Today we commemorate the fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Second Council of Nicaea. This council was called together by the Empress Irene in 787 to condemn the heresy of iconoclasm that had broken out in the Church much earlier in the eighth century. We know that, even though this council condemned the heresy and restored the icons to their place of veneration in the Church, iconoclasm was to break out again in the ninth century and lasted until it was finally destroyed by the Empress Theodora. Today's feast commemorates all of those saints who were among those Empress Irene, but it also commemorates all those who struggled against the heresy of iconoclasm, and who laid the theological foundation for the eventual triumph of Orthodoxy.
The theological foundation laid by the great Fathers of the Church, Saint John of Damascus and Saint Theodore the Studite, is actually very simple in its directness and subtlety. It uses the evidence of the Scriptures, first of all, to show that not all images were forbidden under the Law of Moses, but, actually, only images of false gods, This is so, because, while the Lord God seems to forbid images in the Ten Commandments, further on in the Torah, in the discussion concerning the building of the Tabernacle, He commands the making of images. He instructs the people of Israel to make gold cherubim to adorn the lid of the Ark of the Covenant.
Yes, the only images that were in fact forbidden even under the Old Law were images of false gods. Other images, those commanded in the Torah, were recognized to be useful for devotion.
But that consideration, in itself, brings us to the second essential part of the theological argument of orthodoxy in favor of the images. While it is true that the Torah commands the making of images, where is the justification for the veneration of those images? It is in the Incarnation of Our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ itself. Saint Paul affirms in the Letter to the Colossians that in Christ the invisible God has become visible when the Apostle says: "He [Christ] is the image of the invisible God." Thus, because Christ has become man, taking on human nature as the means for our salvation, it has become possible to make images of Him, the True God.
This fact brings us to the third conclusion, which rests upon the truth of nature itself, namely the idea that whatever is done to the image is transferred to the prototype. In human cultures the world over, it is a commonplace that we show displeasure for worldly rulers and public figures by disfiguring and destroying their images. Thus, for example, we observe the universal practice of "burning in effigy," taking the image of a hated politician and setting it on fire. Everyone instinctually knows that this action is an insult to the person himself. The action against the image is transferred to the prototype, because the image participates in the identity of the prototype.
Since the very earliest days of Christianity, the existence of the icons has always been connected with the greatest of all icons, which by its existence itself seemed to justify and promote the existence of all the holy images. That icon is referred to as The Icon Not Made By Hands. This famous image of the face of the Lord Jesus was said to have been miraculously made by the Lord Jesus Himself, when He pressed His face against a cloth, which He sent to Abgar, the King of Edessa. Looking upon this image cured the king of leprosy.
The Icon Not Made By Hands in turn makes us contemplate the other, foundational "icon not made by hands," the image of God made in the very beginning: the human being. The very first book of the Bible, the Book of Genesis, tells us, "God said, 'Let us make the human being in our image and likeness... in the image of God He made them; male and female He created them.'" The likeness of that image was lost through sin, it is true, but it has been restored in Christ, the Image of the Invisible God. In Christ, we are all now renovated images of God, restored to the original glory of the likeness of God. This is the foundation of all of Christian ethics. We don't treat the images of God casually, carelessly or with contempt. We have the utmost respect for these "icons not made by hands" because whatever is done to the image is transferred to the prototype.
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