論聖像 第 1 章 第 1/8 段

An apologetic treatise by our father among the saints, John of Damascus, against those who slander the holy icons.

We ought always, conscious of our own unworthiness, to keep silence and offer to God the confession of our sins. But since all things are good in their season, and since I see the Church—which God built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ His Son being the cornerstone—being battered as by a sea-storm with waves rising one upon another, churned and troubled by the most grievous onslaught of evil spirits, and the seamless robe of Christ, woven from above, being torn (which the children of the impious have presumptuously divided), and His body cut up into differing opinions—that is, the people of God and the tradition that has prevailed in the Church from of old—I did not think it reasonable to keep silent and bind a chain upon my tongue, fearing the threatened sentence which declares:

"If anyone draws back, my soul has no pleasure in him"; and, "If you see the sword coming and do not warn your brother, I will require his blood from your hand." Struck therefore by an unbearable fear, I have come forward to speak, not setting the eminence of kings before the truth.

"For I spoke," I heard David, the ancestor of God, saying, "before kings, and was not ashamed"; rather, by this I am pricked more and more to speak.

For the word of a king is powerful to sway his subjects.

For few are they who from the beginning have disdained the royal decrees; few who know that the king upon earth is himself ruled from above, and that the laws hold sway over kings.

First of all, then, having fixed as a keel or foundation for my reasoning the preservation of the Church's lawful ordinances—through which salvation naturally comes—I opened the starting-gate of my discourse and urged it forward like a well-bridled horse from the starting line.

For I truly thought it terrible, and beyond terrible, that the Church—gleaming with so many excellences and adorned by the traditions of the most pious men of old—should turn back to the beggarly elements, fearing a fear where there is nothing to fear, and, as though it had not known the true God, dreading the slide into idolatry, and falling short of perfection even in the smallest degree—like one bearing some unsightly blemish in the midst of a most beautiful face, ruining the whole beauty by the disproportion of that marred portion.

For the small is not small when it issues in something great—seeing that it is no small thing for a tradition of the Church, which has prevailed from of old, to be overturned, as though those who guided us before were condemned, whose conduct we ought rather to contemplate and whose faith we ought to imitate.

I therefore earnestly entreat, first of all, the Lord almighty, before whom all things are naked and laid bare, to whom our discourse is directed—who knows in this the sincerity of my humble mind and the purity of my aim—to grant me a word in the opening of my mouth, and to take the reins of my mind in His own hands and draw it to Himself, making it run a straight course before His face, not inclining to what seems right-hand nor to what is openly recognized as left-hand. And after Him, I entreat all the people of God, the holy nation, the royal priesthood, together with the good shepherd of Christ's rational flock—who portrays in himself the hierarchy of Christ—to receive my word with kindness, not

attending to the slightness of its merit nor seeking turns of phrase. For I, the poor man, am by no means skilled in these things, but rather concern myself with the force of the ideas (for the kingdom of heaven is not in word, but in power).

For my aim is not to win, but to stretch out a hand to truth when she is assailed—my resolve stretching out the hand of its power.

Having therefore called upon the substantial Truth as my helper, I will from here make the beginnings of my discourse.

Of John, the humble monk of Damascus, a second treatise against those who reject the icons.

Grant pardon to one who asks it, my masters, and receive a word of full assurance from me, the worthless and least servant of the Church of God.

For it was not for the sake of glory or display that I set out to speak—God is my witness—but out of zeal for the truth.

For Him alone I possess as my hope of salvation, and with Him I hope to meet the Master Christ; and I pray, offering this to Him, that it may become an atonement for the things I have wrongly transgressed.

For he who received the five talents from the master gained another five and brought them; and he who received the two brought an equal number, two more.

But he who had received the one, having buried it and brought it back fruitless, was called a wicked servant and condemned to the outer darkness.

Fearing lest I should suffer this, I yield to the Master's command and set before you—the prudent bankers—the talent of speech given me by Him, that when my Lord comes He may find it multiplied, bearing the interest of souls, and finding me a faithful servant, may lead me into His own most sweet and longed-for joy.

But give me the ear of attention, and opening wide the tables of your hearts, receive my word, and sincerely discern the force of what is said.

I have composed this as a second treatise concerning icons;

for some of the Church's children urged me to do this, because the first was not very easy for most to understand.

But in this too forgive me, who have only fulfilled an act of obedience.

By the same holy John of Damascus, a treatise against those who reject the venerable and holy icons.

It is the custom of the wicked serpent, the author of evil—I mean the devil—to war in manifold ways against man, who was fashioned according to the image of God, and to work man's death through opposites.

For straightway in the beginning he sowed in man the hope and desire of deification, and through it brought him down to the death of the irrational beasts; and moreover he often enticed him with shameful and irrational pleasures.

How great is the gulf between deification and irrational desire!

At times he led men into atheism, as David the ancestor of God declares:

"The fool has said in his heart,

There is no God"; and at other times into polytheism.

And sometimes he persuaded men not to worship God who is God by nature; at other times he prepared them to worship demons, and further the heaven and the earth, the sun and the moon and the stars and the rest of creation, down even to vermin and creeping things.

For it is equally grievous both not to render the due honor to things honorable, and to attach undue glory to things unworthy.

Again, he taught some to say that evil is co-eternal with God, and deceived others into confessing that God, who is good by nature, is the cause of evil.

And some he led astray to say senselessly that there is one nature and one hypostasis of the Godhead; and others he corrupted into impiously worshiping three natures and three

hypostases.

And to some he suggested glorifying one hypostasis and one nature of our Lord Jesus Christ, the one of the Holy Trinity; to others, two natures and two hypostases of the same.

But the truth, walking the middle road, rejects all these absurdities and teaches us to confess one God, one nature in three hypostases—Father and Son and Holy Spirit.

And it says that evil is not a substance but an accident—a certain thought, word, and deed contrary to the law of God—having its existence in being thought, spoken, and done, and vanishing the moment it ceases.

And further it proclaims that the one of the Holy Trinity, Christ, has two natures and one hypostasis.

But the truth, walking the middle road, rejects all the absurdities.

But the enemy of truth and adversary of human salvation—who once led astray not only the nations but the very sons of Israel many times, making them fashion images of demons and impious men and birds and beasts and creeping things and worship these as gods—now strives to throw into confusion the Church of Christ, which is at peace, through unjust lips and a deceitful tongue, seasoning his evil with divine words and trying to cover over its unseemly and dark form, and to shake the hearts of the unstable from the true custom handed down by the fathers.

For some have risen up saying that one ought not to depict and set forth, for contemplation and glory and wonder and zeal, the saving wonders and sufferings of Christ and the brave deeds of the saints against the devil.

And who that has divine knowledge and spiritual understanding does not recognize that this is a suggestion of the devil? For he does not wish his defeat and shame to be published abroad, nor the glory of God and of His saints to be recorded.

For if we were making an image of the invisible God, we would indeed be sinning;

for it is impossible that the bodiless, formless, invisible, and uncircumscribable be depicted in an image.

If we were making images of men and reckoning them gods and serving them as gods, we would indeed be impious.

But we do none of these things.

For since God was made flesh and appeared upon the earth in flesh and lived among men through His unutterable goodness, and took on the nature and density and form and color of flesh, we do not err in making His image;

for we long to behold His likeness;

as the divine apostle says:

"Now we see in a mirror, dimly."

And the icon too is a mirror and a riddle, suited to the density of our body;

for the mind, however much it labors, cannot go beyond bodily things, says the divine Gregory.

Out upon you, envious devil! You begrudge us the sight of our Master's likeness and our being sanctified through it, and our beholding His saving sufferings and marveling at His condescension and contemplating His miracles and acknowledging and glorifying the power of His divinity.

You begrudge the saints the honor given them by God.

You do not wish us to see their glory recorded and to become emulators of their courage and faith.

You cannot bear the bodily and spiritual benefit that comes to us from faith in them.

We will not obey you, envious and man-hating demon!

Hear, you peoples, tribes, tongues, men, women, children, old men, young men, and infants—the holy nation of Christians!

If anyone preach to you anything beyond what the catholic Church received from the holy apostles, fathers, and councils, and has preserved until now, do not listen to him, nor receive the counsel of the serpent, as Eve received it and reaped death.

Even if an angel, even if a king, preach to you anything beyond what you received, shut your ears;

for I shrink for the present from saying, as the divine apostle said:

Let him be anathema—reserving that.

But those who do not search out the meaning of Scripture say that God said through Moses the lawgiver:

"You shall not make any likeness of anything that is in heaven or that is on the earth." And through David the prophet:

"Let all those be ashamed who worship carved images, who boast in their idols"—and many other such things.

For whatever they may bring forward from the divine Scripture and from the holy fathers, it is all of the same import.

What, then, do we say to these things? What else but that which was said by the Lord to the Jews: "Search the Scriptures"? For the searching of the Scriptures is good.

But here pay attention with understanding.

It is impossible, O beloved, for God to lie;

for God is one, one lawgiver of the Old and the New Testament, who of old spoke to the fathers in many portions and in many ways by the prophets, and in these last days by His only-begotten Son.

Pay attention, therefore, with exactness.

The Holy Spirit declared through Paul the holy apostle:

"In many portions and in many ways of old God spoke to the fathers by the prophets." Notice that God spoke in many portions and in many ways.

For just as a skilled physician does not give the same remedy to all at all times, but provides to each the fitting and suitable medicine, distinguishing country and disease and hour—that is, the season—and constitution and age;

and gives one thing to the infant, another to the one mature in age;

one to the sick and another to the healthy, and to each of the sick not the same, but according to constitution and disease;

and one thing in summer, another in winter, and in autumn and in spring, and in each place according to the suitability of the place.

So too the excellent physician of souls forbade the making of images to those who were still infants and sick with the disease of inclining to idolatry—who reckoned idols to be gods and worshiped them as gods, and rejected the worship of God and offered His glory to the creation.

For it is impossible to make an image of God, who is bodiless and invisible and immaterial, having neither shape nor circumscription nor comprehensibility;

for how shall what is not seen be depicted? "No one has ever seen God;

the only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has made Him known." And, "No one shall see My face and live," said God.

And that they worshiped idols as gods, hear what Scripture says in the Exodus of the sons of Israel, when Moses went up onto Mount Sinai and tarried, abiding with God to receive the law, when the senseless people rose up against Aaron, the servant of God, saying:

"Make us gods who will go before us;

for as for this man Moses, we do not know what has become of him." Then, when they had stripped off the ornaments of their women and melted them down, they ate and drank and became drunk with wine and with error, and began to play in their folly, saying:

"These are your gods, O Israel." Do you see that they held the idols to be gods?

For they did not make an idol of Zeus or of this or that god, but, as it happened, they gave their gold to make an idol—whatever might result—and there came up the embossed figure of an ox-head.

So they held the very molten things to be gods and worshiped these as gods—things which were dwelling-places of demons.

And that they served the creation rather than the Creator, the divine apostle also says:

"Who exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things, and served the creation rather than the Creator." For this reason God forbade the making of any likeness, as Moses says in Deuteronomy:

I know Him who said without falsehood:

"The Lord your God, the Lord is one, and you shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve, and you shall have no other gods, and you shall not make a carved thing, any likeness of anything that is in heaven above or that is on the earth below, and let all be ashamed

who worship carved images; and let the gods who did not make heaven and earth perish." And whatever in such manner God of old, having spoken to the fathers by the prophets, in these last days has spoken to us in His only-begotten Son, through whom also He made the ages. I know Him who said:

"And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." I believe in one God, one principle of all things, without beginning, uncreated, indestructible and immortal, eternal and everlasting, incomprehensible, bodiless, invisible, uncircumscribable, formless, one super-essential essence, super-divine Godhead, in three hypostases—Father and Son and Holy Spirit—and Him alone I serve, and to Him alone I offer the worship of adoration.

I worship one God, one Godhead; yet I serve a Trinity of hypostases—God the Father and God the Son made flesh and God the Holy Spirit—one God.

I do not worship the creation rather than the Creator, but I worship the Creator who became created for my sake, and who came down into creation without lowering and without diminishing Himself, that He might glorify my nature and make me a partaker of the divine nature.

Together with the King and God I worship the purple robe of His body—not as a garment nor as a fourth person (far from it!), but as having become one with God and being identical with that which anointed it, unchangeably;

for the divine nature did not become the nature of the flesh; but just as the Word became flesh without change, remaining what He was, so too the flesh became Word, not losing what it is, but rather being made identical with the Word according to hypostasis.

Therefore with confidence I depict the invisible God—not as invisible, but as having become visible for our sake by partaking of flesh and blood.

I do not depict the invisible Godhead, but I depict the flesh of God that was seen.

For if it is impossible to depict the soul, how much more God, who gave even the soul its immateriality? But they say:

God said through Moses the lawgiver:

"You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve, and you shall not make any likeness of anything that is in heaven or that is on the earth." Brethren, truly those go astray who do not know the Scriptures, who do not know that the letter kills but the spirit gives life, who do not search out the spirit hidden beneath the letter.

To these I might fittingly say:

Let him who taught you this teach you also what follows.

Learn how the lawgiver explains it in this manner in Deuteronomy, saying:

"And the Lord spoke to you out of the midst of the fire;

you heard the sound of words but saw no likeness, only a voice." And a little further: "Guard your souls diligently, for you saw no likeness on the day the Lord spoke to you at Horeb in the mountain out of the midst of the fire, lest you act lawlessly and make for yourselves a carved likeness, any image, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is upon the earth, the likeness of any winged bird," and so on. And shortly after: "Lest, lifting up your eyes to heaven and seeing the sun and the moon and the stars and all the host of heaven, you be led astray and worship them and serve them." I know Him who said without falsehood:

"The Lord your God, the Lord is one, and you shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve, and you shall have no other gods, and you shall not make a carved thing, any likeness of anything that is in heaven or that is on the earth, and let all be ashamed who worship carved images; and let the gods who did not make heaven and earth perish." And whatever in such manner God of old, having spoken to the fathers by the prophets, in these last days has spoken to us in His only-begotten Son, through whom He made the ages. I know Him who said:

"And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only living and true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." And I believe in one God, one principle of all things, without beginning, uncreated,

indestructible and immortal, eternal and everlasting, incomprehensible, bodiless, invisible, uncircumscribable, formless, one super-essential essence, super-divine Godhead, in three hypostases—Father and Son and Holy Spirit—and Him alone I serve, and to Him alone I offer the worship of adoration.

I worship one God, one Godhead; yet I serve a Trinity of hypostases—God the Father and God the Son made flesh and God the Holy Spirit—not three gods but one, not divided hypostases but united.

I do not offer three acts of worship but one; not to each of the hypostases separately, but unitedly to the three hypostases as to one God I offer one act of worship.

I do not worship the creation rather than the Creator, but I worship the Creator who became created for my sake, and who came down into creation without lowering and without diminishing Himself, that He might glorify my nature and make me a partaker of the divine nature.

Together with the King and God I worship the purple robe of His body—not as a garment nor as a fourth person (far from it!), but as having become one with God and being identical with that which anointed it, unchangeably;

for the divine nature did not become the nature of the flesh; but just as the Word became flesh without change, remaining what He was before, so too the flesh became Word, not losing what it is, but rather being made identical with the Word according to hypostasis.

Therefore with confidence I depict the invisible God—not as invisible, but as having become visible for our sake by partaking of flesh and blood.

I do not depict the invisible Godhead, but I depict the flesh of God that was seen;

for if it is impossible to depict the soul, how much more Him who gave even the soul its immateriality? But they say:

God said through Moses the lawgiver:

"You shall worship the Lord your God and Him only shall you serve, and you shall not make any likeness of anything that is in heaven or that is on the earth." Brethren, truly those go astray who do not know the Scriptures, who do not know that the letter kills but the spirit gives life, who do not search out the spirit hidden beneath the letter.

To these I might fittingly say:

Let him who taught you this teach you also what follows.

Learn how the lawgiver explains it in this manner in Deuteronomy, saying:

You see that the aim is one—namely, not to serve the creation rather than the Creator, nor to offer the worship of adoration to anything but the Maker alone.

Therefore everywhere He joins adoration (latreia) to worship;

"You shall have no other gods besides Me."

"You shall not make for yourself a carved thing, nor any likeness; you shall not worship them nor serve them, for I am the Lord your God"; and again: "You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and cut down their sacred groves and burn the carved images of their gods with fire;

for you shall not worship another god." And a little after: "And you shall not make for yourself molten gods." And again: "And you shall not make for yourself molten gods; you shall not worship them nor serve them, for I am the Lord your God"; and again: "You shall tear down their altars and break their pillars and burn the carved images of their gods with fire;

for you shall not worship another god." And a little after: "And you shall not make for yourself molten gods." You see that He forbids image-making on account of idolatry, and because it is impossible to depict God, who is without quantity and uncircumscribable and invisible.

"For you saw no form of Him," He says—just as Paul also, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, says:

"Being therefore God's offspring, we ought not to think that the Divine is like gold or silver or stone, an engraving of human art and imagination." To the Jews, then, because of their proneness to idolatry, these things were ordained as law;

but as for us—to speak theologically—to whom it has been granted, having fled the superstitious error, to become purely with God, having come to know the truth and to serve God alone and to be enriched with the perfection of the knowledge of God,

and to have come to a perfect man, having passed beyond infancy, we are no longer under a tutor, having received from God the faculty of discernment, and knowing what may be depicted and what cannot be circumscribed in an image.

"For you saw no form of Him," He says. Oh, the wisdom of the lawgiver!

How shall the invisible be depicted? How shall the inimitable be likened? How shall what is without quantity and without magnitude and without limit be drawn? How shall the formless be given quality? How shall the bodiless be rendered in color? What, then, is being hinted at enigmatically? Clearly this: when you see the bodiless one having become man for your sake, then you shall make the representation of the human form;

when the invisible becomes visible in the flesh, then you shall depict the likeness of Him who was seen;

when He who is bodiless and formless, without quantity and without size and without magnitude in the surpassing excellence of His own nature—He who exists in the form of God—taking the form of a servant, is by this contracted to quantity and size, and puts on the character of a body, then portray Him on tablets and set Him up for contemplation, Him who consented to be seen.

Portray His unspeakable condescension, His birth from the Virgin, His baptism in the Jordan, His transfiguration on Tabor, His sufferings which procure for us freedom from suffering, His miracles—the tokens of His divine nature, wrought by divine power through the activity of the flesh—the saving Cross, the burial, the resurrection, the ascension into the heavens.

Portray all things, both with word and with colors.

I know the distinction of acts of worship.

Abraham once bowed down to the sons of Hamor, when he bought the double cave for a burial-plot—men who were impious and sick with ignorance of God.

Jacob bowed down to Esau his brother and to Pharaoh the Egyptian; moreover he bowed down upon the top of his staff;

they bowed down, indeed, but they did not serve (with adoration).

Joshua the son of Nun and Daniel bowed down to an angel of God, but they did not serve him.

For the worship of adoration is one thing, and the honor offered to those who excel in some dignity is another.

To the Jews, then, because of their proneness to idolatry, these things were ordained as law;

but as for us—to speak theologically—to whom it has been granted, having fled the superstitious error, to become purely with God, having come to know the truth and to serve God alone and to be enriched with the perfection of the knowledge of God, and to have come to a perfect man, having passed beyond infancy, we are no longer under a tutor, having received from God the faculty of discernment, and knowing what may be depicted and what cannot be circumscribed in an image.

"For the law became our tutor unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith"; and "we were held in bondage under the elements when we were infants. But when faith came, we are no longer under a tutor." "For you saw no form of Him," He says. Oh, the wisdom of the lawgiver!

How shall the invisible be depicted? How shall the inimitable be likened? How shall what is without quantity and without magnitude and without limit and without form be drawn? How shall the bodiless be rendered in color? How shall the formless be given shape? What, then, is being mystically hinted at? Clearly this: for now do not depict God who is invisible;

but when you see the bodiless one having become man for your sake, then you shall make the representation of the human form;

when the invisible becomes visible in the flesh, then you shall depict the likeness of Him who was seen;

when He who is without quantity and without size and without magnitude in the surpassing excellence of His own nature—He who exists in the form of God—taking the form of a servant, is by this contracted to quantity and size, and puts on the character of a body, then portray Him on tablets and set Him up for contemplation, Him who consented to be seen.

Portray His unspeakable condescension, His birth from the Virgin,

His baptism in the Jordan, His transfiguration on Tabor, His sufferings which procure freedom from suffering, His miracles—the tokens of His divine nature and activity, accomplished through the activity of the flesh—the saving burial of the Savior, the resurrection, the ascension into the heavens.

Portray all things, both with word and with colors, in books and on tablets.

But since our discourse concerns the icon and worship, come, let us elucidate the account of these matters.

An icon, then, is a likeness that characterizes its prototype, while yet having some difference from it;