Ad Hoc: Assessing John of Damascus’ Argument for Icon Veneration

Having dealt elsewhere with the innovative nature of icon veneration as a historical phenomenon in the Medieval Eastern Church, it is also important to ask: What is John of Damascus’ fundamental argument in support of the veneration of icons?

Looking especially at the first of his three treatises in defense of icons, focusing on paragraphs four through eight where he provides the foundation of his argument, and beginning with the Old Testament dispensation (i.e. prior to the Incarnation), his first syllogism is basically this:

1) In regards to God, one is not allowed to depict what is invisible.

2) God was invisible in the Old Testament dispensation.

3) Therefore, one could not depict God in the Old Testament dispensation.

He argues that “it is impossible to depict God who is incommensurable and uncircumscribable and invisible” (1.7). For since God had not yet become Incarnate, it was implicitly impossible to depict His Person, for none of the means by which He had revealed Himself previously, as when He appeared, for example, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob by various angelic and visionary means (cf. Genesis 18:1-3; 28:12-13; Exodus 6:3) or to Moses in the Burning Bush (Exodus 3:2), could stand to serve as a legitimate ground for religious imagery.

The heart of idolatry, according to John of Damascus, is to offer worship, or the veneration of worship, to the created rather than the Creator, as he says: “You see that the single purpose of this is that one should not worship, or offer the veneration of worship, to creation instead of the Creator, but only to the One who fashioned all” (1.6). The single purpose of the commandment, in other words, was precisely to avert this false worship of creation. As we will see below, John of Damascus’s assertion will ultimately undermine certain of his key arguments.

His second, corollary syllogism is that:

1) The Jews had a tendency towards idolatry.

2) Because of the hardness of their heart, the Jews would commit idolatry in regards to images if they had them.

3) Therefore, the Jews were forbidden to depict God in an image.

He says, “You see, how it was on account of idolatry that he [God] prohibited the fashioning of images” (1.7). He continues, “It was, therefore, for the Jews, on account of their sliding into idolatry, that these things were ordained by law” (1.8).

Now, the relationship between the first and second syllogisms raises certain questions. For, on the one hand, imagery is forbidden because God was invisible and implicitly not susceptible to representation. On the other hand, imagery was forbidden because apparently even a true image of God would have been abused due to the hardness of their heart. This seems to confuse the actual thrust of Damascene’s argument, for if it were only a matter of God’s being invisible, then the hardness of the Jews’ heart in this matter would not be relevant. But if it were the hardness of their hearts that were the principle issue, then a true image of God in Old Testament times would have been possible in principle. 

It appears John of Damascus wants to use these two arguments to show that an image of God becomes possible in the Incarnation, and that Christians do not have a temptation to idolatry. This is borne out when John of Damascus then argues that Christians as such do not suffer the temptation of idolatry: 

“To speak theologically, however, we [Christians], to whom it has been granted, fleeing superstitious error, to come to be purely with God, and having recognized the truth, to worship God alone and be greatly enriched with the perfection of the knowledge of God, and who, passing beyond childhood to reach maturity, are no longer under a custodian, have received the habit of discimination from God and know what can be depicted and what cannot be delineated in an image” (1.8).

Now, following the Incarnation, the syllogism becomes:

1) One is allowed to depict that which is visible, and one is not allowed to depict what is invisible.

2) God became visible in the Person of Jesus Christ.

3) Therefore, God’s visible form of Jesus Christ can be depicted.

He says, “Therefore, I am emboldened to depict the invisible God, not as invisible, but as He became visible for our sake, by participation in flesh and blood. I do not depict the invisible divinity, but I depict God made visible in the flesh.” (1.4).

Further, “For it is clear that when you see the bodiless become human for your sake, then you may accomplish the figure of a human form; when the invisible becomes visible in the flesh, then you may depict the likeness of something seen; when one who… by this reduction [i.e. the Incarnation] to quantity and magnitude puts on the characteristics of a body, then depict him on a board and set up to view the One who has accepted to be seen” (1.8).

His follow-up corollary syllogism becomes:

1) Christians have the perfection of the knowledge of God. 

2) Christians have the habit of discrimination.

3) Therefore, now invulnerable to idolatry, Christians are able to venerate images.

Standing on the Incarnation, these two syllogisms therefore seem to work synergistically to say the depiction of God and the veneration of such depictions can exist together apart from idolatry.

Now, also seeking to base his argument on Scripture, the next question becomes: What is the Scriptural argument John of Damascus provides in support of his overall position? (1.5) The core comes from Deuteronomy:

(12) Then the LORD spoke to you out of the midst of the fire. You heard the sound of words, but saw no form; there was only a voice. ... (15) "Therefore watch yourselves very carefully. Since you saw no form on the day that the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, (16) beware lest you act corruptly by making a carved image for yourselves, in the form of any figure, the likeness of male or female, (17) the likeness of any animal that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, (18) the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the water under the earth. (19) And beware lest you raise your eyes to heaven, and when you see the sun and the moon and the stars, all the host of heaven, you be drawn away and bow down to them and serve them, things that the LORD your God has allotted to all the peoples under the whole heaven. (Deuteronomy 4:12, 15-19 ESV)

The principle John of Damascus derives from the foregoing is that (1) because only a voice was heard, and (2) no form was seen, (3) therefore no attempt at depiction (of such an unseen form) is permissible. He emphasizes this when he cites from John’s Gospel: “For you have not seen his form” (1.7, citing John 5:37). 

What is problematic about the quote from John’s Gospel about not seeing God’s form is that it comes not only from the Lord’s own mouth in the New Testament, but also includes specific reference to the notion of hearing God’s voice: “The Father who sent me has himself borne witness about me. His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen, (John 5:37 ESV). In other words, Jesus is saying that they have neither heard the Father’s voice nor seen Him. Theologically, of course, in Christ they both see and hear the Father in His Incarnate Word (cf. John 1:1; 14; 14:9). In this way the New Testament quotation from the Damascene is unhelpful for his cause because Jesus Himself is not referring to the situation in Deuteronomy, nor is it transferable to that situation. Rather, John says at the end of his first letter: 

And we know that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life. (21) Little children, keep yourselves from idols [εἴδωλον; images]. (1 John 5:20-21 ESV)

In other words, John of Damascus is not fully presenting Scripture’s own rationale against the use of images. The verses he notably leaves out of his discourses are quite telling. But before looking at those, it should be noted that the portions of Deuteronomy quoted by the Damascene do not actually state that it is simply or merely because God was not seen in any form. As noted above, the Lord has appeared in various angelic and visionary forms, and the angelic forms were certainly physical forms because on at least one occasion they ate with Abraham (Genesis 18:1-3; cf. Genesis 32:22-30). In fact, in the angel of the Lord, Jacob both wrestled God and saw Him “face to face (πρόσωπον πρὸς πρόσωπον)” (Genesis 32:30). Thus, contrary to John Damascene (1.4), it is not simply or merely that God could not be depicted in a form on account of His essential formlessness and invisibility, for God had manifested Himself in personal forms on prior occasions. When God stated that His form had not been seen, it therefore refers to how on that occasion of giving the Ten Commandments God did not appear in a form. 

One will have to turn to more of Scripture in order to discern what God’s reasons are for forbidding the religious veneration of images. The Scripture’s own rationale against using images is quite simple: 

The idols of the nations are silver and gold, the work of human hands. (16) They have mouths, but do not speak; they have eyes, but do not see; (17) they have ears, but do not hear, nor is there any breath in their mouths. (18) Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them. (Psalm 135:15-18; cf. Psalm 115:4-8; Isaiah 44:9, 18-20; 46:7-8; Jeremiah 10:14-15; 51:17-18, Habakkuk 2:18-19, et. al.)

In other words, the problem of idols is not merely that they depict, but that matter as such is not living. It is not because matter cannot convey God's Personal presence, nor because God had never conveyed Himself via a form, nor that prior to the Incarnation matter was insufficiently capable of semiosis, nor (for that matter) because matter is fallen or corrupt. This undermines the entire foundation of John of Damascus’ entire argument. According to Scripture it is because painted images and carved wood and molded metal are not alive that they should not be venerated. And the doctrine of the Incarnation does not undo the fact that painted images are not alive. It is no wonder that the Damascene does not deal with this theme in any of his three treatises or in his Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, for semiosis was never the core of God’s concern, but life. Therefore, the Biblical prohibition of image-veneration stands. 

The Biblical argument is furthermore that those who venerate lifeless images become themselves like their lifeless images. The semiotic argument thus really only makes sense in a non-biblical, pagan framework, one to which John of Damascus and the entire Eastern Orthodox Church committed itself when it committed itself to iconodulia. John of Damascus' arguments in this way create an ad hoc construction in order to shoehorn an alien innovation. It seems that the rise of an intensified Mariology together with an increasingly distant Christ may bear some inner relation to this veneration of man’s own creations. The New Testament also repeats and so reinforces the Old Testament reason when it states: 

The rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, did not repent of the works of their hands nor give up worshiping (προσκυνέω) demons and idols of gold and silver and bronze and stone and wood, which cannot see or hear or walk” (Revelation 9:20 ESV).

In other words, it is precisely the veneration (προσκυνέω) of lifeless matter that is the problem, not God’s formlessness, not semiosis, not representation as such. Since God did not forbid religious veneration merely because He had not incarnated, the Incarnation in this way provides no platform for icons. And since the New Testament in no way intimates that idolatry is no longer a problem (rather the opposite as per 1 John 5:20-21 cited above), John of Damascus’ argument that Christians now have the “habit of discrimination” is seen to be quite untenable, his arguments themselves serving as evidence to the contrary.

In light of the foregoing, the semiotic argument of representation will ultimately prove to be a non sequitur, for (1) the specificity of God’s Incarnation ultimately says nothing whatsoever about (2) the permissibility of venerating representations in general. The two positions bear no inner relationship with each other. In fact, God forbade the religious veneration of all created objects as such, not because they were representations, but because they were constructed by man and lifeless. The icon never ceases to be a construction, and never ceases to be lifeless.

Another hermeneutic mistake John of Damascus makes is to fail to distinguish between the general commands and the special commands of God. For example, a general command against killing does not contradict a special command for, say, King David, to kill his enemies. In other words, no number of special or consistent exceptions to the general command annul the general command. Nor do the special commands to kill or wage war become typologies for waging ceaseless warfare and killing. In this way, instances where someone in the Old Testament can be found in some sense to venerate, say, the Temple or a staff, do not become New Testament types that annul the general command against the religious veneration of images. 

Even regarding typology John of Damascus’ argument falls short, for the Temple, of course, served as a type of Christ Himself, not as a type of iconography of Christ. For not only do such special commanded constructions in Scripture not abrogate the standing Law against the religious veneration of images, they also do not serve as a typology of imagery per se. 

Moreover, the veneration of actual living persons would not become grounds for venerating their lifeless representations. The examples John of Damascus gives of people who were venerated do not go any distance to support the idea of venerating images because the actual Scriptural argument for not venerating images is because they are lifeless. The various people who are at times venerated in different circumstances throughout Scripture are not lifeless idols made of painted wood or carved stone. 

What is more, mere depiction, on the one hand, and veneration, on the other, are quite different. It is a non sequitur to assert that the permissibility of the one establishes grounds for the permissibility of the other. If one might argue that aniconism is permissible, forced iconodulia under threat of anathema is not thereby smuggled in. And John of Damascus certainly advocates condemning anyone who would deny his icondulia (e.g. 3.13). It would seem that by getting people to engage with his semiotic theory together with the subtle distinctions between levels of veneration he hopes to shift the entire argument away from the Bible’s clear testimony.

In a sense it ends up being that John of Damascus' entire argument hinges on the supposition that there is profound significance to the different kinds or levels of veneration that are purported to exist. Even here, however, a problem arises, for the worship of Christ as the ontological image of the Father transferring to the worship of the Father is nothing like the veneration of an image of Jesus that bears no ontological relation to Jesus. Over and over again John of Damascus says it is not the matter per se that he venerates, but the depiction made in and by it, so it cannot be claimed that he is standing on an ontological relationship between Christ’s human nature as possessing matter per se and the icon possessing matter. On the other hand, he affirms that he reverences and venerates matter (1.16, 2.14). In fact, across the first two treatises he says, “I do not venerate matter” (1.16), and, “I reverence therefore matter and I hold in respect and venerate” matter, i.e. “that [matter] through which my salvation has come about” (2.14), “not as God, but as filled with divine energy and grace” (2.14).

John of Damascus states emphatically that he does not venerate matter as God (cf. 1.16, 2.14), and so it would seem specifically its icononicity that he is standing on. The trouble with this approach, however, is that, because of the hypostatic union, Jesus’ flesh truly was Jesus and therefore venerable as God because it was ontologically united with His Person. His divine and human natures’ being joined without confusion in the singularity of His divine Personhood means that to treat with Jesus in the flesh is to treat with God Himself. Icons of Jesus, however, bear no such ontological relation with Jesus lest they become confused with Him Personally. There is therefore an incommensurable gap between a lifeless painted image of Jesus and Jesus Himself, a gap that does not exist between Jesus’ flesh and Jesus’ Person. 

Now, as stated by Basil the Great but misused by John of Damascus (1.35), there is an ontological unity of nature between Jesus as the eternal image of God the Father and God the Father Himself, a truth which bears no sustainable analogy between an icon of Jesus and Jesus Himself. The whole theological reframing of the semiotic theory that the veneration of a metaphysically distinct material icon transfers to the represented prototype thus falls apart. In other words, the theory that icon veneration can be based on how the worship of God the Son becomes the worship of God the Father, due to their metaphysically singular divine nature, is therefore not demonstrated by John of Damascus, and so its possibility remains unproven by him. In fact, as Basil describes how an artificial image, say of an emperor, is an “imitation” of the prototype, he yet distinguishes this from the Son of God who is a proper and natural image of the Father. In this way Basil in no wise justifies the religious use of lifeless artificial images, nor does he establish a philosophical cum theological precedent for it. And as he takes up the traditional Christian argument against religious artistic representation in his Philocalia (ch. 19), it would seem he is quite clearly opposed to Damascene’s pagan theory of representation.

There is another problem that arises as well, that of the asymmetry in saying that what is merely the veneration of an image of Jesus somehow intensifies to become worship of Jesus Himself. Is he “venerating” the image as matter or is he “worshiping” Jesus as God? What connects these two actions? What is this process of intensification? And if there is no intensification, then the veneration of the image transfers to Christ as mere veneration and not proper worship, which would be blasphemous. If it were not that the icondules took this as so ultimately serious and condemned to hell those who refused to agree with them, it is almost too silly to consider.

To conclude, God commanded that He not be depicted via human art, certainly not in any liturgical sense, and it has been shown that this was not simply because God was invisible. God was not always invisible during the Old Testament dispensation, so the conclusion that the Incarnation, by making God visible, can thus become the ground for venerating images of God remains undemonstrated. Christ’s human nature just cannot be made to serve this purpose. Moreover, the fact that man-made images are lifeless has been seen to be principle among the Scriptural reasons condemning the veneration of images of God, not their relative accuracy of depiction or ability to function semiotically, and the Incarnation does not alter this fact that painted images of Jesus are and remain lifeless; therefore icon veneration cannot be justified on the basis of the Incarnation. Lastly, even if the mere image of the Lord Jesus Christ were in some sense permissible, which is the position of aniconism, nothing in John of Damascus’ arguments leap the gap that would further make their veneration permissible. The fact that God the Son became incarnate is not any kind of rational justification for depicting Him in the context of religious worship or veneration, and so John of Damascus’ ad hoc argument is shown to be unsustainable.

-The Reformed Ninja