On the Divine Images 1 part 3/8

[Saul] tore [the mantle] of Samuel—and what did he suffer? God tore his kingdom from him and gave it to David, the most gentle.

Jezebel persecuted Elijah, and the dogs washed themselves in her blood.

Herod killed John, and becoming worm-eaten, he expired.

And now the blessed Germanus, resplendent in life and word, was struck and sent into exile, and very many other bishops and fathers, whose names we do not know.

Is this not a robber's deed? When the scribes and Pharisees came to the Lord to test Him, that they might trap Him by His word, and asked Him whether it is lawful to give tribute to Caesar, He answered them:

"Bring Me a coin." And when they had brought it, He said:

“Whose image does it bear?” And when they said, “Caesar’s,” he says:

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” We submit to you, O emperor, in the affairs of this life—taxes, levies, payments and receipts—in which our worldly matters have been entrusted to you;

but in the constitution of the Church we have the shepherds who spoke to us the word and who shaped the ordinance of the Church.

We do not remove the everlasting boundaries which our fathers set, but we hold fast the traditions, just as we received them.

For if we begin to demolish the building of the Church even in a small part, little by little the whole will be torn down.

You disparage matter and call it dishonourable.

This the Manichaeans also do; but the divine Scripture proclaims matter to be good:

“And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good.” I therefore confess matter to be God’s creation and good; but you, if you call it evil, either do not confess it to be from God, or you make God the cause of evils.

See, then, what the divine Scripture says concerning matter, which you call dishonourable.

And Moses said to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, saying:

“This is the word which the Lord commanded, saying:

Take from among yourselves an offering to the Lord; everyone whose heart is willing shall bring the firstfruits to the Lord: gold, silver, bronze, blue, purple, double-dyed scarlet woven together, fine twined linen, goats’ hair, rams’ skins dyed red, blue skins, acacia wood, anointing oil, the compound incense, sardius stones, and stones for engraving, for the ephod and for the long robe;

and let every wise-hearted person among you come and make all that the Lord commanded—the tabernacle.” See, then, even the matter which to you is dishonourable is here honoured.

For what is cheaper than goats’ hair and dyes? Are not scarlet, purple, and blue mere dyes? Behold also works of human hands and the likeness of cherubim!

And the tabernacle itself, in its entirety, was an image.

“See,” God says to Moses, “that you make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.” And yet it was venerated round about by all Israel.

And what of the cherubim? Were they not before the people? And the ark, the lampstand, the table, the golden jar, and the rod—did the people not bow down as they looked upon them? I do not venerate matter; I venerate the Creator of matter, who for my sake became matter, took up his dwelling in matter, and through matter worked my salvation.

“For the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” And it is plain to all that flesh is matter and a created thing.

I therefore reverence matter, treat it with respect, and venerate it, since through it my salvation came to be; yet I reverence it not as God, but as filled with divine energy and grace.

Is not the thrice-blessed and thrice-happy wood of the Cross matter? Is not the august and holy mountain, the place of the skull, matter? Is not the life-bearing rock, the holy tomb, the fountain of our resurrection, matter? Are not the ink and the parchment of the Gospels matter? Is not the life-giving table that supplies us the bread of life matter? Are not the gold and silver, from which crosses and holy patens and chalices are made, matter? And before all these—is not the body of my Lord matter,

and blood? Either do away with the reverence and veneration of all these, or yield to the tradition of the Church and allow also the veneration of the images of God and of God’s friends, who are sanctified by the name of God and on that account overshadowed by the grace of the divine Spirit.

If on account of the Law you forbid images, then it is time for you also to keep the Sabbath and to be circumcised—for the Law commands these without exception—and to keep the whole Law and not to celebrate the Lord’s Passover outside Jerusalem (but know that if you keep the Law, Christ profits you nothing); and it is time too for you to take your brother’s wife in marriage and raise up seed for your brother, and not to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land.

“For you who would be justified by the Law have fallen from grace.” We portray Christ the King and Lord without stripping him of his army;

for the army of the Lord are the saints.

Let the earthly king first strip himself of his own army, and then strip his King and Lord of his.

Let him lay aside the purple and the diadem, and then strip away the honour due to those who fought valiantly against the tyrant and reigned over the passions.

For if they shall be heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, and sharers in the divine glory and kingdom, how shall the friends of Christ not also become partakers of glory upon earth? “I no longer call you servants,” says God, “you are my friends.” Shall we then deprive them of the honour given them by the Church? O presumptuous hand!

O daring mind that rises up against God and contends against his commands!

You do not venerate an image? Then neither venerate the Son of God, who is the living image of the invisible God and his unchangeable imprint.

The temple which Solomon built was dedicated with the blood of irrational beasts and adorned with the images of irrational creatures—lions, oxen, palm trees, and pomegranates.

But now the Church is dedicated with the blood of Christ and of his saints, and is adorned with the image of Christ and of his saints.

Either do away with the veneration of all matter, or do not innovate, nor remove the everlasting boundaries which your fathers set—I do not mean those set before the incarnate coming of Christ our God, but those set after his sojourn among us.

For concerning the traditions in the Old Covenant, God, finding fault, says:

“I gave them statutes that were not good, because of their hardness of heart.”

“So that, the priesthood being changed, of necessity a change of the law also took place.”

I venerate the image of Christ as God incarnate; of the Lady of all, the Theotokos, as mother of the Son of God; of the saints as friends of God, who withstood sin unto blood and imitated Christ—who poured out his own blood for them—by pouring out their own blood for his sake, and who lived in his footsteps.

I set down in writing their valiant deeds and their sufferings, since through them I am sanctified and roused to zealous imitation.

And these I treat with reverence and veneration;

for the honour of the image passes over to the prototype, as the divine Basil says.

If you raise temples to the saints of God, raise also their trophies.

Of old, no temple was raised in the name of human beings, nor was the death of the righteous celebrated, but mourned; and whoever touched a corpse was reckoned unclean—even Moses himself.

But now the memorials of the saints are celebrated;

the death of Jacob was mourned, but the death of Stephen is celebrated as a feast.

Therefore either do away with the festal memorials of the saints, which are kept contrary to the old Law, or allow also the images, which you say are contrary to the Law.

But it is impossible not to celebrate the memorials of the saints;

for the choir of the holy apostles and the God-bearing fathers commands that these things be done.

For from the time when God the Word became flesh, made like to us in all things except sin, and was mingled without confusion with our nature, and unchangeably

deified the flesh through the mutual interpenetration—without confusion—of his divinity and his flesh, we have truly been sanctified.

And from the time when the Son of God and God, impassible in his divinity, suffered in the manhood he assumed and paid our debt, pouring out for us a ransom worthy and admirable—for the blood of the Son is moving and worthy of reverence before the Father—we have truly been set free.

And from the time when, having descended into Hades, he proclaimed release to the souls fettered from of old, as to captives, and recovery of sight as to the blind, and having bound the strong one by his surpassing power, he rose again, raising up incorrupt the little body he had taken from us, we have truly been made incorruptible.

And from the time when we were begotten through water and the Spirit, we have truly been adopted as sons and made heirs of God.

From this it is that Paul calls the faithful “saints.”

From this it is that we do not mourn but celebrate the death of the saints.

From this it is that we are not under the Law but under grace, having been justified through faith and knowing only the one true God—for the law is not laid down for the righteous—and we are no longer enslaved to the rudiments of the Law like infants, but, brought to maturity as full-grown men, we are nourished with solid food, not that which leads to idolatry.

Good is the Law, like a lamp shining in a dark place—but only until the day dawns;

and now the morning star has already risen in our hearts, and the living water of the knowledge of God has covered the seas of the nations, and we all have come to know the Lord.

The old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. So the divine Apostle says to Peter, the foremost summit of the apostles:

“If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how can you compel the Gentiles to live as Jews?” And to the Galatians he writes:

“I testify to every man who receives circumcision that he is bound to fulfil the whole Law. Formerly, indeed, not knowing God, we were enslaved to those who by nature are not gods; but now, knowing God—or rather being known by God—how can we turn back again to the weak and beggarly rudiments?” I saw the human form of God, and my soul was saved. I behold an image of God, as Jacob did, though in another manner;

for he saw the immaterial, foretelling what was to be, with the immaterial eyes of the mind; but I behold a kindling of remembrance of him who was seen in the flesh.

The shadow of the apostles, and their handkerchiefs and aprons, drove away diseases and put demons to flight;

and how shall the shadow and the image of the saints not be glorified? Either do away with the veneration of all matter, or do not innovate, nor remove the everlasting boundaries which your fathers set. Not only by writings did they hand down the ordinance of the Church, but also by certain unwritten traditions.

Thus the divine Basil says, in the twenty-seventh of his thirty chapters to Amphilochius on the Holy Spirit, in these very words:

“Of the doctrines and proclamations preserved in the Church, some we hold from the written teaching, and others we have received, handed down to us in a mystery from the tradition of the apostles; and both of these have the same force for piety.”

And no one will gainsay these things—at least no one who has even slightly tasted the ordinances of the Church;

“for if we should attempt to set aside the unwritten customs as not having great force, we should unwittingly do harm to the Gospel in its very vitals.” These are the words of the great Basil.

For whence do we know the holy place of the skull, the tomb of life? Is it not from children receiving it unwritten from their fathers? That the Lord was crucified in the place of the skull and was buried in a tomb which Joseph hewed in the rock is written;

but that these are the very things now venerated, we know from unwritten tradition—and very many things like these.

Whence comes the threefold baptism? Whence the praying toward the East? Whence the tradition of the mysteries? Therefore the divine Apostle Paul also says:

“Therefore, brethren, stand firm and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or

by our letters.” Since, then, so many and so great things have been handed down to the Church unwritten and preserved until now, why do you cavil about the images? As for the proof-texts you bring forward, they do not abhor the veneration of our images, but that of the Greeks who deify them.

Therefore, on account of the absurd practice of the Greeks, we must not do away with our own, which is done piously.

Enchanters and sorcerers utter incantations; the Church too pronounces exorcisms over the catechumens; but those men invoke demons, while she invokes God against demons;

the Greeks dedicate their images to demons and call them gods; but we dedicate ours to the true God, incarnate, and to God’s servants and friends who drive away the hordes of demons.

But if you say that the divine and wondrous Epiphanius expressly forbade these—first, the treatise is perhaps spurious and forged, being the work of one man but bearing the name of another, as many are wont to do.

Second, we know that the blessed Athanasius forbade placing the relics of the saints in coffers, ordering rather that they be covered beneath the earth, since he wished to abolish the absurd custom of the Egyptians, who did not bury their dead beneath the earth but laid them on couches and pallets.

Perhaps the great Epiphanius too, wishing to correct some such thing, laid down that one should not make images—if indeed we grant the treatise to be his at all; for that his aim was not to reject them is witnessed by the church of this same divine Epiphanius, adorned with images down to our own day.

Third, the rare exception is no law for the Church, nor does one swallow make a spring, as both Gregory the Theologian and the truth itself hold;

nor is any single statement able to overturn the tradition of the whole Church, from the ends of the earth to its ends.

And not only by writings did the eyewitnesses and ministers of the word hand down the ecclesiastical ordinance, but also by certain unwritten traditions.

For whence do we know the holy place of the skull? Whence the tomb of life? Is it not as children receiving it unwritten from their fathers? That the Lord was crucified in the place of the skull and buried in a tomb which Joseph hewed in the rock is written;

but that these are the things now venerated, we know from unwritten tradition—and very many things like these.

Whence the threefold baptism, that is, by three immersions? Whence praying toward the East? Whence the veneration of the Cross? Is it not from unwritten tradition? Therefore the divine Apostle Paul also says:

“Therefore, brethren, stand firm and hold the traditions which you were taught, whether by word or by our letter.” Since, then, many things have been handed down to the Church unwritten and preserved until now, why do you cavil about the images? The Manichaeans composed the Gospel according to Thomas;

you too, then, write the Gospel according to Leo!

I do not accept an emperor who tyrannically seizes the priesthood.

Emperors did not receive the authority to bind and to loose.

I know Valens, an emperor called a Christian who yet persecuted the orthodox faith, and Zeno and Anastasius, and Heraclius and Constantine of Sicily, and Bardanes also called Philippicus.

I am not persuaded that the Church should be ordered by imperial canons, but by the patristic traditions, both written and unwritten.

For just as throughout the whole world the Gospel was proclaimed in writing, so throughout the whole world it was handed down unwritten to depict Christ the incarnate God and the saints, just as also to venerate the Cross and to pray standing toward the East.

As for the proof-texts you bring forward, they do not abhor the veneration of our images, but that of the Greeks who deify them.

Therefore, on account of the absurd practice of the Greeks, we must not do away with the Church’s practice, which is done piously.

Enchanters and sorcerers utter incantations; the Church too pronounces exorcisms over the catechumens; but those men invoke

demons, while she invokes God against demons.

The Greeks sacrificed to demons, but Israel too offered to God both blood and the savour of burnt fat;

the Church too offers to God a bloodless sacrifice.

The Greeks dedicated images to demons, but Israel too made images into gods;

“These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” But we set up images to the true God, incarnate, and to God’s servants and friends who drive away the hordes of demons.

But if you say that the blessed Epiphanius plainly forbade the images among us, know that the treatise is forged, someone else having used the name of the divine Epiphanius, as often happens.

For a father does not fight against his fellow-fathers;

for they have all become partakers of the one Holy Spirit;

and his church bears witness, adorned with images, until the wild and savage Leo gnashed his teeth and threw Christ’s flock into turmoil, attempting to give the people of God a turbid draught of subversion to drink.

Receive, then, the throng of scriptural and patristic testimonies; for though Scripture says:

“The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the works of human hands,” yet this does not forbid the veneration of inanimate things or of the works of hands as such, but the veneration of the images of demons.

That the prophets venerated angels and men and kings, and even the ungodly, and a staff, has already been said:

“And venerate the footstool of his feet.” And Isaiah, in the person of God:

“Heaven is my throne,” he says, “and the earth is the footstool of my feet.” And it is plain to all that heaven and earth are created things.

And Moses too, and Aaron with all the people, venerated things made by hands.

Thus Paul, the golden cicada of the Church, says in the Epistle to the Hebrews:

“But Christ, having come as a high priest of the good things to come, through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands—that is, not of this creation,” and again, “For Christ did not enter into holy places made with hands, copies of the true, but into heaven itself.” So that the former holy things, the tabernacle and all that was in it, were made with hands;

and that it was venerated, no one will gainsay.

If the cross and the spear and the reed and the sponge, by which the God-slaying Jews insulted and slew my Lord, I venerate and reverence as causes of salvation, shall I not venerate the images made by the faithful with good intent for the glory and remembrance of the sufferings of Christ? If I venerate the image of the Cross made of whatever matter, shall I not venerate the image of him who was crucified and showed the Cross to be saving? But that I do not venerate the matter is plain;

for when the figure of the cross—say, one made of wood—is destroyed, I commit the wood to the fire; and likewise with the images.

And that the invention of images and their veneration is no novelty, but an ancient tradition of the Church, receive the throng of scriptural and patristic testimonies.

The Lord, in the holy Gospel according to Matthew, says these things, blessing his own disciples, and with them all who walk by their rule and follow in their footsteps:

“But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.

For truly I say to you, that many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.” We too, then, long to see, in so far as it is possible to see;

for we see as in a mirror, and in a riddle, and in the image—and we are blessed.

God himself first made an image and showed images;

for he made man according to the image of God.

And Abraham and Moses and Isaiah, and all the prophets, saw images of God, and not the very essence of God.

The bush was an image of the Mother of God, and as Moses was about to approach it, God said:

“Loose the sandal from your feet;

for the ground on which you stand is holy ground.”

If, then, the ground on which the image of the Theotokos appeared to Moses is holy ground, how much more the image itself? For it is not only holy, but, I dare to say, holy of holies.

The Lord, when the Pharisees asked him:

“Why then did Moses command to give a certificate of divorce and to put away the wife?”—answered:

“Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not so.” And I too say to you: because of the hardness of heart of the sons of Israel, knowing their proneness to idolatry, Moses permitted them not to make images.

for we stand firmly on the rock of faith, having grown rich in the light of the knowledge of God.

Hear what the Lord says:

“Fools and blind! He who swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it; and he who swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it.” And he who swears by the image swears by the image and by the one represented in it.

That the tabernacle and the veil and the ark and the table, and all that was in the tabernacle, were images and types and works of human hands—which were venerated by all Israel—and likewise the carved cherubim made at God’s command, has been sufficiently demonstrated.

“See that you make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.” Hear also the Apostle Paul testifying that Israel venerated things made by hands and images, God himself having commanded this:

“For if he were on earth,” he says, “he would not even be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the Law;

who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, even as Moses was warned when he was about to complete the tabernacle.

‘For see,’ he says, ‘that you make everything according to the pattern shown to you on the mountain.’

But now Christ has obtained a more excellent ministry, by so much as he is the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises.

For if that first covenant had been faultless, no place would have been sought for a second;

for, finding fault with them, he says:

‘Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will complete a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah—

not according to the covenant which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt.’ And, a little later, in saying ‘new,’ he has made the first old;

and what is becoming old and aging is near to vanishing away.”

Now the first tabernacle had ordinances of worship and an earthly sanctuary;

for the first tabernacle was prepared, in which were the lampstand and the table and the presentation of the loaves, which is called the Holy Place;

and behind the second veil was the tabernacle called the Holy of Holies, having a golden altar of incense and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold, in which were a golden jar holding the manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant;

and above it the cherubim of glory overshadowing the mercy seat. And again: “For Christ did not enter into holy places made with hands, copies of the true, but into heaven itself.” And after other words: “For the Law, having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the realities.” See, then, that the Law and all that pertains to it, and all our worship, are holy things made with hands, leading us through matter to the immaterial God; and the Law and all under the Law were a kind of shadow-sketch of the image to come, that is, of our worship, while our worship is an image of the good things to come, and the realities themselves are the Jerusalem above, immaterial and not made with hands, as the same divine Apostle says:

“For here we have no abiding city, but we seek the one to come,” which is the Jerusalem above, “whose builder and maker is God.” For all things, both under the Law and in our worship, came to be for the sake of that city.

To him be glory unto the ages.

Where in the Old Covenant or in the Gospel did you find the name “Trinity,” or “consubstantial,” or “one nature of the Godhead” in so many words, or “three hypostases” verbatim, or “one hypostasis of Christ,” or “two natures” verbatim? Yet nonetheless, since from the equivalent expressions lying in Scripture the holy fathers defined these things, we accept them, and we anathematize those who do not accept them.

But I show you in the Old Covenant that God commanded images to be made—first the tabernacle itself and all that was in it.

And in the Gospels the Lord himself, to those who asked him by way of testing whether it was lawful to give tribute to Caesar, said:

And they showed him a denarius.

“Whose image does it bear?” And they said:

“Render to Caesar the things of Caesar, and to God the things of God.” Since it bears the image of Caesar, it is Caesar’s; so render it to Caesar.

And the image of Christ—render to Christ;

The Lord, blessing the disciples, said:

“Many kings and prophets desired to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it.

But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.” The apostles, then, saw Christ bodily, and his sufferings and his miracles, and heard his words;

we too desire to see and to hear and to be blessed.

They saw him face to face, since he was present bodily;

but we, since he is not present bodily, just as we hear his words through books and sanctify our hearing, and through it our soul, and are blessed, and venerate the books by honouring them, through which we hear his words—so also through the painting of images we behold the imprint of his bodily form and of his miracles and his sufferings, and we are sanctified and fully assured and rejoice and are blessed, and we reverence and honour and venerate his bodily form.

And beholding his bodily form, we conceive, so far as we can, also the glory of his divinity;

for since we are twofold, composed of soul and body, and our soul is not naked but veiled as under a covering, it is impossible for us to come to spiritual things apart from bodily ones.

Just as, then, through sensible words we hear with bodily ears and understand spiritual things, so also through bodily contemplation we come to spiritual contemplation.

For this reason Christ assumed both body and soul, since man has body and soul;

for this reason too baptism is twofold, of water and Spirit; and the communion and the prayer and the psalmody—all are twofold, bodily and spiritual—and lights and incense.

But, letting all else alone, the devil set himself against the images;

and so great is his envy against the images that, as is written in the Spiritual Meadow of the holy Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem, in these words:

Abba Theodore the Aeliote said that there was a certain ascetic recluse on the Mount of Olives;

and the demon of fornication warred against him grievously.

One day, then, as it pressed upon him fiercely, the old man began to lament and to say to the demon:

“How long will you not let me be? Depart from me at last; you have grown old together with me!” The demon appeared to him visibly, saying: