A Source Book for Ancient Church History

by Joseph Cullen Ayer

(b) John of Damascus, De Fide Orthodoxa, IV, 16. (MSG, 94:1168.)

John of Damascus (ob. ante 754) was the last of the Church Fathers of the East. He became the classical representative of the theology of the Eastern Church, and his system forms the conclusion and summing up of the results of all the great controversies that had distracted that part of the Church. His greatest work, De Fide Orthodoxa, may be found translated in PNF. In the following chapter John sums up briefly the arguments which he uses in his three orations In Defence of Images (to be found in MSG, 94:1227 ff.; for translation see head of section). By images one should understand pictures rather than statues. The latter were never common and fell entirely out of use and were forbidden. They seemed too closely akin to idols. In the translation, the phrase “to show reverence” is the equivalent of the Greek προσκυνέω.

Since some find fault with us for showing reverence and honoring the image of our Saviour and that of our Lady, and also of the rest of the saints and servants of Christ, let them hear that from the beginning God made man after His own image. On what other grounds, then, do we show reverence to each other than that we are made after God's image? For as Basil, that most learned expounder of divine things, says: “The honor given to the image passes over to the prototype.”[328] Now a prototype is that which is imaged, from which the form is derived. Why was it that the Mosaic people showed reverence round about the tabernacle which bore an image and type of heavenly things, or rather the whole creation? God, indeed, said to Moses: “Look that thou make all things after the pattern which was shewed thee in the mount” [Ex. 33:10]. The Cherubim, also, which overshadowed the mercy-seat, are they not the work of men's hands? What is the renowned temple at Jerusalem? Is it not made by hands and fashioned by the skill of men? The divine Scriptures, however, blame those who show reverence to graven images, but also those who sacrifice to demons. The Greeks sacrificed and the Jews also sacrificed; but the Greeks to demons; the Jews, however, to God. And the sacrifice of the Greeks was rejected and condemned, [pg 692] but the sacrifice of the just was acceptable to God. For Noah sacrificed, and God smelled a sweet savor of a good purpose, receiving, also, the fragrance of a good-will toward Him. And so the graven images of the Greeks, since they were the images of demon deities, were rejected and forbidden.

But besides this, who can make an imitation of the invisible, incorporeal, uncircumscribed, and formless God? Therefore to give form to the Deity is the height of folly and impiety. And therefore in the Old Testament the use of images was repressed. But after God, in the bowels of His mercy, became for our salvation in truth man, not as He was seen by Abraham in the semblance of a man, or by the prophets, but He became in truth man, according to substance, and after He lived upon earth and dwelt among men, worked miracles, suffered, and was crucified, He rose again, and was received up into heaven; since all these things actually took place and were seen by men, they were written for the remembrance and instruction of us who were not present at that time, in order that, though we saw not, we may still, hearing and believing, obtain the blessing of the Lord. But since all have not a knowledge of letters nor time for reading, it appeared good to the Fathers that those events, as acts of heroism, should be depicted on images[329] to be a brief memorial of them. Often, doubtless, when we have not the Lord's passion in mind and see the image of Christ's crucifixion, we remember the passion and we fall down and show reverence not to the material but to that which is imaged; just as we do not show reverence to the material of the Gospel, nor to the material of the cross, but that which these typify.[330] For wherein does the cross that typifies the Lord differ from a cross that does not do so? It is the same also as to the case of the Mother of God.[331] For the honor which is given her is referred to Him who was incarnate of her. And similarly also the brave acts of holy men stir us to bravery [pg 693] and to emulation and imitation of their valor and to the glory of God. For, as we said, the honor that is given to the best of fellow servants is a proof of good-will toward our common lady, and the honor rendered the image passes over to the prototype. But this is an unwritten tradition, just as is also to show reverence toward the East and to the cross, and very many similar things.[332]

A certain tale is told also that when Augarus [i.e., Abgarus] was king over the city of the Edessenes, he sent a portrait-painter to paint a likeness of the Lord; and when the painter could not paint because of the brightness that shone from His countenance, the Lord himself put a garment over His divine and life-giving face and impressed on it an image of Himself, and sent this to Augarus to satisfy in this way his desire.

Moreover, that the Apostles handed down much that was unwritten, Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles writes: Therefore, brethren, stand fast and hold the traditions which ye have been taught of us, whether by word or by epistles [II Thess. 2:14]. And to the Corinthians he writes: Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remembered me in all things and keep the traditions as I have delivered them to you [I Cor. 2:2].

(c) Basil the Great, De Spiritu Sancto, ch. 18. (MSG, 32:149.)

Basil is speaking of the three persons of the Trinity, and says that although we speak of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we must not count up “by way of addition gradually increasing from unity to multitude,” but that number must be understood otherwise in speaking of the three divine persons.

How then, if one and one, are there not two Gods? Because we speak of a king and of the king's image, and not of two kings. The power is not parted nor the glory divided. The power ruling over us is one, and the authority one, and so also the doxology ascribed by us is one and not plural; because the honor paid to the image passes over to the prototype.

Now what in the one case the image is by reason of imitation, that in the other case the Son is by nature; and as in works of art the likeness is dependent upon the form, so in the case of the divine and uncompounded nature the union consists in the communion of the godhead.