The literature on the image-controversy is much colored by the doctrinal stand-point of the writers.
Gibbon treats it with cold philosophical indifference, and chiefly in its bearing on the political
fortunes of the Byzantine empire.
With the worship of saints is closely, connected a subordinate worship of their images and
relics. The latter is the legitimate application of the former. But while the mediaeval churches of
the East and West—with the exception of a few protesting voices—were agreed on the worship of
saints, there was a violent controversy about the images which kept the Eastern church in commotion
for more than a century (a.d. 724–842), and hastened the decline of the Byzantine empire.
The abstract question of the use of images is connected with the general subject of the
relation of art to worship. Christianity claims to be the perfect and universal religion; it pervades
with its leavening power all the faculties of man and all departments of life. It is foreign to nothing
which God has made. It is in harmony with all that is true, and beautiful, and good. It is friendly
to philosophy, science, and art, and takes them into its service. Poetry, music, and architecture
achieve their highest mission as handmaids of religion, and have derived the inspiration for their
noblest works from the Bible. Why then should painting or sculpture or any other art which comes
from God, be excluded from the use of the Church? Why should not Bible history as well as all
other history admit of pictorial and sculptured representation for the instruction and enjoyment of
children and adults who have a taste for beauty? Whatever proceeds from God must return to God
and spread his glory.
But from the use of images for ornament, instruction and enjoyment there is a vast step to
the worship of images, and experience proves that the former can exist without a trace of the latter.
In the middle ages, however, owing to the prevailing saint-worship, the two were inseparable. The
pictures were introduced into churches not as works of art, but as aids and objects of devotion. The
image-controversy was therefore a, purely practical question of worship, and not a philosophical
or artistic question. To a rude imagination an ugly and revolting picture served the devotional
purpose even better than one of beauty and grace. It was only towards the close of the middle ages
that the art of Christian painting began to produce works of high merit. Moreover the
image-controversy was complicated with the second commandment of the decalogue which clearly
and wisely forbids, if not all kinds of figurative representations of the Deity, at all events every
idolatrous and superstitious use of pictures. It was also beset by the difficulty that we have no
authentic pictures of Christ, the Madonna and the Apostles or any other biblical character.
We have traced in previous volumes the gradual introduction of sacred images from the
Roman Catacombs to the close of the sixth century. The use of symbols and pictures was at first
quite innocent and spread imperceptibly with the growth of the worship of saints. The East which
inherited a love for art from the old Greeks, was chiefly devoted to images, the Western barbarians
who could not appreciate works of art, cared more for relics.
We may distinguish three theories, of which two came into open conflict and disputed the
ground till the year 842.
- The theory of Image-Worship. It is the orthodox theory, denounced by the opponents as
a species of idolatry,^531 but strongly supported by the people, the monks, the poets, the women, the
Empresses Irene and Theodora, sanctioned by the seventh oecumenical Council (787) and by the
531
Its advocates were calledεἰκονολάτραι,ξυλολάτραι,εἰδωδολάτραι.