Imago Dei: The Byzantine Apologia for Icons (The A. W. Mellon Lectures in the Fine Arts, 36)

A sweeping account of the controversies surrounding the worship of images in the early Byzantine church In 726, the Byzantine emperor, Leo III, issued an edict that all religious images in the empire were to be destroyed, a directive that was later endorsed by a synod of the church in 753 under his son, Constantine V. If the policy of Iconoclasm had succeeded, the entire history of Christian art—and of the Christian church, at least in the East—would have been altered. Iconoclasm was defeated by Byzantine politics, popular revolts, monastic piety, and, most fundamentally of all, by theology, just as it had been theology that the opponents of images had used to justify their actions. Analyzing an intriguing chapter in the history of ideas, the renowned scholar Jaroslav Pelikan shows how a faith that began by attacking the worship of images ended first in permitting and then in commanding it. Pelikan charts the theological defense of icons during the iconoclastic controversies of the eighth and ninth centuries, whose high point came in 787, when the Second Council of Nicaea restored the cult of images in the church. He demonstrates how the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation eventually provided the basic rationale for images: because the invisible God had become human and therefore personally visible in Jesus Christ, it became permissible to make images of that Image. And because not only the human nature of Christ, but that of his Mother had been transformed by the Incarnation, she, too, could be "iconized," together with all the other saints and angels. The iconographic "text" of the book is provided by one of the very few surviving icons from the period before Iconoclasm, the Egyptian tapestry Icon of the Virgin now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Other icons serve to illustrate the theological argument, just as the theological argument serves to explain the icons. In an incisive foreword, Judith Herrin explains the enduring importance of the book and discusses how later scholars have built on Pelikan's work. Please note: All images in this ebook are presented in black and white and have been reduced in size. Cover 1 Title 4 Copyright 5 Contents 8 Foreword 10 Preface 22 Illustrations 24 Abbreviations 26 INTRODUCTION: The Idea in the Image 28 CHAPTER ONE: THE CONTEXT: Religion and "Realpolitik" Byzantine Style 34 CHAPTER TWO: GRAVEN IMAGES: The Ambiguity of the Iconographic Tradition 68 CHAPTER THREE: DIVINITY MADE HUMAN: Aesthetic Implications of the Incarnation 94 CHAPTER FOUR: THE SENSES SANCTIFIED: The Rehabilitation of the Visual 126 CHAPTER FIVE: HUMANITY MADE DIVINE: Mary the Mother of God 148 CHAPTER SIX: THE GREAT CHAIN OF IMAGES: A Cosmology of Icons 180 Bibliography 210 Index 221 Charts the theological defense of icons during the Iconoclastic controversies of the eighth and ninth centuries, whose high point came in AD 787, when the Second Council of Nicaea restored the cult of images in the church. This title demonstrates how the dogmas of the Trinity and the Incarnation eventually provided the basic rationale for images. His A.w. Mellon Lectures In The Fine Arts, Delivered In 1987.