Praise the Lord, my soul. Let us
sing this together with David: if he is not present in body, at least he is in
spirit. For proof that the righteous are present with us, and sing along with
us, listen to what Abraham says to the rich man: when he said, “Send Lazarus so
that my brothers may learn what happens in Hades and put their affairs in
order,” he replied to him, “They have Moses and the prophets.” Actually, Moses
and all the prophets were long dead in the body, but in their writings they had
them. After all, if a person sets up a lifeless image of son or dear one and
thinks that person, though dead, is present, and through the lifeless image he
imagines him, much more do we enjoy the communion of the saints through the
divine Scriptures, having in them images not of their bodies but of their
souls, the words spoken by them being of their very souls. (John Chrysostom,
Homily on Psalm 146, in St. John Chrostom: Old Testament Homilies, 3
vols. [trans. Robert Charles Hill; Brookline, Mass.: Holy Cross Orthodoxy
Press, 2007], 3:116)
Further Reading:
Answering
Fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox on Images/Icons
