The following excerpts come from:
Ambrosios Giakalis, Images of
the Divine: The Theology of Icons at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (rev
ed.; Studies in the History of Christian Traditions CXXII; Leiden: Brill, 2005)
Re. the Council of Hieria (alt. Hiereia)
(754) and its Christological arguments against icon-veneration and the
charge their opponents (advocates of iconodulism) were guilty of Nestorianism
(usually the charge of Nestorianism is made against opponents of icon veneration):
It
censured the iconic depiction of Christ as leading to the heresy of
Nestorianism or of Monophysitism. Since the divinity and the humanity have been
united in Christ in one person without confusion or division, anyone who
confesses Christ as a person depicted pictorially either takes him to be a mere
man or confuses the two natures and presents the divine nature and the divine
hypostasis as circumscribed. Anyone who confesses Christ as depicted
pictorially in his humanity divides the two natures and presents the human
nature as subsisting in its own right. [Mansi 13, 252A, 256AB, 256E–257A,
257E–260B.] The only true icon of Christ given by God is the bread of the
Eucharist. [Mansi 13, 261D–264C.] (p. 10)
By
representing only one of the natures, i.e. the human nature, the iconoclasts
maintained that the one Christ is divided. That which is represented
constitutes merely one of the elements of his hypostasis, the human one,
entirely cut off from the other, which is the divine. Thus the iconoclasts
conclude that “he who venerates the icon divides Christ into two”, since
although the person represented is worshipped as Christ “in two natures”, he
does not appear as such in his icon. [Mansi 13, 72B.] The acknowledgement of
the icon of Christ as Christ himself is therefore unacceptable. That which
appears on the icon in no way compensates for the lack of that which is not
visible either in the icon or in Christ himself, namely, the divine nature.
Thus the iconic depiction of Christ involves essentially his division into two
natures. The iconoclasts of course, knew very well that this division had been
condemned by all the orthodox councils which dealt with the christological
heresies. Consequently, what every attempt to represent Christ achieved was
only to divide him according to his natures and never to represent him
iconically with both his natures. It was impossible for anyone to represent the
whole Christ and therefore the attempt was superfluous: “He who beholds the
icon and says or inscribes that this is Christ divides Christ”, identifies him
with only one of his natures, and simultaneously deprives him of the other.
[Mansi 13, 72C. Cf. Christoph von Schönborn, O.P., L’icône du Christ, Fribourg,
Suisse 1976, pp. 170–178.]
This
classic iconoclast thesis is based on the — to them — self-evident and
“reasonable” demand that Christ should coincide with his icon and be identified
absolutely with it “by nature” or “essence”. In the formulation of this demand
a decisive influence was exercised by both a Jewish-biblical understanding of
the image, which favours — in the case of man’s creation — an immediate
relationship between image and subject represented, as well as by a notion of
imitative reference and synonymy, which is a purely Greek concept. [Cf. G.
Kittel (ed.), Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. ii, p. 391; W.
Eichrodt, Theologie des Alten Testaments, Stuttgart 1961, vol. ii, pp. 78–9.
Cf. Constantine V, fragm. 2 in G. Ostrogorsky, Studien zur Geschichte des
byzantinischen Bilderstreits, p. 10. On the Greek concept of “icon” see Plato’s
Sophist, 235–236d, 265b–260d; Republic 509d–511e. Cf. Kittel op. cit, vol. ii,
pp. 389–90.]
The
natural consequence of this combined attitude is the characterisation of the
icon of Christ by the iconoclasts as an idol. [Mansi 13, 208E, 221D.] Arguing
from the premises that the icon of Christ is not the Christ in two natures,
they consequently deem it necessary to define that it is in their view a false
attempt to depict Christ’s icon and conclude that it is an “idol” — a
well-chosen term able to evoke the abhorrence of those familiar with the
history of Christianity, and especially with the struggles of the martyrs
against the worship of idols in the first three centuries. Whoever understands
the icon of Christ as an idol assumes at once as the reason for its existence
and manufacture the same motive as that which leads to the manufacture of
idols: the adoration of the image, the attribution to it of divine properties,
and its identification with Christ. This is precisely the conclusion to which
the iconoclasts came: they accused their opponents of being iconworshippers,
creature-worshippers, wood-shippers, idol-worshippers. [Mansi 12, 959D, 966A.]
They asserted that those who honoured the icons of Christ called them gods and
“worshipped them as gods . . . placing in them their hopes of salvation . . .
expecting from them the future judgment . . .bestowing on them divine
reverence”. [Mansi 13, 225A.] “We find”, says the horos of the iconoclast
council of 754, “that this unlawful pictorial art blasphemes against the vital
dogma of our salvation, that is, against the dispensation of Christ, and
overturns the six holy, divinely inspired ecumenical councils, and . . .
commends Nestorius, who divided the one Son and Logos of God, who became
incarnate for us, into a pair of sons”. [Mansi 13, 240C, 241E; cf. 256B.] The
teaching of Nestorius is successfully exploited and applied to the icon of
Christ as an image which does not succeed in manifesting his divine nature but
only portrays his human nature. [On Nestorius’ teaching on two persons in
Christ, or on two Sons of God, see J.N.D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, pp.
310–343. Jaroslav Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (The Christian
Tradition, vol. ii) pp. 39–49.] (pp. 93-95)
Further Reading:
Answering Fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox on Images/Icons
