Orthodox Theology of Images: John of Damascus and the Seventh Council.

Some discussion about images must have taken place in Byzantium as early as the late-seventh century and was reflected in Canon 82 of the Council in Trullo. The importance of this text lies in the fact that it locates the issue of religious representation in the Christological context:

In certain reproductions of venerable images, the precursor is pictured indicating the lamb with his ringer. This representation was adopted as a symbol of grace. It is a hidden figure of that true lamb who is Christ, our God, and shown to us according to the Law. Having thus welcomed these ancient figures and shadows as symbols of the truth transmitted to the Church, we prefer today grace and truth themselves as a fulfilment of this law. Therefore, in order to expose to the sight of all, at least with the help of painting, which is perfect, we decree that henceforth Christ our God must be represented in His human form but not in the form of the ancient lamb.⁵

Thus, the image of Christ already implied for the fathers of the Council in Trullo a confession of faith in the historical Incarnation, which could not be properly expressed in the symbolic figure of a lamb and needed an image of Jesus “in His human form.”

Before Leo HI had issued his formal decrees against the images, Germanus I (715-730), the Patriarch of Constantinople, used the same Christological argument against the incipient iconoclasm of the court:

In eternal memory of the life in the flesh of our Lord Jesus Christ, of His passion, His saving death, and the redemption of the world, which results from them, we have received the tradition of representing Him in His human form — i.e., in His visible Theophany —, understanding that we exalt in this way the humiliation of God the Word.⁶

Germanus thus became the first witness of Orthodoxy against iconoclasm in Byzantium. After his resignation under imperial pressure, the defence of images was taken over by the lonely and geographically remote voice of John of Damascus.

Living and writing in the relative security assured to the Christian ghettos of the Middle East by the Arab conquerors, this humble monk of the Monastery of St. Sabbas in Palestine succeeded by his three famous treatises for the defence of the images in uniting Orthodox opinion in the Byzantine world. His first treatise begins with the reaffirmation of the Christological argument: “I represent God, the Invisible One, not as invisible, but insofar as He has become visible for us by participation in flesh and blood.”⁷ John’s main emphasis is on the change, which occurred in the relationship between God and the visible world when He became a Man. By His own will, God became visible by assuming a material existence and giving to the matter a new function and dignity.

In former times, God without body or form could in no way be represented. But today since God has appeared in the flesh and lived among men, I can represent what is visible in God [to horaton tõu theõu]. I do not venerate any matter, but I venerate the creator of a matter, who became the matter for my sake, who assumed life in the flesh, and who through the matter accomplished my salvation.⁸

In addition to this central argument, John insists on secondary and less decisive issues. The Old Testament, for example, was not totally iconoclastic but used images, especially in temple worship, which Christians are entitled to interpret as pre-figurations of Christ. John also denounced the iconoclasts’ identification of the image with the prototype, the idea that an icon “is God.” On this point the Neo-Platonic and Origenist traditions, which were also used by the iconoclasts supported the side of the Orthodox, only the Son and the Spirit are “natural images” of the Father and therefore consubstantial with Him. But other images of God are essentially different from their model and therefore not “idols.”

This discussion on the nature of the image, which provided the basis for the very important definition of the cult of images, was adopted by the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787. The image, icon, since it is distinct from the divine model, can be the object only of a relative veneration or honour, not of worship, which is reserved for God alone.⁹ This authoritative statement by an ecumenical council clearly excludes the worship of images often attributed to Byzantine Christianity.

The misunderstanding of this point is a very old one and partly the result of difficulties in translation. The Greek proskynests (“veneration”) was already translated as adoration in the Latin version of the Conciliar Acts used by Charlemagne in his famous Libri Carolini, which rejected the council. And later, even Thomas Aquinas — who, of course, accepted Nicaea II — admitted a “relative adoration” (latrid) of the images, a position, which gave the Greeks an opportunity of accusing the Latins of idolatry at the Council of Hagia Sophia in 1450.¹⁰

In spite of its very great terminological accuracy in describing the veneration of icons, Nicaea II did not elaborate on the technical points of Christology raised by the iconoclastic Council of Hieria. The task of refuting this council and of developing the rather general Christological affirmations of Germanus and John of Damascus belongs to the two major theological figures of the second iconoclastic period — the reigns of Leo V (813-820), Michael π (820-829), and Theophilus (829-842) — Theodore the Studite and Patriarch Nicephorus.

Date: 2016-01-14; view: 546