ICONOCLASM. – The heresy of those who opposed the veneration of images of Jesus Christ and the saints, especially in the 8th–9th centuries.
SUMMARY:
I. Historical synthesis
II. The teaching of the iconoclasts
III. Outcome of the iconoclastic persecutions.I. HISTORICAL SYNTHESIS
The word “iconoclast” literally means “breaker of icons” or “sacred images,” whether painted or sculpted, depicting Jesus Christ, the Blessed Virgin, or the saints. History has applied this name to those fanatical enemies of the use and veneration of images who appeared in the Byzantine Empire during the 8th–9th centuries. Leaders of the iconoclasts were the Byzantine emperors themselves, who endeavored by force to abolish not only the veneration but even the mere use of images. They are also called “iconomachs” or “enemies of images,” though there is a notable difference between the two terms. We know, in fact, that there were iconomachs who tolerated or even approved the use of sacred images while only opposing their religious veneration: it can therefore be said that all iconoclasts are iconomachs, but it is not accurate to say the converse, namely that all iconomachs are iconoclasts.Byzantine iconoclasm flourished in the 8th century, but even before this, history records many iconomachs and even some true iconoclasts. Indeed, even after the Byzantine iconoclastic movement had ended, there were terrible iconoclasts in the West (v. IMAGES, veneration of).
The history of iconoclasm unfolds in two clearly distinct periods; between them lies a tranquil interval during which the Seventh Ecumenical Council, the Second Council of Nicaea (787), defined the dogmatic question regarding the veneration owed to sacred images.
It was Emperor Leo III the Isaurian who first declared war on images in 725, if not by an explicit decree, at least through a series of declarations and dispositions that clearly revealed his mindset on the matter. Historians have posed the question: for what reason did the emperor unleash such a violent storm? Some attribute it to the influence of Judaism and Islam; others, however, point out that Leo had spent his youth and matured on the eastern frontiers of the Empire, among populations and soldiers already infected with Manichaean Paulicianism, instinctively hostile to any material representation. This is the most probable explanation. To this must be added the fact of real abuses that had crept into the veneration of images and the reforming mania that the “basileus” manifested in several areas.
Ch. Diehl and L. Bréhier, however, have demonstrated that Emperor Leo intended, through iconoclasm, to suppress the influence of the monks.
Leo first endeavored to win over some bishops to his viewpoint. He succeeded with Theodore of Ephesus, Thomas of Claudiopoli, and Constantine of Nacolia, but he utterly failed with the Patriarch of Constantinople, St. Germanus, who was forced to resign and give way to the synkellos Anastasius (17 Jan. 729). Two days later, in the quarter of Chalcis, the image of Christ was mutilated. The sacrilege provoked an uprising that was swiftly crushed in bloodshed. The Byzantine episcopate, without offering great resistance, bowed to the will of the Emperor, and iconoclasm became the official doctrine. The Melkite patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, which did not depend on the “basileus,” remained faithful to orthodoxy, which was defended in famous discourses by John of Damascus and George of Cyprus. Pope Gregory II (715–731), upon learning of the new heresy, energetically protested to the Emperor. His successor, Gregory III (731–743), did likewise and at the Roman Synod of 1 Nov. 731 proclaimed the legitimacy of the veneration of images. The Emperor’s response was not long in coming. Not only did he confiscate the revenues of the Church of Rome in imperial provinces, especially in Sicily, but he placed all the episcopal sees of the Roman patriarchate located in Byzantine territory under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinople. He did the same with the episcopal sees of the Melkite patriarchate of Antioch.
Upon his death, which occurred in 740, his son Constantine V, surnamed Copronymus, ascended the throne. Until 752, he displayed relative moderation in his iconoclastic zeal. The revolt of the general Artavasdos, who, supported by the faithful who remained orthodox, had succeeded in occupying Constantinople for a year and a half (June 741–Nov. 742), made Constantine cautious. In 752, he deemed the moment opportune to convene a council of the entire Byzantine episcopate to secure official approval of the iconoclastic doctrine. The Council, carefully prepared through small assemblies held here and there, convened on 10 Feb. 754 in the imperial palace of Hiera in the suburbs of Constantinople and concluded its work on 28 Aug. in the church of St. Mary of Blachernae. There, the dogmatic definition or “epoce” of this veritable conciliabulum, which dared to style itself ecumenical despite the absence of the other eastern patriarchs and the Pope, was read. Signed by no fewer than 338 bishops, this definition condemned the use and veneration of images, though it preserved the veneration of intercession directed to the Virgin and the saints.
Despite this definition, the people, and especially the monks, did not submit. Constantine V then launched a violent persecution against them. Exile, imprisonment, torture—everything was employed against the iconophiles. There were very many martyrs. At the same time, images were shattered, frescoes were whitewashed, mosaics were destroyed, illustrations in manuscripts were burned or torn up, and the churches of monasteries were desecrated. A decree issued toward the end of 764 imposed on all subjects of the Empire an oath to renounce images. Forgetting even the decisions of the Council of Hiera, the “basileus” went so far as to attack the veneration of intercession rendered to the Virgin and the saints, ordering their relics to be thrown into the sea. Pushing his secularized fanaticism to extremes, he even hunted down the word “saint” (ἅγιος) and had it removed everywhere, even from geographical and topographical names. He did the same with the word “monk.” He called monks “these wretches.” To suppress this “accursed brood,” he established the death penalty for any superiors who accepted novices.
Under Leo IV, Constantine’s successor, who reigned for only five years (775–80), the persecution was partly mitigated. After him, Leo’s widow Irene, who was very solicitous of the cult of the saints, took the reins of government in place of her only son, Constantine VI, who was only six years old. She worked skilfully to prepare for the restoration of the cult of images and to bring to an end the schism then existing against Rome and the Melkite patriarchates. On 29 August 785 she sent a delegation to propose to Pope Hadrian I the convocation of an ecumenical council. The Pope fully approved the proposal. He dispatched legates, and on 17 August of the following year it was possible to open the Council in Constantinople in the church of the Holy Apostles. Suddenly, however, a revolt of the iconoclast soldiers broke out. Irene was forced to postpone the Council. She was nevertheless able to disarm the rebel troops and immediately recalled the legates and bishops who had already set out. The place of meeting was no longer Constantinople but Nicaea. There the Seventh Ecumenical Council was held, which anathematised iconoclasm, explained and defined the cult rendered to sacred images, and defended its legitimacy against the objections of its adversaries. The definition of Nicaea was proclaimed at Constantinople, in an eighth and final session, before Irene and her son, as well as the people and the military garrison.
Though defeated at Nicaea, the iconoclast party was still strong and awaited a propitious moment to take revenge. All was calm until 813, when the Armenian Leo Bardas, by means of a military revolt, was proclaimed *basileus* under the name of Leo V. To please the soldiers, to whom he owed the imperial crown, Leo did not hesitate for a moment to rekindle the struggle against images. St Nicephorus, the patriarch, a most zealous defender of orthodoxy, was obliged to resign (13 March 815) and give way to a notorious iconoclast, Theodotus Melissenus Cassiteras, who lost no time in condemning the Council of 787 and reviving the decisions of Hieria by means of a synod of three sessions. A persecution against the iconophiles immediately broke out, far more violent than that under Constantine V. Bishops were driven out and replaced, monasteries closed and monks dispersed, the faithful were thrown into the sea, shut up in sacks, or subjected to such harsh flogging that they died, or imprisoned, or exiled—such were the deeds done under the reign of Leo the Armenian, who died assassinated in 820. He was succeeded by Michael II the Stammerer (820–829), who proved less brutal. He recalled the exiles and freed the prisoners, but went no further. The images remained forbidden. Under the Emperor Theophilus (829–842) a new persecution took place. Numerous confessors were imprisoned and cruelly tortured: the famous case of the two brothers Theodore and Theophanes, on whose foreheads a executioner inscribed no fewer than twelve iambic verses (836). Only at the death of this *basileus* (842) was it possible to see what had been seen at the death of Leo IV: an empress regent, favourable to images, who restored their cult with prudence—Theodora, widow of Theophilus, who removed the iconoclast patriarch John VII and replaced him with St Methodius, a man of firmness and prudence. On 11 March 843, the first Sunday of Lent, it was at last possible to celebrate with full pomp the definitive triumph of orthodoxy in a feast that has remained to this day under the name of the “Feast of Orthodoxy.” In it anathemas were pronounced against all heretics and a threefold eternal memorial was rendered to the defenders of the true faith.
Iconoclasm – Type of decoration derived from iconoclastic prototypes, according to Zebughin, miniature from cod. Vat. gr. 354 f. 17² containing the Tetraevangelion written by Michael the Monk (949) – Vatican Library.
II. The Doctrine of the Iconoclasts
Regarding the doctrine of the iconoclasts we have scant information, since their writings were destroyed. The most important source that has come down to us is the definition or *horos* of the synod of Hieria (754), reported and refuted in the acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Mansi, XII, 208–352). The enemies of images appeal now to Scripture, now to Tradition, now to theological reasoning. According to them, the cult of images is nothing less than idolatry, contrary to the first precept of the Decalogue: “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath” (Ex. 20:4).They then attempt to discover in the writings of the Fathers everything that might support their thesis. The quotations are often mutilated, not interpreted in their context, sometimes interpolated deliberately or even fabricated. Above all against the image of Christ they advance the following reasoning, which, according to them, leaves no loophole to the iconophiles: “Since Jesus Christ is at once God and man, in painting his humanity you either separate it from the divinity—and then you are veritable Nestorians and divide Christ—or else you are Monophysites, because you seek to circumscribe the divinity, which cannot be circumscribed, and make it disappear into the humanity.” Moreover, they thought that the only image, the only representation worthy of adoration of Christ, is that which is had in the Eucharist through the consecration of the bread and wine. In saying this, they refer to the old patristic expression still found in the Mass of St Basil, which calls the oblations: “the image of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.” Lastly, they adduce, in support of their thesis, the abuses into which certain iconophiles fell. A list of such abuses may be read in the letter of Michael the Stammerer to Louis the Pious written in 824 (Hefele-Leclercq, IV, 42). But even if these abuses really occurred, they are not so grave. The chief one consisted in taking icons as godfathers at Baptism.
Constantine Copronymus, as has been seen, attacked not only the cult of images of the Virgin and the saints, but also the cult of their relics and denied them the power of intercession. It does not appear that the iconoclast theologians shared Constantine’s view on this point. The Council of Hieria had clearly safeguarded the cult of intercession.
III. Outcome of the Iconoclast Persecutions
The iconoclast movement ended by producing an effect entirely opposite to that which its promoters had dreamed. Far from causing the disappearance of the cult of images, it served to root it more deeply in the hearts of the Byzantines and to push it to the point of exaggeration.As regards religious art, it must be said that the iconoclast movement destroyed inestimable masterpieces, replacing them with a profane art, entirely based on animal, floral, and geometric ornamentation. This very attempt, however, had a short-lived existence. The fear, nevertheless, of being accused of idolatry—an accusation that the iconoclasts readily levelled against the iconophiles—made artists very timid in representing Jesus Christ, the Virgin, and the saints. Not only did they abandon sculpture, but in iconography their creative genius was almost extinguished by the concern to produce not an image drawn from the imagination but a simple portrait of the prototype. This explains certain stereotyped models imposed by tradition.
As regards general history, the persecutions stirred up by the iconoclasts produced the painful effect of ever deepening the gulf of division between East and West in the religious sphere and of preparing the definitive schism. By their duration and their violence, these persecutions accustomed the Byzantines to live apart from Rome. The popes, on their side, began to regard with aversion these heretical and persecuting emperors, who were moreover incapable of defending themselves against the pressure of the barbarians, and therefore turned their eyes to the political power of the West, represented by Pippin the Short and Charlemagne. What they keenly felt and which was to be the object of their protests throughout the centuries was the spoliation and dismemberment, to the advantage of Constantinople, of the Roman patriarchate in the East decreed by Leo the Isaurian in 732. — See pl. XCV.