ICONS, IDOLATRY AND THE DANGER OF ACCESSIBILITY: REVISITING THE

THEMES OF THE ICONOCLAST CONTROVERSY AGAINST THE FIXED

CULTURAL IMAGES OF CHRIST

By Brian S. Powers
Copyright © 2012 Brian S. Powers

Introduction

The charge of idolatry has often sobered the Christian understanding of the capacity of

matter to mediate the divine presence. The mystery of the incarnation highlights the difficult

balance the Christian tradition has maintained in simultaneously upholding the ultimate

transcendence of God and the immanent presence of God, fully and materially, in the person

of Jesus of Nazareth. We come to know the unknowable God through the hypostatic union of

Christ, as through our encounters with the human Jesus of Nazareth we encounter God.

Christological arguments underscore nearly all of the major theological debates from

Chalcedon to the Reformation about the presence of God in relation to material. This is

certainly the case with the Iconographic controversy in the eighth and ninth centuries, which

saw iconoclasts charging iconodules of idolatrously venerating created matter in the icon.

During the controversy, one facet of the iconoclast charge of idolatry involved the

inability of an image to properly depict Christ after the resurrection. Their arguments hinged

on the text of 2 Cor 5:16 “even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we

know him no longer in that way.”1 This critique is particularly salient today, as differences in

race, ethnicity and culture result in radically varying depictions of Christ and fix his image in

trappings that reflect a particular instantiation. At the heart of the iconoclast critique is the

concern that in depicting the image of Christ as human and knowable we familiarize and

domesticate the figure that we can “know no longer in that way.” The substantial danger here
1
2 Corinthians 5:16 (NRSV).
is that we so subsume the image of Christ into our own that we no longer envision him

confronting us in unfamiliar ways and calling us out of our own presuppositions and static

worldviews. Christ loses any identity of “other,” and the consequence is a fall into stagnant

worship that at best simply fails to recognize opportunities to engage with God’s activity in

the world in powerful and transforming ways and at worst becomes an oppressive and rigid

dogmatism that excludes others that differ from our conception of Christ and lends itself in

support of their subjugation. Regarding iconography and icon veneration, the key question

becomes “Do icons possess a greater inherent danger of falling into this form of idolatry, and

if so, how?”

In seeking to explore this question, I will engage in a conversation that will challenge

the underlying theological foundation of icon veneration as articulated by Theodore the

Studite using the post-resurrection iconoclastic critique described above. Writing in a

relatively late stage in the controversy, Theodore, in On the Holy Icons,2 argues that in the

image of Christ in the icon, his hypostasis is exhibited such that it is not improper to say “this

is Christ” when venerating his icon. In this paper, I will first examine this “high” conception

of the capacity of matter to mediate the divine presence in this hypostatically similar way,

focusing on the understanding of exactly how the divine presence is mediated through the

image. I will then explore how Rowan Williams problematizes this theology in his

articulation of the “strangeness” of the risen Christ. I will then anticipate an iconodule

response through the theological lens provided by Theodore, as well as 20th century Orthodox

theologians Leonid Ouspensky and Pavel Florensky. I will then offer a final argument that

focuses on the equality of sight and hearing as mediums of revelation.

2
Theodore the Studite, On the Holy Icons, trans. Catherine Roth (Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1981).
Theodore and the Shared Hypostatic Identity

The foundation of Theodore’s conception of the hypostatic presence of Christ in an

icon is his understanding of hypostatic properties as the unique features of a person that make

her or him ultimately knowable. A primary iconoclastic charge against icon veneration had

emerged by the time of Theodore: we cannot depict any hypostasis because the matter

inherent in human nature obscures the hypostasis or prevents access to it. In order to counter

this claim, Theodore builds a Christological argument that parses out the relation and

distinction between nature and hypostasis and argues for the “knowability” of persons based

on the hypostatic properties they possess. He then moves to demonstrate how these properties

can be portrayed in a manner that connects the image to the prototype in hypostatic likeness.

Theodore’s attention to precision in definitions of these terms is critical in his eventual move

to describe the linkage in identity between Christ and icon.

Nature and Hypostasis, Icon and Prototype

Theodore argues that if Christ is fully human, then he must be circumscribable. He

turns the Chalcedonian argument back upon the Iconoclasts (who argued that iconodules had

to either divide or confuse the natures of Christ to argue for his circumscribability), arguing

that if Christ is fully human, then he is by nature circumscribable. To deny this is to eliminate

a key property of his human nature and thus fall into an Apollinarian docetism – depriving

Christ of a key aspect of human nature.3 The properties of both natures, human and divine,

3
Theodore, On the Holy Icons, 86.
have to be preserved in Christ. Theodore argues that one property of human nature is that

human beings are circumscribable, and Theodore employs several key characteristics of

circumscribability in order to argue this. Primarily, these are concerned with being “subject

to bodily sight ”4 and suffering,5 although he also discusses being subject to touch, having a

firm surface, and being present in a particular location (to the exclusion of simultaneous

presence elsewhere) as criteria.6 If Christ is, as the iconoclasts would argue,

uncircumscribable as a man, then by definition he would be intangible and formless, not

visible, touchable, able to suffer or be present uniquely in space and time at a singular

location. To affirm that Christ had a form, was visible and suffered is to affirm that he is

circumscribable.7

Yet Theodore does not lean heavily on the Chalcedonian formula to make his case.

The key point is that Christ’s circumscribability does not simply derive from the necessity of

his human nature, but from the particularity of his hypostasis – his personhood. He affirms

that Christ not only assumed human nature but necessarily did so in an individual manner, as

to be human in generality alone is impossible – the nature must be instantiated and subsist in a

particular individuality. Given this, he argues that there are particular properties to individual

hypostases that differentiate one person from another. In the Trinity, Theodore argues, the

Son is differentiated from the Father and the Spirit through hypostatic properties unique to

each of the three persons. The unique hypostasis of the Word “hypostasizes” the human

4
Ibid., 46.
5
Ibid., 79.
6
Ibid., 95.
7
Ibid., 81.
nature of Christ with individual, personal properties that compose his particular instantiation

as an individual human being.8

It is these differentiable properties that we discern in human beings and which in fact

make Christ depictable. The point of entry for depicting or knowing a human being is not

human nature in general, Theodore argues, “for example, Peter is not portrayed insofar as he

is animate, rational, mortal, and capable of thought and understanding; for this does not define

Peter only, but…all those of the same species.”9 Rather, it is the particular instantiation of the

nature in an individual who possesses specific personal properties that distinguish him or her

from others, “such as a long or short nose, curly hair, a good complexion, bright eyes, or

whatever else characterizes his particular appearance.”10 Thus, it is not that Christ is “man

simply that He is able to be portrayed,”11 but rather that he is differentiated from all other

human beings through His uniquely personal properties.

Theodore thus argues that these hypostatic properties indeed disclose the very person

(hypostasis), in that they are unique to the individual and differentiate him or her from other

human beings. Thus what we can know through these properties and depict by means of them

is indeed the hypostasis, and not human nature in general. In other words, Christ is

circumscribable in his hypostasis, but “the natures of which he is composed are not

circumscribed.”12 Human nature, as a general abstraction, is thus also uncircumscribable in

essence, but individual human persons (hypostases) are; thus we can depict both Christ and

the saints in images.

8
Ibid., 86.
9
Ibid., 90.
10
Ibid.
11
Ibid., 91.
12
Ibid.
 Using this Christological reference point of depictability, Theodore seeks to

demonstrate that the veneration of icons is proper by more sharply delineating what an image

is. Since Christ is human in an individual manifestation of human nature distinguished from

other human beings through hypostatic properties, then like the rest of humanity, he has an

artificial image. He distinguishes sharply between a natural image, which shares the nature of

its prototype, and the artificial image, which shares the likeness of its prototype.13 Whereas

the Son then is identical “in both essence and in likeness14…with His Father in respect to

divinity,”15 as an individually hypostasized human being, he has an artificial image with

which he shares a physical personal characteristics. By contrasting an artificial image with a

natural one, Theodore can thus differentiate between categories of images that deserve

different levels of veneration based on what is due to their prototype and establish how

specifically Christ is venerated in his icon.

Hypostatic Likeness in Icon

This understanding of Christ’s circumscribability and the distinction between natural

and artificial image enable Theodore to make his pivotal claim that what is shared between

the image of Christ and Christ himself as prototype of the image is an identity. It is the shared

hypostatic likeness that links the two and provides the defining material notion of mediation:

“the prototype is in the image the similarity of hypostasis, which does not have a different

13
Ibid., 99.
14
It should be noted that in this section (3.c.1), Theodore’s usage of the term “likeness” becomes inconsistent
and somewhat obscure. In this phrasing, he is seemingly using it to differentiate between how the Son is one
with the Father, and how the image is similar to the prototype. The primary issue with the usage is that
previously, it is almost always linked with hypostatic likeness, which cannot be the context here as the hypostatic
difference is precisely what differentiates the respective persons of the Trinity. In this phrase, Theodore seems
to equate “likeness” with “identity” or perhaps “image,” but the exact meaning is difficult to discern, as his
relatively precise terminology tends to encounter some difficulties when applied to Trinitarian relations.
15
Ibid., 100.
principle of definition for the prototype and the image.”16 The hypostasis that can be

identified in the image is the same hypostasis that is identified as Christ. Theodore is careful

to note the difference in shared identity and essential equivalence, however, stating “the

image lacks equality with the prototype and has an inferior glory…in respect to its different

essence.”17 While the prototype and image never change into one another, they are unified

and in fact are “one in hypostatic likeness.”18 Theodore binds the image and prototype so

closely together that he states that the two “are understood and subsist together.”19 Before an

image is even produced, he argues, the image subsists “in potential”20 in the prototype. The

two are so intimately bound together in identity that to deny the existence (and thus the

hypostatic properties) of the image is to deny the prototype. In the material icon, then, what

we see is the hypostasis of Christ manifested to us in the image, and it can be said of the

image that “this is Christ.”21

On this basis, Theodore argues that the veneration of icons is not idolatrous, as what is

venerated is the very hypostasis of Christ, present in the icon. He thus states “even though

His bodily image is represented in matter, yet it is inseparable from Christ…we do not

venerate the material of the image, but Christ who is portrayed in it.”22 The connection with

veneration and proper worship is thus straightforward: “The image of Christ is nothing else

but Christ, except obviously for the difference of essence….It follows that the veneration of

the image is veneration of Christ. The material of the image is not venerated at all, but only

16
Ibid., 103.
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid., 108.
19
Ibid., 110.
20
Ibid.
21
Ibid., 57.
22
Ibid., 108.
Christ who has His likeness in it.”23 For Theodore, the presence of Christ hypostatically in

the icon takes the veneration issue from a peripheral concern to the very heart of worship. As

a human being,24 Christ is a prototype and has an artificial image. The image and prototype

exist together and “have their being”25 in each other; the existence of either is necessarily and

ontologically dependent on the other. Since it is the hypostatic properties, the personal

physical characteristics that differentiate Christ from Peter or John or Mary, that make Christ

circumscribable and make up his image, then by correlation, to deny that the image of Christ

is Christ, for Theodore, is to deny the humanity of Christ. Theodore does not simply argue,

then, that worship of icons is beneficial, but given the strong relation between image and

Christ, he argues that the “veneration of Christ is destroyed”26 by those who do not venerate

Christ in the icon. It is to refuse to know Christ as he is made known to us through his

personal characteristics.

Accessibility and Transcendence

Material in Theodore’s schema then enables us to see and encounter the hypostasis of

Christ in the icon. The material itself possesses no intrinsic value, even after it is imprinted27

with the image and becomes an icon. Its vitality and importance is in the exhibition of Christ

(and more properly, Christ’s hypostasis through the personal properties that make him

knowable) that the material makes possible through the icon. Christ is accessible in the icon

and in so far as we can know another human being individually through the characteristics
23
Ibid., 107.
24
And perhaps more properly as regards the definition of “artifical image,” as a creature.
25
Theodore, On the Holy Icons, 110.
26
Ibid.
27
Theodore upholds an important distinction between “made into” and “imprinted,” as the image exists in the
prototype in potentiality whether it is imprinted into/onto material or not. Nothing is “made into” the image, as it
exists independent of matter.
that make her or him distinctive. It is this conception of the accessibility of Christ in the icon

that bears the most significant theological ramifications. From here on, I will turn to examine

how icons exhibit Christ and thus make him accessible. The critiques I offer are essentially

reformulations of the iconoclast concern that the transcendence of God is not fully preserved

through the theological conception of icon veneration.

The Challenge: Encountering Christ as Stranger

Anglican theologian Rowan Williams argues repeatedly in his theological works that

one of the largest pitfalls of Christian theology is its inability to resist absolutizing a truth

claim. He is often critical of a tradition that confuses its limited perspective with an total one,

or that in his words, refuses to decline “the attempt to take God’s point of view.”28 This

overall view works itself out in a very particular way in his writing on the resurrection. He

argues that there is a distinct difference in “knowability” between the Christ who was

crucified at Golgotha and the risen Christ encountered by Mary and the disciples after the

resurrection. In Resurrection, he states, “The Christ who travels towards Jerusalem and

suffers there can be made into a familiar. The risen Christ is something suddenly

unknown.”29 In support of his argument, Williams marshals three scriptural passages that all

highlight the inability of Christ’s closest followers to recognize him even in close physical

encounters: Mary initially thinks Jesus the gardener in John 20: 1-18, Cleopas and his

companion speak with Jesus at length as they walk with him yet do not recognize him as such

in Luke 24: 13-35, and Jesus appearance to Peter and the fishing disciples in John 21: 1-19.

28
Rowan Williams, On Christian Theology (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000), 6.
29
Rowan Williams, Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1982), 68.
Williams argues that a strange feature of these narratives is “precisely this theme of otherness,”

and most saliently, “the unrecognizability, of the risen Jesus.”30

Underneath Williams’ point regarding the “unrecognizability” of the risen Christ is a

substantial theological concern: that we identity too readily with Christ and his presence

thereby becomes domesticated. Conversion and transformation are events that take us from

the “destructively familiar to the creatively strange.”31 The unfamiliarity of the risen Christ

shifts the locus of our expectation and calls us into a larger, less self-subsumed world: “The

Lordship of Jesus is not constructed from a recollection but experienced in the encounter with

one who evades our surface desires and surface needs, and will not subserve the requirements

of our private dramas.”32 The Christ who is too familiar will become a Christ that is

appropriated to serve our own agendas rather than a stranger that forces us to recalibrate our

worldview in calling us to serve his. Here, then, Williams essentially provides a detailed

outworking of a more fundamental concern about idolatry that at its core mirrors the initial

iconoclastic critique that introduced this paper. If Christ is too knowable, then Christ

becomes one of us, subsumed underneath our own cares, answering our questions on our

terms, and the transcendence of God and God’s identity as “other” is dissolved in celebration

of God’s immanence. The eschatological vision of a new world collapses into a justification

of our own; if Jesus is too fixed, so is our capacity to follow him into a world continually

strange and new.

This concern of Williams’ manifests itself most saliently in terms of our very memory

of the person of Jesus Christ. He contends that holding the features of the Jesus that we knew

30
Williams, Resurrection, 75.
31
Ibid., 69.
32
Ibid., 76.
and understood and appropriated as normative is itself idolatrous: “Jesus as risen is a Jesus

who cannot be contained in the limits of a past human life; the corollary of this is that Jesus as

risen cannot be contained in the legitimating and supporting memory of a community.”33 The

features that made Jesus knowable before the Resurrection, then, do not describe Christ in a

way that is proper to the person that he now is. To say “this is Christ” to the image composed

of the physical features that the disciples knew in their companion and friend is to speak at

best a partial truth. Following Williams’ argument, it would be more proper to say that “this

was Christ,” for Christ in the resurrection has transcended what we previously understood

Christ to be. However much our tradition and community “memory” can conceive of Christ

and pass on this image, we cannot then say that Christ is fully “knowable.” In fact, the

community and tradition themselves do not possess the capacity to pass on this expansive and

“unposessable” truth and thus cannot be trusted to do so. However we conceive of him, we

remain unable to fully grasp and fix upon the reality of the risen Christ.

An understanding of the risen Christ as “unknowable”34 stands in tension with

Theodore’s argument that the hypostatic, personal properties of Christ can truly represent and

exhibit his hypostasis in an icon. To come to know these features as we would come to know

images of our friends and family (or as repeatedly brought up as an example for Theodore, the

Emperor) lends itself to a certain familiarity; it fixes and crystallizes our image of who we

understand Christ to be. As Williams rightly argues, this very understanding is what an

encounter with the risen Christ shatters. The primary question then becomes: “Can the icon

33
Ibid., 74.
34
I employ this word in the logical sense that if Christ cannot be fully known after the resurrection, he must be
logically “unknowable.” It is not to suggest that here Christ becomes fully transcendent and a complete enigma,
but rather that if something cannot be fully grasped, understood and known, but remains always slightly beyond
our understanding, it must be “unknowable.”
veneration and its supporting theology properly account for the “strangeness” of the risen

Christ, or does it fix Christ’s personal properties too statically in the image present in the

icon?”

Icons and the Fixing of Hypostatic Properties

My initial argument is that Theodore’s conception of the “knowability” of Christ gives

insufficient attention to his eschatological “otherness” after the resurrection and this

insufficiency is reflected in a fixed, static understanding of Christ’s image. In order to argue

this point, I will examine two linchpins in Theodore’s argument that Christ is ultimately

depictable and that his image shares an equality of identity with Christ as Prototype. First, we

must examine Theodore’s foundational conception that if Christ is human, then he must have

an image that exhibits his hypostasis through the confluence of personal characteristics that

differentiate him from other humans. Then we must examine Theodore’s argument regarding

the relation of icon and prototype to ask the question whether there is room for an

eschatologically dynamic notion of image that can convey the “strange” nature of Christ’s

identity post-resurrection.

Theodore argues that to say that Christ does not have an image is to deny his humanity,

as all creaturely things have an artificial image. Theodore’s conception of Christ’s

individually unique humanity is predicated on the fact that as a human being, he has particular

properties – facial features, hair color, eye color, etc. that differentiate him from other human

beings, comprise his artificial image and make him ultimately knowable. The problem with

this conception of Christ’s humanity is precisely what Williams has pointed out – it accounts

for Christ before the crucifixion, not after the resurrection when the gospel narratives suggest
his appearance is less recognizable and the person of Christ less knowable. Yet if Theodore’s

point is taken seriously, then to make a way forward, we must contend with the issue of

Christ’s humanity post-resurrection. If the risen Christ has become strange, and has become

truly “other,” than what does this imply about Christ’s humanity?

In light of Williams’ argument, it can be argued that Theodore’s conception of

Christ’s humanity lacks a proper eschatological dimension. Recognizing this dimension lies

in conceiving of Christ’s incarnation as the “second Adam”35 as identifying with humanity not

simply as we are, but demonstrating in the resurrection what we eschatologically will be. If

Christ at this point is “imperishable,”36 no longer mortal37 and therefore cannot suffer (one of

Theodore’s tenets of humanity and circumscribability) then must be said that after the

resurrection, Christ is still human, but not as we are human but as we will be human. This is

not to suggest a complete discontinuity – the risen Christ possesses the same body as the

crucified Christ, as the “doubting Thomas” narrative in John suggests.38 Yet as the post-

resurrection encounters with Mary, Cleopas and Peter testify, it cannot be denied that here

Christ’s body and indeed his very hypostatic properties are somehow different in a way that

prevents him from being easily recognized from his personal features. Theodore argued that

if Christ is not knowable, he is not human and we fall into the error of Docetism. To turn

Theodore’s argument back upon him, it could be said that to make Christ ultimately knowable

in his humanity is to deny the resurrection of Christ and its eschatological vision of humanity.

It is difficult, then to conceive of a way in which the image of Christ comprised of his

35
1 Corinthians 15:47.
36
1 Corinthians 15:53 (NRSV).
37
Ibid.
38
John 20: 24-29.
personal physical features can fully represent the post-resurrection change and its seeming

strangeness to us.

This poses a difficulty in Theodore’s schema due to the equality of identity between

icon and prototype and the closed orbit between these two philosophical terms. While he

acknowledges that the icon and prototype differ in essence, he builds strongly on the

ontological connection necessitated by the shared identity between the two. The very

prototype-image construct that Theodore employs internally collapses if the image in

unsuccessful in exhibiting the prototype. For Theodore, the image exists in the prototype, and

“resembles the prototype in its whole likeness.”39 The veneration of the icon is based

completely on “the basis of resemblance.” 40 What happens, according to this construct, when,

as suggested by the gospel resurrection narratives, the hypostatic properties become difficult

to recognize? Can the image still properly exhibit the now at least partially unrecognizable

hypostasis? The hiddenness of the risen Christ questions the ontological link between image

and prototype that Theodore suggests. Unless there is some way for the image to convey the

unrecognizable strangeness of the resurrected Jesus, it seems as if this construct loses its

theological footing.

Strangeness is also foreign to his theology as Theodore describes the relation between

icon and prototype using terms and ideas that present the hypostasis of Christ in a knowable,

recognizable image. The metaphor that he repeatedly uses for the image and its existence

within the prototype is that of an impress or character41. He likens this impress42 or imprint

to a seal that imprints and copies the image onto material. The language of “copy” and

39
Theodore, On the Holy Icons, 111.
40
Ibid.
41
Ibid., 49.
42
Ibid., 112.
“transfer” buttress Theodore’s primary point that the image shares a precise, definable identity

(but cannot be said to be identical because of the difference in essence or nature) with the

prototype. There is not room in his conception for the “strangeness” of the risen Christ,

indeed the very suggestion undercuts the primary purpose of Theodore’s writing: to

demonstrate that the very hypostasis of Christ is exhibited and known in the image. The

nature of an artificial image is that it is depictable and recognizable. If not, it serves little

purpose in terms of exhibiting the hypostasis and in fact fails to do so.

Essentially, then, I have argued to this point that Theodore’s understanding of Christ’s

ultimate circumscribability based on his hypostatic properties is problematized by Christ’s

resurrection. The revelation of eschatological humanity in the person of Christ upsets a

straight-line notion of knowability and depictability and thus also calls into question

Theodore’s conception of the icon and prototype. His theology provides an proper account of

revelation before the crucifixion, but becomes static in its understanding of Christ and

Christ’s knowability and thus is in danger of making Christ too familiar and domesticated.

The idolatry is that in such familiarity, the locus for our encounters with Christ becomes

closed and our capacity to perceive the ongoing revelation of God in the encounter with the

“strange” risen Christ becomes greatly diminished.

Iconodule Reponses

In anticipating a response to my hypothesis, I will explore how Theodore might

respond and how two 20th century Orthodox theologians, Leonid Ouspensky and Pavel

Florensky may further highlight difficulties in my argument. Both theologians have

imaginatively engaged with the theology of icons in a theological conversation that

historically occurs much closer to the present. These theologians both hold to Theodore’s

primary theological positions on Christ’s humanity and his image and prototype conception,

yet represent a tradition that has nuanced these positions greatly in the millennia of history

since the iconoclast controversy.

Theodore43 would certainly question my understanding of Christ’s eschatological

humanity, as I believe he would argue for the full continuity of Christ’s humanity and

recognizability based on his discussion of the representation of the symbol of the cross.

Theodore here appears to argue that our representation of the image depends on the evocative

power of the symbol rather than its exact and perfect representation of the prototype. It is the

kernel of similarity with the prototype that makes the cross identifiable as such, even though

“the depiction does not have exactly the same form as the archetype, in length and width or

any other relationship, because it is represented differently.”44 Yet despite these differences

in depiction and even form, there remains “one veneration of the symbol and the prototype; so

evidently the same likeness is recognized in both.”45 If this is so, then even if the cross does

not bear the immediate form of the one we have known commonly, it still is able to evidence

its relation to the archetype and symbolically manifest it to us. Relating this argument more

directly to the human subject, Ouspensky, an icon painter himself, argues that “like the

biographies of the saints, the physical traits of the saints are often more or less forgotten, and

it is difficult to reconstruct them. The likeness risks, therefore, being imperfect.”46 Despite

43
Here I am not ignoring the fact that Theodore addresses the iconoclast charge regarding the depiction of the
risen Christ directly in sections 2.41-2.47. The argument in this paper has developed along different lines than
Theodore’s refutation in 2.41-2.47, as I am conceding a point that the iconoclast he is arguing with will not: that
Christ remains human after the resurrection. Given our mutual acceptance of this point, it does not seem
particularly germane to reference this section.
44
Theodore, On the Holy Icons, 104.
45
Ibid.
46
Leonid Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon (Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1978), 197.
this, however, just as Theodore argues with the cross as symbol, the likeness in an icon “can

never disappear completely. An irreductible minimum always remains which provides a link

with the prototype of the icon.”47

In light of this, an Orthodox theologian might also respond that although Christ has

been transformed and his body glorified in the resurrection, our attempts to depict him in an

image can still evoke the symbolic relationship to him as prototype. Theodore’s conception

of image and prototype is in no need of revision. He could argue that the prototype remains

human and creaturely, and thus ultimately circumscribable. Moreover, the dissimilarity of the

image and prototype can serve to validate the fact that through a strange image, Christ can be

exhibited. The difference in recognition lies in our abilities of perception, not in any

immateriality of the prototype or broken linkage between image and prototype. We can never

fully grasp the prototype in our depiction – as with the differences of the cross or the saint –

yet the same symbolic representation exists and thus the prototype is exhibited. Even if our

depictions vary in our attempts to grasp the unknowable Christ, Christ’s identity never

changes in the crucifixion and resurrection – it remains the same. If this is so, then in

correlation with the resurrection narratives, the question of how we come to know Christ as

such through the icon becomes a matter of revelation rather than perception. Icons, through

the inspiration and direction of the Holy Spirit,48 are media of divine revelation.

The Orthodox may then argue that there is no difference in this model of revelation

between scripture and icons. As Theodore argues, the words of the “holy books” are “set

forth for the hearing,”49 and because “hearing is equal to sight,”50 the icons and scripture “are

47
Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, 197.
48
Ibid., 163.
49
Theodore, On the Holy Icons, 38.
venerable in the same degree because they have equal force.”51 Ouspensky notes that “the

icon is rightly called ‘theology in images,’ parallel to theology in words.”52 Ouspensky notes

that the connection between the two is that their source of inspiration is both the Holy Spirit.

Ouspensky would argue that “The Gospel is a verbal icon of Christ,”53 for not only is the

inspiration the same, but the way in which we participate in the revelation of the Word of God.

A Barthian understanding of scripture would hold that as we read it, the Holy Spirit

illuminates it for us and through this action of the Spirit, we read the Word of God.

Ouspensky thus presents the iconic analog to this tradition, particularly when speaking of the

icon of Christ:

it is the grace of the Holy Spirit which sustains the holiness both of the
represented person and of his icon, and it is in this grace that the relationship
between the faithful and the saint is brought about through the intermediary of
the icon of the saint. The icon participates in the holiness of its prototype, and
through the icon, we in turn participate in this holiness in our prayers.54

If the icon is Christ, then, the method of revelation is nearly identical. The icon does not

convey simply the conceptual truth of scripture, but the two are “mutually revelatory,”55 and

the icon reveals scriptural content “in a liturgical and living way.”56 Through the action of the

Holy Spirit, in the veneration of the icon the worshipper participates in Christ. If sight and

hearing are equal in importance, than how is this method of revelation any different than the

read gospel tradition?

50
Ibid., 37.
51
Ibid., 38.
52
Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, 164.
53
Ibid., 165.
54
Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, 191.
55
Ibid., 165.
56
Ibid., 166.
 Like the closed canon of scripture, the iconographic canons provide guidelines to

protect the image from being corrupted by the subjectivity of the iconpainter. The “historical

basis” of the image is guided by these canons in order to ensure that the image is revelatory of

the true prototype. This does not fix one set image of Christ, but outlines a reasonable set of

criteria based on the “relationship between the icon and the Holy Spripture, its conformity

with the biblical preaching, and the relationship between iconography and biblical realism” in

order to prevent “any possibility of painting icons of Christ or of the saints according to the

painter’s imagination.”57 The tradition of iconpainting preserved in these canons is not

simply a line of ecclesial history, but the living communication of the Holy Spirit through the

ages. Like scripture, the Holy Spirit is active in the inspiration and transmission of the iconic

image as well as the revelation of Christ in the icon.

Orthodox theologians may finally also argue that icons do possess an inherently

eschatological dimension in their representation of Christ or the Saints that does convey an

other-worldly strangeness. For Ouspensky, the icon “does not represent the corruptible flesh,

destined for decomposition, but transfigured flesh, illuminated by grace, the flesh of the world

to come.”58 The very style of the icons is somewhat surreal and evocative rather than realist,

as it attempts to visually depict eschatological and divine realities which cannot be understood

“from a rationalistic point of view.”59 The very nature of the icons is meant to unsettle and

disrupt one’s view of the reality and the standards of normality. Ouspensky notes that in

order to do this, depictions “sometimes border on deformities which shock man.”60 Thus, the

57
Ibid., 165.
58
Ibid., 191.
59
Ibid., 226.
60
Ibid.
icons, like the Gospel take on a “strange and unusual character.”61 The nature of this

strangeness, as iterated by both Ouspensky and Florensky is in the revelation of a spiritual

world that cannot be grasped. Florensky uses an extended dream analogy to describe the way

in which the icons mediate and reveal the spiritual world to us. Our experience of a dream is

likened to the way in which we experience the heavenly realm – as illusive, fleeting and

ephemeral memory.62 The boundary of these two worlds is where “the soul’s spiritual

knowledge assumes the shapes of symbolic imagery: and it is these images that make

permanent the work of art.”63 Thus, what is revealed in the icon is the strangeness and

wonder of the spiritual realm which dislocates us from the comfort and predictability of our

own.

Final Rejoinder

In light of the previous discussion, the question regarding idolatry in terms of

familiarity with that which must be unfamiliar has perhaps shifted to “Does the veneration of

icons present a more substantial danger of idolatry as a medium of revelation than does

scripture, and if so, how?” Much of the discussion now must turn on the Orthodox claims of

the equality of the senses of sight and sound. For Theodore, this is so much so that neither

may be accorded primacy, but he argues rather that an equality and solidarity in sensory

perception exists between the two, saying “whoever takes away the one would have to remove

the other also along with it.” Either they are mutually revelatory or neither can be revelatory.

This claim is open to particular examination in light of Rowan Williams discussion of the

61
Ibid.
62
Pavel Florensky, Iconostasis, trans. Donald Sheehan and Olga Andrejev (Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, 2000), 44.
63
Ibid.
“strangeness” of encounter with the risen Christ and the incapacity of tradition to fully contain

it. In reforming my critique, then, I will turn to the question of the equality of scripture and

icon in their ability to reveal the risen Christ as “stranger.”

In terms of our capacity to identify and recognize other human beings, it can scarcely

be argued that sight is not accorded primacy over other senses. Theodore himself repeatedly

uses “being subject to sight” as the primary criterion (among others that he does develop) for

depictability.64 In being the particular instantiation of human nature in an individual human

being, Jesus’ contemporaries identified him as Jesus of Nazareth based on his particular

visible features – his eyes, hair, nose, ears, mouth, etc… While we can certainly identify

people by their unique voices, smell, or in the case of those most intimate to us, by touch,

sight is the primary means through which we assign identity based on our perception of these

hypostatic features. The image of a person becomes fixed in our memory as that person, and

indeed as Theodore affirms, that visual image shares the identity of its prototype.

Stories that are read or heard present information about characters that the imagination

then has to form into an image. Despite Theodore’s insistence that in setting forth the gospels,

the authors wrote down what they previously saw,65 historically the gospel has been received

by countless peoples over the centuries through reading and hearing rather than direct

seeing.66 The characters that form in our minds when stories are heard undoubtedly vary

greatly from person to person. Our visual conception of the imagined characters remains

somewhat illusive within our own minds, and with the exception of those of us with

64
Theodore, On the Holy Icons, 47, 71, 78, 81, 89.
65
Assuming a straight, eyewitness to author connection that is certainly not the consensus of current New
Testament scholars.
66
This remains true even while granting that many Catholics, Orthodox and Anglican traditions experience it
visually through icons as well.
extraordinary artistic abilities, the images are left in the space of our own imagination, subject

to only our own internal mechanisms of correction and change.

While hearing then leaves open the image of the character, and hence our recognition

of the character, our visual memory is more concrete. For example, when we come to know a

character portrayed by an actor or actress on television or on stage, our understanding of that

character’s identity is based on the visual image of the actor or actress. The link between

character and actor in the mind of the “audience member”67 becomes cemented by our

identification of the character with the personal features of the actor. This can be evidenced

further in the dilemma long-running American TV shows have often faced in the question of

how to handle the departure of an actor or actress who was portraying a popular character.

Some have tried to replace the actor with another portraying the same character, but most

often the character is simply written out of the narrative. Characters, once physically imaged,

are difficult to dissociate and we struggle to associate that same character with a second

distinctly different physical and visual depiction.

Icons present a physical image of the saints and Jesus Christ. While, as Orthodox

theologians will be quick to point out, the iconographic style is somewhat surreal and not

intended to be a realistic depiction, what cannot be argued is that it presents us with a

symbolic image of what Christ looks like. Further, given the guidelines passed down in the

iconographic canons, we can say that this is what Christ is supposed to look like. The canons

exist to ensure that these images conform to the standards of what a proper iconographic

image should be.68 Acknowledging that the canons leave a range of images as acceptable, the

image range is fixed by tradition as the proper way to depict Christ. The difficulty is that this

67
Or movie patron, TV watcher, etc…
68
Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, 121, 163.
range becomes just like our conception of characters – it restricts our mind’s capacity to

imagine Christ in a different way. Can there be a truly strange way of encountering Christ in

an icon if the range of possible encounters is narrowed by the tradition itself?

Here Williams’ argument is particularly salient, as he disavows tradition’s ability to

pass down a proper understanding of Jesus Christ that can be in any way absolute.69 Through

the iconographic canons, the Orthodox church does precisely this; it claims to protect the

image from corruption by setting standards that properly preserve the image according to the

tradition as led by the Holy Spirit. Against Williams, here the tradition asserts that its

communal memory can contain and pass down a proper understanding of the risen Christ in

an image. The danger of seizing one image, or even an image range, is in making this image

familiar, the proper visual depiction of the character that our mind then establishes and clings

to as true to the exclusion of other possibilities. Here, then lies the difference in the mode of

revelation between scripture and icon – what is heard leaves open a greater possibility for the

physical identity of another to be ultimately less known, whereas the icon defines a sharper,

more concrete identity that is in constant danger of becoming idolatrous.

Churches of varying ethnicities have all envisioned Jesus Christ in a way that reflects

their understanding of humanity, often rooted in their own visual conception. The Jesus we

see depicted in churches is often simply a mirror of what a member of that congregation looks

like. Particularly focused theologies have also created diverse images of what Christ should

look like. Black liberation theologians depict a black Jesus, some feminist theologians a

female Jesus. All of these depictions of Jesus would presumably stand against the

iconographic canons and thus not be considered proper images of Jesus. Taken as an absolute,

69
Williams, Resurrection, 74-76.
any of these depictions would rightly be considered idolatrous – they define an image that is

by definition strange and unknowable. It is this claim to visually know the risen Christ that

makes the image idolatrous. It lessens our capacity to come to know Jesus in new and strange

ways and to accept not one image as the “authentic” Christ, but to acknowledge that through

all of the varying gendered and ethnic images of Jesus, we may encounter the risen Christ.

The difficulty arises when our mind envisions what Jesus looks like, the church authorizes

and blesses this image. In the end, this at least potentially sets up the static understanding of

Christ that is familiar to our surface desires and surface needs, as Williams argues, is at odds

completely with the risen Christ who will not “subserve our own private dramas.”70

Conclusion

What is the nature of idolatry? It is often defined as worshipping created matter over

the creator God. Yet in the course of this study, a more particular definition has emerged: the

substitution of a static “thing” that allows us to see simply our own desires and cares reflected

back at us for the dynamic and living God who judges our narcissism and calls us into a new

worldview and communal way of life. This mode of idolatry certainly challenges almost any

worship practice from the reading of scripture, to the use of music to recited prayers to the

veneration of icons. In light of this definition, I have argued that icon veneration does pose a

particularly substantial danger of falling into this form of idolatry. Due to the nature of our

association of visual image and identity and the ultimate indepictability of the risen Christ, the

veneration of icons poses a continued risk of becoming a static form of worship that makes

Christ too familiar and comfortable for us.

70
Williams, Resurrection, 76.
 It should be noted at the end of this study that I am not identifying icon veneration as

idolatrous per se. Rather, it is my intention to highlight a particularly salient danger of

idolatry that is posed by the theology of icon veneration that Orthodox theologians have

espoused. Theodore wrote his treatises in order to preserve the practice of icon veneration

against an imperial decree that ultimately sought to consolidate power within a centralized

ecclesial structure. Given this, my argument contains within it a certain degree of irony which

speaks directly to Williams’ concern. Regardless of our intention, we must be wary of

seeking theologies that place too high a conception of truth on a particular form or worship or

practice that does not leave room for it to be judged by the unfamiliarity of the risen Christ.
 Bibliography

Florensky, Pavel. Iconostasis. Translated by Donald Sheehan and Olga Andrejev.

Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000.

Ouspensky, Leonid. Theology of the Icon. Crestwood, NY: Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press,
1978.

Theodore the Studite. On the Holy Icons. Translated by Catherine Roth. Crestwood, NY:
Saint Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1981.

Williams, Rowan. On Christian Theology. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2000.

______. Resurrection: Interpreting the Easter Gospel. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1982.