The Theology of the Image
The two great theological defenses of the icon: St. John of Damascus, whose Three Treatises on the Divine Images founded the iconophile case in the first iconoclasm on the distinction of the kinds of image and of worship; and St. Theodore the Studite, whose On the Holy Icons sharpened it in the second iconoclasm into a Christological argument grounded in the hypostasis of the incarnate Word.
Tradition: Pan-Orthodox
This section gathers the theology that answered the iconoclasts and that Nicaea II received. The first file, john-of-damascus-and-the-defense.md, treats the Damascene’s Three Treatises — the incarnational ground, the sanctification of matter, the classification of images and of veneration, and the appeal to tradition. The second file, theodore-the-studite-and-the-christological-argument.md, treats Theodore’s decisive move: that the icon does not depict a nature but names a person, so that the circumscribability of the icon is the very confession that the Word truly became a describable, depictable man.
Contents
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| john-of-damascus-and-the-defense.md | The Three Treatises; the kinds of image and of worship; the sanctification of matter; the appeal to tradition |
| theodore-the-studite-and-the-christological-argument.md | The icon and the hypostasis of Christ; the circumscribability of the incarnate Word; the answer to Constantine V |
See Also
- Holy Icons (master README)
- The Iconoclast Controversy — the crisis these defenders answered
- Nicaea II and the Triumph of Orthodoxy — the council that received this theology
- St. John of Damascus and St. Theodore the Studite — the collections on the two defenders
- Orthodoxy: Icons and Iconoclasm — the hub essay this collection expands