Against Those Who Oppose Holy Icons

In the beginning I spoke in few words; let me now speak more fully. For errors that have been embraced with enthusiasm and spread about with authority require a special and thorough refutation, lest silence be taken for…

Treatise I, §1-6 (¶1)

Before we can speak accurately about the veneration of the holy images, we must distinguish carefully among the different things that are called images, for many things are called by that name and they differ…

Treatise I, §1-6 (¶2)

The second kind of image is God's foreknowledge of all things: the eternal thoughts in the divine mind through which God knew from before the foundation of the world everything that would be, each thing in its…

Treatise I, §1-6 (¶3)

The fourth kind of image is the artificial image: the representation of a person or scene made by a human craftsman in paint or mosaic or stone or wood.

Treatise I, §1-6 (¶4)

The fifth kind of image is the commemorative image: the written record, the historical narrative, the monument, the story. When the Scriptures record the acts of the patriarchs and the prophets; when the historian…

Treatise I, §1-6 (¶5)

With these distinctions in hand, we can address the objection that images are forbidden by the Law of Moses. God said to Moses on Sinai: You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that…

Treatise I, §1-6 (¶6)

The decisive argument for the holy images is the Incarnation of the Son of God. In former times, God, being without body and without form, could in no way be depicted.

Treatise I, §7-12 (¶7)

The impiety of the iconoclast position appears most clearly when we consider what follows from it. If it is wrong to depict Christ, then either: the human nature of Christ cannot be depicted, which means it is not truly…

Treatise I, §7-12 (¶8)

I venerate the matter through which my salvation has come to pass. Was not the wood of the Cross matter? Was not the holy mount of Golgotha matter? Was not the stone of the Holy Sepulchre matter?

Treatise I, §7-12 (¶9)

The matter of which the icon is made is not worshipped. We do not prostrate ourselves before wood and paint as such; we prostrate ourselves before the holy person depicted.

Treatise I, §7-12 (¶10)

They say: The apostles did not make images of Christ during His earthly life; therefore images are a post-Apostolic innovation. But the apostles also did not write the Gospels during Christ's earthly life; the Gospels…

Treatise I, §7-12 (¶11)

The whole tradition of the Church is against the iconoclasts. The catacombs, which are the meeting places of the Christians of the first three centuries, are full of images of Christ, of the apostles, of the biblical…

Treatise I, §7-12 (¶12)

The great Basil of Caesarea, whose authority no one in the Church disputes, says in his treatise On the Holy Spirit: the honor given to the image passes to the prototype.

Treatise I, §13-18 (¶13)

Leontius of Neapolis in Cyprus, writing in the late sixth century, offers what is perhaps the most thorough and pointed defense of icons before the iconoclast controversy.

Treatise I, §13-18 (¶14)

The blessed Dionysius the Areopagite, whose theological authority stands very high in both East and West, teaches in his Celestial Hierarchy and his Ecclesiastical Hierarchy that the spiritual realities are known…

Treatise I, §13-18 (¶15)

The holy Fathers who are cited by the iconoclasts as opponents of images are cited dishonestly. Eusebius of Caesarea is sometimes cited because he expressed hesitation about giving a painted image of Christ to…

Treatise I, §13-18 (¶16)

The Second Ecumenical Council of Nicaea, held in 787, settled the controversy definitively. The Council examined the Scriptural and patristic evidence in detail; it refuted the iconoclast council of 754 point by point;…

Treatise I, §13-18 (¶17)

Let me close this first treatise with a personal testimony. When I stand before the icon of Christ -- when I see the face of the one who became man for our salvation, who suffered and died and rose for us, and whose…

Treatise I, §13-18 (¶18)

In the second treatise I wish to add to what has been said in the first by addressing more directly the question of what veneration is appropriate to different sacred objects.

Treatise II, §1-9 (¶19)

We give this second kind of honor to the Theotokos above all creatures, because she is the Mother of God, the one who bore in her womb the uncontainable God, the most holy of all persons who have ever lived.

Treatise II, §1-9 (¶20)

The question has been raised: is the Theotokos to be honored above the Apostles? And the Apostles above the ordinary saints? And the saints above ordinary Christians? Yes, and this is fitting.

Treatise II, §1-9 (¶21)

The presence of icons in the church building is the visible equivalent of the reading of the saints' lives in the service. Just as the reading of a saint's life teaches us who this person was, invites us to imitate him,…

Treatise II, §1-9 (¶22)

Among all the icons, the icon of Christ holds the first place, as Christ holds the first place among all persons. The icon of Christ is the proclamation that God became man -- that the invisible became visible, that the…

Treatise II, §1-9 (¶23)

I close with a prayer. May the God who became visible in the flesh, who showed us His face and opened to us the way to the knowledge of God, grant to all of us the eyes to see through the visible to the invisible,…

Treatise II, §1-9 (¶24)

The iconoclast council of 754 -- which was held without the presence of any of the four Eastern patriarchates, without the participation of the Roman see, and which is therefore not an Ecumenical Council in any…

Treatise III, §1-7 (¶25)

Against the iconoclasts' charge that the veneration of images is a novelty introduced after the apostolic age, we offer the evidence of the whole subsequent tradition.

Treatise III, §1-7 (¶26)

The central argument of the iconoclasts is this: Christ is uncircumscribable because He is divine, and therefore cannot be depicted. We answer: Christ is not only divine but also human, and in His humanity He is…

Treatise III, §1-7 (¶27)

The iconoclasts sometimes press the dilemma: if you depict Christ in His human nature alone, you are dividing the Person, separating the human nature from the divine and depicting the human nature as if it existed by…

Treatise III, §1-7 (¶28)

The practical consequences of iconoclasm confirm its theological error. When the iconoclast emperors and their bishops removed the icons from the churches and burned them, what replaced them?

Treatise III, §1-7 (¶29)

The Second Council of Nicaea of 787 -- summoned by the Empress Irene, presided over by the Patriarch Tarasius, attended by the legates of the Pope and of the Eastern patriarchates, and received by the whole Orthodox…

Treatise III, §1-7 (¶30)

Let all the faithful receive with joy the restoration of the holy images. Let every church display the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ in the place of honor.

Treatise III, §1-7 (¶36)