Hope and Penitence

Hope and Penitence Comparative commentary by Jane Heath Cite Share Show Bible Passage Jesus’s parables about the kingdom of heaven in Matthew 13:44–52 trace three moments. First, there is the joy at finding hidden treasure worth all that one has (vv.44–46); next, the fear at impending judgement, when good will be separated from bad and evildoers punished (vv.47–50); and then an obscure dialogue between Jesus and his disciples. In the course of this exchange, the disciples affirm that they have understood, whereupon he declares that every scribe who is discipled to the kingdom of heaven is like a household manager who brings new and old out of his treasure (vv.51–52). Scholars of the New Testament are unsure what Jesus referred to by ‘new things and old’ (Allison and Davies 2004: 447–48). The three artworks in this exhibition draw us along some pathways of encountering how the saying may be meaningful within a Christian frame. In her little coracle, floating across cold Scottish seas towards the unknown, raped by a stranger, cast off by her own family who had tried to kill her, St Thaney’s experience of Christ at this moment could not be further from the Magi’s joy at finding the Christ child (see also, Matthew 13:44–46). The Magi had had the initial joy of spotting the star that they had yearned to see; they had had the freedom to go in search of it, and now they have found the infant king and are able to offer him their gifts, and to celebrate him in the company of both heaven and earth. They experience a glimpse of what it is like for the kingdom of heaven to be seen on earth (Spain 1979). Thaney, by contrast, has had her agency taken from her and she is cast adrift on menacing waters. Her experience is less like the Magi’s and more like that of the fish being dragged up out of the sea for the harsh reality of judgement (see Matthew 13:47–50). She bears the weight of feeling like those who are cut off from God and cast off as evil, despite being the victim of others’ wicked judgements and actions. This is portrayed by the darkness, and the separation between her and the light of heaven, toward which she turns her eyes, but in which she sees no sign toward her. Her experience at this moment is like that of Christ on the cross, whom Matthew portrays crying out in desolation, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (Matthew 27:45). And yet for Christ, this agony was the birth pangs of the new creation that God was bringing about through him. So too Thaney’s agony will be redeemed by Christ, as she will reach the shore where St Serf lives. He will welcome her, and she will give birth to a loving and much-loved saint, known affectionately as ‘Mungo’, which means ‘Beloved’. Looking back, perhaps, she will then—and only then—discover a glimpse of the kingdom of heavens breaking in through the evil of this world. Perhaps she will then rejoice to find that the child in her belly was a most precious pearl, whose worth was established by God, when she had given up everything (see also, Matthew 13:44–46). This triptych thus gives us a window onto the ‘new and old’ treasure. It trains our eyes to new life through Christ, beyond the suffering and sin of an old order. This kind of ‘new and old’ is central to the overarching theology of the gospel. However, it is likely that within the context of Jesus’s teaching ministry, these parables were also probing relationships to Jewish teaching, now that Christ had come. The ‘old things’ of the law and the prophets are juxtaposed with the ‘new things’ of Christ, without the latter abolishing the former, but rather ‘fulfilling’ them (see Matthew 5:17–18). The three artworks considered here highlight God’s blessings to the Gentiles, symbolised by the Magi who come from afar to worship the King of the Jews; the Christian reinterpretation of pagan mosaic motifs; and the icon of the Celtic saint who gives hope to abuse victims. But as Margaret Miles (1993) points out, this kind of art also resonates uncomfortably with abuse inflicted by Christians on Jews. Mosaics such as those at Santa Maria Maggiore and Aquileia show the confident self-expression of Christianity on the imperial stage. Jewish types are used only to be cast as mere foreshadowings of the new and greater order that is now here. This paved the way for persecution of the Jews, who were often made to suffer as unjustly as Thaney in her coracle. Contemplated with Matthew 13:44–52, the triptych thus encourages not only Christian hope, but also Christian penitence. References Davies, W. D. and Allison, Dale C. (2004) A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospel According to Saint Matthew. Volume II: Matthew 8–18 (London: T&T Clark) Miles, Margaret. 1993. ‘Santa Maria Maggiore’s Fifth-Century Mosaics: Triumphal Christianity and the Jews’, The Harvard Theological Review, 86.2: 155–75 Mull Monastery. 2018. ‘St Kentigern–Protector of the Bullied’, available at https://icons.mullmonastery.com/st-kentigern-protector-of-the-bullied/ [accessed 10 February 2025] Spain, Suzanne. 1979. ‘“The Promised Blessing”: The Iconography of the Mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore’, The Art Bulletin, 61.4: 518–40