In Defense of Icons
Theological Letters
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JOHN OF DAMASCUS AND HIS DEFENSE OF ICONS
Synopsis
I examine John of Damascus’ defense of icons, upheld at the Council of Nicea II (AD 787). John argues that the making and honoring of images of Christ and the saints are in keeping with Scripture and tradition. Contrary to the view that the second commandment prohibits images, John argues that a proper understanding of the commandment shows it is a prohibition on the worship of creatures. Because the context of the commandment is that God is unseen, so no image of him is possible, the question emerges whether something has changed for those who confess that the Son of God has taken on flesh. John argues that the Incarnation not only makes images of the Son permissible but raises the question of whether resistance to such images indicates a faulty Christology. As for the honoring of images, John shows that Scripture, though prohibiting worship of creatures, approves the honoring of people, places, and things. But more profoundly, John highlights that the Eastern church fathers understand the Incarnation to bring human nature, and through it the world, into communion with the divine nature. This communion makes it possible for a creature to serve as a conduit for divine energy and grace. John argues that such conduits are rightly honored, not as God, but as creatures in whom God’s energy and grace reside. This view carried the day at Nicea II as a faithful representation of the teachings of the apostles and the fathers and remains the view and practice of the Eastern church to this day.
John of Damascus is best known for his defense of icons in the eighth century, which won the day at the Council of Nicea II (AD 787), the last of the seven ecumenical councils. The dispute concerned icons, or images, and the Eastern Christian practice of not only making images of Christ and the saints but of venerating them — kissing them, prostrating before them, censing them (2.10; 3.9). The iconoclasts (breakers of icons) opposed such practices as idolatrous. The spark that ignited the controversy was the Arab–Byzantine wars. Emperor Leo III issued a series of edicts (726–29) outlawing icons in fear that mounting losses to the Muslims were due to the idolatry of the iconodules (servants of icons). Iconoclasm continued under Constantine V (741–75), and though condemned at Nicea II, it reemerged under Emperor Leo V, bringing a second period of iconoclasm (814–42). The restoration of the icons would be championed by Empress Theodora after the death of her husband, Emperor Theophilus — himself an iconoclast.
The central question John deals with is whether iconodulism is in keeping with Scripture and tradition. Concerning the latter, one of John’s great contributions to patristic literature is his work as a systematizer of the Eastern church fathers. The consistent aim of his works is summed up well in his Dialectica: “I shall add nothing of my own, but shall gather together into one those things which have been worked out by the most eminent of teachers and make a compendium of them.” John’s defense of icons is no different. He penned three treatises in defense of icons, and in each, he catalogues quotes from the fathers to demonstrate an unbroken chain of iconodulism in the church (1.23–67; 2.24-66; 3.13–138), a chain John suggests is based on oral tradition passed down by the apostles (2 Thess. 2:15) (1.23; 2.16; 3.11).
Even with the endorsement of the fathers, however, do the iconodule practices run afoul of Scripture? The most obvious challenge is the second commandment: “You shall not make for yourself an idol in the likeness [homoiōma] of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not venerate [proskynēseis] them, nor worship [latreusēis] them” (Exod. 20:4–5 LXX). On the surface, this commandment appears to prohibit the making of images. But John argues that this is a superficial reading. For God commands the making of images for the tabernacle — images of things in heaven and on earth (Exod. 25:17–21; 26:1, 31; 36:33) (1.16, 20; 2.9, 15; 3.9). But if the commandment does not prohibit images, what does it prohibit? Moses records its rationale in Deuteronomy 4:12–19:
And the Lord spoke to you from the midst of the fire. You heard a voice, but you saw not any likeness [homoiōma], only a voice. And he showed you his covenant, which he commanded you to do, and the ten words that he wrote in two tablets of stone….You saw no likeness in the day that the Lord God spoke to you in Horeb from the midst of the fire: Lest perhaps being deceived you might make a carved likeness, any kind of image [eikona], the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beasts that are upon the earth, the likeness of birds that fly under heaven, the likeness of creeping things that move on the earth, the likeness of fish that abide in the waters under the earth: Lest perhaps lifting up your eyes to heaven, seeing the sun and the moon, and all the heavenly bodies, you go astray and worship [latreusēis] them, and serve them, which the Lord your God created for the service of all the nations, that are under heaven. (Emphasis added.)
The refrain that contextualizes the prohibition is you heard a voice but saw no likeness. The danger warned against is worship of what is seen — male or female, beasts, birds, creeping things, fish, or celestial bodies. In other words, God is invisible and uncircumscribed, evident in the experience at Horeb (1.15–6; 2.8; 3.7). Every image of visible and circumscribed entities will invariably bear the likeness of a creature, and the worship thereof will be worship of the creation, not the Creator. This, says John, is what the commandment prohibits, the worship of nature and demons (1.26; 3.7–8), errors into which the devil led mankind (2.1–4).
Such an explanation brings us to the crux of the matter. Divinity has taken on flesh. If the commandment prohibits images of the divine because God is unseen, does the Incarnation of the Son change this fact? John contrasts the prohibition in Deuteronomy with the words of the apostle John: “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched, this we proclaim concerning the Word of life” (1 John 1:1). To be sure, John of Damascus’ Trinitarianism distinguishes without confusion the Father from the Son. Though they share a common divine nature (ousia), they are discrete subjects (hypostases). Hence, John insists that images of the Father, who is not incarnate, still violate the commandment (1.4; 2.5; 3.2, 8). But, as John points out, the gospel proclaims that the Son took on flesh, color, and shape. As Paul declares, Jesus is the icon of the invisible God (Col. 1:15) (2.5; 3.2, 12). Hence, an image of the Son is now possible.
John contends that efforts to evade this conclusion invariably slip into heresy (2.2–6; 3.1–3). One could, of course, deny the divinity of Christ, as did the Arians, and thereby deny that icons of Jesus are icons of the divine. Such a claim would be heretical, but the iconoclasts do not make this mistake. They oppose images of Christ because they affirm His divinity (1.4–5; 2.4, 7; 3.2, 4, 6–7). Granting Christ’s divinity, one must cordon off His flesh from His person in order to say His icon is not of the Son. This road has a ditch on either side. The one side slips off into Manicheism, which denies the Incarnation as an illusion because matter is evil and cannot share in Christ’s person (1.16; 2.10, 13, 16). The other side slips into Nestorianism, which teaches that Christ has two natures and is two persons (prosopa), one divine and one human, fused together in the Incarnation (2.2). Both errors are contrary to the faith, which professes that Christ is only one person (hypostasis), the Only-Begotten Son of God, who has the same nature as the Father, and who took on human nature for our salvation (2.2–3). John writes,
I venerate together with the King and God the purple robe of his body, not as a garment, nor as a fourth person….For the nature of the flesh did not become divinity, but as the Word became flesh immutably, remaining what it was, so also the flesh became the Word without losing what it was, being rather made equal to the Word hypostatically. Therefore I am emboldened to depict the invisible God, not as invisible, but as he became visible for our sake, by participation in flesh and blood. I do not depict the invisible divinity, but I depict God made visible in the flesh. (3.6)
John sees no way of opposing images of Christ without denying the faith (2.6).
Even if the making of images generally, and of Christ specifically, is permissible, given the Incarnation, what about venerating images? John’s defense is threefold.
