駁毀像派 第 1 章 第 10/21 段

look upon my lowliness and save me, for I flee for refuge to you, the almighty.'" And when the blessed one had finished the prayer, he went forth from the tower.

Of the same [author], from the second book:

The catechumen, having received the new garments, came to the blessed Epaphroditus, holding fast the new vestments.

Rising up, then, and going down to the torrent, he fixed the cross and the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ before the water.

For I, Evagrius, having found hewn wood, made upon it [an image of] our Lord Jesus Christ standing upright, according to the command of Pancratius.

And the wood was, in length, about half a cubit, and its breadth about a span, extending upward the length of a hand; and the wood was, in kind, cypress.

And when it had been set up and had been sanctified, the man went down into the water, and having been baptized, came up, saying: "Fire flashed around me."

And he who had gone down had seen this — the Holy Spirit.

And he asked Epaphroditus:

"Whose is this, my lord apostle — this radiant icon?" And the elder [said] to him:

"It is our Lord Jesus Christ's." And as the man said to Epaphroditus: "I saw this icon stretch out its hand and touch me." Further, from the same book:

The great apostle had given to those around Pancratius and Marcianus, as they were being sent forth to the western regions, the whole ecclesiastical furnishing —

a gospel book, apostolic writings, sacred vessels, and two crosses with shafts of cedar wood, the ornament of the church — that is, the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ — and the Old and New Testaments.

These things came to be according to the command of the apostles.

The blessed Pancratius, taking the precious and life-giving cross, and the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ, and that of the blessed apostle Peter, and the full narrative of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ — which things he had also made upon paper tablets together with the icon of the apostle — holding fast these two icons together with the cross, approached Phalco.

And drawing near to the statue, and striking it with his hand, there was nowhere any word, nowhere any breath.

And when he had prayed and adjured the demons, they lifted up the statue and cast it into the sea, thirty stadia away.

The blessed Pancratius, rising up, put on his whole sacred and true vestment together with the double cloak and the entire liturgical order, and sat before [the people] upon the throne, as is fitting for a priest-bishop.

And bringing the precious cross and the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ and that of the blessed apostle Peter, he set them before him.

And thus he received Boniface, the governor of Tauromenia.

And again, that in prayers and psalm-singing, together with the rest of the sacred objects, they set forth the sacred icons before them.

And again he says that, at the destruction of the idol of Lysson and the idols of the Montani, they carried with them these same sacred icons.

And a little later, that when Boniface, the governor of Tauromenia, was about to depart for war, the blessed Pancratius ordained Evagrius as priest, so that he might accompany him.

And bringing the standards which he had made, he instructed Evagrius by letter to make, on the first standard, the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ, and, on the rest, the figure of the precious and life-giving cross.

And setting sail, they put out for Dyrrachium, and having engaged the barbarians positioned there and having conquered them in battle, they took from them captives up to eighty thousand, and much spoil — gold and silver and a vast multitude of chariots.

Such things, and very many others besides, are found recorded in the book of the holy man.

Thus both the divine apostles and their disciples, running to and fro for the preaching, sowing the saving word everywhere, and obscuring the error of idols, arranged the things concerning Christ's sojourn among men both by teaching and by this pictorial narrative alike — since both lead to the same end — so that through both the gospel might run with equal honor.

just as the holy Thomas also is recorded to have done, among whatever nations he made disciples of the gospel — so that this depiction too, being consistent and proper to the word, was handed down.

But if some, still gripped by unbelief and ingratitude concerning divine things, should dispute on account of these accounts — although they are current among many still further — on the ground that certain complete books may perhaps be lacking, let the enemies of the church answer for themselves; among whom it has been a work and a diligent pursuit, both long ago and now, to gather together from everywhere the books in which mention of the icon was contained: those, on the one hand, that happened to belong to strangers and railed against the divine incarnation, to preserve with much eagerness; but those, on the other hand, that were proper to the church and pleaded for our doctrine with their strength, to destroy utterly with all their might.

Some [books] they mutilated by cutting through and scraping away; others they ignobly ruined by deceitfully falsifying and corrupting them in some manner.

These things have become evident to many from many other instances as well; but it would be discovered more plainly still, should one happen somehow to come upon that most ancient book according to which the deeds of the aforementioned hieromartyr Pancratius are recorded — which we ourselves, having beheld with our own eyes utterly defaced, were astonished at the boldness of the impious.

So shamefully and disorderly are the sacred books plotted against by them, that not even an infant child would fail to notice the marks of their deceit.

The things, then, set forth above proclaim to the faithful the divine providence, which indeed, through the manifestation of the Word of God, we have both come to know and have believed and have been enriched by; but to unbelievers it will perhaps appear as some child's play and nonsense.

And this is nothing strange, since the gospel happens to remain veiled among unbelievers, for they have the mist of unbelief darkening their souls.

And the word of the cross is, to those who are perishing, foolishness; but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

Now that these matters have thus been set forth beforehand, let us proceed to examine the citations that follow.

For, secondly, they [the iconoclasts] adduce Asterius, styled bishop of Amasea, speaking thus in the discourse he composed on the Rich Man and Lazarus:

"Do not depict Christ; for the one humility of the embodiment, which he willingly accepted for our sake, suffices for him. But bearing in your soul, intellectually, carry about the bodiless Word."

And these words, indeed, out of the whole treatise, they extracted and set forth alone, as being useful, so they supposed, to their own purpose, passing over the rest — since they did whatever seemed to them agreeable.

But we thought it right to take up the discourse from the beginning and to supply in addition the remaining parts relevant to the subject, so that readers might more readily grasp the writer's mind, and for what purpose indeed he wrote it.

"As many men and women among you who are wealthier and more devout have selected the gospel narrative and handed it over to the weavers — I mean Christ himself, together with all the disciples and each of the wonders, as the account has it (you will see the wedding at Galilee and the water-jars, the paralytic carrying his bed upon his shoulders, the blind man being healed with clay, the sinful woman falling at the feet of the Lord, Lazarus returning from the tomb to life) — and in doing these things they suppose themselves to be acting piously and to be clothing themselves in garments pleasing to God.

But if they will accept my counsel, let them sell off those garments and honor instead the living icons of God.

"Do not depict Christ; for the one humility of the embodiment, which the Lord willingly accepted for our sake, suffices for him. But bearing in your soul, intellectually, carry about the bodiless Word.

Do not have the paralytic on your garments, but seek out the sick man who lies [in his affliction];

do not continually gaze upon the woman with the issue of blood, but rather show mercy to an afflicted widow."

Do not gaze intently upon the sinful woman kneeling before the Lord, but rather, being crushed over your own transgressions, pour out frequent tears.

Do not paint in outline Lazarus being raised from the dead, but prepare a good defense for your own resurrection.

Do not carry about the blind man upon your garment, but console with acts of kindness the living man who has been deprived of his sight.

Do not paint the baskets of the leftover fragments, but feed the hungry.

Do not carry on your garments the water-jars which he filled in Cana of Galilee, but give drink to the thirsty.

And these things stand thus, word for word.

This Asterius, then, insofar as the title of the discourse allows one to understand, does not appear to have as his principal aim either to forbid Christ from being depicted, or that what is depicted should be without veneration.

Rather, his aim in this ethical teaching is set forth to provide for the sustenance of the poor, and to reach the pettiness of the prosperous.

He knows it to be a work (though out of reverence I do not know whether anyone would find fault with those who possess it); and then he calls it "gospel history" — and how is finding fault with this not far removed from Christian piety? Having therefore gone through these things first, as it were in the manner of an encomium, he returns to his own purpose.

Since, then, he directs his discourse to those who are rich in the present life, seeing that some are perhaps madly disposed toward material things, so as even to give trouble to their own weavers and to wear themselves out over this embroidered work of silken fabrics and Sybaritic apparel, he accordingly exhorts them to cut away the excessive and ambitious expense lavished on the costly ostentation of clothing, and not to set great store on the useless possession and splendor of garments, whose glory and comeliness flow away and quickly wither like the flowers of spring alike, but rather to attend to the more precious possession of the soul, and to accomplish this through generous giving to brothers in need, spending here the greatest abundance and wealth of their money.

And these, then, are the things which the present subject professes.

But if one were to attend more carefully, one would find this Asterius somehow rejoicing and delighted at the very appearance of the narrative, in which he especially calls it "gospel" and, as it were, brings the matters before one's sight through his enumeration, and he knows that those who read it become more reverent; nor does he call the depicted things "icons," but simply "the Lord" — most of all in the case of the sinful woman — and "disciples," and "the events of the marriage in Galilee," and the rest of the persons and the wonders performed, which he there enumerated, without any change of name whatsoever or paraphrase.

If, therefore, he were here exhorting only that Christ alone should not be depicted, the argument would have some pretext for its vanity.

But if he forbade, as a matter of counsel, that the disciples too, and the blind man, and the paralytic, and all the other things that are proposed be depicted, who would fail to perceive — even one of the more uncultivated and unlearned — that it is not thereby introduced that Christ absolutely should not be depicted, but that this form of exhortation was devised for the sake of care for the poor; since otherwise it would be necessary that neither the blind man nor the paralytic nor the women nor the water-jars nor the baskets be depicted — if indeed it were permissible to say that men at that time regarded the baskets and the other things, once depicted, as objects of reverence no less than gods.

But no one in his right mind would think this.

For such nonsense belongs only to those who are out of their minds.

Therefore it becomes evident through all this that his discourse is not primarily directed toward the abolition of the sacred images, but toward disregarding the untimely ostentation of garments and their adornment, and toward holding fast to care for the poor.

For he shows himself, as it were, indignant against those who indulge in the excess of adornment of woven fabrics.

Therefore he charges the rich to avoid the excessive ambition of clothing and the love of wealth, and not to place all their zeal upon material and bodily things, but to console and care for those who are of the same image and the same clay and composition as themselves, doing good with much generosity through sympathy and beneficence.

One might see such a form of teaching set forth not in Asterius alone, but already everywhere among all the God-wise leaders of the church.

For it belongs, indeed, to the true guardianship of teachers, and especially for the consolation of the poorer.

One must note, however, that Asterius, in commanding that Christ not be depicted, thereby now introduces himself to us as one who knows very clearly that he is in fact depicted.

For does he do this on the supposition that it is by nature capable of being depicted, or not? That it is by nature capable, no one possessing sense would deny.

For who in his right mind commands someone not to do what does not by nature happen? For instance, no one commands anyone not to fly.

For what reason? Because it is by nature not possible to fly — surely that is clear.

He knew, therefore, altogether, that Christ is depicted.

For this reason he commanded that he not be depicted, as something already possible by nature.

And what by nature does occur, he wished to forbid on account of the aforementioned causes, not on account of Christ's not being capable of being depicted.

But if someone, taking to mean "the single humility of the incarnation suffices for him," should object with this in mind as the cause and ground for Christ's not being depicted, let him know that the manner of humility rather indicates to us that he is to be depicted.

For if the lofty and divine is undepictable, it necessarily follows that the humble and human is granted to be depicted.

But as for what was said by him:

"bearing him intelligibly, the incorporeal one, upon your soul" — this is to be regarded as spoken in a manner of moral exhortation, not as having the force of a denial.

For it is possible to understand him as speaking such things to his fellow citizens, as if saying: "If indeed, on account of the incarnation of Christ," he says, "such labor and anxious care arises in you concerning the costliness and variety of garments, consider him also, at times, as incorporeal — yet not thereby departing from the body (for the incorporeal is present in you too, inasmuch as you image God;

for indeed your mind and soul are not body, even though they are joined and united with the body) — so that you may always bring to remembrance your incorporeal soul, and tend to mind and soul, and keep your reasoning and understanding pure through the keeping of the commandments and through visiting men of like passions with us who are worn out with poverty and stricken with disease, and so that your conduct and life may be guided rightly, and your steps according to God may be enlightened.

And do not lavish everything upon things that are seen bodily and serve for the use of bodily adornment — on account of which I have been compelled to utter these things and to bring forward my discourse to you rather burdensomely." Therefore, "incorporeal" is not to be understood here in the way these men suppose, since, if it were so, he would in truth be shown to be a pure Manichaean, sick with the disease of the Manichaeans, whom they are eager and most ready to follow as teachers.

From all these things, then, he makes himself manifest as to how he believed concerning the incarnation of Christ: that one who knows that, according to his incorporeal nature, Christ is present everywhere, knows also that he is not present bodily.

Whence it also becomes more clearly evident together with this that he holds him to be both circumscribable and depictable, according to what is understood bodily.

In these things it is also possible to discern both the force of the discourse and the intention of the author: how he discoursed rather more elaborately than was necessary, slightly overlooking piety in a minor way, so that by managing these matters he might edify those who, out of abundance, are occupied with the uncertainty of riches, and win over the greater number.

From this, those who falsify everything, seizing upon the phrases "Christ is not to be depicted" and "the incorporeal," have thought to establish thereby the malice of their own transgression.

Since these things have thus been cleared up, those deranged men vainly boast of Asterius.

Let these things, then, standing thus, be shown.

Following upon these, let Asterius again be introduced.

Whether he is another besides the one now in hand, truth alone would know; but we, for our part, shall not differ on this account at all.

But if he is the same man, let them straightway be struck by his own arrows, and be wounded by sharp darts, and receive the slings of the engines that have been devised.

For now let him set aside both the rich and the poor, and likewise wealth and poverty, and all the prosperity and misfortune of this life, and let the veils and pretexts arising therefrom be removed.

But let the right glory of the church be revealed and go forth naked and more transparent, and let it hymn that sacred statue of Christ — how it stands as an advocate of the evangelical proclamation, and as a witness, silent yet unimpeachable, that the Word of God appeared as man like us, and as a self-announcing herald of the miracles, and as a refutation of the unbelief and atheism of Jews and Greeks.

And that divine statue would indeed have remained in its form up to now, had not certain impious and godless men among those who at various times ruled over the Romans, out of hatred toward Christ and zeal against our holy religion, torn it down.

And having been removed from our midst, what has become of it is now unknown to us.

And the same author speaks also of the little woman who set it up — he greatly admiring the woman's excellent gratitude and for what reasons she repays her benefactor — she who commemorated in monument form the healer's miracle concerning the most grievous disease that had befallen her.

Let the passage be set forth verbatim, having it thus:

Let us now, then, learn well of the healed woman's gratitude and the grateful soul with which she received the gift.

For being a citizen of Panias (this is a small town of Palestine), she honored her benefactor with a bronze statue, thinking this a credible tribute for the favor received.

And for a long time the carved image was preserved as an exact refutation of those who dare to attribute falsehood to the evangelists.

For this was the reward of the healing.

With the favor thus crying aloud, how could the healing be denied? And nothing would have prevented the statue from being preserved even to now, and from displaying both things — both the wonder of God and the thank-offering of the woman who had been well treated — were it not that that Maximinus, who ruled the Roman empire a little before Constantine, an idolatrous and impious man, jealous of Christ in the statue, took away only the bronze of the little town, not the memory of what had happened.

For behold, the statue is no longer to be seen, but the Gospel everywhere cries aloud and proclaims it, and the account of the woman with the flow of blood is spoken throughout the whole inhabited world, from the rising of the sun to its setting; and so the theft of the sensible matter turned out to be a vain labor for the impious man.

For the bronze, even while visible and standing, was silent, a lifeless memorial of the wonders; but memory, having taken up the work together with the word, daily runs through cities and villages, proclaiming the benefactor everywhere.

Asterius, then, is manifestly here not forbidding the setting up of memorials of Christ, nor blaming the woman for her action, nor accusing wealth and abundance of money and costly clothing, but rather exalting the matter with praises.

since account has it that she too was among the distinguished and among the wealthiest of the city, for which reason she also erected her own statue alongside the sacred image, publicly declaring both the greatness of the Healer and the faith of the woman healed, and her grateful action.

But if Asterius also somewhere discourses to us, in a manner befitting holiness, concerning the sacred forms of the saints — such as what he expressed concerning the all-lauded martyr Euphemia — let this be set aside for now, but let it be taken up not long after, opportunely, and in its own proper place, when those most hostile to the saints contrive their drunken outrage against the saints.

But if there is one who happens not to have been called upon by these wretched men, let him at least be called upon and set forth by us, since he is the most eminent among the teachers of the church — this is Antipater, who was entrusted with the reins of the priesthood of the Bostrenes; and indeed let him relate, in the discourses he composed concerning the woman with the flow of blood, matters that accord with what has gone before.

These things the woman with the flow of blood said as she took hold of the saving fringe, as one grasping the Lord as king of nature and instructing others in the tyranny of her affliction.

And having obtained the gift, she erected a statue to Christ, having spent her wealth on physicians, and having offered to Christ the remainder of her wealth.

These God-bearing men not only do not forbid the setting up of sacred images of Christ himself and of the saints, but indeed even exhort it, deeming those who set them up worthy of the greatest praises.

For what other praise could there be, than that those who practice virtue and wish to do good should be roused to a similar zeal and make progress toward piety? "For those whose praises I know," said one of the saints, "their advances too I clearly know."

Let Eusebius, called the son of Pamphilus, and who became bishop of Caesarea in Palestine unworthily, be excused by us — even though he knew and recorded more clearly still the matters concerning this sacred statue, since he relates that he himself received it with his own eyes, together with the bronze-work of the woman, which depicted her who had been healed of the incurable affliction.

he is bound to these things, yet he has been severed from what is essential.

From an evil tongue, then, I would not accept a pleasant gift; and the proverbial sayings are not without reason.

Having thus gone through these matters, let us pass on to another of the corrupted citations.

For after these things they bring forward a certain saying of a certain Leontius, containing the following:

And as he was praying, the appearance of his face became like the sun, and his garment flashed with brilliant light.

Rightly have the painters not learned to paint a single image of the Lord.

For what image are they able to paint? The one at the baptism, which the Jordan saw and shuddered? Or the one on the mountain, which Peter and James and John could not bear to behold? Or the one on the cross, which the sun beheld and was darkened? Or the one in the tomb, which the powers below beheld and shuddered? Or the one at the resurrection, which even the disciples, having seen it, did not understand? I am utterly astounded at each one of those who say, 'I possess the likeness-form of the Lord.' Do you wish to possess his likeness-form? Possess it in your soul.

For it is impossible for the Lord to be depicted in an image.

Throughout the whole discourse this man appears to be entirely given over to fantasy, and to be the most approved exemplar of the heresy of the unholy Docetists.

And not least does the conclusion of his discourse clearly reveal its frenzied and maniacal character.

For to say that it is impossible for the Lord to be depicted in an image will in no way differ from those heretics.

For to whom is it not obvious that he has now appeared to us as another Epiphanides, or another Eusebius, glorifying the incomprehensibility in the incarnation of the Lord, from which the wicked doctrine of Docetism is strengthened among them? And if these men agree with the most abominable and most godless followers of Valentinus and Marcion and Manes, as was said by us before, and the one disputing here follows the opinion of those around Epiphanides and Eusebius, it is manifest that he shall be judged to belong to the party of the phantast-heretics.

For indeed Eusebius too, as has been said, writing to the empress Constantia, having come to the passage of the Transfiguration, shows himself not only an Arianizer but also a Manichaean.

This man too, following him in the same way, so that one might, from this single instance at least — I mean, that of the Transfiguration — infer how he disposes of the matters pertaining to the economy of Christ.

What could be more senseless or more foolish? To what degree of folly and insensibility does he not rise, contending so shamelessly and without blushing against the whole world and the whole Church spread from one end of the earth to the other, and against the boundless span of time during which Christ, having become a true man, both is depicted in images and his likeness is venerated by all Christians who know and choose piety? True indeed, then, is what the sacred word says: 'An impious man sets his face shamelessly' — and this though he is a barbarian, and one who has partaken of no liberal education, and knows how to play the barbarian no less than to play the heretic.

These things having thus been stated, it is also necessary to examine the wording itself, to see whether it is found to be consistent with itself.

'Rightly,' he says, 'have the color-painters not learned to paint a single image of the Lord.'

What then do we say? If the painters have rightly not learned to paint a single image of the Lord, then, having learned to paint many, they will be doing it rightly — and I think nothing will be found to oppose this argument.

This is indeed a great encomium of the painters.

For since, through unspeakable mercy and inexpressible love for mankind, the Savior condescended to self-emptying, having sojourned among men, and in many ways arranged the affairs of the divine economy, transacting all things in a manner befitting God for the sake of our salvation...

he came forth in a manner beyond nature from the holy, immaculate virgin mother, as he himself knows, and for our sake became an infant, and became a child, and grew in age — for 'the child,' as the word of the Gospel said, 'grew and became strong in spirit' — and he endured sufferings and performed wonders.

In accordance with these things, then, the painter too, wherever it was fitting, proportionately, employing his art and natural gifts as far as possible, paints in imitation of nature.

And he depicted the Lord as a child together with his mother, just as he was seen.

And he sets him naked at the baptism, bowing his head to the one baptizing him.

And at the divine Transfiguration he blends brighter colors.

And having hung him on the cross, he shows him with corpse-like hues, his head bowed to one side, in a posture resembling that of the dead.

And he beautifully renders the radiant and transfigured aspect at the resurrection and the ascension into the heavens, and likewise the translucent, flower-adorned quality.

And, in short, he depicts each thing exactly as the evangelical proclamation hands it down.

As, then, he has been seen variously both acting and suffering, so also is he now variously depicted.

And if these things are so, then rightly the painters have learned to make not one image, but many.

For indeed they would truly deserve blame, if, amid diverse and varied events, they stood fixed upon a single act, rendering the manifold as simple, unvaried, and single in form — or, again, if they painted otherwise than what was done and seen.

For surely Christ did not always remain at one and the same age. For 'Jesus,' it says, 'advanced in wisdom and age and grace,' nor did he always dwell in the same place, nor did he appear performing only one thing, but many.

For he did these things according to the law of nature, in order to confirm what is human in him, and the truth of the saving economy — not occurring in phantasm and mere appearance, as the impious and unbelieving claim.

It follows, then, both with regard to the ages of his life and with regard to the places in which he dwelt — even if from this some slight variation of appearance was in some way blended in — also to form and depict him in image accordingly.

In this respect, then, the painters are to be praised both for their art and for their natural skill.