Editing Ancient of Days (section)

===Eastern Christianity===
[[File:Damian. The Ancient of Days.jpg|thumb|''The Ancient of Days'', a 14th-century fresco from [[Ubisi]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]]]]

In [[Eastern Orthodoxy|Eastern Orthodox]] Christian hymns and icons, the Ancient of Days is sometimes identified with [[God the Father]] or occasionally the [[God the Holy Spirit|Holy Spirit]]; but most properly, in accordance with Orthodox theology he is identified with [[God the Son]], [[Jesus Christ]].

Most of the eastern church fathers who comment on the passage in Daniel (7:9–10, 13–14) interpreted the elderly figure as a prophetic revelation of the Son before his physical incarnation.<ref name="McKay">{{Cite journal|url = http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_early_christian_studies/summary/v007/7.1mckay.html|title = The Eastern Christian Exegetical Tradition of Daniel's Vision of the Ancient of Days|last = McKay|first = Gretchen K.|date = 1999|journal = Journal of Early Christian Studies|volume = 7|pages = 139–161|doi = 10.1353/earl.1999.0019| s2cid=170245894 }}</ref>

Eastern Christian art will sometimes portray Jesus Christ as an old man, the Ancient of Days, to show symbolically that he existed from all eternity, and sometimes as a young man, or wise baby, to portray him as he was incarnate. This iconography emerged in the 6th century, mostly in the Eastern Empire with elderly images, although usually not properly or specifically identified as "the Ancient of Days."<ref>Cartlidge and Elliott, 69–72</ref> The first images of the Ancient of Days, so named with an inscription, were developed by iconographers in different manuscripts, the earliest of which are dated to the 11th century. The images in these manuscripts included the inscription "Jesus Christ, Ancient of Days," confirming that this was a way to identify Christ as pre-eternal with the God the Father.<ref>The manuscripts that include an image of the Ancient of Days are discussed in the unpublished dissertation by Gretchen Kreahling McKay, "Imaging the Divine: A Study of the Representations of the Ancient of Days in Byzantine Manuscripts," University of Virginia, 1997.</ref> Indeed, later, it was declared by the [[Russian Orthodox Church]] at the [[Great Moscow Synod|Great Synod of Moscow]] in 1667 that the Ancient of Days was the Son and not the Father.<ref>''The Tome of the Great Council of Moscow (1666–1667 A.D.)'', Ch. 2, 43-45; tr. [[Hierodeacon]] Lev Puhalo, ''Canadian Orthodox Missionary Journal''</ref>