers in words as - "one + eight hundred", then their total alphanumeric value - 189 - will be the same as the phrases "date of the Advent". And if you count the bhz of the words "alpha and omega", then it will show this calendar date of the Coming, equal to 118, which is a shortened symbolic record of 11.8.1999.
189 - one + eight hundred.
189 is the date of the Advent.
118 - Alpha and Omega.
There are several places in the Bible text that explain what is hidden in the letters on the halo of Christ, but this requires an explanation of a different way of deciphering, which is not included in the purpose of this article.
In conclusion, I would like to pay special attention to the equality of the words Advent and Apocalypse. Their direct kinship should be understood as follows: either people will understand and accept the information about the Coming, with the corresponding consequences, or the suffering on their own chosen path of the Apocalypse will continue. Refusal to meet God on the date appointed by Him automatically turned on the destructive effect of the Apocalypse. There is only one way to stop Earthly troubles - to agree to a meeting with God while He is on Earth. Refusal to meet will doom the population of the planet to guaranteed death. Demands to accept God, as befits His status, go to Earth every day, through an indication of the date of the Coming - August 11, 1999, through the number of His Name - 118.
In fact, this information can be considered the last in a series of preparing people for God's Coming. Everything else - only in words and eye to eye. And if there is no faith in what is shown from God, then there is no promise from Him. The authorship of this should be clear to everyone, because it can only be the only true one.
We Are Who We Are.
05.01.2010
The halo around the saint's head is a very important detail in Orthodox iconography. Its significance is evidenced by the fact that traditionally, when writing an icon, they determine the space that the halo occupies. The further construction of the composition depends on this.
The halo of the main figure should be at the top of an equilateral triangle (a symbol of the Holy Trinity), the sides of which coincide, in size, with the sides of the base (the symmetry of the icon is a symbol of the correctness, perfection of the depicted heavenly world).
Nimbus on the icon of the Virgin
History of the halo
The image of a halo, as an attribute of a celestial, is known in various religions, and in Buddhism, and among many pagans, and appeared long before Christianity.
The word "nimbus" itself comes from the Latin "nimbus", meaning "cloud". The Greeks and Romans believed that the Olympian gods, when descending to earth, appear before people in a radiant glow, in a cloud of light. This is reflected in their images. Also in ancient Rome, halos could be on the portraits of emperors. After all, the ruler was also considered a god, and power was sacred.
Christians adopted the external forms of this tradition, but filled them with their own, completely new meaning.
Nimbus theology
A halo is, by no means, just a radiance around the head of a saint. Like all the details of the icon, it is a multi-valued sacred symbol. First of all, it is necessary to explain the meaning of light itself in the theology of icon painting.
About icons in Orthodoxy:
Uncreated Light
“... There was a certain man named John ... he was not the Light, but was sent to testify about the Light. There was a True Light, enlighten and sanctify every person coming into the world. “(from John, 1, 6-8)
In fact, we can say that any icon is an icon of Christ. Even if He is not depicted directly, He is everywhere. All gold on the icon: halos, shining highlights on the clothes and faces of the saints, the entire golden background is an image of the all-pervading Divine grace, fully manifested in the Kingdom of Heaven. All rays of light lead to the source of light. Yes, and in itself a holy man, this is also the image of Christ.
“... And the night will not be there, and they will not need a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God illuminates them; and they will reign." (Rev. 22:5)
The halo on the icon is the most luminous area.
If a saint is depicted, then, although the radiance comes from him, we are talking about reflected light. That God sanctifies and transfigures human nature. And only on the icons of the Savior, we see the Light Giver Himself.
Separately, it is necessary to explain the shape of the halo. Almost always (exceptions will be discussed below), it looks like a circle. This is the image of eternity. There is no time in the Kingdom of God.
Icon of the Tenderness of the Mother of God
So, light is a symbol of divine grace and, ultimately, of God Himself. If you look closely at the construction of the halo, you will notice that it is outlined by two lines, dark and white. This is no coincidence. There is nothing accidental in iconography at all. The dark border symbolizes the incomprehensibility and impregnability of the Divine. His separation from the created world, transcendence.
But then there is a light line, usually white. White in iconography is akin to gold. This is also light, but a little different. White is the light of Tabor, transformation. And the white stripe around the halo symbolizes the appearance of God in the created world. Light comes to those He created to transform them.
True, you can not see these two lines on all icons. The canons of icon painting were often forgotten and violated.
Images of the Savior
In general, on the icons of Christ, the halo looks the same as that of the saints, but has additional details. This cross is the main symbol of Christianity. The world is saved by the cross. To die on the cross, the Lord came here. Through suffering on the cross, He returns the fallen universe to Himself. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the cross on His halo has expanding ends. It seems to be spreading into eternity, covering the whole world.
In addition, three letters are always inscribed in the circle of a halo - "ό ώ ν". The Greek word όών means "Being". It is necessary to emphasize that He Who is depicted here as a man is also the Eternal God, the Cause of all existence. Nimbus on some (rather rare) icons of the Savior enclose an octagon inside. Two squares symbolize two worlds and differ in color.
Icon Jesus Christ
Red, in iconography, a symbol of the earth and martyrdom. In this case, the one that the Savior shed for our world. Blue is the color of the sky, the spiritual world of angels. The eight-pointed star formed by quadrangles is a symbol of the unity of the two worlds. As an image of the power of Christ, His dominion over the visible and invisible, this star is depicted behind His head. But this is only the first semantic layer. The same star symbolizes the properties of God Himself.
The blue color in iconography, like black (“blue is like the thinnest haze ... As yellow always brings light with it, you can also say that blue always brings something dark with it” P. Florensky), can be an image of the incomprehensibility of God , His unknowability and inaccessibility to us.
Red is the color of the king, a symbol of the omnipotence of Christ.
In addition, there are differences in the iconography of God the Father. But, since His images were banned by the church, and appeared only due to theological illiteracy, they can not be mentioned.
Nimbus other than a circle
In Byzantine iconography, one can find the image of square haloes. They had their own meaning. If the circle is eternity, then the square is the other world, the world of the earth.
The saint, with a quadrangular halo, is depicted in his earthly life. And the color of such a halo is not golden, but white. That is, it is not yet given in fullness Divine grace, as in the heavenly world, but transforming, gradually opening up on earth.
Other traditions can be found among Catholics. On Catholic icons, the radiance often forms, as it were, a crown over the saint's head. Light descends on him from above, from outside. Then, as in the Orthodox image, the grace of God sanctifies a person from within, permeates everything created.
Revered Orthodox icons:
An Orthodox icon is a sacred thing. It is needed so that the Prototype is revealed to the believer through the image. It is called "prayer in colors", "window to the Heavenly World". Such tasks of icon painting as an art form required the creation of a special artistic language. It can be called symbolic realism. There is no naturalism here, because we are talking about a completely transformed world, but there are no abstract symbols or allegories either.
After all, these are people, real earthly people, who must be transformed. Here matter is combined with the Spirit, the visible with the invisible, the human with the Divine.
And the whole icon as a whole, and each of its parts: halos, clothes, objects, colors, lines, composition, through the symbol lead to the Source of Being.
Priest Pavel Florensky once remarked that everything mysterious is simple.
You are fully convinced of this by studying the iconography of the halo.
Indeed, iconographically, the nimbus seems to be the simplest form element of the icon. But according to the content that it contains, the halo is one of the most intense and complex.
Iconography did not pass him by. However, little space was given to him in theological and art criticism works. The most representative work in terms of volume was written in the 19th century and is now forgotten.
Since then, many events have taken place, and the main thing for us in this matter is the disclosure of icons and frescoes from records, which has unfolded since the beginning of the 20th century, which significantly influenced iconology and multiplied it. But in the works of the new time about nimbus it is said either very generally, or one-sidedly.
Therefore, it makes sense to turn to the iconology of the halo.
Let's start with the word itself. It came into our speech through the German language in the 19th century. The German “nimbus”, meaning “shine, halo”, arose on the basis of the Latin “nimbus” - “fog, cloud” (in which, according to the ancients, “the gods descend to earth”).
Already from this one can understand that the content of the halo was originally meant.
The Iranian-speaking peoples in ancient times developed a ritual of thanksgiving to God for the bestowed mercy. In the life process of this ritual, such a phenomenon as a supernatural halo of fire and light - “khvarna”, a term translated as “glory”, was formed, this halo was associated only with a hierarchically high personality - the king. The etymology of the Indo-European root reg, which underlies many of the names of kings, speaks of it in the meaning of "light".
Let us recall the appeal to the prince in the times of Kievan Rus: “One brother, one bright light you, Igor! They called out to the brothers and the squad: “My clear lights, why have you dimmed?” ; and the expression “Your Grace”, addressed to high-ranking persons, existed until the significant year 1917.
In the Old Testament we repeatedly meet with the image of the glory of God (kabod). And when Moses came down from Sinai with the tablets, “his face began to shine with rays because God spoke to him” (Ex. 34:29).
The Indo-Iranian synonym “gold = sun = fire” is also fixed in the ancient culture of Greece. And not only in Greece, but also in the cultures of the lands associated with it. Haloes have been known here since the Hellenistic era.
The ancients already understood that the face is the manifested “portrait” of the soul. The head is the highest - even literally, purely physically and hierarchically - part of the body. This, in our opinion, is the reason for placing the solar disk, and then the halo behind or around the head.
There is, of course, nothing surprising in the fact that the pagans knew the halo. The temple of church culture was built from the best materials that were available at that time. On the “crests of the advanced waves of Truth” (Father Pavel Florensky), the knowledge of halos also came to the pagans.
The churching of this knowledge was a completely logical act. This explains the appearance of a halo in Christian art (from the 4th century in the images of Christ, from the 5th century in the images of the apostles, and then the saints). On the contrary, if the halo were not a hierarchically significant and weighty symbol, and hence transformed into a measure and module of composition, this art inevitably loses harmony and depth.
In ancient times, nimbuses in Russia were called "circles", from the 19th century. - crowns. This had its own logic - and error. But first, about the word: Art.-Slav. crown (Greek stefanos; significant: the name of the very first Christian martyr is Stefan!), and so, crown comes from Russian. veins“wreath”, familiar to the Slavs since pre-Christian times.
It is no coincidence, apparently, that the “crown” is known in Russian as a decorative headdress, as a wooden or leather hoop decorating a woman’s hairstyle, as a single row of logs in a log house...
From the gospel we know about the crown of thorns put on by Jesus Christ (hence the expression and the concept of “accepting a martyr's crown”). Here the crown is not just an instrument of torture, but an ambiguous symbol and a practical matter that received further life in Christianity. Crowns are also “a necessary accessory to the sacrament of Marriage, which is why marriage itself is called a wedding.”
It is possible that the image of a floral ornament in halos is, on the one hand, a tribute to the memory of marriage crowns, which in the ancient Church were made from tree branches and flowers, and on the other hand, the genetic memory of ritual pre-Christian wreaths rethought in a Christian way, although the latter is less likely .
The early Christians loved flowers, as Minucius Felix spoke about in Octavia. But the attitude towards the “gifts of flora” was church-going. Wreaths of flowers merged in their minds with martyr's crowns.
“The spiritually symbolic meaning of the crowns in the sacrament of Marriage, - according to the explanation of St. John Chrysostom, - is the sign of the victory won by chastity<...>. Another meaning is indicated by the very sequence of the wedding in the words: “Lord, our God, crown me with glory and honor.” Note: "glory and honor", that is, there is the presence of the theme of glory in the crowns. In part, this is how the Greeks understood the halo.
It's time to understand the terms. The word “crown”, understood as “nimbus”, indicates its application from the outside (crown - wreath - headdress - hoop, etc.). What looks extremely inaccurate in the internal connections of the halo and the image. L.A. also points to this. Uspensky: “The point is not to place a crown over the saint’s head, as in Catholic images, where this crown is a kind of light crown, that is, applied from the outside, but to indicate the radiance of his face.” However, we cannot agree with Leonid Aleksandrovich on two points:
1) if the task was only to “point to the radiance” of the face, then in this case a halo is not needed either - it would be enough to depict the radiance like golden, sun-like rays, as Catholics often did;
2) we are generally against the use of the term “crown” in relation to the art of Orthodoxy, because we believe that it came into use by external resemblance to the indicated crown-objects, and does not express the essence contained in this concept; the term most accurately refers to the Western Christian culture that followed after the 11th century, or at least to that period of the Eastern Christian when it was influenced by the Western.
In the logical chain leading to the semantic depth of the halo, as we said, one more symbol is found - “cloud”. In the Orthodox worldview, it means the mystery of the Divine presence. The cloud reveals God and at the same time covers Him. Note that the etymology of the word “cloud” is cer.-slav. cloud - is associated in some sources with the word “shell” and follows from “ob-wolf” from “drag, I drag”, in others - with the lost “envelope”, from where the st.-glory. "clouds" - "surround, dress."
There are several types of nimbus in Orthodox painting. Most often - and most often in the most outstanding monuments, especially monumental art - with a dark outline of its golden part. This stroke was different, but mostly - in the form of one thick line or two thin, parallel ones;
sometimes they are just counts. In both cases, a narrow strip was drawn - a light stroke - from the outer edge of the halo, about the width of a dark one, white, but often the same color as the inside of the halo. This iconography is the most common, and it seems to us the most correct in the paracanonical sense. What does its content say? Let's look at the dark stroke first. Since its presence in the vast majority of monuments is mandatory, the conclusion suggests itself about a certain restrictive function of the stroke: it is something like a “frame” for the light coming from the saint. We are talking here, of course, about the spiritual light - about the Light, which, according to Dionysius the Areopagite, "comes from the good and is the image of goodness."
The first kind is sensual. Created light, the light of physical energies that can be measured and characterized.
The second is the intellectual, inherent in man, soulish, also created light. It is the light of judgments and ideas, the light of imagination and fantasies. The light of poets and artists, scientists and philosophers. Soul light is usually admired by the semi-pagan world. This light can be intense and bright, bringing a person into a state of intellectual ecstasy. But spiritual light belongs to the earth. Spiritual realms are inaccessible to him.
The third kind of light is the uncreated, Divine, the revelation of Divine Beauty on earth and the manifestation of eternity in time. This light shone in the deserts of Egypt and Palestine, in the caves of Gareji and Betlemi (ancient Georgian monasteries), it is embodied in the words of Holy Scripture, in church liturgy and Orthodox icons.”
Areopagite means, of course, this third a kind of light, the radiance of which communicates good to all rational beings in the measure corresponding to their perceiving abilities, “and then increases it, banishing ignorance and delusion from the soul. This light exceeds all rational beings that are above the world, it is “the first light and the superlight”.
In Western Christian painting, especially of the Renaissance, such a restrictive outline is actually a halo, or, as we said, more precisely, a “corolla”, “crown”. And the halo itself is no longer a symbol, but only a sign of holiness. There is a clear solution here. Look at Lorenzo Lotto's painting "The Betrothal of Saint Catherine and Saints Jerome, Anthony the Abbot, George, Sebastian, Nicholas of Barria", and instead of halos you will see just golden hoops with reflections of external physical light. And here it is by no means in Lorenzo Lotto. The same "hoops" we find in Giovanni Bellini in his "Altar of San Jobbe", and in Lorenzo Costa in his "St. Sebastian, and Raphael in The Holy Family (1506), and Leonardo da Vinci in the Benois Madonna, and many, many other masters. And this issue is not limited to the Italians; a similar solution to the halo is found, for example, in the Dutchman Rogier van Der Weyden (“Lamentation of Christ”) and in the Frenchman Georges de Latour (“St. Sebastian”). Here the essence of the matter is not in the national, but in the Catholic interpretation.
The nimbus in the Orthodox icon, while remaining a symbol of holiness, is also a form that reveals the Divine nature of the superlight. “Glory to Thee, who showed us the light!” exclaims the priest in the last part of Matins. A saint in Christianity also acts as a direct witness to the truth, understood precisely as light. But here the meaning of the halo, of course, is not limited to what has been said. The light outline from the outer edge of the halo is a kind of opposition to the dark one: if the latter is the innermost shell that performs a concealing function (it is apophatic theology), then the first is the key, Revelation, an opportunity for the one praying to see the Light while still on earth; in this case it plays the role of a revealing function (kataphatic theology). Hence the white color of the stroke, that is, symbolically consubstantial with gold, but different in substance.
But this does not say everything. Clarifications needed. Gold itself does not emit light, but only reflects it from a real source; so the light of a saint by nature does not belong to him personally, but to God, and shines in the saints, like the sun in gold; “The righteous will shine like the sun,” according to the words of the Gospel (Matt. 13:43), “for they will become by grace what God is by nature,” writes V.N. Lossky, that is, we are talking about the blessing given, bestowed - “good + give”, - and not about some kind of “self-flare”, “self-ignition” of light in a person. The feat of holiness is the voluntary renunciation of selfhood, the struggle against it. When Rev. Seraphim of Sarov shone with this light of grace before N.A. Motovilov, what did he pray for the day before? - "God! Deign to see it clearly and bodily with your eyes, that descent of Your Spirit, with which You honor Your servants, when You deign to appear in the light of Your magnificent glory!”
The symbolic meaning of the transcendence of the superlight comes into opposition, on the one hand, to the real sparkling light of the golden halo, on the other hand, to its pictorial solution as a material plane. Pay attention to the murals of the Assumption Cathedral in Vladimir, made by Ven. Andrei Rublev, and, especially, the composition “The Last Judgment”. Nimbus here is a powerful material means in the construction of space; halos freely overlap the faces and figures, and, in turn, are also overlapped by the parted hands of the Angels. In the mosaic of the church of St. Demetrius in Thessaloniki, draperies hang on the haloes of ktitors.
The halo and the mandorla, however, are mysteriously transcendent details in the icon. This, perhaps, is such a riddle and mystery, the solution of which was supposed to be found only at the supersensible level, when a person acquires the ability to see the world of "repeating". Here all the schemes of narrow rationalism burst like soap bubbles. “It is true that the meaning offered in a cultural symbol is transparent and generally valid, namely, to the extent that it is” meaning”, that is, something transparent and universally significant within itself, but it is just as true that it is “mysterious”, namely, to the extent that it is objectively given - given - guessed to our consciousness from outside by instances that do not depend on the latter. This inner-self-clearness is the essence of the symbol.”
But if the halo is a riddle, a mystery, an unknown, then we again meet with an antinomic construction: the opposition to the very semantic side of the subject, that is, the mystery-uncertainty is balanced by the well-known appearance of the saint.
Hence, the halo is not only Light, but also the depicted essence, that is, the phenomenon is both visual and conceptual. And at the conceptual level, arguing in importance with the visual. If, as we have seen, in Western Christian art the crown is not even a conditional, but a conventional sign of holiness, then the halo in Eastern Christian art is the very graphic expression of the essence of what is depicted. This, apparently, explains that the construction of the icon began precisely from the place of choice on the plane of the halo icon. And “the halo of the main figure was placed at the top of an equilateral triangle with a side equal to the width of the icon.”
In other words, the halo (and also the mandorla) was accepted by the icon painter as the main compositional element. Its radius served as a measure of the height of the human figure. Moreover, the size of the halo was even associated with the size of the temple: the radius of the apostolic halos from the “Last Judgment” in the Demetrius Cathedral and “The Savior in Strength” in the Assumption Cathedral (both in Vladimir) are equal to 1/100 of the length of the cathedral along the central axis.
The halo is built in three parts, like the temple as a whole: light outline - dark outline - inner part = porch - ship - altar.
The idea suggests itself that the isographs give the halo a universal meaning. The placement of a smaller cosmos into a larger one can probably be considered a rather traditional and typical technique used in the practice of church art.
Such an understanding of the rim in Catholicism is simply unthinkable, although the Byzantine influence here continued for a very long time. And Cimabue, and to a sufficient extent, Giotto, Taddes Gaddi, even Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti, and even more so Duccio, do not yet have any whisk; they depict already, however, not Byzantine, but - a halo, and, moreover, for a long time did not know the angle. However, due to the evolution of views, a purely material and straightforward understanding of it has appeared. From here, with the turn of the head of the depicted, the halo also turned, turning from a circle into an ellipse. And when the angle is emancipated and becomes a generally accepted means of expression, the halo begins to degenerate into a crown. At first it is a translucent, but clear at the edges disk, and then it turns into a corolla hoop, with a tendency towards decreasing its thickness. And as a conclusion, the “crown” of this process is the image of the saints and completely without a rim.If the halo, when viewed from the back, was nevertheless transferred to the background and placed, as it were, in front of the face, then the halo turned into a kind of kokoshnik, and the image turned out to be unconvincing; it is no coincidence, perhaps, that Giotto himself did not resort to such a technique anymore.
Both the hoop and the "disk" often leave the place per- and placed above head. The reasons for such a movement of the rim, presumably, lie in the fact that the fascination with the foreshortening of the human figure led to the showing of the head of the saint from the occipital and parietal parts. Why the use of a halo became impossible. Judge for yourself: in the first case, he would simply cover his head, and then a circle would turn out instead of a head (Giotto's version is a dead end, since it does not solve anything); in the second case - when viewed from above - the nimbus would turn into only a line and turn out to be practically invisible. Thus, it became an inconvenient detail in a plastic sense, and in a pictorial sense it came into irresolvable conflict with the naturalized image. And was replaced with a whisk. But the absence of a canon and the internal causes of Catholicism, in the end, allowed the whisk to be excluded from use. The weathering of the ontological foundations of church art opened the way to its secularization. What happened. And the Catholics are the fastest.Let's return to the Byzantine halo. In Orthodoxy, in any case, until modern times, the halo does not know the angle at all. This is the law. There are simply no examples to the contrary. Why?! The fact is that the circle of a halo was understood by the icon painter as a designation of eternity, and, we emphasize, a very stable identity “circle = eternity” arises in the mind of the artist. And the ancient term "district" convincingly certifies this. Any angle of the halo will no longer be the ideal of a circle, and, therefore, the named identity is destroyed.
Note that a round halo is also a sign of the absence of time, but, having changed in shape, it can also be a sign indicating time. The latter is confirmed by the existence of a quadrangular halo. We see it on the mosaics of St. Demetrius in Thessaloniki (VII century): “St. Demetrius with Bishop John and Eparch Leonty” and “St. Demetrius with an unknown deacon. According to L.A. Uspensky, it meant that a person is depicted during his lifetime. And there is, of course, its own backstory. Even the ancient author Varro speaks about the sculptures of Polykleitos as “square” (guadrata). And he wasn't being ironic. To the ancient Greek, this sounded like praise. The expression "square man" occurs repeatedly in Aristotle. In the treatise "Rhetoric" he notes: "It is a metaphor to call a good (agathos) person - quadrangular." In Plato's "Protator" we read: "Indeed, it is difficult to make a person good, perfect in every way". A.F. Losev translates this Platonic term "perfect" as "quadrangular in arms, legs and mind". In the Christian mind, the number "4" is firmly perceived as a symbol of the material world: the world has four cardinal directions, four seasons, it consists of four elements. Therefore, the square is given an exclusively earthly meaning.
According to the tradition inherited from Ancient Greece, the element of earth is symbolized by a cube, and the element of fire by a ball. On a plane, a cube and a ball are depicted in projection as a square and a circle. From here, haloes are often represented in high relief in the form of a golden sphere around the head (see the Pskov icon “Archangel Gabriel” from the Russian Museum). Yes, and in the icons of the new time, unanimously dressed in luxurious “robes”, halos became spheres even more often.
It turns out an interesting chain: Au (lat. Aurum - gold) - aureolus (halo) - aura - halo. Apparently, the halo was sometimes perceived as a kind of aura, if all occult accessories were excluded from it.
So, we come to the conclusion that the quadrangular nimbus in Byzantine iconography testified primarily to the earthly time of a person's stay.
But the symbolism of this halo is also not limited to only one meaning. Otherwise, the symbol would turn into a sign.
This halo was depicted with a dark outline drawn in its upper part in the form of a horizontal strip. Here she plays a slightly different role. First, the horizontal cuts off in the halo a square formed around the head; the square here is also a kind of synonym for the circle, as its first phase, if, according to one of the mathematical definitions, the circle is considered a polygon with an infinite number of equal sides. Secondly, the part remaining above the square (here it seems to perform the function of a light stroke) is the formation of a vertical rectangle, that is, a figure directed upwards. And the demarcated area is the first step in this ascent that has begun. It is no coincidence that the icon itself has a canonical rectangular format. Nor is it accidental that the veil behind the ktitors hangs over the haloes only in a delimited part: in other words, the veil, as a sign of keeping and approval of the ktitors, comes into contact precisely with the stage of a person’s spiritual ascent – “seek things above, where Christ sits at the right hand of God” (Col. 3 : one). But the principle of artistic opposition also dictates a material solution: the drapery (veil) hangs on a specific plane (nimbus). A rectangular halo in Orthodox art is extremely rare. This is obviously due to the fact that not so often people were depicted in temples during their lifetime. And if ktitors were depicted, it is difficult to imagine them demanding a halo, even a rectangular one; and hence its iconography had little theological support, which determined the lower informative capacity compared to the round halo.Now let's focus on color symbolism. The color of round and rectangular halos was made different: if the first, as a rule, was gold or a color imitating gold, then the second was white. In terms of semantic meanings, this looks specially conscious: unchanging eternal gold - and - sterile, luminous whiteness, akin to the Divine Tabor light. That is, spiritual closeness was preserved, but the difference in their real existence.
There are examples of red, blue, green, blue-green, white, orange-red, orange halos.
In each case, the icon painter resorted to interpretation based on the symbolism of these colors themselves.
Of particular note is the black halo. The Novgorod icon painter of the 14th century, who worked in the Church of Theodore Stratilat on the Brook, depicts Judas with him in the Eucharist wall painting. Because, on the one hand, Judas is still a disciple of Christ, who has not completely committed his betrayal (and therefore the halo), on the other hand, the “prince of this world” has already entered Judas, and instead of the former grace, the darkness of hell now reigns. For ancient Russian painting, this is an unusual approach, both in solving the Eucharist composition itself and in interpreting the halo.
The halo of Christ himself remained unanalyzed. A lot, perhaps, all the main things said earlier regarding the golden halo, apply here as well. The only difference is that we must remember Christ as the source of Light and Life. But let's add two more questions: 1) what does the cross on the halo mean? and 2) what does the inscription on the halo cross mean? For only these two features, in fact, distinguish the iconography of Christ's nimbus from the halos of saints.
To answer the first question, we should look at what place the cross generally occupies in Christianity. The cross was given a universal meaning, and the Cross was understood and is understood as the light of the "Lord's Face". It was the connection of the light of Christ with the Cross that dictated unaccented attention to the color of the cross: in the vast majority of icons it was made the same as the nimbus, that is, the light substances of the cross and nimbus were exactly the same, while the universal meaning of the Cross was reflected in the inscription, which was applied directly to the cross: UN - Existing, Siy; which acquired a considerable number of legends and myths.
Very often, in Russian icons, the letter “t” is placed above the letter omega.
It was she who confirmed the myths mentioned. Father Pavel Florensky observed that “rural priests, and after them peasants, sometimes explain to children, students of parochial schools, the cruciform crown of the Savior<...>abbreviated: He is Our Father<…>, where from is, obviously, already a real abbreviation of the word Father.
The very custom to apply the inscription actually arose simultaneously with the appearance of the halo, but it was applied not on the halo itself, but nearby. Responding to the heresy of Arius, who preached about the creatureliness of Christ, for which he was convicted by the First Ecumenical Council in 325, the Church did not limit itself to developing the Creed, it was decided to write the letters alpha and omega on the sides of the image of the Savior, reminiscent of the words from the Apocalypse: “Az am alpha and omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last” (22:13). What was to be understood as an indication of the divinity of Jesus Christ. Much later, the letters alpha and omega were replaced by the word UN, which they began to write directly in the halo. But the meaning of this did not change, since both the letters and the word served the same purpose - to point to the consubstantial Son to the Father.Finally, it remains to figure out why the image of each crossbar was accompanied by one line above and two below, and not one, say, on both sides. I. K. Yazykova believes, for example, that these “nine rulers” mean “9 angelic ranks, the glory of God.” Perhaps Irina Konstantinovna is right. In our opinion, the issue here is as follows. Firstly, these “nine rulers” are precisely the cross. Moreover, it is designed to emphasize the idea of the center, the core of which is the very image of the Lord, and the “rulers” are nothing but the direction of movement: from the center - from the inside out. Secondly, the two lines at the bottom indicate the thickness of the cross, the Cross as a completely material form, which has a real story-truth behind it. And at the same time it's opposition again material in form cross spiritual essence cross and halo. There was no special rule prescribing which side to show the thickness on the vertical part of the cross. Usually it corresponded to the angle in which the head of Christ was depicted. And the use of such a technique served not to emphasize the angle, but to subrhyme it.
The trapezoid thickening of the ends of the cross, behind a dark outline, but often also inside a halo, is the essence of this-worldly penetration of the Cross, which preexisted the world and time itself, or rather, the “scattering” of the glory of the Cross into the universe, expressed graphically.
We will not dwell on the iconography of the halo of Sabaoth in the icon “Fatherland”: the Seventh Ecumenical Council explained the impossibility of depicting the First Hypostasis of the Holy Trinity by Her non-incarnation: only the Son was revealed and visible in the flesh; The Great Moscow Cathedral (1666-1667) generally banned the image of God the Father. So, the named iconography is ecclesiastical illegal.
But there are also triangular, hexagonal, octagonal halos... They also do not belong to the canonical ones, as they accompany those symbolic images that are prohibited or contradict the decisions of the Fifth-Sixth Ecumenical Council. So, they are not included in the range of issues we are considering.
Now let's summarize what has been said. As a symbolic form, the halo has its own lineage both in the Old Testament culture (at the level of the idea) and in the ancient cultures of non-Christian peoples. But, once in Christian conditions, it is filled with new content and becomes the main detail (of course, after the image of the saint himself) in the icon. His status is asocial. If among the Indo-Iranian tribes the prototype of the nimbus - the fiery halo - is associated exclusively with the royal name, then in Christianity the nimbus-bearer is not a king, but a great ascetic, prayer book, martyr, regardless of his social status. Separate administrative attempts were doomed: holiness is not introduced by decree, it is discovered.
Gusev N.V. Some methods of constructing a composition in ancient Russian painting of the 11th-17th centuries // Old Russian art. Artistic culture of Novgorod. M., 1968. S. 128.
See: Masaccio "Healing by the shadow". 1426-1427 Brancacci Chapel, Church of Santa Maria del Carmine, Florence;
Mantegna: 1) “St. Sebastian". Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; 2) “St. Euphemia". Museum and National Gallery of Capodimonte, Naples.
By the way, the same “disk” instead of a halo appears in Russian icons of the 17th century (“Ilya the Prophet with Life”. Second half of the 17th century. From the Yaroslavl Church of Elijah the Prophet).
For the sake of objectivity, let's say that the "disk" is present, it seems, in the mosaic from the church of Santa Maria Maggiore (432-440 Rome). But this example testifies only to the search for the language of church art, and not to its norm.
See: Pordenone “St. Sebastian, St. Roch and St. Catherine". Church of San Giovanni Elemosinario, Venice.
Francesco Francia “Madonna and Child with Saints” .1500 Hermitage, St. Petersburg.
Roberti Madonna and Child with Saints. 1481 Brera Gallery, Milan.
Losev A.F. Artistic canons as a problem of style // Issues of aesthetics. Issue 6, 1964. S. 364.
See: Kovalev. V.M. Painting of the Church of Theodore Stratilates in Novgorod. Based on the materials of new discoveries 1974-1976. // Old Russian art. Monumental painting of the XI-XVII centuries. M., 1980. S. 166.
(from the Latin "nimbus" - "cloud", "radiance") - the radiance depicted on the icons around the head and symbolizing the presence of Divine grace and the deification of the ascetic. In the God-man Jesus Christ, the halo depicts the Divine glory (grace), originally inherent in Jesus Christ by His Divine nature.
The Christian halo has a prehistory already in the Old Testament. For example, when Moses came down from Sinai with the tablets, “his face began to shine with rays because God spoke to him” (Ex. 34:29). In the New Testament, for example, there is a description of the face of the first martyr Stephen, similar to the angelic face. The halo symbolically displays the mystery of the Divine presence in a righteous person. He testifies to the presence of the Divine, transforming the personality of the saint, certifying his involvement, which does not come externally, but resides inside the human soul. The nimbus symbolically conveys the mystery of the blessed, in which a person becomes involved as he goes through a spiritual feat and unites with God.
There are several types of nimbus in Orthodox painting. Most often - and most often in the most outstanding monuments, especially monumental art - with a dark outline of its golden part. This stroke was different, but mostly - in the form of one thick line or two thin, parallel ones; sometimes they are just counts. In both cases, a narrow strip was drawn - a light stroke - from the outer edge of the halo, about the width of a dark one, white, but often the same color as the inside of the halo. This iconography is the most common, and it seems to us the most correct in the paracanonical sense. What does its content say? Let's look at the dark stroke first. Since its presence in the vast majority of monuments is mandatory, the conclusion suggests itself about a certain restrictive function of the stroke: it is something like a “frame” for the light coming from the saint. We are talking here, of course, about the spiritual light - about the Light, which, according to Dionysius the Areopagite, "comes from the good and is the image of goodness."
Of the modern authors, Archimandrite Raphael (Karelin) thinks interestingly about light. In his sermon on the Transfiguration of the Lord, he specifies: “The Orthodox Church teaches that there are three types of light.
The first kind is sensual. Created light, the light of physical energies that can be measured and characterized.
The second is the intellectual, inherent in man, soulish, also created light. It is the light of judgments and ideas, the light of imagination and fantasies. The light of poets and artists, scientists and philosophers. Soul light is usually admired by the semi-pagan world. This light can be intense and bright, bringing a person into a state of intellectual ecstasy. But spiritual light belongs to the earth. Spiritual realms are inaccessible to him.
The third kind of light is the uncreated, Divine, the revelation of Divine Beauty on earth and the manifestation of eternity in time. This light shone in the deserts of Egypt and Palestine, in the caves of Gareji and Betlemi (ancient Georgian monasteries), it is embodied in the words of the Holy Scripture, in the church liturgy and Orthodox icons”
The nimbus in the Orthodox icon, while remaining a symbol of holiness, is also a form that reveals the Divine nature of the superlight. “Glory to You, who showed us the light!” exclaims the priest in the last part of Matins. A saint in Christianity also acts as a direct witness to the truth, understood precisely as light. But here the meaning of the halo, of course, is not limited to what has been said. The light stroke from the outer edge of the halo is a kind of opposition to the dark one: if the latter is the Inmost Sheath that performs a concealing function (it is apophatic theology), then the first is the key, Revelation, an opportunity for the one praying to see the Light while still on earth; in this case it plays the role of a revealing function (kataphatic theology). Hence the white color of the stroke, that is, symbolically consubstantial with gold, but different in substance.
But this does not say everything. Clarifications needed. Gold itself does not emit light, but only reflects it from a real source; so the light of a saint by nature does not belong to him personally, but to God, and shines in the saints, like the sun in gold; “The righteous will shine like the sun,” according to the words of the Gospel (Matt. 13:43), “for they will become by grace what God is by nature,” writes V.N. Lossky, that is, we are talking about the blessing given, bestowed - “good + give”, - and not about some kind of “self-flare”, “self-ignition” of light in a person.
The feat of holiness is the voluntary renunciation of selfhood, the struggle against it. When Rev. Seraphim of Sarov shone with this light of grace before N.A. Motovilov, what did he pray for the day before? - "God! Deign to see it clearly and bodily with your eyes, that descent of Your Spirit, with which You honor Your servants, when You deign to appear in the light of Your magnificent glory!”
ABC of Faith
Nimbus (halo) in Latin means "cloud", "cloud" (nimbus) and is a brightly shining circle above the head. In shape, it can be different: triangular, round, hexagonal. But here is a distinctive feature of the images of Jesus Christ is a round (crossed) halo, in which the cross is inscribed.
Although its images are most often found in Christian or as well as paintings where there are saints, nevertheless, the history of its occurrence goes back to ancient times. Drawn haloes illuminating the heads of people have been found for centuries in various cultures - ancient Greek, Byzantine, Muslim, Christian. In the East, a luminous halo around the forehead has always symbolized the reward for a righteous life and meant Enlightenment.
Nimbus over the head: origin story
There is not one, but several versions of how such a symbol of holiness as a halo appeared. According to some scientists, it was preceded by a Greek meniscus - a metal circle that was located around the heads of the statues in order to protect them from birds and bad weather. Other experts argue that the halo around the head arose as a result of the tradition, according to which a shield was placed on the back of the heroes.
The most prudent interpretation is still considered Greek, based on mythology. According to ancient legends, they often appeared to people in human form. A clear blinding light emanated from them, referring to the luminous ether, the above-ground atmosphere, the dwelling place of the gods. It follows that the glow is a sign of belonging to the gods. A little later, mere mortals, who had the honor of being on the same level with heavenly representatives, began to be honored with it. Over time, the divine glow was slightly reduced, and only a luminous halo above the head was applied to the images. Later, this symbol of holiness was borrowed from the Greeks by Christians, Egyptians, Romans and Buddhists.
Distinctive features
For Christians, the halo around the head is still a sign of the Mother of God, angels and saints. But on the icons it can be depicted in different ways. For example, the halo above the head of the face has a triangular shape or the appearance of a six-pointed star. The Holy Spirit can also be depicted in the form of a dove with a triangular halo. As for the Savior Christ, they draw a glow in which the cross is inscribed. Also, Jesus may have a halo, where instead of a cross, three lines of light or a beam of rays emanating along the radius from the center of the disk are depicted.
The halo of the Mother of God is round in shape and decorated with twelve stars, a radiant crown or diadem. Angels, martyrs, apostles and saints are depicted with round golden halos around their heads. Patriarchs and prophets usually have a silver glow color.
There are certain differences between the images of halos in Orthodox and Catholic icon painting. In the Christian tradition, a divine halo is drawn around the entire head, and among Catholics above it in the form of a circle.
What do halos above the heads of saints symbolize?
A halo, or is considered a sign of a perfect person, a confirmation of his special mental strength. Most often, attention is paid to the aura of superpersonality in the head area. This zone of light in a square or circle speaks of the emanations of the soul, the spiritual energy of saints or divine persons.
Initially, the luminous halo around the head was compared with the solar disk and was considered a manifestation of the power of the Sun, an attribute of its gods. In Eastern iconography, solar deities were identified in this way. A halo above the head spoke of endowed power, power, or spiritual strength. In secular iconography, the crown was such an attribute.
A luminous halo sometimes acted as an attribute of the Phoenix, which is a symbol of immortality. In some drawings, Satan also has a halo, for example, in Byzantine art. This made it clear that he was also endowed with power.
Color accompaniment and shape
The golden halo usually represented Christian art, among the Hindus it is red, among the ancient gods it is blue. In some cases, there was rainbow.
A round nimbus (halo) in Byzantine art was a hallmark of the dead, who during their lifetime were distinguished by high morality, and the mercy of heaven descended on them. For example, the Virgin Mary is always depicted with a round and often exquisitely decorated halo around her head. For divine persons and saints, the halo is similar, but without ornaments.
A cross within a circle or a cruciform halo is a specific symbol that characterizes the Atonement and Crucifixion of Christ. But the halo in the form of an ellipse speaks of spiritual light.
A hexagonal or square halo indicates a saint among the living or an ordinary person, but, for example, a donor. Here the square is considered the lowest and serves as a symbol of the earth, while the circle, in turn, is a sign of eternal existence, heaven. The square halo is also interpreted as follows: its three sides are the Trinity, and one is the whole, the head.
The triangular halo is a sign of the Holy Trinity, or the Triune God. A halo shaped like a triangle or rhombus is depicted on the icons of God the Father.
Polygonal haloes have always been used to depict persons famous for their virtue, or other allegorical figures. The hexagonal halo spoke of great virtues or, again, emphasized the allegorical nature of the icon painting. A double halo or rays made it clear about the double aspect of the deity.
How do halos differ in different religions?
It is very informative and interesting to find out what halos above the head of saints of different religious denominations mean. The Buddha, for example, has a red halo and shows the dynamism of solar activity. In Hinduism, Shiva has a rim of flame, symbolizing the Cosmos. Among the Persians, a luminous halo spoke of the power of Ahura Mazda. In ancient and Asian art, the halo was a favorite means of conveying the greatness of kings, rulers, and Roman emperors deified on cash coins. In Mithraism, the halo is a pointer to the light of the Sun, as well as Mithra as his god. Psychology gives the following designation to the halo around the head: this is a solar crown.
Nimbus in Christianity
It is believed that the halo came to Christianity from the iconography of Mithraism, which was initially ousted by him from the Roman Empire. It was borrowed from the images of rulers and pagan gods of the Sun. There is an opinion that the halo on the head of the saints first appeared in the Roman catacombs of Calixtus in the 2nd century. They crowned the head of Christ, then in the same way they identified the special divine status of Mary and the angels.