725–842

The Iconoclastic Controversy: Christology, Tradition and the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787)

Leo III ordered the destruction of an image of Christ, beginning the iconoclastic policy; the Second Council of Nicaea (the Seventh Ecumenical Council) in 787 restored the icons, iconoclasm returned in 815, and on 11 March 842 the icons were finally restored. The iconoclasts appealed to antiquity and to Scripture – the prohibition of Exod. 20:4 and the words "God is spirit" (John 4:24) – while Constantine V and the council of 754 held that a true image is consubstantial with what it depicts, so that the only image of Christ is the Eucharist; in depicting Christ one either circumscribes the uncircumscribable divinity or separates the humanity from the person, falling into Nestorianism. The Orthodox, acknowledging the scarcity of written evidence, appealed to the "unwritten tradition, which is stronger," and John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite and Nicephorus replied that an image is a likeness of the prototype differing in essence, that in Christ God became visible and circumscribable in his human nature, and that iconoclasm is a kind of docetism. Pelikan treats the controversy as a new dimension of the christological discussions. The council of 787 allowed images to be given "honor and veneration, though not true latria, which must be given to the Godhead alone."