The Mystery of the Veiled Glory of God between the Cistercian monastic tradition and Flemish painting

A Journey through Light, Incarnation, and the Spiritual Vision of Bernard of Clairvaux and Isaac of Stella.
Domenico Condito

Mathias Stomer (1600–1650), Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1640)  

 

Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (1090–1153) and Blessed Isaac of Stella (1100–1162), two Cistercian monks of the twelfth century, affirm, each in his own way, that God dwells in a light inaccessible to the human eye. The identification of light as a distinctive element of the divine essence is drawn from Sacred Scripture. Already in the Psalms we read: “He wraps himself in light as with a garment” (Psalm 104:2). The apostle John is even more explicit: “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). A transcendent Light, absolutely pure and holy, which human beings are neither able to conceive nor to behold.

Do you remember the account in Exodus? When God descended upon Sinai to meet Moses, no one could look toward the mountain, otherwise they would die (Exodus 19:16–24). God addressed the same warning to Moses: “I will make all my goodness pass before you, and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord’; I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” He added: “But you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:19–20).

To make himself visible to human beings, God partially veiled his glory, the pure and immeasurable light that radiates from him. Isaac of Stella expresses this idea using the image of the “lantern”,  which symbolizes creation understood as an “attenuated” presence of the Light, a foretaste of the partial “obscuring” that the Word would assume in the Incarnation. Blessed Isaac of Stella writes: “Then follows the third book, that is, the corporeal and visible creature, also written within and without, so that through created things one may glimpse the Wisdom that created them. It is a dark book, lest eyes dimmed by weakness be wounded by too much brightness, and which, in order to behold the sun, require a lamp” (Isaac of Stella, First Sermon for the First Sunday after the Octave of Epiphany, 3).

In Saint Bernard, the image of the “lantern” refers to Christ himself. By becoming incarnate, the Savior partially dimmed his radiance, clothing himself as with a “lantern,” so as to rekindle within our gaze the divine Light: “Our eyes were full of darkness, while he dwells in unapproachable light. […] Then, in his extraordinary goodness, the Savior and physician of our souls stooped down to us, and with the brightness of his light strengthened our feeble sight. He clothed himself as with a lantern, that is, with that glorious body, pure and spotless, which he received” (Bernard of Clairvaux, Advent Sermon 1,8 – SBO IV, 167).

Geertgen tot Sint Jans, Nativity at Night or Night Nativity (1490)

This Cistercian intuition is beautifully expressed in Flemish painting, where the Divine Child shines with his own light, like a “lantern” in the darkness of the grotto, arousing wonder and amazement in those who adore him. At the same time, the Child does not illuminate the entire surrounding space, but only the faces of those near him, as in The Nativity at Night (1490) by Geertgen tot Sint Jans. Here the divinity of the Child is manifested through an attenuated glory, a partial obscuring that does not blind but strengthens human sight. And if the fifteenth‑century Flemish painters express themselves through a mystical and crystalline light, Matthias Stomer, belonging to the Flemish Caravaggisti, pushes the use of chiaroscuro to the extreme in his Adoration of the Shepherds (c. 1640), rendering Saint Bernard’s theological image of the “lantern” visually dramatic and tangible. Here the darkness is total, almost material, and the light emanating from the Child tears through the shadows and restores the sight of the shepherds, with their wrinkled, weary, humble faces.

The apostle John, recalling the Lord’s promise, helps us understand that one day we shall contemplate the Light of God in its majestic and glorious holiness and purity, because we shall be like Him: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we shall be has not yet been revealed. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure” (1 John 3:1–3).
Strengthened by this hope, we conclude with the psalmist’s praise: “For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light” (Psalm 36:9).

In the end, everything converges toward a single certainty: the Light that now reaches us in an attenuated form, adapted to our fragility, is the very same Light that one day we shall behold unveiled in its fullness. The “lantern” that today illumines our steps is only the foretaste of the promised vision. And as we walk in this gentle yet true light, the heart is purified and prepared for the final encounter with Him who is Light from Light, the eternal radiance of the Father.