On 2 February, the U.S. Church celebrates the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Forty days have passed since the Nativity: perfect number, which meets the requirements of the Mosaic law [1] , which also means the performance, being the multiple of 4, number of land, and 10, many of the Act. On this day the Virgin Mary comes in the Temple of the Highest offer two turtles, one in atonement for sins, and the other a holocaust of worship, to redeem his firstborn. This is something paradoxical: indeed, the firstborn son of Mary and unique is also the only Son from the Father; this Child that is presented to God in the Temple of stone is the true temple of flesh that resides the fullness of divinity [2] ; carried out through legal and sacrifice the priest of the old law is that the figure of the sacrifice that Jesus is the priest as well as victim. Before the flight into Egypt É and hidden life in Nazareth, Mysteries of the Child - in-fans , who does not speak, then it is the eternal Word - ends there, in anticipation of the Paschal Mystery.
In the Presentation, St. Thomas also discerns a typological sense, which is not the Ancient New Testament, but the time of Christ to that of the Church. It considers that there are three major events of the Nativity: the shepherds in the Christmas night, the Magi thirteen days later (on schedule still in use in the Latin Church), the aged Simeon and the prophetess Anna forty days later, according to a succession of Jews going to Bethlehem the Gentiles symbolized by the kings and the Gentiles to the Jews, this time in Jerusalem. But that rhythm is the same one that punctuates the history of the Church:
And huius ordinis ratio quia per Pastores significatur Apostoli et al Credentes ex Iudaeis, quibus fides Christ is manifested primo ;: inter quos fuerunt non multi potentes nec multi nobiles, ut dicitur I Cor. 1, 26. Secundo autem fides Christi pervenit ad plenitudinem gentium : quae est praefigurata per Magos. Tertio autem pervenit ad plenitudinem Iudaeorum: quae est praefigurata per iustos. Unde etiam in Templo Iudaeorum est eis Christus manifestatus [3] .
C’est ainsi que le Christ sera d’abord la « lumière des nations », puis que les Juifs le reconnaîtront, à la fin des temps, comme « la gloire d’Israël [4] , "as St. Paul teaches:" part of Israel has hardened until either input the fullness of the Gentiles, and so all Israel shall be saved, as wrote: of Zion the Deliverer will come, he will remove ungodliness from Jacob [5] .
Simon Vouet (1590 - 1649), First Painter to King Louis XIII, represented the moment when the aged Simeon receiving the child in his arms and prepares to deliver the Nunc dimittis, the Church has his for the office of Compline, which completes his intercession daily. Unlike Poussin, his compositional technique owes much to research early Baroque Italian: note in particular the merger of the plans through the colonnade arranged quadrant, and the lack of characters seen from front two features highlighted in the Grundbegriffe Kunstgeschichte der of the art historian Heinrich Wölfflin. Another colonnade, straight as this, however, comes close background, alluding perhaps to the different courts of the temple, marking at least the sacred and reserved for the action. Mary has just handed to Simeon Child, to which all bow and direct their attention and they are on the fourth degree, the higher the Virgin on his knees, the old man standing. The prophetess Anna right, a group of Jews from sacrificing an animal on the left, occur in the foreground. St. Joseph near Mary, a group of priests near Simeon frame the scene, while two angels come down from the roof when a scroll place already the old man's song is registered. They emphasize the verticality of the space and especially the transcendent significance of the event.
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| Simon Vouet, The Presentation in the Temple, 1640-1641. Paris, Musée du Louvre. |
[2] Cf. Col. 1, 19.
[3] ST III, q. 36, . 6, c: "And here is the reason for that order. The shepherds symbolized the Apostles and other believing Jews, to which faith in Christ was first manifested, among which, says St. Paul (I Cor. 1, 20), there was "not many mighty not many noble; . Then came the faith in Christ the fullness of nations, prefigured by the Magi, and finally to the fullness of the Jews, prefigured by the righteous. Hence also that Christ was manifested in their temple of the Jews. "
[4] These are the words of the Nunc dimittis , Lk 2, 32.
[5] Rom 11, 25-26, quoting Isa 59, 20-21.
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