DOCTRINE · IMAGES AND HONOR
Icons: veneration and divine worship
Incarnation, prototype and the distinction between honoring an image and adoring God.
Making images and offering honor
Christian image veneration raises two questions: whether an image may be made and what religious honor may be offered before it. Catholic and Orthodox teaching distinguishes the material representation, the person represented and the adoration owed to God alone. The task is to examine how that distinction works in a particular act of devotion. An object’s presence or the number of bows cannot by itself show whether the distinction is being maintained.
Basil writes to Amphilochius about doxological language and the Spirit’s divinity in the fourth century. John later applies an inherited analogy to the eighth-century dispute over images. The OCA history places him at Saint Sabas in Palestine under Arab rule, outside the emperor’s territory, defending images against imperial opposition. That change of setting matters: Basil’s Trinitarian analogy helps explain John’s reasoning, but does not establish the details of later Byzantine practice.
Incarnation, remembrance and the object of honor
John begins the selected passage by denying that the invisible, incorporeal and uncircumscribed Deity can be imitated by giving it a bodily form. His defense is therefore not a general permission to manufacture a likeness of the divine essence. The decisive change in his argument is the Incarnation: the Word truly became human, lived among people, suffered, died and rose. A representation of events witnessed in Christ's human life is different, for John, from inventing a shape for what is by nature invisible. The distinction is theological, not merely a preference for religious decoration.
The same passage gives images a memorial and pedagogical role. People who did not witness Christ's earthly life can hear about it, read about it or see its events depicted. John explicitly considers those without literacy or time for reading. An image of the crucifixion can recall the saving Passion and direct the viewer toward the one represented. This explanation does not prove every historical detail of Christian art. It identifies the relation John thinks makes an image useful: remembrance of a person and event, rather than the material acquiring divinity.
John compares an image with the physical materials of a Gospel book or a cross. The object matters as a bearer of a meaning and relation, not because its wood, ink or other substance has become an independent deity. He also distinguishes a cross that signifies the Lord from one that does not. In this account, an object's appearance alone is not enough to classify the act performed toward it. But intention is not a magical exemption either: a devotional explanation must actually preserve the distinction between a creature and the God or human person to whom the act is directed.
The historical English uses “worship” more broadly than many present readers expect. Read it with John’s distinction between the material and the person imaged, rather than assuming that every occurrence means divine adoration of an object. A precise comparison with the Greek requires a checked original-language edition. Modern Catholic and Orthodox statements may clarify their own vocabulary, but John’s argument still needs to be read in his historical wording.
But besides this who can make an imitation of the invisible, incorporeal, uncircumscribed, formless God? Therefore to give form to the Deity is the height of folly and impiety. And hence it is that in the Old Testament the use of images was not common. But after God [2505] in His bowels of pity became in truth man for our salvation, not as He was seen by Abraham in the semblance of a man, nor as He was seen by the prophets, but in being truly man, and after He lived upon the earth and dwelt among men [2506] , worked miracles, suffered, was crucified, rose again and was taken back to Heaven, since all these things actually took place and were seen by men, they were written for the remembrance and instruction of us who were not alive at that time in order that though we saw not, we may still, hearing and believing, obtain the blessing of the Lord. But seeing that not every one has a knowledge of letters nor time for reading, the Fathers gave their sanction to depicting these events on images as being acts of great heroism, in order that they should form a concise memorial of them. Often, doubtless, when we have not the Lord's passion in mind and see the image of Christ's crucifixion, His saving passion is brought back to remembrance, and we fall down and worship not the material but that which is imaged: just as we do not worship the material of which the Gospels are made, nor the material of the Cross, but that which these typify. For wherein does the cross, that typifies the Lord, differ from a cross that does not do so? It is just the same also in the case of the Mother of the Lord. For the honour which we give to her is referred to Him Who was made of her incarnate. And similarly also the brave acts of holy men stir us up to be brave and to emulate and imitate their valour and to glorify God. For as we said, the honour that is given to the best of fellow-servants is a proof of good-will towards our common Lady, and the honour rendered to the image passes over to the prototype [2507] . But this is an unwritten tradition [2508] , just as is also the worshipping towards the East and the worship of the Cross, and very many other similar things.
The prototype principle in its earlier context
Basil writes to Amphilochius about disputed doxological language (On the Spirit I.3, local lines 149–159); the historical preface places Amphilochius’s request at Caesarea in 374 (lines 44–57), an editorial chronology rather than Basil’s own date statement. In XVIII.45 he asks why Father, Son and Spirit do not multiply gods. A king and his image illustrate honor passing to a prototype without dividing royal sovereignty. But an artistic image is such by imitation; the Son is such by nature. The analogy serves the communion of Godhead, not a standalone icon policy. Calling an icon divine by nature would erase his distinction. Basil’s fourth-century setting therefore differs from John’s later defense.
John credits Basil’s prototype principle at the beginning of his chapter and uses it again in the image passage. His defense combines that earlier Trinitarian analogy with the Incarnation, scriptural examples and tradition. Basil helps explain how honor can refer through an image to its prototype; John applies the reasoning to a later controversy. Establishing the intervening history of practice requires evidence beyond that textual connection.
45. For we do not count by way of addition, gradually making increase from unity to multitude, and saying one, two, and three,--nor yet first, second, and third. For "I," God, "am the first, and I am the last." [1088] And hitherto we have never, even at the present time, heard of a second God. Worshipping as we do God of God, we both confess the distinction of the Persons, and at the same time abide by the Monarchy. We do not fritter away the theology [1089] in a divided plurality, because one Form, so to say, united [1090] in the invariableness of the Godhead, is beheld in God the Father, and in God the Only begotten. For the Son is in the Father and the Father in the Son; since such as is the latter, such is the former, and such as is the former, such is the latter; and herein is the Unity. So that according to the distinction of Persons, both are one and one, and according to the community of Nature, one. How, then, if one and one, are there not two Gods? Because we speak of a king, and of the king's image, and not of two kings. The majesty is not cloven in two, nor the glory divided. The sovereignty and authority over us is one, and so the doxology ascribed by us is not plural but one; [1091] because the honour paid to the image passes on to the prototype. Now what in the one case the image is by reason of imitation, that in the other case the Son is by nature; and as in works of art the likeness is dependent on the form, so in the case of the divine and uncompounded nature the union consists in the communion of the Godhead. [1092] One, moreover, is the Holy Spirit, and we speak of Him singly, conjoined as He is to the one Father through the one Son, and through Himself completing the adorable and blessed Trinity. Of Him the intimate relationship to the Father and the Son is sufficiently declared by the fact of His not being ranked in the plurality of the creation, but being spoken of singly; for he is not one of many, but One. For as there is one Father and one Son, so is there one Holy Ghost. He is consequently as far removed from created Nature as reason requires the singular to be removed from compound and plural bodies; and He is in such wise united to the Father and to the Son as unit has affinity with unit.
Translation, apparatus and narrative limits
John’s translation retains the unusual phrase “common Lady.” Salmond’s own remarks about difficulties of text and interpretation are relevant when reading it; an assumed original has not been substituted. The numbered notes have their own editorial voice. The full chapter is available, while questions about its language and history remain open to criticism.
Edition notes
Reader lines locate the digital transcription, rather than printed pages. An exact transcription preserves the wording of its source but does not by itself establish a critical original-language reading.
The chapter introduces the Augarus story as a tale about an image of Christ. It can be studied as part of John’s argument and the tradition he reports, without treating it as proof of a particular object’s authenticity or the origin of every icon. His closing appeal to unwritten apostolic tradition likewise calls for historical investigation when applied to later customs. Narrative tradition, scriptural reasoning and conciliar reception contribute different kinds of evidence.
[3] John IV.16 opening, local lines3–18: the explicit appeal to Basil and scriptural examples.
Current Catholic and Orthodox witnesses
Catechism §§2129–2132 begins with the prohibition on giving the transcendent God a manufactured likeness. It then recalls biblical images directed toward salvation, including the bronze serpent, ark and cherubim. Section 2131 grounds the new economy of images in the incarnate Word and cites Nicaea in 787. This is Catholic teaching about the council’s reception; questions about individual historical images require their own evidence.
Paragraph 2132 states the central Catholic distinction: the honor paid to sacred images is respectful veneration, not the adoration due to God alone. It also says that the movement toward an image does not terminate in the image as a mere thing but tends toward the one represented. The paragraph cites Basil's On the Spirit 18.45 and the second council of Nicaea. Those citations connect the current teaching with the historical principle under discussion. Their presence does not remove the need to distinguish the text quoted, the later application and the precise authority of each document.
The OCA’s educational history narrates imperial iconoclasm through Leo III’s edicts beginning in 726, Constantine V’s council of 754 and Nicaea’s affirmation of images under Irene in 787. It explains the relation of Christ’s visible humanity to his divine hypostasis and invisible divine nature, and quotes conciliar language distinguishing honorable reverence from worship due to divinity. The account gives an Orthodox interpretation of that sequence. Its reproduced translation and historical claims still need to be distinguished from a critical study of the acts themselves.
The objection, the response and open questions
The historically specific iconoclast objection, as the OCA reports it for 754, concerns Christ’s identity: if an image depicts Christ himself, does it mix divine and human natures; if it depicts humanity alone, does it separate that humanity from divinity? These are accusations of Christological error, not simply dislike of art. The problem is how a visible depiction can refer to the one incarnate Christ without turning divine nature into a bounded body or inventing a merely human subject. The OCA’s explanation answers this dilemma; calling every gesture veneration does not answer it.
The OCA’s response identifies the depicted subject as the incarnate divine person, or hypostasis, encountered in his visible humanity. It neither claims to paint invisible divine nature nor treats humanity as a separate person. John’s Incarnation argument supports that distinction, though his IV.16 passage does not reproduce the 754 debate. The Catechism gives the formal Catholic distinction between veneration and adoration; it is not a source here for that council’s exact objection. A created saint remains a creature, and an image’s material acquires no deity. The practical objection still matters: do actual gestures and reliance preserve these distinctions, or treat an object as an independent divine power? Stated intention alone cannot settle every practice.
Agreement on prototype and adoration leaves questions about particular images and practices: depictions of the Father, artistic forms, devotional customs and local regulations. Each needs its own teaching and historical context. Communities may apply the shared theological distinction differently, and criticism of one practice needs to identify the particular act and its recipient before addressing the wider account.
The shared distinction and its application
The primary comparison above uses Basil’s and John’s theological arguments. The Catechism states current Catholic teaching, while the OCA history explains an Orthodox reception and reproduces conciliar language. For the council’s own wording, read the Decree of Nicaea II in Percival’s historical edition, then compare its setting and language with these later interpretations.
Edition notes
The Catechism supplies DS 601 as a reference. That source-supplied number has not been independently checked against a specific Denzinger or Hünermann edition here.
These Catholic and Orthodox witnesses explain image veneration through Christ’s visible Incarnation, reference to a prototype and adoration reserved to God. They do not teach that an image’s material becomes divine. Basil and John make that reasoning and its historical reuse available for examination. A judgment about a contested practice still needs to identify the act, the recipient, the teaching invoked and its authority.