When Proclus had finished speaking, gazing intently at the image of the apostle, and recognising the likeness to the man he had seen, saluting John, he said, pointing to the image: ‘Forgive me, father; the man I saw talking to you is very like this statue. In fact, I should say he is the same.’
In the life of St Eupraxia we are told that her Superior showed her the likeness of our Lord.
We read in the life of St Mary of Egypt that she prayed before the statue of Our Lady and besought her intercession, and so obtained leave to enter the Church.[14]
In all the past array of Christian priests and kings, wise and pious, conspicuous by teaching and example, in so many councils of holy and inspired fathers, how is it that no one has [pg 52] pointed out these things? We are not advocating a new faith. The law shall come out of Sion, the Holy Ghost said prophetically, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. We do not advocate one thing at one time, and another at another, nor that the faith should become a laughing-stock to those outside. We will not allow the king’s commands to overturn the tradition handed down from the fathers. It is not for pious kings to overturn ecclesiastical boundaries. These are not patristic ways. Things done by force are impositions, and do not carry persuasion. A proof of this was given in the 2nd Council of Ephesus, when a decree, which has never been recognised as valid, was enforced by the emperor’s hand, and blessed Flavian was put to death. Councils do not belong to kings, as the Lord says: ‘Wherever one or two are gathered together in My name, there I am in the midst of them.’ Christ did not give to kings the power to bind and to loose, but to the apostles, and to their successors and pastors and teachers. ‘If an angel were to teach you a different gospel to what you have received,’ St Paul says—but we will be silent about what follows, in the hope of [pg 53] their conversion. And if we find the warning disregarded, which may God avert, we will then add the rest. Let us hope it will not be needed.
If any one should enter a house and should see on the walls a history in painting of Moses and Aaron, perchance he might ask about the people who are walking across the sea as if it were dry land. ‘Who are they?’ he asks. What would you say? ‘Are they not the sons of Israel?’ ‘Who is dividing the sea with his rod?’ Would you not say ‘Moses’? So if a man makes an image of Christ crucified, and you are asked who he is, you reply, ‘It is Christ our Lord, who became incarnate for us.’ Yes, O Lord, we adore all that belongs to Thee, and we take to our hearts Thy Godhead, Thy power and goodness, Thy mercy towards us, Thy condescension and Thy Incarnation. And as men fear touching red-hot iron, not because of the iron but because of the heat, so do we worship Thy flesh, not for the nature of flesh, but through the Godhead united to that flesh according to substance. We worship Thy sufferings. Who has ever known death worshipped, or suffering venerated? Yet we [pg 54] truly worship the physical death of our God and His saving sufferings. We adore Thy image and all that is Thine; Thy servants, Thy friends, and most of all Thy Mother, the Mother of God.
We beseech, therefore, the people of God, the faithful flock, to hold fast to the ecclesiastical traditions. The gradual taking away of what has been handed down to us would be undermining the foundation stones, and would in no short time overthrow the whole structure. May we prove steadfast, unflinching, immovable, founded on the solid Rock which is Christ, to whom be praise, glory, and worship, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, now and for ever. Amen.
[pg 55]
PART II.
I crave your indulgence, my readers (δέσποταί μου), and ask you to receive the true statement of one who is an unprofitable servant, the least of all, in the Church of God. I have not been moved to speak by motives of vainglory, God is my witness, but by zeal for the truth. In this alone is my hope of salvation, and with it I trust and pray to go out to meet Christ our Lord, asking that it may be an expiation for my sins. The man who received five talents from his lord, brought other five which he had gained, and the man with two, other two. The man who received one, and buried it, gave it back without interest, and being pronounced a wicked servant, was banished into external darkness. Lest I should suffer in the same way, I obey God’s commands, and with the talent of eloquence, which is His gift, I put before the wise among you a treasure table, so [pg 56] that when the Lord comes He may find me rich in souls, a faithful servant, whom He may take into that ineffable joy of His, which is my desire. Give me listening ears and willing hearts. Receive my treatise, and ponder well the force of the arguments. This is the second part of my work on images. Certain children of the Church have urged me to do it because the first part was not sufficiently clear to all. Be indulgent with me on this account, for my obedience.
The wicked serpent of old, Beloved, I mean the devil—is wont to wage war in many ways against man, who is made after God’s image, and to work his destruction through opposition. In the very beginning he inspired man with the hope and desire of becoming a god, and through that desire he dragged man down to share the death of the brute creation. He has enticed man also by shameful and brutal pleasures. What a contrast between becoming a god and feeling brutal lust. And again, he led man into infidelity, as the royal (θεοπατωρ) David says: ‘The fool said in his heart there is no God.’ At one time he has brought man to worship too many gods, at another not even [pg 57] the true God, sometimes demons, and again, the heavens and the earth, the sun and moon and stars, and the rest of creation, wild beasts and reptiles. It is as bad to refuse due honour where honour is due, as to give it where it is not due. Again, he has taught some to call the uncreated god evil, and has deceived others by making them recognise God, who is good by nature, as the author of evil. Some he has deceived by the misconception of one nature and one substance of the Godhead; some he has induced to honour three natures and three substances; some one substance in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity; some two natures and two substances.