The all-seeing eye  

Leonardo da Vinci thought that human beings have a third eye, an inner eye, “which dwells in the middle of the head according to philosophers” (Atlantic Codex, s. 270). (Codice Atlantico,f. 270 v.c)[1].

Saint Pauls calls it “the eyes of the heart” (Eph 1: 18). Leonardo further claims that true painters partake of divine nature and have something of God’s mind in them:

“The divinity belonging to a painter’s science transmutes their mind into a resemblance of the divine mind” (A Treatise on Painting, Part II, n. 65) [2].

Similarly, Saint Paul claims that ”it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me” (Gal 2:20) and states:

“Those who are spiritual discern all things, and they are themselves subject to no one else’s scrutiny. ‘For who has known the mind (nous) of the Lord so as to instruct him?’ But we have the mind (nous) of Christ” (1Cor 2: 16).  

Spiritual human beings have the mind of Christ. Literally speaking, they have Christ's nous, that is, Christ's intellect. They have “become participants in the divine nature”(2Pt 1: 4b) and “see no one according to the flesh” (2Cor 5: 16a); rather, they see according to Chirst's mind.

Seeing through Christ’s mind is to see through God’s all-seeing eye

It's a divine vision. It's thoroughly spiritual. A mode of perception that true artists and mystics have shared across human evolution, independently of culture, sex or religion. Subjective, possible biased tendecies are banned when it comes to divine nature, and that should help us put things into divine perspective and look at them properly too:

“The LORD does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart” (1Sam 16: 7b).

Seeing through God’s eye should enable us to understand that “there is no partiality with God” (Dt 10: 17; Sir 35: 12; At 10: 34; Rm 2: 11; Eph 6: 9) and realize that Leonardo’s Portrait of a man and The Mona Lisa, when looked at through Chirst's intellect, might represent the same spiritual reality. Under God's gaze, the two biological poles portrayed in Leonardo’s masterpieces might be a polarized depiction of the one glorious flesh that the bride and the bridegroom are to become (Gen 2, 24; Mt 19: 5; Mk 10: 8).

After all, “God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. He is neither man nor woman: He is God” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 239). Jesus declaring: “The Father and I are one” (Jn 10: 30), or even better: "Whoever has seen me has seen the Father" (Jn 14: 9), testifies to the very transcendence of Christ’s face. And Saint Paul could have had in mind precisely that characteristic of Christ  upon stating:

“There is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus”(Gal 3: 28bc).

NOTES

[1] Translated as quoted in A. Marinoni (Eds.), Leonardo: Scritti letterari, Rizzoli, Milano,1980, p. 16.

[2] Transalted as quoted in A. Marinoni, op. cit., p. 23.

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