駁毀像派 第 1 章 第 2/21 段

But if the making and veneration of images is by Christians and in the name of Christ and the saints, to whom as archetypes it is referred, and if for this reason they are entirely free from the defilement of idols and from any remembrance whatsoever of such a name, how are they useless? And how is the possession of them not rather useful, and their veneration a thing to be zealously sought? But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled among those who are perishing, in whom the god of this age has blinded the thoughts of the unbelieving, so that the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should not shine upon them.

Wherefore let these men also be numbered together with those who are perishing and the unbelievers, to whom our holy things are objects to be shunned and spat upon.

But if this is so, let us see who are the ones condemning, and what the condemnation is.

As for those who condemn, they have been exposed as priests, worshipers, and servants of idols.

For they have inscribed and confessed against themselves manifest idolatry, which indeed they also proclaimed by every means to the people under their charge, each one teaching them to offer veneration (proskynesis) to the creature rather than the Creator, having altogether failed to recognize the worship (latreia) offered by Christians to God, the maker of all things, and Master; thus subjecting their own heads to the votes of the condemned.

But as for the destruction of demonic strongholds and the refutation of diabolical scheming and error — as will shortly be set forth in their very own words —

But these men, being thereby self-condemned and known to be liable to prosecution under both canonical statutes and civil laws, sit in judgment as unjust and lawless judges.

And so, henceforth, it is seen to be a synod of idolaters, and the priests of shame lawlessly rage in fury against holy things.

For it is fitting for those who are mad after idols and who play the Greek to be hostilely disposed toward, and to set themselves against, the things honored by Christians.

Having forgotten their own faults, and how they have gone astray precisely in the greatest and most vital matter — our unblemished faith — they dare to lay hold of things which it is not lawful for them to touch.

And whereas it was necessary for those who had thus stumbled into so great a transgression to report themselves to those who occupy greater thrones in the priesthood, soundly and blamelessly distinguished, and rightly to confess their faults, and to accept the canonical bonds, and to submit to the fitting penalties, and to be deemed worthy of the appropriate remedy, and thenceforth to cease from wishing to serve as priests of God, and to be excluded from the sacred thresholds, and to repent of what they had impiously done, and to propitiate God with tears and lamentations and contrition of heart — they do exactly the opposite of all this, entrusting to themselves, as they wrongly supposed, both the judgment and the pardon; and, what is worst and most intolerable, for the very sins which they themselves most gravely committed, they condemn those who are guiltless — men who are Christians and worshipers of the Trinity, fortified by orthodoxy and piety, and who have not even been caught, not even in the mere name, in the pollution of idolatry.

What could be more irrational or more godless than these things? These men, then, who are far removed from the sacred choirs and from every priestly and Christian discourse, bear the vote of condemnation against the saints, having as their leader and teacher in impiety the man notorious for impiety, together with the authority granted to him through God's forbearance.

This godless workshop, then, might justly be called — to use their very own words — headless in truth, and useless, and untransmitted, since indeed the throne of the imperial city happened at that time to be bereft of a high priest.

For indeed, at the end of their machinations, Mammon proclaims and appoints his namesake Constantine — truly wretched and thrice-miserable — unlawfully and unholily, to the ruin of both soul and body, as bishop of the imperial city.

Whence he also poured forth very many insults upon the high priest of the Romans, having often been refuted by him on account of his false doctrine.

It remains, then, to say who and of what sort the condemnation is.

For this is not simply decreed in word, but is also carried out in deed.

In word: the holy things have been outrageously insulted with the appellation of idols, and Christians have been condemned for idolatry; in deed: the sanctuaries have been broken into by lawless hands, and all the sacred houses ransacked with all their might, while those Christians distinguished for piety and reverence, being persecuted, suffer things irremediable and unbearable.

For what reason, then, one might very justly ask, is it that, out of all the sacred things throughout the Church, the making and veneration of these alone has been condemned and cast out? Now if they had proposed something different from our proclamation, then it would have been necessary even so for the matter concerning them to be handled by the common vote and deliberation of those established upon the preeminent high-priestly thrones.

But if it displays the same teaching as our gospel, having been brought somehow even more clearly and more manifestly before the eyes, it is quite evident that, through this single matter, they attempted, as hostile enemies, to overthrow the whole reality of the saving incarnation of God the Word.

For Christ was burdensome to them, even when seen in an icon.

But indeed, for the sake of these matters, it must be understood also in this way, and let the absurdity of these lawless men be shown still more clearly.

Everything that comes into being and subsists has a rational principle according to which it comes into being and subsists, and nothing of the things that come into being could exist devoid of a rational principle.

and the firmament proclaims the work of his hands;

The sun, the worker of the day, moving both above the earth and beneath the earth, like some skillful arbiter, adjudicating good order to each, so that by proportion and equal measure they yield their temporal intervals to one another in succession, exchanging the turnings of the seasons and times, and arranging all things most excellently;

The earth, too, was made suited for sprouting and producing seasonable fruits and everything useful for the use of those who need it;

and the productions and origins of all the other things proceed from the Maker of the universe according to some useful and reasonable cause;

indeed, the same thing can also be observed in things brought to completion by art;

for the ship is constructed by the shipwright for the sake of sailing and trading, and the bed and the throne and the stool are fashioned for reclining and sitting, for the use of those who use them;

and likewise in the case of each of the other things.

Therefore the icon of Christ too will have a rationale, according to which it comes into being and is so designated;

and what else could this be than the assimilation to the archetype, the manifestation of him who became man, and the remembrance of the name inscribed upon it? For it will introduce to us the notion of nothing else, since the icon of Christ could not be called the icon of anyone else, even if the wretched Christ-fighters dare a thousand times to call it falsely-named.

But if its rationale consists in these things, who is so self-willed and audacious as to cast it away as useless and dare to condemn it? What ground for punishment will he not have, or how will he be reckoned a Christian—he who destroys the very things by which the incarnation of God the Word is seen to be rational? But this too must be said again:

everything that comes to be is either to-be-chosen or to-be-avoided, or in between the two, constituted by the negation of both extremes;

but indeed the icon of Christ is not, among Christians, to-be-avoided—for how could it be, seeing that it brings us the remembrance of Christ and directly manifests the form of the Lord's body?—nor indeed is it something in between;

for neither is any other of the sacred things in the church something in between;

for all are honorable and venerable;

therefore the making and veneration of it belongs to the to-be-chosen and the venerable.

Moreover, the icon also belongs to the category of relatives, and this, I think, would be agreed by all in whom soundness of mind is preserved intact, since a relation to that of which it is said to be the icon belongs to it, and through itself it manifests the archetype and provides knowledge of it;

the definition given of it will also make this clear;

for indeed it is by nature an assimilation to the prototypal form, and the same as that, save for the difference of substance;

from which it will also partake of the name;

and further, these terms are convertible with one another according to the rationale of relatives and their mutual relation;

and it would also have a certain participation, as an effect from a cause.

And if these things are also known to us in the case of the icon of our Savior, how will he who shamefully insults it be supposed or named a Christian? Thus, then, let it be concluded and confessed on every side that the making and veneration of these sacred forms is not useless, but rather just and exceedingly beneficial, and far from being condemned.

If then it were useless (for let this too be said), what is the reason for such great madness over the useless thing, and the persecution against Christians? And for whose sake was there so much toil and gathering together of the unholy and impious? What was the magnitude of the labor that the persecutors expended, and the other utterly dire and irremediable things that were then done throughout the empire of the Romans? But it is also evident that it was for the sake of what is useful and fitting;

which is proper and lawful to Christians, but hostile and alien to those who are strangers to the piety of Christians;

for Christ was burdensome to them, even when seen in an icon.

Yet even so they cling to their slander and do not let go, but the shield-bearers of Docetism assert that the body of Christ is uncircumscribable and cannot be depicted;

but the phantom-like character of these teachings is everywhere exposed to reproach, as will also be sufficiently demonstrated not much later.

And not relenting from their calumny against Christians, the quarrelsome men move on to another, more godless path of blasphemy, declaring that Christians have approached the icons as gods;

but let the slander be turned back upon their own heads;

for where have they ever seen a Christian—initiated to venerate and worship the living and true God in spirit and truth—caught fallen into this defilement, whether small or great, or of whatever fortune, age, and rank he happened to be, spitting upon all idolatrous error and abomination? Or have they heard of such a case from anyone at all, from the time when the ancient Christ-fighters began the persecution against Christians, though they searched and tracked down much? But they would not be able to say such a thing; rather, under the pretense of Christianity, they were driving out—and are driving out—the possessions of Christians.

If then—which it is not even safe to say—they had seen some of the more rustic or more ignorant Christians somehow deviating from the perfection of our mystery, and, on account of simplicity of manner, irrationally doing something out of place, they ought to have rendered the due honor to sacred things and treated the holy objects with reverence, and, employing a didactic and pastoral manner, to guide and lead by the hand the simple and unlearned, so that they might walk securely the path of piety—yet not to have been driven to such a frenzy of madness against the evangelical proclamation.

For neither, if someone should lawlessly commit outrage against the divine altar or another of the holy things, will the altar and the holy things be destroyed on account of the one who committed the outrage;

since the latter does not happen, then neither should the former.

They therefore dress up their impiety with a sophistical transposition of its name onto what is most shameful and unlovely, in order to deceive the judgment of the more simple-minded and persuade them, as though they were merely declining idolatrous veneration, to disregard the honor due to holy things and to cling instead to dishonor, so that the impious might accomplish in this life the things they promised to their heart's content, and might sack the church of Christ.

But those who have rejected the condescension of God the Word, from which our redemption from idols has come about—how will they set themselves outside idolatrous madness, they whom the gold-loving disease has been consuming, and whose earthy mindset has overpowered them? Then, after the useless making and condemnation of the sacred things—

—having preferred, they say, the worship in spirit and truth—

this synod, having ratified and confirmed the God-inspired doctrines of the holy fathers and having followed the six holy ecumenical synods, set forth most pious canons.

If, as they elaborately pretend, the ancients who taught impiety, and their new disciples, followed the six holy ecumenical synods by ratifying the doctrines of the fathers—doctrines whose divine institutions they ought likewise to have cherished—then how is it that here they did not preserve consistency, but on the contrary went entirely the opposite way, invalidating what had been dogmatized and made canon by them? For if indeed synodal consistency pertained to them in any way, then—just as the holy fathers of the sixth ecumenical synod, after every careful deliberation, set forth canons filled with piety and rectitude, in which, while they preferred grace, they neither condemned nor dishonored the old types and shadows, as symbols and prefigurations of the truth, but rather welcomed them gladly as honorable, as was fitting, and piously determined that the form of the all-venerable and most-honored body of Christ should be depicted according to the human character—so likewise it was necessary also for them, having preferred veneration in spirit and truth, to render to this very sacred image of Christ the fitting and due honor and veneration, and not thus harshly and bitterly to despise and condemn it as though it were something hostile, so that in truth both the consistency and the order which they professed in their pledges might be preserved blameless.

and nothing would thus have offensively marred the economy of God the Word, just as the ancient symbols of grace, though honored, did not injure grace itself;

for the wise fathers knew, and very expertly, the manner of preference, and how it was necessary to handle these matters;

in regard to which the senseless ones evidently go astray on every side.

For indeed anyone who examines this closely will discover it to be of a diverse kind;

in one case the good is altogether chosen and the evil rejected, as is seen in the case of prudence and folly, health and disease, and beauty and ugliness;

but if, in cases where not opposition but similarity is shown, and the one merely exists to a lesser degree than the other—as may be seen in the matters before us (for if anyone should suppose these not to be so, he clearly speaks from a spirit contrary to the truth, since nothing is opposed where there is remembrance of Christ)—then it is not at all the case that, because the superior thing is here preferred, the lesser thing will be condemned or done away with; rather, indeed, it will also be included together with it and preserved;

since whence would the thing that surpasses obtain in these matters its preference and precedence, if the lesser thing—the one that bears second place—were not also thought of together with it and preserved, the very thing in which the preference will be most especially and properly seen? And this is clear:

for indeed the commanders of the intelligible orders—such as, for example, the divine Michael and Gabriel—since they have been preferred in rank over the lesser holy angels, the remaining divine angels are not, on this account, dishonored and condemned;

nor indeed, when the foremost of the apostolic choir—I mean the divinely-inspired Peter—has been allotted the pre-eminence here, are the remaining disciples of the Savior thereby despised and rejected;

nor indeed, if he who administers the royal authority possesses supremacy in all things, are those who have been allotted consular rank, for this reason, cast down and dishonored;

seeing that we observe human things sometimes preferred to divine things—this is the work of divine providence, which by ways it knows to be ineffable governs and administers our affairs, and displays great care for us.

And if anyone should object, let this be confirmed from the evangelical teaching, which commands the one offering a gift at the altar, if he remembers that his brother has something against him, to leave his gift there, and go first and be reconciled, and then to offer it;

but it does not follow that, because these things are to be preferred, the divine things are therefore to be disregarded or condemned.

"But if virginity had to be preferred, childbearing also had to be honored"—let the great Gregory proclaim this.

Thus also the consistency of the matters and the principle of truth would keep to what is infallible, in cases where the preference concerns other and different things;

but here it is not so; rather, the honor concerns one and the same thing, even though it is applied in different ways;

for indeed the honor given to the icon passes over to the prototype.

These things ought to have shamed the ignorance and depravity of the Christ-fighters;

for if these likenesses had been formed after the appearance of someone else, or had introduced the remembrance of someone else, their argument would have had a plausible face;

but if it depicts and reveals to us the Savior Christ himself, with his very name inscribed—he to whom the veneration that belongs to worship is also offered together with the Father and the Spirit (and no one will speak against this, even if he has rolled headlong into the extremity of madness and Bacchic frenzy)—

for the icon of Christ will not be understood as the icon of anyone else, just as the seal-impression made in a piece of wax cannot be fitted to different engravings;

or let it be granted by them that a different one became man, and the whole matter is dissolved—what harm then is there, when the divine object of veneration has been preferred, that these things too should receive the fitting and corresponding reverence proper to Christ, and not rather be treated as useless and condemned by the impious—if indeed, according to the theologian's word, both these must be honored and those preferred? But even if they themselves keep silent about the unspeakable truth, the stones will cry out that the dishonor of the icon also passes over to the prototype (which is precisely what they are most concerned about), just as among us the honor does.

Then where have these mockers and slanderers of the truth ever caught Christians offering the aforementioned acts of veneration as equal in honor, so that they might prefer the one and condemn the other? If, then, it is for the sake of preferring the worship in spirit and truth that the other has been condemned, it was surely open to them also to destroy and utterly demolish every sacred place, so that the preference and glory might be all the greater;

for the glory obtained by the destruction of one thing will surely be obtained to a greater degree by the destruction of many.

...so that they might give it preference; for this reason they contrived preferences and condemnations, taking no thought at all for reverence toward the divine, but so that, as though inspired by the opposite spirit, they might honor present prosperity and glory together with the ill fortune of those who led them, and might minister to a beastly, unseemly, and lawless life, gaping after the rulers of this age, enslaved to the world and the ruler of the world, clinging only to present things, and possessing, out of irrationality and unbelief, an earthly and grovelling mindset, having no hope toward the glory that is to be revealed to those who are worthy—promising prosperity and allotting periods of time of which they were not lords, saying: the more you offend against the divine, the more you will prosper;

the more you destroy, the better you will live.

Being emboldened by these things prophesied beforehand, the lawless ran aground on such a degree of unbelief and atheism, raging madly against Christ and the inheritance of Christ;

and thus, having warred against this divine glory, they became enemies both of the saints and of the whole church.

Their glory has been extinguished, having flown away just like dreams, and their staged deeds have been held up as an example of shame;

for divine justice, having taken hold of it, triumphed over the wickedness of the depraved.

Did, then, none of those who had previously reigned ever care about the worship due to the divine, although many of them were indeed orthodox and held fast to the doctrines of piety—if indeed, as these men asserted, what was being done was idolatry from the beginning? For indeed their own teacher declared, both through what he proclaimed publicly in his fight against God, and through what he wrote, often laboring in vain for many, that from ancient times and from the earliest ages Christians had adhered to idolatry.

But indeed those former rulers excelled also in holy synods, and gave their assent to what had been done before, and they themselves also built further upon it—and the divine temples raised up by them, and the sacred treasures, bear witness to this;

yet indeed, even though they promoted the most absurd heresies, they never inflicted such great persecutions upon men.

and indeed not a few of those who had been allotted the priestly dignity were also known to have cultivated these things well.

But those who exalted themselves against the divine glory, and were dragged down by the baits of the evil one, and who attended to counterfeit doctrines foreign to piety, and rushed of their own accord into impiety, stretched out a raging hand against the pious and did the most evil and utterly grievous deeds.

For it is not the part of pious emperors to disturb and unravel opinions well established among themselves; rather, when evil heresies have grown up within the church, it is their part to extend a helping hand, and, employing their zeal, to cooperate with the doctrine of orthodoxy, but to follow the helm by the vote and judgment of those entrusted with the church, and to carry out and accomplish most excellently, with all eagerness, what has been approved.

For to whom the church of God has been entrusted from above is not unmanifest.

Let Paul cry out something loud and renowned, namely that there are apostles, and again also prophets and teachers.

And let these things stand thus, in some such way.

But we, who know the distinction of veneration, since we are taught by God and have known God as the creative and sustaining cause of all things, known and worshipped in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — to Him alone do we believe and offer worship, and we offer the glory that transcends and is set apart from all things, and that veneration, namely the rational and true worship in spirit.

And we are the true venerators, who by His grace and love for mankind have grown rich in the knowledge of Him, since God is spirit, and is beyond all incorporeality and immateriality, and has transcendently risen high above all things that exist;

"And those who venerate Him must venerate Him in spirit and in truth," says Christ, who is the Truth;

for such the Father also seeks, those who venerate Him.

drawing, as it were, a veil over such things, having our understanding in no way clouded by created things or colors, but possessing it unmixed and pure of every created appearance, and lifting up holy hands in every place of His dominion, we render the thanksgivings that are due.

For we do not circumscribe our worship to any particular place, as was once legislated for the Jews;

not in whole burnt-offerings of rams and bulls, or effusions of blood, but in a contrite soul and a spirit of humility and a pure heart do we, as it is said, sacrifice to God a sacrifice of praise.

Our worship, then, is spiritual, according to which the divine Paul also worshipped in his own spirit, in the gospel of the Son of God, exhorting others also to present their bodies as an acceptable sacrifice, namely the rational worship.

But since the One of the trans-supreme and trans-divine Trinity, the Son of God and the Father, our Lord and God, by the ineffable love for mankind and good pleasure of the Father, the all-holy and life-originating Spirit co-working, put on our poverty, and became man in every respect perfect except for sin, according to us, and properly and truly — not in seeming and fancy, as it seems to those who fancy so foolishly — was seen on earth and lived among men; for this reason He is also both circumscribed and depicted bodily according to His humanity, just as He is uncircumscribed according to His divinity, in no way of confusion or division being conceived concerning the natures that concurred in the one hypostasis, as the senseless suppose.

For not even in becoming flesh, or in suffering in the body on our behalf, did He suffer any of these things.

In this way we have believed rightly, and we cherish this confession as the cause of our salvation; for this reason, then, we also render the due honor and reverence to the venerable and sacred symbols of the divine economy, just as to the other sacred things throughout the church, according to the tradition that has prevailed from the beginning.

And there is no argument to prevent this, since it contains nothing contrary to our pious belief.

For indeed this veneration is recognized as being for the honor of the Son and God who became man;

and the honor given to the Son is clearly referred also to the Father and to the Holy Spirit;

for "he who honors the Son," it says, "honors the Father";

with whom the Spirit also will be inseparably co-honored.

Such, then, is the veneration that is offered by us to the icon of Christ; and its rationale is this: as to the manifest aspect of the encounter, those who behold it apply themselves at once and from the first sight, in a sensory manner, to what is perceived by the senses; but as to the hidden aspect of understanding, the mind does not stop there.

For it guides the mind intellectually toward the prototypes and leads it forward toward higher things, namely to rise above creation and leap beyond the heavens and to be among the blessed powers and become companions in converse with the incorporeal beings, and to join in glorifying God and Master over all, and to offer up thanksgivings for the benefits made known to us from thence.

And, to speak more plainly, it serves as, so to say, the outer gateway of the intelligible realm, and opens wide for us the heavenly gates, and sends us onward to the innermost sanctuaries of the things beyond the world.

For such is the nature of symbols, to lead up, by means of themselves, those who have been initiated into the mysteries, to the things of which they are symbols;

hence they are also interpretive of the gospel, or are, in themselves, gospel, and clarifying and explanatory of the words contained in it.

The contemplation of these, then, is rather anagogic, and leads by the hand toward the supreme veneration;

For as the honor ascends from the icons to the prototypes, so from them, according to the intellectual faculty, the veneration passes over to that which is simple and more divinely inspired and immaterial.

For since the human mind often grows dizzy and falters before things so lofty and transcendent, being dragged down together with lowly things, there is nothing to prevent it from being led by the hand, through these sacred forms — as fitting and connatural symbols — which lead up to that unshaped and ineffable contemplation, the mind setting behind it all material and visible things.

In approaching the mind to the things that appear — far be it — we do not offer faith and worship to them;

but from thence we dedicate ourselves intellectually, with reverence and piety, to the inaccessible and transcendent contemplation — the very thing which is also seen among us in our supplications;

For indeed we call upon God to come and be attentive to our words, and we make use of the saints as mediators, through whom we entreat Him to become our helper.

And here, then, let the distinction between the two kinds of veneration have been shown.

Yet nevertheless, though the adversaries of the right belief are hemmed in by so many refutations, not even so are they willing to put a bridle upon their mouth and fetter their blasphemous tongue, raging madly against our sacred doctrines.

Let us now return again to the things said by them.

"This is the synod which, having ratified and confirmed the god-inspired doctrines of the holy fathers, and having followed the six holy ecumenical synods, set forth most pious canons" —

on these things they preen and pride themselves, on which they ought rather to be ashamed and hide their faces;