Theology Today http://ttj.sagepub.com/ Iconoclastic Immunity: Reformed/Orthodox Convergence in Theological Aesthetics in Theodore of Studios Matthew J. Milliner Theology Today 2006 62: 501 DOI: 10.1177/004057360606200406 The online version of this article can be found at: http://ttj.sagepub.com/content/62/4/501 Published by: http://www.sagepublications.com On behalf of: Princeton Theological Seminary Additional services and information for Theology Today can be found at: Email Alerts: http://ttj.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Subscriptions: http://ttj.sagepub.com/subscriptions Reprints: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.nav Permissions: http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011 Theology Today 6 2 (2006): 5 0 1 - 1 4 ICONOCLASTIC IMMUNITY Reformed/Orthodox Convergence in Theological Aesthetics in Theodore of Studios MATTHEW J. MILLINER T he weaknesses of the Reformed theological tradition, if they are plain anywhere, are so in the aesthetic realm. Alain Besançon suggests this overall contribution of the Calvinist aesthetic to the history of art: In Calvin's project, the divine aspect of the work no longer comes from what is represented but from the représenter, the artist. Since the work's subject no longer has to do with faith, that divine aspect, which is no longer explicit, does not originate in the artist's faith but in the divine spark he possesses, not as a Christian but as an artist. The Calvinist path also opens a door toward the deification of the artist. Supernatural light still shines in an unexpected manner on desacralized art and feeds a different kind of idolatry than that Calvin wanted to uproot, 1 and which would have horrified him even more. That the idolatry of the artist which overwhelmed western art history can be traced back to Calvin is a grand accusation that Besançon shrinks from posing directly, but Calvin may nevertheless have seriously contributed to that most unfortunate result. This essay addresses that Reformed weak­ ness, proposing that it is based to a significant extent upon correctible historical misperceptions. While there have certainly been fine attempts 2 at elaborating a Reformed aesthetics in the recent and not so recent Matthew J. Milliner graduated from Wheaton College (IL) in 1998 with a BA in art history, then, after working on staff at Media Presbyterian Church (Media, PA) for three years, attended Princeton Theological Seminary (Princeton, NJ), receiving his MDiv in 2005. He is currently a PhD student in the Art and Archaeology Department at Princeton University. l The Forbidden Image (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 190. 2 To name just three examples: Nicholas Wolterstorff's Art in Action (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980) attempts to break the Kantian grip on our culture's "Institution of High Art" and to develop a more biblical aesthetic; Jeremy Begbie, Voicing Creation's Praise (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1991) calls Paul Tillich's Protestant aesthetics to task for being insufficiently linked to Christian dogmatics; and William A. Dyrness, Visual Faith (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001) attempts to develop a Reformed aesthetics from an evangelical perspective. 501 Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011 502 Theology Today 3 past, this essay takes a different approach. Other strategies acknowledged a Reformed deficiency, then sought to compensate for it constructively. Here I will simply acknowledge the deficiency, then capitalize on our ecumenical Zeitgeist by looking to another, misperceived tradition for theological remedy. Based on the work of Ephraim Radner, I suggest that an ecclesiology of brokenness is the only "right" ecclesiology for our pluralistic time, when the strengths of other Christian communions and the 4 weaknesses of our own no longer can be ignored. The way toward Christian unity, then, may be, not through defending the uniqueness of our 5 own particular strands of the Christian tapestry, but rather through ad­ mitting their limitations and seeking theological solutions from threads other than our own. Yet, ecumenical bridges, one might suggest, already have been burned. Calvin is delighted to marshal eastern arguments against papal supremacy, but he is also quite content to describe image-assisted worship as "childish 6 fallacies." Taking the same line as the Libri Carolini toward the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicea II, 787)—a position Catholicism later re­ vised—Calvin names the carefully crafted distinction between latreia (worship: given only to God) and douleia (veneration: permitted to saints) 7 a "distinction without a difference." He even goes so far as to dismiss the council altogether. A church with images is, for Calvin, an impure one 8 caught in "spiritual captivity to the senses." Christians who use images in worship are arrested in a lower state of spiritual development than that to which Calvin and his Reformed followers have advanced. Furthermore, after an in-depth investigation of Calvin's view of images over the span of the reformer's entire career, Giuseppe Scavizzi concludes that "not ac­ 9 cepting Calvin's iconoclastic stance means not accepting Calvin himself." Or does it? Seeking to define the precise point at which image-wor­ shippers have gone wrong, Calvin explains that they have become "en­ raptured in [the images of] contemplation, as if there was [sic] some 3 The project of harvesting the Reformed aesthetics implicit in Jonathan Edwards's theology of beauty is ongoing. See, for example, Louis J. Mitchell, Studies in Reformed Theology and History 9 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Theological Seminary, 2003). 4 Ephraim Radner, The End of the Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). 5 An example of this approach can be found recently in David VanDrunen's attempt to reestablish a basis for the Reformed aniconic stance on Chalcedonian and eschatological grounds. "Iconoclasm, Incarnation and Eschatology: Toward a Catholic Understanding of the Reformed Doctrine of the 'Second' Commandment," International Journal of System­ atic Theology 6/2 (2004): 130-47. 6 Giuseppe Scavizzi, The Controversy on Images from Calvin to Baronius (New York: Peter Lang, 1992), 19. 7 John Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, 2 vols., ed. John T. McNeill (Nashville: Westminster John Knox, 1960), 118. The Libri Carolini (c.792) were sent by the Franks to the bishop of Rome, addressing issues raised in the Seventh Ecumenical Council, arguing that the eastern church had authorized "superstitious adoration" of icons, claiming that images were properly used in the church only for instructing the illiterate. 8 Scavizzi, 14. 9 Ibid., 22. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011  Reformed/Orthodox Convergence 503 10 divinity in them." But if this is the rationale underlying Calvin's disap­ proval of images, then what Calvin rejected is not the use of icons, as the 11 practice has been most articulately defended. Therefore, one can perhaps accept Calvin's iconoclastic stance, and therefore accept Calvin, while simultaneously arguing that the eastern Christian tradition is utterly im­ mune from his attacks based on the work of a preeminent ninth-century defender of icons, Theodore of Studios (759-826). Furthermore, such immunity is by no means the property of the Orthodox, but can, when clearly understood, be appropriated by the Reformed. The solution to the deficiency of the Reformed aesthetic may therefore come from a ninth- century Orthodox monk. Lending this task more than peripheral significance is the fact that neither of the theologians I seek to "reconcile"—Calvin and Theodore—is merely a peripheral thinker in his own tradition. Calvin is the fountainhead of the Reformed tradition. Theodore of Studios's central position in Orthodox theology, however, may be less clear. It has been suggested that "Theodore of Studios, together with John of Damascus and the Patriarch Nicephoros, must be considered the last founders of the constitution of 12 Greek Theology's d o g m a t i c s . " Unlike Roman Catholicism, Eastern Or­ thodoxy is not a moving target. It has no theory of ongoing doctrinal development (at least not after the ninth century) and, therefore, by examining Theodore of Studios we may be confident that we are exam­ ining eastern theology as it currently stands. It was Theodore who ad­ vanced eastern dogmatics beyond the very criticisms upon which Calvin rests his case against idolatry. If the basis of Calvin's attack is that images are being worshipped "as if there was some divinity in them," then Calvin plainly has misunderstood Eastern Orthodox theology—indeed, in just the way that Theodore of Studios sought to remedy. Faced with the iconoclasts of his own day, Theodore encountered a very similar criticism and ad­ justed his theology to address it—an adjustment subsequently fixed in unchangeable Orthodox dogma. My thesis is that, in the ninth century, Theodore of Studios permanently altered eastern Christian theology so that it has never formally been the target of Calvin's polemics against idolatry. To my knowledge, Calvin was unaware of this development in Orthodox dogmatics. He may have launched his attack on idolatry for good reasons, but the trajectory of that attack misses the target of Eastern Orthodox dogmatics as enhanced by Theodore of Studios, which is the only legitimate eastern dogmatics. Therefore, nowhere in his writings has Calvin formally rejected the actual eastern practice of using icons in worship, properly understood. 10 Ibid. (emphasis added). 11 The western Christian tradition, not under the same pressure from iconoclasts, conse­ quently had no need to develop its theology of icons as did the east. 12 Theodor Damian, Spiritual and Theological Dimensions of Icons according to Theodore ofStudion (Wales: Edwin Mellen, 2002), 243 (quoting A. Ehrhard). Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011 504 Theology Today THE HISTORY PROBLEM The common western misperception of eastern Christians' use of icons in worship results from an oversimplification of the iconoclastic contro­ versy—of which we may be just as guilty as Calvin. In Christian history, as often taught in courses and written in textbooks, the sole opponent of Byzantine iconoclasm is John of Damascus (c.676-749). With so much history to cover and so little classroom time, perhaps this is as it should be. But when both waves of iconoclasm are taken into account—not only the outbreak that led to Empress Irene's Nicea II in 787, but also the onslaught that led to Empress Theodora's triumph of Orthodoxy in 843—a more complex picture emerges. John of Damascus provided the theological defense against the first wave of iconoclasm, but the primary respondent to the second was Theodore of Studios, who significantly developed John of Damascus' ideas, yielding the "highest and most elaborated [theology 13 of the icon] in the iconoclastic p e r i o d . " In this second stage of defense against iconoclasm, "the written arguments were more sophisticated and 14 intellectual than those of the earlier s t a g e s . " There may even be dis­ agreements between the two figures: "Contrary to the Damascene, the Studite grants the matter of the icon no power to transmit Presence and 15 energy." In the second stage of defense, Theodore "deepened St John's 16 teaching and made it more nuanced and p r e c i s e . " And it is just this precision that removes Orthodox dogmatics from the range of Calvin's accusation: "St John in his concept of matter was close to the risk of fetishism . . . [yet] St Theodore explicitly insisted on the fact that the 17 prototype does not deify the matter on which it is d e p i c t e d . " Theodore himself insists that, in icons, "divinity is present there not by union of nature, for they are not deified matter; divinity is present in them 18 only by a relation of relative participation, a sharing in grace and h o n o r . " In fact, he anathematizes those who think otherwise: "If anyone should say that, when he venerates the icon of Christ, he is venerating Christ's divinity present naturally in the icon, rather than only insofar as the icon is the shadow of the flesh which is united to the divinity (since the 19 Godhead is everywhere), he is a h e r e t i c . " I am under no illusion that Calvin himself would have smiled upon Theodore's subtlety, but it is significant that he never addressed it, and therefore never formally attacked the most advanced legitimation that Eastern Orthodoxy has put forward to justify the veneration of icons. Calvin's attack addressed only the eastern justification as it stood in the 13 Ibid., 194. 14 Moshe Barasch, Icon: Studies in the History of an Idea (New York: New York University Press, 1992), 262. 15 Besancon, 131. 16 Damian, 229. 17 Ibid., 252. 18 Ibid. 19 Theodore the Studite, On the Holy Icons (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1981), 40. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011  Reformed/Orthodox Convergence 505 theology of John of Damascus, a justification that Orthodoxy, via Patriarch Nicephoros (d. 829) and finally Theodore, saw fit to revise. A more in-depth investigation into the history of the iconoclastic controversy and its two distinct stages will make this clearer. STAGE 1 ( 7 3 0 - 8 7 ) : IDOLATRY AND JOHN'S DEFENSE Leo III (717-41) and his son Constantine V (741-75) were the first emperors to write iconoclasm into law for the Byzantine world. The policy was formally prescribed in 754 at the Iconoclastic Council of Hieria and Blachernae. Many factors facilitated this first wave of eighth-century 20 Byzantine i c o n o c l a s m , but the strongest resulted from political and military concerns. As the armies of Islam encroached upon Byzantine turf, it was easy to interpret them as aniconic avengers wreaking divine pun­ ishment for the widespread Byzantine practice of "icon veneration," which Leo and Constantine named "idol worship." Furthermore, it was easy to interpret the military victories of Leo and Constantine as God's approval of whatever policy the emperor condoned: in this case, a virulent form of iconoclasm. But, despite the apparent persuasion of this martial logic, the two rulers were not prepared to base their prohibition of icons on military reasons alone. As theoretical backing for his policy, Constantine V tied a christological knot that would take more than a generation of iconophile theologians to untangle. Yet those arguments did not take center-stage until the second wave of iconoclasm, decades later. According to historian Edward Martin, this first stage of iconoclasm "saw image-worship simply as idolatry," and 21 "made little or no attempt to argue what seemed self-evident." The famous defender against this first wave of iconoclasts was John of Damascus, who successfully diffused this relatively simple accusation. Continues Martin: "The loose condemnation leveled by the Iconoclast against the worship of images as a species of idolatry was easily countered by demanding a definition of terms. What was an image? What was an idol? And, What is meant by worship? The reply to the accusation is ably 22 and completely put by St John of D a m a s c u s . " He did it as follows: The iconoclasts argued that Christian icon-worship is a carryover from paganism. John replied that a pagan idol is "a vain 23 representation of what never existed in f a c t , " whereas Christian icons refer to an actual, real deity. Furthermore, pagan precedent for Christian practices alone is an insufficient argument for their invalidation, unless one is prepared to abandon the Christian's bloodless sacrifice of the 20 Touching on the motivations for this policy, William Treadgold suggests that "Leo III and [his son] Constantine V seem to have imposed Iconoclasm partly to claim for emperors some of the moral authority of the Church in general and monks in particular." A Concise History of Byzantium (New York: Palgrave 2002), 118. 21 Edward James Martin, A History of the Iconoclastic Controversy (London: Church Historical Society, 1930), 113. 22 Ibid., 113. 23 Ibid., 115. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011 506 Theology Today Through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God has redeemed matter, which therefore cannot be shunned. Eucharist based on the precedent of pagan sacrifices, or Christian exorcism because of pagan exorcism. Iconoclasts in the first wave insisted that "veneration" of icons was too much like the scriptural instances of "veneration" of idols. John replied that the word used for this in the Septuagint, "proskunesis" was also used for Abraham bowing to the children of Heth, and for Absalom bowing before king David, so it could not be so easily dismissed. But it is one very specific move of John's that gets him into trouble, centuries later, with Calvin. The iconoclasts "saw the images drawing 'the spirit of man from the lofty adoration of God to the low and material 24 adoration of the c r e a t u r e . ' " John replied that, through the incarnation of Jesus Christ, God has redeemed matter, which therefore cannot be shunned. "Behind this cry against idolatry John suspects an abnormal fear 25 of matter which is nothing but M a n i c h a e n i s m . " John continues, fatally so in the eyes of Calvin, by insisting that "Material things are endued with a divine power because they bear the names of those they repre­ 2 6 sent . . . . " Martin explains that, as a consequence of this move, "An image in St John's view is in some sense a sacrament or emanation of the thing represented, and from the image to God there is a graded ascent by 27 a neo-Platonic ladder." Greatly influenced by Pseudo-Dionysius (c.500), John's "theory of images owes much to the symbolism of Heavenly and Ecclesiastical Hierarchies in which Dionysius reproduced the neo-Pla- 28 tonist's chain [of being] between God and the individual." Theodore, in contrast, directly contradicts this Dionysian heritage (perhaps unwit­ 29 t i n g l y ) , while John of Damascus relies heavily upon it, enough so to earn 30 Calvin's c e n s u r e . 25 Ibid., 118. 26 Ibid., 119 (emphasis added). 27 Ibid., 119-20. 28 Ibid., 120. 29 Pseudo-Dionysius recommended that artists beware resemblance of the icon with its prototype in order to avoid idolatry: "They must be lowly and inadequate so that no one can confuse them with celestial and supercelestial essences." Besan9on, 154. In contrast, Theodore of Studios recommended that artists actively attempt resemblance of the icon with its prototype for the same reason—to avoid idolatry: "When an icon no longer bears the 'character,' that is, the distinctive traits of the model, it is fit to be cast into the fire." Ibid., 130. This discrepancy exists because the development that took place in Theodore's theology as he addressed Constantine V's attacks had not yet taken place in the time of Pseudo-Dionysius, who lived some two and a half centuries before Theodore. 30 Pseudo-Dionysius was notoriously unpopular among sixteenth-century Protestant Re­ formers. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011  Reformed/Orthodox Convergence 507 But although this view divinizes matter in a way unacceptable to Calvin, it satisfied John's immediate opponents. "The whole question of idolatrous worship, with the subsidiary problems of degrees of adoration and the exact nature of images, is examined by St John of Damascus so thoroughly and so finally that the argument about idolatry was felt by the Iconoclasts themselves to lack conviction and was practically replaced by a new one 31 based on Christology." The iconoclasts, accepting John's christological and incarnational ratio­ nale of images, abandoned future recourse to the charge of idolatry. But in its place came, from Constantine V, the much more elaborate charge of christological heresy. And the primary defender against this second charge was, not John of Damascus, but Theodore of Studios. STAGE 2 ( 8 1 3 - 4 3 ) : CHRISTOLOGICAL HERESY AND THEODORE'S DEFENSE Theodore of Studios was born into a Byzantium constricted by Constan­ tine V's iconoclast grip, though it was beginning to loosen its hold. As centuries-strong iconophile piety slowly began to reassert itself, despite opposition, a monastic renewal resulted, culminating in the Empress Irene's Second Nicene Council (787). Swept up in this movement, Theo­ dore (and later his entire family) took the habit. He did not attend the council, but was heavily involved in the very public controversies leading 3 2 to iconoclasm's unwelcome return, and the reversal of Nicea II in 8 1 5 . Consequently, Theodore spent twelve years in exile, during which he wrote an extraordinary corpus of letters, containing the very arguments that provided the theoretical backing for the next (and final) reversal of policy, that of Empress Theodora in 843. Like Calvin, Theodore lived in a time when a new humanism was 33 dawning in his w o r l d . Thus, the "second phase of the Iconoclastic Debate, one may say, has a character of its own. . . . [There was] a more restrained style of disputation . . . . The literary arguments . . . were carried on by more educated people, some of a highly elitist culture. . . . Written 3 4 arguments were more sophisticated . . . , " Theodore, therefore, would have to meet the fresh charges of iconoclasm with more erudition than had 35 John, and under less favorable circumstances, but it was a task he proved 3 1 Martin, 116. 32 " ' W e refrain from speaking of images as idols,' says the Council of 815, 'because there are degrees of evil,'" thereby acknowledging the successful defense of John of Damascus. Ibid., 184. 33 "The final demise of iconoclasm [via Theodore] was followed by a return to the values of the ancient world and a resurgence of humanistic ideas." Aikaterine Christophilopolou, n d Byzantine History, vol. 2, 2 ed. (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1993), 135. 3 %arasch, 262. 35 While John had enjoyed political protection as he penned his arguments (albeit from a sultan!), Theodore most often wrote from prison. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011 508 Theology Today able to accomplish. In short, the arguments this time were more aca­ 36 demic. But the content of the debate shifted, as well as the form. The emphasis in the second stage was specifically on Christ, and the battle would be won by whoever was able to secure the beachhead of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. "During the first period of the great debate, the full weight of the Chris- tological argument was felt only at the end, when it was considered a final justification of images. In the second phase of the controversy the Chris- tological argument was brought up right from the beginning, and it soon 37 became the central theme of all theoretical deliberations." I would like now to examine the nature of Constantine's argument and Theodore's reply, showing that the iconophile answer is not as simple as it may at first appear to be. UNTANGLING CONSTANTINE'S CHRISTOLOGICAL KNOT Constantine V's argument proceeds as follows: If, according to Chalcedon, Christ's hypostasis (person) cannot be separated from his two natures, then it is impossible to paint Christ without becoming either Monophysite (conflating the divine nature and human nature in the painting) or Nesto- rian (separating the human nature from the divine nature in the painting). The seductive logic is difficult to evade: Were one actually to represent the divine nature in paint, it would certainly be worthy of veneration, muses Constantine, but how can one circumscribe (limit) the divine, which is necessarily uncircumscribable? Much more understandable would be de­ piction in paint of a merely human nature. But then, veneration of a merely human nature is idolatry. And worse, interpreting a painting of Christ as separating the human nature from the divine nature, as this logic would seem to demand, resembles Nestorian Christology, which had been clearly condemned at the Council of Chalcedon (451). It is not difficult to see how Besan^on could conclude that "Constantine V was as skilled a theologian as he was a military leader.. . . [H]e forged a theological argument so well constructed that it took the work of a full generation of theologians to 38 demolish i t . " Demolished, however, it was, thanks largely to the forensic skills of Theodore, who first uncovered Constantine's mistake: Where is the flaw in the argument? In the idea of the inseparability of the two natures in the prosopon [or hypostasis]. In that case, the prosopon is equiv- 36 I t must, however, be admitted that "the leaders of the second Iconoclastic movement were much inferior to the first.... The Emperor Leo V had none of the sincere attachment of Leo III and Constantine V to the movement. With him it was largely a matter of policy. Apart from John the Grammarian there were no intellects in the party comparable with Constan­ tine V to the movement." Martin, 170. Despite the relatively low caliber of his opponents, Theodore still needed to develop more advanced reasoning about iconography in order to dismantle the as-yet-intact arguments of Constantine V, a carryover from the first period of iconoclasm. "In Theodore of Studios, probably more than in John of Damascus, the scholastic presentation is not only a matter of literary form; it is a mode of thought." Barasch, 258. 37 Barasch, 263. 38 Besancon, 125. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011  Reformed/Orthodox Convergence 509 alent to a unique third nature, and it is Constantine who has slipped into Monophysitism without realizing it. The painted face does not "circumscribe" divine nature, or even human nature: It circumscribes the composite hypos­ tasis of the incarnate Word. But it took time, tears, and blood for that error to 39 be discerned and the truth confessed. In other words, the iconoclasts hoped to preserve God's transcendence by refusing to "limit" the infinite via the paint, brush, and wood of a Christ icon. Theodore showed that, well intended as this prohibition may have been, it could be upheld only by denying the economy of salvation with a simplistic reading of Chalcedon that did not withstand scrutiny. To illustrate his response to Constantine, Theodore used the analogy of the seal. Just as a seal is able to leave its impression on wax but still retain its form in the ring, so also an icon can contain an "impression" of Christ (his hypostasis) without appropriating his essential nature (his physis). "Thus, the icon has no divine presence or energy in it, but only the 40 hypostatical presence of the p r o t o t y p e . " As Theodore puts it, "[The iconl shares the name of its prototype, as it shares also the honor and veneration; 41 but it has no part in the nature of the prototype." Thus, because Theodore's explanation lays reduced weight upon the icon, it avoids both the fetishism arising from John of Damascus's theology and Calvin's critique that the icons themselves contain no divinity. While the second wave of iconoclasts emphasized nature on the grounds of theology, Theodore emphasized hypostasis on the grounds of eco­ 42 nomy. By emphasizing icons' nature, iconoclasts understood them to be 43 "consubstantial with the prototype and in total identity with i t . " But Theodore, perhaps conceding this difficulty, does not seek to secure the icon's identity with its nature. By emphasizing the hypostasis (union) of the icon against the contested natures, Theodore shifts the terms of the debate. For him, icons share only a partial identity with their prototype. By reducing the icon's representative potential—limiting the importance of the paint and wood to depicting only the unique hypostasis of the two natures—Theodore avoids the charge of christological heresy. "Theodore therefore grants everything to the icon as hypostasis and refuses it every­ thing as nature. . . . Contrary to the Damascene, the Studite grants the 44 matter of the icon no power to transmit Presence and e n e r g y . " This distinction between nature and hypostasis in an icon dodges Constantine's critique. Kenneth Parry writes that, "when someone is depicted, it is not the nature but the hypostasis which is shown. . . . There is no doubt that this 39 Ibid., 126. 40 Ibid., 228. 4 'Theodore, 52. 42 Damian, 230. 43 Ibid. 44 Besancon, 131. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011 510 Theology Today 45 is Theodore's special contribution to the debate over i m a g e s . " Of course, Theodore was unaware of some more modern, adventurous forms of portraiture; to him, a portrait necessarily involved a degree of likeness. It is impossible to paint human nature in general, but it is possible to paint the particular instantiation of human nature found in an individual human face, with its own distinctive features. "Peter and Paul are distinguished from each other, and from others of the same species, not by their common definition but by their personal properties, such as a long or short nose, 46 curly hair, and so o n . " We have seen that one of Theodore's essential maneuvers is to lessen the importance of the painting itself, shifting the emphasis to the icon's prototype in heaven. Here, we see another of his essential moves: The only basis upon which an iconographer can properly paint Christ is his distinctive features, his "hypostatic properties" (hu- postatikois idiomasin). "The Chalcedonian definition keeps the two na­ tures strictly unconfused in the one hypostasis, but although the two natures are distinct, the properties of the one may be predicated of the 47 other, because of their union in the one hypostasis." In other words, the tangible, limited, depictable hypostasis serves as a sort of meeting ground for a particular instantiation of the two natures; though this may have seemed scandalous to the iconoclasts, it is a scandal God embraced in becoming incarnate in Jesus Christ. Because God circumscribed himself within the boundaries of a particular individual hypostasis, God can be 48 depicted just as can any other individual. Consequently, "Between image and prototype there is identity of name and likeness, not identity of nature »49 Having successfully dodged Constantine's critique, Theodore then re­ turns fire to the iconoclasts. As Pelikan has written, "the extrapolation of principles from Christology for new areas of doctrinal concern was a game 50 at which two [not only Constantine] could p l a y . " Theodore counter- challenges that, "if the image of Christ is indescribable and therefore cannot be depicted, it is either because He lacks a genuine human nature 51 or because His human nature is submerged in His divinity." This means that those who refuse the possibility of depicting Christ are either Docetic (they refuse his full humanity) or Monophysite (they conflate the divine nature and human nature). It is generally accepted that Constantine is guilty of these charges and, therefore, the iconoclasts' second wave of 45 Kenneth Parry, Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought of the Eighth and Ninth Centuries (London: Brill, 1996), 108. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid., 109. 48 Theodore made much of the suffering of Christ at this point. If the scandal of Christ's suffering could be fully appropriated, he intuited, acceptance of the "scandal" of his mere portraiture would easily follow. 49 Damian, 210. 50 Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition: A History of the Development of Doctrine, vol. 2: The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1974), 117. 51 Damian, 226. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011  Reformed/Orthodox Convergence 511 theoretical criticism not only dissolved, but was deemed heretical itself, when the regent Empress Theodora reversed the imperial laws again in 843. All that remained to support iconoclasm was the argument from military victory, an argument that, considering the less impressive military 52 records of the later iconoclast e m p e r o r s , did not endure. UNITY OF VENERATION But a theological problem remains. If one admits, as Theodore does, that objects venerated in worship claim no direct correlation to the divine nature, then how can one justify veneration of something clearly not divine? Here Theodore returns to distinctions already established by John of Damascus between latreia (adoration or worship) and proskunesis 53 (veneration). Although Constantine's challenge has forced Theodore to distinguish between nature (physis) and hypostasis, he still grants the icon 54 a union with its prototype in name and likeness (but not in n a t u r e ) . "On this basis of the likeness identity, the veneration given to the image is not idolatrous . . . . [because,] insofar as worship refers to the image in itself, it is simple veneration; but when it is intended to the prototype, it is 55 adoration." The distinctions regarding worship from the Second Council of Nicea (787) are recycled in a way complementary with Theodore's more nuanced teaching. Thus, for Theodore, a distinction remains between veneration given to the icon itself, and true adoration transcending the icon to its divine prototype, the holy Trinity. Here, those versed in Calvin might suggest that the retrospective rap­ prochement I have suggested between him and Theodore must come to an end. For, insofar as Theodore employs the classic theological distinction between adoration (latreia) and veneration (douleia), Calvin is on record with his objection, dismissing this separation of terms entirely: "Since latreuein means nothing else among the Greeks than 'to worship', what they say signifies the same thing as confessing that they 'worship the images but without worship . . . . [H]owever elegant they may be, never will they succeed by their eloquence in proving to us that one and the same 56 thing is really two t h i n g s . ' " Here Calvin knows exactly what he is rejecting in the Greek doctrine, and, by his own design, there is no room 52 T h e last iconoclast rulers, emperors Leo V (813-20), Michael II (820-29), and Theophilos (829-42), were less successful on the field of battle than the Isaurian emperors, Leo III (717-41) and Constantine V (741-75), had been. 53 Translations of these terms, whether in Latin or English, are notoriously inadequate. 54 Empirical evidence that Theodore's identification of the icon's name rather than its nature with its prototype had practical consequences is found in the fact that icons written before the triumph of Orthodoxy rarely include Christ's name (IC XC, the first and last Greek letters for lesus Christus)—yet afterward they almost always do. Karen Boston suggests that this difference is attributable to the fact that Theodore's insistence on the identity of "name and likeness" had become so important. Karen Boston, "The Power of Inscriptions and the Trouble with Texts," in Icon and Word, ed. Anthony Eastmond and Liz James (Burlington: Ashgate, 2003), 39. 55 Damian, 215. 56 Calvin, 111. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011 512 Theology Today for convergence. This eastern distinction, in Calvin's estimation, is simply 57 a device with which "to hoodwink God and m e n . " Yet his initial criticism was leveled at a doctrine of images less sophisticated than Theodore's. As we have seen, the point of contact between icon and prototype is not, as it was for John, a sharing of natures, but a sharing of name and likeness only. After Nicea II, the distinction was more clearly made between Christ in heaven and Christ signified on earth, much like the 58 Calvinist doctrine of the Eucharist. Calvin condemned the adoration/ veneration distinction as articulated by Nicea II, but Orthodox theology via Theodore, after 787, returns to this distinction, factoring it into a more sophisticated theory of icons. Therefore, what Calvin explicitly rejected is not what the Eastern Orthodox officially teach, so a possible convergence remains: Calvin rejects the adoration/veneration distinction as a supple­ ment to John's theology of the icon, but not to Theodore's. Furthermore, Theodore seems to have anticipated the kind of criticism Calvin makes by insisting on the unity of worship while still distinguishing adoration (latreid) and veneration (douleia). Iconoclasts demanded that, 59 "as God is one, veneration should be one t o o . " Theodore responds that, "if one thinks that because of the essential difference and hypostatical likeness between icon and prototype there would be two venerations, then in the Holy Trinity we have a distinction as well between nature and 60 hypostasis," and therefore worship of the Trinity must be triple! Since Christians properly worship the Trinity in unity (not according to the separate divine persons), Christian worship is not divided, even when it is addressed to both the divine nature and hypostases. Thus, Theodore has a basis for his claimed "unity of veneration" with icons: The distinction between adoration and veneration does not split a Christian's worship in two, but serves, rather, a merely semantic function in controversy. Pelikan summarizes Theodore's achievement and, consequently, Orthodoxy's achievement in this area: As in the Trinity that which was distinctive of each hypostasis did not divide the unity, so in the incarnation that which was distinctive of each nature "does not divide the one hypostasis of God the Logos"; from this it followed that Christ could be represented in an image... . [The] Father and the Son were one in nature but two in hypostasis, while Christ and the image of Christ were one in hypostasis but two in nature; from this it followed that there was only 57 Ibid., 117. 5 interestingly, Calvin's move against the Lutheran doctrine of ubiquity in the sixteenth- century eucharistic debate is the same move Theodore makes in the ninth century against the iconoclasts, who denied the possibility of any delimitation of Christ's body after the resurrection: "Theodore of Studios wrote, 'Christ is circumscribed even after his Resurrec­ tion' in response to his hypothetical iconoclast who had argued, 'Admittedly, it is agreed that our Lord Jesus Christ is circumscribed, but only up to his Passion, and by no means after his Resurrection.'" Boston, 42-3. That the two thinkers were moved to the same theological conclusion (albeit for different reasons) is an important point of contact between Reformed and Orthodox theologies that merits further exploration. 59 Damian, 217. 60 Ibid. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011  Reformed/Orthodox Convergence 513 one mode of worship, whether addressed to the entire Trinity because of the 61 unity of nature or to the icon of Christ because of the unity of hypostasis. Theodore, with the help of those before him, transcends Calvin's critique by distinguishing Christ's natures and Christ's hypostasis, and by limiting the icon to representing only the hypostasis. Therefore, for Theodore, only the divine nature receives adoration in Christian worship, an act that icon veneration only enhances. This addi­ tional refinement by Theodore further distances Orthodox worship from Calvin's sixteenth-century attack. CONCLUSION Calvin justly opposed any view of Christian images as containing the "stuff of divinity." The historical record, however, shows that, while this charge may apply to the work of John of Damascus, it does not apply to Theodore of Studios's. Theodore, with the help of those before him, transcends Calvin's critique by distinguishing Christ's natures from his hypostasis, and by limiting the icon to representing only the hypostasis. Consequently, and in order to secure the legitimacy of veneration (douleia), Theodore reestablishes contact between the image and its pro­ totype (which he had divided in his treatment of worship [latreia]), thus securing the unity of veneration. But this unity occurs through hypostatic contact with the prototype, not through a union of natures. This some­ times, perhaps, overly subtle series of arguments lies at the heart of Eastern Orthodox theology. In seeking to assess its theological merit, one must remember that Theodore is defending against a specific attack, not concocting arbitrary legitimations. He writes, not from a university post, but from prison. And he writes, not to explore scholastic vanities, but to defend a centuries-old tradition of Christian piety. As Pelikan explains, "The reverence for images was deeply seated in the piety of Eastern faithful . . . but it remained for John of Damascus, Theodore of Studios, and the Patriarch Nicephorous to provide it with an elaborate theological 62 defense." If the rest of Calvin's writings are any clue, had he read T h e o d o r e ' s arguments he might have dismissed them as invalid. They may even have infuriated him and inspired more western invectives against the 61 Pelikan, 129. 62 Ibid., 117. For brevity's sake, I have limited this essay to an examination of the role of Theodore, although Patriarch Nicephoros also had a strong place in the second stage of iconophile thought. Downloaded from ttj.sagepub.com by guest on May 29, 2011