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This term, '''Ancient of Days''' comes from [[Prophet Daniel]] 7:13-14 which says,
“I kept on beholding saw in the night visions of the night, and, see there! behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of the heavens someone like a son of man happened to be coming; heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days he gained accessdays, and they brought him up close even near before that Onehim. And to him there were was given rulership him dominion, and dignity glory, and a kingdom, that the peoplesall people, nations, national groups and languages , should all serve even him. His rulership : his dominion is an indefinitely lasting rulership that will everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that will which shall not be brought to ruindestroyed."
There are whoever , however, two questions when it comes to the use of this title: 1) How is it broadly used in reference to the divine nature, in the writings of the fathers and the hymns of the Church? And then 2) who is the Ancient of Days in the prophesy of Daniel? There is also the question of how the Ancient of Days is used iconographically.
== Ancient of Days as applied to the Godhead ==
Of the meaning of the title "Ancient of Days", St. Dionysius says:
:"...Almighty God is celebrated as "Ancient of days" because He is of all things both Age and Time,--and before Days, and before Age and Time. And yet we must affirm that He is Time and Day, and appointed Time, and Age, in a sense befitting God, as being throughout every movement unchangeable and unmoved, and in His ever moving remaining in Himself, and as being Author of Age and Time and Days. Wherefore, in the sacred Divine manifestations of the mystic visions, He is represented as both old and young; the former indeed signifying the "Ancient" and being from the beginning, and the latter His never growing old; or both teaching that He advances through all things from beginning to end,----or as our Divine initiator says, "since each manifests the priority of God, the Elder having the first place in Time, but the Younger the priority in number; because the unit, and things near the unit, are nearer the beginning than numbers further advanced. ...Almighty God we ought to celebrate, both as eternity and time, as Author of every time and eternity, and "Ancient of days," as before time, and above time; and as changing appointed seasons and times; and again as being before ages, in so far as He is both before eternity and above eternity and His kingdom, a kingdom of all the Ages. Amen."<ref> [http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/areopagite_03_divine_names.htm#c10 On the Divine Names, chapter 2, section I10]</ref>
===In Orthodox Hymns===
The Fathers, commenting on Daniel 7, consistently see the Ancient of Days as specifically referring to the Father; and the Son of Man, who comes before the Ancient of Days, as being the God the Son:
:"I saw in the night visions, and behold one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and was brought near before Him..."… He showed all power given by the Father to the Son, who is ordained Lord of things in heaven, and things on earth, and things under the earth, and Judge of all." <ref>(From: St. Hippolytus, [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf05.iii.iv.ii.i.html Treatise on Christ and Antichrist, ANF vol. 5, p. 209)]</ref>
In “The Ancient of Days: Patristic and Modern views of Daniel 7:9-14, by
:"But when he had made arrangements with His disciples for the preaching of the Gospel and His name, a cloud suddenly surrounded Him, and carried Him up into heaven, on the fortieth day after His passion, as Daniel had shown that it would be, saying: "And, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days." <ref>[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.iii.ii.iv.xxi.html (The Divine Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 21, ANF vol. 7, p. 123)]</ref>
:"...and then at length, on the fortieth day, He returned to His Father, being carried up into a cloud. The prophet Daniel had long before shown this, saying: "I saw in the night vision, and, behold, one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days; and they who stood beside Him brought Him near before Him. And there was given Him a kingdom, and glory, and dominion, and all people, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him; and His power is an everlasting one, which shall not pass away, and His kingdom that whichshall not be destroyed." Also David in the 109th Psalm: "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool." <ref>[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.iii.ii.viii.xliii.html (The Epitome of the Divine Institutes, Chapter 47, ANF vol. 7, p. 241)]</ref>
:"But the prophet comprises both His advents in few words. Behold, he says, one like the Son of man coming with the clouds of heaven. He did not say, like the Son of God, but the Son of man, that he might show that He had to be clothed with flesh on the earth, that having assumed the form of a man and the condition of mortality, He might teach men righteousness; and when, having completed the commands of God, He had revealed the truth to the nations, He might also suffer death, that He might overcome and lay open the other world also, and thus at length rising again, He might proceed to His Father borne aloft on a cloud. For the prophet said in addition: And came even to the Ancient of days, and was presented to Him. He called the Most High God the Ancient of days, whose age and origin cannot be comprehended; for He alone was from generations, and He will be always to generations. But that Christ, after His passion and resurrection, was about to ascend to God the Father, David bore witness in these words in the 109th Psalm: "The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool."<ref>[http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/anf07.iii.ii.iv.xii.html (The Divine Institutes, Book 4, Chapter 12, ANF vol. 7, p. 111)</ref>
St. John of Damascus (d. 749):
:"And Daniel saw the likeness of a man, and as the Son of Man coming to the ancient of days. (Dan. 7.9, 13) No one saw the nature of God, but the type and image of what, was to be. For the Son and Word of [101] the invisible God, was to become man in truth, that He might be united to our nature, and be seen upon earth. " <ref>(St. [[John of Damascus]], [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/johndamascus-images.html On Div. Images, 3.26)]</ref>
Blessed Theophylact (c. 1050 – c. 1108 A.D.):
In Orthodox Iconography, we find the image of the Ancient of Days used in two ways:
:1. Often, Jesus Christ is depicted as an old man, to show symbolically that he existed from all eternity, and sometimes as a young man to portray him as he was incarnate. This [[iconography]] emerged in the 6th century, mostly in the Eastern Empire.<ref>Cartlidge and Elliott, 69-72</ref>
:2. The Father is also often symbolically depicted as the Ancient of Days. We find this on many miraculous icons, including the Kursk Root Icon<ref>[http://www.stjohndc.org/Russian/theotokos/e_kursk_root.htm Orthodox Life Vol. 32, No 6 November - December, 1982]</ref>, the Reigning Icon of the Mother of God (Derzhavnaya icon)<ref>[http://www.stjohndc.org/Russian/theotokos/e_0907_reigning.htm The Miraculous "Reigning" Icon, 2/15 March, St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Church, Washington, D.C.]</ref>, and the Sitka Icon<ref>[http://dioceseofalaska.org/pdf/SitkaIcon-History.pdf History of the Wonder-working Sitka icon of the Mother of God, Diocese of Alaska Website]</ref>, just to name a few.
The [[Moscow Sobor of 1666–1667|Council of Moscow ]] in 1667 declared that the Ancient of Days was the Son and not the Father, and that the depiction of the Fathers as the Ancient of Days was forbidden.<ref>The Tome of the Great Council of Moscow (1666-1667 A.D.), Ch. 2, 43-45; tr. [[Hierodeacon]] [[Lazar (Puhalo) of Ottawa|Lev Puhalo]], ''Canadian Orthodox Missionary Journal''</ref> This is however the same council that anathamatized the Old Rite, and like many of its decrees, this decree has generally been ignored ever since, and this image has been a regular element in Orthodox Iconography, both within Russia, and elsewhere in the Church. The above cited references to the standard "Painters Manual " of Dionysius of Fourna, as well the comments of St. Nicodemus of the Holy Mountain in the "The Rudder " demonstrate that this was an accepted element of Orthodox Iconography. In the second half of the 20th Century, however, a movement to reject this element of Iconography arose from some of the representatives of the Neo-Patristic movement, and so this has become a matter of controversy in more recent times.
==External Links==
*[http://pageswww.prodigysaintjonah.netorg/frjohnwhitefordarticles/ancientofdays.htm The Ancient of Days, by Fr. John Whiteford]
==Footnotes==
