Theology and Icons

What follows are notes from a plenary lecture I gave at the 2006 Gathering of The Ekklesia Project in Chicago on July 17th.

When I began the formal study of philosophy as a college student, I assumed that aesthetics – the philosophy of beauty – would be an important component of my study. I had read some Plato, and had come to believe that there was a fundamental unity of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. But I quickly learned that it was mostly philosophers in mainland Europe who took beauty seriously. Most philosophers in Anglo-American philosophy did not seem to care about beauty; at least, not as a philosophical concern. Most seemed not to have shaken off the early 20th century dictum of the Vienna Circle that any statement that could not be verified was, philosophically speaking, meaningless. Thus aesthetic claims, as well as metaphysical ones (such as the existence of God), were dismissed from serious consideration by philosophers.

Even sadder to say, I did not find the situation much improved when my studies shifted from philosophy to Christian theology. Apart from the impressive work of the late Catholic theologian Hans Ur von Balthasar in his multivolume work on theological aesthetics, Western theology largely ignored beauty in its second millennium. The situation has been somewhat different in Eastern Christianity, i.e., in the Eastern Orthodox theological tradition. It is no accident that the most recent book in theological aesthetics to make its mark in academic theology, The Beauty of the Infinite, is written by a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy, David Bentley Hart.

Why is this so? Because I am myself an Eastern Orthodox Christian, it will no doubt sound chauvinistic on my part to claim that the East has preserved this attention to beauty, while the West has, for the most part, turned its attention elsewhere for the last millennium. Even so, I will make the claim anyway! For us it begins at the beginning – in the creation account of Genesis. We read in the usual translations that, after God created something, he called it ‘good.’ However, in the Septuagint, the Greek edition of the Old Testament that remains the official Old Testament of the Orthodox Church, we read that God said, after creating something, that it was kalon – beautiful. The Hebrew word carries both meanings, ‘good’ and ‘beautiful’, but the translators of the Septuagint chose kalon (‘beautiful’) rather than agathon (‘good’). Thus God’s appreciation of his creation is first described aesthetically, rather than morally.

We find this emphasis upon beauty throughout the history of the Eastern tradition. A couple of examples. First, there is the account of how, late in the 10th century, Prince Vladimir of Kiev wished to select a religion for the ‘Rus. He sent emissaries to various countries to learn about their religions. The Russian Primary Chronicle records that they ‘… went first to he Muslim Bulgars of the Volga, but observing that these when they prayed gazed around them like men possessed, the Russians continued on their way dissatisfied. “There is no joy among them,” they reported to Vladimir., “but mournfulness and a great smell; and there is nothing good about their system.” Travelling next to Germany and to Rome, they found the worship more satisfactory, but complained that here too there it was without beauty. Finally they journeyed to Constantinople, and here at last, as they attended the Divine Liturgy in the great Church of the Holy Wisdom, they discovered what they desired. “We knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth, for surely there is no such splendour or beauty anywhere upon earth. We cannot describe it to you; only this we know, that God dwells there among humans, and that their service surpasses the worship of all other places. For we cannot forget that beauty.”

It is important to note first that theirs was not merely an aesthetic judgment: they wrote that ‘God dwells there among humans.’ And second, they connected the presence of God with that unforgettable beauty.

My second example of this emphasis upon beauty is in the writing of the great novelist of Russian Orthodoxy – Fyodor Dostoevsky. Let me read you a short passage from his novel The Possessed.

Are you aware that mankind can do without the English, that it can do without Germany, that nothing is easier for mankind than to do without the Russians, that it can live without science or even bread? Only beauty is absolutely indispensable, for without beauty there is nothing left in the world worth doing. Here is the entire secret; all of history, right in a nutshell.

You have probably also heard Dostoevsky’s most famous remark about beauty, namely, that ‘beauty will save the world.’

This characteristic Orthodox emphasis upon beauty, upon the visual nature of Christian truth, is most often associated with icons, which is the topic of the rest of my remarks in this panel discussion, as well as the subject of the workshop I did this morning and which I will be repeating this afternoon.

It is impossible for an Orthodox Christian to consider the topic of this gathering and more especially of this panel – the Gospel in pictures and poems – without thinking first of Orthodox iconography. He next thought would be the hymnody of the liturgy throughout the year, hymnody in which Orthodox dogmatic theology is expressed poetically. But given time constraints, I will focus on icons. First some history, and then some theology.

Sacred imagery was part of the Temple worship of the Israelites. Paragraphs away from God’s injunction against false idols, graven images, he gives details about the decoration of the Temple veil. We know that the interior of the Temple was painted with images from creation in the main hall, and that the veil contained images of angels, a sign that the Holy of Holies beyond the veil was heaven.

In the Christian era, tradition tells us that St Luke was the first iconographer, having painted a picture of the Virgin Mary on wood. While we cannot say with certainty when icons became a regular part of the Christian liturgy, we do find references to their use in the fourth century in the writings of, among others, St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great. This was not controversial. But then something happened. A new faith arrived on the scene in the Christian east – Islam, a radically iconoclastic tradition. (Iconoclast means a breaker of images.) Under the growing influence of Islam, many Christians became iconoclasts. They rejected the use of icons and their veneration as ‘idolatry.’ There were two periods of iconoclasm in the late eighth and early ninth centuries. The first period was followed by the Second Council of Nicea in 787, which is reckoned as the Seventh and last Ecumenical Council. The fundamental result of the council was to approve the existence and veneration of icons, as well as their use in the Church’s liturgy. While acknowledging that an icon of God the Father is not permitted, an icon of the Son of God is permissible because the Second Person of the Trinity took on human nature and retains it throughout all eternity. The Fathers of the Seventh Council concluded that to deny the depiction of Christ in an icon was in effect to deny the truth of the Incarnation. And if God did not really assume human nature, then our nature will never become divine, we will never be deified, we will never be saved. As with all the other theological issues that confronted the fathers of the seven ecumenical councils, the issue of icons was deemed important because it touches on our very salvation. Iconoclasm was at its heart a denial of that basic truth of salvation enunciated by St Irenaios of Lyons in the second century and St Athanasius of Alexandria in the third: God became human so that humans might become divine.

The second period of iconoclasm with the Eastern Church’s declaration of the ‘Triumph of Orthodoxy’ which is celebrated every year on the first Sunday of Lent, usually including the procession of the priest and faithful of the parish carrying icons in procession around the outside of the church building. This past Sunday, we Orthodox celebrated the Fathers of the first six ecumenical councils – all six on one day. But the seventh council is celebrated by itself as the triumph of Orthodoxy. This may strike you as strange – surely the so-called Nicene Creed which was produced by the Councils of Nicea and Constantinople in 325 and 381 was more important than the place of icons in the life of the Church. Surely the Chalcedonian definition of the two natures of Christ (human and divine) was more important than the place of icons in the life of the Church. Why on earth did Christians willingly undergo martyrdom rather than give up their icons or their veneration of the icons? The iconoclast emperors, after all, did not believe that they were asking the users of icons to renounce their faith in Christ. And yet, in effect, that is precisely what these emperors were doing. The fathers of the Seventh Council did not view iconoclasm as simply one heresy among others. It was, as the Russian theologian Paul Evdokimov wrote, ‘all the previous heresies rolled into one, a “heretical compendium,” undercutting the whole economy of salvation.’ Evdokimov goes on to say that the iconoclasts were, in effect, docetists – docetism being the heresy that says Christ became human only in appearance but not in reality. It is not coincidental that iconoclasts – ancient or contemporary – also rejected the veneration of the Saints and the divine motherhood of the Virgin Mary.

Clearly the icon is of great importance to the life of Eastern Orthodoxy. But they are now considered a source of theological authority. In Bishop Kallistos Ware’s modern classic, The Orthodox Church, he lists the following outward sources of theological authority for Orthodox Christians: the Bible, the Seven Ecumenical Councils (including the Nicene Creed completed by the first Council of Constantinople in 381), certain later Eastern councils, the Church fathers, the Liturgy, canon law, and the holy icons!

What troubles some Western Christians even more than the use of icons in churches is the fact that Orthodox venerate them, and by this I mean we light candles in front of them, we cense them with incense, we prostrate ourselves before them, and we kiss them – above all, we kiss them! Quite a few years ago I came to Chicago to one of the museums here that was opening a new exhibit of icons from Russia and Alaska. Before the public opening of the exhibit, there was a special opening for the Orthodox. There were two bishops present to bless the exhibit, quite a few priests and deacons, and a goodly number of the faithful. Shortly after the blessing of the exhibit had been performed, the loud and obnoxious sound of alarms began going off. The curators had placed proximity alarms above the icons so that an alarm would sound if a person got too close. Well, they hadn’t anticipated a bunch of Orthodox Christians kissing the icons. We quickly realized that it was the kissing setting off the alarms, but no one stopped kissing them. That simply wasn’t an option!

The short answer to those who are disturbed by such veneration is that given by the holy tradition centuries before the Seventh Council, and it is still the answer – in two parts. First, we teach and practice that worship belongs to God alone, but we allow the veneration of persons as well as holy objects such as the icons, the Book of Gospels, and the Cross – all of which we cense and kiss. Second, we believe that the veneration we pay to the sacred object is passed along to its prototype – to Christ, or the Virgin, or to the saint. And, strictly speaking, what we honor in the Virgin and in the other saints is God in them, and not their own merits.

Of course, this won’t satisfy everyone. Even a Western critic who is quite favorable to Orthodoxy, Daniel Clendenin, has a bit of a problem with them. He does think that, ‘rightly understood, they can be a joyous supplement to the manner, if not content, of worship.’ But I would argue that he has employed some false premises in his criticism of icons. First, he claims that the Seventh Ecumenical Council assigned the icons the same importance as the Bible. That isn’t true. What the fathers of the Council say is that the icons are to be venerated, just as the Book of Gospels are to be venerated. There is no question that the Bible is the first and most authoritative part of the tradition. Second, he also gets at least one of his Protestant sources wrong, too. He quotes from J. I. Packer’s Knowing God, where Packer writes that the second commandment obliges us to refrain from using pictures or statues of Christ in our worship, public or private. But I have a tape of Packer speaking on which he is asked about that passage with respect to Orthodox icons. He said that he wasn’t thinking in the least of icons, but rather bad Christian art – those ‘realistic’ portraits that depict, e.g., a blonde, blue-eyed Jesus. Icons were not his target then, and they are not his target now.

Time is growing short, so I want to quickly show you one icon and briefly comment on its significance. It is the Anastasis icon. The name means ‘resurrection.’ The icon is sometimes incorrectly referred to as ‘The Descent into Hades’ or ‘The Harrowing of Hell.’ Father John Behr notes that the only name that appears on the icon and in the Church’s commentary on the icon is Anastasis. Although it does not depict the empty tomb or one of the post-resurrection appearances to the disciples, it is nonetheless the icon of Pascha (Easter). In fact, it is not a depiction of Easter Day but of the day before, Holy Saturday, when, St Peter tells us in his first epistle (3.19), Christ descended into Hades and preached to the departed spirits.

There are a number of versions of the Anastasis icon. The one here was painted in 1546 by an iconographer from Crete and belongs to a monastery on Mount Athos in Greece. In it, you see Christ taking Adam by the hand to pull him out of hell. You see other Old Testament personages in the icon as well. There is Eve (in some versions of this icon, Christ is shown taking Adam by one hand and Eve with his other), Abel (the first person to be murdered), and even St John the Baptist.

Beneath Christ, one usually finds a personification of death or hell, who is usually depicted as being bound, completely immobilized. One also sees the doors to hell. They aren’t merely open: Christ has broken them down. Broken locks, hinges, and nails surround them. They can never be put back up.

There is a final important detail – this icon does not depict the resurrection of Christ, but of Adam and, in Adam, of all humankind. The icon, in other words, depicts the effect of his saving passion, death, and resurrection. It is put simply in a hymn for Easter that we sing, seemingly, ad infinitum: ‘Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tomb bestowing life!’ At the great Paschal vigil in every Orthodox Church around the world, one sees this icon, hears that hymn sung, and hears the Easter homily of St John Chrysostom. What St John preaches in words, the icon depicts for us. Look at the the icon while I read for you a small section of that homily:

Let none lament his poverty; for the universal Kingdom is revealed.
Let none bewail his transgressions; for the light of
forgiveness has risen from the tomb.
Let none fear death; for death of the Savior has set us free.
He has destroyed death by undergoing death.
He has despoiled hell by descending into hell.
He vexed it even as it tasted of His flesh.
Isaiah prophesied this and said: Hades has been embittered by meeting him
below.
It was embittered, for it was abolished.
It was embittered, for it was mocked.
It was embittered, for it was slain.
It was embittered, for it was annihilated.
It was embittered, for it was put in chains.
It took a body, and, face to face, met God.
It took earth and encountered heaven.
It took what it saw and was conquered by what it saw not.
O death, where is your sting? O hell, where is your victory?
Christ is risen, and you are overthrown!
Christ is risen, and the demons are fallen!
Christ is risen, and the angels rejoice!
Christ is risen, and life reigns!
Christ is risen, and not one dead remains in a tomb!

During the 12 years I served as an Episcopal priest, I preached every Easter, and all I ever preached was the Easter Homily of St John Chrysostom. In the 13 years I have now been an Orthodox priest, I have venerated this icon; I have preached on this icon. For it has shown to me in one picture the very heart of the Gospel. It has shown me in Christ’s taking Adam by the hand the entire purpose of creation, of the calling of Israel to be his people, of his word spoken through the prophets, of his Incarnation, teaching, death, resurrection, and ascension, of his sending of the Spirit at Pentecost – namely, to raise all of us up out of death to share in the divine life of the Trinity.

As C. S. Lewis said, ‘God likes matter. He created it.’ And just as God took on the matter of our human flesh and nature to save us, so, too, he uses the icon’s matter of wood, paint, and mineral to be a window into heaven, and a means of our participation in his very life.