駁毀像派 第 1 章 第 11/21 段

But at what, then, is this 'noble fellow' so distressed and vexed? Is it not at those very things by which the matters of the Gospel are made clearer and more manifest to us, and shown to be the Gospel itself in very deed? Having therefore stated that the painters have rightly not learned to paint one single image of the Lord, whereas he ought to have added 'but many,' just as we have set forth and expounded, he does the opposite, and overturns his own arguments at his very feet.

For however this saying might be understood, whether ironically or in some other way, it is found to be contrary to what follows.

For altogether, an argument that negates the one necessarily entails introducing two or even more things set in opposition to it.

But he, as though perplexed over impossibilities, as if no image at all could be painted, is caught contradicting himself when he adds, 'For what image of the Lord are they able to paint? The one at the baptism?' — and whatever other images he then went on to enumerate — in which not even the coherence of thought is preserved.

For how shall one who has not rightly learned to paint a single image, in painting many, justly be considered not to be doing well? But such is falsehood, and such are the lovers of falsehood — darkened in mind, and set in array against both themselves and the truth.

But what indeed does he write after this? 'I am utterly astounded at each one of those who say, \"I possess the likeness-form of the Lord.\"' But while you are astounded at each of these, each of the Christians is far more astounded at you — because, though you know this is done by all, you alone are caught being ungrateful and displeased regarding the common belief.

By now, even he himself confesses that these practices are distinguished by antiquity among Christians, even though the foolish do not obey even their own teachers.

You have vomited forth the venom of your fantasy.

For indeed it is for this reason that he is depicted — because, as you yourself say, he was seen in many ways and variously.

For if he had not been seen, neither would he have been depicted.

The same thing might be asserted also of any other of the many men, as though he himself stood outside human nature, unable to tolerate that a man changes according to times and ages, or differs from himself in temperaments, condition, and alterations, or exchanges one action for another and adapts his manner of life.

'When you were younger, you girded yourself...'

'...but when you grow old, another will gird you.'

Weaving such old-wives'-tale-like and phantom-like little fables also concerning the other disciples of the Savior, he does not blush.

And how his absurdity also appears in another way is easy to perceive.

For having abandoned Christ, the archetype, he foolishly transferred his attention to the images fashioned in color by the painters.

And though it was possible to say that the Jordan, having seen Christ, shuddered, he said 'having seen which it shuddered' — that is, having seen which image.

which the disciples on the mountain could not bear to behold, and likewise the other images he next names.

And though introducing many images, and these fearsome ones, he accepts the reasoning of none of them.

To sum up, then: joining together the two ends of the argument, let us observe its consistency and coherence.

'The painters have rightly not learned to paint a single image of the Lord.'

And what ought they to have learned? To paint many, in every way and altogether.

Then how does he conclude? 'But it is impossible for this to be done rightly' — that is, to paint many.

'For it is impossible,' he says, 'for the Lord to be depicted in an image.'

These things present to us the wisdom and circumspection of 'the great Leontius.'

But let us set aside the deluded and grotesque folly of such trifling, and, having left behind whoever this 'Leontius' is whom they so proudly boast of, let us instead put forward the true and sacred Leontius, who presided over the church of Neapolis on the island of Cyprus — one who both fulfills the doctrine of the Christian, that is, our most upright faith, and conducts his disputation against a Jew concerning the sacred images, directed against those who cling to the opinion of the newly-appeared Jews.

And let the arguments of both sides be brought forward into the midst, so that these men too may know their own shame — that the mindset they advocate is not that of Christians, but of the Christ-slaying Jews and the godless Greeks who from the beginning have contended against Christians, and that the matter for which Christians are accused had never come into doubt among them.

Let Leontius, then, come forward — for it is now time to hearken to their words — boasting something lion-like and majestic, glaring with a fierce look, belching forth a terrible and mighty roar, and let him terrify the crafty fox of the heretics, which dead and stinking doctrines nourish, so that they may sink down into their own dark and lightless caves, and the cunning and perverse spirit of impiety may no longer speak with boldness.

Of Leontius, bishop of Neapolis in Cyprus, from the fifth discourse, on behalf of the apology of the Christians against the Jews, and concerning the images of the saints.

Come now, then, let us make our apology concerning the venerably-depicted images, so that the mouths of the lawless who speak iniquity may be stopped.

For this tradition too belongs to the Law.

And hear God saying to Moses to make two images of golden, carved Cherubim overshadowing the mercy seat.

And again, God showed the temple to Ezekiel.

'Faces,' he said, 'of palm trees and lions and men and Cherubim, from its floor up to the paneling of the roof.' Truly fearsome is the word that commanded Israel not to make any carved thing, nor image, nor likeness of whatever is in heaven and whatever is on earth.

He himself commands Moses to make the carved Cherubic creatures, and shows Ezekiel the temple thus full of carved images and likenesses — of lions, palm trees, and men.

Whence also Solomon, having taken the pattern from the Law, filled the temple with works of bronze, and carved and cast images — of lions and oxen and palm trees and men — and he was not condemned for this by God.

If, then, you wish to condemn me regarding images, condemn God, who commanded these things to be made, that they might serve among us as a remembrance of him.

But those likenesses were not venerated as gods; rather, they served only for remembrance.

Neither among us are the imprints, images, and types of the saints venerated as gods.

...of the icon, they would also have gone on to venerate the rest of the [pieces of] wood as well.

If they venerated the wood as a god, they would not, once its imprint had often been worn smooth, burn the image.

And again: as long as the two pieces of wood of the cross are joined together, I venerate the figure on account of Christ who was crucified on it;

but when they are separated from one another, I throw them away and burn them.

And just as one who receives a command of the emperor and kisses the seal does not honor the clay or the paper or the lead, but renders to the emperor the veneration and the reverence, so too we, the children of the Christians, in venerating the figure of the cross, do not honor the nature of the wood, but, beholding it as a seal and a ring and an imprint of Christ, through it we embrace and venerate him who was crucified on it.

And just as legitimate children of a father who has journeyed away from them for a time, being disposed toward him from the soul with a certain affection, if they should behold his staff in the house, or his throne, or his cloak, embrace these with tears and kisses, honoring not those things but longing for and honoring the father, so too do we, all the faithful, venerate the cross as Christ's staff, and the all-holy tomb as his throne and bed, and the manger and Bethlehem and his other holy dwelling-places as his house, and the apostles and holy martyrs and the rest of the saints as his friends;

and we revere Zion as his city, and again we embrace Nazareth as his region, and we embrace the Jordan as his divine washing-place.

For, out of the great and ineffable affection toward him, wherever he trod, or sat, or appeared, or touched, or in any way overshadowed, we revere and venerate as a place of God — honoring not the place, nor the house, nor the region or the city or the stones, but Christ God, who dwelt and appeared and was made known among them in the flesh, and who freed us from error.

And for this reason we depict in relief and paint Christ and the sufferings of Christ in churches and houses and marketplaces, and in icons and on linen cloths and in chambers and on garments and in every place, so that, continually seeing these things, we may be reminded and not forget, as you forgot the Lord your God.

And just as you, when venerating the book of the Law, do not venerate the nature of the skins and the ink in it, but the words of God laid down in it, so too I, when venerating the icon of Christ, do not venerate the nature of the wood and the colors — far from it! — but, holding the lifeless imprint of Christ, through it I account myself to be holding and venerating Christ.

And just as Jacob, on receiving from his sons the many-colored, blood-stained tunic of Joseph, kissed it with tears and pressed it to his own eyes — doing this not because he loved or honored the garment, but because through it he supposed himself to be kissing Joseph and holding him in his hands — so too all Christians, when holding and kissing with the flesh an icon of Christ or of an apostle or of a martyr, suppose in soul that we are holding and grasping Christ himself or his martyr.

But tell me, you who declare that one must venerate nothing made by hand or created at all — have you not often, upon seeing in your storeroom a tunic or an ornament of your deceased wife or children, taken hold of it, kissed it, and drenched it with tears? And you were not condemned for this;

for you did not venerate the garment as a god, but through the kiss you showed your longing for the one who once wore it, since we too often embrace our own children and fathers, though they are created beings and sinners;

for we do not embrace them as gods, but through the kiss we display our natural affection toward them.

As, indeed, I have often said, it is the intention that is examined in every embrace and in every act of veneration.

...he venerated Joseph by means of the wood, just as we too [venerate] Christ through the cross;

since Abraham also bowed down before the impious men who sold him the tomb, and bent the knee to the ground, yet he did not venerate them as gods;

and again, Jacob blessed Pharaoh, an impious man and idolater, yet he did not bless him as a god;

and again, [Jacob] fell down and did obeisance to Esau, but not as to a god.

Have you seen how many scriptural embraces and acts of veneration we have shown you that carry no condemnation? And you, embracing your own wife every day — even though she may be immodest and passionate — remain beyond reproach, although God nowhere commanded you a bodily embrace of a wife;

but when you see me embracing an icon of Christ or of his all-blameless mother or of some other righteous person, you at once grow indignant, blaspheme, leap back, and call us idolaters.

Then are you not ashamed? Tell me.

Do you not shudder? Do you not tremble? Do you not blush, seeing me every day, throughout the whole inhabited world, tearing down the temples of idols and building up the temples of martyrs? If I venerated idols, why would I honor the martyrs who destroyed the idols? If I honor and glorify wood as gods, how do I honor and glorify the martyrs who destroyed the wooden carved images? If I glorify stones as gods, how do I honor and venerate the martyrs and apostles who smashed and destroyed the stone figures? How do I honor and praise, and raise up temples, and celebrate feasts for the three youths in Babylon who would not venerate the golden image? Truly, great is the callousness of the lawless.

Truly great is the blindness of the Jews, great their shamelessness, great their impiety;

the truth is wronged by them, God is insulted by the tongue of ungrateful Jews.

Demons are often driven out by the relics of martyrs and by icons; and yet defiled men, insulting these things, deface them and seize and break them.

Tell me, how many overshadowings, how many outpourings, and often even flowings of blood have come forth from icons and the relics of martyrs? Yet those senseless in heart, though seeing this, are not persuaded, but reckon these things myths and nonsense — even while seeing thus, daily, throughout almost the whole inhabited world, impious and lawless men, idolaters and murderers, fornicators and robbers, suddenly pierced to the heart on account of Christ and his cross, coming to knowledge, renouncing the whole world, and working every virtue.

How are we idolaters, we who venerate and honor even the very bones, and the dust, and the rags, and the blood, and the coffin of the martyrs, precisely because they refused to sacrifice to the idols? The Jew [says]:

"And how is it that throughout all of Scripture God commands that no created thing be venerated?" The Christian [replies]:

"Are the earth and the mountains creatures of God?" And he said:

"Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at the footstool of his feet, for he is holy"; and again he himself says:

"Heaven is my throne, and earth is the footstool of my feet."

"But not as gods; rather, through them you venerate the one who made them."

Therefore know that I too, through heaven and earth and sea, and through woods and stones and relics and temples and the cross, and through angels and men, and through all creation both visible and invisible, offer the veneration and the reverence to the Creator, Master, and Maker of all alone;

For creation does not venerate the Maker by itself, but through me the heavens declare the glory of God, through me the sun hymns God, through me the moon venerates God, through me the stars glorify God, through me the waters, the rains, the dews — and all creation, through me, venerates and glorifies God.

Thus, O man, the peoples of the Christians, whatever figures of the cross and of icons they may embrace, do not offer reverence to the woods themselves, or the stones, or the gold, or the perishable image, or the reliquary, or the relics, but through them they offer the glory, the embrace, and the reverence to God, who is the maker both of these things and of all things;

for the honor [paid] to his saints returns to him.

How many times have certain persons, after defacing or dishonoring images of the emperor, been condemned to the ultimate punishment, as though they had dishonored the emperor himself and not merely the panel? An icon of God, then, is man, who has come into being according to the image and likeness of God — and especially the righteous man, who has received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, he who honors and venerates the icon of the servants of God venerates the icon of God, and glorifies the house of the Holy Spirit;

"For I will dwell in them," he says, "and walk among them."

Let the Jews be ashamed, who bowed down to kings — both their own and foreign — who were idolaters, if indeed they denounce Christians as idolaters;

but we Christians, in every city and land, arm ourselves against idols, sing psalms against idols, write against idols, and pray against idols and demons;

So how do the Jews call us idolaters? Where now are the sacrifices of sheep and oxen and children that were offered by them to idols? Where are the savory smokes? Where are the altars and the pourings-out of blood? But we Christians do not even know how, or what, an altar or a sacrifice is.

For the Greeks named their temples and idols after adulterous men and murderers and unclean and defiled persons, and deified them; yet they never named a temple or an altar after prophets or holy martyrs.

For just as the Israelites in Babylon had instruments and the harp and certain other things, just as the Babylonians also did — some for the glory of God, some for the service of demons — so too let us think concerning Greek and Christian icons: that theirs were for the worship of the devil, but ours are for the glory of God and for remembrance.

Moreover, God has also caused many wonders to be heard of through wood: naming a tree of life and a tree of knowledge, and naming yet another plant "sabek," that is, of forgiveness, he sets it forth.

Then with a rod he punished Pharaoh, split the sea, sweetened the water, lifted up the serpent.

Through wood he split the rock and brought forth water; by a rod that budded in the tabernacle he confirmed the priesthood of Aaron.

Blessed is the wood through which righteousness comes to pass.

Thus also Elisha, casting a piece of wood into the Jordan, brought up, as it were from Hades, the iron [axe-head] that served as a type of Adam.

Thus he also commands his own servant to raise up, by means of the staff, the son of the Shunammite woman.

God, then, who worked wonders through so many pieces of wood — tell me, is he not able to work wonders through the precious wood of the holy cross? If it is impious to honor bones, how is it that they carried the bones of Joseph out of Egypt with every honor? How did a dead man rise upon touching the bones of Elisha? And if God works wonders through bones, it is quite evident that he can also do so through icons and through stones and through many other things;

since Abraham, too, would not consent to bury the body of Sarah among the tombs of others, but rather in his own tomb, for the sake of honor; since Jacob also honors God by means of a stone, setting it up and anointing it as a type of Christ the chief cornerstone, and again, [set up] a heap of stones concerning Laban, which he named "witness";

Joshua the son of Nun set up twelve stones as a memorial of God.

Since, then, these things are so, how do you charge me concerning icons? But you will say to me that God commanded Moses to make the carved images in the temple — and I say the same;

but Solomon, guided by that [precedent], also fashioned more things in the temple, which neither God commanded him, nor did the tabernacle of testimony possess, nor the temple which Ezekiel saw from God — and Solomon was not condemned for this;

for he fashioned such forms for the glory of God, just as we also do.

You also had, O Jew, other things too, for the remembrance and glory of God: the rod of Moses, the newly-made tablets, the unburned bush, the rock once dry [now] flowing with water, the manna-bearing jar, the ark, the altar, the plate inscribed with the name of God, the ephod that made God manifest, the tabernacle that housed God.

Would that you too had formerly occupied yourself with these, venerating and calling upon the God over all, and had remembered him through these small icons and figures, and had not clung to the calf and the flies above the God-inspired tablets.

Would that you too had longed for the holy and golden altar, and not the heifers of Samaria.

Would that [you had longed for] the budding rod, and not Astarte, who laid your city waste.

Would that you had embraced the God-given, rain-yielding rock, and not the godless Baal.

But it is for this reason that you do not venerate all these things, O Israel of old — because you did not love God with all your heart;

for he who loves his own friend or king, and especially a benefactor, if he should behold his son, or his staff, or his throne, or his crown, or his house, or his servant, holds it and embraces it and, through these, honors the benefactor — and especially God.

Whenever, then, you see Christians venerating the cross, know that they offer the veneration to Christ who was crucified, and not to the wood; since if they revered the nature of the wood, they would certainly also venerate the trees and the groves, just as you, Israel, once venerated these, saying to the tree and to the wood:

"You are my god, and you begot me."

But again, we do not speak thus to the cross, nor to the forms of the saints:

"You are our gods." For they are not our gods, but likenesses and icons of Christ and of his saints, set forth and venerated for the remembrance and honor and adornment of churches;

for he who honors the martyr honors God, and he who venerates his mother offers the honor to him, and he who honors the apostle honors the one who sent him.

Would that you too had made images of Moses and of the prophets, and had, each day, venerated in them God, their Lord and Master, and not the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar.

And how are you not ashamed, rising up against me and exalting yourself concerning the icons, and accusing me of this — that Abraham venerated idolaters, that Moses venerated Jethro the idolater, and Jacob venerated Pharaoh, and Daniel venerated Nebuchadnezzar;

if these men, being prophets and righteous, out of regard for certain benefits, bowed down to the ground before them — men who were idolaters — do you exalt yourself against me for venerating the cross and the imprints of the saints, from which I receive countless good things from God through them? For he who fears the king does not dishonor his son, and he who fears God certainly honors and reveres and venerates, as Son of God, Christ our God, and the figure of his cross, and the imprints of his saints —

And such, then, are the counter-arguments drawn from those who have shared the same name (for I hesitate to say the same person), for the shame of those who deal faithlessly with the house of the spiritual David:

But let us now leave off speaking, so as not to digress from the purpose set before us, of the many kinds of things which other holy men, who fought on the front line for piety, said against Jews and Greeks, and against any other opposing faction of right reason — Anastasios the God-beloved, who presided at Mount Sinai, or rather over the Antiochenes; and John, who administered the high priesthood of the Thessalonians; and Sergios and Moschos, the most devout; and Constantine, the most God-fearing deacon and chartophylax, known as such of the great church in the imperial city;

become manifest to those who diligently search for them.

From here, those of the Jewish party rush on to another quotation, bearing the inscribed name of Theodotos of Galatia, which runs as follows:

We have not received the tradition to fashion the forms of the saints in icons out of material colors; rather, we have been taught to imprint upon ourselves, as it were, living icons of their virtues through what is set forth about them in the Scriptures, being thereby stirred up to a zeal like theirs;

for let those who set up such images say what benefit, then, they derive from these, or to what spiritual contemplation they are led up by the remembrance of them.

But it is quite evident that such a notion is vain, and an invention of diabolical scheming.

What, then, ought to be done in response to these things? One ought straightway to disqualify this Theodotos, and to disregard his statements as foreign to the catholic Church, and not to deem them worthy of any consideration whatsoever, since, when compared with the dialogue recently set forth, he turns out to agree with what was said by the Jew, but appears to be an opponent of what was taught dogmatically by the hierarch;

It is not unclear, then, to those who have understanding, where and among whom he will be classed.

Nevertheless, for the sake of the shamelessness of the impious, we do not shrink back from the argument, but shall respond to the matters set before us as follows:

First, we say that these are not even to be regarded as the offspring of Theodotos of Ancyra; and how this is so, we shall state without delay:

Then, even if this were granted, nothing adverse or reproachful would thereby befall the Church;

for this Theodotos is said to be among those who stand discredited, not among those approved and numbered in the choir of the fathers.

But in order that we too may set forth what seems right to us, as far as the judgment of truth allows us to conjecture, we say the following concerning him:

It is already known to every man that disputed writings are judged by those that are agreed upon, and that spurious texts are tested against the genuine ones.

Now, a festal discourse has been composed by Theodotos of Galatia, having as its subject an encomium to the all-blameless Mother of God and to righteous Symeon, confirmed by its date and judged genuine by those who know his authentic works.

In this work, then, he expounds such things as these concerning the holy Virgin:

'What shall we marvel at? The divine and ineffable birth, or the inexplicable delivery? That which is above reason is not grasped by reason; that which is above conception is not circumscribed by the mind.'

'For even if a painter depicts the mother of the Economy of salvation, yet no word can explain the manner of her bearing him in the womb.'

'Shall we name the one born an infant? But he possesses the Ancient of Days as his originating principle and cause;'

'the intensification overcomes the diminishment, and the uncircumscribed soars above circumscription.'

For what reason, then, have we set forth these words? The enemies of the Savior's Economy have exerted every effort, by means of the term 'uncircumscribed', to establish that Christ can in no way be depicted in an icon, and that his sacred image ought to be destroyed everywhere;

and on this basis a rule has been established for them, which they hold as most ready at hand: namely, that once this icon of Christ is removed from the way, it necessarily follows that the images of the saints must likewise be swept away, and that, together with the one, the many should also be destroyed together.

If, then, Theodotos here clearly proclaims Christ to be circumscribed, and moreover the Virgin who bore him to be depicted — to whom it follows that her own infant should likewise be depicted together with her (and this has rightly been confessed by those who attend to the truth and to the laws of nature, just as it would be evident that he possesses the uncircumscribed together with the Father) — so that he is known to have received the teaching that the rest of the saints too are depicted; and if it is on account of the 'uncircumscribed' that the depiction of Christ in icons is abolished, and by the same token the depiction of the saints as well —

then this man, in proclaiming Christ to be circumscribable, thereby also knows him to be depicted in icons;

and if this is so, he will necessarily be shown also to know that the saints are depicted in icons.

Therefore, if the mind of Theodotos is thus shown to stand, then those things which these men, having fabricated in his name, put forward, are false and foreign to the genuine work of Theodotos at hand;

otherwise he would have run aground into holding and writing things contrary to himself.

For how could it be possible for the same man, in a passage of the encomium, both to accept the painter as one who paints icons, and yet to designate those very same things as inventions of diabolical scheming? And the one great among them, Leontios, insists that it is impossible for Christ to be depicted in an icon, on account of the 'uncircumscribed'.

It would do no harm to examine this very statement itself:

'We have not received the tradition,' he says, 'to fashion the forms of the saints out of material colors.'

But we Christians indeed have received it, as children who inherited it from our fathers of old;

and if indeed you take refuge in claiming not to have received it, and this becomes for you a pretext for outrage against the saints, much more shall we take refuge in having received it, and this is for us the occasion and ground for the honor we show to the saints —

— namely, from the books that have been written down, which recount to us their contests and their valiant deeds —

But if you dwell far off from the piety of Christians, and our customs, institutions, and mysteries are unknown to you, and you remain uninitiated into the honor owed to the saints, then upon your own head be the judgment and the charge of ignorance;

for no prejudice will thereby be incurred by the catholic Church, since we abhor your nonsense as something foreign to us;

for whenever someone speaks falsehood, he speaks out of his own resources, because he is a liar, and his father does not stand in the truth.