In the outermost room (narthex) of Orthodox churches, walls are lined with images from the Old Testament. These images begin the tale of God’s reaching out in love to humanity: creation, the fall, calling a specific person Abraham, whose descendants will form the nation Israel, from which the savior of the world, Jesus Christ, will be born.
This icon of Jacob wrestling the angel speaks immediately to people of many faiths, or even of no faith. For who has not wrestled with a problem so great it seems superhuman? And who has not, in the midst of great struggle, sensed that an opportunity for blessing is at hand?
Here is an image of the Old Testament story of the patriarch Jacob wrestling all night with a mysterious angel just before a much-feared reunion with his estranged brother Esau. When the angel manages to dislocate Jacob’s thigh, he perceives that the angel is actually God and boldly demands a blessing. The angel not only blesses Jacob but also changes his name to Israel, a name that is significant both for its literal meaning, “One Who Strives with God and Lives,” and for its historical portent. Through this grandson of Abraham, the multitude of offspring becomes the nation of Israel, who are the chosen people of God. Jacob’s descendant, Christ, is the long -awaited Messiah through whom all people are offered a way to reunite with God.
For the Orthodox believer, this story exquisitely portrays the greatest task and effort of every person’s life: recognizing God and figuring out what to do with that knowledge, wrestling and embracing God’s will. Only after God wounded Jacob did he perceive the One with whom he wrestled, when he exclaims in Genesis 32:30 (ESV): “For I have seen God face to face [prosopon in Greek] and yet my life has been delivered.” Here we see that God cares about his creatures enough to get down on our level and grapple with us, wounding and blessing and naming us in precise and powerful ways.
In the tradition of iconography, every element of the icon is a doorway that can lead to contemplation of the Divine. Here, while the subject itself is an appearance of God or a theophany, even the shapes in the image are significant. The embrace between Jacob and the angel forms a symbolic spiral, a shape that takes a straight line and bends or turns it repeatedly until it circles back to the center. In geometry, the circle is a perfect form; spirals hint imperfectly or progressively at the circle’s shape, just as Jacob’s life imperfectly hints at an understanding of maturity and fullness of reconciliation not only with his brother Esau but ultimately with his relationship to God. Jacob’s straight line of discursive thought and intention is curved to the will of God through the ascetic practice of cutting one’s selfish will and turning toward a different path. Continual cutting of one’s will forms a symbolic spiral of action that leads, as it does in Jacob, to metanoia, or change.
The small person in the circle at the top right is a young Jesus Christ. In iconography, in his youthfulness, he is declared to be Logos Emmanuel: God-With-Us. The Prosopon School additionally ties the Logos Emmanuel, God-With-Us, to Justin Martyr’s and Saint Maximus the Confessor’s concept of the Logos Spermatikos—the seed-Word imprinted in every human, there to be discovered and recognized. It is the Logos Spermatikos that Jacob senses within his carnal self, but cannot name. God, here in the iconographic form of an angel, wrestles with Jacob in love. After Jacob recognizes that the angel is God, and begs for a blessing, the angel is able to bestow a new name and a new path. And now that Jacob/Israel begins this new path, the future incarnation of the Logos Emmanuel stirs.
An interesting question arises: Why does the Divine Angel not overcome his lowly human opponent? The presence of the Logos Spermatikos helps us see that the angel’s visit to Jacob prefigures the strange self-emptying and humiliation of God in every theophany, and concludes on the Cross outside Jerusalem. Jacob’s firm grip on the angel can be seen as the pride of humanity, which needs wounding. It is a pride that needs wounding in order to remember the necessary ascetic discipline and to remain humble in spite of having met God.
Icons of Jacob wrestling the angel are rare. In Byzantium, it occasionally appears as a fresco on a church wall, but almost never as a single-subject icon made for personal use. In its choice of subject, then, this icon reflects a distinctly American ethos because it speaks to American sensibilities, such as individuality, exceptionalism, and destiny. The choice emphasizes the œconomia of God: God’s continual reaching out to humankind as the material creatures that he created, in love, to lead us to himself. The idea of God’s reaching out, through image, is a Prosopon School emphasis of Orthodox teaching. As you engage with the remaining icons in the exhibit, it may be helpful to keep in mind that in the view of the Prosopon School, every icon is a theophany. Every icon is a revelation of God.