Orants - "The Praying Ones"

Definitions of orant:
* Orant [Orans; Orantes ]is a type of gesture during prayer in which the hands are raised, set apart, and the palms face outward. ...
* An image of a person with hands up in prayer.
* the representation, usually in ancient or Early Christian art, of a standing figure praying with outstretched arms.

Many figures in religious art are seen with uplifted arms, an image so common in early Christian art that historians have given them the name orants, "the praying ones," and speculate that they stood in this position in imitation of their crucified Lord, though Jewish artists used the gesture as well.



Temple Prayer in Ancient Times
by John A. Tvedtnes (excerpt)

The raising of hands in prayer is mentioned in the Old Testament (see 1 Kings 8:22, 38, 54; Ezra 9:5; Job 11:13; Psalm 68:31; Psalm 143:6; Isaiah 1:15; and Lamentations 2:19; Lamentations 3:41), the New Testament (see 1 Timothy 2:8), and various pseudepigraphic texts,(Testament of Moses 4:1; Joseph and Aseneth 11:15, 19.) including Christian gnostic texts found at Nag Hammadi in Egypt.(Exegesis on the Soul, II, 6, 136; Second Apocalypse of James, V, 4, 62.)


In the pseudepigraphic Gospel of Bartholomew 2:6—13, Mary stands with the apostles in prayer, spreads out her hands to heaven, and prays. The History of the Virgin also has Mary spreading out her hands to pray for the apostles, who were then preaching in various nations.(The text is cited in Ernest A. Wallis Budge, The Book of the Bee, 98 n. 1.)

In Acts of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John the Theologian, John "stretched forth his hands, and prayed." (Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, eds., Ante-Nicene Fathers (1886; reprint, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995), 8:563.)

The Psalms, many of which are prayers, reflect the method of prayer in the temple. In one, the petitioner asks the Lord, "Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle" (Psalm 28:2).

In Psalm 141:2, the lifting of hands in prayer is associated with temple sacrifice: "Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." (In the Keret text from Ugarit (KTU 1.14.II.22—24), lifting the hands to heaven parallels the offering of sacrifice.)

This lifting of the hands in prayer is reflected in a variant of Psalm 135, "Behold, bless ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, which by night stand in the house of the Lord. Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the Lord" (Psalm 134:1—2).

Also see:
Early Christian Orant Gesture in Prayer