Imago Dei: the Byzantine Apologia for Icons

Pelikan, Jaroslav. (2011). Imago Dei: the Byzantine Apologia for Icons. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

 

Introduction

Question: the legitimacy of representational religious art.

Research Aims: “It is the purpose of this book to explore that puzzling circumstance: that a faith which began by attacking the worship of images and by resisting it to the death (as Origen said, and as he went on to prove by his own life and death) eventually embraced such worship and turned prohibition into permission-and permission into command.” (p.2)

 

Chapter 1

The intertwinement of Realpolitik and religion is the background of the Byzantine conflict over icons. (p.9)

The Analysis of sixth-century tapestry Icon of the Virgin.

Question: “what was the relation of these two eternal and heavenly thrones of the Theotokos and of her divine Son to the temporal and earthly thrones on which, in Byzantium, both the emperor and the patriarch were seated?” (p.19)

Byzantine answer: “the Christian throne of empire established by the emperor Constantine I and anchored in Constantinople.” (p.22)

 

Chapter 2

The Iconodules think that the existence of icons is part of the tradition. (p.59)

 

Chapter 3

The Iconoclastic controversy can be seen as the question about the nature and function of religious art and the possibility of a Christian aesthetics. (p.67)

How is possible for the icon of Christ?

A: An image had to be derived from some prototype, but Christ could not be accurately iconized as he is a single divine-human person “without confusion [asynchyton]”. (p.74)

~A: “the Incarnation of Christ as divinity made human did make it possible for Byzantine theology to affirm the validity of aesthetics” (p.77) “The Transfiguration proved that ‘the invisible one had an appearance or likeness, the formless one had a

form, and the measureless one came encompassed within a measure.’” (p.95)

 

Chapter 4 [This chapter talks about sense, such as sight. Very important!]

“…in addition to hearing the voice of the spoken word of God, as faithful believers had done throughout the Old Testament, New Testament believers were in a position to see the flesh of the incarnate Word of God. The ancient priority of hearing in biblical thought, therefore, had now been forced to yield to the priority of seeing, as a consequence of the Incarnation.” (p.99) Christian develops the metaphysics of light. (p.100)

Plato and Aristotle underscore the sense of sight. (p.103)

Iconodules mean they need to recover the significance of sense perception. (p.109)

“The metaphysics of light was especially important as a way of speaking about Christ.” (p.114) the Light (God the Father) and the Effulgence (the Son of God).

 

Chapter 5 [mariology]

“the position that the Mary of orthodoxy came to occupy, in place of the Christ of the Arians: the crown of creation and the supreme created embodiment of human nobility.” (p.129)

 

Chapter 6 [angelology]

How can we “see” angels? How can angels be iconized?

Angelology aims to distinguish angels from God and man. By angelology, Christian (John of Damascus) establishes the six links in the great chain of images: God, beings passing through God (Logos), man, the language of Scripture, type, and icon. (pp.175-182) “…the Iconoclastic rejection of the icons was tantamount to a rejection not only of one link but of the entire chain of images.” (p.182)