Symbolism for us is not plain imagination. Spiritual truth does not descend as mere words. It comes in form of images as well. The image of the truth is its symbol. They are not two different things. When the author of the Hebrews speaks of Christ says that He is “the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being” [Heb.1: 3; NIB translation]. The glory is in His splendor and He is the representation of [God’s] being.
Whenever you are pigmented by the water of baptism, it does not [merely] signify that you have received salvation. But you receive it in truth. Water does not signify something which it does not have. It gives you what it has, i.e. the reality of salvation which was transferred to it. Material moves from the sensible world to the world of perception. That is why, in communion, whatever seems to you as bread has become in its essence the Lord’s body. Not [merely] signifying the body. It has become a body, i.e. it has moved from the sensible world to the world of perception. We do not say that the body of the Lord is in the bread, or with it, or under it. We say that the bread has become body, and we do not speak about the how.
The mystery in this is that whatever might seem to you as a symbol of something else, it is no longer that. There is not something else. Symbol, in its common use, refers to the symbolized, and there is nothing between the two other than the relationship of imagination. However, in the Christian use of the term the symbol and the symbolized are one. The symbolized is manifested through the symbol, and it is not possible for you to differentiate between the two on the level of existence.
Is it the hand to the hand at the handshake, or it is the heart to the heart, whenever we were honest? When Paul says, “Greet one another with a holy kiss”, what does he mean, other than to say that the kiss should be without deception, or lie? Is the meeting in marital love a symbol or a truth? In the Orthodox Church, when “let’s love one another” is sung, the priest kisses another priest. However, in the past all the congregation used to perform this kiss, denoting that the Church is formed through love. The body carries the soul, which communicates with the other soul, and there should be a bridge between the two, and the body is this stanchion which consists of flesh, blood and bones.
In the same vein it is possible to speak of the constructed church, its music and its paintings. It would have been possible not to have sanctuaries, and to be satisfied by reading the divine Word. However, the large number of believers demanded a vast place for prayer, and it was necessary to perform the liturgies, which are congruous symbols in their meaning and forms. By performing the liturgy, it pours a meaning upon you, and the meaning brings you to its image. And the prayers are words, and the word is at once an image and a meaning.
If you take the Bible, it consists of words, namely the words of a particular language, i.e. you enter into the Bible through the language and the language is [a kind of] illustration. And the Bible is not in one language. It is in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek. These languages are symbols, like other symbols, and through them you search for the truth and the truth is in its words. Whenever the interpreters expose a text of the divine book to interpretation, they expose it to the languages, i.e., to the symbols of truth, yet, they aim at the truth. Thus, truth and its images are together, until, on the Last Day, God becomes our only Truth, without images. The great ones in prayer, in my church, reach at a day when they do not speak words. Then, we call their prayers inner prayers. Those have allowed the supplication through Jesus’ name to enter their hearts, and His name would have resided within them. Then, they would not utter a name or a word. They would be in the Presence. Before the Presence, the problem of the relationship between the symbol and the symbolized vanishes.
If we take the Mystery of Holy Unction, we ask: why should the sick person be anointed with oil? Was the oil the origin of some medications or because the root of its name in Greek is of the same root of mercy? What remains from this question is that we are in a holy endeavor, which brings the symbol together with the symbolized. In this, we are not deviating from the human nature.
Further, the talk about the symbols in the church should be concluded by mentioning the icon. What are you doing when you place your lips on it? Is this a kiss to the picture or to the master of the picture? After Yazid had destroyed our icons, John of Damascus wrote that whenever we honor the image (honor and not worship) we honor Christ, or Mary, or the Saint who is pictured, and that is because of the incarnation, namely that the only Son of God has taken a human image, body and blood. Thus, whenever we conjoin the icon we are conjoining Him.
Maybe, to some extent, every one of us is an icon of God, and by our flesh we transcend to God, and nothing remains other than the face of God, which has no symbol. Whenever you can perceive God in this way, without expression, you would have been perceiving perfection.
This would occur on the Last Day (in our expression), or at the Hereafter, in the expression of our brothers and friends. Every community has its expression, whether by images or a book, and the book is an image. After resurrection you would not have a human face, by which you perceive God. You would have a different body and an unwritten prayer, and in your heart, you would not have any imagination, since imagination is an image. Your heart, then, would not differ from the heart of God, in its purport and glory.
We rely now, necessarily, on words, which are imagination, we rely on signs, signals and arts, until the form of this world fades away, and God seizes us by the wings of God’s love to God’s face, about which it is not admissible to speak.
If we can love one another here, that would mean that we can see faces, which are beyond portrayal, since portrayal needs images, and we would have been surpassed those images by the contiguousness of love.
Between the eighth and the ninth centuries, was not the knowledge of those who destroyed the icon revealing to them that the Bible was also an icon, since it leads [the reader] to God through words, which are images? Sheer truth is in your heart whenever your heart imitates the heart of God, and whenever its content transcends to the vision of God.
What matters is that divinity and humanity unites within you, with your subsisting as a human existent. God does not eliminate you. Transcend to God by your words and worship God with all your body, which is held by God.
Translated by Sylvie Avakian-Maamarbashi
Original Text: “الرموز والحقيقة” –An Nahar- 11.08.2012
