Section 06: The Theology of the Icon

The dogmatic core of the collection. Against the second iconoclasm Theodore wrote the three Antirrhetici (Refutations of the Iconoclasts), in which he pressed the icon question to its Christological foundation and sharpened, at a single decisive point, the theology St. John of Damascus and Nicaea II had bequeathed: the icon depicts not a nature but a hypostasis — the person of the incarnate Word, who, having truly become man, is perigraptos, circumscribable, and therefore depictable. This section sets out the Antirrhetics and the refinements of circumscription and veneration on which the Orthodox theology of the icon has rested ever since.

Contents

File Topic
The Three Antirrhetics FLAGSHIP — the three Antirrhetici adversus iconomachos (PG 99:327–436; trans. Roth): the Christological argument that the incarnate Word is circumscribable; image, prototype, and the relation of veneration; the supporting works (Seven Chapters, Questions to the Iconoclasts, Letter to Plato, Refutation of the Impious Poems); their place in Roth’s On the Holy Icons
Circumscription and Veneration Theodore’s refinement of Nicaea II and John of Damascus: that every image is the image of a hypostasis, never of a nature; the distinction of the image’s hypostasis from its prototype’s; and the careful distinction of proskynesis (relative veneration) from latreia (the worship owed to God alone)

How to Use

  • Start with The Three Antirrhetics for the works and the central argument in Theodore’s own terms.
  • Read Circumscription and Veneration for the two refinements — the hypostatic image and the modes of veneration — that are Theodore’s distinctive contribution to the dogma.

Cross-References