Having wrapped up my diatribe on the Ark of the Covenant and its typology, I thought it might be worth a short series focusing on the typology attached to the story of Abraham’s hospitality. The typology follows a pattern similar to that of the Ark and might help to deepen our understanding of how typology develops within the Church.

What Orthodox person has not experienced Saint Andrei Rublev’s icon of the Holy Trinity? This icon is a depiction of the three visitors in the Genesis 18 story of Abraham’s hospitality, but to the nominal Orthodox person the icon itself may be the sole witness to Abraham’s encounter with God at Mamre. And yet, Saint Constantine considered the event to be so important that he ordered a temple to be erected near the famous oak tree at Mamre.¹

While the icon may be the strongest witness experienced during the course of life in the church, a long patristic tradition witnesses to an image of God in the threefold visitation of Abraham. A prominent, though subtle, witness exists in the liturgical cycle of the church. The bulk of this short study will focus on the ‘Great Conversation’ of the Fathers, moving on to a short overview of the liturgical expression, and a brief analysis of Rublev’s icon and the related tradition.

Perhaps the earliest Christian understanding of Genesis 18 is that all three of the visitors in the story were angels. Saint Paul suggests this in his Letter to the Hebrews when he admonishes, “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Hebrews 13:2 KJV).²

In the next post in this series we will follow a shift from this angelological understanding to a more Christocentric understanding.

¹ Sozomen, ‘The Ecclesiastical History of Sozomen,’ revised by Chester D. Hartranft, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Volume 2 (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf202.iii.vii.iv.html) , ed. Philip Schaff, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Calvin College, Book 2, ch. 4.

² Gabriel Bunge, “The Rublev Trinity,” trans. Andrew Louth, (Yonkers: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press 2007), p. 46.