‘Beautiful in His Miracles, Beautiful in Calling to Life’

The beauty that Augustine found in the miracles of Christ is exemplified in the healing of a leper, the feeding of the five thousand, and the raising of the dead son of a widow in Nain. The same manifestation of beauty occurs in other miracles, like two healings of disabled persons that took place in a synagogue on a Sabbath day. Such parables as those of the Good Samaritan and the Prodigal Son show Jesus to be beautiful in his preaching. Beauty also comes through the beatitudes which, according to Matthew and Luke, characterized and summarized the teaching of Jesus. All four Gospels witness to the impact that the beauty of Jesus enjoyed on his audiences, and not least on children who were drawn to him.

The Beauty of the Pre-existent Wisdom and Word ‘in Heaven’

Augustine named God as ‘the Beauty of all things beautiful’. The Old Testament speaks not only of the beauty of God but even more of overlapping realities: light, glory, wisdom, and word. The radiant light and glory of God, celebrated frequently in the Psalms and other biblical books, manifest the divine beauty. God’s creative and self-revealing activity is personified in beautiful Lady Wisdom. By being identified with divine Wisdom, Christ justifies Augustine in calling him beautiful in his pre-existence ‘in heaven’. Identified also with Word, another personification of God’s active power and self-manifestation, Christ can also be declared beautiful before his incarnation. By ‘becoming flesh’ the Word (or Wisdom) of God brought into the world the beautiful glory and light of God.

An Account of Beauty

Jacques Maritain followed Thomas Aquinas by identifying the truly beautiful as perfect, harmonious, and radiantly splendid. To this account we may add that beauty, above all the beauty of God, enjoys inexhaustible meaning and overlaps with the Holy (see Rudolf Otto). The divine beauty is an awesome and fascinating mystery. Beauty triggers love. Loving beauty opens the way to knowing the truth, and helps us grasp and practise virtue. We can speak of beauty ethics, as well as virtue ethics. Despite a partial, modern ‘eclipse’ of beauty, a sense of beauty has not disappeared. Experiments with newly born children suggest that a sense of beauty is innate. Love of beauty, however, should not lead us to ignore ways in which beauty may be used for evil purposes.

‘Beautiful in Taking up His Life again’

The silent flight of the three women at the end of Mark’s Gospel responds appropriately to the highpoint of divine self-revelation, the unique wonder of the resurrection of the crucified Jesus. Matthew writes of the women’s ‘fear and great joy’. Matthew’s ‘angel of the Lord’, who rolls away the massive stone from the entrance to the tomb and announces the resurrection, has a ‘face like lightning’ and reflects something of the risen Christ’s own beauty. None of the Easter narratives attempts to describe directly Christ’s beauty, but it is conveyed through the joy that his presence brings to the disciples. When Acts reports the Damascus road meeting, it is from the light of God that the gloriously beautiful Christ encounters Paul. What the apostle teaches in 1 Corinthians 15 about the glory of the risen body applies pre-eminently to the risen Jesus. The New Testament ends with the glory of the beautiful, exalted Christ of the Book of Revelation. Early Christians knew that the gift of the Holy Spirit involved sharing in the light and beauty of the risen Jesus.

‘Beautiful in Calling to Life’

Through encountering the beautiful Jesus, Nicodemus grew slowly in his faith. Eventually, grace won him over completely, and he joined Joseph of Arimathea in giving the crucified Jesus a burial worthy of a king. Far from being a slow learner, the Samaritan woman at once let herself be changed by Jesus and, in the space of a few hours, became a missionary for him. In what seemed like a perfectly chance meeting, his grace and beauty worked on her very quickly. The encounter with the royal official in chapter 4 of John’s Gospel reports someone whose faith in the word of Jesus led not only to the healing at a distance of his beloved son but also to the creation of a community of believers.

‘Beautiful in His Parents’ Arms’

Luke’s story of the Visitation hints at the beauty of the unborn Christ, a theme taken up by Leo the Great, by composers of the Magnificat, and by John Donne. After the Christ Child was born, the joy and praise of shepherds, the ‘great joy’ of the Magi, and Simeon’s reception of the Child in the temple testify implicitly to his beauty. Christmas carols, Christian painters, and poets have celebrated his beauty, and justify Augustine when acknowledging the Child’s beauty in the arms of Mary and Joseph. The imagery and language that Jesus prepared in his hidden life and used in his ministry also witness to the beautiful way in which his sensibility developed during his many years at home in Nazareth.

‘Beautiful on Earth’

The prologue of John’s Gospel presents the glory of Jesus, something closely associated with his beauty, as being already being there from the very beginning of his historical existence and not postponed to his risen state. Jesus is also the Light of the world, which led to the creedal confession of his being Light from Light—or, as we might say, Beauty from Beauty. The beauty of light is the most perfect manifestation of the divine reality. The language of Christ as Light from Light entered Christian theology and liturgy. Glory and beauty attached to the images of the coming Messiah and Son of Man and, even more, to the image of Christ as divine Bridegroom. Augustine rightly acclaimed the beauty of the incarnation.

‘Beautiful in the Tomb’

Faithful to the end, women, including Jesus’ mother Mary, remained present at his death on Calvary, deposition from the cross, and burial. The courageous and generous intervention of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus also played their part in bringing beauty to the burial. Artists have caught something of the tragic beauty of the occasion by their versions of the deposition from the cross (e.g. the work by Peter Paul Rubens) and the dead Jesus in the embrace of his mother (e.g. Michelangelo’s different versions of the Pietà). Eastern icons of Christ descending to the underworld (e.g. at Chora in Istanbul) represent him as supremely beautiful when he liberates those who have been waiting for his coming.

‘Beautiful under the Scourges, Beautiful on the Cross’

The institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, celebrated in the face of imminent death, showed the beauty of Christ in a tragic situation. About to be betrayed by Judas and denied by Peter, Christ established a lasting covenant with his followers and looked forward to the joy of the coming kingdom. A beautiful theme of healing, forgiveness, and salvation runs through Luke’s passion story—right from the arrest of Jesus when he greets Judas by name and heals the man who has lost his right ear when Peter lashes out with a sword. The ‘divine composure’ of Jesus at his arrest characterizes the start of John’s passion story. It ends with the piercing of Christ’s side, symbolizing the gift of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the Church.