Abraham and the three visitors

To understand

What you can see in this picture……

Abraham and his wife Sarah have a visit from three unknown persons; Abraham goes to meet them and offers them traditional hospitality.

Are the three visitors received by Abraham men or angels ? They are portrayed as men first, then as angels, recognizable by their wings. They are identical or have similar faces and clothes, for they are meant to represent for Christians the three divine persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost.

This scene has various names: “Abraham’s Hospitality” or "Abraham and the Three Angels " for painters, but in the Bible, according to the different versions, you can find : “The three visitors"  (New International version),  "Three Men Visit Abraham"  (New International Reader's Version), “The son of Promise" (New King James version), "A Son Is Promised to Sarah"   (New Living Translation), and also "The Lord Promises Abraham a Son"   (Contemporary English Version)...

and in other pictures

Abraham shows no distinctive characteristic except his old age.

His wife Sarah is often present in the scene of the meal but slightly apart. She listens and smiles when the guests announce that she will be a mother soon. But Sarah’s laughter can be given various representations.

The scene takes place at the foot of a big oak at Mamre (or Mambre).

The emphasis is put either on the meal served by Abraham to the three “men”, or on the meeting between the “angels” and Abraham who salutes them and bows low at their feet.

Not be confused with

The biblical narrative

The Book of Genesis, chapter 18      

God made a covenant with Abraham and promised him numerous offspring. But his wife Sarah, who was sterile, allowed him to have a son (called Ishmael) with Agar, her handmaid.

A few years later, Abraham received a strange visit.
And the LORD appeared to him in the plains of Mamre: and he sat in the tent door in the heat of the day;
And he lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground,
And said,  : My Lord, if now I have found favour in Your sight, pass not away, I pray You, from thy servant:"

Abraham offered hospitality to his visitors. While they ate, he remained standing near them. At the end of the meal, the angel said to him: "I will certainly return to you according to the time of life; and, behold, Sarah your wife shall have a son. Sarah, who heard that, "laughed within herself, saying, ...Shall I surely bear a child, since I am old? ...And the LORD said to Abraham, Wherefore did Sarah laugh ? Is any thing too hard for the LORD? At the time appointed I will return to you, according to the time of life, and Sarah shall have a son.
(Genesis 18:1-16)

Comment
 

Are these “three men”(the text constantly hesitates between the singular and the plural) God’s messengers, therefore angels, or are they God himself?
They come and see Abraham whose hospitality is famous. The narrative is twofold with, on the one hand, the visit of the “three men” and, on the other hand, the announcement that Sarah, in spite of her great age, will be pregnant soon.

The latter part is the more important since it is the fulfillment of the promise God made to Abraham: «And I will make thy seed as the dust of the earth: so that if a man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.».

But Christians have insisted on the presence of “three” men in whom they have seen the image of God, one and Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Ghost). According to St Augustine (On the Trinity II,10), «Abraham saw three men and adored one God.»

See similar pictures

Further developments

Can God be represented ? The Jewish tradition strictly forbids any representation of God but, very soon, Christians ignored it. Since God had incarnated Himself in Christ, he could be represented as a man. But once the interdict was lifted, the image of God “no man has seen at any time” (John 1:18) was no longer a taboo and very varied representations appeared. Souls rising towards the Trinity in Paradise; MAITRE FRANCOIS; miniature from St Augustine’s “City of God”; manuscript MMW 10 A 11, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague.  Museum Meermanno  The Hague     A first, Christianity represented God by a hand coming out of the clouds or by an angel, then by Jesus with the features of a young man. But in medieval pictures of the Trinity, the three persons are sometimes not differentiated. The Trinity; miniature on vellum from a “Book of Hours” from the south of the Low Countries; manuscript MMW 10 E 3 , Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague.   or else they can be different: God the Father is imagined as a bearded old man and the Holy Ghost as a dove; only Christ keeps a proper human face. Certain artists then think it is enough to juxtapose the three representations to have an image of the Trinity. The Father and the Son are sitting with the dove between them.     The Trinity, miniature from a missal from Lombardy; manuscript MMW 10 A 16, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague. The Holy Trinity; El GRECO; 1577; oil on canvas, Museo del Prado, Madrid Web Gallery of Art     or the Father holds the crucified Son or the crucifix itself while the Dove of the Holy Spirit flies over them   Three-faced Trinity; miniature on vellum from a “Book of Hours of Delft”; manuscript KB 135 E 18, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague.  Musée Meermanno La Haye     A single head with three faces has even been painted     The Old Testament Trinity, Andrei ROUBLEV; c. 1410; tempera on wood, the Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow. Olga's Gallery - Online Art Museum   Nowadays, these representations seem rather shocking and this is the reason why that of Abraham’s three “men” has kept some favour, in particular in the Orthodox version as in the Trinity by Andrei Roublev, a 15th-century Russian painter.