Refutatio et Eversio 1 part 9/21

What then, in the present case, did those who promised to keep these doctrines unaltered say, sparing to call these idols? O what derangement and ill-counsel!

How they are shown to have drunk down the whole unmixed cup of ignorance and irrationality!

How well indeed they display such gratitude and accord toward their teachers!

These things are full of goodwill and concord toward them!

O what a recompense and repayment for their teachings and labors!

Thus, on that very same day and all at once — just as the myths tell of the giants — having shown themselves to be genuine disciples and initiates, by a single utterance, in a few syllables and in a moment of time, they overturned all at once both the whole of their rickety and cobweb-like edifice and their own reputation, and passed sentence against the doctrines of their teachers, and dissolved the entire renown on account of which they proudly held their eyebrows raised so high.

But what they did toward the original leaders of their priesthood, this same thing they now also endure toward the newly-born instigators of their impiety, as though having forgotten their own purpose, and thereby procuring for themselves, from both sides, their own downfall and estrangement.

Where, then, in this case, is the gratitude toward the teachers? Where is the glad acceptance of the God-inspired doctrines? Where is the ratification and confirmation, which they so elaborately affected even at the beginning of their own marvelous horos? Where is the applause and the boasting of the eulogies? Where is the synod of the God-beloved and spiritual fathers, fortified by scriptural and patristic doctrines, and the pure canons which it set forth? Where is the following of the ecumenical synods? Where is the examination conducted with all exactness and precision? Where is the worship and veneration, preferred as offered in spirit and in truth, and the condemnation and rejection of the headless, untransmitted, useless, and unvenerated making of images, through all of which the Church remained unshaken for not a few years? And I do not know what other nonsense and drivel these accursed men have dared to weave against the pure and blameless religion of the Christians.

One utterance has been spoken, and the whole assembly has been dissolved.

With a single pebble pulled out from under, the whole edifice has collapsed.

Are not these things, then, altogether the doings of infants and of lads who play in the marketplaces, shifting and changing the terms of their games this way and that, wherever the fickleness and childishness of their age might turn them? Indeed, quite so.

What then? Did they stop at this point and cease from their wandering, or did they not rush on to other, worse things, as though having backed their ships and turned about? For, though in word sparing to call these idols, in deeds they arranged the contrary, sparing nothing in what they did, becoming, wretched men that they are, the very perpetrators with their own hands of the destruction of the holy things, employing their zeal for the ill-treatment of those who lived piously;

Thus, in every way, they show themselves to be trafficking in our glorious faith like petty merchants.

For it is on this very account that, having now relaxed a little of their blasphemy, they look past those wondrous teachers who dared to break forth into calling the saints idols, and who did not shrink from chanting out against Christians the ill-famed charge of idolatry — so that, having feigned to manage the present situation, they might afterward, following their own predecessors, not fall short of an equal measure in wickedness.

For what their turncoat tongue for a time grew numb to utter together, not long after, unlawful hands accomplished as well, themselves too impiously grappling with the saints as though they were, forsooth, idols.

But we must again take up the same matters;

'...sparing to call these idols...'

How, and in what manner? If you confess that it was rightly called out by those who dared to belch forth that wickedness, why do you not also join your voice and accept it, warmly embracing what is good? But if wrongly — as indeed it has been maligned and babbled wickedly and most impiously and godlessly — why then do you not bind it with the heaviest anathemas and subject it to the condemnations it deserves, which set it far from God and from salvation? Instead, you stand upon the precipice of ambiguity — or rather, unbelief thrusts you toward the precipice, dragging you down.

...you did not introduce anything of your own in its place) — so also here, you do not call them idols, because every idol is likewise evil and to be shunned, and everything in the Church of Christ is likewise good and to be chosen; but you are deceiving yourself, fearing lest, perhaps, reason might lead you, even unwilling, over to piety.

As, then, you limp concerning the faith, so also you are at a loss concerning the naming of the matters set before you;

For the sacred word says: 'A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways;'

Or perhaps it is time for you to suffer the same fate as the Samaritans, who both feared the Lord and worshiped their own gods.

If the making and veneration of these is useless, if you have declared them falsely named, and have nowhere added whose image it is, and if you have coined some other novelty — for whose sake, then, do you deem it worthy of sparing only in this respect? If you do not know Christ to be depicted in image, why are you afraid to call it an idol, which can in no way have communion with Christ? For what communion has light with darkness? Or what agreement has the temple of God with idols? Or are you not the one who, up and down, proclaims the incomprehensible and uncircumscribable — which you have received from your novel teachers — endlessly repeating it concerning Christ? To what end will this be accomplished for you? Or will it altogether be procured for you that Christ is not depicted in image, and, as though what is painted were found to be alien and foreign to him, you will declare it an idol? In this case, then, though the term 'image' is set before you in your discourse, whose image it might be has by no means at all been added.

For by speaking of 'image' simply, without qualification, you have evaded the relation to something, thereby everywhere encountering the absurdities that follow from this, having foreseen what no one hearing it would find tolerable.

For having taken up this very aim, you have inscribed the charge of idolatry upon Christians, and have become the authors of those countless evils.

But you spare yourself from calling it an idol, having your conscience seared, and not being pure of filthy and unclean notions; and you are choked and distraught, as though constricted by the noose of unbelief, fluttered about by the pleasures of the world and gaping after present glory, having nowhere to fix your reasoning, just like those who have fallen into a boundless and gaping sea.

Why do you not desert to piety and stand together with Christians and confess Christ as depicted in image, comprehensible and describable and circumscribable according to his humanity, being taught by the doctrines of the Church, and revere what is worthy of reverence, and restrain your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking guile and lawlessness — things which betroth you to the denial and rejection of the incarnation of the Word of God? Instead, you begrudge yourself the very crux of salvation, forfeiting the faith, and foolishly reckoning honor toward Christ as dishonor, as though honor were dishonor. And if someone should inquire of you whose image it is that you destroy, you cannot even bear to hear the question, and you grow dizzy over the answer, shrinking from making public what confronts you, foreseeing at once, of necessity, the consequences that lie in wait — that you would not be reckoned as ranked with Christ, nor at all considered a Christian, should you choose to do these things.

So burdensome is Christ to you, both when he comes to mind and when he is seen in image.

True indeed, then, is the saying: 'A dog returns to its own vomit,' and 'A sow wallows in the mire';

which indeed has happened also in these men's case, so that here too the aversion and instability of their unsteady mind might be made manifest.

For, always devising evils upon evils, thinking to cure the greater evil by the lesser evil, what do they themselves add to what has been said before? For indeed there is a distinction between one evil and another.

Who are these? Those who, a short while before, spared to call icons idols.

Evil, then, is what the evil servants have called the holy things — and, worst of the evil, they, as far as it lay in them, defiled and reviled them;

For it is the mark of evil servants to rise up against their master's authority, and to do mischief against those things which belong and are dedicated to the master.

These are the deeds of those who know how to speak evil, but have not at all learned to do good.

O ungrateful soul and ill-disposed mind!

To be so disposed toward one's benefactor and lord!

Thus they are vexed at the good, just as those whose eyes are maimed are vexed at the sun.

Let the saying be proclaimed, that the evil man brings forth evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart, just as the good man brings forth good things out of the good treasure.

But what need is there to say more against these things? The idol is an evil — this, surely, they know, and doubtless are also able to name it as such.

And if the greater evil is the idol, then these, by comparison, are lesser evils.

But the lesser evil is nonetheless altogether an evil.

But evil cannot stand still by itself, always advancing toward the worse.

Among them, the holy [images] have been reckoned as lesser idols

But an idol will differ in nothing from an idol, even if it is a lesser one;

for whatever is an idol is already altogether and in every way [an idol]

What then do I say — that an idol is anything, or that a thing sacrificed to idols is anything? But that what the nations sacrifice, they sacrifice to demons and not to God — this the apostolic saying has already proclaimed beforehand.

Do those of Christ, then, also sacrifice to demons and not to God, like the faithless and irrational nations? And where then is the hope and faith among Christians? Where is worship and veneration? Where is the boast we make in the veneration of the supersubstantial Trinity? Where is the mystery of the economy of God the Word? Has everything utterly perished and vanished, and have the things of our salvation been extinguished? Is our preaching empty and our hope vain? And what excess of absurdity and atheism does this leave unsurpassed? The things of Christ [ranked] with demons, the things of Christians with faithless nations!

And what argument will compel our things to be compared with those? How far apart they stand from one another, I do not think any tongue would be able to utter;

nor is the difference between light and darkness so great

If the idol is more abominable, because the sacrifice concerning it goes to unclean demons, but the icon of the Lord is less so by comparison of evil, because the veneration paid to it ascends to him himself — as the sequence of the argument allows us to confess — and the demons are abominable on account of the sacrifice of idolatry, while the icon of Christ is less abominable by comparison —

but indeed the same absurdity will be demonstrated in another way too.

The icons of good things are altogether good on account of them, and likewise those of base things are base — this is clear to everyone.

But if that which exists for the sake of something is acknowledged to be lesser than that on account of which it came to be, then icons are lesser than their archetypes, as having come to be on account of them;

and those whose icons are evil — those things, that is, the archetypes, are more evil still;

but the icon of the Lord, they say, is less evil by comparison with worse things.

These are the conclusions to be drawn from a tongue at war with God, constructed in this manner; and let so great a blasphemy fall upon the heads of those who furnished the premises and starting-points of these most absurd arguments;

for not even the unclean demons would ever dare to utter such things.

But we, who know how to think rightly, must say that, if Christ our God is in every way and altogether the very summit of all good things and the ultimate of desirable things, and rather the Good itself, and the fount of good things, and Goodness itself, and the bestower of good things upon the worthy, then it is right to confess together that his icon too is altogether good.

But whence the deceived and senseless suffer these things is not without evidence;

for they did not know how to distinguish between holy and profane, or between clean and unclean, and that there is no communion of Christ with Belial, nor of light with darkness, nor any agreement of the temple of God with idols.

For these things the Church of God, having been taught from above by grace, knows nothing at all evil within herself, neither simply nor by comparison;

for every evil has been banished from her, and there is no idol in her — if indeed we must believe him who says that there is no idol in the world;

but everything in her is precious and good and venerable and worthy of everything.

From which the wretched ones, having recklessly and unholily departed, have rendered themselves unworthy to honor what ought to be honored, and were not ashamed to destroy the things of Christ, while bearing about the name of Christians.

For I do not think they have come to such a degree of folly as to think or say that they arise from, and are honored by, another religion.

But already the very pronunciation of the name itself contends against them.

For if one is known by the name of Christ, and indeed the inscribed letters also thereby signify it, how could they, spitting upon it, share in the same appellation? For the matter of the icons of Christ, being dependent from him, both makes us akin to him and brings us near to him.

Consequently they partake only of the bare name, being wholly bereft of the reality, and in vain do they assume the appellation, calling themselves Christians;

for indeed the tree is known from its fruit, and by their fruits they shall be known, as the word of truth confirms.

They, then, having abandoned that which is ours and their own, have ingloriously and wretchedly turned to another;

and having despised the Church that had nursed them, they transferred themselves to newly-sprung fathers and to spurious teachers whom they hastily contrived.

who, making pretexts in their sins, brought forward and introduced the expressions 'circumscribable' and 'uncircumscribable',

and having misconstrued the whole of the Old and New Scripture set forth by the Spirit, they contrived to persecute the Church under the name of idols, setting up as the entire premise of the labors they undertook the rejection of the incarnation of God the Word.

From which all of them, having deviated from right thinking, appeared discordant and irreconcilable both with one another and with the churches throughout the whole world under the sun.

Having filled their own minds with many monstrous tales and babblings, and being entangled in falsehood and unstable, so that the rashness and fickleness of their opinion might be revealed, calling images both idols and not idols — at one time daring against the glory of the saints, at another relenting from blasphemy — then running back to the defense of what they had fabricated, proceeding from there through certain incoherent and inconsequential arguments,

and they gather together useless citations and bring them along, dragging them as it were like some train of evils, from which they thought the force of their falsely-fashioned arguments would be smuggled in.

(Yet they accomplished nothing more than what Constantine Mammonas, the leader of the apostasy, being initiated by those who led him astray, had disorderly and unlawfully gathered together and compiled —

these things, then, together with those whom they have now ordained as 'fathers', they have godlessly accepted as a rule of faith, knowing neither what they say nor concerning what they make their assertions.) For the majority of these citations preserve concord neither with one another nor with the truth;

but some, if they should touch upon some small measure of truth, not only do not concur with their purpose, but rather agree more with the mind of the Church and plead the cause of right reason.

And of these very citations, some they have falsified and corrupted, adulterating them according to their own will by certain additions and subtractions and transpositions, for the deception of the more simple; others they have mutilated and scraped away, wherever they perceived something that held to the truth (which indeed they did not shrink from doing even to the opinions of our illustrious teachers which they came across); or others still they have carried over unaltered, without attending to or understanding at all what it is that they, the senseless ones, are asserting.

There are also some whose designations they have altered, so that by the credibility of the more distinguished persons they might draw in the multitude; and in short they have left out nothing of all that it is customary for the falsifiers of our most upright doctrine to devise and to do.

From these very things they will, even unwillingly, confess that the practice of the sacred representations, being ancient and of old origin, was fitting within the Church, being reckoned as sacred;

but in those things in which the deceived take pleasure, they accept the teachers as advocates for the destruction of the holy images;

but in those things in which they are vexed, they dismiss them, refusing to accept their testimony to the antiquity of these images.

For those who choose to be pious, since the falsehood contained in these citations has already been detected everywhere, it would be [right] to be still by themselves and to keep leisure away from these vain things, knowing that those who have consorted with them do not go far from harm.

But in order that no one might be scandalized, suspecting that some necessary argument is being withheld here, for this very reason we thought it necessary and quite timely to turn to these very citations, to set them forth publicly and place in opposition the utterances of the sacred teachers of the Church, and to triumph over the absurd and irrational claims of our opponents, so that the evil might not go unrefuted, and so that it might not corrupt the character of the more guileless, and might not damage right and unerring doctrine.

How then, and from where, do they begin their jumbled arguments of vain labor? Those who at first refrained from calling the holy images idols — whether feigning a pretense, or dreading the ill repute of doing so (for justice often bends even opponents, counterbalancing astonishment by the dignity of those it outmatches) — put forward first and foremost, as the strongest, a citation against idols, beginning as it were from the Apostolic Constitutions, asserting that from the very beginning it is the ordinance of the apostles themselves, addressed to one who employs the variety and dyeing of colors, running as follows:

"Therefore be one who trains the finger for the writing of the cross;

flee the disorderly world, lest you put on the tunic of skin of disobedience."

These things, then, they brought forward, contriving to conceal the appellation 'idols' by its not appearing here in this very wording;

but the preceding passages, as found in the disordered books of those who compiled them long ago, present the notion of idols to us more clearly.

For they have set forth another ordinance, addressed to a certain silversmith, which runs as follows:

"Do not incur the reproaches of evil men, nor emulate Demetrius in lawlessness.

You shall not make a likeness of anything to worship the works of human hands" — having disobeyed, he made silver shrines of Artemis instead of the cross (he alludes to Demetrius the silversmith mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles).

After which comes the present ordinance, inscribed to a certain embroiderer, beginning with praises of the art, thus:

"The art is indeed glorious, but its manifold imagery is sometimes an occasion of idleness for the young;

therefore be one who trains the finger for the writing of the cross;

flee the disorderly world, lest you put on the tunic of skin of disobedience."

Those who are taught these things vilify every pictorial art, and in this very thing they misrepresent the teachers themselves;

for nothing is so pleasant and delightful to them as the love of idols, and to go about always through the remembrance of idols, having once and for all fallen into deep forgetfulness of the remembrance of God.

But if we too must meet them, setting out from the Apostolic Constitutions, I think that this saying alone, set forth in opposition, will suffice for the refutation of the falsehood and for stopping the senseless from deserting, erroneously and foolishly, to things that have nothing to do with the sacred symbols:

for let Pamphilus the great hieromartyr, a reliable witness to the truth, now come forward for us, speaking from the acts of the council of the apostles that took place in Antioch, that is, from the conciliar canons, where the name of Christians was first employed;

in which they said that one should depict in icon the theandric, immaculate, hand-made image of the true God and our Savior Jesus Christ, and of his servants, directly opposite the idols, and that those being saved should no longer be led astray toward them, nor be made like the Jews.

As, then, these things possess truth and credibility, the facts themselves will plead the case;

...to snatch up men who had fallen prostrate, and to guide them onto the path of the knowledge of God, and to implant grace through their preaching? Which indeed they also did, throughout every land and tongue and nation, having poured themselves out over the whole inhabited world, proclaiming the evangelical word.

If, then, truth had any share whatsoever in the words of our opponents, how did they not immediately, from the very outset, desert against that god-fashioned image first of all — the one which the Savior graciously granted to him who asked in faith, I mean to the ruler of the Edessenes, which even to this day is preserved, proclaimed among wonders? What need is there to speak against the image itself? How is it that they did not raise their hands against the Teacher himself when he did this, bringing a great accusation against him for building up again what they themselves had destroyed? Which very thing those now banded together against right reason also dare to do.

But who would dare to say this, having any share whatsoever in our faith, unless they should also blame Christ himself and not release him from the ultimate censure — he who imprinted himself upon linen and left it to us who believe in him as an example of piety and of remembrance of himself? And why did they not do something absurd against the divine statue also, free of any restraint whatsoever — the one which the woman with the flow of blood, having been freed from her grievous disease by the Healer and Benefactor, the streams of unclean blood having ceased to flow, set up in requital of the benefaction, as an imperishable herald of the miracle and a most manifest monument publicizing to later generations the wondrous thing that had been miraculously worked upon her? For indeed the votive offering, set up in the midst of a populous city, thronged about by a very great populace and governed by laws, and erected in the house of an illustrious woman and of well-born people, would not have escaped notice.

How then was it permitted by the divinely-inspired apostles to endure for so long a time, if indeed even some moderate spark of truth had appeared in the things said by the unholy ones? But if the argument should go to fair-minded and faithful hearers, they would be persuaded not of those things, but rather that the divine apostles accomplished the opposite of what has been said;

for a tradition and an account holding to credibility has come down even to us, that the divine evangelist Luke depicted the Lord in icon, and moreover also his all-immaculate ever-virgin Mother, and that the city of the Romans preserves these sacred images.

What need is there to speak concerning the city of the Jerusalemites, since those who have been there and made inquiry report that they faithfully and reverently preserve to this day very many sacred images set in place from of old with precision, and, tending them solemnly, venerate them? And the facts themselves bear witness and confirm the truth of what is recounted and reported.

Likewise it has been recorded together that, after the overthrow of Simon the magician, Peter and Paul, the coryphaei of the apostolic choir, proclaiming the great works of God and the miracles which the Savior performed, having first depicted in icon the scene of the Divine Transfiguration, handed it down to the Romans, just as he appeared in the midst, between Moses and Elijah, the divinely-inspired prophets;

which indeed they say are preserved to this day.

How then shall the disobedient and ungrateful look upon the wonder that is even until now both seen and sung of, in the revered temple of the all-pure Mother of God, which the divinely-inspired apostles built in the city called Lydda, while she was still living this earthly life? For many have beheld that image not made by hands, that venerable representation, being reverently venerated and honored — impressed upon bright and translucent tablets, and having penetrated wholly through their depth.

This, indeed, certain hostile Greeks and Jews, attempting to render it useless, impetuously scraped away — but they failed in their unholy undertaking.

For the form stands upon its shape none the less, preserving the appearance, the vesture, and the other features of the sight, indelible and unmarred.

For it is recorded that, by the promise of the all-pure Virgin to the apostles, this venerable object was given forth of its own accord.

And because of that form, they also renounced the temple itself, although it had already been fitting to them; but those of the present day, having outstripped even their manner of judaizing, together with the image likewise breach the very temples and hostilely burn down the sacred things therein.

In addition to these things, let there now be set forth the life and the wonders of a man well known, a disciple of the divine apostles, and adorned with the crown of martyrdom.

He, presiding over the church of the Tauromenitans on the island of Sicily, expounded [the gospel], having been entrusted with it by the apostles themselves, together with Marcianus, his fellow disciple and companion, who had been ordained to preside over the priesthood of another city there, so that the preaching might run its course also through the western regions.

These things, indeed, Evagrius, his follower and successor in the episcopate, composed.

In which he writes, in these very words, thus:

It came to pass, after our Lord Jesus Christ was taken up into the heavens and sat down at the right hand of the Father — whence he had never departed — that the apostles came from the Mount of Olives to Jerusalem and entered into the house where they were staying.

Having spoken these things, then, the blessed apostle Peter called Joseph the painter to him and said to him:

"Child Joseph, bring forth the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ and imprint it upon the little tower, so that the peoples may see what form the Son of God took on;

so that, seeing it, they may believe the more, beholding the type of the form, and may receive a reminder of the things preached to them by us." The painter, then, taking the most waxen, vivid colors, painted the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The blessed apostle then said:

"Paint also, child, my image and that of our brother Pancratius, so that men, receiving them as a reminder, may say:

'This is the apostle Peter, who preached the word of God among us' — and concerning the lord Pancratius:

'This is he who built the tower of the treasury.'"

The boy, the painter, then completed these images also, inscribing on each icon its own name.

Thus, then, did the holy apostles do in both cities and villages, each of them taking up his own painter from Jerusalem.

Now, whenever a church was built while the apostle was present, he would fill it completely with the whole narrative of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, and they would adorn the church from the beginning — from when the angel cried "Hail" to the Virgin — up until his ascension.

But whenever it had not been so appointed to them, and they were instead hastening on to another city or village, they themselves would imprint these images upon paper tablets and hand them over to the bishop; and they themselves, after the completion of the building, would imprint them [upon the walls].

And these images they exhorted, with reverent fear, to be honored, inasmuch as one beheld in them the types of the sacred narratives.

And when certain things had been said in between concerning the honor and veneration of the cross, the same [author] adds that: "When all had come down from the tower, the blessed apostle, standing alone before the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ, said, praying with tears:

'Blessed is the Lord my God, who appeared to me in this place;

who was well pleased, through your grace, to visit the race of men — do not overlook me, for I am solitary and poor;