Bulletin du Musée National de Varsovie (6.1965)

nological seąuence of the events. Howeyer, the Raising of Lazarus precedes the Entry inlo
Jerusalem, standing in obvious contradiction to the Evangelist's relation. The carver omits
the Descent of the Holy Ghost. making Christ the central figurę of all the compartments (with
logical exception of the Annuncialion and the Marys at the Sepulchre), and closes the cycle
with a representation, designated as the Mesopentecost. The title, admittedly, resulted from the
name of a festivity in the middle of the Penticostarion, celebrated already in the Vth century54.
The pericope of this day was John VII, 14 — 36 on the Teaching of Christ in the Jerusalem
Tempie.

However, if we read the Mesopentecost on the Warsaw diptych as a simple illustration of the
event, that was the subject of the solemnity observed on the 25th day after the Resurrection, we
should have to state an arbitrariness in placing it at the end of our cycle, sińce it appears not
before but after the Ascension, celebrated on the 40th day after the Resurrection. Therefore, the
finał scenę of the cycle is to be rceognized as not only the proper Mesopentecost (or Mediante
die Festo) but, above all, as a synthesis of all Teachings of Christ and, among them, that des-
cribed by John XVII, 1 (the text of the pericope of the Sunday before the Pentecost — the
seventh Sunday in the Penticostarion)'06. The similar placing of the Teaching of Christ after
the Ascension and instead of the Descent of the Holy Ghost may be found in the Constanti-
nopolitan Lectionary of the XIth century (Morgan 639)5<l. It is useful to remember that the re-
lations of the pericopes of the Mesopentecost and of the Descent of the Holy Ghost might have
furnished grounds for an interpretation of the image of the former as the ideological equivalent
of the latter scenę57. The pericope of the Descent of the Holy Ghost is John VII, 37, which
follows directly the verses, used as the pericope of the Mesopentecost. Both these texts tell
us of the Messianic Teaching given by Christ in the Synagogue with the only difference that
the first refers to the time „about the midst of the feast" while the second — to „the last and
great day of tho festivity". To illustrale both moments of the Teaching the sami iconogra-
phical formuła was used, which was primarily created for another Teaching of Jesus — when
twelve years old in the Jerusalem Tempie5s. Such an interpretation of the Mesopentecost
can explain the omission of the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Warsaw diptych as well as
in the Morgan Lectionary. This ideological equivalence was expressed even as late as the XVIIth
century by a Russian painter who illustrated the John's VIIth chapter with the image of the
Descent of the Holy Ghost59.

Thus, it was the liturgical reasons that induced the carver to show the „composite" Mesopen-
tecost at the end of the cycle. The similar reasons caused the displacement of the Raising of
Lazarus and of the Entry into Jerusalem. Due to that, in the tympana and in the upper row
of the compartments the carver gave the priority to the five fixed feasts and the one movable,
falling on Sunday, — all of them belongiug to the most solemn festivals of the Greek Church60.
In the central row the illustrations of the texts, used in the liturgy of the Holy Week are
grouped, to begin with the Saturday of Lazarus, tbrough the Maundy Thursday, the Good Friday
to the Holy Saturday. Thus, none of the images of the row is connected with Sunday ceremony.
On the other hand, in the lowcr row, three of the scenes correspond to the dominical solemnities
(the Resurrection, the Sunday of Thomas and the last Sunday before the Pentecost). To them

54. Cabrol and Leclercq, Dictionnaire de l'Archeologie chretienne et de Liturgie, s. v. Fetcs chretienhes, col. 1415.

55. G. de Jerphanion, Les miniatures da manuscril syriaque iVo 559 de la Bibl. Valicanc, Citta del Vaticauo, 1940, p. 109.

56. K. Weitzmann, „The Constantinopolitan Lectionary Morgan 639", Studics in Art and Literaturę for Bella Da Costa
Greene, Princeton, N.Y., 1954, p. 358-73.

57. J.E. Menard, PSS, ,,L'Interpretation patristicrue de Jo 7,38", Revue de Wnirersilć d'Ollawa, XXV, 1955, p. 5 — 25;
H. Rahner, „Flumina de ventre Christi", Biblica, XXII, 1911, p. 375 ser.

58. N. Pokrovskij, op. cii., p. 153—154. The title of the scenę on the Warsaw diptych might be a rcsult of copying o f
a miniaturo model or, may bc, it was associated in tlie artist's mind with this iconographical formuła.

59. N. Pokrovskij, op. cii., p. 216.

60. G. Millet, op. cit., L. I, eh. II, p. 20-21.

114