The Duality of Christ

Lately, I keep on seeing this beautiful icon of Christ! And it’s such a beautiful image with so much history in meaning stuffed in it that I couldn’t help but feature it!

Just look at how beautiful it is!

Christ Pantocrator, 6th century. St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt. Via IllustratedPrayer.com
Christ Pantocrator, 6th century. St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt.

First of all, it’s one of the oldest images of Christ that has survived over the years — scholars estimate that it was originally made in the sixth century. Which is quite remarkable, considering that during the seventh and eighth centuries, there was a huge iconoclastic movement (iconoclasm literally means, “icon smashing”) so not many images of Jesus exist before this time!

And, being made in the sixth century, the icon reflects some of the concerns and growing pains that the early church was going through at the time. In the fifth century, there were several large schisms and heresies that were commonly believed in — one of which was propagated by a Bishop, named Nestorius, known as Nestorianism.

First, what we actually believe: we believe that Jesus Christ is 100% God and 100% human. He has two distinct natures that are united together in the person of Christ in a mysterious way that we do not totally understand which happened at the very moment of conception.

So, what is Nestorianism? Basically, the idea behind the heresy is thus: Christ has both a distinct divine and a distinct human nature. But, the divine nature didn’t come until after Jesus was born. So, therefore, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, could not be the Mother of God, since she didn’t carry the divine Christ in her womb. She only carried the human nature of Christ in her womb.

The Church (rightly!) condemned this as a heresy in the Council of Ephesus and proclaimed that Mary was indeed the Mother of God since she held Jesus — with both His human and divine natures — in her womb.

But then, this heresy gave way to yet another heresy! This heresy was called Monophysitism — basically, the idea that Jesus Christ had only one nature that was a mix of the human and divine. However! This was also heretical because, if Christ were not fully divine, then He absolutely could not be God.

So, as you can imagine, there was a lot of discussion around these times of the dual natures of Christ and how He was both God and man simultaneously in one body!

Which makes this image particularly interesting because of the dual nature of the picture! The artist tried to express the two natures of Christ in this one picture. Unlike most faces, which are fairly symmetrical, the two sides of the faces are startlingly different from each other. Just take a peek at this composite image, which mirrors the composites of the left and right sides with each other:

Mirrored composites of left and right sides of the icon, Christ Pantocrator, 6th century. St. Catherine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt. Via IllustratedPrayer.com
Mirrored composites of left and right sides of the icon, Christ Pantocrator, 6th century. St. Catherine’s Monastery, Sinai, Egypt.

The left side is supposed to represent the humanity of Christ. His hand is raised in a symbolic gesture of blessing while His eye seems to look on sympathetically. In this way, He is supposed to represent the mercy of God — after all in Christ, we may find mercy!

The right side is supposed to represent the divinity of Christ. Christ holds the bible in His hand to represent the Law and Justice of God while His eye looks on hard at the world. After all, Christ was not afraid of reminding people to repent from their sin. So, this represents Christ as judge.

His two natures combined to show the distinct persons of God, united in one!

(Of course! As an aside, looking at the history of these heresies from a modern lens, it amuses me how some ideas — even if they are completely wrong — never quite go out of style! For instance, Nestorius was sure that the divinity of Christ only appeared at the moment of birth and not conception. Now, compare that with the very popular modern belief that the humanity and human consciousness only appears at the moment of birth, not at the moment of conception. Ah, some heresies never quite go out of style!)

Questions to Ponder:

  • Which side of Christ are you more drawn to when looking at this icon? The left side or the right side? Why?
  • How does Christ’s humanity speak to you and affect you in your spiritual life?
  • How about Christ’s divinity? How does that affect you in your spiritual life?

 

Dear Jesus,

Help us trust in You and see You as You are — both as merciful advocate and powerful judge. Be merciful with us sinners.

Amen.

This is one of the images I chose for the Luminous Mysteries, which is the second book of the Illustrated Rosary series. That book will be published sometime in 2018! You can purchase the first book, The Joyful Mysteries, today. Click here for more details!

Karina Tabone

Karina Tabone is a wife, mother of four, author, blogger, and lover of Christian artwork. She's the author of the Illustrated Rosary series, which pairs every prayer of the Rosary with beautiful religious artwork. She likes also milkshakes, sunshine, and mystery novels. Follow her on Twitter at @illustr_prayer.

3 thoughts on “The Duality of Christ

  • November 27, 2017 at 4:10 am
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    Terrific post! Where did you research this information? Thank you.

    Reply
    • November 28, 2017 at 6:49 am
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      I actually first saw the discussion of the duality of Christ at my local county fair in a both run by the locality Orthodox church! They were selling icons, including this one, with a little card about it. I could only briefly look at the card before rushing away to the merry-go-round (the kiddos wanted to ride!) but what I did see intrigued me, so I looked up more about this image. And yes! The duality was definitely something that various experts in theology and art agreed with. Wikipedia briefly talks about it here…plus, they have a high quality image! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Pantocrator_(Sinai)

      Still, I wondered WHY the duality of Christ was such an important subject, especially back then. After all, art tends to reflect the issues of the day. So, I looked up the history of the heresies of the time, and apparently there was a whole lot of heresies concerning the duality of Christ. This is where I started looking for that: https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-great-heresies

      So, I put two and two together, and ta da! I wrote this blog. 🙂

      Reply
  • August 25, 2020 at 1:16 pm
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    Here is another aspect of Christ’s “duality” that I have never seen discussed outright, but makes sense in terms of original sin. Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary and was himself “sexless” (no wife, no mate) even though he was a biological male. Humanity’s conundrum, so to speak, is the male/female sexual dichotomization. Perhaps, one of Jesus’ divine aspects is that his physical birth defied that unavoidable aspect of humanity, thus allowing him to retain both dualistic polarities within himself. As the Messiah, he did not carry Adam and Eve’s original sin, was without the need for a “mate,” and was therefore the only instance of God ever manifesting in human form……

    Reply

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