CLICK HERE FOR ITALIAN VERSION
Emanuela Fogliadini
L'invenzione dell'immagine sacra
La legittimazione ecclesiale dell'icona
al secondo concilio di Nicea
[The Invention of the Sacred Image.
The Ecclesial Legitimation of the Icon
at the Second Council of Nicaea]
Part Two
Jaca Book, 2015
 |
| Boris and Gleb with Scenes from Their Lives Moscow, Tretyakov Gallery, second hald of the XIV century Source: http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/en/collection/_show/image/_id/2937# |
Go back to Part One
Nicaea
One thing is certain: without an iconoclastic theology,
an iconophile one would have even not existed. It is only thanks to Hieria that
one can explain Nicea. And, on a purely theoretical basis, while Hieria seems
the natural outcome of a mature thinking, it is instead Nicea to indeed appear
as a council whose results are imposed by the most obvious geopolitical
elements: the intervention of the Empress Irene and the supporting role offered
by Pope Adriano I. If Hieria proposes an accomplished theological vision, Nicea
gives the impression that the iconophile party prepares to the event with a not
fully coherent theological framework. It will be only after the Council, with
the contribution of Nicephorus of Constantinople and Theodore Studite, that the
iconophile arguments assume strength and credibility. It is certainly not by
coincidence, moreover, that the council does not lead to the final victory of
the supporters of the images, but is followed by the period of the "Second
iconoclasm": the decades since the Synod of Constantinople (815) until 843.
Nicea primarily means lashing out angrily and
vehemently at the iconoclasts. It also means to take the view that images can and must be revered, because this happened since the time of the
Apostles: a statement which, if claims the return to a genuine and authentic
Christianity, is actually not backed by any philological evidence.
Of course, not everything expressed itself in
denigration. We have said that Hieria founds iconoclasm on the impossibility of
representing the incarnation. Also Nicea departs exactly from incarnation, and
begins by saying that the images not only can,
but must be worshiped: they are the proof
of the Incarnation. Not only: since
Nicea, iconophiles start stating (and will do so at every opportunity from then
on) that to be iconoclast means denying the incarnation, or denying the earthly
and divine nature of Christ. This is not true, as we have seen.
If the icons are proof of the dogma of the
Incarnation, it follows that they assume a revealing nature. In this sense,
they are placed on the same level as the Gospels. Exactly as the Gospels, they
announce the salvation through incarnation and divine revelation. Nicaea states
that the pictorial representation is "bearer of a benefit similar to that
of the Gospel." The consequences of this assessment of the images are
dramatic: the pictures do no longer have, as in the Western world, a narrative
and commemorative meaning. They are no longer needed to help the Gospels, they
are no longer the Bible of the poor; they are instead put on the same level as
the Gospels themselves, with a precise theological value (the message of
salvation through the incarnation). And so, images invade the liturgy, become
an integral part of it and are like this still today. There is no Orthodox
ceremony that is not accompanied by the exhibition of the images. We, however,
deal with art history and cannot avoid reporting that - as a direct result of
all this – images become typical. Exactly as there are only four Gospels, and
the others are apocryphal, to give a theological value to the image means to
establish that it is to be replicated in types that will reveal to be immutable
over the centuries. The artist is first and foremost a mystic, and then a
craftsman; certainly not a "creative". The concept of individual "invention"
abandons forever the Eastern art world.
The whole iconophile framework is however based
on an important caveat, aimed at clearly rejecting any accusations of idolatry:
the one reserved to images is veneration, not worship. The only object of
worship can only be God. Instead, objects such as the cross, the relics, the
images are to be venerated. In particular, veneration does not affect the
images in their material aspect, but is bestowed to them because they point to
the prototype, a single archetypal God that has intentionally revealed himself
to man through the incarnation. The sacred image symbolically makes present the
divine person that is represented.
 |
| Trinity with the Saints, Moscow, Tretyakov Gallery, beginning of the XV century Source: http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/en/collection/_show/image/_id/2936 |
Nicea is celebrated in 787. The Triumph of
Orthodoxy is dated 843. The more than 50 years separating these dates encompass
the revival of iconoclasm (the so-called 'second iconoclasm') and the unravelling
of a long debate that will mark on the one hand (in the camp opposite to the
icons) the importance of the figure of John the Grammarian and on the other hand
(in the iconophile camp) of Nicephorus of Constantinople and Theodore Studite.
It is to be remembered that the Council of Constantinople in 815 abolishes the
statement of faith of Nicea and, referring largely (but not in identical terms)
to Hieria, proclaims again iconoclasm. This phase, however, sees an easing of the
condemnation of the images: "We decree that the manufacturing of icons is
unfit for worship and useless. We refrain, however, from calling them idols,
since there is a distinction between different kinds of evil"(p. 225).
Clearly, there is a difference between an accusation of idolatry and the affirmation
that icons are useless. Some wanted to see in the Constantinople statements an
implicit admission of weakness of the iconoclastic thesis; much more likely, it
is simply healthy realism. Both sides have been experimenting in the previous decades
that it is not sufficient to come out as winners from a council to make sure
the end result; and the Byzantine world probably feels the need to reach a
compromise, which can reconstruct a consensus within a society that has been
torn apart on these issues without sparing any blows. On the iconophile camp, Nicephorus
and Theodore Studite are those who more than others warn of the danger of such
an attitude: they consider the second iconoclasm as sneakier than the first
one, because it leads to the coexistence of two positions that they feel
absolutely divergent. In short, if there is hardness in theological debate,
this comes primarily from the supporters of the icons. But this time, starting
with the statement of faith of Nicaea, the Iconophiles can complete
convincingly their proposal of faith.
 |
| The miracle of the icon?The Sign of Our Lady' (Battle between warriors of Novgorod and Suzdal) Moscow, Tretyakov Gallery , mid-XV century Source: http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/en/collection/_show/image/_id/2607 |
Once again, they start from the relationship
between icon and prototype. Theodore builds "his own theology of the icon
around the dogma of the Word of God which became flesh, thus solving the problematic
issue of the possibility to circumscribe the divine nature in a material
representation, i.e. the objection which had been raised by the iconoclasts.
The reasoning [...] opposes the thesis by Constantine V according to which, if
the icon does not reproduce exactly the features – like the personal face – of
the figure that depicts, it cannot be an icon. Theodore believes instead that
‘the icon of someone does not represent his nature, but his person’ [...] The
divine Logos assumed human nature, by incarnating itself, and because this exists
only in the singularity of each individual, Christ has not made himself a
generic man, but a precise man. So, since the peculiarities are proper to the
person and not to the nature, Theophilus says, countering the central point of
the iconoclastic doctrine, that the traits of Jesus were those of the divine
person: the archetypal pattern is thus actually depicted in the image because ‘the
icon targets likeness, without pretending to entertain with him the
relationship of similarity that he entertains with his own nature" (pp.
238-239).
Traditionally, one considers the year 843 (with
the proclamation of the Triumph of Orthodoxy) as the year when the iconoclastic
controversy is closed. Obviously this is not true, simply because we have seen
that the (winning) iconophile camp strives to rewrite history, to delete any
documents of the opposite faction and to denigrate the figures who made part of
it. Beyond all – as Fogliadini rightly points out - the very definition of a "Triumph
of Orthodoxy", instead of a more modest "Triumph of the Icon",
means that iconoclasm is considered the last great heresy that had led to the
series of ecumenical councils, almost all played on the interpretation of Gospel
texts and here instead on the debate on the images. It is not by coincidence that
they exit from this dispute as having the same high-level as the Gospels.
 |
| Last Judgment, Moscow, Tretyakov Gallery, XVII century Source: http://www.tretyakovgallery.ru/en/collection/_show/categories/_id/53/_page/5 |
 |
| Michelangelo, Last Judgement, 1536-1541 Sistine Chapel, Vatican City |
The Western world and
the non-transposition of Nicaea
The last part of the book is dedicated to the failure by the West to implement the declaration of faith of Nicaea. It is a difficult issue; the Orthodox world did not fail historically to put an emphasis on the apparent inconsistency of Pope Adrian I, who accepted the thesis of Nicaea (787) and then, however, endorsed the positions of the synod of Frankfurt (794) which condemned them. The historical moments to spot are two: the publication of the so-called Libri Carolini (Charles' Books) (792) and indeed the German synod. Fogliadini insists on the need to read them together, not only as a response to Nicaea, but also as the development of an independent, Western theological position, of which took especially the Franc church hierarchy closer to Charles the Great took responsibility.
Charles' Books were published in 792. They condemned the Niceae iconophile positions especially for the allocation to the image of the theological and revelatory value of which we have spoken extensively. In the West, sacred images continue to be used in a didactic way only, and are further subject to (and not placed on the same level as) the Gospels. A clear symptom thereof is the spread of the practice of so-called 'tituli' (titles), or the written explanations of the images that were used just to integrate the meaning of the figurative apparatus. In this sense we can say that the Charles’ Books represent a theological study which is weighed against the results of the Council of Nicaea (which probably were not immediately understood in all their implications). With all this, it must be said that Pope Adrian rejected the claims of the Books: they, indeed, came to support the prohibition of the sacred images (and not surprisingly there was the talk of a Western iconoclasm, which will be taken up at the time of reform by Calvino); Charlemagne, with great acuity, renounced to disseminate them, except however conveying the request of a synod in which the positions of the church hierarchy near to the Francs could be re-discussed. The synod of Frankfurt (794) undoubtedly marks a turning point: from a substantive point of view, the result is not the prohibition of sacred images (as proposed in Charles’ Books), but the rejection of the veneration of images in a way that, attributing to it the same theological value, is regarded as idolatrous adoration.
The few years between Nicaea (787) and the Synod of Frankfurt (794) are enough to divaricate forever the way of understanding sacred images between East and West and, consequently, to address the artistic creation in the next millennium along completely different paths.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento