ICONS IN THE EARLY CHURCH

For, like some others, you are under the delusion that our god is an ass’s head. Cornelius Tacitus first put this notion into people’s minds.

In the fifth book of his histories, beginning the (narrative of the) Jewish war with an account of the origin of the nation; and theorizing at his pleasure about the origin, as well as the name and the religion of the Jews, he states that having been delivered, or rather, in his opinion, expelled from Egypt, in crossing the vast plains of Arabia, where water is so scanty, they were in extremity from thirst; but taking the guidance of the wild asses, which it was thought might be seeking water after feeding, they discovered a fountain, and thereupon in their gratitude they consecrated a head of this species of animal.

And as Christianity is nearly allied to Judaism, from this, I suppose, it was taken for granted that we too are devoted to the worship of the same image.

But the said Cornelius Tacitus (the very opposite of tacit in telling lies) informs us in the work already mentioned, that when Cneius Pompeius captured Jerusalem, he entered the temple to see the arcana of the Jewish religion, but found no image there.

Yet surely if worship was rendered to any visible object, the very place for its exhibition would be the shrine; and that all the more that the worship, however unreasonable, had no need there to fear outside beholders. For entrance to the holy place was permitted to the priests alone, while all vision was forbidden to others by an outspread curtain.

You will not, however, deny that all beasts of burden, and not parts of them, but the animals entire, are with their goddess Epona objects of worship with you. It is this, perhaps, which displeases you in us, that while your worship here is universal, we do homage only to the ass.

Then, if any of you think we render superstitious adoration to the cross, in that adoration he is sharer with us. If you offer homage to a piece of wood at all, it matters little what it is like when the substance is the same: it is of no consequence the form, if you have the very body of the god.

And yet how far does the Athenian Pallas differ from the stock of the cross, or the Pharian Ceres as she is put up uncarved to sale, a mere rough stake and piece of shapeless wood? Every stake fixed in an upright position is a portion of the cross; we render our adoration, if you will have it so, to a god entire and complete.

We have shown before that your deities are derived from shapes modelled from the cross.

But you also worship victories, for in your trophies the cross is the heart of the trophy. The camp religion of the Romans is all through a worship of the standards, a setting the standards above all gods. Well, as those images decking out the standards are ornaments of crosses. All those hangings of your standards and banners are robes of crosses. I praise your zeal: you would not consecrate crosses unclothed and unadorned.

Others, again, certainly with more information and greater verisimilitude, believe that the sun is our god. We shall be counted Persians perhaps, though we do not worship the orb of day painted on a piece of linen cloth, having himself everywhere in his own disk. The idea no doubt has originated from our being known to turn to the east in prayer.

But you, many of you, also under pretence sometimes of worshipping the heavenly bodies, move your lips in the direction of the sunrise. In the same way, if we devote Sun-day to rejoicing, from a far different reason than Sun-worship, we have some resemblance to those of you who devote the day of Saturn to ease and luxury, though they too go far away from Jewish ways, of which indeed they are ignorant.

But lately a new edition of our god has been given to the world in that great city: it originated with a certain vile man who was wont to hire himself out to cheat the wild beasts, and who exhibited a picture with this inscription: The God of the Christians, born of an ass.

He had the ears of an ass, was hoofed in one foot, carried a book, and wore a toga. Both the name and the figure gave us amusement. But our opponents ought straightway to have done homage to this biformed divinity, for they have acknowledged gods dog-headed and lion-headed, with horn of buck and ram, with goat-like loins, with serpent legs, with wings sprouting from back or foot. These things we have discussed ex abundanti, that we might not seem willingly to pass by any rumor against us unrefuted. Having thoroughly cleared ourselves, we turn now to an exhibition of what our religion really is. (The Apology)

14. Now that among Greeks such things should be done is no wonder: but among the worshippers of the Cross, (τὸν σταυρὸν προσκυνοῦσι) and partakers in unspeakable mysteries, and professors of such high morality, (τοσαῦτα φιλοσοφοῦσιν) that such unseemliness should prevail, this is especially to be deplored again and again. God has honored you with spiritual anointing; and do you defile your child with mud? God has honored you, and do you dishonor yourself? And when you should inscribe on his forehead the Cross which affords invincible security; do you forego this, and cast yourself into the madness of Satan?

If any look on these things as trifles, let them know that they are the source of great evils; and that not even unto Paul did it seem right to overlook the lesser things. For, tell me, what can be less than a man’s covering his head? Yet observe how great a matter he makes of this and with how great earnestness he forbids it; saying, among many things, He dishonors his head. 1 Corinthians 11:4 Now if he that covers himself dishonors his head; he that besmears his child with mud, how can it be less than making it abominable? For how, I want to know, can he bring it to the hands of the priest? How can you require that on that forehead the seal should be placed by the hand of the presbyter, where you have been smearing the mud? Nay, my brethren, do not these things, but from earliest life encompass them with spiritual armor and instruct them to seal the forehead with the hand (τῇ χειρὶ παιδεύτε σφραγίζειν τὸ μέτωπον): and before they are able to do this with their own hand , do you imprint upon them the Cross.

Why should one speak of the other satanical observances in the case of travail-pangs and childbirths, which the midwives introduce with a mischief on their own heads? Of the outcries which take place at each person’s death, and when he is carried to his burial; the irrational wailings, the folly enacted at the funerals; the zeal about men’s monuments; the importunate and ridiculous swarm of the mourning women ; the observances of days; the days, I mean, of entrance into the world and of departure? (Homily 12 1 Corinthians 4:6-10)

For instance, then, the images of our kings here, even though they be not formed of the more precious materials — gold or silver — are honoured by all. For men do not, while they treat with respect those of the far more precious material, slight those of a less valuable, but honour every image in the world, even though it be of chalk or bronze. And one who speaks against either of them, is not acquitted as if he had only spoken against clay, nor condemned for having despised gold, but for having been disrespectful towards the King and Lord Himself. The images of God’s angels, which are fashioned of gold, the principalities and powers, we make to His honour and glory. (From the Discourse on the Resurrection)

Seven years later, in 392, Epiphanius published his De Mensuris et Ponderibus, a manual of information for students of scripture. In 393 we find him on another visit to Palestine, traveling to Bethel to share a service with the bishop of Jerusalem, John. In a village church he found a curtain painted with the image of Christ or a saint, tore it down at once, and advised the parishioners to use it as a burial shroud for the poor. His Letter to John (Epiphanius/Jerome Epistle 51) relates the incident and includes Epiphanius’ promise to replace the curtain. It also, rather lamely, explains Epiphanius’ ordination to the priesthood of Jerome’s brother Paulinian—an uncanonical one since, although it took place at Epiphanius’ monastery near Eleutheropolis, Paulinian was to serve at Bethlehem, in John’s diocese. Most importantly, however, this Letter addressed to the convinced Origenist, John, is an anti-Origenist tract and was circulated as such. (The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis Book I (Sects 1-46), Second Edition, Revised and Expanded Translated by Frank Williams [Brill, Leiden-Boston 2009], Volume 63, p. xvii)

Epiphanius’ writings against images appear to date from the same decade as the Letter to John. This concern makes itself apparent already in the Panarion where, at 27,6,9-10, he attacks Christian image-making. Three writings against Christian images can be partially reconstructed from conciliar acta and other sources.⁷ These are called a Treatise against Those Who, by Idolatrous Custom, Are Accustomed to Make Images Representative of Christ, the Mother of God and the Martyrs and further, of Angels and Prophets; a Letter to Theodosius; and a Testament to the Citizens (of Salamis). (Ibid., pp. xix-xx)

9. Moreover, I have heard that certain persons have this grievance against me: When I accompanied you to the holy place called Bethel, there to join you in celebrating the Collect, after the use of the Church, I came to a villa called Anablatha and, as I was passing, saw a lamp burning there. Asking what place it was, and learning it to be a church, I went in to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints; I do not rightly remember whose the image was. Seeing this, and being loth that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ’s church contrary to the teaching of the Scriptures, I tore it asunder and advised the custodians of the place to use it as a winding sheet for some poor person. They, however, murmured, and said that if I made up my mind to tear it, it was only fair that I should give them another curtain in its place. As soon as I heard this, I promised that I would give one, and said that I would send it at once. Since then there has been some little delay, due to the fact that I have been seeking a curtain of the best quality to give to them instead of the former one, and thought it right to send to Cyprus for one. I have now sent the best that I could find, and I beg that you will order the presbyter of the place to take the curtain which I have sent from the hands of the Reader, and that you will afterwards give directions that curtains of the other sort — opposed as they are to our religion — shall not be hung up in any church of Christ. A man of your uprightness should be careful to remove an occasion of offense unworthy alike of the Church of Christ and of those Christians who are committed to your charge. Beware of Palladius of Galatia — a man once dear to me, but who now sorely needs God’s pity — for he preaches and teaches the heresy of Origen; and see to it that he does not seduce any of those who are entrusted to your keeping into the perverse ways of his erroneous doctrine. I pray that you may fare well in the Lord. (St. Jerome, LETTER 51 — FROM EPIPHANIUS, BISHOP OF SALAMIS, IN CYPRUS, TO JOHN, BISHOP OF JERUSALEM)

But you will say to me, “The fathers detested the idols of the nations, but we make images of the saints in their memory, and we prostrate ourselves in front of them in their honor.” Precisely by this reasoning, some of you have had the audacity, after having plastered a wall inside the holy house, to represent the images of Peter, John, and Paul with various colors, as I can see by the inscriptions written on each of the images which falsely bare the name [image]. The inscriptions have been written under the influence of the painter’s insanity and according to his [twisted] way of thinking. (Against Those Who, Following an Idolatrous Practice, Make Images with the Intention of Reproducing the Likeness of Christ, the Mother of God, the Angels and the Prophets, Par. 3)