The Meaning of Celtic Knots in the Anglo-Orthodox Tradition

The Christ Pantocrator Illumination, Showcasing Christian Insular Knotwork Typical of Anglo-Celtic Manuscripts from Northumbria, Ireland and Iona, from the Book of Kells, c. AD 800

By Bp. Joseph 

Introduction

Throughout history, there is a clear process of interpretation and inculturation that occurs as various different systems of thought struggle to articulate the Mystery of the Incarnation. In the Apostolic Age, St. John the theologian decided that translating God's "Word", "Dabar" in Hebrew, should use the concept of "Logos" in Greek, which had been extensively theologized in a Hellenic Context by the work of the Jewish theologian, Philo of Alexandria, 150 years before. In using the word "Logos", St. John brought in a whole host of Greek Philosophical concepts relating to Platonic and Neo-Platonic categories, which later became a major source for categories and processes that helped to extend Christian philosophy into every aspect of the Roman world, even though such things could also appear to be antithetical to the teachings of the Apostles at times. St. Paul's attitude of "becoming all things to all people" and his ability to contextualize the Gospel on Mars Hill for his Greek audience, all lead to a flexible understanding of how Christian missionaries could use local, pagan concepts as stepping stones into the ultimate truth of the Gospel. 

Pre-Christian Germanic Art

Neolithic Spirals, Associated with Northern England, Scotland and Pictish Culture

Scythian Art around the 1st and 2nd Centuries After Christ, Associated with the Eurasian Nomads of the Central Steppes, Called Xiongnv to the Chinese and Huns to the Romans. This Style Violently Depicts a Cycle of Birth and Death.

Le Tene Art of the Gaulish Peoples of Middle Europe, Depicting Vegetation and Fractal Symmetry in which Designs Repeat and Interweave with One Another

Scythian and Gaulish Art Blend in the 5th-6th Centuries, Creating the Germanic Knot Patterns that We Associate with Celtic Culture. This Pagan Norse Style of Knot-Work are Rooted in the Same Tradition as Anglo-Celtic Illumination. Screen Shots Taken from Thomas Rowsel’s documentary video, “Celtic or Viking Knots?” on the “Survive the Jive” YouTube Channel.

Wir and Weave

As Christianity continued to develop across time, several concepts emerged that were initially alien to the culture of the Bible, and these terms often formed bridges for local populations to embrace Christianity within constructs that fit elements of their traditional society, thus making conversion much easier. Ancient Greece, Rome and Gaulish paganism pictured life as an intersection of threads, controlled by divine, weaving sisters, sometimes called “Fates”, “Moirai” to the Greeks, “Parcae” to the Romans, “Nornarna”to the Norse, and “Morrigans” in the Celtic/Gallic Culture. In later English literature, they were called “Weird Sisters” or the “Weirding Three”. The word “Weird” comes from the word “Wyrd” in Old German/Anglo-Saxon, and means “Weave”, which reflects the cultural understanding of life and destiny to be a woven tapestry, and is the root of the word “Were”, which means “Man” and “Life” in Old German, where we get such words as “Werewolf” and, more importantly, the word “Wergilt”, which is the ancient Germanic way of understanding guilt, restitution, salvation, and “peace weaving.” Knot-work was a cultural depiction of life and fate intertwined in an artistic representation. It made the things it covered into sacred objects, used for ritual or decorative purposes. 

A Victorian Illustration of the Weirding Sisters of English Folklore

Engrained in the cultural understanding of the Germanic tribes was also an idea of "weregild", translated as "man-price" or "peace-weaving". The custom of paying for offenses against a chieftain's honor with a valuable life, or paying the price for a lost life, was formalized in the Salic law of the the Holy Roman Empire, which was later developed into the idea of Substitutionary Atonement by St. Anselm of Canterbury, an important part of our Anglican Patrimony. 

The Cultural Values of the Anglo-Celtic People

St. Anselm of Canterbury (AD 1033 - 1109) 

As Archbishop, St. Anselm defended the Roman Church's interests in England amid the Investiture Controversy. For his resistance to the English kings William II and Henry I, he was exiled twice: once from AD 1097 to 1100 and then from AD 1105 to 1107. While in exile, he helped guide the Greek bishops of southern Italy to adopt Roman rites at the Council of Bari. He worked for the primacy of Canterbury over the bishops of York and Wales, and at his death he appeared to have been successful, but Pope Paschal II later reversed himself and restored York's independence. 

St. Anselm from a Mid-18th Century Woodcut

Theologically, St. Anselm is best known for his works on the Existence of God in the “Monologion” and “Proslogion”, and for his Substitutionary Penal Atonement Theory of Salvation. His apologetic work on the “Ontological Argument” is central to Western Christianity today, and his view of Christ’s Work on the Cross being a form of “Wergilt”, a payment to a wrathful and offended God, is central to both the Roman Catholic vision of the accumulation of merit, and the Calvinist understanding of the Nature of God.

A Simplistic Representation of the Process of Satisfaction Taught in St. Anselm's Theory of Substitutionary Atonement 

Anglo-Celtic Knotwork as a Christian Metaphor 

All throughout the Anglo-Celtic Christian Tradition, taken from Northumbria to Ireland and up to the Ionian Scriptorium, the use of the "Weave" in Gospel manuscript illuminations was not random or aesthetic. No, the use of these depiction of interlacing knots and lattices show a metaphysical concept of life and time that literally conforms to the message of the Cross. Just as Hellenistic Christians would see the "Logos" everywhere and speculate that it was the "Seed of Existence", or how Chinese theologians would later rely on Calligraphic depictions of the word "Dao", or "Way", which is how the Chinese chose to translate the concept of Christ the Word, so in the Ancient Anglo-Saxon, Celtic and Norse literature, they depicted their vision of the cosmic order through their artistic use of weaving and knot work, equally on par with the importance of the written word.

The Chinese Translation of "In the Beginning was the Word" Echoes the Neo-Confucian Schema of Zhu Xi and Zhang Zai, Which States that All Things Emanate from "Dao", Which is the Foundational Directive Principle of the Universe and is Analogous with both the Word of God and the Will of God

Anglo-Celtic Christian Illumination

An Assortment of Anglo-Celtic Stone Crosses, Using the Wir Patterns to Show Life Lived within the Pattern of the Christian Cross

The Christ Pantocrator in the Celtic Illumination Style of the Book of Kells, a Fronticepiece of the Gospels, Words Turned into Worlds through Interlacing and Interlocking Patterns of Knot-Work.

The Book of Kells and the St. Cuthbert Gospel are Both Celtic Illuminated Gospels which Continue the Tradition of Stone Knot-Work in the Context of Scriptural Art. They Depict a Vision of Life and Destiny that are Interlocking and Complex, Creating Large, Repeating Patterns that Show Life from a Divine Perspective. 

The Theosis Plan

How are the interlacing Crosses and knot-work Gospels not a pagan syncretism? Pagans today are trying hard to appropriate the Christian artwork of Anglo-Celtic Orthodoxy and insist that it is not of pure Christian origin. The key to deciphering these ancient texts of skin and stone is revealed if we balance the cultural metaphor of these interlacing Anglo-Celtic Christian designs along with the progressive sanctification theories of the Greek Fathers, the earliest theories of salvation in Christendom - the Cappadocians, St. Maximus Confessor, and St. Gregory Palamas - then we can see how a vision for holiness and transformation arises organically from the context of the use of these Wir illuminations. St. John Climicus outlines an ascent towards God consisting of 33 steps of spiritual discipline leading to illumination by Divine Light. St. Maximos outlines a view of Christian praxis that is essentially just 3 steps in an eternal continuum: Purification, Contemplation and Theosis (Beatific Vision). Through this process of repentance and submission to the Holy Spirit, sanctified individuals extend the Life of Christ into the whole universe, and transforms the Creation into an icon of the Holy Trinity, the Church! 

Jacob's Ladder, by William Blake, AD 1806

The Ladder Up

Repentance and Confession - Opening the heart, submitting to God’s will and His law, lowering the self in repentance and tears, associated with Baptism or the remembrance of Baptism in tears. This is called “purification” by the Fathers, and represents a voluntary death to the passions of the Old Man. This process can never stop, but is the circular engine of growth, called “metanoia”, which is constant turning towards God and drives the upward spiral towards God’s light. 

An Illustration of the Spiritual Life as a Continuum of Upward and Downward Spirals 

Submission and Unity - For those who humble themselves and seek reconciliation and restoration, God extends His grace to be fully united to His Body, embraced and incorporated through act of Sacramental Communion. 

Doing First Works - In constantly remembering God in all situations of life, obeying the Ten Commandments, and actively doing what Christ commands of His disciples, Christians “contemplate” God through continuous, focused attention, worship, and struggle to maintain watchfulness and the practice repentance and communion. This is commonly identified as “Christian Life”, and this is where the process ends for most believers, who often shrink from accepting the next stage of spiritual development. 

Suffering for Righteousness Sake - When good works are backed by sincere faith, and filled with God’s presence, we offer our lives as a living sacrifice to God and experience suffering as a result of the world identifying us with Christ. Each saint’s suffering is different, but it is always intense, requires the sacrifice of self, loved ones, and hopes and desires for the future. If one remains faithful to God through this “shadow of death”, then God is free to show Himself powerful through the life of the saint, without glorifying man or leading to a misidentification of power that creates the sin of idolatry in the Church. We are perfected in our weakness and death, and God reveals His True Gospel to the world through the testimony of the saints who resist until death. 

The Ascent of the Heavenly Ladder

Illumination by Divine Light - Everyone and everything that is touched by the saint who walks in divine light becomes sacramental, dispels devils, and transforms the world into a living icon of God’s grace. This is evidenced in the incorrupt and miraculous bodies of the saints who offered themselves up to God without reservation. Holiness shines forth in the hagiographies of these saints and further reveal the Gospel of Our Lord in every corner of the globe. This holiness lives on in the physical culture of the Church, which experiences miracles in proximity to these illumined lives, giving us graphic evidence of the reality of Christ’s Resurrection and a foretaste of the Kingdom to come. 

Stages of Sanctification According to St. John Climicus

The Path of Damnation

The Circle of the Lustful, by William Blake, AD 1806

Deception - Hiding what should be confessed and forsaken out of fear and a lack of understanding about God’s infinite ability to forgive. 

Division - Separating from spiritual accountability and authority out of fear of being found out, or a desire to control one’s own environment (Self-excommunication at the local level, Schism at the ecclesial level). 

Diversion - Focusing on or obsessing over minor issues that excuse your alienation or bad behavior (what Orthodoxy often calls “Prelest” or “Delusion”). 

Discouragement - Alienated, marginalized, fearful, lacking spiritual fruit, and not seeing a point to continue in spiritual life (Apostasy and Falling Away).

Darkness - The final step is rejection of God’s love, hate for His Church, evil intentions towards the holy, the innocent, the young, and all of God’s good creation. At this point, one is blind, hardened, set against grace, and unable to receive the Sacraments, but is spiritually and sometimes physically burned by them. This is the endgame for demonic attack.

The Descent into Demonic Darkness and Depravity

This outline is modified from the professional exorcist, Fr. Vincent Lampert, and his description of demonic patterns he has observed in over 20 years of spiritual warfare. It fits the downward spiral we observe in opposition to Theosis perfectly.

The Ladder of Divine Ascent, Contemporary Copy of the Famous 7th Century Icon at St. Kathrine's Monastery, Sinai, Egypt

The Classic Christian Allegory of "The Pilgrim's Progress", Showing a Spiral of Change and Growth in the Spiritual Life, Despite the Puritan Background of John Bunyan this Orthodox Concept was Engrained into the Culture Sufficiently to Survive the Protestant Purge of Traditional Christian Categories and Modalities

A Victorian Board Game Depicting a Spiral of Virtue and Vice

Song of Pilgrimage 

We trudge along an internal path

A spiral up

A spiral down 

Filled with traps and dead ends

We mistake our own alienation for God’s wrath 

As we run from our consciences and friends

A game of shoots and ladders

Through false piety and intellectual pride

A blockage here

Misdirection there

We fail to see our own external projections 

We pity ourselves for how “hard we’ve tried”

To justify our constant insurrections 

While we spew the poison of scorpions and adders

If we are silent and observe our thoughts 

We see an abyss

Spewing a river of tar

This deep divide, rooted in fear that masquerades as pride

A division in our nature that corrupts, skews and rots 

All outer sins a result of unclean thoughts inside 

And with the application of little external stress, our souls shatter

Then the joyful Gospel comes, that “suffering is grace”

Inescapable 

Inevitable 

The Godman overcame death and the grave

By taking up humanity, uniting us to divinity, expiating every sinful trace 

He is unified within Himself to seek and to save, all that which was lost

Restoring a creation to Himself and deifying all matter 

And then the Life of the Trinity will be revealed

In Uncreated Glory

And all who find their life in God

Will be held in God's own story

The sea of glass, the tree of life

On the final day of judgment 

Will welcome all the saints through fire

Refined through trails and detachment

And when the future Kingdom comes

God's will is truly done 

And the fullness of God's grace

Will finally be revealed 

Eternal vision of God’s Face

A marriage to the Son

Growth and completion of the human race 

In the Incarnation is sealed 

So through the fire, we march on

Without fear or frustration 

Our one desire, to see the Son

And to achieve the Holy Spirit’s saturation