Christian Iconography

As a medievalist, the ideas, attitudes, and aesthetic tastes of the past have a strong appeal to me. As a Christian, too, I am curious about my spiritual predecessors and how they viewed this adventure that the first Christians simply called "the Way." These two motivations often converge, both in my academic work and in my own leisure research. (Yes, I research as a form of recreation. That's what makes me an academic. All academics are dilettantes; wasn't that obvious?) One of my interests in medieval monasticism--not the topic of this post, but something I will perhaps inflict upon my readers at a future date. The other interest is Christian iconography: the ways believers have attempted to represent and communicate their beliefs through images.

Of course, right away we encounter difficulties--namely, the prohibition against making idols in the Ten Commandments. On the basis of this law, most branches of Judaism frown on the use of images for religious purposes. (So do the Muslims, but Islam is in origin an offshoot of Judaism, so no surprises there.) However, Christians turned to visual art very early in the history of the Church, as witnessed by carvings and murals in the Roman catacombs. Unlike Jewish culture, the Greco-Roman culture was rich in visual art, and Gentile converts were apparently eager to express their devotion to their new Lord through their talents.

There was, however, a point where the issue had to be dealt with, to sort out a theological framework to prevent images from becoming idols. The reasoning the Church Fathers came to was this: "The honor shown the image passes over to the archetype" (Basil the Great). In other words, when someone looks at an image, producing within the soul a feeling of awe or love, that feeling is not directed to the image but to what that image represents, the archetype ("the original" or "the first pattern"). An example:

What's your reaction? "Awwwwww! How CUTE!" or something to that effect, I imagine. (At least, that SHOULD be your reaction. Dissenters, be prepared to deal with an irate pseudo-uncle.) So, what is your reaction based on? "What an adorable conglomeration of pixels on my monitor!" or "What an adorable little girl!"? Naturally it's the latter: you see the image and, even if you don't know the little girl, recognize that somewhere there is an original for this picture, who possesses the attribute of cuteness that is represented in the image. That warm fuzzy feeling one gets when beholding cute things is then directed at the original, not the image.

Now let's apply that to the subject at hand. These early Church fathers argued that this principle also applies to images of spiritual things: Jesus, saints, angels. (Let's set the saints and angels on a shelf for the moment; they only complicate the discussion.) Their reasoning went something like this: it was wrong for the Israelites to fashion images of God NOT because God cannot be represented by an image, but because He reserves the right to represent Himself with His own Image, Jesus Christ. As Jesus said, "He that has seen Me has seen the Father" (John 14:9). And there are a whole slew of other passages saying essentially the same thing. Indeed, Christ went further, claiming that "If you have known me, you have known the Father also" (John 14:7). Christ, then, as the image of God, is the perfect icon, the divine icon: the image that perfectly represents its archetype because it partakes in the essence and nature of its archetype.

But, with the incarnation of God the Son as the man Jesus Christ, God is now made flesh and therefore visible. There's no way to draw God the Father in his perfect essence--what do you draw? But one could have Jesus pose for a sketch. Thus, the Church Fathers argued that the Incarnation itself was both the precedent and the first real opportunity to use visual art to represent the things of God. However, there's a complication in this speculation: no one actually DID sketch Jesus, so we haven't got His picture. So where do all those pictures come from?

That leads me (finally) to my specific topic: the iconography of the Orthodox Church. Briefly, there's two main branches of Christendom: the Western branch (Catholics and Protestants) and the Eastern branch (the Orthodox). Each branch approached iconography differently, but I'm focusing on the Eastern branch at the moment. In the Orthodox Church, this problem of the origin of images is answered in two ways. First, they claim that even though we don't have original posed pictures of Jesus, the first icons were made by the apostles who had seen him and remembered what he looked like. Then, because the rules for painting icons are so specific, we can be sure now that the pictures still look pretty much the way they've always looked. (That's why Orthodox icons have that flat, archaic look--they're imitating a style of drawing almost 2000 years old.) Second, remember that the icons are meant to point us to the archetype, the real and original person represented in the image. Thus, having a perfect photograph of Jesus isn't necessary: we need only agree that a particular image represents Jesus, so that when we see IT we think of HIM. (That's the other reason Orthodox icons are so uniform--they follow a common formula that would be recognized by any Orthodox Christian at any point in the last 2000 years.) That's the purpose of the icon: to turn out minds toward the archetype, not draw our attention to the mere art itself.

Now for an example! This is but one of several typical depictions of Christ in Orthodox iconography--each version emphasizes another theological truth about the person and work of Christ. In this icon, Christ is represented as Pantokrator.Literally, Pantokrator means "Ruler of All." This is the same Greek word used in the Greek version of the Nicene Creed, when it says "I believe in God the Father Almighty." What we translate as "Almighty" is in Greek Pantokrator. So, here we have Jesus Christ represented in the ultimate divine office: the Lord of Heaven and Earth. This, frankly, is what's so fascinating to me about the Incarnation, a truth well illustrated (ha!) by icons: the God who rules the universe is also a man now. Jesus has still got His human nature, albeit glorified, and He governs all things as the God-Man. Thus, this icon gets to the heart of the Christian message: this Jesus whom we follow was not merely a prophet, a saint, an angel, a demigod--he is God, truly and fully.

This truth is further represented in the icon in other little ways. First, look at the inscription on His halo: you see three letters which form the Greek phrase, 'o on. Literally, this means something like "the One Who is." In other words, the halo applies to Christ the first name God took for Himself when He spoke to Moses from the flames: "I am." Again, Christ is not something less than divine, and He is not contingent or created--His existence is an immutable quality of His nature.

The IC and XC are the Orthodox Christogram, or conventional way of abbreviating the name of Christ. It is taken from the first and last letters in the Greek spelling of the name "Jesus Christ": IHCOYC XPICTOC. (In medieval transliterations of Greek, the Greek "S" was commonly represented by the Latin "C.") The lines above the IC and XC indicate that the letters represent a sacred name, again pointing the viewer back to the truth of Christ's divine nature.

The gesture of Christ's hand is symbol of Christ's dual natures: human and divine. One pair of fingers is raised to heaven, indicating the divine nature; another pair is bent, touching the thumb, indicating the human nature Christ assumed when He bent down from heaven to touch our world. (He is NOT giving the Cub Scout salute.)

Finally, Christ carries a book. In many Christ icons He carries a book, sometimes opened to a particular verse. The book is the Gospel--note the cross on the cover--not any particular Gospel, but the Gospel message itself. In this way, the icon shows the viewer that the Gospel is not merely about Christ: He is the Gospel. His dual natures, His divine authority, His human humility, His sacrificial death--all of Who He is and what He is done is the Gospel. What we tell is the message of the Gospel, what we live is the image of the Gospel, but Christ Himself is the real, original, archetype Gospel: the Word of God made flesh and dwelling among men.

So, I like icons. I like the art of them, certainly, but even more I like the way they continually point above themselves to the truths they represent. It's hard to get lost in an icon, the way one can get lost in a pre-Raphaelite or a Hudson River School painting, because the picture deliberately draws attention away from itself. I plan on posting more icons in the future, but I think this is enough for now...