Byzantine
Iconoclastic Theology: Tradition or Innovation?
The 30 hour interdisciplinary course includes 12
lectures and three text-oriented seminars. The objective of the course is
two-fold: firstly, to introduce factual information on the different aspects of
the Byzantine "Dark Ages:" relevant sources and its history, and secondly, to present the problems with
modern interpretations of Byzantine Iconoclasm and propose their tentative
solution. In this part we will treat the complicated problems of the
historiography of Iconoclasm and review the scholarly methods for the research
of this historical phenomenon.
The students will
get acquainted with the theories on origins and causes of Iconoclasm. We will attempt to trace the indications of
Iconoclastic theology in the time preceding the articulated theology of
Constantine V and will prove the hypothesis of Father George Florovsky, who
proposed that the spiritualistic attitude of the Iconoclastic Emperors of the
First Iconoclasm and their antipathy towards matter may point to the influence
of Origenist doctrines on the basis of both textual and doctrinal evidence from
the writings of the Iconoclastic period.
We will also
examine the Iconoclastic epistemology, which was connected with their appeal to
an imageless noetic worship of the divinity.
This approach will be compared to the Iconodulic epistemology, which
included icons as sensible manifestations of God-made-flesh; both the common
points and differences, together with their theological sources, will be
analyzed.
An important
issue to study is the Iconoclastic Christology, more precisely, the place and
function of Christ's human soul as a possible point of junction of flesh and
divinity, and then we will proceed to the question of how Christ's flesh itself
functions in the union of natures. The
course will be summed up with the ramifications of the Iconoclastic Controversy
in the development of the theology of Image and Byzantine religious art.
Part 1.
"Schoolbook Iconoclasm"
1. Introduction.
Notion of image in ancient and Byzantine philosophy. Short history and terms
employed (Dillon).
2. History and
Sources on Byzantine Iconoclastic controversy (Kazhdan).
3. Status
quaestionis: the History of the Interpretation of Iconoclasm (Syuzumov).
4. The origins of the
Controversy. The thesis of Kitzinger and responses (Kitzinger, Murrey, Finney).
5. The development of
the argumentation in the controversy and its main protagonists. Three stages of
the development (Alexander).
6. First stage. John
of Damascus, Patriarch Germanus. Lives and works (Kazhdan. Louth).
7. Seminar on the Three Apologies of St. John of Damascus
and Patriarch Germanos' Epistles and Treatuise on the Icons and Cross.
8. Second stage.
Constantine V, Hiereia, Nicaea II (Gero).
9. Reading seminar on
the Horos of Hiereia.
10. Third stage
Theodore Studite, Patriarch Nicephorus, John Grammaticus (Alexander).
11. Reading seminar
on the Three Antirrhetici of St.
Theodore the Studite and selected texts from Patriarch Nicephorus.
Part 2. Problematic
Iconoclasm.
12. Problems with
origins: Moslem, sectarian or Byzantine; social movement or theological debate?
13. Problems with the
"schoolbook" argumentation development: Concordance between
"early" theology of John of Damascus and Hiereia and John
Grammaticus.
14. Problems with the
Iconoclastic Christology: Monophysite, Nestorian or Origenist?
15. Eschatology,
epistemology of the Iconoclasts (Florovsky).
16. Iconoclastic
Sacramental theology and its connection with their church decoration programs.
17. Chalke
inscription – the manifest of the Iconoclastic theology (Auzépy).
18. Some
post-Iconoclastic developments. Two case studies: theological foundations of
icons' inscriptions and of the iconography of Anastasis (Kartsonis).
19. Conclusion: some ramifications of the Iconoclastic debate in forming the Orthodox theology of images and middle Byzantine church decoration programs (Demus). Post Scriptum: some later developments. The Controversy over images in the Comnenian Era.
Alexander,
Paul J. Patriarch Nicephoros of
Constantinople: Ecclesiastical Policy and Image Workshop in the Byzantine
Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1958.
Auzépy,
Marie-France. "La destruction de l'icône du Christ de la
Chalcé par Léon III: propagande ou réalité?" Byzantion 60 (1990): 445-92.
Demus,
Otto. Byzantine Mosaic Decoration:
Aspects of Monumental Art in Byzantium. New Rochelle, New York: Caratzas
Brothers, Publishers, 1976 (or Äåìóñ Îòòî. Ìîçàèêè âèçàíòèéñêèõ õðàìîâ. Ì., 2001).
Dillon,
J. "Image, Symbol and Analogy: Three Basic Concepts of Neoplatonic
Allegorical Exegesis." In The Golden Chain. Studies in the Developmentof
Platonism and Christianity. Variorum, 1990. XXVIII.
Finney,
P. C. The Invisible God: Earliest
Christians on Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Florovsky,
George. "Origen, Eusebius and the Iconoclastic Controversy." Church History 19 (1950): 77-96 (or
Idem. "The Iconoclastic Controversy." In Idem. Collected Works.
Vol. 2. Belmont, MA: Nordland, 1972).
Gero,
Stephen. Byzantine Iconoclasm during the
Reign of Leo III with Particular Attention to the Oriental Sources. Corpus
Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Sub. 41. Louvain, 1973.
________.
Byzantine Iconoclasm during the Reign of Constantine
V with Particular Attention to the Oriental Sources. Corpus Scriptorum
Christianorum Orientalium. Sub. 52. Louvain, 1977.
Kartsonis,
Anna. Anastasis: The Making of an Image.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986.
Kazhdan,
A. Istoriya vizantijskoj literatury
(650-850 gg.) [The History of Byzantine literature (650-850)]. Vizantijskaya
biblioteka. Moscow: Aleteja, 2002.
Kitzinger,
Ernst. "The Cult of Images in the Age Before Iconoclasm." Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954): 83-150.
Louth,
Andrew. St. John Damascene: Tradition and
Originality in Byzantine Theology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Murray,
Sister Charles. "Art and the Early Church." Journal of Theological Studies 28 (1977): 303-45.
Syuzyumov,
M. J. "Osnovnye napravleniya istoriografii istorii Vizantii
ikonoborcheskogo perioda." [The main trends in the hitoriography of
Byzantium of the Iconoclasatic period]. Vizantijskij
Vremennik
22 (1963): 199-226.