And further on:—
He who truly loves a friend or the king, and especially his benefactor, if he sees that benefactor’s son, or his staff, or his chair, or [pg 47] his crown, or his house, or his servant, he holds them fast in his embrace, and if he honours his benefactor, the king, how much more God. Again I repeat it, would that you had made images according to the law of Moses and the prophets, and that day by day you had worshipped the God of images. Whenever, then, you see Christians adoring the Cross, know that they are adoring the Crucified Christ, not the mere wood.[13] If, indeed, they honoured wood as wood, they would be bound to worship trees of whatever kind, as you, O Israel, worshipped them of old, saying to the tree and to the stone, ‘Thou art my God and didst bring me forth.’ We do not speak either to the Cross or to the representations of the saints in this way. They are not our gods, but books which lie open and are venerated in churches in order to remind us of God and to lead us to worship Him. He who honours the martyr [pg 48] honours God, to whom the martyr bore testimony. He who worships the apostle of Christ worships Him who sent the apostle. He who falls at the feet of Christ’s mother most certainly shows honour to her Son. There is no God but one, He who is known and adored in the Trinity.
Commentary.—Who is the faithful interpreter of blessed Epiphanius—Leontius, whose teaching adorned the island of Cyprus, or those who spoke according to their own conceits? Listen to the testimony of Severianus, Bishop of the Gabali.
Severianus, Bishop of the Gabali, on the Dedication of the Cross.
How was it that the image of the enemy gave life to our progenitors? …
How was it that the image of the serpent worked salvation to the people in distress? Would it not have been more reasonable to say, ‘If any of you be bitten, let him look up to heaven, to God, and he shall be saved, or let him look towards the tabernacle of God’? Passing over this, he set up the image of the Cross alone. Why did Moses do this, who [pg 49] said to the people, ‘Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth’? However, why do I speak to unworthy people? Tell me, devout servant of God, will you do what is forbidden, and disregard what you are told to do? He who said, ‘Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing,’ condemned the golden calf, and you make a brazen serpent, and this not secretly, but most openly, so that it is known to all. Moses answers, I laid down that commandment in order to root out impiety, and to withdraw the people from all apostasy and idolatry; now, I have the serpent cast for a good purpose—as a figure of the truth. And just as I have put up a tabernacle, and everything in it, and cherubim, the likeness of the invisible powers, over the holy of holies, as a sign and figure of the future, so I have set up a serpent for the salvation of the people, to serve as a preliminary to the image of the Cross, and the redemption contained in it. As a confirmation of this, listen to the Lord saying, ‘As Moses exalted the serpent in the desert, so [pg 50] must you exalt the Son of Man, that every one believing in Him may not be lost, but may have eternal life.’
Commentary.—Notice that His commandment not to make any graven thing was given to draw the people from idolatry, to which they were prone, and that the brazen serpent was an image of our Lord’s suffering.
Listen to what I am going to say as a proof that images are no new invention. It is an ancient practice well known to the best and foremost of the fathers. Elladios, the disciple of blessed Basil and his successor, says in his Life of Basil that the holy man was standing by the image of Our Lady, on which was painted also the likeness of Mercurius, the renowned martyr. He was standing by it asking for the removal of the impious apostate Julian, and he received this revelation from the statue. He saw the martyr vanish for a time, and then reappear, holding a bloody spear.
Taken word for word from the Life of St John Chrysostom.
Blessed John loved the epistles of St Paul exceedingly. … He had an image of the [pg 51] apostle in a place where he was wont to retire now and then on account of his physical weakness, for he outdid nature in watchings and vigils. As he read through St Paul’s epistles, he had the image before him, and spoke to the apostle as if he had been present, praising him, and directing all his thoughts to him. …