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Origen, Eusebius, and the Iconoclastic Controversy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

George Florovsky
George Florovsky
Affiliation:
S. Vladimir's Seminary, New York
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Extract

The Iconoclastic controversy was undoubtedly one of the major conflicts in the history of the Christian Church. It was not just a Byzantine conflict; the West was also involved in the dispute. It is true, however, that the West never followed the East in the theological argument, nor did it suffer all the implications and consequences of the Byzantine theology of the Icons. In the history of the Christian East it was, on the contrary, a turning point. All levels of life were affected by the conflict, all strata of society were involved in the struggle. The fight was violent, bitter, and desperate. The cost of victory was enormous, and tensions in the Church were not solved by it. The Church in Byzantium has never recovered again her inner unity, which had been distorted or lost in the Iconoclastic strife.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , June 1950 , pp. 77 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1950

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References

1 Ouspensky, K. N., Sketches on Byzantine History, Part I, Moskow 1917 (Russian), 237 ffGoogle Scholar. Ouspeusky's book on the history of the Iconoclasm, to which he refers, seems never to have been published.

2 Henri, Grégoire, in Byzantium, edited by Baynes, Norman H. and Moss, H. St. L. B. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1948), 105Google Scholar. All articles in this volume were written before the war.

3 Martin, E. J., A History of the Icoinoclastic Controversy (London: S.P.C.K., s.d.), 3–4.Google Scholar

4 Grégoire, , Byzantium (1948), 105.Google Scholar

5 Ostrogorsky, G., Studien zur Geschichte des byzantinisehen Bildersireites, Breslau, 1929 (Historische Untersnchungen, Hf. 5).Google Scholar; “Conneetion of the question of the Holy Icons with the Christological dogma,” Seminarium Kondakovianum, I (1927)Google Scholar; “Gnoseological presuppositions of the Byzantine controversy about the Holy Icons,” Ibidem, II (1928)—both articles in Russian; “Les debuts de la Querelle des Images,” Mélanges Diehl, vol. I, Paris, 1930Google Scholar; Ladner, G., “Der Bilderstreit und die Kunstlehren der byzantinischen und abeudländischen Theologie,” Zeitsehrift für die Kirehengeschichte, B. 50 (1931)Google Scholar; “Origin and Significance of the Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy.” Mediaeual Studies, II (1940), Sheed & WardGoogle Scholar; Koch, P. Lucas, “Zur Theologie der Christus-ikone,” in “Benediktinische Monatschrift,” Beuron, XIX (1937)Google Scholar; 11/12; XX (1928), 1/2, 5/6, 7/8; “Christusbild-Kaiserbild,” Ibidem, XXI (1939), 3/4.

6 A brief note on Andreev's unpublished work has been given in the Russian Historical Journal (probably by V. Beneshevich), VII (Petrograd, 1921), 215–218 (in Russian).Google Scholar

7 This is the title of an admirable booklet by Eric Peterson, Der Mowtheismus als politisches Problem (1935).

8 Cf. Lucas Koch, Christusbild, ete.—The author uses extensively the book of Grabar, André, L 'Empereur dans I 'art Byzantin (Paris, 1936).Google Scholar

9 The best presentation of the Orthodox theory of icons is in the articles of P. Lucas Koch.

10 See Meliorausky, B. M., Georgij Kyprianin i Ioann Jerusalimskij, maloizviestnykh borza za pravoslavie v 8 viekie (St. Petersbourg, 1901)Google Scholar; and Ostrogorsky, Studien.

11 Cf., e.g., Vasiliev, A., Histoire de l'Empire Byzantine (Paris: Pieard, 1932), I, 379Google Scholar: “Quant au parti de la cour et an haut clergé, on peut dire que ces fonctionnaires du gouvernement et évêques n'obéirent pas pour la plupart aux ordres tie leur conscience, mais qu'ils professèrent les doctrines qui s'harmonisaient avec leurs crainte et leur ambitions.” This view is widespread in the literature.

12 This point has been emphasized by Grégoire, H. in his review of Ostrogorsky's “Studien,” in Byzantion, IV, 765–771.Google Scholar

13 Cf. Vernet, F., “Juifs (Controverses avec les),” in D. T. C., VIII. 2, c. 1878 s.Google Scholar; and der Nersessian, Sirarpie “Une Apologie des images du septiènie siècle,” in Byzantion, XVII (1944–1945)Google Scholar. See also Frey, J. B., “La question des images chez les Juifs,” in Biblica, XV (1934).Google Scholar

14 It is a commonplace in the literature. See, in recent times, Dawson, Christopher, The Making of Europe (London: Sheed & Ward, 1946 (1932), 136Google Scholar: “It has behind it, not the explicit doctrines of a theological school but the vague and formless spirit of an oriental sectarianism which rejected the whole system of Hellenic dogma.” Cf. Every, George, The Byzantine Patriarchate, 451–1204 (London: S.P.C.K., 1946), 105Google Scholar: “The Iconoclastic schisms of 730–86 and 815–43 were not the schisms between East and West, but between an Asiatic party at Constantinople and the Greek and Latin party in Greece, Italy and Rome.”

15 Cf. Ostrogorsky, , Mélanges Diehl, p. 236Google Scholar: “Le rôle, joué au début de la querelle des images par le ciergé iconoclaste d' Asie Mineure, tombe dans 1' oublie dans les siècles suivants.” See also Melioransky, Georgij Kyprianin.

16 Cf. Sweetman, J. M., Islam and Christiain, Theology, P. I, v. I, Lutterworth Press, London & Redhill, 1945, p. 63.Google Scholar: “One would rather see in this movement something parallel to Islam” etc.

17 Cf. Vasiliev, Histoire, 380.

18 Schwartzlose, Karl, Der Bilderstreit (Gotha, 1890), 77–78.Google Scholar

19 In any case Paulicians were invoked in vain, for it is most doubtful, whether they had any iconoclastic tendencies, as mach as that would have agreed with their dualistic presuppositions. See Henri, Orégoire, in Atti del V Congresso internazionale di Studi Bizantini (Roma, 1939), 177Google Scholar; and recently Obolensky, D., The Bogomils (Cambridge, 1949), 53.Google Scholar

20 See Holl, Karl, “Die Schriften des Epiphanius gegen die Bilderverehrung” 1916)Google Scholar, in his Gesammelte Aufsätze zur Kirchengeschichte (Tübingen: Mohr, 1928), II, 351–387Google Scholar, and Ostrogorsky, Studien, 61 ff.

21 Holl, 387, n. I. “An der Echtheit des Briefes hat nur Befangensehaft zweifeln künnen. Sprache, Standpunkt, Aaffssung stimmen ganz mit dem unangefoehtenen Eusebius überein. Wäre das Schreiben in eiuem spähteren Jahrhundert gefälscht so müszte die dogmatisehe Begründung schärfer gefasztsein.”

22 Excerpts from the Letter of Eusebius read at the Nieaenum II (787): Mansi, XIII, c. 314 or Harduin IV, 406; an enlarged text (following cod. Reg. 1980) was published by Boivin (Nic. Gregoras, Hist. Bys. XIX, 3, 4 (reprinted in Migne, S.Gr. CXLIX and in C. S. H. B., Bd. XIX. 2); Card. Pitra, Spicilegium Solesmense, I, 383–386 (as cap. 9 of Nicephorus Antirrheticus contra Eusebium); see also inter opera Eusebii—Migne, S. Gr. XX, c. 1545–1549, and in Kirsch, Enchiridion, n. 471. Cf. Koch, Hugo, Die altchristiiche Bilderfrage nach den literarischen Quellen (Göttingen 1917; P.R.L.A.N.T., Neue Folge 10)Google Scholar; Elliger, W., Die Stellung der alten Christen zu den Bildern in den ersten vier Jahrhunderten (Picker's Studien über Christliehe Denkmäler, Hf. 20; Leipzig 1930).Google Scholar

23 See Berkhof, H., Die Theoogie des Eusebius von Caesarea (Amsterdam, 1939).Google Scholar

24 See von Baithasar, Hans Urs, Liturgie Cosmique, Maxime le Confesseur (Paris: Aubier, 1947)Google Scholar; or the German edition (Freiburg i/Br.: Herder, 1941).

25 Pitra, , Spicilegium, I, 371–504.Google Scholar

26 Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria.

27 In Jo. Comm., I. 9 and 10: cf. in Matt. Comm. XVI. 20 and 24: See also C. Cels. II. 62: “God the Word was sent, indeed, as a physician to sinners, but as a teacher of divine mysteries to those who are already pure and who sin no more.”

28 In Jo. I. 24.

29 In Jo. VI. 2; cf. C. Cels. II. 69 and in Jo. X. 4.

30 In Jo. XIX. I.

31 C. Cels. III. 41.

32 C. Cels. II. 64; cf. in Matt. II. 6 and XII. 30 & 36.

33 C. Cels. VI. 77; cf. IV. 16, 18.

34 S. Maxim. Cap. theol. II, 13, Migne S. Gr. XC, 1129–1132.

35 C. Cels. I. 33.

35a In Jo. XXXII. 17; cf. C. Cels. II.9.

36 1n Rom. Comm. 1.6.

37 In Jer. hom. XVI. 6.

38 In Luc. hom. XXIX nunc autem homo esse cessavit.

39 See especially C. Cels. VIII. 17 and 18: “in all those, then, who plant and cultivate within their souls, according to the divine word, temperance, justice, wisdom, piety, and other virtues, these excellences are the statues they raise, in which we are persuaded that it is becoming for us to honour the model and the prototype of all statues: ‘the image of the invisible God,’ God the Only-begotten …. And everyone who imitates Him according to his ability, does by this very endeavour raise a statue according to the image of the Creator, for in the contemplation of God with a pure heart they become imitators of Him. And in general, we see that all Christians strive to raise altars and statues as we have described them, and these not of a lifeless and senseless kind,” etc. Cf. Elliger, Die Stellung, 41 ff.

40 St. John of Damascus, De imaginibus, III.

41 Mansi, XII, 277 D.

42 Bréhier, Louis, in Histoire de l'Eglise, by Eliche & Martin, V, 442.Google Scholar

43 Mansi, XIII, 252.

44 Ed. Alivisatos (Athens, 1924), 121.

45 Porphyrius, Vita Plotini, I.

46 Plotinus, V. 8.8.

47 Plotinus, II.15.

48 Acta Joannis, cap. 28–29; cf. Mansi, XIII, 168. Cf. Findlay, A. F., Byways in Early Christian Literature (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1923), 214 fGoogle Scholar. The document is of the second century.

49 Cf. the stimulating book of Ivanka, Endxa, Hellenisohes und Christliches un Frühbyrantinisehen Ceistesleben (Wien, 1948). On Iconoclasm, see 105 ff.Google Scholar

50 The new and important book by De Lubac, P. Henri, Histoire et Esprit, L' intelligence de l' écriture d' après Origène (Paris: Aubier, 1950)Google Scholar, which is highly relevant for our problem, unfortunately became available to me after this paper was ready for the printer. I have not found there, however, anything to compel me to change my description. See its pertinence to pp. 88–92 of this article.