An Angel Gives Bread and Water to Elijah by Peter Paul Rubens

This image portrays a biblical scene taken from 1 Kings 19:1O8, in which the prophet Elijah is visited in the wilderness by an angel who provides him with bread and water, telling Elijah to eat and drink because he has a long journey ahead of him; Elijah later travels to Mount Horeb where, according to Judeo-Christian tradition, Moses had received the Ten Commandments. The biblical scene with Elijah and the Angel which inspired this image can be interpreted as typology, a theory in which Old Testament events are seen as pre-configurations of events which occur in the New Testament and the life of Christ. Here, the Angel’s giving of bread and water to Elijah is regarded as a pre-cursor to Christ’s giving of bread and wine to his disciples at the Last Supper and thus to the clergy’s distribution of the sacrament to Catholics during Holy Communion. In this painting Rubens visually reinforces the importance of the Eucharist in Catholic doctrine and asserts the religious beliefs of the patron.