When We Think About Iconoclasts in Art Which Group or Culture Us Usually Included in This Group?

Periods in Byzantine history during which religious images were banned (726-787, 814-842)

The Byzantine Iconoclasm (Greek: Εικονομαχία, romanized: Eikonomachía , lit.'image struggle', 'state of war on icons') were two periods in the history of the Byzantine Empire when the apply of religious images or icons was opposed by religious and royal regime within the Orthodox Church building and the temporal purple bureaucracy. The First Iconoclasm, as it is sometimes called, occurred between about 726 and 787, while the Second Iconoclasm occurred betwixt 814 and 842.^[i] According to the traditional view, Byzantine Iconoclasm was started past a ban on religious images promulgated by the Byzantine Emperor Leo 3 the Isaurian, and continued nether his successors.^[2] It was accompanied by widespread destruction of religious images and persecution of supporters of the veneration of images. The Papacy remained firmly in back up of the use of religious images throughout the period, and the whole episode widened the growing deviation between the Byzantine and Carolingian traditions in what was still a unified European Church, equally well as facilitating the reduction or removal of Byzantine political control over parts of the Italian Peninsula.

Iconoclasm is the deliberate destruction inside a civilisation of the culture's own religious images and other symbols or monuments, usually for religious or political motives. People who engage in or back up iconoclasm are chosen iconoclasts, Greek for "breakers of icons" ( εἰκονοκλάσται ), a term that has come up to be practical figuratively to whatsoever person who breaks or disdains established dogmata or conventions. Conversely, people who revere or venerate religious images are derisively called "iconolaters" ( εἰκονολάτρες ). They are normally known as "iconodules" ( εἰκονόδουλοι ), or "iconophiles" ( εἰκονόφιλοι ). These terms were, nonetheless, not a part of the Byzantine fence over images. They have been brought into common usage by modern historians (from the seventeenth century) and their application to Byzantium increased considerably in the late twentieth century. The Byzantine term for the argue over religious imagery, "iconomachy," means "struggle over images" or "image struggle". Some sources also say that the Iconoclasts were against intercession to the saints and denied the usage of relics, however information technology is disputed.^[1]

Iconoclasm has generally been motivated theologically by an Sometime Covenant interpretation of the 10 Commandments, which forbade the making and worshipping of "graven images" (Exodus xx:four, Deuteronomy v:8, run across besides Biblical law in Christianity). The two periods of iconoclasm in the Byzantine Empire during the eighth and 9th centuries fabricated use of this theological theme in discussions over the propriety of images of holy figures, including Christ, the Virgin (or Theotokos) and saints. It was a argue triggered by changes in Orthodox worship, which were themselves generated by the major social and political upheavals of the 7th century for the Byzantine Empire.

Traditional explanations for Byzantine iconoclasm take sometimes focused on the importance of Islamic prohibitions against images influencing Byzantine thought. According to Arnold J. Toynbee,^[3] for example, it was the prestige of Islamic military successes in the 7th and 8th centuries that motivated Byzantine Christians to adopt the Islamic position of rejecting and destroying devotional and liturgical images. The role of women and monks in supporting the veneration of images has also been asserted. Social and grade-based arguments accept been put forward, such as that iconoclasm created political and economical divisions in Byzantine society; that it was generally supported by the Eastern, poorer, not-Greek peoples of the Empire^[4] who had to constantly bargain with Arab raids. On the other mitt, the wealthier Greeks of Constantinople and also the peoples of the Balkan and Italian provinces strongly opposed Iconoclasm.^[4] Re-evaluation of the written and textile evidence relating to the period of Byzantine Iconoclasm by scholars including John Haldon and Leslie Brubaker has challenged many of the basic assumptions and factual assertions of the traditional account. Byzantine iconoclasm influenced the later Protestant reformation.^[5] ^[6]

Background [edit]

Christian worship by the 6th century had adult a clear belief in the intercession of saints. This belief was besides influenced by a concept of hierarchy of sanctity, with the Trinity at its pinnacle, followed past the Virgin Mary, referred to in Greek every bit the Theotokos ("birth-giver of God") or Meter Theou ("Female parent of God"), the saints, living holy men, women, and spiritual elders, followed by the rest of humanity. Thus, in order to obtain blessings or divine favour, early Christians, like Christians today, would often pray or ask an intermediary, such as the saints or the Theotokos, or living fellow Christians believed to be holy, to intercede on their behalf with Christ. A stiff sacramentality and conventionalities in the importance of physical presence also joined the belief in intercession of saints with the use of relics and holy images (or icons) in early Christian practices.^[8]

Believers would, therefore, make pilgrimages to places sanctified by the physical presence of Christ or prominent saints and martyrs, such as the site of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Relics, or holy objects (rather than places), which were a function of the claimed remains of, or had supposedly come into contact with, Christ, the Virgin or a saint, were also widely utilized in Christian practices at this time. Relics, a firmly embedded part of veneration by this menses, provided physical presence of the divine merely were not infinitely reproducible (an original relic was required), and still usually required believers to undertake pilgrimage or take contact with somebody who had.

The use of images had greatly increased during this period, and had generated a growing opposition among many in the church, although the progress and extent of these views is now unclear. Images in the course of mosaics and paintings were widely used in churches, homes and other places such as over city gates, and had since the reign of Justinian I been increasingly taking on a spiritual significance of their own, and regarded at least in the pop heed as capable of possessing capacities in their own right, and then that "the prototype acts or behaves as the subject itself is expected to act or carry. It makes known its wishes ... It enacts evangelical teachings, ... When attacked it bleeds, ... [and] In some cases information technology defends itself against infidels with physical force ...".^[ix] Key artefacts to blur this boundary emerged in c. 570 in the grade of miraculously created acheiropoieta or "images not made by human hands". These sacred images were a form of contact relic, which additionally were taken to bear witness divine approval of the utilise of icons. The ii about famous were the Mandylion of Edessa (where it all the same remained) and the Image of Camuliana from Cappadocia, by and so in Constantinople. The latter was already regarded as a palladium that had won battles and saved Constantinople from the Persian-Avar siege of 626, when the Patriarch paraded it around the walls of the city. Both were images of Christ, and at to the lowest degree in some versions of their stories supposedly made when Christ pressed a cloth to his confront (compare with the afterwards, western Veil of Veronica and Turin shroud). In other versions of the Mandylion's story it joined a number of other images that were believed to have been painted from the life in the New Testament period by Saint Luke or other man painters, over again demonstrating the support of Christ and the Virgin for icons, and the continuity of their utilise in Christianity since its start. Grand. Due east. von Grunebaum has said "The iconoclasm of the eighth and ninth centuries must be viewed as the climax of a movement that had its roots in the spirituality of the Christian concept of the divinity."^[10]

The events of the seventh century, which was a period of major crisis for the Byzantine Empire, formed a catalyst for the expansion of the use of images of the holy and caused a dramatic shift in responses to them. Whether the acheiropoieta were a symptom or cause, the late sixth to eighth centuries witnessed the increasing thinning of the boundary between images not fabricated by human hands, and images made by human easily. Images of Christ, the Theotokos and saints increasingly came to be regarded, as relics, contact relics and acheiropoieta already were, as points of access to the divine. Past praying earlier an image of a holy effigy, the laic's prayers were magnified by proximity to the holy. This change in practise seems to accept been a major and organic development in Christian worship, which responded to the needs of believers to accept admission to divine back up during the insecurities of the seventh century. It was non a change orchestrated or controlled by the Church. Although the Quinisext council did not explicitly state that images should be prayed to, it was a legitimate source of Church building authorisation that stated images of Christ were acceptable as a outcome of his man incarnation. Because Jesus manifested himself as man it was adequate to make images of him just like it was adequate to make images of the saints and other humans.^[eleven] The events which have traditionally been labelled 'Byzantine Iconoclasm' may be seen every bit the efforts of the organised Church and the imperial government to respond to these changes and to endeavour to reassert some institutional control over popular practice.

The rise of Islam in the seventh century had besides caused some consideration of the employ of holy images. Early Islamic belief stressed the impropriety of iconic representation. Before scholarship tried to link Byzantine Iconoclasm directly to Islam by arguing that Byzantine emperors saw the success of the early on Caliphate and decided that Byzantine use of images (as opposed to Islamic aniconism) had angered God. This does non seem entirely plausible however. The use of images had probably been increasing in the years leading up to the outbreak of iconoclasm.^[12] One notable alter came in 695, when Justinian 2 put a full-faced image of Christ on the obverse of his gold coins. The effect on iconoclast opinion is unknown, only the modify certainly caused Caliph Abd al-Malik to break permanently with his previous adoption of Byzantine coin types to start a purely Islamic coinage with lettering merely.^[13] This appears more than similar two opposed camps asserting their positions (pro and anti images) than one empire seeking to imitate the other. More striking is the fact that Islamic iconoclasm rejected whatsoever depictions of living people or animals, not only religious images. Past contrast, Byzantine iconomachy concerned itself just with the question of the holy presence (or lack thereof) of images. Thus, although the rise of Islam may have created an surroundings in which images were at the forefront of intellectual question and debate, Islamic iconoclasm does not seem to have had a directly causal role in the development of the Byzantine image debate; in fact Muslim territories became havens for iconophile refugees.^[fourteen] However, it has been argued that Leo III, considering of his Syrian background, could take been influenced past Islamic beliefs and practises, which could accept inspired his beginning removal of images.^[xv]

The goal of the iconoclasts was^[sixteen] to restore the church building to the strict opposition to images in worship that they believed characterized at the least some parts of the early church. Theologically, 1 attribute of the argue, as with most in Christian theology at the time, revolved around the two natures of Jesus. Iconoclasts believed^[14] that icons could not stand for both the divine and the human natures of the Messiah at the same fourth dimension, but only separately. Because an icon which depicted Jesus equally purely physical would be Nestorianism, and one which showed Him every bit both human and divine would not be able to do then without disruptive the two natures into ane mixed nature, which was Monophysitism, all icons were thus heretical.^[17] Leo Iii did preach a series of sermons in which he drew attention to the excessive behaviour of the iconodules, which Leo III stated was in direct opposition to Mosaic Law equally shown in the Second Commandment.^[eighteen] Withal, no detailed writings setting out iconoclast arguments take survived; we have only brief quotations and references in the writings of the iconodules and the nature of Biblical law in Christianity has always been in dispute.

Sources [edit]

A thorough understanding of the Iconoclast period in Byzantium is complicated by the fact that most of the surviving sources were written by the ultimate victors in the controversy, the iconodules. It is thus difficult to obtain a consummate, objective, balanced, and reliably authentic account of events and various aspects of the controversy.^[19] The menstruation was marked past intensely polarized debate amongst at least the clergy, and both sides came to regard the position of the other as heresy, and accordingly fabricated efforts to destroy the writings of the other side when they had the chance. Leo 3 is said to have ordered the destruction of iconodule texts at the beginning of the controversy, and the records of the final Second Council of Nicaea record that books with missing pages were reported and produced to the council.^[20] Many texts, including works of hagiography and historical writing as well every bit sermons and theological writings, were undoubtedly "improved", fabricated or backdated by partisans, and the difficult and highly technical scholarly process of attempting to appraise the real authors and dates of many surviving texts remains ongoing. Most iconoclastic texts are simply missing, including a proper tape of the council of 754, and the detail of iconoclastic arguments have generally to be reconstructed with difficulty from their vehement rebuttals by iconodules.

Major historical sources for the period include the chronicles of Theophanes the Confessor^[21] and the Patriarch Nikephoros,^[22] both of whom were ardent iconodules. Many historians accept also drawn on hagiography, most notably the Life of St. Stephen the Younger,^[23] which includes a detailed, only highly biased, account of persecutions during the reign of Constantine Five. No account of the catamenia in question written by an iconoclast has been preserved, although certain saints' lives do seem to preserve elements of the iconoclast worldview.^[24]

Major theological sources include the writings of John of Damascus,^[25] Theodore the Studite,^[26] and the Patriarch Nikephoros, all of them iconodules. The theological arguments of the iconoclasts survive only in the class of selective quotations embedded in iconodule documents, about notably the Acts of the 2d Council of Nicaea and the Antirrhetics of Nikephoros.^[27]

The first iconoclast period: 730–787 [edit]

An firsthand precursor of the controversy seems to have been a big submarine volcanic eruption in the summer of 726 in the Aegean Sea betwixt the isle of Thera (modern Santorini) and Therasia, probably causing tsunamis and slap-up loss of life. Many, probably including Leo III,^[28] interpreted this as a judgment on the Empire by God, and decided that utilize of images had been the offense.^[29] ^[30]

The classic account of the beginning of Byzantine Iconoclasm relates that quondam between 726 and 730 the Byzantine Emperor Leo Three the Isaurian ordered the removal of an image of Christ, prominently placed over the Chalke Gate, the ceremonial entrance to the Great Palace of Constantinople, and its replacement with a cross. Fearing that they intended sacrilege, some of those who were assigned to the chore were murdered past a ring of iconodules. Accounts of this event (written significantly subsequently) suggest that at least part of the reason for the removal may have been military machine reversals against the Muslims and the eruption of the volcanic isle of Thera,^[31] which Leo peradventure viewed as evidence of the Wrath of God brought on by prototype veneration in the Church.^[32]

Leo is said to take described mere image veneration as "a arts and crafts of idolatry." He obviously forbade the veneration of religious images in a 730 edict, which did not apply to other forms of art, including the image of the emperor, or religious symbols such every bit the cantankerous. "He saw no need to consult the Church, and he appears to have been surprised by the depth of the popular opposition he encountered".^[33] Germanos I of Constantinople, the iconophile Patriarch of Constantinople, either resigned or was deposed following the ban. Surviving messages Germanos wrote at the fourth dimension say footling of theology. Co-ordinate to Patricia Karlin-Hayter, what worried Germanos was that the ban of icons would prove that the Church had been in error for a long time and therefore play into the easily of Jews and Muslims.^[34]

This interpretation is now in doubtfulness, and the debate and struggle may have initially begun in the provinces rather than in the imperial court. Letters survive written by the Patriarch Germanos in the 720s and 730s concerning Constantine, the bishop of Nakoleia, and Thomas of Klaudioupolis. In both sets of messages (the earlier ones concerning Constantine, the later ones Thomas), Germanos reiterates a pro-image position while lamenting the behavior of his subordinates in the church, who patently had both expressed reservations about paradigm worship. Germanos complains "now whole towns and multitudes of people are in considerable agitation over this affair".^[35] In both cases, efforts to persuade these men of the propriety of prototype veneration had failed and some steps had been taken to remove images from their churches. Significantly, in these messages, Germanos does not threaten his subordinates if they fail to change their beliefs. He does non seem to refer to a factional split in the church, merely rather to an ongoing result of business organisation, and Germanos refers to Emperor Leo Three, ofttimes presented as the original Iconoclast, equally a friend of images. Germanos' concerns are mainly that the actions of Constantine and Thomas should non confuse the laity.

At this stage in the debate, at that place is no articulate bear witness for an imperial involvement in the debate, except that Germanos says he believes that Leo III supports images, leaving a question as to why Leo Three has been presented as the arch-iconoclast of Byzantine history. Almost all of the evidence for the reign of Leo Iii is derived from textual sources, the majority of which post-date his reign considerably, most notably the Life past Stephen the Younger and the Chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor. These important sources are fiercely iconophile and are hostile to the Emperor Constantine V (741–775). Equally Constantine's father, Leo besides became a target. Leo's actual views on icon veneration remain obscure, but in any instance, may not take influenced the initial phase of the debate.

During this initial period, concern on both sides seems to have had footling to exercise with theology and more with practical evidence and effects. There was initially no church council, and no prominent patriarchs or bishops called for the removal or destruction of icons. In the process of destroying or obscuring images, Leo is said to take "confiscated valuable church plate, altar cloths, and reliquaries busy with religious figures",^[33] only he took no severe action against the erstwhile patriarch or iconophile bishops.

In the West, Pope Gregory Three held two synods at Rome and condemned Leo's deportment, and in response, Leo confiscated papal estates in Calabria and Sicily, detaching them besides equally Illyricum from Papal governance and placing them under the governance of the Patriarch of Constantinople.^[36]

Ecumenical councils [edit]

14th-century miniature of the destruction of a church building under the orders of the iconoclast emperor Constantine 5 Copronymus

Leo died in 741, and his son and heir, Constantine 5 (741–775), was personally committed to an anti-paradigm position. Despite his successes every bit an emperor, both militarily and culturally, this has acquired Constantine to be remembered unfavorably by a body of source material that is preoccupied with his opposition to image veneration. For example, Constantine is accused of beingness obsessive in his hostility to images and monks; considering of this he burned monasteries and images and turned churches into stables, according to the surviving iconophile sources.^[37] In 754 Constantine summoned the Council of Hieria in which some 330 to 340 bishops participated and which was the first church council to concern itself primarily with religious imagery. Constantine seems to take been closely involved with the council, and it endorsed an iconoclast position, with 338 assembled bishops declaring, "the unlawful art of painting living creatures blasphemed the key doctrine of our salvation--namely, the Incarnation of Christ, and contradicted the six holy synods. ... If anyone shall endeavor to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with fabric colors which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced past the devil), and does not rather stand for their virtues as living images in himself, etc. ... let him be abomination." This Council claimed to be the legitimate "7th Ecumenical Council",^[38] but its legitimacy is disregarded by both Orthodox and Catholic traditions as no patriarchs or representatives of the five patriarchs were present: Constantinople was vacant while Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria were controlled by Muslims, and Rome did not ship a representative.

The iconoclast Council of Hieria was non the end of the thing, withal. In this menstruation complex theological arguments appeared, both for and against the use of icons. Constantine himself wrote opposing the veneration of images, while John of Damascus, a Syrian monk living outside of Byzantine territory, became a major opponent of iconoclasm through his theological writings.^[39]

It has been suggested that monasteries became surreptitious bastions of icon support, merely this view is controversial. A possible reason for this interpretation is the desire in some historiography on Byzantine Iconoclasm to see it as a preface to the later Protestant Reformation in western Europe, in which monastic establishments suffered impairment and persecution.^{[ commendation needed ]} In opposition to this view, others have suggested that while some monks continued to back up image veneration, many others followed church and imperial policy.^{[ citation needed ]}

The surviving sources accuse Constantine V of moving against monasteries, having relics thrown into the body of water, and stopping the invocation of saints. Monks were forced to parade in the Hippodrome, each hand-in-hand with a woman, in violation of their vows. In 765 St Stephen the Younger was killed, and was later considered a martyr to the Iconophile cause. A number of large monasteries in Constantinople were secularised, and many monks fled to areas beyond effective majestic command on the fringes of the Empire.^[39]

Constantine'southward son, Leo Iv (775–lxxx), was less rigorous, and for a time tried to mediate betwixt the factions. When he died, his wife Irene took power every bit regent for her son, Constantine VI (780–97). Though icon veneration does not seem to have been a major priority for the regency authorities, Irene chosen an ecumenical council a yr after Leo's death, which restored image veneration. This may have been an effort to secure closer and more than cordial relations between Constantinople and Rome.

Irene initiated a new ecumenical council, ultimately chosen the 2nd Council of Nicaea, which first met in Constantinople in 786 but was disrupted past armed forces units faithful to the iconoclast legacy. The council convened again at Nicaea in 787 and reversed the decrees of the previous iconoclast council held at Constantinople and Hieria, and appropriated its title as Seventh Ecumenical Council. Thus there were two councils called the "Seventh Ecumenical Quango," the outset supporting iconoclasm, the second supporting icon veneration.

Unlike the iconoclast council, the iconophile quango included papal representatives, and its decrees were canonical past the papacy. The Orthodox Church considers it to exist the last genuine ecumenical council. Icon veneration lasted through the reign of Empress Irene's successor, Nikephoros I (reigned 802–811), and the 2 cursory reigns after his.

Decree of the Second council of Nicaea [edit]

On October 13, 787 the Second Council of Nicaea decreed that 'venerable and holy images are to exist defended in the holy churches of God, namely the paradigm of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, of our immaculate Lady the Holy Theotokos, and of the angels and all the saints. They are to exist accorded the veneration of award, non indeed the true worship paid to the divine nature alone, only in the same way, as this is accorded to the life-giving cross, the holy gospels, and other sacred offerings' (trans. Toll, The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea [Liverpool 2018], 564-5, abbreviated).

The second iconoclast period: 814–843 [edit]

Emperor Leo V the Armenian instituted a second period of Iconoclasm in 815, again possibly motivated by war machine failures seen as indicators of divine displeasure, and a want to replicate the military success of Constantine Five. The Byzantines had suffered a serial of humiliating defeats at the hands of the Bulgarian Khan Krum, in the form of which emperor Nikephoros I had been killed in battle and emperor Michael I Rangabe had been forced to abdicate.^[40] In June 813, a month earlier the coronation of Leo V, a group of soldiers bankrupt into the imperial mausoleum in the Church building of the Holy Apostles, opened the sarcophagus of Constantine Five, and implored him to return and save the empire.^[41]

Soon after his accession, Leo V began to discuss the possibility of reviving iconoclasm with a variety of people, including priests, monks, and members of the senate. He is reported to have remarked to a group of advisors that:

all the emperors, who took up images and venerated them, met their expiry either in revolt or in war; but those who did not venerate images all died a natural death, remained in power until they died, and were then laid to rest with all honors in the imperial mausoleum in the Church of the Holy Apostles.^[42]

Leo next appointed a "commission" of monks "to expect into the old books" and achieve a determination on the veneration of images. They soon discovered the acts of the Iconoclastic Synod of 754.^[43] A first debate followed betwixt Leo'due south supporters and the clerics who continued to abet the veneration of icons, the latter grouping being led by the Patriarch Nikephoros, which led to no resolution. However, Leo had obviously become convinced by this point of the correctness of the iconoclast position, and had the icon of the Chalke gate, which Leo III is fictitiously claimed to have removed once before, replaced with a cross.^[44] In 815 the revival of iconoclasm was rendered official by a Synod held in the Hagia Sophia.

Leo was succeeded by Michael II, who in an 824 letter to the Carolingian emperor Louis the Pious lamented the appearance of image veneration in the church building and such practices as making icons baptismal godfathers to infants. He confirmed the decrees of the Iconoclast Council of 754.

Michael was succeeded past his son, Theophilus. Theophilus died leaving his wife Theodora regent for his small heir, Michael Iii. Like Irene 50 years before her, Theodora presided over the restoration of icon veneration in 843, on the condition that Theophilus not exist condemned. Since that fourth dimension the get-go Sun of Smashing Lent has been celebrated in the Orthodox Church and in Byzantine Rite Catholicism as the banquet of the "Triumph of Orthodoxy".

Arguments in the struggle over icons [edit]

Iconoclast arguments [edit]

This folio of the Iconodule Chludov Psalter, illustrates the line "They gave me gall to eat; and when I was thirsty they gave me vinegar to drinkable" with a motion-picture show of a soldier offer Christ vinegar on a sponge attached to a pole. Below is a moving picture of the final Iconoclast Patriarch of Constantinople, John Seven rubbing out a painting of Christ with a similar sponge attached to a pole. John is caricatured, here equally on other pages, with untidy straight hair sticking out in all directions, which was meant to portray him as wild and barbaric.

What accounts of iconoclast arguments remain are largely establish in quotations or summaries in iconodule writings. It is thus difficult to reconstruct a balanced view of the popularity or prevalence of iconoclast writings. The major theological arguments, however, remain in evidence considering of the need in iconophile writings to record the positions being refuted. Fence seems to take centred on the validity of the depiction of Jesus, and the validity of images of other figures followed on from this for both sides. The main points of the iconoclast argument were:

Iconoclasm condemned the making of any lifeless image (e.g. painting or statue) that was intended to represent Jesus or one of the saints. The Paradigm of the Definition of the Iconoclastic Conciliabulum held in 754 declared:

"Supported by the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers, nosotros declare unanimously, in the proper noun of the Holy Trinity, that there shall be rejected and removed and cursed one of the Christian Church every likeness which is made out of any material and color whatsoever by the evil art of painters.... If anyone ventures to represent the divine image (χαρακτήρ, kharaktír - grapheme) of the Word afterward the Incarnation with textile colours, he is an adversary of God. .... If anyone shall endeavour to represent the forms of the Saints in lifeless pictures with material colours which are of no value (for this notion is vain and introduced by the devil), and does non rather represent their virtues every bit living images in himself, he is an antagonist of God"^[45]
For iconoclasts, the but real religious epitome must be an exact likeness of the prototype -of the aforementioned substance- which they considered impossible, seeing forest and pigment as empty of spirit and life. Thus for iconoclasts the just true (and permitted) "icon" of Jesus was the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Christ, according to Orthodox and Catholic doctrine.
Whatever true prototype of Jesus must be able to represent both his divine nature (which is impossible considering it cannot be seen nor encompassed) and his human nature (which is possible). Just by making an icon of Jesus, one is separating his human and divine natures, since simply the man can be depicted (separating the natures was considered nestorianism), or else confusing the human and divine natures, considering them one (wedlock of the homo and divine natures was considered monophysitism).
Icon use for religious purposes was viewed as an inappropriate innovation in the Church, and a return to infidel practice.

"Satan misled men, so that they worshipped the creature instead of the Creator. The Law of Moses and the Prophets cooperated to remove this ruin...Merely the previously mentioned demiurge of evil...gradually brought back idolatry nether the appearance of Christianity."^[46]

It was also seen as a difference from aboriginal church tradition, of which there was a written record opposing religious images. The Spanish Synod of Elvira (c. 305) had alleged that "Pictures are non to be placed in churches, so that they do non become objects of worship and adoration",^[47] and some decades later Eusebius of Caesaria may accept written a alphabetic character to Constantia (Emperor Constantine's sister) saying "To describe purely the homo form of Christ before its transformation, on the other hand, is to intermission the commandment of God and to fall into heathen error";^[49] Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis wrote his alphabetic character 51 to John, Bishop of Jerusalem (c. 394) in which he recounted how he tore down an epitome in a church building and admonished the other bishop that such images are "opposed … to our religion",^[50] although the authenticity of this letter has likewise long been disputed, and remains uncertain.^[51] However, equally Christianity increasingly spread amid gentiles with traditions of religious images, and especially after the conversion of Constantine (c. 312), the legalization of Christianity, and, later that century, the establishment of Christianity every bit the state religion of the Roman Empire, many new people came into the new large public churches, which began to be busy with images that certainly drew in part on regal and infidel imagery: "The representations of Christ equally the Almighty Lord on his judgment throne owed something to pictures of Zeus. Portraits of the Mother of God were non wholly contained of a pagan past of venerated mother-goddesses. In the popular mind the saints had come to fill a function that had been played past heroes and deities."^[52]

Iconophile arguments [edit]

The principal theological opponents of iconoclasm were the monks Mansur (John of Damascus), who, living in Muslim territory as counselor to the Caliph of Damascus, was far plenty away from the Byzantine emperor to evade retribution, and Theodore the Studite, abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople.

John declared that he did not worship thing, "just rather the creator of matter." He also declared, "Simply I also venerate the affair through which salvation came to me, every bit if filled with divine energy and grace." He includes in this latter category the ink in which the gospels were written every bit well as the pigment of images, the wood of the Cross, and the torso and blood of Jesus. This stardom betwixt worship and veneration is fundamental in the arguments of the iconophiles.

The iconophile response to iconoclasm included:

Exclamation that the biblical commandment forbidding images of God had been superseded by the incarnation of Jesus, who, being the second person of the Trinity, is God incarnate in visible thing. Therefore, they were non depicting the invisible God, but God as He appeared in the flesh. They were able to adduce the upshot of the incarnation in their favour, whereas the iconoclasts had used the issue of the incarnation against them. They also pointed to other Sometime Testament evidence: God instructed Moses to brand 2 aureate statues of cherubim on the lid of the Ark of the Covenant according to Exodus 25:18–22, and God also told Moses to embroider the pall which separated the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle tent with cherubim Exodus 26:31. Moses was likewise instructed by God to embroider the walls and roofs of the Tabernacle tent with figures of cherubim angels according to Exodus 26:i.
Farther, in their view idols depicted persons without substance or reality while icons depicted real persons. Essentially the statement was that idols were idols considering they represented fake gods, non because they were images. Images of Christ, or of other real people who had lived in the past, could non be idols. This was considered comparable to the Old Testament practice of merely offering burnt sacrifices to God, and not to any other gods.
Regarding the written tradition opposing the making and veneration of images, they asserted that icons were function of unrecorded oral tradition (parádosis, sanctioned in Catholicism and Orthodoxy every bit authoritative in doctrine by reference to Basil the Great, etc.), and pointed to patristic writings approving of icons, such equally those of Asterius of Amasia, who was quoted twice in the tape of the Second Council of Nicaea. What would take been useful evidence from mod fine art history as to the apply of images in Early Christian art was unavailable to iconodules at the fourth dimension.
Much was made of acheiropoieta, icons believed to be of divine origin, and miracles associated with icons. Both Christ and the Theotokos were believed in potent traditions to have sat on different occasions for their portraits to be painted.
Iconophiles farther argued that decisions such as whether icons ought to exist venerated were properly made by the church assembled in quango, not imposed on the church building by an emperor. Thus the argument also involved the result of the proper relationship between church and state. Related to this was the ascertainment that information technology was foolish to deny to God the same honor that was freely given to the homo emperor, since portraits of the emperor were common and the iconoclasts did not oppose them.

Emperors had always intervened in ecclesiastical matters since the time of Constantine I. Every bit Cyril Mango writes, "The legacy of Nicaea, the first universal council of the Church building, was to bind the emperor to something that was non his concern, namely the definition and imposition of orthodoxy, if demand exist by forcefulness." That practise connected from offset to stop of the Iconoclast controversy and across, with some emperors enforcing iconoclasm, and two empresses regent enforcing the re-institution of icon veneration.

In fine art [edit]

The iconoclastic catamenia has drastically reduced the number of survivals of Byzantine fine art from before the period, especially big religious mosaics, which are at present well-nigh exclusively constitute in Italy and Saint Catherine's Monastery in Egypt. Of import works in Thessaloniki were lost in the Dandy Thessaloniki Fire of 1917 and the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922). A large mosaic of a church council in the Imperial Palace was replaced by lively secular scenes, and at that place was no issue with imagery per se. The plain Iconoclastic cross that replaced a figurative epitome in the apse of St Irene'due south is itself an almost unique survival, but careful inspection of some other buildings reveals similar changes. In Nicaea, photographs of the Church of the Dormition, taken before it was destroyed in 1922, evidence that a pre-iconoclasm standing Theotokos was replaced by a large cross, which was itself replaced by the new Theotokos seen in the photographs.^[53] The Image of Camuliana in Constantinople appears to take been destroyed, as mentions of information technology cease.^[54]

Reaction in the West [edit]

The period of Iconoclasm decisively ended the so-called Byzantine Papacy nether which, since the reign of Justinian I two centuries before, the popes in Rome had been initially nominated by, and later just confirmed past, the emperor in Constantinople, and many of them had been Greek-speaking. Past the end of the controversy the pope had approved the creation of a new emperor in the West, and the sometime deference of the Western church to Constantinople had gone. Opposition to icons seems to have had niggling support in the Due west and Rome took a consistently iconodule position.

When the struggles flared up, Pope Gregory II had been pope since 715, not long after accompanying his Syrian predecessor Pope Constantine to Constantinople, where they successfully resolved with Justinian Two the bug arising from the decisions of the Quinisext Council of 692, which no Western prelates had attended. Of the delegation of thirteen Gregory was one of only two non-Eastern; it was to be the concluding visit of a pope to the city until 1969. At that place had already been conflicts with Leo III over his very heavy taxation of areas under Papal jurisdiction.^[thirty]

Meet as well [edit]

Quotations related to Byzantine Iconoclasm at Wikiquote
Aniconism in Christianity
Feast of Orthodoxy
Libri Carolini

Notes [edit]

^ ^a ^b Humphreys, Mike (2021). "Introduction: Contexts, Controversies, and Developing Perspectives". In Humphreys, Mike (ed.). A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm. Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition. Vol. 99. Leiden and Boston: Brill Publishers. pp. i–106. doi:ten.1163/9789004462007_002. ISBN978-90-04-46200-7. ISSN 1871-6377. LCCN 2021033871.
^ Halsall, Paul (2021) [1996]. "Medieval Sourcebook: Iconoclastic Council, 754 – Prototype OF THE DEFINITION OF THE ICONOCLASTIC CONCILIABULUM, HELD IN CONSTANTINOPLE, A.D. 754". Cyberspace History Sourcebooks Projection. New York: Fordham Academy Center for Medieval Studies at the Fordham Academy. Archived from the original on 21 March 2022. Retrieved xi April 2022.
^ Toynbee, Arnold Joseph (1987). A Study of History: Abridgement of volumes VII-Ten. p. 259. ISBN9780195050813.
^ ^a ^b Mango (2002).
^ Schildgen, Brenda Deen (2008). "Devastation: Iconoclasm and the Reformation in Northern Europe". Heritage or Heresy: 39–56. doi:10.1057/9780230613157_3. ISBN978-1-349-37162-iv.
^ Herrin, Judith (2009-09-28). Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire. Princeton University Printing. ISBN978-0-691-14369-nine.
^ Byzantine iconoclasm
^ Brubaker & Haldon (2011), p. 32.
^ Kitzinger (1977), pp. 101 quoted, 85–87, 95–115.
^ von Grunebaum, Grand. E. (Summer 1962). "Byzantine Iconoclasm and the Influence of the Islamic Environment". History of Religions. 2 (i): 1–ten. doi:10.1086/462453. JSTOR 1062034. S2CID 224805830.
^ Wickham, Chris (2010). The Inheritance of Rome. England: Penguin. ISBN978-0140290141.
^ Kitzinger (1977), p. 105.
^ Cormack (1985), pp. 98–106.
^ ^a ^b Gero, Stephen (1974). "Notes On Byzantine Iconoclasm In The Eighth Century". Byzantion. 44 (ane): 36. JSTOR 44170426.
^ Norwich, John Julius (1990). Byzantium The Early Centuries. London: Penguin. p. 354. ISBN0-14-011447-five.
^ "Byzantine Icons". Earth History Encyclopedia. xxx Oct 2019.
^ Mango, Cyril A. (1986). The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312-1453: Sources and Documents. University of Toronto Press. pp. 166. ISBN0802066275.
^ Norwich, John Julius (1990). Byzantium The Early Centuries. London: Penguin. p. 355. ISBN0-14-011447-v.
^ Brubaker & Haldon (2001).
^ Noble (2011), p. 69.
^ C. Mango and R. Scott, trs., The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor (Oxford, 1997).
^ C. Mango, ed. and tr., The short history of Nikephoros (Washington, 1990).
^ M.-F. Auzépy, tr., La vie d'Étienne le jeune par Étienne le Diacre (Aldershot, 1997).
^ I. Ševčenko, "Hagiography in the iconoclast flow," in A. Bryer and J. Herrin, eds., Iconoclasm (Birmingham, 1977), 113–31.
^ A. Louth, tr., 3 treatises on the divine images (Crestwood, 2003).
^ C.P. Roth, tr., On the holy icons (Crestwood, 1981).
^ G.-J. Mondzain, tr., Discours contre les iconoclastes (Paris, 1989), Exodus 20:i-17.
^ Brown, Republic of chad Scott (2012). "Icons and the Starting time of the Isaurian Iconoclasm nether Leo III". Historia: The Alpha Rho Papers. 2: 1–9. Retrieved 31 Oct 2019 – via epubs.utah.edu.
^ Mango (1977), p. one.
^ ^a ^b Beckwith (1979), p. 169.
^ Volcanism on Santorini / eruptive history at decadevolcano.net
^ Co-ordinate to accounts by Patriarch Nikephoros and the chronicler Theophanes
^ ^a ^b Warren Treadgold, A History of the Byzantine State and Society, Stanford University Press, 1997
^ The Oxford History of Byzantium: Iconoclasm, Patricia Karlin-Hayter, Oxford Academy Press, 2002.
^ Mango (1977), pp. two–3.
^ David Knowles – Dimitri Obolensky, "The Christian Centuries: Volume two, The Center Ages", Darton, Longman & Todd, 1969, p. 108-109.
^ Haldon, John (2005). Byzantium A History. Gloucestershire: Tempus. p. 43. ISBN0-7524-3472-1.
^ "Cyberspace History Sourcebooks Project".
^ ^a ^b Cormack (1985).
^ Pratsch (1997), pp. 204–five.
^ Pratsch (1997), p. 210.
^ Scriptor Incertus 349,ane–18, cited past Pratsch (1997, p. 208).
^ Pratsch (1997), pp. 211–12.
^ Pratsch (1997), pp. 216–17.
^ Hefele, Charles Joseph (February 2007). A History of the Councils of the Church: From the Original Documents, to the shut of the Second Council of Nicaea A.D. 787. ISBN9781556352478.
^ Image, Iconoclast Quango at Hieria, 754
^ "Canons of the church council — Elvira (Granada) ca. 309 A.D." John P. Adams. Jan 28, 2010.
^ Gwynn (2007), pp. 227–245.
^ The letter'south text is incomplete, and its authenticity and authorship uncertain.^[48]
^ "Letter 51: Paragraph 9". New Advent.
^ Gwynn (2007), p. 237.
^ Henry Chadwick, The Early Church building (The Penguin History of the Church, 1993), 283.
^ Kitzinger (1977), pp. 104–105.
^ Beckwith (1979), p. 88.

References [edit]

Beckwith, John (1979). Early Christian and Byzantine Art (2nd ed.). Penguin History of Art (now Yale). ISBN0140560335.
Brubaker, L.; Haldon, J. (2001). Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: the sources: an annotated survey. Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies. Vol. 7. Aldershot: Ashgate. ISBN978-0-754-60418-1.
Brubaker, L.; Haldon, J. (2011). Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: A History. Cambridge University Printing. ISBN978-0-521-43093-7.
Cormack, Robin (1985). Writing in Gold, Byzantine Society and its Icons. London: George Philip. ISBN054001085-5.
Gwynn, David (2007). "From Iconoclasm to Arianism: The Construction of Christian Tradition in the Iconoclast Controversy". Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies. 47: 226–251.
Kitzinger, Ernst (1977). Byzantine art in the making: main lines of stylistic development in Mediterranean art, tertiary-seventh century. Faber & Faber. ISBN0571111548. (Us: Cambridge University Press)
Mango, Cyril (1977). "Historical Introduction". In Bryer & Herrin (eds.). Iconoclasm. Centre for Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham. ISBN0704402262.
Mango, Cyril (2002). The Oxford History of Byzantium.
Noble, Thomas F. 10. (2011). Images, Iconoclasm, and the Carolingians. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812202961, ISBN 9780812202960.
Pratsch, T. (1997). Theodoros Studites (759–826): zwischen Dogma und Pragma. Frankfurt am Main.

Ding Thught