The Symbolism of Mary in Images of the Hospitality of Abraham

Here is a hymn to the Virgin Mary, a ‘Theotokion’ from the Canon of Sunday Orthros, tone 1, in the Byzantine Rite:

Rejoice, O well-spring of grace! Rejoice, O ladder and door of heaven! Rejoice, O lampstand and golden jar, thou unquarried mountain, who for the world gavest birth unto Christ, the Bestower of life!

And from the great hymn to the Virgin Mary, the Akathist, Ikos 3:

Rejoice, O Table laden with mercy in abundance!

We can see a pattern here: Tradition compares Mary to anything that is adjacent to God, facilitates His work, or contains Christ and the Eucharist.

In the first hymn, the ladder is a reference to the ladder which Jacob sees in a dream(Genesis 32, 24-30), by which angels ascend and descend as God speaks from above, symbolising a connection between heaven and earth. A lampstand is a more generic symbol: it bears the flame of the lamp, the light which represents the Light of Christ. And the unquarried mountain from which came the unhewn stone, representing Christ, as referred to in the Book of Daniel, is also a symbol of the Virgin. 

Consider now these paintings of the Biblical episode known as the Hospitality of Abraham, recounted in Genesis 18, 1-10. These first two are traditional Russian icons, the one on the right by the famous painter Andrei Rublev.

There is no direct depiction of Mary in these. However, the scene is interpreted as an allusion to the Eucharist held within jars on the altar, and the table upon which the meal is served is likened to an altar. The three strangers, who are subsequently revealed as angels from heaven, are traditionally interpreted as symbols of the three persons of the Trinity. Some contemporary commentators see in the Rublev the shape of a chalice, traced by the right edge of the left figure and the left edge of the right figure. I will admit that while I am happy to consider that the golden chalice, which is painted on the table, is an allusion to the Eucharist that the artist intended, I am not convinced that the second was more than a feature of good and balanced compositional design, intended to mimic rhythmically the shape of the chalice. Hence, it draws our attention to it through a graceful convergence of lines.

Regardless of what we think about this more modern interpretation, by connecting even the more conservative interpretation of the imagery of all images of the Hospitality of Abraham with the hymns given above, it is fair to say that if we think of the Golden Jar in the painting as the vessel containing the Bread of the Blessed Sacrament, then the table is the “Table laden with mercy in abundance,” that is, laden with Christ, present in the Eucharist. And we now see Mary symbolised within these paintings as both table and chalice.

Here is a much earlier representation of the Hospitality of Abraham, a 5th-century mosaic in the basilica of St Mary Major in Rome:

And another Russian icon of the Hospitality, painted by an anonymous artist in the 14th century:

And a 13th-century Gothic illumination from the French Psalter of St Louis:

In all of these, we can see the Eucharistic, and therefore also the Marian, symbolism within it. 

However, if we examine a painting of the same scene by Rembrandt, even though it is a beautiful work, the symbolism is lacking. I see no golden jar or any attempt to portray a table which might be interpreted as an altar. Rembrandt was a Protestant, so it is not surprising that this is missing.