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ICONIUS

ICONOCLASTAE

ICONIUS, bishop. [Hiconius.]ICONOCLASTAE (ehcovoKXdaTaij 0vfto\4-ovres, xP t < r ' riavoKaT ‘hy°P ol i Johan. Damasc., andNicephorus; slKovofidxoi, xp l(rTO f jL< * , X°h Theod.Stud., Hagiocaustae). In the Dictionary ofChristian Antiquities, under the head ofImages, there will be found an exhaustive state-ment (1) of the position taken up by the churchof the first three centuries upon the question ofimages; and (2) of their gradual introductioninto the Christian church. To the history ofimages and their religious use as there statedwe have nothing to add. Our task will be totreat of them so far as they have been in anydegree a subject of controversy during the firsteight centuries. We shall therefore, as far aspossible, avoid the ground already covered bythat article, simply discussing the iconoclasticcontroversy in its rise, its development, its finalissue, noting, as we pass, the circumstances andtendencies—political, religious, and philosophi-cal—which so completely altered the church’sstandpoint on this question.

We may divide the history of the controversythus: (1) from the apostles to the time of Leothe Isaurian, A.D. 717; (2) from Leo the Isaurianto the final triumph of the image worshippers inA.D. 842.

During the first three centuries this contro-versy can scarcely be said to have arisen. Nomore conclusive proof of this can be given thana comparison, which can be very easily made,between the apologies addressed to Jews orGentiles by Clement of Alexandria, by Origen,by Justin, or Minucius Felix, with those addressedto the same classes some four or five hundredyears later by Leontius of Cyprus, A.D. 600, orJohn of Damascus, A.D. 730. In the former case,the Christian writers glory in their rejection ofimages. In the latter, they are perpetually onthe defence against the assaults of Jews andSaracens on this special point. Dr. Pusey has,however, examined the alleged proofs of imageworship in the early church with great learningand minuteness in a note to cap. xvi. of theApolog. of Tertullian in the Oxford Library ofthe Fathers, and has shewn conclusively thatit had no existence therein. (Cf. Roma Sotter.t. ii. by Brownlow and Northcote for what canbe said on the other side.)

In the beginning of the 4th century wefind this question making its first appearancewithin the bounds of the church as an internalcontroversy. At the council of Elvira, in 305 or306, according to Hefele, we discover the firsttrace of it in the 36th canon, “ Placuit picturasin ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur etadoratur in parietibus depingatur.” We mustconclude then that, in Spain at least, some ofthe new converts, many of whom may have beenwealthy, as the 40th canon implies,* were intro-ducing pictures into the churches.

The next trace of this controversy which wediscover is in the celebrated correspondencebetween Eusebius and Constantia, widow of theemperor Licinius, sister of Constantine the Greatand an Arian. This lady, probably between 323

* This canon forbids landlords, when receiving theirrents, accepting anything in payment which had beenaltered in sacrifice to the gods under *>ain of five years’^communication.

and 327, wrote to Eusebius asking for an imageor picture of our Saviour. To this request hereplied in a letter which, however its argumentsmay be regarded, is conclusive as to the practiceof the church of the Nicene age. As this letterformed the ground round which, during thecontroversies of the 8th and 9th ages, andspecially at the councils of 754 and 787, many ahard-fought battle raged, we give the essentialportions of it, as it is found in the completestshape in the latest authority (Niceph. Antirrhet.c. ix. in Pitra, Spic. Solesm. t. i. p. 383). “ Sinceyou have written to me concerning an imageof Christ, what kind of image then do you seek ?Whether is it of that true nature which in Hissubstance bears His character (xapaKrfipa), orof that form of a servant which He assumedfor us? Since, then, He is composed of adouble form, I do not think thou art solicitousabput that form of God concerning which wewere once taught by Him that no one knowsthe Father save the Son, and no one knowsthe Son save the Father who begot Him.Thou askest then, unless I am deceived, foran image of the form of a servile body whichHe assumed for us. But we learn that it hasbeen mixed with the glory of the Deity, andthat its mortal part has been swallowed up oflife. Nor can we conceive what He is like now,after His return to heaven, since when God’sWord was among men, granting a vision of Hiskingdom as a kind of foretaste and pledge, Hetransfigured the form of a slave and shewed itsuperior to human nature, when His countenanceshone as the sun and His clothing as light. Whotherefore can paint in dead colours the splendourof such glory and majesty as His disciples couldnot look upon ? If, therefore, His form in theflesh could obtain such power from God dwellingin it, what must it have been when, mortalitybeing discarded, it has changed the form of aslave into the glory of God? Now His body hasbeen transfigured, and has become immortal andincorruptible, and has been transferred into thelight ineffable, most suitable to God the Word.How, therefore, will any one attempt the im-possible ? How delineate the image of thatadmirable and incomprehensible form,

if we may call that divine and intellectual(voep6s) nature a form? unless indeed we shallact like heathen painters, delineating things inno way like their archetypes. If you desire,again, an image of the servile body before it waschanged into God, dost thou not remember God’scommand, ‘Thou shalt not make to thyself thelikeness of anything in heaven above,* &c. ?Dost thou not know that such things are speci-ally forbidden by the universal church?” Hethen proceeds to mention two facts which illus-trate the church’s decided opposition to imagesin any shape: (1) that he once met a girl bearingabout two paintings, which she said were St.Paul and the Saviour, which he took from her,“since,” said he, “I do not think such thingsshould be let loose among the vulgar, lest weseem to turn our God into an image. For I hearPaul teaching that we all should no longer clingto carnal things; and if we have known Christaccording to the flesh, yet now henceiorth knowwe Him no more.” (2) He tells thy empressthat the heretics have images of Simon Magus\ and of Manes, which they worship, an l then