October 28, 2009 + from St. John of Damascus and His Theology of Holy Images

by Fr. Joseph Antypas
from The Word, April 1977

On the theology of the Holy Images, the place of St. John of Damascus is quite important and far-reaching. Very little is known about the life of St. John of Damascus. He was born in the second half of the 7th century (about 675), of a distinguished family in Damascus, while the city was under the Moslem Calipha, and he succeeded his father as the civil head of the Christian population.

About 716, for the Faith, John of Damascus gave up his position and retired to a monastery of St. Sabas, near Jerusalem, where he was ordained a priest. He died at St. Sabas, very probably in 749 and certainly before 754.

St. John of Damascus treated not only of dogmatic, historical and ascetico­moral questions, but wrote excellent, exegetical and homiletic commentaries, composed liturgical chants of permanent worth, and became the Orthodox leader in the Iconoclastic Controversy. One of his most important writings is On the Orthodox Faith (De Fide Orthodoxa). It consists of four principal and most valuable books: Book I dealing with God and the Trinity, Book II with creation of the world, angels, and man, Book III with the Incarnation, Book IV with Resurrection, Ascension, images, saints, mariology, and eschatology.

In replying to the attacks of the Iconoclasts against the practice of venerating the material images, John of Damascus writes “Since some find fault with us for adoring and venerating the images of our Saviour and Lord, and of the Saints, and the Servants of Christ, let them realize that in the beginning God made man to His own Image.” (De Fide Orthodoxa IV).

John of Damascus maintains, furthermore, that through the material signs man penetrates to the spiritual reality. The image, he writes, is simply a material symbol of an intelligible reality destined to elevate the mind toward the divine. On the other hand, matter itself is glorified in the person of Jesus Christ. Hence, the artist, in representing Christ, makes an ‘image of God’ by painting the deified humanity of Jesus, hypostatized in the Word Himself. In so doing, according to John, he witnesses to the fact that “matter is God’s creation and he confesses that it is good.” (De Fide II.)

Furthermore, John of Damascus rejects any attempts to make an image of the Almighty God, since God is invisible, infinite, incomprehensible, and limitless. He insists that one cannot reproduce an image, a portrait, a sketch or a form of the invisible divinity. And “If someone dares make an image,” he writes, “of the immaterial and incorporal divinity, we repudiate him. The Logos himself, before the incarnation, could not be reproduced; he is the image of the Father, but the image cannot be materially reproduced.” John of Damascus, in this respect, emerges as one of the great Byzantine theologians who dealt with the doctrine of the invisibility of God. St. John asserts the fact that we can represent God, the Invisible One, not as invisible, but insofar as he has become visible for us by participation in flesh and blood. Hence, the relative divinity of images is linked necessarily with the Incarnation of the divine Logos.

St. John of Damascus considers the Incarnation of the Son as a manifestation of love, not a work of nature. Therefore, since God has appeared on earth in the flesh, and who, in his ineffable goodness, lived with human beings and assumed the nature, the thickness, the shape, and the color of the flesh, then we can represent what is visible in God, and respectively, we can venerate, not matter, but the creator of everything, who became matter for our sake, who assumed life in the flesh and who, through matter, accomplished our salvation. (De Fide Orthodoxa II.)

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St. Anastasia of Rome - October 29

Troparion of St. Anastasia, Tone 4

O holy Virgin Anastasia, thou didst redden thy robe of purity with the blood of thy martyr's contest. Thou dost illumine the world with the grace of healing and intercede with Christ our God for our souls.

Kontakion of St. Anastasia, Tone 3

Purified by the streams of thy virginity and crowned by the blood of martyrdom, thou dost grant healing to those in sickness, and salvation to those who lovingly pray to thee. For Christ has given thee strength which flows to us as a stream of grace, O Virgin Martyr Anastasia.