Without doubt, the incarnation was
given as a theological justification for the veneration of holy icons by later
writers, perhaps most prominently John of Damascus, whose eighth-century
apologies for images insist that the incarnation of Christ made the invisible
become visible and the infinite manifest in a finite form. In his first oration
against iconoclasts, John famously wrote, “Of old, God the incorporeal and
formless was never depicted, but now that God has been seen in the flesh and
has associated with human kind, I depict what I have seen of God, I do not
venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became matter for my
sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter worked my salvation,
and I will not cease from reverencing matter, through which my salvation was
worked.” (Orat. 1.16) However, we have no defense of icons or relics
similar to John’s that is datable in the fourth century.
For example, although Jerome’s
treatise Against Vigilantius advocates for the value and validity of
relic veneration, he never gives Christ’s incarnation as its justification.
Rather, he points to bishops’ offering the eucharistic sacrifice over the bones
of saints and declares his own and others’ experiences of miracles and wonders
at the tombs of martyrs. (Virgil) Like Jerome, Victricius of Rouen (r.
ca. 393-407) upheld the spiritual potency of saints’ bodily relics, but instead
of citing Christ’s incarnation as justification, he maintains that all human
bodies may share in Christ’s substance by virtue of baptism and the saints
raised to heaven because of their self-sacrifice and thus share in Christ’s
crucifixion. Significantly, Victricius also asserts that relics derive their
power from God’s grace and a fiery spirituality infused by the Word and not
from any intrinsic property or nature. (De laude sanct. 8.21-22) In
other words, parts of created nature, particularly corporeal fragments from
holy men and women, bear spiritual potency and even a kind of consubstantiality
with God. However, this is by special divine favor.
Another problem with explaining the
transition to veneration of material objects by asserting a new understanding
of or greater appreciation for Christ’s incarnation is that it begs the
question of how this teaching was new or greater than what cam before.
Certainly, Christians in earlier centuries also believed in the incarnation.
Paul asserts that God came in human form and with human flesh (Rom 8:3-4; Phil 2:5-8).
He also speaks of the body as a locus for the Holy Spirit’s indwelling (1 Cor
3:16-17). Similar statements are found in the works of early postbiblical
writers, among them Ignatius of Antioch (e.g., Trall. 10; Phil.
6). Most if not all of the early denouncers of pagan idols affirmed and taught
Christ incarnation. Tertullian in particular wrote treatises affirming Christ’s
human body (e.g., On the Flesh of Christ). He was also one of the
earliest and strongest defenders of the bodily resurrection of the faithful
(see, e.g., On the Resurrection of the Flesh)—unlike gnostic teachers or
Maniceahns, he did not hold a generally negative view of created matter or the
human body. He insisted only that things formed from that created matter not be
worshiped or venerated for their own sake.
Athanasius of Alexandria’s
treatise On the Incarnation, written in the first half of the fourth
century, explains that Christ needed to appear in the flesh so that humanity
could see and recognize the true God and stay away from false idols. (The
dating is controversial; probably sometime between 320 and 335) It is less
clear, though, that matter is therefore capable of mediating the divine.
Athanasius’ argument is solely about Christ as incarnate. In fact, he expresses
contempt for humans who rejects eternal things and turn instead to corruptible
ones, effacing their original image of God in so doing. (Inc. 6) He echoes
Paul’s letter to the Romans (1:20), declaring that God made works of creation
to bring humans to perceive his glory, and so clearly upholds the positive
value of the senses to draw believers to God, but he views this as the result
of humans fixing their attention on the incarnate Word and coming to realize that
he is also God. (Inc. 16)
This is not to say that Christ’s
incarnation is completely irrelevant to the explanation for the change of view
toward materiality in the fourth century. It just is not apparent that a
radically new—or distinctly fourth-century—view of the incarnation promoted a
far more positive attitude toward the material creation than that held by many
early Christian writers. It seems likely that many more factors contributed to
what was undoubtedly a more affirming valuation of the material world and the
bodily senses as instrumental means for encountering and comprehending the holy
One of these, discussed below, was Neoplatonic philosophy, which had an impact
on the thinking of Christian writers like Augustine. (Robin M. Jensen, From
Idols to Icons: The Rise of the Devotional Image in Early Christianity [Oakland,
Calif.: University of California Press, 2022], 147-48)
Further Reading:
Answering Fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox on Images/Icons
