Contesting the Logic of Painting

Contesting the Logic of Painting

Visualising the Middle Ages Editorial board

Professor Madeline Caviness, Tufts University (USA) Dr Eva Frojmovic, University of Leeds (UK) (series editor) Professor Diane Wolfthal, Arizona State University (USA) Professor Catherine Harding, University of Victoria (Canada)

VOLUME 2

Contesting the Logic of Painting Art and Understanding in Eleventh-Century Byzantium

by

Charles Barber

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

Cover illustration: The Mandylion and Keramion. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rossianus gr. 251, fol. 12v detail. Source: courtesy of the Vatican Library. Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all rights holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyrights holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISSN 1874-0448 ISBN 978 90 04 16271 6 Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishers, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

This book is dedicated to my wife and daughters Sophie, Cleome, and Josephine

CONTENTS List of Illustrations ...................................................................... Foreword ..................................................................................... Acknowledgements ..................................................................... List of Abbreviations .................................................................. Chapter One

ix xi xv xvii

The Synodikon of Orthodoxy and the Ground of Painting ...........................................................

1

Symeon the New Theologian: Seeing Beyond Painting ..................................

23

Chapter Three Michael Psellos: Seeing Through Painting ....

61

Chapter Two

Chapter Four

Eustratios of Nicaea and the Constraints of Theology .........................................................

99

Leo of Chalcedon, Euthymios Zigabenos and the Return to the Past ............................

131

Afterword ....................................................................................

159

Bibliography ................................................................................

165

Index ...........................................................................................

177

Chapter Five

Illustrations

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Fig. 1. St. Athanasios prays to an icon Christ. London, British Library, Add. 19.352, fol. 15r. Source: by permission of The British Library. Fig. 2. Reading of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy. Mt. Athos, Dionysiou Monastery, ms. 587m, fol. 43r. Source: after Stylianos Pelekanidis et al., The Treasures of Mount Athos: Illuminated Manuscripts, vol. 1 (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1973), g. 220. Fig. 3. Crucixion. Moscow, State Historical Museum, cod. 129, fol. 67r. Source: Collection Gabriel Millet, École Pratique des Hautes Études. Fig. 4. Christ Antiphonetes. Koimesis Church, Nicaea (Iznik). Source: after Theodor Schmit, Die Koimesis-Kirche von Nikaia. Das Bauwerk und die Mosaiken (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1927), pl. XXVII. Fig. 5. Synodikon of Orthodoxy. Icon, London, British Museum. Source: copyright The Trustees of the British Museum. Fig. 6. Nikephoros tramples John the Grammarian. Moscow, State Historical Museum, cod. 129, fol. 51v. Source: Collection Gabriel Millet, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris. Fig. 7. Nikephoros of Contantinople, Theodore of Stoudios and the Iconoclastic Synod. London, British Library, Add. 19.352, fol. 27v. Source: by permission of The British Library. Fig. 8. Matthew the Monk prays to the Mother of God. Jerusalem, Patriarchal Library, Taphou 55, fol. 260r. Source: Panayotis L. Vocotopoulos, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (Athens and Jerusalem: Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 2002), g. 31. Fig. 9. Monks in a Penitential Prison. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 394, fol. 42r. Source: courtesy of the Vatican Library. Fig. 10. The Creation of Adam. London, British Library, Add. 19.352, fol. 162r. Source: by permission of The British Library. Fig. 11. Adam outside Paradise. Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum. Source: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

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list of illustrations

Fig. 12. Michael Psellos before Michael VII Doukas. Mt. Athos, Pantokrator Monastery, ms. 234, fol. 254r detail. Source: after Stylianos Pelekanidis et al., The Treasures of Mount Athos: Illuminated Manuscripts, vol. 3 (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1979). Fig. 13. Crucixion and Saints. Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine. Source: reproduced through the courtesy of the Michigan-PrincetonAlexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai. Fig. 14. A Persian artist depicts the Mother of God. Jerusalem, Patriarchal Library, Taphou 14, fol. 106v detail. Source: after Panayotis L. Vocotopoulos, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (Athens and Jerusalem: Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 2002), g. 69. Fig. 15. The Blachernae Theotokos detail. Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine. Source: reproduced through the courtesy of the MichiganPrinceton-Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai. Fig. 16. Ambassadors before the Oracle at Delphi. Mt. Athos, Esphigmenou Monastery, ms. 14, fol. 396v detail. Source: Collection Gabriel Millet, École Pratique des Hautes Études. Fig. 17. The Magi and Christ. Jerusalem, Patriarchal Library, Taphou 14, fol. 106v. Source: after Panayotis L. Vocotopoulos, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (Athens and Jerusalem: Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 2002), g. 69. Fig. 18. The Mandylion and Keramion. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rossianus gr. 251, fol. 12v detail. Source: courtesy of the Vatican Library. Fig. 19. Abgar and the Mandylion detail. Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine. Source: reproduced through the courtesy of the MichiganPrinceton-Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai. Fig. 20. Fathers in the Dogmatic Panoply. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 666, fol. 1v. Source: courtesy of the Vatican Library. Fig. 21. Alexios I Komnenos before Christ. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 666, fol. 2r. Source: courtesy of the Vatican Library.

FOREWORD What is it that we see when we look at a work of art? The answer seems obvious, a representation of a given subject, fashioned by an artist, mediated by the materials of painting, and recognized by those looking. This model is all too familiar. It sets the work of art within our perceptual horizon, demarcating the limits of human understanding, and thence embodying a modern conception of the world. It is a model that is assumed in much of our writing on the history of art, afrming the modernist foundations of this discipline.1 Yet, is this model always apt? What happens when the subject of a given painting exceeds the boundaries of human perception and thence of painting itself ? These questions come to the fore whenever we look at an image of the Christian God. This strangely doubled gure, human and divine, limited and limitless, visible and invisible, challenges our assumptions about representation, inviting us to think again about art’s possibility. While it is tempting to treat Christ’s face as a special case, cloistered away in the sub-category of religious art and lost in the mists of the medieval world, such disregard deprives those who would dismiss this category of image of an opportunity to challenge some commonplace assumptions regarding the possibilities of painting. Christ’s face provokes questions about what it is that we see in the work of art, and thus raises questions about the assumption of visibility that has grounded the modernist project of our art history. This book addresses these assumptions by examining a body of writings on art and vision produced in eleventh-century Byzantium. When studying the history of the icon in Byzantium, it is tempting to assume that the theological framing for the work of art had been settled by the years of debate during the iconoclastic crisis of the eighth- and ninth centuries. As we shall see in the course of this study, this assumption is given some grounds by the later reiteration of iconophile doctrine in such texts as the Synodikon of Orthodoxy and the various compendia of heresies produced in the Middle Byzantine era as well as by the lack

1 A useful critique of these foundations is to be found in Georges Didi-Huberman, Confronting Images: Questioning the Ends of a Certain History of Art (College Park, PA: Pennsylvania State Press, 2005).

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foreword

of actual iconoclastic episodes in the centuries that followed the end of iconoclasm in the ninth century. But beneath this appearance of a stable and unchallenged doctrine, the question concerning the icon did not remain uncontested. Without the opening shaped by the dramatic and familiar moment of actual iconoclasm, scholars have overlooked the vigor of this iconomachy (a discursive “iconoclasm” that does not imply the breaking of images). In so doing, we have perhaps missed the degree to which our understanding of the icon, the material manifestation of the human knowledge of sacred things, can be enhanced by the various manners in which key thinkers of the eleventh- and early-twelfth century contested the implications of the horizon both opened and framed by iconic depiction. This study will therefore invite the reader to reconsider a familiar problem through the lens and writings of these Byzantine authors, most of whom are probably unfamiliar to all but specialists in the eld. Each of these eleventh-century writers has asked whether the work of art is adequate to convey the truth of a sacred subject? In addressing this topic they also necessarily asked whether it was indeed possible for a philosopher or theologian or artist to claim that he or she could understand or dene or describe or depict such a sacred subject? At rst glance such questions appear limited to the narrow realm of sacred art in a distant and troubled land. I will, however, endeavor to show that the lines of enquiry opened by these authors remain pertinent to those concerned with conceptualizing works of art in the postmodern era. In particular, I believe that these writers invite us to reect upon the grounds of our discipline by drawing us away from the representational assumptions that underlie the practice of art history and that have so often failed to open paths to understanding the Byzantine icon. What we shall nd is that these eleventh-century writings enquire into the conditions that might or might not permit a painting truthfully to convey its subject. This was a primary concern of the texts examined here and so invites our attention. Rather than focusing on the constructed roles of the maker or consumer of the painting—whose fate is so often in the care of the art historian—, these texts will lead us to consider the dening role of the subject of an image. By these means, they draw our attention away from the human horizon of the artist or the beholder and ask us to consider the implications of the necessarily absent subject or ground that both precedes and exceeds the frame of the work of art. In so doing, these writers provide language that allows us to explore paths that might allow the more adventurous among us to break from

foreword

xiii

the horizon of our crumbling age of the world picture and thence to learn to understand an horizon dened by an age of the world icon.2 As much of the material found in this study is relatively under-used by art historians and is little known to non-specialists in the eld, I have provided the reader with lengthy passages from the original materials and have provided translations of all the Greek texts. I hope that by these means the readers of this book will gain some familiarity with the language in play in Byzantine discussions of art and that Byzantium’s surprisingly varied, exploratory, and contested contribution to the wider discussion of art will thereby become more widely appreciated.

2 I borrow these terms from: Martin Heidegger, “The Age of the World Picture,” in Martin Heidegger, Off the Beaten Track, ed. and trans. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002): 57–85 and Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd rev. ed., trans. Joel Weinsheimer and Donald G. Marshall (New York: Continuum, 2004): 302–307.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS In the course of writing this book I have accumulated many people to whom I owe the debt of gratitude. I would like to thank Julian Deahl and Marcella Mulder for their willingness to publish this work. I would like to thank the participants in two workshops in Byzantine Intellectual History at the University of Notre Dame for listening to and discussing versions of some of the material contained in this book. I am grateful to have been able to discuss this material in various venues, including the University of Chicago, the Johns Hopkins University, the Institute of Fine Arts, the Courtauld Institute, the Byzantine Studies Conference in Athens, Georgia, and the College Art Association meeting in Boston. For numerous instances of help, encouragement and advice that contributed in a variety of ways to the making of this book I would like to thank: Robin Cormack, Catherine Jolivet-Lévy, Herbert Kessler, Derek Krueger, Henry Maguire, Robert Nelson, Glenn Peers, Maria Vassilaki, Panayotis Vocotopoulos. A very special debt is owed to my colleague at Notre Dame, David Jenkins, who is a constant source of encouragement. Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to my wife, Sophie White, and to my daughters, Cleome and Josephine.

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Mansi = Mansi, J. D. Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Collectio. Florence and Venice: A. Zatti, 1759–98. PG = Patrologiae cursus completus, Series graeca. Ed. Jacques-Paul Migne. 161 vols. in 166 parts. Paris: Migne, 1857–66.

CHAPTER ONE

THE SYNODIKON OF ORTHODOXY AND THE GROUND OF PAINTING It is always difcult to recover the commonplace understanding of an icon at a given moment in the past. When examining an icon, numerous questions arise concerning what it shows (g. 1): what is it that one sees here? Is it Christ, or a painting of Christ, or perhaps a painting and Christ? If this is Christ, then what exactly is it that we see of him? Since Christ is both human and divine, does the depicted face show both of these natures or just one? If it shows both natures, then can we presume that the divine can be depicted? If so, then how is the divine in the painting? If not, then what does the depiction of the human nature alone imply regarding the relation of the painting and its subject? Does painting permit an accurate and adequate account of this subject? Or rather, what does this subject disclose of itself through the painting? How, then, ought one to look at or pray to this icon? Undoubtedly, the answers to such questions will vary from time to time, place to place, and person to person. They might be found in the traces left on the objects themselves, or considered in light of related works of art, or through the evidence of practices and beliefs brought to bear upon the image. By these means one can accumulate an array of data that permits a varied and nuanced account of the icon. Rather than follow these paths, this study’s primary focus will be upon a series of theoretical texts that attempted to police one’s perception of the icon by dening competing interpretations of the play of the painted image in eleventh-century Byzantium. While we shall in due course nd that these claims on the icon are varied, it will also become clear that they contest a common ground, namely the implications of the icon’s relation to the visible. This relation dened the icon quite narrowly, limiting the potential of the icon to an imitation of that which was visible to the human senses.1 This reading was a legacy of the iconoclastic era (730–87, 815–43) and was reiterated annually on

1 Most recently: Charles Barber, Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002).

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chapter one

the rst Sunday of Lent, when the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, one of the key texts for dening the theology of images, was read out in the churches of Byzantium.2 It is this theological statement and its attendant readings that can give us an entry to a commonplace understanding of the icon and can describe for us the implications of the common ground of painting, the visible, in eleventh-century Byzantium. The Synodikon achieved its rst denitive form in the late-ninth century. Beginning in the mid-eleventh century and then increasingly during the Komnenian era (1081–1185), the document received a series of additions. These changes redened the limits of orthodoxy, building upon the fundamental question of the image that rst shaped the Synodikon. This point of departure was reinforced by the procession of icons that preceded the actual reading.3 The regular feast is rst mentioned in the Kletorologion of Philotheos, which dates to 899, and is rmly established in the imperial Book of Ceremonies of the mid-tenth century.4 While this performance was notionally commemorative, recalling the ending of the iconoclastic dispute in 843, the changes noted above indicate that the text was also a living entity that described and revised an orthodoxy that was built upon the notion that the icon itself embodied and manifested this same orthodoxy and thence the culture as a whole.5 A glimpse of the performance of this text is offered in g. 2. Taken from an eleventh-century lectionary, this image shows an ambo upon which nine lectors and priests stand.6 One of these holds open a scroll from which he reads the Synodikon of Orthodoxy. Neither the manuscript

2

Jean Gouillard, “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie. Édition et commentaire,” Travaux et mémoires 2 (1967): 1–316. 3 Gouillard, “Synodikon:” 14. 4 Nicolas Oikonomides, Les listes de préseance byzantines du IX e et X e siècle (Paris: CNRS, 1972): 195; Constantine Porphyrogenitos, De ceremoniis aulae byzantinae, ed. Johann Jacob Reiske, vol. 1 (Bonn: E. Weber, 1829–30): 156–60. 5 The theoretical basis for my analysis of the cultural signicance for the icon lies in Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002): 1–56 and Hans-Georg Gadamer, Truth and Method, 2nd revd. ed. (New York: Continuum, 2004). 6 Kurt Weitzmann, “An imperial lectionary in the Monastery of Dionysiou on Mount Athos. Its origins and its wanderings,” Revue des études sud-est européenes 7 (1969): 239–53; S. Pelekanides, P. Christou, Ch. Tsoumis, The Treasures of Mount Athos, vol. 1 (Athens: Ekdotike, 1973): 439; Christopher Walter, “The date and content of the Dionysiou lectionary,” Deltion tes christianikes archaiologikes hetaireias 4/13 (1985–86): 181–89; MaryLyon Dolezal, “Illuminating the liturgical word: text and image in a decorated lectionary (Mount Athos, Dionysiou Monastery, cod. 587),” Word and Image 12 (1996): 23–60.

the SYNODIKON OF ORTHODOXY and the ground of painting

3

tradition of the Synodikon itself, nor our liturgical sources are clear regarding the precise moment for this reading of the text. Some sources place it in the course of the eucharistic liturgy, either before the reading from the Epistles or from the Gospels. Other manuscripts place the reading after the orthros (dawn) service. Our image does not settle this dispute, but it does provide an eleventh-century icon for the feast, one that is clearly focused upon the public reading of our text. It is fortunate that we are in a position to reconstruct an eleventhcentury performance of the Synodikon. The Synaxarion of the Theotokos Evergetis monastery in Constantinople describes quite fully the subsidiary texts that would have framed a reading of the Synodikon.7 While this monastery was founded in 1049,8 the liturgical document dates a little later. The latest saints mentioned are Lazaros of Mt. Galesion who died in 1054 and Timothy the second Abbot, who died after 1067. The liturgical practices of this community were available for imitation by such mid-twelfth-century foundations as the Kosmosoteira (1152) and St. Mamas (ca. 1146–58). It is reasonable, then, to assume that the core of the liturgical practice that has come down to us dates within this time period.9 Given this, the Synaxarion offers us an opportunity to recover the performance of a public reading of the Synodikon in the monasteries of eleventh-century Constantinople. In Evergetine practice the Sunday of Orthodoxy began at vespers on the Saturday. Specic hymns regarding the feast were sung. Two of these were addressed to the prophets, as the day was also dedicated to Moses and Aaron, and two to the icons. The Synaxarion is unclear about the precise identity of these verses. Later in this service we nd two texts that specically address the meaning of the feast. The rst of these introduces the link between orthodoxy and the image:

7

Aleksandr Dmitrievskij, Opisanie liturgiceskich rukopisej, vol. 1 (Kiev, 1895): 520–22. The fundamental study on this monastery: Jean Pargoire, “Constantinople: le couvent de l’Évergétis,” Echos d’Orient 9 (1906): 371–72; 10 (1907): 155–67, 249–63 is being superseded by a research project undertaken by the Center for Byzantine Studies at Queen’s University, Belfast. Publications from this project include: The Theotokos Evergetis and Eleventh-Century Monasticism, eds. Margaret Mullett and Anthony Kirby, Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations 6.1 (Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Enterprises, 1994); Work and Worship at the Theotokos Evergetis, eds. Margaret Mullett and Anthony Kirby, Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations 6.2 (Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Enterprises, 1997). 9 On issues in dating this text see John Klentos, “The Synaxarion of Evergetis: algebra, geology and Byzantine monasticism,” Work and worship at the Theotokos Evergetis, ed. Margaret Mullett and Anthony Kirby, Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations 6.2 (Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Enterprises, 1997): 329–55. 8

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chapter one

     ,            ! " # $ %& ' , %' ( )  *  $   %   ,  & + %%!  $ ./ 0 1 ,  23,   # 45 ,  6# 3' ,  1  7 83  # 81 !6 * 9 $  7  0  , ; 6 < ,  = 13 8  *  +  &     %3 3 >61 , .? @ )= 9 #,   # 45 , 86! 9 & =  A .10

Advancing from ungodliness to the true faith, and illumined with the light of knowledge, let us clap our hands and sing aloud, offering praise and thanksgiving to God; and with due honor let us venerate the holy icons of Christ, of the all-pure Virgin and the saints, whether depicted on walls, on wooden panels, or on holy vessels, rejecting the impious teaching of the heretics. For, as Basil says, the honor shown to the icon passes to the prototype it represents. At the prayers of your undeled mother and of all saints, we beseech thee, Christ our God, to bestow upon us your great mercy.

What is striking about this prayer is the focus on the quality of worship brought to bear on an icon. This is dened as veneration, a relative form of worship, rather than the adoration addressed to the Trinity. Furthermore, this relational aspect is validated by reference to Basil the Great’s fundamental denition of the meaning of the veneration addressed to an imperial10image.11 The second short text serves as a frequently repeated motif throughout the liturgy of the day. This is the apolytikion, a verse used to mark the end of discrete sections within the liturgical performance:12 C7 D%  1 3 3/  E5!,  +  3%6 #   9 #, .? @ )1 * 3' $ 6816  !&   3, F G+H I A   83  / %!/* J! %  #  * .K ' $ , @ L7 9 #, 1   = # = 1 .12

We venerate your holy icon, loving Lord, asking you to forgive our transgression, Christ our God. For you of your own will was pleased in the flesh to ascend upon the Cross in order to deliver from the bondage of the enemy those whom you have fashioned. Therefore in thanksgiving we cry aloud to you: You have lled all things with joy, our Savior, when you came to save the world.

10 Triodion (Athens: Apostolic Diaconias of the Church of Greece, 1960): 134; The Lenten Triodion, trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1978): 301. 11 Basil of Caesarea, Liber de Spiritu sancto, 2nd ed., ed. B. Pruche, Sources chrétiennes 17bis (Paris: Cerf, 1968): 406.19ff. 12 The Lenten Triodion: 302; Triodion: 133.

the SYNODIKON OF ORTHODOXY and the ground of painting

5

Here the practice of prayer before an icon is neatly linked to the economy of salvation opened by Christ’s death and resurrection. This introduces a favored iconophile theme in that it is the death of Christ’s human nature—the nature that is seen in the image—that opens the possibility of Christian salvation. In addition to these brief troparia, the meaning of the feast was elaborated by a series of readings performed during the orthros (dawn) service. These readings provide a carefully constructed account of the icon and its history. They not only serve as a preface for the more theoretical reading of the Synodikon text, but also remind their audience of the importance of the icon to the celebration of Orthodoxy itself and provide them with the narratives with which to articulate this evaluation. The rst two stories reveal the power of images. They do this in the context of the competition between Judaism and Christianity and so draw on a range of anti-semitic stereotypes. The rst of these passages was a well-known narrative of an icon from Beirut renowned for having resisted attacks made on it by its Jewish owner. The story was used in the fourth session of the Seventh Oecumenical Council in 787 and perhaps dates from the seventh century.13 The narrative tells the story of a Christian who has rented a room in the Jewish quarter of Beirut. There he had hung an icon of Christ. A little later, when this Christian moved to a larger dwelling he left the icon behind. Next, a Jewish man moved into the room containing the icon. He did not notice its presence or perhaps recognize its subject until a fellow Jew saw the painting and identied its subject. The rst Jew was then reported to the Chief Priests and the Elders of the Jewish community, who then expelled him, believing him to be a devotee of Christ. The rest of the Jews then began to spit at, mock and beat the image, declaring: “Whatever our fathers did to him, we will also do all of it to his icon (J  6    9 ,  ' 3  9 & M  = /).”14 They then “crucied” the icon, putting nails through the portrait’s hands and feet, offering it gall and vinegar, beating it with a reed, and spearing it in the side. As the spear pierced Christ’s side,

13 The story was told at the Seventh Oecumenical Council: Mansi 13.24E–32A. The date might be suggested by the description of blood and water owing from Christ’s side: Anna Kartsonis, “The Emancipation of the Crucixion,” in Byzance et les images (Paris: La Documentation française, 1994): 164–169. 14 Mansi, 13: 28B.

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blood and water began to ow from the icon. The Jews collected these liquids, as they planned to show that they had no miraculous healing powers. But when the liquids were applied to the paralyzed, the blind, and others, they were all healed. Rather than undermining Christianity, the story recounts that these miracles led these Jews to convert. They took the damaged icon and their tale to the local bishop and asked him to baptize them. The entire community was then baptized and their synagogue became a church dedicated to Christ.15 The other synagogues in the city became martyria. The second story continues the Christian-Jewish thread of the rst. The story is set in the early seventh century and is identied with the image of Christ Antiphonetes, a much-favored miraculous icon in Constantinople. In this instance, the narrative concerns a merchant named Theodore who was shipwrecked as he returned from Syria to Constantinople.16 Having lost his merchandise, Theodore despairs and wishes to leave the mercantile world and to become a monk. He is, nonetheless, persuaded to try one more trading trip. To do this, he borrows money from a Jew called Abraham. The transaction between them is made before the image of Christ Antiphonetes. Unfortunately, this trading expedition also fails. Abraham then loans Theodore another sum. Once more, this takes place before Christ’s icon. This time, Theodore journeys to an island in the Atlantic (perhaps the British Isles). Here he trades for a cargo of lead and tin. He also receives fty pounds of gold, which he throws into the sea. This gold oats all the way to Abraham in Constantinople. Upon Theodore’s return to Constantinople, he nds that his cargo has turned to silver. Following these miracles, Abraham converts to Christianity. Both texts present the image as something more than a simple portrait. In both instances the image is shown to be a site of power. In the case of the narrative of the Beirut icon the image is treated as if it were Christ and then responds by bleeding and thence providing the materials for miraculous healing. The story relates well to the emphasis

15 One can suggest that the icon provided the identity for this church, cf. Charles Barber, “Early Representations of the Mother of God,” in Mother of God: Representations of the Virgin in Byzantine Art, ed. Maria Vassilaki (Milan: Skira, 2000): 253–61. 16 Fr. Combes, Historia haeresis monothelitarum (Paris: A. Bertier, 1648): 612–44. An English version of this story can be found at: Sabine Baring Gould, Historic Oddities and Strange Events, First Series (London: Methuen, 1891): 103–20. See: Cyril Mango, The Brazen House: A Study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople (Copenhagen: i kommission hos Ejnar Munksgaard, 1959): 142–46.

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upon Christianity’s materialism in the Adversus Judaeus literature of the seventh century.17 It also underlines the narrow divide that separates and icon from its subject, quite clearly afrming that what happens to the icon affects its subject.18 An anti-semitism that presents the Jews as models of both otherness and redemption then frames these descriptions of the icon’s power. They are here turned into Christ-killers, a theme that occurred with some frequency in the polemical construction of the iconoclasts. This is seen most clearly in the ninth-century Khludov Psalter’s presentation of the Crucixion as being both an act committed by Jews and as a parallel to the fate of the icon at the hand of the iconoclasts (g. 3). The Antiphonetes narrative is less dramatic (g. 4). Nonetheless, the story reiterates the themes we have seen in play, with the icon presented as a locus for the performance of divine power and as a material proof of Christianity’s superiority over Judaism. Together these stories emphasize the particularity of Christianity and the power of the icon. The Evergetes Synaxarion then asks for a text that provides an historical account of orthodoxy. It is probable that this was the Life of St. Theodora, wife of the Emperor Theophilos (828–42) and mother of Michael III (842–867).19 Her signicance for the celebration of this feast is vividly shown in a Palaeologan icon for the Feast of Orthodoxy now owned by the British museum icon (g. 5).20 Here, the presence of the Hodegetria icon has emphasized the centrality of the icon to the meaning of this feast. Theodora and Michael are shown in a foremost position among the heroes of the iconoclastic era. The text of Theodora’s life presents an account of the end of iconoclasm, one that provided a key source for the Chronicle written by George the Monk, ca. 867.21 Theodora’s 17 For a recent discussion with reference to further literature see Charles Barber, Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002): 13–37. 18 Glenn Peers, Sacred Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Byzantium (College Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004): 35–58. 19 Athanasios Markopoulos, “<     )8 (BHG 1731),” Symmeikta 5 (1983): 249–85; trans. Martha P. Vinson, “Life of St. Theodora the Empress,” in Byzantine Defenders of Images: Eight Saints’ Lives in English Translation, ed. Alice-Mary Talbot (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1998): 361–82. 20 Robin Cormack, “Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy,” Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture, ed. David Buckton (London: British Museum Press, 1994): 129–31; Dimitra Kotoula, “The British Museum Triumph of Orthodoxy icon,” Byzantine Orthodoxies, ed. Andrew Louth and Augustine Casiday (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006): 121–30. 21 Discussed at Vasilii Regel, Analecta Byzantino-Russica (NewYork: Burt Franklin,

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story portrays iconoclasm in graphic terms as an instance of disorder and disruption: These were not images of the kind whose destruction results in no great peril or even little harm; on the contrary, they were images whose installation was a mark of pious zeal and whose abolition was a bitter form of tyranny. As a result, church thought was perverted, books were altered, sanctuaries were stripped of decoration, priests replaced, innocent men subjected to legal investigation, criminals placed in positions of power and the most illustrious sees. Nor was this all: whole regions were torn by civil strife, monasteries were deserted, people took to the hills, their family property conscated by the state. This is how far the heresy of the iconoclasts went.22

As was typical of the iconophile literature of the mid-ninth century, the iconoclastic Patriarch John VII (838–43) was presented as the primary force behind the Emperor Theophilos’ personal turn to iconoclastic policies. Here, the Patriarch is accused of being “the chief conspirator or rather chief sorcerer and chief demon” as well as a new Apollonios of Tyana and Balaam. This theme was to be found in an array of visual and verbal sources from the end of iconoclasm. The Patriarch Methodios (843–47) cast John in this light in his engagingly hostile hymn written for the Feast of Orthodoxy.23 John was portrayed in a similar manner in the Khludov Psalter (g. 6), where he is shown with the wild hair of a sorcerer and is compared to Simon Magus.24 By such means, the iconoclasts were to become “enemies of the truth” who had sought to undermine and alter the tradition of the seven oecumenical councils.25 Having described the evils of iconoclasm, the Theodora narrative then introduces a number of iconophile heroes from the second phase of iconoclasm: Ioannikios of Mount Olympos (752/54–846), Patriarch 1964): iv–x. The Life of Theodora and The Absolution of the Emperor Theophilos are included in a collection of saints’ lives in the British Library (BL Add. 28.270). The manuscript was completed in 1111 by the scribe Nicholas. It contains a marginal note that the Life of Theodora was to be read on the Feast of Orthodoxy. For a recent evaluation of these texts, their dates, and the discussion of the Emperor Theophilos see: Athanasios Markopoulos, “The rehabilitation of the Emperor Theophilos,” in Byzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive? ed. Leslie Brubaker (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998): 37–49. 22 Markopoulos “<  :” 258; Vinson “Life:” 362. 23 Methodios, Canon on the setting up of the holy images: PG, 99: 1767–80. 24 Kathleen Corrigan, Visual Polemics in the Ninth-Century Byzantine Psalters (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992): 27–28. 25 Markopoulos “<  :” 260–62; Vinson “Life:” 367–69.

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Nikephoros (ca. 750–828), Theodore of Stoudios (759–826), Patriarch Methodios (2nd half 8th c.–847), Michael Synkellos (ca. 761–846), Theophanes the Confessor (ca. 760–817/818), Theodore Graptos (ca. 775–841/844) and Theophanes Graptos (ca. 778–845).26 It is notable that these gures, together with Isaiah of Nikomedia (. mid–9th c.) are represented on the British Museum icon seen above. In number and kind these are understood to provide an overwhelming contrast to the isolated and idiosyncratic iconoclasm embodied in the person of John the Grammarian. The text then introduces a further comparison. This begins when the military disasters of the 830s were blamed on Theophilos’s iconoclastic policies.27 This ill-starred account of the emperor continues until Theophilos is presented being tormented on his deathbed for his adherence to iconoclasm. This suffering is only brought to an end when he embraces an image of Christ found on an enkolpion worn by the kanikleios Theoktistos.28 The Life then contrasts the reign of Theophilos with that of his son, Michael III, who, having acceded to the throne, immediately restores the cult of icons and achieves military success. The restoration of the icons is also attributed to the Patriarch Methodios, who replaced the deposed John the Grammarian, and three hermits from Mount Olympos in Bithynia, Arsakios, and the already introduced Ioannikios and Isaiah.29 The text characterizes Methodios in these terms: “he conrmed and proclaimed our blameless orthodox faith after demolishing [iconoclasm] in its entirety, using the clearest and most forceful arguments.”30 Lastly, the nal sections of the book dwell on Theodora’s enforced monastic retirement, which began in 856 and lasted until her death.31 The Evergetes typikon then asks for a reading concerning Theophilos. Given the generally dark portrayal of him in the Life of St. Theodora, this can perhaps be understood as a supplement to restore his reputation.32 The text is focused upon what can be described as Theophilos’ return

Markopoulos “<  :” 262; Vinson “Life:” 369–70. Markopoulos “<  :” 263; Vinson “Life:” 370–71. 28 Markopoulos “<  :” 263–64; Vinson “Life:” 371–73; Martha Vinson “The Terms 1 and  and the Conversion of Theophilus in the Life of Theodora (BHG 1731),” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 36 (1995): 89–99. 29 Markopoulos “<  :” 265–67; Vinson “Life:” 373–77. 30 Markopoulos “<  :” 266; Vinson “Life:” 376. 31 Markopoulos “<  :” 267–71; Vinson “Life:” 377–382. 32 Regel, “Analecta:” 19–39. 26 27

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to truth.33 In this regard it can be read as a continuation of one of the themes found in the rst two readings discussed above. The rst part of the narrative follows closely upon the account of Theophilos’ death and the restoration of icons found in the Life of Theodora.34 The story adds Theodora’s requests for forgiveness for her husband.35 Having heard these requests the Patriarch Methodios goes to Hagia Sophia to pray with other orthodox clerics, monks, and laymen.36 That night Theodora had a dream in which she sees Theophilos naked, beaten, and facing judgement before the Chalke Gate of the Great Palace. In her dream, Theodora appeals to the enthroned and awesome judge on behalf of her husband and the judge then forgives Theophilos.37 In the meantime, Methodios, having completed his prayers, inscribed Theophilos’s name in a volume that listed all the iconoclasts and then placed this beneath the altar cloth of the high altar in Hagia Sophia.38 Having done this, Methodios went to bed and there dreamed of an angel. This angel tells Methodios that Theophilos has been forgiven. On hearing this, the Patriarch then hastens to Hagia Sophia where he nds that Theophilos’s name has already been removed from the stillsealed book.39 Thanks to these two visionary interventions Theophilos’ absolution is assured. It is only then that the orthodox are able to celebrate the rst Feast of Orthodoxy.40 These two narratives provide a history of the formation of the feast itself. While they do not enter into precise accounts of the icon and its worship, they offer models of good and bad behavior in regard to images. These show the society surviving heresy and the restoration of due order. The narratives also draw the audience’s attention to the second phase of iconoclasm. Leo III, Constantine V, the Patriarchs Germanos and Tarasios do not feature in the list of those condemned or praised. Rather those that shaped the icon question in the ninth century take the attention. By these means we see the commemoration of iconoclasm become oriented toward its later phase and the denitions that arose then. In this regard, it is notable that the Synaxarion for

33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

Regel, Regel, Regel, Regel, Regel, Regel, Regel, Regel,

“Analecta:” “Analecta:” “Analecta:” “Analecta:” “Analecta:” “Analecta:” “Analecta:” “Analecta:”

20. 21–32. 28–30. 31–32. 33–35. 36. 36–37. 37–39.

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the Evergetes monastery does not include a celebration of the Seventh Oecumenical Council.41 The monks in the Theotokos Evergetes would then have listened to two theoretical texts regarding icons. The emphasis in both is on the veneration of images. The rst of these has its origin in the rst phase of iconoclasm. This is identied in the Evergetine text as the letter of Gregory Dialogos to Leo the heretic. This can be identied as one of the two letters written by Pope Gregory II (715–31) to the Emperor Leo III (717–41).42 While the authenticity and dates of composition of these letters has been much debated, it is evident from the manuscript tradition that both were available to an eleventh-century audience in the form that they have come down us. The two letters present a lengthy defense of icon veneration. The rst letter begins by expressing Gregory’s surprise at Leo’s critique of holy icons.43 He then touches on some of the themes prevalent in the early defense of icons. First, Gregory rejects Leo’s literal reading of the second commandment’s prohibition of divine images, suggesting that Leo ought to be aware of the tradition of Christian interpretations of this text, which has argued that the commandment was only directed at false idols and not legitimate Christian images.44 Second, Gregory noted that the incarnation had changed our means of knowing God, hence: “Having seen the Lord, as they have said, they painted his form (N81 = O+, !P (8 ' Q6).”45 Third, Christians were not deceived into worshipping matter when they prayed before images, as they did not adore the stones, walls, or boards that conveyed images, rather—following Basil the Great—worship was

41 The Horos of the Seventh Oecumenical Council was, however, to be read in Hagia Sophia on October 11th: Juan Mateos, Le typicon de la Grande Église, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 165 (Rome: Ponticium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1962): 66–67. 42 Jean Gouillard, “Aux origines de l’iconoclasme: le témoignage de Grégoire II?” Travaux et Mémoires 3 (1968): 243–307; H. Grotz, “Beobachtungen zu den zwei Briefen Papst Gregors II. an Kaiser Leo III,” Archivum Historiae Ponticiae 18 (1980): 9–40; H. Grotz, “Weitere Beobachtungen zu den zwei Briefen Papst Gregor II. an Kaiser Leo III.,” Archivum Historiae Ponticiae 24 (1986): 365–75; H. Grotz, “Die früheste römische Stellungsnahme gegen den Bildersturm (Eine These, die es zu beweisen gilt),” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 20 (1988): 150–61; H. Michels, “Zur Echtheit der Briefe Papst Gregors II. an Kaiser Leon III.,” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 99 (1988): 376–91; Alexander Alexakis, Codex Parisinus Graecus 1115 and Its Archetype, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 34 (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 1996): 108–10, 119–23. 43 Gouillard, “Origines:” 277.3–279.29. 44 Gouillard, “Origines:” 279.30–281.68. 45 Gouillard, “Origines:” 283.69–285.109, esp. 283.91–92.

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addressed to the ones represented there and was conveyed to them by means of homonymy.46 Fourth, images are benecial to mankind as they provoke a love of God when the narratives of Christ’s life continue to be seen in them.47 The letter then recounts the destruction of the icon of Christ Antiphonetes at the Chalkoprateia church, using this instance to underline the bad reputation that Leo had gained by his attacks on images.48 The letter then reports Leo’s threats against the Papacy should they fail to support his policies.49 The second letter reiterates several themes in the rst. Images, for example, are said to edify those that look at them and thence lead them up towards God.50 In addition, Gregory asks Leo to maintain the traditions and the state of the church that he had inherited. This leads Gregory to devote the greater part of his letter to an argument for a strong distinction between the roles of the emperor and the bishops in formulating doctrine.51 The second more theoretical text was a catechetical homily written by Theodore of Stoudios.52 This introduces a few themes that were prevalent in the second phase of the iconoclastic dispute. Theodore begins by addressing the dispersed Stoudite community, exiled because of their resistance to the renewed iconoclasm of the ninth century.53 He then argues that those who do not accept images cannot know Christ.54 A point predicated on the belief that an icon commemorates and afrms the visible aspect of the incarnation. Theodore then condemns those who are willing to accept images, but who refuse to venerate them.55 This appears to have been a compromise position proffered by the iconoclasts in the early years of the second phase of iconoclasm. The letter of the Emperors Michael II and Theophilos to the Emperor Louis the Pious raises this possibility.56 In response, Theodore argues that such iconoclasts deny the logic of representation, which would demand

46

Gouillard, “Origines:” 287.121–37. Gouillard, “Origines:” 289.153–291.166. 48 Gouillard, “Origines:” 293.218–295.235. 49 Gouillard, “Origines:” 295.236–297.275. 50 Gouillard, “Origines:” 301.310–11. 51 Gouillard, “Origines:” 301.316–303.366. 52 Theodore of Stoudios, Parva Catechesis, ed. Emmanuel Auvray (Paris: Victor Lecoffre, 1891): 53–57. 53 Parva Catachesis: 53.1–54.13. 54 Parva Catachesis: 54.13–15. 55 Parva Catachesis: 54.16–22. 56 Mansi 14: 422 for the letter. 47

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that an image receives the worship that is appropriate to the person represented therein.57 Indeed, he adds, images should be considered to be better than relics in dening a relation to the holy: “How much better is it to honor and venerate the icon of Christ, on which, as in a mirror, he is himself manifest and venerable. For it is the nature of the icon itself to convey the one represented according to form (1R  K 7  1 ./  6  36, ’ S, T  1R, 1  @ 1 1   3+  * + $ U6  1 = Q1  ’ F8 ).”58 This last denition, which reminds the audience of the formal relation between an icon and its subject, is a typical expression of an understanding of icons that was claried by the iconophile fathers of the ninth century. Finally, Theodore urges his ock to live a proper monastic life and thence receive their rewards.59 These texts offer authoritative testimony to the main lines of iconophile doctrine. These distinguish an image from an idol while retaining value for the material icon as a means of conveying visual witness to the incarnation. The nature of the relation between an icon and its subject was carefully described. The icon portrayed the formal particularities of its subject, thus establishing a relation that was mediated by a common likeness and a common name. This relational model of representation then necessitated that worship was also to be described as relational. Following the singing of the Trisagion Hymn the monks would nally hear the text of the Synodikon read from the ambo.60 The consistency of this text is suggested by a mid-eleventh century recension that apart from some brief references to the context of its delivery clings closely to the core of the Synodikon as it has come down to us. This is a homily on the Feast of Orthodoxy attributed to Patriarch Michael I Keroularios (1043–1058).61 The composition of the text dates after the death of

57

Parva Catachesis: 55.30–34. Parva Catachesis: 55.39–42. 59 Parva Catachesis: 56.58–57.70. 60 The Synaxarion does not specify this, but this was the normal moment for reading the synodika produced by the church councils that were commemorated in the liturgy: Gouillard, Synodikon: 6–7. 61 PG, 120.724A–736C. Discussion at Gouillard, “Synodikon” 20. Gouillard’s text provides a few improved readings of this earlier edition: lines 1–183, 753–762, and 767–770. Since the publication of Gouillard’s edition a German translation of a Georgian version of the primitive Synodikon text has been published. The Georgian text belongs in a complitation formed in 1028: Michael van Esbroeck and Nural 58

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the Empress Zoe in 1050 and before the death of Constantine IX Monomachos in 1055.62 This witness allows us to glimpse the text prior to the changes that began to be made to it in the second-half of the eleventh and to which we shall return later in this study. What the text betrays is an understanding that Orthodoxy has its origins in the correct interpretation of Christ’s icon. The text of the Synodikon read before the monks of the Evergetes monastery reiterates an understanding of the icon that was formulated at the end of the iconoclastic era. It is not a lengthy statement, running to some 170 lines in the modern edition, but it is rich in the ideas it embraces. The Synodikon immediately marks a link between the material and the spiritual church when it begins by proclaiming a new founding of the church.63 This is expressed by borrowing themes from Gregory of Nazianzos’s homily In novam dominicam.64 This renewal is not limited to the fabric of church buildings, but must also embrace all the activities performed within the church.65 This restoration was necessitated by the thirty-years of iconoclastic rule that had dishonored the cult offered to holy icons.66 This chronology reminds us that the Synodikon was concerned with the second phase of iconoclasm, encompassing the reigns of Leo V (813–20), Michael II (820–29), and Theophilos (829–42). The Synodikon then asserts the equivalence of icons and homilies as means of knowing the Christian understanding of salvation: “the great work of economy is made known by means of both verbal homilies and iconic figurations (8  13 6+    , 3 , 8’ V =      W & 3  ).”67 This brief phrase touches on two key issues in discussion in the ninth-century. The rst of these was the relative value of visual and verbal knowledge. The iconoclasts had argued that images were an insufcient means of knowing the divine, as they could only describe external appearances and so could not offer more than a

Karadeniz, “Das Synodikon vom Jahre 843 in georgischer Übersetzung,” Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum 19 (1987): 300–313. 62 PG, 120.732D. 63 Gouillard, Synodikon: 45.1–3. 64 For example there are echoes of this homily (PG, 36.608–21) at Gouillard, Synodikon: 45.4–5, 11–19, 47.38, 46–47. 65 Gouillard, Synodikon: 45.7–9. 66 Gouillard, Synodikon: 45.20–47.23. 67 Gouillard, Synodikon: 47.27–28.

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supercial knowledge. In response, the iconophiles argued that images were an essential proof of the reality and fullness of the incarnation.68 This then leads to the second issue raised in this phrase, which is the relation between icons and the economy of salvation. Iconoclasts had offered a very spiritual and verbal account of salvation, in which the words of the Gospel narrative were to impress themselves upon the heart of the believer and raise them towards their salvation. Iconophiles argued that such a model ignored the importance of the incarnation as a moment when such salvation became assured. Icons were thereby presented as having particular value as a record of the fact that Christ was incarnate as a particular and individual human and thus served to afrm this new reality.69 Both the verbal and visual knowledge of Christ were also understood to provide ethical assistance to those listening or seeing. As we have just seen, iconoclasts had privileged words as the medium that could best guide Christian behavior. For iconophiles, on the other hand, it was the icon that provided the best model for humans to imitate as they offered a condescension to our corporeal nature and the somatic ground of our knowledge.70 The Synodikon then develops this interest in the icon’s relation to the body by proposing that icons and their subjects both share in the wounds inicted on either. The narrative of the Beirut icon has already prepared such a possibility. It clearly implies a close relation, if not an identity between icon and subject. A point that is further underlined by the claim that the wound suffered by the icons should be deemed a form of second martyrdom.71 The precise nature of this relationship is discussed later in the text. Having made these points, the initial conclusion drawn is that it is thanks to such images that Christ’s sufferings and those of his saints become available to us for us to see.72 By these quick steps the Synodikon is able to make the point that images are a legitimate means of Christian knowledge. They

68

Barber, Figure and Likeness: 61–81. The importance of this point for the ninth-century iconophiles is particularly well articulated by Ken Parry: Kenneth Parry, “Theodore Studites and the Patriarch Nicephoros on Image-Making as a Christian Imperative,” Byzantion 59 (1989): 164–83. 70 Gouillard, Synodikon: 47.30–31. The ethical function of images was much discussed in the period of iconoclasm: Barber, Figure and Likeness: 131–35; Milton Anastos, “The Ethical Theory of Images Formulated by the Iconoclasts in 754 and 815,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954): 153–60. 71 Gouillard, Synodikon: 47.32–38. 72 Gouillard, Synodikon: 47.44–47. 69

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are intimately tied to the incarnation and are a necessary and specic means of understanding the continuing implications of this event. The precise grounds for this brief denition are elaborated in a series of blessings and anathemas that address particular topics regarding the denition and cult of images. These are carefully ordered so that the audience can understand the precise steps taken in the unfolding of this doctrine. The text begins by praising those who know that the Logos became incarnate and who profess this by verbal and visual means.73 In offering this praise, the Synodikon draws the discussion immediately to Christ’s incarnate manifestation and the manner in which this can be described in words and images. The rst anathema reiterates this, but emphasizes the particular value of images as witnesses to the incarnation. Hence, it condemns those that claimed to accept verbal witness of the incarnation, while denying visual witness. Those professing this opinion are said to be denying the reality of salvation.74 This point is extended in the second blessing, which praises those who understand fully the Christological implications of this incarnation. These implications are then introduced succinctly. Christ’s human and divine essences are understood to be distinct within his one hypostasis. The presence of these two essences mean that Christ is always dual, being both created and uncreated, visible and invisible, passable and impassable, limited and unlimited. Of these, the uncreated and similar terms apply to his divine nature, while the limited human nature is professed in both word and images (M 8? ! H +   D  = =  +  1R     ).75 This returns us to the proper role of the verbal and visual in that we are reminded that they are able to offer a positive account of Christ’s human nature alone. On the other hand, the Synodikon condemns those that overemphasize the uncircumscribability of God in its application to Christ. In the view of the iconophile authors they should be condemned for not admitting the fullness of the incarnation in the esh.76 A third and fourth blessing follow upon this point by offering praise for different but equivalent experiences of word and image. Once again, homilies and icons are treated as interchangeable means of imparting knowledge as there is praise for those who proclaim words in writing or 73 74 75 76

Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard,

Synodikon: Synodikon: Synodikon: Synodikon:

49.61–62. 55.138–141. 49.63–67. 55.141–144.

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deeds in venerable images and vice-versa, and also for those who preach by means of words and conrm the truth by means of images (# 31  8633  X Q  Y 13   , $    %6 ,    Z 3& 7 [* '  8$ 1 '3  7 8’  1  6!    ). As can be seen, slightly different operations are given to word and image. Images are equated with the representation of deeds and are also granted the role of afrming the truth of what is imparted by verbal means. This interest in imparting both value and difference to these media was a particularly important aspect of the ninth-century discussions.77 The text then draws attention to the somatic aspect of the delivery and acquisition of such knowledge. It blesses those whose lips are sanctied by holy words and whose words sanctify those listening to them. In a similar manner, those who know and proclaim that icons sanctify the eyes of those who look, elevating the mind to the knowledge of God, should be blessed ( 81   631 T 8$ # #  1 @   \Q ? $ ]  # @,  8? 8’ # @ / = ! ). By these means, both the ears and the eyes are granted value as conduits that allow for both the reception of information and for initiating the ascent of the mind towards God. While icons are offered as a primary vehicle for such an ascent, the Synodikon also notes that spiritual knowledge can also be attained through the images found within the divine churches and on the sacred vessels and other holy objects.78 The Synodikon then turns to the relation between the forms of knowledge available in the worlds of the Old and New Testaments. This is introduced when a blessing is offered to those who distinguished between pregurative types for the Virgin Mary, such as the staff of Moses, the tablets of the law, the ark and the menorah and the actual Virgin who was born a woman and chose virginity after the birth of Christ. The reason given for this blessing was that it was better to portray the corporeal Mary than types that were unlike her ( 8$ / K 16 7 &     1 ^ & +

77 Charles Barber, “The Body within the Frame: A Use of Word and Image in Iconoclasm,” Word and Image 9 (1993): 140–53 and then Charles Barber, “Mimesis and Memory in the Narthex Mosaics of the Nea Moni on Chios,” Art History 24 (2001), 323–337. 78 Gouillard, Synodikon: 49.68–75.

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+).79 A distinction is thus drawn between a symbolic and an iconic knowledge. This point is taken further when the text praises those who accept prophetic visions of God as an authentic iconic experience. This had particular value in that it helped to establish the possibility of a visible deity in the usually aniconic religion of the prophets. The iconoclasts were anathematized for having accepted the textual record of such visions, while denying the possibility of iconic depictions of such pre-incarnational iconographies as Ezekiel’s vision that have derived from these accounts of visions. On the one hand, the iconoclasts had argued that the Old Testament visions, which were manifest as images or gures or delineations, were of the invisible essence and so could not be reproduced in the material medium of an icon (’ ^ 7  6 7 _61   1   `! & !  /, ^  1 ? /  6!   +  %'   ! & Z%1 3!  ,  & 8? !' = a1  $ b? 9 # / !6  %  ). On the other hand, the iconophiles felt that such experiences provided a precedent for and continuity with the depiction of the incarnate Christ and his passion, while the iconoclasts denied this possibility.80 As such the Synodikon then offered a condemnation of those that were willing to accept the validity of verbal prophecy, but were unwilling to accept the representation of the incarnation that had been seen.81 This series of statements on the Old Testament show that the play of word and image has remained in question, with the iconoclasts strongly privileging verbal testimony and the iconophiles arguing that visual witness both follows upon and exceeds such verbal grounds.

79

Gouillard, Synodikon: 49.76–51.81. Gouillard, Synodikon: 55.145–150. Theophany was a subject of some interest in the second phase of iconoclasm. For example, Methodios included a lengthy discussion of this topic in his Life of Euthymios: Jean Gouillard, “La vie d’Euthyme de Sardes (d. 831),” Travaux et mémoires 10 (1987): 75.771–98. Notable discussions on this topic include: André Grabar, L’Iconoclasme byzantin: Le Dossier archéologique, revd. ed. (Paris: Flammarion, 1984): 252–69; Jacqueline Lafontaine-Dosogne, “Théophanes—visions auxquelles participent les prophètes dans l’art byzantin après la restauration des images,” Synthronon. Art et archéologie de la n de l’antiquité et du moyen âge (Paris: Bibliothèque des Cahiers Archéologiques, 1968): 135–43; Jean Gouillard, “Art et littérature théologique à Byzance au lendemain de la querelle des images,” Cahiers de Civilisation Médiévale 12 (1969): 1–13; Leslie Brubaker, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium: Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999): 281–307. 81 Gouillard, Synodikon: 55.151–158. 80

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19

The Synodikon then blessed those who accepted one of the traditional arguments in support of icons. This was the common supposition that a written and an unwritten tradition existed. This assumption allowed the church to develop practices and doctrine that were not self-evidently present in the Biblical text. For iconophiles the icon was a part of this long unwritten tradition. Indeed, much of the Seventh Oecumenical Council had been devoted to this question.82 In contrast, the iconoclasts had argued that the written tradition had specically disallowed the representation and veneration of God and his saints in images.83 The concluding blessing and anathema offer quite different nal notes. The blessing is offered to those who could distinguish between that which had been forbidden by the Law and that which was now possible thanks to Grace. This distinction is presented in primarily visual terms with the Law being associated with invisible knowledge, Grace with the visible. Here, the visible is strongly privileged.84 The nal anathema was laid against those that continued to be iconomachs (or Christomachs) and had thus continued to reject a tradition that reached from the prophets to the present church. These iconomachs are deemed to be beyond the pale, having allied themselves with Jewish and Pagan thought. Furthermore, they are reminded that the harm they do to images is a harm done against the one depicted there.85 This lengthy account of the meaning and performance of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy allows us to reconstruct some of the reiterated stories and concepts that annually prepared this monastic audience for an understanding of the icon. What they heard, until the insertions that began in the second half of the eleventh-century, was a document that was specically rooted in its ninth-century origins, commemorating the thirty years of persecution prior to its rst delivery in 843.86 This underlines the point that when the Patriarch Keroularios delivered his homily on the Feast of Orthodoxy he was not presenting an account of images that was the product of the mid-eleventh century, rather he

82

As recently reiterated in Ambrosios Giakalis, Images of the Divine: The Theology of Icons at the Seventh Ecumenical Council, revd. ed. (Leiden: Brill, 2005): 22–50. A useful discussion of the question concerning written and unwritten tradition can be found at: Kenneth Parry, Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought of the Eighth and Ninth Centuries (Leiden: Brill, 1996): 156–65. 83 Gouillard, Synodikon: 51.82–86. 84 Gouillard, Synodikon: 51.87–97. 85 Gouillard, Synodikon: 55.159–170. 86 Gouillard, Synodikon: 47.40–43.

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presented words and concepts that were probably written by the Patriarch Methodios (843–47).87 In the rst instance, then, the performance of the Synodikon was a reiteration of an understanding of the icons that was written at the end of the iconoclastic era itself. In the course of this study we shall see that this should not lead us to assume that this was an anachronistic event, commemorating ideas from a distant past. The Synodikon not only summarized the fundamental understanding of the icon, but, thanks to the additions that began to be made to the document in the course of the eleventh century, was clearly also a living text engaged with contemporary denitions of correct belief. The Synodikon text has, therefore, maintained the currency of a core understanding of the icon. The text reminds its audience that icons were not idols. Rather, legitimated by Christ’s incarnation, they served as witnesses to and records of the reality of Christ’s historical life. Furthermore, while such images had the potential to become the site for the manifestation of miracles, the material object was not itself deemed to be holy. To avoid any confusion between the material image and its subject the text proposes a relationship, mediated by likeness and homonymy, that both connects and distinguishes the icon and that which it portrays. In a similar manner, the veneration brought to bear on an image was considered to be a relational activity that led from the icon to its subject and did not imply an adoration of the material object itself. The terms used to dene and to describe the icon reiterate a ninth-century understanding. This had been most fully articulated by such theologians as the Patriarch Nikephoros and Theodore of Stoudios. Their signicance is underlined by their being represented together in an image of the iconoclastic council of 815 that dates to 1066 (g. 7). Both theologians had brought the logical categories of Aristotle to bear on the image question. In so doing, they not only denitively altered the discourse on icons but also established a fresh ground for theological practice in Byzantium. The central role of art within this system is perhaps best shown by a canon produced by a church council that met in Constantinople in 869–70. Sometimes called the Eighth Oecumenical Council, this meeting produced some of the last statements on the long running period of iconoclasm.88 One of these was the seventh canon that had declared:

87 88

On the question of authorship see Gouillard, Synodikon: 157–58. Barber, Figure and Likeness: 114–115.

the SYNODIKON OF ORTHODOXY and the ground of painting C= $ \   $  1 6/  Y 6  88 $ !'   !    ! 6   ,   `61*  = 8? / 7 $ #    !* +3 % 68 #  3&  & & & Y ! ! !cQ , ' 7  R8' 1R 88, % d #   8  6 . 0e  f $ / 9 # = J = Q7 \   1  6 g h 887 Y @/ 8 K,  ? 61 ,  = e8 833 ! 1,  8? i1 , Q!,   ! # !  36 .89

21

Setting up holy and venerable icons and teaching the similar disciplines of divine and human wisdom are very benecial. It is not good if this is done by those who are not worthy. For this reason no one is to paint the holy churches who has been anathematized by what has been decreed, nor to teach in a similar place, until they have turned back from their deceit. Therefore, if anyone after our declaration were to allow these in whatever manner to paint holy icons in the church or to teach, if he is a cleric he will endanger his rank, if he is a layman he will be banished and deprived of the divine mysteries.

Here, painting, theology and philosophy are placed on the same plane and are subject to the same policing. The Synodikon of Orthodoxy helped to dene the precise terms by which the painting of a sacred subject could convey the truth. It presented the icon as an embodiment of human knowledge. As a made thing, detached from its subject, the icon was understood to encompass that which was possible for human understanding. As such knowledge was built upon the visible, a point re-asserted by the condescension of the incarnation itself, and therefore the icon had to become the primary space for the description of human understanding.89 When one looks at an icon, it is the face of the subject that looks back at one (g. 1). It is this body perceived by the viewer’s body that marks the bounds of understanding. Throughout the texts above, we have seen that the icon is closely equated with the body. This not only provides its ground, but also its limits. In this instance, the icon presents a depiction of Christ. This describes the particular human aspects of his incarnate person. These open a relation that links the painting and its subject, but does not admit the confusion of these distinct entities. The icon, as a product of human thought and capacities, is bound to these origins and limited by them as the visible both circumscribes and prescribes the horizon of human knowledge. Further, given the icon’s 89

148.

Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Decreta, ed. P.-P. Ioannou (Freiburg: Herder, 1962):

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centrality to the description of Orthodoxy as well as its manifestation of the human horizon, any conceptualization of the icon that differed from the narrow prescription set forth above could be conceived as a fundamental challenge to traditional belief and thence traditional order. In what follows, we shall see that this narrow denition provoked a desire to exceed its narrow connes, an abyss of excess that overows the painting’s frame and human perception. It is here in this abyss that the disquiet that marks the eleventh-century discourse on art found its point of departure, namely in that which is always masked by the coming-to-be of the visible object.

CHAPTER TWO

SYMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN: SEEING BEYOND PAINTING When a blind man gradually recovers his sight and notices the features of a man and bit by bit ascertains what he is, it is not the features that are transformed or altered into the visible. Rather, as the vision of that man’s eyes becomes clearer, it sees the features as they are. It is as though they wholly imprint themselves on his vision and penetrate through it, impressing and engraving themselves, as on a tablet, on the mind and the memory of the soul. You Yourself became visible in the same manner when by the clear light of the Holy Ghost You had completely cleansed my mind. Thence seeing more clearly and distinctly, You seemed to come forth and shine more brightly, and allowed me to see the features of Your shapeless shape. Having said these things You became silent and little by little, O sweet and good Lord, You were hidden from my eyes; whether I became distant from You or You departed from me, I know not. I returned once more wholly into myself and entered into my former dwelling, whence I had thought to have left. When I recalled the beauty of Your glory and of Your words, as I walked about, sat down, ate, drank, and prayed, I wept and lived in an indescribable joy, having known You, the Maker of all things. How could I have failed to rejoice? But I again fell into sorrow and so desiring to see You again, I went off to embrace the spotless icon of the one who bore You and having bowed down before it, You became visible to me within my wretched heart before I could stand up, as if You had transformed it into light, and then I knew that I knowingly have You within me. Therefore from then onwards I loved You, not by recollection of You and that which surrounds You, nor for the memory of such things, but I in very truth believed that I had You, Substantial Love, within me. For You, O God, are love indeed.1

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This evocative passage is found in the Second Thanksgiving written by St. Symeon the New Theologian. It offers a rich and quite precise account of this monk’s experience of spiritual vision. The passage’s signicance lies in part in the importance of Symeon, who was the key voice for a new model of monastic spirituality that developed in the late tenth- and early-eleventh century in the monasteries in and around Constantinople. Central to this new spiritual economy was the belief that it was possible for one to experience God while still in this world. Visual metaphors frame this experience, giving rise to a rich analysis of vision, such as can be found in the text quoted above. Yet, given this interest in visual experience, it is notable that one of the most striking features of Symeon’s writings is the very limited place granted to the

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$  . :_   ` 9 +0 T X, & Q!: Symeon the New Theologian, Catéchèses

23–34, Actions de Grâces 1–2, Sources Chrétiennes 113 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1965): 346.208–352.272 (hereafter Cat.); Symeon the New Theologian, The Discourses (New York: Paulist Press, 1980): 374–376.

symeon the new theologian: seeing beyond painting

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material icon within his many discussions of the spiritual life. Given the importance of icons within the theory and practice of Orthodoxy, this lack seems, at rst glance, to be surprising. The above passage, however, introduces some of the reasons as to why such neglect was necessary for Symeon’s spiritual understanding. In this chapter, we shall explore this gap between a visual spiritual economy and the icon itself. In so doing, it will be possible to show the degree to which Symeon’s mystical writings were shaped by his rejection of a contemporary theological practice that was grounded in the logic of the visible. As such, Symeon provides an entry to the signicant contest of ideas that shaped eleventhcentury Byzantium and that necessarily put the icon on trial. The rst section of the quoted text introduces one of the fundamental aspects of Symeon’s system, namely the vision of God. Here, he begins by comparing ordinary human sight with the experience of seeing the divine. Symeon notes that for vision to occur, it is the eyes themselves that must change rather than the object that falls under their gaze. This object remains what it is regardless of the glance that happens to fall upon it. It is the eye that seeks to see that must alter in order to achieve a truthful visual encounter with the pre-existing object of its look. In the particular case of the vision of God, Symeon tells us that human eyes require a divine intervention that will allow them to see more than their normal capabilities would ordinarily allow. The assumption here is that the divine always exceeds the human and that therefore God must assist humans to surpass the normal conditions of their existence and thence to achieve a vision of God. This understanding of an altered and specic form of vision then leads to the second section of this text. Here, Symeon seeks to overcome the loss of a God who has withdrawn from sight. In seeking to recover the presence of the divine, Symeon addressed worship to an icon. It is remarkable that he chooses to pray to an icon of the Mother of God (g. 8). Yet, having done this, it is not the Theotokos who became present to him, rather it is Christ who has appeared to him in his heart. This disjunction in the experience described here presents us with a distinction between the perception of a material object and the vision received thereafter. It introduces a seeming disregard for the icon itself as Symeon lets himself become open to seeing that which is beyond the object to hand.2 His knowledge of Christ is described as

2

The text does not mention Christ’s depiction within the icon, even though we cannot rule out this possibility. Nonetheless, this ambiguous silence succeeds in drawing

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a transformational experience, in which the moment when his heart becomes light he knows that God is within him. Such a sense of being within could be a consequence of sight. Earlier in the passage Symeon had described vision as a form of penetration whose affect was an impression or an engraving upon the mind and the memory of the soul. But in this second paragraph, Symeon places the experience in the heart and distances it from memory. Indeed, Symeon turns from commemorative sight and towards an understanding that it is immaterial vision that lets Christ be there within him. This brief passage is, therefore, to be read as an account that underlines the extent to which Symeon was seeking in his practice to surpass the limits of human capacities. His concern was with the spiritual, perhaps cardiac, vision of Christ, rather than the actual perception of the icon as it passed through his eyes. One consequence of this is that the icon in itself does not appear to have been central to Symeon’s practice. It is the implications of this disregard that will form the subject of this chapter. In the course of the eleventh century, and in the centuries that followed, Symeon the New Theologian’s writings were to have a profound inuence on the more mystical practices within Byzantine monasticism.3 Symeon was born in 949 and died in 1022.4 His parents were provincial aristocrats who in 960 sent him to Constantinople to further his education and social position by becoming a member of the court. In 963, Symeon began visiting one of the monks at the Stoudios monastery in attention to the presence of Christ within Symeon’s heart rather than the possibility of a depiction within the image. 3 A point rst made in the rst seminal study of Symeon: Karl Holl, Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt beim griechischen Mönchtum: eine Studie zum Symeon dem neuen Theologen (Leipzig: J. C. Hinrich, 1898): 222–223. 4 This chronology is that developed by Irénée Hausherr, Un grand mystique byzantin: Vie de Syméon le Nouveau Théologien (949–1022) par Nicétas Stethatos, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 45 (Rome, 1928): lxxx–xci. Alongside this text one should consult the following key introductions to Symeon’s life and thought Holl, Enthusiasmus; Walther Völker, Praxis und Theoria bei Symeon den neuen Theologen: Ein Beitrag zur Byzantinischen Mystik (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1974); Bernard Fraigneau-Julien, Les sens spirituels et la vision de Dieu selon Syméon le nouveau théologien, Théologie historique 67 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1985); Basil Krivocheine, In the Light of Christ, trans. Anthony Gythiel (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1986); and Alexander Golitzin, St. Symeon the New Theologian, On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Vol. 3: Life, Times and Theology (Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997). An alternative chronology can be found at Alexander Kazhdan, “Predvaritel’nye zamecanija o mirovozzrenii vizantijskogo mistika x–xi vv. Simeona,” Byzantinoslavica 28 (1967): 1–38.

symeon the new theologian: seeing beyond painting

27

the city, Symeon the Pious. This monk was to become Symeon’s spiritual father. As we will see below, it was Symeon the New Theologian’s cult of this man that would help dene his opposition to the theological and ecclesiastical assumptions of his day. Symeon remained outside the monastery for many years. Indeed, his rst vision, which occurred in his twenty-rst year, happened while he was still a layman.5 He only formally entered the monastery in his twenty-ninth year. He stayed at the Stoudios for just one year, during which time he had a second vision. He then entered the monastery of St. Mamas in Constantinople and within two years had been elected its Abbot. He was to remain Abbot for twenty-ve years, from 980–1005. From 1003–1009 Symeon was engaged in a running dispute with Stephen of Nikomedia regarding the cult of Symeon the Pious. Stephen was a synkellos in the Patriarchate of Constantinople and appears to have functioned as an enforcer of orthodoxy. The dispute between Symeon and Stephen ended with Symeon being exiled. He remained away from Constantinople for the rest of his life. We know most of the details of Symeon’s life from the Life written by a monk, and later abbot, of the Stoudios monastery, Niketas Stethatos, who was also the editor of all his writings. These texts appear to have been works of the 1050s,6 when Symeon, under the patronage of the Patriarch Michael I Keroularios (1043–1058) became a saint.7 Yet, in spite of these efforts, Symeon’s cult does not appear to have been long lived. Few manuscripts of Symeon’s Life survive, no contemporary icons can be identied, and Niketas Stethatos’s liturgy for his spiritual father has been lost.8 In this regard, it is notable that the Komnenian courts of the later eleventh- and twelfth centuries consistently condemned mystical theologians.9 Nonetheless, Symeon represents one of the key strands in eleventh-century theological thought, one that was to return and to become central to Orthodox spirituality in the fourteenth 5

Cat. 22 gives a full account of this experience. The dates are suggested by Symeon’s appearance in a vision to Niketas some fteen years after his death on order to enquire after this work and the date of the translation of Symeon’s relics. A useful introduction to Niketas is to be found at Jean Darrouzès, Nicétas Stéthatos, Opuscules et lettres, Sources Chrétiennes 81 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1961), 7–39. 7 Hausherr, Vie: xvf. 8 Golitzin, Symeon the New Theologian: 22. 9 Jean Gouillard, “Constantine Chrysomallos sous le masque de Syméon le Nouveau Théologien,” Travaux et Mémoires 5 (1973): 313–327; Jean Gouillard, “Quatre procès de mystique à Byzance (vers 960–1143),” Revue des Études Byzantines 36 (1978): 5–81. 6

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century. What Symeon bequeathed to the future was a harsh critique of the scholastic theology that had dominated religious thought since the ninth century. Indeed, it is this critique that leads him to disregard icons as spiritual tools. Vision lay at the heart of Symeon’s account of spiritual experience. This is clearly discernible in one of the richest introductions to his thought, the First Ethical Discourse.10 This text was probably written between 1003–1009.11 In it, Symeon weds sacred history to the problem of the post-lapsarian knowledge of the Christian God. In so doing, this Discourse sets forth the New Theologian’s broader theological position. Symeon begins by dening the human condition through the person of Adam, for whom the world was created as an “incorruptible yet material and perceptible” kind of Paradise.12 According to Symeon, it was only after God had rested on the seventh day that He created Eden on the earth.13 Signicantly for his interest in man’s penitential condition, Symeon argues that Adam and Eve would not have been exiled from this Eden had they repented when God discovered that they had eaten from the forbidden tree.14 As a consequence of this forbidden act, the whole of creation was, of course, corrupted.15 For Symeon, Christ’s incarnation not only disclosed the possibility of overcoming this fallen condition, but it also restored the possibility of human participation in the divine nature.16 Notably, Symeon evokes this restored condition by speaking of an exchange of looks between man and Christ: “We see Him Who deigned to become like us, and we who have been made worthy of becoming like Him are seen by Him (%  303'  ( M)   ?     ! B" %  1 ?9  (  % 2).”17 This exchange, a “spiritual seeing (  .  ),” allows man

10 Jean Darrouzès, Syméon le Nouveau Théologien, Traités théologiques et éthiques, Sources Chrétiennes 122 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1966): 170–309 (hereafter Traités). It is translated at: Alexander Golitzin, St. Symeon the New Theologian, On the Mystical Life: The Ethical Discourses, Vol. 1: The Church and the Last Things (Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1995): 21–80. 11 Traités: 8–13. 12 Traités: 174.1–11; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 21. 13 Traités: 180.114–182.133; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 24–26. 14 Traités: 184.19–186.31; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 27. 15 Traités: 188.52–54; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 28. 16 Traités: 196.8–18; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 31. 17 Traités: 202.94–96; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 34.

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to see “no shape or form or impression, but formless light (%  * X3 *  49  ,  . 0+  ).”18 This is a somewhat paradoxical proposition. For, while the incarnation has allowed one to see God incarnate in Christ, the vision that is presented by Symeon is one that surpasses the normal constraints on human perception. Such that what is seen has no physical limits and can only be understood as formless light. Similarly, when Symeon describes man’s resurrected body as: “an immaterial, spiritual dwelling place, beyond any perception of the senses (" A Ka     BN - Y0 . . . A0 S)” he underlines the point that the spiritual condition radically alters ordinary human experience, taking man beyond the limits of the sensible.19 In these ways he seeks to draw attention to the hidden and invisible Godhead, perceptible as light but not as a describable form. In the rst eleven chapters of this Discourse Symeon provides a broad account of man’s historical unfolding that denes this progression as being shaped by the experience of the loss and then a return to God. He then turns to the conditions of our present knowledge of the divine in the twelfth and last chapter. This twelfth chapter is worth quoting at length, as it provides the grounds for much of the remainder of our analysis of his writings. Symeon opens the twelfth chapter by criticizing theologians and philosophers, the contemporary guardians of knowledge:20 L +9   $  9)  R0 S  '     +  3+R9,  3N - 8 9   2 H! WF ’P -   c+ ( Jn. 5:39). ’P -   '  ) .20

Let us therefore put aside every vain and unprotable disputation, and let us not seek ahead of time to learn what is proper to that hour [the Second Coming], but instead let us be persuaded by the Master Who says: “Search the Scriptures.” Search, that is, and not meddle!

This introduces us to a recurrent theme in Symeon’s writings. For him, any theoretical imposition on the text of the scriptures is necessarily misleading. He thus rejects the appropriateness for theological speculation of thought based on the Greek philosophical and particularly 18 19 20

Traités: 202.100–101; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 34. Traités: 212.12–13; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 39. Traités: 272.1–5; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 63.

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the Aristotelian logical and physical tradition. This point is expanded upon in the following:21 <3 2 03N  )  3?D . + 9 ),     \0  R0   304, e ? $   K9,  4 E,  ! 7 ?. ' 40 % ,  % -   6 K  3    S 9 A   BN ' f  34; PA 3N  4  3$      $, !D -  ) BN !    3+; PA 3N   ) . + 9 ' +W , 4 3N g 3" f 9 ?9 1 P0  +7   S % U A3$h 3 D !, %3N   !,

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If a little child who has not yet learned its letters were to ask someone to interpret the rules of grammar and rhetoric, would anyone who does know put up with it for an instant, or think the child’s foolishness worthy of a single word in reply? Would he not instead dismiss the child as foolish and its question as puerile, as asking senselessly after something which exceeds its abilities? And if this is the case, and right and proper concerning matters of grammar, how much the more so is it not true when the issue touches on what transcends words and reason and intellect? Or even if someone were not to learn the basics of grammar yet hear whatever the ancient Greeks wrote in a different vocabulary, and understand that they were speaking the same language as he, there would be nothing wonderful in this, since their words, too, were about perceptible things and their writings vanities piled on vanity.

Here, we nd Symeon’s doubts about the appropriateness of human language and systems of thought reiterated. For him, these all-toohuman means of encompassing the world are simply inadequate when confronting that which “transcends words and reason and intellect.” The divine is beyond these and is therefore essentially inexpressible and incommunicable. It follows that Symeon must then ask: “Do you not see how the question is not about things which you can sense, but rather concerns matters divine and incomprehensible, and not easily grasped by everyone (‘[/ (9 %  A0 .  + 9 M @ ,   $9   S 9  % \h3$9  + 9  9;)?”22

21 22

Traités: 278.91–278.103; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 67. Traités: 280.113–115; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 67.

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Having proposed this fundamental distinction, Symeon then argues that in order to understand the things that transcend ordinary human capacities one must necessarily let go of one’s own will, and instead let the Holy Spirit lead one to such knowledge:23 ‘[0$ 3N !   3 + D 3$h  0!  i0   2 H! W A B3'  0  4 , 0   &   !   ' % 

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[W]henever we do possess both [faith and the fullment of the commandments] within a heart free of doubt, then we shall become the Master’s vessels, be made t for the reception of the spiritual myrrh. Then, too, will He Who makes darkness His hidingplace renew us by the gift of the Holy Spirit and raise us up new instead of old, and part the veil of His darkness and carry our mind away, and allow it to peek as through some narrow opening, and grant it to see Him, still somehow dimly, as one might look on the disk of the sun or moon. It is then that the mind is taught—or, put better—knows and is initiated, and is assured that truly in no other way does one arrive at even partial participation in the ineffable good things of God except by way of the heart’s humility, unwavering faith, and the resolve of the whole soul to renounce all the world and everything in it, together with one’s own will, in order to keep all of God’s commandments.

Knowledge is therefore understood to be something that one receives rather than something that one perceives. It is only when one has been initiated and one’s mind has been carried away by the Holy Spirit that one may begin to know God. Yet, while this knowledge lies in the gift of the Holy Spirit, man is not simply a passive recipient, rather there is an understanding of a necessary preparation for the gift:

23

Traités: 284.163–178; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 69.

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If you are not persuaded that a sort of veil covers these things within your heart, but remain instead unconvinced—just like the Hebrews, of whom Paul said the same, i.e., that they do not believe—and if you do not remove this veil from around your heart in order to see the passions which it hides, and so have pity on your wretched soul, and hurry to cleanse it and wash its spiritual eyes and face with hot tears, and throw out behind you all pagan wisdom and knowledge—following the counsel of Paul—so that, by becoming a fool in this world, you may become wise in Christ, then how—tell me!—can I possibly explain to you, who remain a fool, things which concern God and divine matters while the latter remain hidden and invisible?

Here24the New Theologian has repeated his rejection of pagan wisdom and knowledge (the philosophical tradition), asking instead that hot tears reveal the spiritual rather than material means of knowing. This rm rejection of philosophy’s incursions—primarily understood as the application of Aristotelian logic to theological questions—into theology is a consistent theme in Symeon’s writings. Instead, he proposes that knowledge can only begin when God has granted an experience of divine things. For example, in Hymn 21 we are told that the Holy Spirit has not been sent: “to orators, nor to philosophers, nor to those who have studied the works of the Greeks (% ) \S  %3N ) !, % )     . :PS9).”25 In contrast, those graced by divine knowledge:

24

Traités: 288.209–221; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 71. Symeon the New Theologian, Hymns of Divine Love, trans. George Maloney (Denville: Dimension Books, n.d.): 96 (hereafter Hymns); Symeon the New Theologian, Hymnes 16–40, ed. Johannes Koder, Sources Chrétennes 174 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1971): 134.55–56 (hereafter Hymnes 16–40). 25

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33

[R]eceive from the Father the revelation that the Son is begotten without division in the manner that he alone knows, for I cannot say it; if I could, the spoken word would absolutely have the power to say what transcends speech and thought and to turn everything topsy-turvy.

This rejection of scholastic theology is reiterated in Hymn 52 in which Symeon argues that those who have not been transformed by the Holy Spirit are unt to teach. St. Paul is the model employed:2627   *     1 +  ` 9 ?$  Q  $ 9$, k T $D  ) 9 3!?9   A 

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How far or even farther are we all, really, from the dignity of God and divine contemplation, even if we should afrm in a contradictory way that we abide in Him and we possess in us Him who abides in unapproachable light, who also remains and abides in us, and yet we would wish, seated in the bowels of the earth, to philosophize on things that transcend this earth, on things of Heaven and even higher things than that, as though we saw reality accurately, and so we seek to explain to everyone and enjoy being called learned men, theologians, experts and mystics of divine secrets which just proves completely our stupidity.

Hymns: 97; Hymnes 16–40: 138.108–13. Hymns: 265; Symeon the New Theologian, Hymnes 41–58, ed. Johannes Koder, Sources Chrétiennes 196 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1973): 206.86–96 (hereafter Hymnes 41–58). 27

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And then:28 :[ 0   3  .  )  $  !  (9  .   .  ! , .  ' +    A.,—( + 9 @7  U  +9 +—,  9  %2  )  A3,   +  )  T K  33+, % $0 !     K 4  ;28

The one, indeed, who unfortunately was born in the subterranean regions and dwells completely in darkness of this present world, without having seen the light of the future life,—a light which has always shone on the earth and continually is shining—and yet he attempts to speak of everything in Heaven, claiming to have expert knowledge of it all, to see everything that is there above and to be able to teach it to others, is such a person not stupid and even worse than that?

This last phrase draws us directly to Symeon’s perceived enemies. These are the scholastic theologians who apply premises from ancient philosophy to the denition of God. For Symeon, the foundation of divine knowledge was the actual experience of God. Without this, one could in truth say nothing regarding God, for immediate ineffable experience should be privileged over the distance opened by inadequate words and thoughts. Symeon then introduces an allegory into his First Ethical Discourse that denes his understanding of the present conditions of knowledge. He begins by reiterating his critique of the chattering classes of theologians and philosophers: “Since they themselves have not arrived at participation in, nor contemplation nor knowledge of God, they are still chattering about, and giving testimony to matters which they neither understand nor have ever seen (    $h * 9$h 

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$  , i   N + ).”29 As we have seen, for Symeon one required the actual experience of God that visions can provide in order to speak authoritatively of divine things. Only once one’s perception had been changed by these, could one then speak appropriately of natural and supernatural affairs. His aim was not to dismiss the possibility of such knowledge being possible through the things, words, and thoughts

28 29

Hymns: 265; Hymnes 41–58: 206.97–103. Traités: 296.321–323; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 74.

symeon the new theologian: seeing beyond painting

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of this world. To this end, he rejected ecstatic forgetfulness and any form of absolute separation of the self from this world. Rather, he argued that genuine knowledge should begin with an understanding that originated in mystical experience. It is this theme that is exemplied in the Allegory of the Prisoner, which is closely modeled upon Plato’s famous allegory of the cave in the Republic. I will quote from Symeon’s text at some length, as it demonstrates the degree to which he was able both to engage with and contest the very traditions of “pagan wisdom” that he has notionally dismissed. Let me begin with his introduction of the prisoner in his darkened cell:30 :   &  S9   U  R9 + W n  U  B  $   +  9  9 R!, ! k +  /, ' A3O (  . M!

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Think, for example, of someone who is born and raised in a dark and gloomy prison cell. In some momentary gleam from a lamp he just begins to make out, barely, a little something of his room, but remains ignorant that outside the sun is shining, not to mention everything else—I mean just this visible world and all the innumerable works and creations of God. It is exactly thus for the person who lives in the dark prison of this world’s perceptions. When he is illumined by even the briefest knowledge and begins haltingly to pick out some small, dim awareness of the mysteries of our faith, he still remains ignorant in every respect of God’s eternal good things, the inheritance of the saints.

Symeon begins by portraying man as being trapped within the darkness of worldly perceptions. Even the “momentary gleam from a lamp” within this cell can only reveal fragments of knowledge, leaving the prisoner ignorant of the vast expanse of divine knowledge in the brilliance of the cosmos beyond this worldly prison. Having begun on such a low note, Symeon then offers some hope to this prisoner:

30

Traités: 296.339–350; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 75.

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Now, suppose it should happen for the man, sitting for so many years in his lightless prison, that an opening is made in the roof of his cell and that he is enabled to see the blue sky. Suppose that little by little the hole is enlarged so that now he sees a great light such as he has never seen, nor even imagined could exist. Immediately, he is seized with amazement, and becomes like someone transported, keeping his eyes raised toward the light and wondering at what has suddenly happened to him. It is precisely the same for the person who has arrived suddenly at the vision of the spiritual light. Just now liberated from the bonds of the passions and of sensual perceptions, he is astonished and, for those who do not also perceive the light seems like someone who has gone out of his mind. He withdraws his whole intellect into himself in wonder at the vision, at the radiance of Him Who is thus revealed to him.

The hope that is offered is not of the prisoner’s making. It comes when the light beyond his prison walls is able to ood into his cell. Symeon speaks of this as being akin to the achievement of spiritual vision. It transports the beholder, lifting him beyond sensual perceptions, and allowing him to see the light that is God. Once this rst ecstatic experience is absorbed, the prisoner is able to reect and understand his own situation:31 > p +,   )  .  " M  $0 ' #' W, K   )  9 $R     R30 .     " 1T !   2 9  3 ,

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Imagine the rst man looking continuously and every day through that hole. The light continues to illumine and reveal more and more, and to widen the gloomy space of his prison. If he continues for a time in this way,

Traités: 298.351–363; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 75–76.

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37

he starts to become used to the light, and his original astonishment begins to recede . . . the rst man comes to learn through the sun’s light that he has been conned from birth and lives in a gloomy prison. From that little bit of light, he begins to sense the existence outside of certain wonderful things, but he is unable to reason out or understand what in truth they are. Whenever, though, it happens that he is released from his jail, then he comes to the light together with everything and everyone who dwells within it. Even so, picture with me the one who is now released from the bondage of the body’s needs and, for a while, comes to be altogether outside the world and the wretchedness of visible things. Further, picture this whole world as being in fact a dark and lightless prison, and the light of our sun as like that of a little lamp, while outside there lies the inexpressible and ineffable light of the Sun in Three Persons, the light which transcends word and thought and every created light. The things in the world which are lit by that sun are both invisible and unknowable, ineffable and unsearchable, for everyone who inhabits our prison . . . In seeing heaven both day and night, the soul is taught from it, and every day learns from it that it is without evening, innite, and inexpressible. Returning to this prison again the soul no longer desires the world, but longs to see once more that other place and that which it contains.

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In this important passage, Symeon both underlines the visual ground of knowledge—it is through sight that the prisoner engages with the world—and undermines the value of the visible. For he portrays the prisoner’s advancement to self-knowledge as an overcoming of the visible world and the discovery of the pure illumination that lies beyond, a “light that transcends word and thought and every created light.” It is an image of heaven that surpasses reason and that provokes, upon the prisoner’s return to this world, a profound longing. The prisoner must then discipline himself to maintain this experience as a new permanent condition of his existence:3233

32 33

Traités: 298.364–302.415; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 76–77.

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And, when he has thus further persevered so that, little by little, he becomes used to the light and lives as if he had always been within it, then, if I may put it so, that which follows may be reckoned as this: he both sees and knows, is initiated into and taught wonders upon wonders, and mysteries upon mysteries, and visions upon visions. And if he were to want to write them all down, there would not be enough paper nor ink to sufce him. I think that he would lack the time even to tell of these things in any detail. Indeed, how could he in any case write down what cannot be spoken, but which is entirely inexpressible and ineffable? Now, as in the light or—better—as united with it, and as no longer in ecstasy, he instead comes to perceive himself and what is his own. He sees his neighbors as they are in their own right. He knows and predicts that, when he comes to depart this prison and, in particular, after the general resurrection, he will also look upon that unwavering light as it is, and that all the good things within it “which no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love Him,” will be revealed to him the more clearly through the same light within him now and by which he is illumined. We shall not be deprived then of knowing or seeing, but, as we have demonstrated above, according to the measure which each has of the radiance and vision of the light, both the knowledge and vision of God, and the recognition and knowledge of one another shall grow ever greater and more clear in joy inexpressible and rejoicing forever and ever.

Traités: 302.424–304.448; Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 78.

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Conditioned by the possession of divine light, the prisoner has now come to know himself, the things of the world and divine things. Such knowledge cannot be communicated, it can only be possessed. This is understood to be a visual experience, but is not to be confused with the perception of visible things. Needless to say, it has not gone unnoticed that this text bears a remarkable resemblance to Plato’s famous allegory of the cave in the Republic.34 While the extent of Symeon’s direct engagement with Plato’s text is hard to judge, it can be suggested that Symeon’s echo of such a famous passage was an attempt to dene his own account of human knowledge by means of a familiar example. Like Symeon, Plato has placed his men in a subterranean cavern. Plato’s is a more complex space. For example, it is open to the light along its entire width. Unlike Symeon, Plato positions his prisoners within an elaborate staging. These men are only able to look at what is immediately in front of them. There they see the shadows cast by puppets that have been illuminated by a light burning behind the prisoners. They see nothing of themselves or of each other. Hence, Plato concludes that: “in every way such prisoners would deem truth to be nothing else than the shadows of the articial objects.”35 This experience conditions the knowledge that Plato’s prisoners might obtain. Hence, if one of Plato’s prisoners were to be freed from his bonds and was thus able to see the illuminated objects themselves, he would be at a loss as to what it was that he was seeing and would remain dependent upon the prior knowledge obtained from the cast shadows to describe the newly seen object. Given this condition, Plato believed that the prisoner would probably seek to return to the “comfort” of his bonds and the cast shadows. Thus both Plato and Symeon use the cave to describe the conditions of knowledge in this world. For both of them, it is a limited space that needs to be left behind. For Plato, the prisoner must be forced to ascend from the cave before rst looking into the light and thence becoming accustomed to its brilliance. Step by step he could progress from shadows to reections to the

34 Golitzin, On the Mystical Life, vol. 1: 74 n. 5. The secondary literature on Symeon has, however, not explored this signicant echo of Plato’s cave in any depth. My reading of this text and Plato’s have been inuenced by Martin Heidegger, “Plato’s Doctrine of Truth,” in Pathmarks, ed. William McNeill (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998): 155–182. 35 Republic 515b–c.

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things themselves. A process of formation, akin to what can be termed an education, achieved this knowledge of things on the earth and in the heavens. Finally, this prisoner would be able to look directly at the sun, the source of the light, and so understand its nature as a manifestation of the Good. In contrast, the light of illumination is made available to Symeon’s cave dweller from the beginning. Thereafter, the prisoner must become acclimatized to this light, adapting to its unchanging nature. For Symeon, this light was that of the Creator. As such it pervaded everything and was prior to and beyond the material light of Plato’s sun. Finally, when Plato follows his prisoner back to the cave, he is left doubting whether his fellow prisoners could understand this man’s mode of seeing, for he had changed, while they had remained in the shadows. While Plato wished that his prisoner could return and guide his fellows, Symeon deemed the experience of the light to be solitary, exclusive and incommunicable. At the heart of both accounts is the formation necessary for the acquisition of truthful knowledge. For Plato such knowledge had its origins in the Good, which was the origin of all things, including reason and truth: And if you assume that the ascent and the contemplation of the things above is the soul’s ascension to the intelligible region, you will not miss my surmise, since that is what you desire to hear. But God knows whether it is true. But, at any rate, my dream as it appears to me is that in the region of the known the last thing to be seen and hardly seen is the idea of good, and that when seen it must needs point us to the conclusion that this is indeed the cause for all things of all that is right and beautiful, giving birth in the visible world to light, and the author of light and itself in the intelligible world being the authentic source of truth and reason, and that anyone who is to act wisely in private or public must have caught sight of this.36

To achieve this vision, Plato’s prisoner must turn from the shadows to light and thence learn to see its object: Then, if this is true, our view of these matters must be this, that education is not in reality what some people proclaim it to be in their professions. What they aver is that they can put true knowledge into a soul that does not possess it, as if they were inserting vision into blind eyes . . . the true analogy for this indwelling power in the soul and the instrument whereby each of us apprehends is that of an eye that could not be converted

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Republic 517b–c.

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chapter two to the light from the darkness except by turning the whole body. Even so this organ of knowledge must be turned around from the world of becoming together with the entire soul . . . until the soul is able to endure the contemplation of essence and the brightest region of being. And this, we say, is the good, do we not?37

For both Symeon and Plato, higher knowledge involves a transformation of the prisoner, who must become accustomed to the light that opens the objects of their vision to visibility. The knowledge that derives from this experience is built from two conditions. First, the one looking must adapt and change in order to see. Second, the thing seen makes itself available to sight. This conuence of adaptation and availability privileges the object of vision. It is this that determines the conditions of its being seen and therefore of its being known. For Plato, this is determined by the Good. For Symeon, it is God who delimits the boundaries of the visible. Correct vision, determined by its object, has thus become the means of accessing the truth. Granted these similarities, there are also key differences. For Plato, it was important that the prisoner returns with knowledge of the forms and attempt to disseminate these among his fellow prisoners. Symeon, on the other hand, offers no sense of such a possibility of educating his fellows. Rather, the experience of the light is conceived in very personal and incommunicable terms. It cannot be expressed and in an important sense, cannot be a communal knowledge. Instead, each prisoner must await his or her own personal illumination. The path to this illumination also diverges from that proposed by Plato. For Plato, the prisoner, once released from their chains in the prison, must be forced into becoming accustomed to the light. This is a form of education, whereby the prisoner learns and changes so that he might come to understand this light. While, for Symeon, this turning is brought about by penitence. This is less an acquisition of knowledge and rather more an emptying of the self, such that the penitential act opens the human body of the prisoner, so that it might receive the divine vision and accept the conditions of this unveiling. Once this process has been successful, then all vision and all knowledge are subsequently altered. This difference of preparation inserts a distinctively monastic theme into the narrative of the allegory. Symeon’s concern in all his discourses

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Republic 518b–d.

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is with the preparation of a monk to receive the kind of divine vision that Symeon had himself received. A key aspect of this preparation was the process of penitence: “hurry to cleanse it [the soul] and wash its spiritual eyes and face with hot tears.” The persistance of the penitential path suggests a second cave that might have inuenced Symeon’s Allegory of the Prisoner. One of the formative texts for Symeon the New Theologian was the seventh-century Ladder of Divine Ascent written by John Klimakos.38 This was a key spiritual text in Byzantium and was popular among lay and monastic readers.39 The fth step of the ladder, a chapter entitled On Penitence, offers a visit to another cavernous prison. In graphic detail, John describes the self-inicted torments of those within the cavern. The purpose of this is dened in the following manner: Repentance is the renewal of baptism and is a contract with God for a fresh start in life. Repentance goes shopping for humility and is ever distrustful of bodily comfort. Repentance is critical awareness and a sure watch over oneself. Repentance is the daughter of hope and the refusal to despair. (The penitent stands guilty—but undisgraced.) Repentance is reconciliation with the Lord by the performance of good deeds, which are the opposites of the sins. It is the purication of conscience and the voluntary endurance of afiction. The penitent deals out his own punishment, for repentance is the erce persecution of the stomach and the ogging of the soul into intense awareness.40

It is notable that this is one of the most heavily illuminated sections of an eleventh-century manuscript of the Klimakos text produced in the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople. This visual emphasis underlines the signicence of this penitential theme for the Stoudite community and its conception of proper monastic practice.41 The manuscript in question is Vatican gr. 394 and it can be dated to the later eleventh

38 Symeon read a copy of this work that was held in his parent’s library. He cited it extensively in his writings. 39 Charles Barber, “Icons, Prayer, and Vision in the Eleventh Century,” Byzantine Christianity, ed. Derek Krueger (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006): 160–163. 40 Climacus, Ladder: 121. 41 Penitence has been helpfully discussed at Irénée Hausherr, Penthos: The Doctrine of Compunction in the Christian East (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1982). Stoudite spirituality is introduced at Irénée Hausherr, Saint Théodore Studite: L’homme et l’ascète (d’après ses Catéchèses), Orientalia Christiana Analecta 22 (Rome: Ponticium Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1926).

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century.42 Between folios 41v and 48v there are nineteen images of penitents in a monastic prison.43 If we look at the images on folio 42r (g. 9), we can be drawn into the imaginary world of this monastic space. The text on this folio describes two different groups of prisoners: Others raised their eyes to heaven, wept, cried, and implored help from there.44 Others prayed with their hands tied behind their backs, like criminals, their faces blackened with grief and bent earthward, since they thought themselves unworthy to look up to heaven. Overcome by their reections and the weight of conscience, they could not speak, could not pray to God, could not even make a beginning of prayer; and lled, as it seemed, with darkness and empty despair, they could offer God only a blank soul and a wordless mind.45

These texts and their accompanying images offer a spectacle of abasement. The goal offered by Klimakos for these monks was that they should purify the senses through their acts of penitence.46 As such the prison functions as a key monastic site for overcoming our present sensible conditions. Central to this operation is penitence, and central to penitence is the economy of tears. As such, we are returned to the eyes. The centrality of penitence for Symeon’s visual economy is brought forth by the role of tears. We have already been introduced to this in the First Ethical Discourse. There, Symeon asks that his reader cleanse the passions from his heart by washing his eyes and face with hot tears. For Symeon, it is Adam who embodies the play of vision and penitence. The gift of life to Adam was mediated through his eyes (g. 10). Here in this image from the Stoudite Theodore Psalter, completed in 1066, we see God reach down and touch Adam’s eyes. This is the moment of his animation, when the soul enters his material body. Since the eyes were granted such a central place in the Creation, they remained

42 John Rupert Martin, The Illustration of the Heavenly Ladder of John Climacus (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954): 47–87 and 177–81; Kathleen Corrigan, “Constantine’s problems: the making of the Heavenly Ladder of John Climacus, Vat. gr. 394,” Word and Image 12 (1996): 61–93. Note also Henry Maguire’s important discussion of sorrow in Byzantine art: Henry Maguire, “The Depiction of Sorrow in Middle Byzantine Art,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31 (1977): 123–74. 43 These were to become the basis for the later distinct illustration of the penitential canon: Martin, Illustration: 128–49. 44 Climacus, Ladder: 122. 45 Climacus, Ladder: 122. 46 Climacus, Ladder: 131.

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crucial to the imagery of the Fall. The tears that Adam weeps as he sits outside Paradise, seen here on an ivory plaque from Baltimore (g. 11), mark our present condition.47 His weeping marks the loss of the sight of God that had been available to him from the moment of Creation. In Paradise he had been with God and had seen and conversed with God. Outside of Paradise’s gates, God was to become a distant and hidden voice mediated by angels and symbols. The tears shed on leaving the Garden of Eden thus mark this loss. At the same time they also introduce the penitential quality of human existence and the path of return to the sight and presence of the divine. The value of the eyes for this visual economy of salvation is exemplied in Symeon’s Hymn 53.48 The hymn, probably written after 1009, opens with an exchange of looks. The author invites Christ to look upon him. This is necessarily prior to Symeon’s ability to look at Christ:49 €+7    6 +   4 7 S  F   T #4   &- , .  ! .49

Shine on me even now as before and illumine my soul, enlighten my eyes to see You, Light of the world.

The reason for this request is given in the following somewhat anxious question:50 L$  !9!  4 ; L$ 9$RW  , Q  , o %  9   .  4 9;50

Why do You hide Your face? Why do You separate Yourself from me, O my God, who never wish to be separated from those who love You?

Sight thus becomes a means of reassurance, assuring one of a mutual presence. This economy of common yet orderly vision is underlined by this description of the saints:

47 Henry Maguire, “The Panels from Adam and Eve Caskets,” in The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era A.D. 843–1261, ed. Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997): 234–36. 48 Symeon the New Theologian, Hymns of Divine Love, trans. George Maloney (Denville: Dimension Books, nd): 267–73; Symeon the New Theologian, Hymnes 41–58, ed. Johannes Koder, Sources Chrétennes 196 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1973): 212–235. 49 Symeon, Hymns: 267; Symeon, Hymnes: 212.7–10. 50 Symeon, Hymns: 267; Symeon, Hymnes: 214.18–21.

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With them You share and seeing them You are seen by them in turn.

Christ’s51response is to deny that he has separated himself from man.52 Rather, Christ, who was light before all creation is everywhere and in all things.53 The nature of this presence is then examined:54 <' %3N . + 9 u0, %3N + 9  + 9, %3"   . + 9 u9F %3 3N  0,   + 9 u9. j03N C . + 9 9

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Nevertheless I was none of these things, not completely with all nor even within all, but without being united with anything, still I was with all. I was not therefore any of all these things; yet I was in all without being there, and I was in the midst of all visible things, animate and inanimate, those things enjoying sense life and those with no sense life, those separated from Me and those that totally do not know Me.

This complex and paradoxical relationship is then imparted to man, who is given a dual nature composed of body and soul.55 Man’s privileged dual status is expressed in this manner: L  C 6 A0  N 4 . &99  3! 0 A+0, 3  & +  % 2 !D B +?, (9 W  @

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Symeon, Symeon, Symeon, Symeon, Symeon,

Hymns: Hymns: Hymns: Hymns: Hymns:

I made him therefore as sensate, lord of the visible creatures and their master, I placed all visible things as slaves in submission to him, so that he may see My works

267; Symeon, Hymnes: 214.44–216.46. 268; Symeon, Hymnes: 216.57–68. 268; Symeon, Hymnes: 216.71–218.75. 268; Symeon, Hymnes: 218.78–89. 268–69; Symeon, Hymnes: 218.90–220.110.

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and praise Me, their Creator. But as far as he was a reasonable being, capable of intellectual contemplation, I gave him the ability to see Me and I placed him by this means to be worthy of the angels. See, be attentive to what I have just told you. Man being a composite being, saw with his sensible eyes all My creatures. But with those of his intelligence he saw My face, the Creator’s. He contemplated my glory and conversed with me hourly.

What56Symeon has described is the visual possibility in the prelapsarian Eden. This capacity has a double aspect and thus qualies our more material understanding of vision by distinguishing between sensible and intelligible vision. Sensible vision is given to man so that he may see the created world, while intelligible vision is that which has allowed him to see and be with God. Vision is thus the primary means of describing man’s knowledge of both creature and Creator. While Adam is not blinded to creation at the Fall, he has lost the intelligible vision that had allowed him to see God.57 It is this loss in particular that his tears mark:58 [  3N '  S      ?4 @,  0     !   +  , 9 X.58

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But when he transgressed My commandment and ate of the tree he became blind and was covered with the darkness of death, as I have said.

Symeon, Hymns: 269; Symeon, Hymnes: 220.120–222.139. The various kinds of vision are discussed at length by Symeon’s pupil Niketas Stethatos. See: Barber, “Icons, Prayer and Vision.” 58 Symeon, Hymns: 269–70; Symeon, Hymnes: 222.140–44. 57

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The Fall is thus directly linked to vision. Once Symeon has introduced this idea of the loss of sight, he belabors the point, as Symeon then introduces the reason for the continuing fallen state:59 & ’;3  9 . 

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Adam rst became blind when I reprimanded him and taught him to seek repentance from Me, but he did not consent, rather he showed no sign at all of humility.

The message is clear. If Adam had been contrite and suitably penitential, he would not have lost sight of God. Penitence is hereby announced as the path of recovery. But being outside of Paradise, Adam has also ceased to exercise reason:60 p .,  #+ 9 3$ M 7 '  9)  Q ' .. ƒ. , A 9$0, B  7  ) F M 7 ' 3N 9) $ $0 BS;60

Like a body deprived of eyes, the soul became blind and could not see God. The body, if it were blind, is moved by the soul. But what is it that moves the soul that has become blind?

The absence of God has left the soul without motivation. It is then that Christ takes pity on mankind and becomes incarnate in order to restore the visible order:61 K9 6+0 -. H $ C (9   ^!0  ; [   4 D + 9 @ , O  X,  ’;3   -  . . . ‚, ! ! @9  &- " 9, 6  K9    &.61

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I was seen as man before all. For what reason, therefore, did I agree to do this? Because for the same reason as I said that I have created Adam: to contemplate Me . . . You see what desire I had to be seen by men as to wish to become man and to be seen visibly.

Symeon, Hymns: 270; Symeon, Hymnes: 222.160–64. Symeon, Hymns: 270; Symeon, Hymnes: 222.180–87. Symeon, Hymns: 271; Symeon, Hymnes: 226.203–07, 220–23.

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This is a striking claim, making the visibility of God, a return to Adam’s Edenic experience, central to the incarnation. But what then is the nature of this vision? Here, it is important to remember that Symeon was focused on the experience and vision of God. To incorporate icons into this economy presents some difculties. An icon was only meant to pertain to ordinary human knowledge and visual capacity, while God must absolutely transcend these potential limits.62 Symeon might have chosen to use the medium of the icon to explore the changed nature of these capacities, yet he chooses not to do this. Rather, the experience of the divine, while made available in the present world, was not conveyed by or through the things in this world. Rather, as an intelligible experience this experience made itself available in an extraordinary manner as light.63 To understand the distinction of sensible from spiritual vision better we need to turn to Hymn 23.64 This hymn considers the means by which man might know divine things. Here, Symeon argues that such knowledge is intellectual and spiritual rather than sensible and material. The hymn begins by asking how the divine can be perceived, being both within and beyond all creation.65 To do this he provides an account of vision that uses the sun as a model: + …  ) (A0     9,    K i9 X3),   4    )  0 $ A ) #)  . L 3N . . #.  F K  ? 9 . F L C .  )  ) . B+  0,

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the sun causes rays to shine (I speak to you of the sensible sun, for the other one, you have not yet seen it) in every case you see the rays of this sun, they are perceptible to your eyes. But the light of your eyes was found united to your eyes. Now answer my question: how then is your light united to the rays? Is it in a union which does not mingle them

62 Bernard Fraigneau-Julien, Les sens spirituels et la vision de Dieu selon Syméon le Nouveau Théologien, Théologie historique 67 (Paris: Beauchesne, 1985): 99–102. 63 Fraigneau-Julien, Sens spirituels, 102 underlines the frequency in Symeon’s writings of the use of the idea of light to convey the experience of God. 64 Hymnes II 188–225; Hymns 113–125. 65 Hymnes II 188.1–192.68; Hymns 113–114.

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chapter two or are they blended together? I know, you will say they are not mingled and you will recognize also that they are mixed and you will tell me that the light is perceptible, when the eyes are really open and very clean.

Symeon66thus describes vision as a mixing of two elements, the light from the thing seen and the light that comes from his own eyes.67 These do not unite, but co-exist. Notably, he then returns us to the penitential model by reminding his audience that the eyes must be clean, that is washed by tears. Later in the hymn, Symeon tries to dene the experience of seeing God:68 PA 3N T   % , . N  B+  9   D !   (  09. >-    ?$F % &-  3N & S0, " &-  + 9, 6   M$ !0,  0  % ) +, K0  n  " %$. :_   N - , … ) 3N -,    %  0 S , p Y, S 9.68

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If you do not see Him, know that you are blind and, though you are in the midst of the light, you are completely lled with darkness. He shows Himself to those who are worthy of it. They do not see the One who lls everything but they see Him in an invisible manner, as a unique ray of light, and for them He is perceptible, He the imperceptible by essence. It is the ray that we see —He, the sun, blinds instead— and its ray is perceptible for you, as we have said, in an imperceptible manner.

Hymnes II 194.86–196.102; Hymns 115. Here we might note the similar description of vision offered by Plato in the section of the Republic that immediately precedes, and indeed prefaces, the allegory discussed above: Republic VI.18–19 (507C–509B). 68 Hymnes II 202.226–204.239; Hymns 118. 67

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Thus, those that are worthy, are able to see God by means of a ray of light that is both perceptible and imperceptible. This experience is highly individualized and surpasses both the material and intellectual levels of perception:69 †[ & 9 @?9 + 9  ! ! @   %3N . + 9  & . *  9F !0 ' L+3 .69

And he who sees Him, outside of everything, is alone with the Alone and he sees nothing of all the visible and intellectual things. It is the Trinity alone that he sees.

Having thus limited and elevated this visual encounter with the Trinity, Symeon then returns to the double nature of human vision:70 c.  3  B+  3 T @ T ‡, A0 T  4 , 6 3 . M$9 ` 9  3  9  64 9, A0   0  , ˆ A , 6  $00  "   K9 @W. PA 3N A0  N , 0  %3. 3N …, M' + + 9.70

Know then that you are double and that you possess two eyes, the sensible and the spiritual. Since there are also two suns there is also a double light, sensible and spiritual, and if you see them, you will be the man as you were created in the beginning to be. If you see the sensible sun and not the spiritual sun, you are really half dead.

Here Symeon argues that man has both an intellectual and sensible capacity. If he exercises both as fully as he ought, then he will be like Adam. But if he only sees the sensible sun, then he is limited, almost lifeless. As is clear from these quotations, Symeon deploys oxymoronic language to police a paradoxical knowledge.71 Hence, we nd the following passage in the fourth Ethical Treatise:

69 70 71

Hymns II 216.425–429; Hymns 122. Hymns II 218.448–458; Hymns 123. Fraigneau-Julien, Sens spirituels: 109.

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Having been made rich with Him, they shall see invisibly the inexpressible beauty of God Himself. They shall hold Him without touching. They shall comprehend incomprehensibly His imageless image, His formless form, His shape without shape which, in sight without seeing and in beauty uncompounded, is ever varied and unchanging.

By these means Symeon continually challenges the limits of human knowledge, bringing attention to that which is beyond the ordinary boundaries of our perceptions. By keeping both the intelligible and the sensible in play, Symeon succeeds in delineating and disrupting the connes of sensible experience. This dualism pervades his discourses. When it is brought to bear on the senses themselves, Symeon argues in the Third Ethical Discourse that the different knowledges mediated by the senses need to be both superceded and brought to some unity by the intellect working within a divine order that organizes them:72 $ Y0 @9  / 7 U  ‰  !D, A   . 3$R  )  ) +   ,  N 9  3 .   3 0 3 9 AS9, u    9  0 '  3$ ,   % % S,  3’ %  M 7 S, 8 9 3N  4   #0   0  U ]U 3$ . ’P 3N )   ) %   $ AS9 3)  +R , %  R0 )  T #T  A3) u  . ` 9 +, %3N Š  ! A3?, %3N `0 - A  #?9 #$F %3N 3)  9 *  0  '    *   &  3+, %3N .

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[Man] possesses a single perception in a unique soul and intellect and reason. While this perception is divided up ve ways according to the physical necessities of the body, it manifests its activity by changing unchangeably, such that it is not sight which sees, but the soul which sees by means of sight, and the same holds true for hearing and smelling, for tasting, and for distinguishing by touch. With regard to spiritual matters, however, the soul is no longer obliged to discern through the windows of the senses. It no longer seeks to open the eyes in order to see or contemplate some existing thing, nor the ears in order to admit discourse. Neither does it require lips or tongue in order to distinguish

Eth. II 68.856–70.861; Mystical Life 2.39.

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sweet from bitter, nor hands in order to know by means of them what is rough, or soft, or smooth. Rather, perception goes outside all of these and is gathered together wholly within the intellect, as being naturally consequent upon the latter and inseparably one with it. To put it more precisely, it possesses the ve senses within itself as one rather than several . . .Therefore, when the one God of all appears in revelation to the one and rational soul, every good thing is revealed to it and appears to it at one and the same time through all is senses. He [God] is both seen and heard, is sweet to the taste and perfume to the sense of smell; He is felt and so made known. He both speaks and is spoken. He knows and is recognized, and is perceived as knowing. For the one who is known by God knows that he is known, and he who sees God knows that God sees him. He who does not see God, however, does not know that God sees him, in that he does not see, though he may see everything else and miss nothing.

Thus while sensible perception is unied by the soul following its mediation by the ve senses, intelligible perception is singular and beyond the sensible domain. Thence, its object, God, unies this spiritual perception.73 It is apparent from the texts discussed above that sight was foremost among the senses for Symeon.74 He builds this point from an understanding that knowledge begins with vision. It is an assumption that embraces both the things in the world and divine matters. Hence: “There is no other way for anyone to know about God unless it is by means of the contemplation of the light which is sent by Him.”75 The reason for this is that:

73

Eth. I 400.153–404.197; Mystical Life 1.122–123. This point is discussed at length in the Fifth Ethical Discourse: Eth. II 96.224–106.354; Mystical Life 2.51–56. 75 Eth. II 98.254–257; Mystical Life 2.52. 74

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God is light and the vision of Him is as light. Thus, in the vision of the light there is knowledge rst of all that God is, just as in the case of a man there is rst hearing about him, then sight of him, and with the sight of him the knowledge that the man about whom one has heard does in fact exist.

For76Symeon such a gift of vision opens divine presence in the world. This light is understood to be unmediated. A point that is underlined when Symeon offered a comparison of the knowledge of God with the knowledge of man. God is only known by the immediate vision of divine light, while in the case of a man vision serves as an afrmation of a knowledge rst introduced by verbal means. This distinction is important, as can be seen when we now turn to the second major account of an icon that can be connected to Symeon. This was not written by the New Theologian, but was given a central place in the Life of Symeon written by Niketas Stethatos. The icon appears toward the end of Niketas’s account of Symeon’s lengthy dispute with Stephen of Nikomedia, which culminated in debate over the proper status of an icon of Symeon’s spiritual father, Symeon the Pious.77 The events that precede this debate begin with the death of Symeon the Pious in 986 or 987.78 Soon after this date, and prompted by divine inspiration, Symeon initiated a cult of this father. This consisted of the normal trappings for the cult of a saint: a feast day marking Symeon the Pious’s death, encomia written in praise of the man, hymns sung in his honor, a biography, and an icon.79 When the popularity of the cult had brought it to the attention of Patriarch Sergios II (1001–1019), he invited Symeon the New Theologian to explain the basis for his devotion. Symeon presented him with his writings on Symeon the Pious. Once these were read and approved, the Patriarch undertook to send candles and incense on the feast day of the holy man. The cult and

76

Eth. II 100.276–279; Mystical Life 2.53. Hausherr, Vie de Syméon: 98–128. This is examined at length in: Barber, “Icon and Portrait” from which this section of the chapter is drawn. 78 For an introduction to the life and writings of this gure see Hilarion Alfeyev, Syméon le Studite, Discours Ascétique, Sources chrétiennes 460 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2001). 79 Vie de Syméon: 98. 77

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all its trappings thereby received Patriarchal sanction at the start of the eleventh century, perhaps in 1001 or 1002.80 In 1003 Stephen of Nikomedia, a synkellos in the Patriarchate of Constantinople whose particular province was to advise the Patriarch on theology and teaching within the church, challenged this new cult before the Holy Synod. Two related issues were discussed at this meeting. First, Sergios II criticized Symeon for having allowed the cult to become excessive. Signicantly, Sergios noted that while the celebration of Symeon the Pious had become popular, the status of the holy man, even granted the existing Patriarchal sanction, remained open to question. Given this, the Patriarch asked Symeon to limit the cult to the precinct of his own monastic community. Stephen of Nikomedia elaborated on this point. He claimed that Symeon the New Theologian had wrongfully proclaimed “a sinner, his spiritual father, a saint among saints.” In response to this double charge, Symeon said little regarding the specic nature of the holiness of Symeon the Pious. As we shall see, silences play signicant roles in the narrative of these events. Symeon focused upon the question of an excessive cult. Using a series of Biblical and Patristic quotations, he argued that the practice of veneration was an important Christian act as the honor directed towards his spiritual father was passed on through him to Christ. Furthermore, Symeon contended that the cult was benecial, as it provided in the person of the saint a model of holiness for those that participated in it.81 Niketas presents this second trial as a victory for Symeon, even though it appears to result in a re-privatization of the cult of this particular saint. Furthermore, while this meeting did not specically address the role of the icon in the cult, the issue of the saint’s holiness was to return as a crucial turning point in the distinction between the icon of a holy man and the portrait of a beloved forebear. At the end of 1008 Stephen of Nikomedia persuaded the Holy Synod to return to this matter. This time, the icon itself was made the central issue in the dispute. Immediately preceding the trial, renegade monks from Symeon’s own community had taken the icon of Symeon the Pious from the church of the monastery of St. Mamas, Symeon the New Theologian’s monastery. They brought it to the patriarchal

80 81

Vie de Syméon: 100. Vie de Syméon: 112–118.

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palace and there subjected it to a remarkable visual test. The icon was compared to images of other saints and of Christ himself. This action implies that, in a very specic manner, they were trying to provide a visual test to dene whether Symeon the Pious could literally be seen to be “a saint among saints.” Unfortunately, the participants in this examination could come to no rm conclusion. One party felt that Symeon could indeed be imagined among these saints, while a second party argued that the icon did not in fact show a saint. This difculty is important for the narrative being constructed by Niketas, as it reiterates the disputability of human knowledge. Since the matter remained unresolved after this act of comparison, the icon was then brought before the permanent patriarchal synod.82 The Life then jumps to Symeon’s defense of the icon and its cult. This is largely a recapitulation of his earlier case, but with the icon inserted as a point of reference. Hence he argued that it was not only important to honor the saints, but also to honor them through their icons. The notion of the “saints-as-models” introduced in the rst trial is similarly given a more precise visual framing when, for example, he notes that he also painted the saint on the walls of his monastery as a “model and archetype of virtuous conduct.”83 Once he has made this more visually oriented case, Symeon then turned to the icon itself and prays before it in these terms: Saint Symeon, thanks to the participation of the Holy Spirit you have come to resemble the icon of my Lord Jesus Christ. Following a long struggle, you are dressed in the brilliant garb of the passionless. You are bathed in your own tears, which in their abundance are like the waters of baptism. You bear Christ within yourself, whom you have loved, and who loved you so very much. You whose holiness, which equals that of the apostles, was revealed to me by a voice from on high, come now to my defense. O wretched me, who is on trial for your sake. Bring me the strength that I need to struggle on behalf of you and your image. Or rather on behalf of Christ, as he has taken upon himself all that is ours except sin, and takes upon himself, being God, all the affronts and mockery that men do to us. Until I also will share in the glory that you have already had in this life; as I witnessed when I was shown you standing at God’s right hand. A glory that you among all the saints deserve even more now.84

82 83 84

Vie de Syméon: 120. Vie de Syméon: 124. Vie de Syméon: 124.

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Following this prayer, Symeon falls silent. Without any reported argument and without any resistance, Stephen of Nikomedia then simply walked up to the icon and erased half of the inscription that named the saint. As one would expect in a post-iconoclastic icon, the saint was named on his icon. This would have read: [ ]$ ƒ , literally “The Holy Symeon.” Stephen removed the rst part of this, leaving only the personal name, “Symeon.” The portrait was then returned to Symeon the New Theologian. The following day, he was sent into exile, his homilies and hymns on the holy man were banned from public performance, and all other icons of Symeon the Pious were destroyed.85 While this narrative tells us a great deal about the formation of a cult around an icon and the person it presents, it is even more important, in the context of this chapter, for the manner in which it illustrates the fundamental distinction between the thought world represented by Symeon the New Theologian and that of Stephen of Nikomedia. Stephen’s role in this text is to embody the style of theology that Symeon is seeking to overturn. Stephen can be dened as a scholastic theologian. As such he deploys Aristotle’s logic to the analysis of language in order to perfect human description and therefore knowledge of holy things. Symeon rejects this model. Where Stephen offers discourse, Symeon falls silent. In so doing, he discloses one of his fundamental assumptions. Namely, that the knowledge of divine things is ineffable. They might be experienced, should one open oneself to such a participatory experience, but such experience cannot be communicated. Furthermore, Symeon believed that those who attempted to describe and dene divine things could not even begin to do so unless they had rst experienced the mystery of the divine. In the case of this icon of Symeon the Pious we can witness Stephen of Nikomedia applying a traditional conception of the power of language to designate an human understanding. This has been suggested in the text from the Third Ethical Treatise quoted above. But Symeon does not accept language’s power to designate. He is silent because the experience of Symeon the Pious’s holiness cannot be transmitted by graphic means, whether visual or verbal. Niketas’s text reminds us that Symeon the New Theologian made use of icons, even though he rarely discussed them. This use falls into traditional patterns. The icon provides a focus for prayer as well as a

85

Vie de Syméon: 126–128.

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visible model of holiness. Yet, as was seen at the start of this chapter and also in Symeon’s lack of defense for the icon of his spiritual father, Symeon sought something more than was possible from the man-made icon. If we now return to the evidence for the use of icons by Symeon we can understand the terms of this rst encounter a little more. Symeon has looked at the icon in the hope of recovering the original vision of Christ that is now lost to him. While the immediate object of vision is an icon of the Theotokos, Symeon’s actual experience is of Christ alone. This distinction between the visible object and the visual experience once again reinforces the point that what we see is that which is given to us to see rather than that which we choose to see. The point is summarized in this passage from the First Thanksgiving:86 L   M-  Q  +, 3$. ’;9 3N M.    , %  6  !  K * $3 & K  $3 @  * '  $  K?  9  %  9U  M- +R . ’; .; ’P U , ' QF Q 3N %  S  *   , "   S D  0+D  !D 9 9  ] 3$ —%3N    A) *

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Brothers, these are the wonders of God toward us! When we ascend toward the More Perfect, the shapeless and formless appears to us, but not as previously shapeless or formless, nor does He silently bring forth in us the presence and the coming of his light. But how is this so? In a certain shape, a divine shape nevertheless. God is not in a drawing or a representation, but has taken shape in an incomprehensible and inaccessible and shapeless light—about which we are unable to say or evoke any more. He shows Himself as He is and makes Himself knowable in an altogether conscious manner. The invisible One, lets Himself be seen in full. Invisibly He speaks and listens as friend to friend, face to face. The One who is God by nature converses with the gods born of Him by grace. He loves his sons like a father and is loved by them. He becomes to them a thing strange to see and even more awesome to hear, no longer being able to be expressed by them and not wanting to be buried in silence.

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Symeon’s writing, while celebrating the possibility of divine vision, contains a profound critique of the limited quality of human vision and knowledge and the iconic culture that is produced in relation to these. Icons, as man-made things, are bound by these limits and so are not able to participate in Symeon’s visual economy of the divine. The writings of Symeon the New Theologian have bequeathed a very rich account of mystical vision. In examining this Christian visual experience, Symeon develops a strong distinction between the human and the divine as they exist in themselves and in each other. Symeon seeks to recover man’s original condition, understood as being a state of being with God. This was known by means of sight. But here Symeon drew a distinction between spiritual and material vision. Both were possessed by man in Eden. However, spiritual vision, the means by which one might see God, was lost at the Fall. Man was left with the limited possibilities of material vision and the visible world. While God might be present in this world, he was not visible there. This condition could only be overcome by divine intervention and was signalled by an experience of formless light. The formless, immaterial, and inexpressible quality of this light removes it from the realm of the visible that can be represented in an icon or conveyed by language. Thus the monk does not look at an icon and thence ascend to that which lies behind it. Rather, he disregards this manufacured object and opens himself to receive a visual experience that lies beyond the visible limits of the given icon. Clearly, then, while Symeon privileges visual experience, his understanding of this must lead him to limit the value of the all-too-human icon.

CHAPTER THREE

MICHAEL PSELLOS: SEEING THROUGH PAINTING Therefore on one occasion he set up her [the Theotokos’s] icon before him and having looked at it earnestly, he spoke to her with the voice of the Archangel saying both parts of the “Hail.” And in this manner he shaped a rhythmic song of praise, so that while he looked at the divine icon (and now trembling and astonishment have seized me) she changed completely into her eshly nature. And then when she rst gazes upon him with her eyes, O awesome countenance and voice and such gracious eyes, she speaks gently, whispering softly through her lips: “Hail you as well, father!” With a calm soul he said: “Hail! For I see you, the cause of joy!” If someone does not believe these things, I might not argue. But, if one might be disposed to accept this [account], one should not stop at this [acceptance]. Rather, [one should] imitate the virtue of the man and yearn for his dispassion, with which, or by means of which, one might achieve these things. For the struggle and exertion better enable one to conquer nature, to rise up above struggles of all kinds until one sees the divine visibles. When this has been achieved, one speaks with the higher things, for then while the mind has contemplated the unchanging, the corporeal eyes have received the manifestations of the divine. There is nothing that spirits embedded in matter are more anxious about than being separated from matter (which is the outcome of these actions). Hence, they that come near and act spitefully to us are clothed in the complete darkness of matter. For as long as we are in the esh we are in the middle of extremes, the material and the intellectual, and are neither purely intellectual nor purely material; for something is contributed to us by each of these. As we are a mixture of the intellectual and the material it is necessary that our actions be in accordance with God. For if we cease to act in this way, then we will not achieve the city of the living God, and shall be cast into the furnace of re. But if we are satised with ignorance, we might see light, but replete with deceptions and trickery. Rather, we ought to be in divine darkness whence the light without dissimulation and the truth shine. For the intellect has revealed that what is in the body is neither wholly natural nor material, for the burdens that are united to this [body] disclose the assaults, like the stalk and the husks and the beard [disclose] the corn. The devil does not remain distant from spiritual vision. For the devil knows that that which is in the material, is that from which he gains his power.1

1

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The above text is taken from an Epitaphios written by the philosopher Michael Psellos for Nicholas, the deceased Abbot of the Monastery of the Beautiful Source on Mount Olympos in Bithynia. The text perhaps dates to 1055, when Psellos endured a brief and unhappy monastic life on Mount Olympos. This Epitaphios is much more than a commemoration of the deceased abbot, as it also serves as a kind of manifesto for Psellos’s belief that philosophy could be brought to bear on Christian theological problems and practices and thence lead to a more intellectually rigorous monasticism. As such, his thought and writings stand in marked contrast to those of Symeon the New Theologian. When Psellos states: “But if we are satised with ignorance, we might see light, but replete with deceptions and trickery” we should understand this to be a reiteration, in opposition to Symeon, of his belief in the value of intellectual preparation for a proper understanding of spiritual experience. The story of Nicholas’s prayer can also allow us to begin to dene how Psellos’s accounts of icons exemplies his wider intellectual project. The story occurs in the part of the text that discusses Nicholas’s rst

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Nicolas de la Belle Source par Michel Psellos moine à l’Olympe,” Byzantina 6 (1974): 51.491–52.524.

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period on Mount Olympos in the early years of the eleventh century. Psellos has just noted the liberating spiritual effects of a retreat to this mountain.2 Such that Nicholas, now puried by his spiritual activities, is able to experience the miracle of direct communication with the Theotokos in the icon. Two actions serve as preparations for Nicholas’s miraculous conversation with the Virgin Mary (g. 8). First, Nicholas has “shaped a rhythmic song of praise” that has directly addressed the subject of the icon. The song is built upon the “Hail” addressed to Mary by the Archangel Gabriel, a choice of word that might indicate that Nicholas was singing the Akathistos hymn, one of the key Marian and monastic hymns throughout the history of Byzantium.3 The chant is written in a manner that invites a response. Second, Psellos tells us that the icon has “changed completely into her eshly nature.” As we shall see below, it is this quality of change that matters a great deal to Psellos’ account of the icon, as it marks the moment of the miracle and the changed status of the icon itself. At this point one might say that it is this quasi-ritual preparation that enables this particular viewer to see a change in the medium of the icon that has been gifted by the subject seen through that icon. A second strand found in this text is the role given to the body. We are told that Nicholas sees through corporeal eyes and that the fullness of the vision that meets these eyes is that which occurs when the icon has itself become “eshly.” Thus, while complete vision hovers between the sensual and the intellectual, it is remarked and shared when this sight becomes apparent in the body and to the body. The importance of the sensual ground for vision is developed in a third strand, which introduces Psellos’s conception of appropriate spirituality. To his way of thinking it is fundamental that man is a being who occupies the middle ground between the intellectual and

2 Gautier, “Eloge:” 49.435–50.482. This might be compared with the sense of place found in the Life of St. Auxentios that Psellos also wrote while exiled on Olympos himself. See Elizabeth A. Fisher, “Michael Psellos in a Hagiographical Landscape: The Life of St. Auxentios and the Encomion of Symeon the Metaphrast,” Reading Michael Psellos, ed. Charles Barber and David Jenkins (Leiden: Brill, 2006): 57–72. 3 This identication is suggested by Günter Weiss: Günter Weiss, “Die Leichenrede des Michael Psellos auf den Abt Nikolaos vom Kloster von der Schönen Quelle,” Byzantina 9 (1977): 246 n. 17. On the importance of this hymn for monastic spirituality see: Alexandra Pätzold, Der Akathistos-Hymnos: Die Bilderzyklen in der Byzantinischen Wandmalereien des 14. Jahrhunderts (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1989): 55–99.

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the material domains, participating in both. This might be contrasted with Symeon’s emphasis upon the intelligible domain. For Psellos, to be truthful to this twofold nature, spiritual experience must embrace them both. This theme dominates the last part of the text I have given you, where the true experience of holy things is shown to begin with an inescapable contest over the body. This is not a purely material thing. Rather, the assaults made on its evident materiality disclose the invisible intellectual aspect of man. Similarly, God, known through Christ, is conceived as being both dark and light. It is by our dwelling in the “divine darkness,” the means of the material manifestation of an incarnate God, that we are able to receive illumination and truth. Hence the value granted to both the sensual and the intellectual in Psellos’s account of spiritual vision. The conversation with the icon of the Theotokos exemplies this spiritual structure. Nicholas works within the material domain, looking with his corporeal eyes at the manufactured image, he prepares his body to receive the visible and verbal manifestation of the Theotokos herself, who has at this moment made herself available to his human senses by letting him see through the icon. It is this incorporation of the icon itself into the spiritual process that marks the most striking difference between Psellos’s account of a prayer before an icon and that offered by Symeon the New Theologian. In order to bring this difference forward, it is important to understand the real divide that separates Psellos from Symeon. Fortunately, Psellos has left many writings that can help us to dene his intellectual project (g. 12).4 A useful beginning can be made with a letter written by Michael Psellos to John Xiphilinos.5 This letter dates to 1055 shortly after Psellos had returned to Constantinople following his brief monastic exile on Mount Olympos.6 John Xiphilinos had led the law school in

4 Useful introductions to Michael Psellos include: Christophe Zervos, Un philosophe néoplatonicien du XI e siècle: Michel Psellos. Sa vie, son oeuvre, ses luttes philosophiques, son inuence (Paris: Éditions Ernest Leroux, 1920); Perikles Joannou, Christliche Metaphysik in Byzanz, 1: Die Illuminationslehre des Michael Psellos und Joannes Italos (Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag, 1956); Anthony Kaldellis, The Argument of Psellos’ Chronographia (Leiden: Brill, 1999); Reading Michael Psellos, eds. Charles Barber and David Jenkins (Leiden: Brill, 2006). 5 The most recent edition of the letter is: Michele Psello, Epistola a Giovanni Xilino, ed. Ugo Criscuolo, 2nd revd. ed. (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1990). Other examples of the prevalence of this scholastic tradition will be introduced later in this book in my discussions of the trials of Symeon the New Theologian, John Italos, and Leo of Chalcedon. 6 Criscuolo reviews the discussion of this date and the alternatives in Psello, Xiphilino: 15–20.

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Constantinople when Psellos had led the philosophy school there. The Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–55) had founded these two schools in 1045. Both Xiphilinos and Psellos had been forced to leave their positions ca. 1054–55 and to enter monasteries on Olympos. There, Xiphilinos underwent an intellectual transformation and remained a monastic, while Psellos shows no signs of having been altered by his monastic experience and, indeed, spent only a brief time in exile. Later, Xiphilinos was to become Patriarch of Constantinople (1064–75) and in many ways can be said to embody the continuing tradition of logical theology that shaped the church’s orthodoxy in the eleventh century. This letter marks these different intellectual traditions as Psellos attempts to explain his leaving the monastic life and his attachment to his philosophical education. The letter opens with Psellos repeating a description of him that purportedly comes from Xiphilinos: “Is Plato mine, O most holy and wise one? Mine, O earth and sun, to echo the same theatrical words?”7 Psellos’s response is to argue that his studies of philosophy should be understood as a preparation for the study of Holy Scripture.8 He notes that this preparation has not been limited to Plato, but also included Aristotle and the works of the Chaldaeans and the Egyptians.9 Thanks to the pure glance of Holy Scripture, however, Psellos claims to have found their teachings to be false, yet useful. This allows him, perhaps tongue in cheek, to turn the argument back upon Xiphilinos: c(" 1 e!3& ; # E \  &   ! 56+ # 3! () " [-  ,   )  "  (" 0"  (;   ( (B!! , I   W /'(  &, g #(      h. J ) ( -

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My Plato? I do not know how to bear the weight of such a word. Have I not long honored the divine cross above everything else, and now the spiritual yoke as well? Rather he is more your Plato—if I am to return your insult to you—as you yourself have not condemned a single one of his teachings, while I have rid myself of almost all of them, for not all are bad: the discourses concerning justice

Psello, Xiphilino 49.1–3. Psello, Xiphilino 49.11–19. 9 A fuller account of his education is given by Psellos in his Chronographia (Michel Psellos, Chronographie, ed. Émile Renaud (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1926) and in the Epitaphios written for his mother (Michele Psello, Autobiograa: encomio per la madre, ed. Ugo Criscuolo (Napoli: M. D’Auria 1989)). 8

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and the immortality of souls have become a basis for our own doctrine. Hence I have not succumbed to some form of illness of the eye, but loving clarity have cleansed my eye by means of this source.

Thus Psellos argues that his acquaintance with ancient philosophy has not only allowed him to see through the falsehoods that lie in that material but has cleansed him for his spiritual journey.10 Having made this point, Psellos then defends himself against a charge of overindulgence in syllogisms. In his defense, Psellos argues that in fact his work seeks to surpass the level of logic, noting that Plato provides a model for philosophy that lifts us above mere logic. To make this point, he then introduces a problem in order to demonstrate the benets of a philosophical method: l(( ) (  , m 3 &

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When you consider lines, you who are the superior of everything, by what means can you dene their nonbeing? For the one who rst spoke of these has added in a manner that is truly philosophic and elevated that these “are nowhere present.” For non-being and being nowhere present are somewhat different. For lines are not non-beings, but the “intelligible length” that is equally according to the wise man nowhere. But I have both regarding the non-being of these lines, and your syllogisms, that they do not say anything that disrespects the understanding of higher things. Even though these lines are non-beings, you hater of reason, they are the basis for contemplating everything natural. It should be added that natural contemplation was considered by our Maximos, or perhaps mine as he was a philosopher, a practical virtue, that did contradict essential knowledge.

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Whoever does not wish to be ignorant of the origins of things, seeks conclusions by means of syllogisms, and thus brings out the unity of being that overlies nature. But if these two fundamental principles are brought forth, then the fundamental unity of everything does not elude us, for as we set out there is somewhere a goal or end. Do you not see the kind of excess and irrationality and selfignorance which is the consequence of not returning to rst causes and not proceeding by way of rational demonstration, but approaching the heights of issues without rational demonstration and without technical renement.

Here,11Psellos rst seeks to show that other forms of knowledge do not necessarily contradict Christian doctrine. Indeed, he proposes that the application of logic can assist one’s ascent to a knowledge of higher things. This is later reiterated when Psellos argues: “For syllogizing, brother, is not a dogma alien to the Church nor some kind of strange thesis belonging to philosophy, but is rather the only instrument for the discovery of the truth of a matter under enquiry (" E !! 0, !% , . (  M !  !! .    

E %!%  3, !!’ p (  ;  !   0(  3( Y+).”12 Having made this by now familiar point Psellos proposes to identify himself with such philosophertheologians as Maximos the Confessor, Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzos.13 It is notable that in the passage above he switches Plato for Maximos when he describes him as being: “perhaps mine as he was a philosopher.” Psellos then extends his conception of the holy man as intellectual by referencing one of the classic models of spiritual ascent, namely Moses’s journey up Mount Sinai to converse with God:

11 12 13

Psello, Xiphilino 51.62–52.83. Psello, Xiphilino 53.111–14. Psello, Xiphilino 51.72–75, 52.102–108.

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Sinai, about which I will also philosophize for you, does not lead Moses up and reveal God as a meaningless mountain, but is like a symbol of the ascent of the soul away from the material. This understanding is not available when we are immersed in the mountain itself, but when we know that the aim of the unfolding and the purication of the soul have come into sight.

The point he is attempting to make is that for such an ascent to be successful, it requires intellection, an ability to see beyond the mountain itself to the spiritual meaning of this journey up the mountain. For Psellos, such an understanding depended upon a union of philosophy and Christianity:1415 c(" 1 e!3& , !% ,  1 t6+ 1 ) t" u  6&(,  ; ’ g g (5! 
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O my brother, it is my Plato and my Chrysippos! But what then of Christ, with whom I have been crucied? . . . while I may belong entirely in Christ, I will not deny the wisdom of the most wise nor the knowledge of beings, both spiritual and sensible. On the one hand, I will converse with God in prayer whenever I am able, and I will let myself be ecstatic should the grace be given me; and on the other hand, coming down from on high, because of the mobility of our natures, I will walk across the prairies of the sciences gathering the various owers to be found there.

This allows Psellos to offer an already encountered warning that appears to be directed at the mystical followers of Symeon the New Theologian: “Do you not see the kind of excess and irrationality and self-ignorance

14 Psello, Xiphilino 54.165–171. Psellos probably has the famous spiritual treatise of Gregory of Nyssa on the Life of Moses in mind. 15 Psello, Xiphilino 56.202–213.

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which is the consequence of not returning to rst causes and not proceeding by way of rational demonstration, but approaching the heights of issues without rational demonstration and without technical renement (12 r " n  " <) " !  " ( ZT  , R  " ( 3%  ( !! 0, !!’ !! &  & !6 &  M T ;  

 < & ;)?”16 It is apparent then that for Michael Psellos philosophy was a necessary foundation for the spiritual life. Indeed, he is indignant at any charge that might threaten this:17 N ( E  3,  E !-!((      , N ( - n!! (   ! , F  n   %E 

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If you had struck me on the head, if you had pulled the hair that remains to me, if you had subjected me to all kinds of humiliations, I would have borne these blows. But to do everything for Christ, and then to be accused of friendship with Chrysippos, and to be considered by you, my friend and judge, distanced from God and an adept of Plato and the Academy: no, I cannot see how I can bear that for long!”

Rather he sought to bring ancient philosophy to bear on Christian problems and thence to achieve a better grounded theology and a more rigorous intellectual life in the monastery. The themes expresed in the letter are to be found in various other texts produced by Psellos in the 1050s. This was a particularly fraught period for the world of Byzantine ideas, being marked by a collision of mystical and philosophical claims on the proper understanding of theology.18 As we have noted, in 1054–55 Michael Psellos was exiled

16

Psello, Xiphilino 51.80–52.83. Psello, Xiphilino 51.54–61. 18 Some of the key texts are: Joan Hussey, Church and Learning in the Byzantine Empire 867–1185 (London: Oxford University Press, 1937); Perikles Joannou, Christliche Metaphysik in Byzanz, 1: Die Illuminationslehre des Michael Psellos und Joannes Italos (Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag, 1956); Joan Hussey, Ascetics and Humanists in Eleventh-Century Byzantium (London: Dr. Williams’s Trust, 1960); Robert Browning, “Enlightenment and Repression in Byzantium in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Past and Present 69 (1975): 3–23; Jean Gouillard, “La religion des philosophes,” Travaux et Mémoires 6 (1976): 305–24; Lowell Clucas, The Trial of John Italos and the Crisis of Intellectual Values in Byzantium in 17

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by the Patriarch Michael Keroularios (1043–58). While the precise reasons for this exile are obscure, it is possible to surmise that Psellos’s philosophical pursuits were a primary cause. Some hint of this can be found in the Letter to Keroularios which was written in 1054 and offers a strong defense of the value of philosophy.19 In this Psellos describes a distinction between himself and Keroularios: C () E   !

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Perhaps you know the ineffable and mystical wisdom, but are ignorant of how they connect with dialectic and with appropriate speculation. I also have in this area a high and sublime throne, which is not inferior to yours, by which I mean it is no less self-sufcient, and you cannot make theology transcend my eloquence, you cannot explain the canons, nor can you do anything else concerning your sacred function: unless like me you work with measure and rule. When you confront alone in your raft the vast and deep ocean that is theology, I will say paraphrasing (Homer): “breaking on the rocks and eeing to the private harbors.” Why should I speak to you of descending? You speak of disharmony and lack of communication between us two. I have always loved philosophy, while you yourself seek perfection in transcendent doctrines, by which you have been able, according to your own witness, to have achieved the status claimed by the crown and to have been granted the sacred coronation. The scriptures have addressed this in a most profound manner . . . and by

the Eleventh Century, Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia 26 (Munich: Institut für Byzantinistik, Neugriechische Philologie und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte der Universität, 1981); Aleksandr Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985); Anthony Kaldellis, The Argument of Psellos’ Chronographia (Leiden: Brill, 1999). 19 On this topic see: Antonio Garzya, “On Michael Psellus’s Admission of Faith,” Epeteris tes hetaireias byzantinon spoudon 35 (1966–67): 41–46; Michele Psello, Epistola a Michele Cerulario, revd. ed. Ugo Criscuolo (Naples: Bibliopolis, 1990); Kaldellis, Argument.

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these have obtained knowledge of the works of divine things. I, for my part, have researched homonymy and synonymy and distinguished them in terms of each other and their own natures, I have pointed to the Idea, have examined nature, have returned to causes by means of arithmetic, have dened what belongs in philosophic discourse and what belongs to logic, and through that have determined what should be brought together and what distinguished. All of which would be a waste of time for you, but for me is of great consequence.

Following20this, Psellos, in turn, became the chief accuser when Keroularios fell from power in 1058. In the Accusation, which Psellos prepared for the planned deposition of Keroularios in 1058–59, he produced a lengthy and sustained attack upon the mystical practices of the Patriarch and the more mystical vision of monasticism embodied by the monks of Chios who lived in Michael Keroularios’s circle.21 It is clear, then, that Michael Psellos was a erce advocate for the role of philosophy in Byzantium. Beyond his more polemical essays, his manifold writings show that he was profoundly steeped in late antique commentaries on the works of Plato and Aristotle. Among his many sources, Proclus appears to have been particularly favored. Given this background, it is apt to think of him as a Neoplatonic thinker who was willing to bring this immense legacy to bear upon the questions of the day. Among these, was an interest in the icon. As we shall see, Psellos returned with some frequency to the denition of the icon. In so doing, he constructed a consistent understanding of this object that, as we have seen in our opening quotation, both afrmed the logical account of this work of art, while investigating the implications of miraculous mediation through the icon.22

20

Psello, Cerulario: 26.142–27.164. Michael Psellus, Orationes Forenses et Acta, ed. George Dennis (Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner, 1994): 2–103. 22 The following section depends upon: Charles Barber, “Living Painting, or the Limits of Pointing?” in Reading Michael Psellos, eds. Charles Barber and David Jenkins (Leiden: Brill, 2006): 117–30. 21

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Psellos presented himself as “a most fastidious viewer of icons ( & J   5 ).”23 This quality is a very important aspect of Psellos’s encounters with icons and he does, indeed, from time to time offer seemingly exacting descriptions of a painting’s surface. And yet, as one reads his accounts of looking at images, whether these be real, imaginary, or somewhere in between, his connoisseur’s gaze becomes less certain. Doubts creep in, as Psellos draws our attention both to the all too human limits of our acts of looking and to the painting’s limits as a product made after the knowledge derived from this act of vision. Once these boundaries are identied, he has, in his desire for an authentic presence in the painting, to break the bounds of what we might recognize as a representational mode of thinking, and to exchange his gaze for a glance that may be dened as a look that is at once temporal, spatial, and partial. By these means Psellos draws our attention to the very real limits of the visible. The work of art becomes the marker of this horizon and thus a key to Psellos’s account of human understanding. The problem of the limits of painting are explored in great detail in Psellos’s Discourse on the Crucixion of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a wide-ranging spiritual treatise addressed to a monastic audience. It offers a model of redemption that is structured around an identication of the listener with the crucied Christ.24 The Discourse culminates in an ekphrasis, a rhetorical evocation, of an icon of the Crucixion (g. 13).25 Signicantly, the icon is introduced as a condescension to those who cannot achieve spiritual participation by words alone, but still depend upon the corporeal senses to know things.26 This need is not denigrated

23 Translated at Anthony Cutler and Robert Browning, “In the margins of Byzantium? Some icons in Michael Psellos,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 16 (1992): 27. The text is from letter 194 and can be found at Michael Psellus, Scripta minora, ed. E. Kurtz and F. Drexl, vol. 2 (Milan: Socièta editrice, 1941): 220.19. 24 Psellus, Orationes: 116–198. A lengthy French summary of the text can be found at: Paul Gautier, “Un discours inédit de Michel Psellos sur la Crucixion,” Revue des Études Byzantines 49 (1991): 16–24. 25 Elizabeth A. Fisher, “Image and Ekphrasis in Michael Psellos’ Sermon on the Crucixion,” Byzantinoslavica 55 (1994): 51–55 offers a complete English translation of this section. I have modied some of Fisher’s readings in what follows. 26 Psellus, Orationes: 186.634–187.639. This can be translated: “At any rate, you observe with the intelligible eye of your soul that day by day [Christ] is made all things, so that he might make you a participant both in his sufferings and in his glory. Nevertheless, you have not entirely relinquished sense perceptions nor have you altogether risen above the body, but you long to gaze upon him with your very eyes.”

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by Psellos. Rather, he uses it as a springboard for his afrmation of the importance of the material in a balanced spiritual economy. An extended and alarmingly forensic account of what the icon in the text shows of Christ’s body indicates the potential inherent in the correlation of the icon, the senses, and the body that intrigues Psellos. Its importance is marked by the fact that he devotes eighty lines in the most recent edition to this account.27 A taste of the language in play can be found in the following passage:28 c     !   , (B!!

) #"  " k M %6&, I  (    !!E %6 K %

(M+  5 5 3  " !"

K   (  #  & - ' j ( , !!D & &+ &- E #

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I(, E ) E  6( p (%- - (- . !!D  () (  E  !E 6( " ( F (( ( , N& y -

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&6( .28

But there is something more here, or rather this is a very work of nature, so that the picture seems to be the product not of art but of nature. For the belly protrudes a bit from the rest of the body, and its colors make it appear not level with the chest, but it has distended as is reasonable. For the organs within it force out the belly, and the skin itself has been stretched at the navel. The heart, liver and whatever naturally branches from there, namely blood vessels and the [membranes] containing the lung or rather both lungs are concealed from the viewer. But if the entry point of the wound in his side had not already closed, we would perhaps have observed through it what I mentioned as if through a dilator.

In reaching beneath the surface to describe what makes the belly protrude, Psellos underscores the physical reality of the depicted body.29 This interest is governed by Psellos’s need to prepare us for one half 27

Psellus, Orationes: 188.675–192.755. Fisher, “Image and Ekphrasis,” 52; Psellus, Orationes: 189.701–190.712. 29 One can nd a telling echo of this interest in physicality in Letter 211 which was written to an unknown sakellarios and in which we hear this: “For the image [perhaps a Crucixion or a Man of Sorrows] in no way differs from its model, so it seems to me at any rate. Hence I have often touched the paint, as I would the body. And my hand was not deceived, but agreed with my belief (K () E J #)   ( 28

 '  , `  ( -. k&D P  Q ( !!3 K=3(  (+  ( K  # =6, !!E M   !6 ): Cutler and Browning,

“In the margins,” 22–23; Psellus, Scripta minora: Ep. 211, 247.19–23.

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of his dual conception of the icon, namely the physical limits of the visible. It is the possibilities inherent in the depiction of the body that help him to dene what art can be and can do. At the same time, these also allow him to begin to dene what art cannot be and cannot do. As we shall see, for Psellos art was only adequate for the depiction of a natural subject. Art on its own was simply unable to comprehend the supernatural. This last point is suggested by the manner in which the extended description of the body on the cross is framed by specic phrases that place precise limits on what painting can convey. The rst of these reads: “gaze upon the living dead [Christ]: for the clarity of the likeness is in the body rather than the soul (- E  (   =M M (%  "  ).”30 The second reads: “Such, you see, is the Lord’s body, so exact, so clear, so alive and dead, such that it does not repeat a model, but serves as a model for all else ( (  " " (, Y& 5 , Y&  , Y& k(= 

 , Q ( #" " 3(  % , E   !E "  Q " 3().”31 One of the values introduced by the eighty lines of detailed description found between these clauses is the sense that an image must aspire to be a clear, accurate and exacting likeness of things seen in the world, in this instance Christ’s body. Resting on a long tradition in Byzantine and earlier thought Psellos here reiterates the notion that art makes available the visible traits of a given subject.32 This conception of painting can be found in an often-reproduced miniature from an eleventh-century Stoudios manuscript now in Jerusalem (g. 14). This shows a seated artist painting a portrait of the Virgin and Child. Such depictions of the act of painting are relatively rare in the Byzantine era.33 In this instance, the tools of the artist’s trade are set before him, his hand is poised over the panel, and his attention is devoted to the subject before him. We also see the form of the Virgin and Child transferred to the panel. This act of portrayal

30

Fisher, “Image and Ekphrasis,” 52; Psellus, Orationes: 188.676–677. Fisher, “Image and Ekphrasis,” 53; Psellus, Orationes: 192.751–755. 32 For the basis of this position in ninth-century iconophile theory see Charles Barber, Figure and Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002: 107–123. 33 A useful introduction to the artist in Byzantium can be found in the essays published in To portraito tou kallitechne sto Byzantino, ed. Maria Vasilake (Heraklion: Panepistemiakes Ekdoseis Kretes, 1997). 31

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presents the promise of an accurate and authentic record of a moment of eyewitness. But is such a reading of this image apt? Are we misled by wellingrained expectations when we see this image in these terms and begin to judge it against the aesthetics embodied in an art history of naturalism bequeathed by Pliny and Vasari? Rather than emphasize the power of the painter over the painting, we shall see that Psellos also draws our attention to the role of the subject in determining the experience of the painting. To this end, I would like to draw out a second aspect of this miniature, namely the manner in which the confrontation of the painter and the painter’s subject marks a distinction between the living presence of Mary and Christ and the artifact that is made after them. This might seem to be an obvious distinction, yet, in the eld of Byzantine studies there has been a tendency to remain entranced by the aura of presence that is yearned for in the prevalent quasi-sacral account of icons. One consequence of this entrancement is that there is a real need to argue for the existence of boundaries that distinguish the work of art from its subject, while rening our understanding of the icon’s function as a medium to convey knowledge of what must, in this particular visual economy, necessarily be the truth. Following the path laid by Michael Psellos we shall see that the normal condition of an icon such as this is that it neither represents nor makes present, rather it offers a site for the overcoming of its own material and artifactual status. Central to this understanding is the materiality of the painting. For Psellos, the origins of the work of art lie in the material and the mundane. It is this condition that allows the icon to become the site of an illumination that originates from beyond the horizon of the icon’s own manufacture. The constraints of this model are disclosed when Psellos reveals his own dissatisfaction with his limited account of the icon’s possibility. For while likeness can convey that which is visible, he also notes that likeness does not belong to the soul. This brings Psellos to the second aspect of the icon that concerns him. Namely, to ask how it is possible for a painting to convey the invisible, particularly that which pertains to the divine and the soul? This was a fundamental question for the Christian discourse on painting and remains a crucial issue for those who seek a presence in sacred painting. One attempt to wrestle with this problem can be found in a passage from the Discourse on the Crucixion:

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But that the painting is exact as regards the accuracy of art “is plain from the complexion,” said a philosopher. However, the marvel lies not in this, but in the fact that the whole image seems to be living and is not without a share of motions. If one will but direct one’s gaze to the parts of the picture one after another, it might seem to him that some might alter, some might increase, some might change, while some [seem] to experience or make a difference, as if presently waxing or waning. Hence the dead body [seems] apparently to be both living and lifeless. The outlines of such a painting might be seen even in images [produced] by the artless—namely a similar straightening, breaking, or bending [of limbs], an illusion of life by virtue of blood or of death by virtue of pallor—but these are all, so to speak, imitations of gures and likenesses of likenesses. But here these things do not seem to take their existence from colors, rather the whole thing resembles nature, which is living and artlessly set in motion, and no one is able to discover whence the image has become like this. But, just as beauty exists as a result of the opposition and harmony of limbs and parts, and yet often a woman is extraordinarily radiant as a result of entirely different causes, so it is in this case. While this living painting exists as a result of component parts combined most felicitously, the entire living form seems to be beyond this, so that life exists in the image from two sources, from art which makes a likeness and from grace which does not liken to anything else. Is this then a comparison of images and shadows? Yet I would not compare this painting to any other paintings, neither those set up by past hands or that

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represented the archetype accurately, nor those from our own time or from a little before that had made some innovations in form. I declare that this picture to be like my Christ in times past, when a bloodthirsty crowd brought out a vote of condemnation against him to a submissive Pilate. Thus, it seems to me that Christ hangs in the delineated and colored likeness. And I would not dispute that there is oversight that is beyond the painter’s hand and that this overseeing mind had returned that painting to its prototype.

A34number of fundamental points emerge from this passage. First, the image is said to come from two sources. The rst of these is art (  ), which Psellos denes as the human process of “making a likeness.” The second source is grace (3), which is dened a little more obscurely as that which “does not liken to anything else.” Then, second, the passage picks up the thread of naturalism that runs through Psellos’s account of this icon. The theme has already been found in the text introduced above (p. 73). There the icon was described as being “the product not of art but of nature.” Here in our most recent passage, the icon “resembles nature.” In both instances the proximity to nature is more than a simple mimesis of the forms of the natural world. It is that which enlivens this painting and which is used to dene the image as being more than a product of the technical skills of the artist. This leads to a third point. For Psellos, the second point of origin for the work of art lies beyond the visible horizon. He states that: “while this living painting exists as a result of component parts combined most felicitously, the entire living form seems to be beyond this, so that life exists in the image from two sources,” and then that an “overseeing mind had returned that painting to its prototype.” Finally, a fourth point can be made. It is this combination of the natural and the supernatural, the human and the divine, that make this icon distinct. This claim does not lead to a new style in painting or to a new iconographic language. Psellos specically rejects this when he states that: “I would not compare

34

Fisher, “Image and Ekphrasis,” 55; Psellus, Orationes: 195.843–197.879.

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this painting to any other paintings, neither those set up by past hands or that represented the archetype accurately, nor those from our own time or from a little before that had made some innovations in form.” Thus neither traditional nor innovative practices in painting are a sufcient foundation for what Psellos desires from the work of art. This lies beyond the limits of human making. Psellos remains, however, dissatised with this description. He has brought himself to the point of removing all the responsibility for the work of art from the hands of the artist, but has not yet given a precise account of this second ground for painting. In order to try and resolve some of the difculties he faces, he introduces the notion of the inspired artist to dene the particular visible qualities of the given painting:35 ~ " () 3 #    ', K )   0&3%  ' - "  6 ( #" (B!! =- "  + Y& " () - 0 ,

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Although this suffering brings him [Christ] in due course to death, the power that moves the hand of the artist also animates the body that has breathed its last. Thus he has been distinguished from those living among the dead, and from the dead who live among the living. For his veiled limbs are somewhat ambiguous, and the visible parts are no less doubtful. Just as art shrouds it also discloses both the lifeless and the living. This is true of his bloody garments, whether light or dark, as well as of the living dead presented on the cross and clearly suffering an excessive death, now living because of the accuracy of imitation—or rather, then and now in both manners. But there his life is beyond nature and his death is beyond pain. Here both are beyond the art and the grace that has shaped the art.

Here art is said both to shroud and to disclose its subject. As such Psellos moves us away from his earlier emphasis upon the clarity and accuracy of painting, as now both the visible and the painting made after it have become ambiguous. The imitation made of this ambiguous

35

Fisher, “Image and Ekphrasis,” 53–54; Psellus, Orationes: 193.786–194.800.

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subject allows the spectator to imagine that they might now see Christ as both living and dead. The vivid and kinetic rendering of Christ in the Crucixion has been made possible by the gracious power that moves the artist’s hand. It is this intervention that opens painting to that which lies beyond the human horizon. Yet, having opened this possibility, for Psellos, Christ’s life and death are ultimately both beyond the art and the grace that gave them visible form in the painting itself. Hence it is unsurprising, when in the next passage in the text Psellos asks: “What then, has this discourse checked your desire ( P , I   (  1 !)?”36 By which he appears to be asking whether his evocation of the icon has allowed viewers to lay aside their desire for a complete presence in the image.37 Despite these problems, Psellos has invested heavily in the possibility of spiritual presence in the icon. The key to this is to be found in the movement that we have noted. However, the possibilities that lie in such movement are not fully realized in the Crucixion text.38 We are told that: the whole image seems to be living and is not without a share of motions. If one will but direct one’s gaze to the parts of the picture one after another, it might seem to him that some might alter, some might increase, some might change, while some [seem] to experience or make a difference, as if presently waxing or waning. Hence the dead body [seems] apparently to be both living and lifeless.

Prefaced by the disclaiming phrase “it might seem to him,” Psellos here invites us to see that this icon is not a static object, but is rather a thing whose forms move and change.39 As such, he is able to evoke the

36

Psellus, Orationes: 194.801. A similar ambiguity is expressed in Psellos’s account of the failure of both words and images in his letter 211: Psellus, Scripta minora: Ep. 211, 249.1–8: “How then does the truth spoken in a discourse differ from a shadow? But when you approach your iconic shape it is the same. But if you think about my lines and should you comprehend the appropriate inappropriateness, the living confusion, and the uniform singularity of the words, perhaps you will even call the discourse in color a shadow.” 38 This interest in movement and change is fundamental to Psellos’s aesthetic. Its ultimate source resides in Alexander of Aphrodisias’s third-century commentary on Aristotle’s “On Sense Perception.” This will be discussed below. 39 This important point is made in Eustratios N. Papaioannou, “The ‘Usual Miracle’ and an Unusual Image: Psellos and the icons of Blachernai,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 51 (2001): 186–188. One might note that there are other problematic instances of the appearance of the Virgin at the Blachernae: Lennart Rydén, “The 37

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experience of one looking at this paradoxical subject and its ambiguous representation in the icon. Yet, the account of movement found here remains bound by the object and the traces that record the actions of art and grace. It cannot disclose the spiritual aspect of the subject that remains hidden beyond this icon. Ultimately, then the discussion of the Crucixion image has allowed Psellos to dene an understanding of the possibility of presence in the work of art, without seeing that expectation fullled by the object to hand. He has been able to approach this experience through the language of his evocation, but has nonetheless remained trapped by the material and human conditions of the icon’s making. To nd a resolution of the possibilities raised by the Discourse on the Crucixion we need now to turn to a second text, the Discourse on the Miracle that Happens at the Blachernae (g. 15).40 This Discourse, which runs to 757 lines in its most recent edition, and which records events that took place in July 1075, was supposedly written at the request of the Emperor Michael VII Doukas. It is a lengthy, rich, complex and difcult work. Its purpose was both to report upon and to validate the outcome of a legal case that was to be settled with reference to the regular miracle that took place every Friday evening in the church of the Theotokos at Blachernae in Constantinople. The miracle was a well-known part of Constantinople’s spiritual landscape. As the sun set, the entire church was emptied of people and the doors were closed. After appropriate rites had been performed in the narthex, the crowd was allowed to re-enter the church. It was at this moment that the veil that hung in front of an icon of the Theotokos lifted, making the image visible. The veil would then remain hanging in this raised position until the ninth hour on Saturday. While Psellos credited the Holy Spirit with lifting the veil, his interest was more taken by the changing appearance of the icon:  !!3 )  !( &  K (% M , \(, (   k(= (  #M  " % )  % ( & ( .  () P 9 #M   

[S]imultaneously the shape of the Maiden of God changes, as, I believe, it receives her living visitation and signies the invisible in the visible. For her son and God who was hanging

Vision of the Virgin at Blachernae and the Feast of the Pokrov,” Analecta Bollandiana 94 (1976): 63–82. 40 Psellus, Orationes: 199–229.

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on the cross, the veil of the temple was rent in order to either manifest the truth hidden in the gures, or to invite the faithful into the innermost sanctuaries and so remove the wall that separates us from becoming intimate with God. For the Mother of God the sacred veil is ineffably raised, so that within she may hold the entering crowd to her chest as in a new innermost sanctuary and inviolate refuge.

This unveiling of the image is an event, an instant in which the icon becomes the site for the “living visit” of the Mother of God. She is there at the moment of the miracle. This full presence is marked, signicantly, by a change of appearance in the icon, as that which is normally invisible has become visible in what can be seen.41 Unlike the detailed description of Christ’s body in the icon found in the text of the Discourse on the Crucixion, the account of the Blachernae icon is notably reticent concerning the specic appearance of its own icon.42 Given that Psellos’s Discourse on the Miracle is one of our lengthiest Greek discussions of this icon this is a disappointment. It is a lack that has contributed to the existence of a healthy, extensive and ongoing literature debating the specic appearance of the icon that performed the miracle.43 The example given here is taken from a set of miraculous

41

Psellus, Orationes: 205.136–206.146. Of course, one should be wary of the actual accuracy of such rhetorical “descriptions.” Ekphrases remain a problematic source for art historians. On this one might compare Liz James and Ruth Webb, “ ‘To Understand Ultimate Things and Enter Secret Places’: Ekphrasis and Art in Byzantium,” Art History 14 (1991): 1–17 and Henry Maguire, Image and Imagination: The Byzantine Epigram as Evidence for Viewer Response (Toronto: Canadian Institute of Balkan Studies, 1996). 43 Ioannes. B. Papadopoulos, Les Palais et les églises des Blachernes (Thessaloniki: Imp. de la Société commerciale et industrielle de Macédoine, 1928); Venance Grumel, “Le ‘miracle habituel’ de Notre Dame des Blachernes,” Échos d’Orient 30 (1931): 129–146; Werner Seibt, “Der Bildtypus der Theotokos Nikopoios. Zur Ikonographie der Gottesmutter-Ikone, die in 1030/31 in der Blachernenkirche wiedergefunden wurde,” Byzantina 13 (1985): 549–564; I. Tognazzi Zervou, “L’iconograa e la ‘Vita” delle miracolose icone della Theotokos Brefokratoussa: Blachernitissa e Odighitria,” Bollettino di Grottaferrata 40 (1986): 215–287; Nicolas Cotsonis, “The Virgin with the ‘Tongues of Fire’,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 48 (1994): 225–227; Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Court Culture and Cult Icons in Middle Byzantine Constantinople,” Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1997: 91–95; M. Schulz, “Die 42

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Marian icons depicted at the top of an eleventh-century icon in the collection of the Monastery of St. Catherine at Mount Sinai. Given this lack of help regarding the actual appearance of the icon, we can, in Psellos’s train, set this iconographical problem aside and instead ask why it is that Psellos emphasizes change in the appearance of the icon without truly describing the nature of this change? This question becomes more urgent when no other source that describes the usual Friday miracle at the Blachernae reports the change in the appearance of the icon that Psellos notes.44 These other sources all focus on the moment of unveiling, which they, like Psellos, attribute to the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The change in the appearance of the icon thus appears to be a distinct contribution on the part of Michael Psellos. An explanation of the need to see this transformation can be found toward the end of this Discourse. Here the necessity of motion is brought forward in a lengthy philosophical reection on the miracle.45 Building upon a set of pagan examples and the Neoplatonic assumption that lesser things participate in the higher, Psellos argued that the participation of the Theotokos in her icon was manifested by change in the thing seen. This can be found in the following passage, which attempts to dene why the icon must be seen to change if it is truly to manifest the divine:

Nikopeia in San Marco: Zur Geschichte und zum Typ einer Ikone,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 91 (1998): 473–501; Bissera V. Pentcheva, “Rhetorical images of the Virgin: The icon of the ‘usual miracle’ at the Blachernai,” RES 38 (2000): 35–54; Eustratios N. Papaioannou, “The ‘Usual Miracle’ and an Unusual Image: Psellos and the icons of Blachernai,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 51 (2001): 177–188; Bissera V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006): 145–63, esp. 154–161. 44 Anne Comnène, Alexiade, ed. B. Leib, vol. 3 (Paris: 1937): 87.15–23 (Sewter, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers: 395); Cyril Philotheos: Etienne Sargologos, La Vie de Saint Cyrille le Philéote moine byzantin (†1100). Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1964: 83 and 305–306; Latin pilgrim 1075–1099: Krijnie Ciggaar, “Une description de Constantinople dans le Tarragonensis 55,” Revue des Études Byzantines 53 (1995): 117–140, esp. 121–122; Liber Virginalis: Grumel, “Miracle habituel:” 130–131; John Beleth, Rationale ofciorum: Grumel, “Miracle habituel:” 133; Latin anonymous: Grumel, “Miracle habituel:” 134–135; Krijnie Ciggaar, “Description de Constantinople traduite par un pèlerin anglais du XIIe siècle,” Revue des Études Byzantines 34 (1976): 211–67; William of Malmesbury: J. M. Canal, El libro ‘De laudibus et miraculis Sanctae Mariae’ de Guillermo de Malmesbury (Rome, 1968): 132f, 166f; Russian: Antony of Novgorod: Grumel, “Miracle habituel:” 141; Novgorod Chronicle: Grumel, “Miracle habituel:” 141. 45 Psellus, Orationes: 226.660–229.733.

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Some beings are precisely that, truly beings, divine and extraordinary, while others are inferior to those, and the subordinate reaches down as far as sense and matter itself, and the bodies receive some manifestation of better things. For the inferior is a participant in the higher. While the divine is like unto itself and entirely without change, everything sublunar is unlike and changeable, and as the descent proceeds, this condition deepens. The inferior receives illumination from superior things, not as they are, but as they are able. Divinity is unmoving, but whenever the illumination proceeds hence to the body, this body has moved. For it does not receive the manifestation without change, as this would be impossible. The creating force is shapeless, while the thing that receives the creative force receives some shape and alteration.

For the Mother of God to be there in the icon, those other aspects of her being (her human essence, as well as her participation in the divine) need to be presented at the moment of the miracle. Such a visit is manifested by a necessary change in that which has already been visible in the icon, namely the formal traces of the Mother of God’s body. It is only thus that the spectator can truly see the Mother of God in her entirety.46 Similar themes can be found in Psellos’s account of a second oracular image, the Empress Zoe’s icon of Christ Antiphonetes. This account, found in Psellos’s historical study of the eleventh-century emperors, his Chronographia, was probably written before 1063 and refers to the period before 1050, when Zoe died.47

46

Psellus, Orationes: 226.676–227.689. Michel Psellos, Chronographie, ed. Émile Renaud, vol. 1 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1926): 149–150. There is a healthy literature on this icon. Noteworthy recent discussions include: Cyril Mango, The Brazen House: A Study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace in Constantinople (Copenhagen: I kommission hos Munksgaard, 1959): 142–148; Liz James, Light and Colour in Byzantine Art (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1996): 83–85; John Duffy, “Reactions of Two Byzantine Intellectuals to the Theory and Practice of Magic: 47

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It is worth quoting the passage from the Chronographia at length:48 {( !   "  , N D .& I(, ’ (% 5  ,  !( v .!L  !, ( - 4(  3 "  (+ (  E - ( E 6( ,  '! E ( !!  K 3+ !!E   

  ( & ( 6+ I    (M   #A, I     , #T % - "   , E ()

 (!( , E ) !( . ’OJ  3( # !!3

  &  ,  ()

   !0(     & 6 ,  Q (=6: !(  ! E 3!! 

7 (3&    ,  ) D

3% (   3 ()

 M   , - ) E    3 +  G ()

} I, h  30,  ) 30   % 3L I!L !((  , '!!  #  W 5!- " B(  '! " (  .

[Zoe] had made for herself an image of Jesus, fashioning it with as much accuracy as she could (if such a thing were possible). The little gure, embellished with bright metal, appeared to be almost living. By changes of color it answered questions put to it, and by its various tints foretold coming events. Anyway, Zoe made several prophecies with regard to the future from a study of this image. So, when she had met with some good fortune, or when some trouble had befallen her, she would at once consult her image, in the one case to acknowledge her gratitude, in the other to beg its favor. I myself have often seen her, in moments of great distress, clasp the sacred object in her hands, contemplate it, talk to it as though it were indeed alive, and address it with one sweet term of endearment after another. Then at other times I have seen her lying on the ground, her tears bathing the earth, while she beat her breasts over and over again, tearing at them with her hands. If she saw the image turn pale, she would go away crestfallen, but if it took on a ery red color, its halo lustrous with a beautiful radiant light, she would lose no time in telling the emperor and prophesying what the future was to bring.48

Michael Psellos and Michael Italikos,” Byzantine Magic, ed. Henry Maguire (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1995): 88–90; Paul Magdalino, “Constantinopolitana” Aetos: Studies in honour of Cyril Mango, ed. Ihor Sevcenko and Irmgard Hutter (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1998): 220–227. 48 The translation is that of E. R. A. Sewter in Michael Psellus, Fourteen Byzantine Rulers: The Chronographia of Michel Psellus (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966): 188.

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The description of this object resembles many of the terms already encountered. The icon is deemed to be as accurate as possible in its representation of Christ and to be almost living. Furthermore the image is considered to be prophetic in its use of color, with changes symbolizing different future possibilities. This is echoed in Psellos’s account of the Blachernae icon where he hints at the symbolic value of colors and their function in foretelling the future:49  E (  ( &  6(5!+ E () E !E M 

 ( & !(, E ) ( !  !6   , E ) (T 6& , ; () " W ( !   &, ; ) " W !W  &, E ) (   ( , r E %3, Z &  *&   (  .49

Colors are the symbols of that which will be. The whites are the symbols of the brilliance of that which will come to be, the blacks are symbols of darkness and the indeterminate, as for those that are between these, the midpoint, which is grey, is promiscuous. That which is darker is worse, while that which is lighter is better, but we could say [that gray] participates equally in these extremes.

While an interest in color is found in a number of different contexts within Psellos’s works, here it allows him to underline the changeable rather than the static quality of the icon.50 It is apparent, therefore, that Psellos needs to see change in these oracular icons. For him, such an alteration in the surface of the image manifests the coming-into-presence of the subject through the icon. This is necessary to satisfy the desire in Psellos’s iconic discourse. As remarked above, granted this need, it is notable that the account of the Blachernae icon is remarkably reticent concerning the specic appearance of this work of art.51 It is a lapse that perhaps allows him to introduce the idea of change without committing himself to describing its specic and veriable manifestation. Indeed, I would like to suggest that his contribution to our knowledge of this icon is unique because it has to say the things that it does and not because he is reporting on a common perception of this icon. Psellos’s Neoplatonic aesthetic requires attention to the dual origins of these icons in the human and

49

Psellus, Orationes: 227.689–694. James, Light and Colour: 80–85. 51 Of course, one should be wary of the actual accuracy of descriptions. Ekphrases are a problematic source. Compare James and Webb and Maguire (note 42 above). 50

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the divine, the natural and the supernatural. In order for an icon—a man-made thing—to make its subject wholly visible, it must disclose the motion that is a sign of the supernatural origin of the invisible that has unveiled itself and become visible and present through the medium of that icon. In order to describe the nature of this coming-into-presence more fully as well to underscore its judicial value Psellos offers a comparison between the Theotokos’ icon and pagan oracles (g. 16).52 He cites those at Dodona, Delphi, and Oropos among others. In so doing, it becomes apparent that he is seeking to draw a sharp distinction between pagan oracles and their Christian iconic successors. Psellos frequently discusses oracles in his work. In this instance, he continues his critique of the pagan oracular tradition found in his 1058 Accusation against the Archbishop before the Synod that was written as a condemnation of the Patriarch Michael Keroularios. In both texts Psellos draws attention not only to the ambiguous nature of oracles, but also to the evidence of trickery or human interference in their operations. This then leads to his central claim regarding pagan oracles, namely that they were mediated or indirect experiences, rather than the unmediated experience of the divine being that was available through the transformed and miraculous icon. Hence, when the veil lifted or the image was seen to move at Blachernae, it offered unambiguous testimony of her being there.53 Thus he is able to write:54 !!E   w&  M 

(%   3& + -  () E %M  '!& k  " ( ( !!  " % (  6(5! # 3   3! x +  ) (  "  6(    !' ,  ) () " % (  , <%) ) " 6(  .

[B]ut even these [the ancient oracles] are less than the manifestations and overshadowings of the Theotokos. For their manifestation was unclear, their color variegated, their symbolism not at all apparent. But here [at the Blachernae], what was moved for the sake of truth was something immovable, what appeared [was] something meet for a god, what was thought [was] something supernatural.

This passage reiterates our point that movement or change is clearly an important marker for the presencing of the Theotokos and therefore

52 53 54

Orat. hag. 213.356–218.465. Orat. hag. 214.368–370. Orat. hag. 217.425–43.

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the truth of the icon.55 Furthermore, this transformation of the object is understood to be a gift from the supernatural, rather than the product of any magical human manipulation of nature.56 This last point needs to be developed further, as it draws us towards Psellos’s conception of the beholder’s share in the icon.57 In particular, it is important for Michael Psellos’s account of these legal proceedings that he cannot allow us to assume that that which occurs to the icon is the result of human agency. This point is developed early in the Discourse on the Miracle, where Psellos asks himself how it is possible for the miracle to occur to those who are not worthy intellectuals such as himself:58 K ) (  M (' %6  " %!3 & <%) 4 n 1( & (% , ;  K = 30  ; 1  4 !& ,  I *  #

#' 1 - 6 , #  <=! (   (& 

' , !!3     6 

 A   #M %( 

 #D 5 " .(  #A  . # E " *

M  ! & , !!E " 

=  -  ‚ 0 , #)   '  7 (3& , !!E  ((!M i(   &

.58

The sympathetic nature of the Mother of God, who possesses a supernatural philanthropy, appears the same way to all, both to those whose soul is radiant and to those whose mind is still confused. One might see her with one’s own eyes in so far as it is possible to see, not only those with the highest and mightiest virtue but also a simple woman attending her icon from the rear [of the crowd] and incorrectly reciting her hymn. For she (the Theotokos) does not praise and embrace the best verbal portrayal, but the best living portrayal, nor does she gather to herself well-turned phrases, but rather the most apt disposition.

55 The point can be extended by consideration of the Antiphonetes image venerated by the Empress Zoe, where color changes in the icon are used for oracular purposes: Psellos, Chronographia 6.66; Mango, Brazen House: 142–148; James, Light and Colour: 83–85; Duffy, “Reactions:” 88–90. 56 In this, he appears to follow Iamblichus’s understanding of theurgy and its relation to the miracle. The primary source in this regard is Iamblichus, On the Mysteries, trans. Emma C. Clarke, John M. Dillon and Jackson P. Hershbell (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2003). Note the important commentary by Emma Clarke, Iamblichus’ De Mysteriis: A manifesto of the miraculous (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001), passim. 57 Here I have the following texts in mind: Ernst Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A Study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation, 2nd ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press: 1969); John Onians, “Abstraction and Imagination in Late Antiquity,” Art History 3 (1980): 1–23; Leslie Brubaker, “Byzantine Art in the Ninth Century: Theory, Practice, and Culture,” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 13 (1989): 23–93. 58 Michael Psellus, Orationes hagiographicae, ed. Elizabeth A. Fisher (Stuttgart and Leipzig: Teubner, 1994): 203.73–82. I would like to thank Frederick Lauritzen for drawing my attention to this passage.

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Psellos underlines that the experience of the miracle is a communal experience, repeating the word !M at several points in his description so as to reiterate the sense of a large throng of spectators. This collective experience differs markedly from the more private examples of miraculous encounters with icons found elsewhere in Psellos’s works, notably Zoe’s Antiphonetes and Nicholas of the Beautiful Source’s icon of the Theotokos. The communal and public value of the Blachernae icon is, of course, conrmed by the imperial use of this image. In addition to the case of Michael VII discussed here, there is also the visit made to the icon in November 1107 by Alexios I Komnenos, who delayed leaving Constantinople until the miracle occurred.59 Although the encounter with the icon is described in primarily communal terms, Psellos raises an interesting problem in regard to the individual within the crowd. He is intrigued by the fact that those who do not perform the given ritual in the correct manner—for example, the “simple woman” of the text—are still able receive a vision of the Theotokos. In raising this issue Psellos expands his enquiry into the very real limits on the capacity of humans to see the divine to encompass the question of the spectator. A little more of the context for the “simple woman” in the crowd can provide a fuller framing for this spectator. The passage in discussion is particularly complex, but may be translated in this manner:  0  )  (  (% (  - 1(( k( ,  (3!D R ( ( 

( , !!E  '  - " # D  .  - ()  %&'& !3(

# n  #E N E  (,  ( R 56      

6& "  (3& +      1(  3%(  

    %  (  E () <D ;(( % ( 

1( , 1-  " % (  , E )

=A ƒ  …(+ Y&  " # K(-  & (†% n  " " K("

†  ‡ L † (ƒ.

59

Anna Komnena, Alexeiad 13.1.

When representing and likening her [the Theotokos], we have her manifested by means of these likenesses [i.e. works of art], but [she becomes even more apparent] when we gure her not so much by means of colors but through secret yearnings and through becoming close to her virtuous nature. One might not see the patterns themselves by means of the fabrications of their radiances, even though in some small measure one might know of the archetypes from the likenesses. But we depict the Virgin at the moment when we set [our] heart about the image: we

michael psellos: seeing through painting ‡, I   !(ˆ , " ()

E ƒ  K(†& =

 P " E   

!- " %†  %† ,  ‰  " E -

#E '( ,  !5  ()

… ‰( , (…(  ) …&  () … ‰( , (…(  ) …& …( + K ) (  M (' %…  " %!ƒ & <%) k V 1( & (%‡ , R  K = ƒ0  R 1  k ‰!&,  N n  #' 1 - 6 , #  <=!

(‰   (Š&  ' , !!ƒ   ‡ …  

A ‰  #M %‰(   #’ 5 " Y(  #A  . # E " n M 

! & , !!E "  =   ƒ0, #)   ' 

7 (ƒ& , !!E  ((!M i( ‡

 ‰& .60

89

see her partly visible to our eyes, as a phenomenon indeed, and partly feel her impressed into our soul. Thus, we possess a mysterious affection for her and her sympathy for us is even more mysterious . . . The sympathetic nature of the Mother of God, who possesses a supernatural philanthropy, appears the same way to all, both to those whose soul is radiant and to those whose mind is still confused. One might see her with one’s own eyes in so far as it is possible to see, not only those with the highest and mightiest virtue but also a simple woman attending her icon from the rear [of the crowd] and incorrectly reciting her hymn. For she (the Theotokos) does not praise and embrace the best verbal portrayal, but the best living portrayal, nor does she gather to herself well-turned phrases, but rather the most apt disposition.

This60is not an easy passage to interpret. Psellos is clearly playing with what might be termed an ethical theory of images.61 Noting that while material images are useful in providing a likeness, what matters more is that we inscribe the ethical model (in this case the Theotokos) on to our own bodies. Perception is thus partly mediated by the eye, which sees the visible trace found on the icon, and partly mediated by the soul, which receives a mysterious impression of her. Having proposed this dual perception, Psellos then turns to the manifestation of the Theotokos herself. Here, he notes that the Virgin appears to all in the same way. Having made this point he then distinguishes between different types of spectator within the crowd, contrasting the person of high virtue with the simple woman who cannot recite the hymn properly. This range is only introduced in order to deny the value of the implicit distinction. Both types can see. Whether one has the verbal mastery of a rhetorician or an inability to sing the hymns that pertain to the ritual, 60

Orat. hag. 202.56–203.82. Milton Anastos, “The Ethical Theory of Images Formulated by the Iconoclasts in 754 and 815,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954): 153–60. 61

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neither of these properties has anything to do with one’s ability to see the Theotokos. Instead, Psellos moves our attention from the discursive skills that belong to the performance of the ritual, to the condition of one’s soul. In so doing, he returns us to the ethical conditioning of the spectator and implies that it is this that lets one see the vision.62 While this condition opens the possibility that one might see the divinized subject of the icon, Psellos ultimately places the power over the image in the hands of the subject depicted there. It is this subject, that both grounds and controls the work of art, removing it from the power of both the spectator and the artist.63 This conception is picked up in a phrase found in the philosophical passage at the end of the Discourse that was introduced above (p. 83). This states that: “The inferior receives illumination from superior things, not as they are, but as they are able (  )  E  & E !!3(=  < & , # Q -  k, !!’ Q  6 ).” Psellos here clearly echoes the thinking of one of his primary philosophical inuences, namely the fth-century Neo-Platonist Proclus. For example, we nd this in proposition 173 of Proclus’s Elements of Theology: “Each principle participates its superiors in the measure of its natural capacity, and not in the measure of their being.” Proclus then goes on to explain: “On the latter supposition they must be participated in the same manner by all things, which is not the case: therefore participation varies with the distinctive character and capacity of the participants.” If Psellos were simply following Proclus, then we might suppose that the more elevated spectator and the simple woman of his text would see the Mother of God differently. But, as Psellos has told us, the Mother of God appears to all in the same way. What permits him to say this is that the distinction he has drawn between the more elevated spectator and the simple woman only operates at the discursive and performative level. At the level of their ethically endowed bodies, their souls, they are deemed of equal standing and are therefore both able to receive the vision. Although Psellos introduces the role of the soul into this Discourse, he does not examine it in any detail. Rather, his concern remains the

62

Psellos has to assume that all of the souls in the crowd are worthy in order for the shared experience to occur with its usual regularity. 63 The notion of the subject I am deploying draws upon the interpretation of hypokeimenon provided by Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche, vol. 4, ed. David Farrell Krell (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1982): 96–101 and at Martin Heidegger, “The Origin of the Work of Art,” in Martin Heidegger, Off the Beaten Track, ed. Julian Young and Kenneth Haynes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002): 5–8.

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validation of the icon as a judicial tool. To do this, he needs to show that the miracle presents the Mother of God without human interference. As such he must persuade us that this miracle happens in spite of the variables found within the discursive and performative competence of those individuals who have brought ritual activity to bear on the icon. Their ability to receive the vision is here understood to have no effect on the subject’s decision to make itself available. Psellos is, therefore, primarily interested, I believe, in reminding us that the ritual itself is not the source of the miracle, even as it—the ritual—situates and prepares the community before the icon. This distinction of the supernatural from human activity is then reiterated when Psellos reminds his audience that the miracle must be beyond our comprehension. This point was introduced when Psellos commented on those occasions when the miracle did not happen. He likened these to an eclipse, yet unlike an eclipse they could not be predicted. While the solar eclipse, as a natural phenomenon, can be comprehended by human reasoning, the miraculous resists such understanding. For Psellos, it is our inability to understand the miracle and therefore to represent it in discourse, which reminds the reader that he or she confronts something miraculous here.64 This is very important to his legal case, as it removes the miraculous event from the possibility of human interference and therefore manipulation. A point that is paralleled in his discourse, when, by not offering a precise description or analysis of the miracle itself—the change in the icon that he reports—, he reiterates that this experience is beyond the limits and powers of human discourse and activities. For Psellos, spectators are the recipient of a vision over which they have no cognitive control. In order to elucidate this point we need to return to an earlier example, the image of the Persian artist painting the Theotokos (g. 14). This is the rst of a sequence of images in an eleventh-century illuminated manuscript now found in the Greek 64 Orat. hag. 206.147–63: ?@ () P " 6  6( j, j ( N+   ) k ‹ " (   k #A  j K!  

, R #" Z " T  !   (& kL    " M !'  #" <ƒ(L (  E ((  - " K(B  L ((ƒ. !!E M () 6, Y& - , ! =& k & K   -  (&   4 ,  k  y -   '( !( +  ) E   6( ! =  # n  -   !('+

( ) Œ ( " (0(  (  , I  ('   %E   (   ( ,  k " !-      (B!! 5     <% ƒ(. k () Y& " (,  k Q K(   T  M  (    (   1 , Q 1 ! '(    (   1 , Q 1 ! '.

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Patriarchal Library in Jerualem (g. 17). The manuscript is primarily devoted to the Homilies of Gregory Nazianzos, but also contains one heavily illuminated homily by John of Damaskos. On folio 106v (107v) we nd a sequence of three images.65 These are part of an extensive series of fty illustrations that accompany a Nativity homily attributed to John of Damaskos.66 The rst image was introduced earlier in this chapter (p. 74), but deserves a fuller introduction here. The miniature shows a Persian painter who had accompanied the Three Magi on their journey to follow the star. He is shown fullling his task of providing a visual record of the God found by the Magi. The second image shows the three Magi together with a fourth unidentied Persian venerating this icon. This continues the story on the page (end of section ten), but concerns the future return of the Magi to Persia, where they will set the icon up on a temple of Zeus-Helios. The third image shows each of the Magi embracing Christ. This moment opens section eleven, but its full meaning only becomes apparent in the text on folio 107r, where each Magus tells the other of their experience of holding Christ.67 These experiences are shown here. The eldest Magus, shown with white hair and beard, reaches down and grasps the golden-robed Christ child. The second Magus, who has a beard, looks directly at a mature purple-robed Christ, whom he holds in his arms. The third and youngest Magus looks at a larger Christ whom he holds high in his arms. This Christ is white haired and bearded, an elderly Christ usually identied as the type known as the Ancient of Days. The text reports that each Magus: “lifted the infant Jesus in their arms by turn.”68 But later, as the Magi look back on this moment, they remember Christ not as a child, but in the three forms given us by these images.69

65 Analyses include: Tamar Avner, “The Impact of the Liturgy on Style and Content: The Triple-Christ Scene in Taphou 14,” XVI Internationaler Byzantinistenkongress Akten II.5 (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1982): 459–67; Jacqueline Lafontaine-Dosogne, “L’Illustration du cycle des Mages suivant l’homélie sur la Nativité attribuée à Jean Damascène,” Le Muséon 100 (1987): 211–24; Dimitris Cacharelias, The Mount Athos Esphigmenou 14 Codex: Pagan and Christian Myth in Middle Byzantine Manuscript Illumination (unpublished PhD, NYU, 1995). 66 Discussed at Bonifatius Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos V. Homilien, Patristische Texte und Studien 29 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1973): 307–310. 67 Kotter, Homilien: 342.25–30. 68 Kotter, Homilien: 341.16–17: ]  ) 9 (3 "   ’ ’ 3! #  4   '  #W \ . 69 Kotter, Homilien: 342.25–28.

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The point that is conveyed by this experience of a polymorphous Christ is that the perception of this divine being is determined by how that supernatural being chooses to show himself. The act of painting that we see at the top of the page seems to afrm the controlling gaze of a reasonable human art. The artist has depicted that which was available to his vision. But then, the Magi’s experiences of a polymorphous Christ raise questions regarding their power over the visual. Each of the Magi has held and beheld a Christ that has differed for each of them. This suggests that the perception of this divine being is determined by how that supernatural being has chosen to show himself. As such the painting seen here records a perception that is both adequate to the visible aspect of the given subject and partial in regard to the potential of that subject. Psellos’s focus upon the subject of sight presents an understanding of vision that disempowers the one looking and gives value to the icon as a medium for conveying the vision granted by its subject.70 This point is not only to be found in the rhetorically imbued discourses discussed above, but also in Psellos’s more theoretical writings. These enhance our understanding of both the importance of movement and the value of the medium. This is evident, when we turn to one of Psellos’s most precise accounts of human vision. On Perception and Perceptibles is an abbreviated commentary on Aristotle’s On Sense Perception. It consists of passages cherry-picked from two ancient commentators: Aspasius of Athens who worked in the rst half of the second century AD and Alexander of Aphrodisias, who ourished around 300 AD. The bulk of the Psellos text is taken from Alexander’s commentary on Aristotle’s On Sense Perception.71 Some brief passages from Aspasius’s commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics are added at the conclusion of the text.72 This method of composition is typical of Psellos. It suggests a work of distillation produced in the context of his role as a professor 70 In what follows, I will emphasize an intromission theory of vision over the extramission theory that has tended to be favored in accounts of Byzantine visuality. For example: Brubaker, “Byzantine Art in the Ninth Century” and Robert S. Nelson, “To Say and to See: Ekphrasis and Vision in Byzantium,” Visuality Before and Beyond the Renaissance, ed. Robert S. Nelson, (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2000): 143–168. 71 Alexander of Aphrodisias, In de Sensu, ed. P. Wendland, Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 3, 1 (Berlin: George Reimer, 1901): 1–173. This has been translated into English: Alexander of Aphrodisias, On Aristotle’s “On Sense Perception,” trans. Alan Towey (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000). 72 Aspasius of Athens, In Ethica Nicomachea, ed. Gustavus Heylbut, Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 19, 1 (Berlin: George Reimer, 1889): 1–186.

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of philosophy. While the text is notionally concerned with all the senses, its primary focus was on sight. As we shall see, the signicance of this work is that it betrays a close adhesion to the Aristotelian understanding of vision. This provided a necessary physical and psychological foundation for Psellos’s broader Neoplatonic enterprise. Towards the end of the essay Psellos summarizes his understanding of Aristotle’s text:73 Ž ) ’ !  M '& E E  *!!& .  + 3 3, % , K R= <" 

1 3 , `  Z3  *!!& '& , !!D #    (, 3 ) # W     3   "   , !!E W " (T M  R=&   1&(  % , ; D    (   " %&(  ),  - <"  1 ,   

&(3& ( " E " (  ’  % ).  6( 

E   (  " D 

% ) <"  1 " \ #  & A L, YL  #A % -.  .& E 6 (  E  %  " (T \  1&(   (     6 #" W " (T  6 ( \  !' " 1B  + # E -  , [Q ”  9] " # (i% E .&  K R= 4), !!E A  (T M R=&  M  1&(  %   ' <"  1 .73

The Aristotelian teaching on perception is this among other things. For, he says, sight perceives by being affected by the things seen, just as each of the other [senses] perceives, but not by making and sending out, and not by being affected by admitting what ows from the things perceived. Rather, the transparent, which is a medium between sight and the thing seen, when it is this [transparent] in actuality (and it is this in actuality when it has become light), is moved by the things seen, these being the colors (for color moves that which is transparent in actuality). For the transparent in actuality, being moved and arranged by the things seen, transmits its form to the pupil, which is also transparent. And hence vision comes about in this way as the form of the thing seen is received through the transparent medium and transmitted as far as the primary sense by means of the intermediate passage which is to be full of this body. This is not caused by emissions, as those before him supposed (for on this view sight would also be touch), but because the transparent medium between that which sees and that which is seen is moved by the things seen.

73 Michael Psellus, Philosophica Minora, vol. 2, ed. Dominic J. O’Meara (Leipzig: Teubner, 1989): 16.21–17.4. Alexander, In de Sensu: 59.1–7 and 10–15, 61.11–13.

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The model of vision proposed here presents several key points that are familiar aspects of the Aristotelian account of vision.74 In the rst part of the passage, Psellos opens his denition of the operation of the senses, and of sight in particular, as being affected by their respective sense object. Psellos then denes how this affect is brought to the eye. He begins by rejecting two theories of vision.75 The rst of these is the extramission theory. This model for visual perception is described as a “making and sending out.” Psellos is referring to an earlier section in his essay where he follows the Aristotelian tradition in conating and to a certain extent misrepresenting the theories of vision espoused by Empedocles (fth century) and Plato. Here sight is dened as an emission of a ray of light whose origin is the re that each of us contains within our eyes. It is this re in the eye that makes or causes the ray sent out. When this ray of re-produced light is emitted it fuses with daylight in the air and so enables us to see. Then, when this ray touches upon an object, the ray itself is affected and transmits this affect back to the eyes and thence to the soul. Sight is thus presented as something that originates in the eye of the beholder. The sense-data that returns to this eye is borne by the ray, now altered by the sense-object, that the beholder had emitted. The second theory of vision rejected in the passage in discussion is dened as one in which the eye is affected by admitting something that has owed from the things perceived. This notion is associated with the Atomists. In our essay, this school of thought is represented by Democritus (fth century BC). What concerns Aristotle and therefore Psellos is that this theory treated the eye as a form of mirror rather than as a transparent path to the soul. Furthermore it over-emphasized the sense-object itself in the process of vision. In proposing an alternative to these two theories Aristotle, followed by his commentators, re-focused our attention away from the sense-organ and the sense-object and toward the space between them. This space is brought into play as a medium that both separates and links the one seeing and the thing seen. This medium is called the transparent

74 The following draws on T. K. Johansen, Aristotle on the Sense-Organs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997): 23–147. 75 For broad introductions to the terms extramission and intromission and their interplay in ancient and medieval accounts of vision see David C. Lindberg, Theories of Vision from Al-Kindi to Kepler (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1976).

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and is understood to be a material, such as water or air, which has the potential to convey the visible. This mediatory space was crucial for the Aristotelian theory of vision. Its signicance is underlined in the passage above, when Psellos makes the parenthetical remark that sight and touch are not the same. One of the foundations of Aristotle’s understanding of vision was the notion that contact blinded. By which he meant that if the thing being looked at were to be in touch with the eye, it would be impossible to see it. Aristotle required a gap between subject and object through which vision might take place. Hence, seeing could not be equated with touching.76 Having afrmed this opening for vision, Psellos, following Aristotle, was then able to dene the process of seeing. This process is marked by a movement or change that is perceived by the one looking and that has originated in the sense-object. This sense-object becomes known to us through its color. For Aristotle, and hence Psellos, color was the visible as such.77 It is the objective condition that permits a thing to be seen. But in order for this to happen, we need a medium that can convey the color of the thing seen. The medium proposed is light, which is dened as the actuality of the transparent (% '). What brings actuality (light) to this material (air) is the color of the thing seen. It is this color that changes or moves the transparent into becoming light and that thus allows it to convey the sense-data, the material form or shape of the thing seen, from the sense-object to the sense-organ. This transparent medium has a complex role to play in Aristotle’s account of vision. Although it is moved or changed by color and conveys this color, it does not become colored. In a similar manner, the eye also remains unchanged or unmoved. The pupil is understood to be a continuity of the transparent medium. As such, the eye itself does not see. Rather the sense-organ is also a medium through which one senses, by which is meant that sense-data are delivered to the heart, the primary organ of sense by means of the passages () that link the heart and the various sense organs. Vision thus originates in the object and ends in the heart. These two are not in contact. Rather the perception of the object, visible in its color, is mediated by the actualized transparent that is the air and the water of the eye.

76 77

Cf. Nelson, “To Say and to see.” For a broad introduction to color in Byzantium refer to James, Light and Colour.

michael psellos: seeing through painting

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From these various readings it has become evident that for Psellos the act of seeing was understood to be an opening of oneself to the mediated affect of the thing that has given itself to be seen. One consequence of this denition is that the status of the icon must change if one is truly to see the Mother of God or Christ Antiphonetes. The physical tangible icon can no longer be the object of vision itself, as was the case with the Crucixion image. As we have seen, this was a partial image, limited by its human origin. Now, the icon must be understood as the medium that permits the Theotokos or Christ to be seen through its occasional transparency. The perceived changes in the color of the icon, overt in the Antiphonetes image, implicit in the Blachernae image, thus conveys an affect to the spectator that signies that the one who is the true object of desire in the visual experience has allowed him- or herself to come into view through the icon. It is an experience that has transformed the icon into a porous medium that offers the distant sight of things that are normally out of reach. Given this condition, it is apparent that Psellos’s writing on art does not address all icons. He has set aside most art as a likeness of a likeness or the imitation of a gure. Whether it is traditional or novel in form, it is still for him bound by the limits of the humanly visible. While all art can seek to excel in its account of sensual data (and can thus appeal to our human eyes and touch), it is only extraordinary works that can be brought beyond this natural horizon and thence receive participation in the supernatural. This is what distinguishes his discussion of the Crucixion icon from that of the Blachernae icon. While the Crucixion painting can show Christ’s body, the Blachernae image can become the Theotokos. Such participation depended upon divine intervention and was independent of human action. It is such interventions, rather than the knowledge that guided the shaping hand of the artist, that made this presence in the work of art possible. At this point, as this chapter draws to its conclusion, I believe some words written by Hans-Georg Gadamer are relevant: “The question is not what we do or what we should do, but what happens beyond our willing or doing.”78 I believe that this sentiment provides a useful frame for understanding the operation of the relation between the viewer and 78 Hans-Georg Gadamer, Wahrheit und Methode: Grundzüge einer philosophischen Hermeneutik, 2nd ed. (Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1965): xiv: “Nicht, was wir tun, nicht, was wir tun sollten, sondern was über unser Wollen und Tun hinaus mit uns geschieht, steht in Frage.”

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the viewed in Michael Psellos’s writing on art. It is apparent that for this eleventh-century philosopher that human action was no guarantee of a vision. Granted this, I would argue that Psellos’s “simple woman (  6  )” performs a key role in helping us to understand this investigation of spiritual seeing. She provides a model of inspiration, demonstrating that one can receive the miraculous sight despite one’s performative incompetence. As such, she has become the very guarantee for Psellos’s understanding of the supernatural origin for the regular living visit of the Theotokos to the Blachernae and, therefore, of the authenticity of this miraculous experience that serves to guarantee the legal role of the icon in discussion. His construction of this gure builds upon an overtly philosophical model. In its negotiation between the visible and the invisible, light and dark, it stands opposed to the intense focus on ineffable light that shaped Symeon the New Theologian’s understanding of visuality. For Psellos, painting embodied the partial knowledge that is possible within the darkness of the material horizon in which man dwells. In framing this darkness, painting provides a space in which the occasional ash of illumination can disclose the full truth of the subject that has let itself become available through the icon.

CHAPTER FOUR

EUSTRATIOS OF NICAEA AND THE CONSTRAINTS OF THEOLOGY To this point, I have focused on two discussions of the icon that have in their different, perhaps opposed, manners examined the limits of the possibility of spiritual seeing. Each has offered a model that tests the boundaries of the visible and its trace in iconic depiction. In this fourth chapter, I will turn to a third major eleventh-century writer on the visible, Eustratios, Metropolitan of Nicaea (ca. 1050–ca. 1120). He was perhaps the dominant intellectual gure at work in the court of Alexios I Komnenos (1081–1118).1 Anna Komnena, writing in her Alexiad, described him as: “skilled in the sacred and the profane sciences, more condent in dialectics than those who frequent the Stoa and the Academy.”2 He had been a pupil of John Italos, Psellos’s successor as Consul of the Philosophers. Having survived the fall of his teacher, he emerged in the early 1090s to write the two treatises on the icons that are the primary focus of this chapter.3 Later, in 1111, his status as an ofcial court theologian is marked by his debate on a variety of theological questions with Peter Grossolanus, the Catholic archbishop 1 Johannes Draeseke, “Zu Eustratios von Nikaea,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 5 (1896): 319–36; Perikles Joannou, “Eustrate de Nicée. Trois pièces inédites de son procès (1117),” Revue des Études Byzantines 10 (1952): 24–34; Perikles Joannou, “Die Denition des Seins bei Eustratios von Nikaia. Die Universalienlehre in der byzantinischen Theologie im XI. Jh.,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 47 (1954): 358–68; Perikles Joannou, “Der Nominalismus und die menschliche Psychologie Christi. Das Semeioma gegen Eustratios von Nikaia (1117),” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 47 (1954): 369–78; Perikles Joannou, “Le sort des évêques hérétiques réconciliés. Un discours inédit de Nicétas de Serres contre Eustrate de Nicée,” Byzantion 28 (1958): 1–30; K. Giocarinis, “Eustratius of Nicaea’s Defense of the Doctrine of Ideas,” Franciscan Studies 24 (1964): 159–204; Jean Gouillard, “Le Synodikon de l’Orthodoxie: édition et commentaire,” Travaux et Mémoires 2 (1967): 206–10; H. Paul – F. Mercken, The Greek Commentaries on the Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle in the Latin Translation of Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln (†1253), vol. 1 (Leiden: Brill, 1973): 6*–14*; Michele Trizio, “Eustratius of Nicaea on Absolute and Conditional Necessity. A Survey of the Commentary on Book VI of the Nicomachean Ethics,” Archiv für mittelalterliche Philosophie und Kultur 12 (2006): 35–63. 2 Anna Komnena, Alexias, XIV, 8. 3 Andronikos Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica (Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1965): 127–51, 151–60. The date is implied at 129; cf. Pelopidas Stephanou, “Le procès de Léon de Chalcédoine,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 9 (1943): 46.

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of Milan.4 Then, in 1114 Eustratios worked with Alexios I in a series of conferences directed against Monophysitism. Unfortunately, some of the positions espoused by Eustratios on this occasion brought charges of heresy against him. In 1117 he was effectively abandoned by his emperor and then condemned for these positions and his earlier defense of the icons.5 The major complaint laid against Eustratios was against his use of syllogisms, a charge that echoed the earlier condemnation of Italos. The problem for his opponents thus lay in his blurring the boundaries between philosophy and theology. These philosophical interests are most clearly represented by his commentaries on Aristotle, which are thought to date after his condemnation. Eustratios wrote commentaries on Book 2 of the Posterior Analytics and Books 1 and 6 of the Nicomachean Ethics.6 The commentary on the Nicomachean Ethics was produced under the patronage of Anna Komnena, daughter of the Emperor Alexios I Komnenos. These commentaries reveal that Eustratios was not simply a narrowly scholastic theologian, such as those criticized by Symeon the New Theologian. Rather, these texts reveal a reading of Aristotle that is shaped by the Neoplatonic concerns of the intellectual revival of the eleventh century. Nonetheless, his address to icons is very much dened by the logical and aesthetic parameters of a scholastic, perhaps neo-Aristotelian, theology. That this should be so is of some signicance and marks an important divergence both from Michael Psellos and John Italos. As we shall see, by the time he writes his commentary on book 6 of the Ethics he is prepared to follow this logic to a conclusion that will argue for the removal of the icon from theological discourse. In so doing, he seeks to break with the legacy of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy and thence remove the icon from its central place in the denition of Orthodoxy. Throughout his writings Eustratios provides an extended examination of the logic of painting. While this has been a common ground for all of the discussions of painting examined in this study, Eustratios’s work is striking for its extensive analysis of this logic. As such, Eustratios has bequeathed the most exacting description of this narrowed conception of the icon’s possibility to us. 4 A text written by Eustratios to mark this occasion can be found at Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 84–99. 5 Joannou, “Sort des évêques:” 28. 6 Eustratii in Analyticorum Posteriorum Librum Secundum Commentarium, ed. M. Hayduck, Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 21, 1 (Berlin: George Reimer, 1907); Eustratii et Michaelis et Anonyma in Ethica Nicomachea Commentaria, ed. Gustavus Heylbut, Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 20 (Berlin: George Reimer, 1892): 1–122, 256–406.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 101 The place to begin is with the two texts that Eustratios wrote against Leo, Metropolitan of Chalcedon’s defense of his conception of the icon as a divine portrait. Leo’s argument will be discussed in detail in the next chapter.7 For now, I will focus on the response it provoked. Eustratios’s essays were written in the early 1090s as part of the preparation for a synod addressing Leo’s views that met in 1094/95. Although relatively neglected they represent one of the longest post-iconoclastic discussions of the nature of the icon, representation, and worship in Byzantium. For this reason, I will offer a full account of their unfolding arguments. The rst of Eustratios’ texts is the Dialogue. The two participants (Lover of One’s Associates ( ) and Friend of Truth (  )) are thin disguises for Leo of Chalcedon and for Eustratios.8 At the start of the Dialogue the Friend of Truth promises to distinguish the person of the Lover of One’s Associates from his ideas, thus sparing the man.9 In this way Eustratios acknowledges the renown and the importance of Leo in the world of the Komnenian court. Having begun in this collegial manner, the dialogue then begins the long process of examining its central topic, which was to ask whether it was appropriate to adore or venerate an icon of Christ (g. 1).10 The Lover of Truth posits that in order to answer this question one needs to understand what exactly it is that an icon represents and whether it is legitimate for the icon to convey the given subject. The Lover of Truth begins to respond to these two problems by asserting as a fundamental condition that any response must acknowledge that the paradigmatic subject, Christ, is both human and divine in nature:             !" #!$ %&  ' '  (  ) ' , * & + )!' .  /(&, + & (  + 0

'  +   ) '  .

7

Lover of Truth: As there are two natures in the Savior united in the one hypostasis, his divine and human, you say that both are depicted, or something else: either the divine or the human.

The texts can be found in Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 127–60. A useful summary, with a problematic conclusion can be found at: Pelopidas Stephanou, “La Doctrine de Léon de Chalcédoine et de ses adversaires sur les images,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 12 (1946): 190–98. 8 The term “Lover of One’s Associates” is perhaps a reference to Plutarch’s Moralia where in the section “How to tell a atterer” (56C) the term is used to dene an amorous man. 9 Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 127–29. 10 Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 130.

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  !2.   ’34 !0 5 # '  5 6  !', 7 28 2  9 !'  .  0 ) '  6 (:'! . . . ; ! < #

'  ( = /(', . >? @4 /(', ) 2A $BA @ ' ?  @ ', @ !! C ' ? 9 /(6 @ !! C ' ?     ' ? 9 /(6   ' ?    6 !' D (  ? /(6 !' #  '  )!$'  (  )&  ( 9 /('.11

Lover of One’s Associates: Yes. Lover of Truth: But not the divine nor both together, as I shall show. It follows then that the human alone is to be depicted . . . just as, clearly, therefore the divine cannot be painted. For everything that is painted is painted by human art. Just as everything that has been written is gured in writings, it follows that everything that has been painted has been gured in writings. All of these differ. It follows that everything painted is different. But everything that is different differs. Thence also everything that is different is painted. But the divine is undifferentiated and undivided; it follows that it cannot be painted.

This awkwardly phrased passage simply seeks to assert a basic distinction between the human and the divine that is based upon the fundamental difference in their natures. This then leads to an understanding that since the divine is undifferentiated and therefore without dimension, it cannot be the origin of painting. On the other hand, the human is differentiated and therefore can open the possibility of representation. With this point in mind, Eustratios then continues:11  . EF ’ F '@G  6  !' =  /('. H/ @4 = , & # '    '  (  !' *  ( 4 !2  %'  )@B I    (2. J2  < !'  /(0 .  0 ) '  . 3K  + L + ( & . . > *;

11

Lover of Truth: By the same argument they cannot be depicted together. For if they were to be, then the divine would again have dimension and measure, as it is united unconfused to the esh within the one person. It follows therefore that only the human can be depicted: either in its own right or in relation to something else. Lover of One’s Associates: What do you mean?

Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 131–32.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 103  . ’H0 @4   #  ) N  2, N ! ( OB  !$ (  N! , =P *  0 OB0  !, '  6 ! / !$ (  !$  ', Q@ (&  (  R!!.   P < / B!, (   / BC , (   P / K  (  ., )&@( + L +     .  /(*.12

Lover of Truth: As the nature of man is composed of many parts, being rst a synthesis of soul and esh, (the soul itself is many powered, and the esh itself is divided into one part and another, both organic and having like parts). These being in the humors, the elements, and matter and form, mean that this [nature] must be depicted either simply or in some manner.

The12important point here is that the essential difference between the human and the divine cannot be set aside in the case of Christ. Of his two natures only the human can be depicted. It follows that an icon is necessarily partial. In concluding this part of the argument the Lover of Truth introduces a further qualication to this fundamental distinction by stating that art can only imitate that which is available to the senses: “It follows that this [depiction] is not according to the essence, but can only be depicted in accordance with the human senses (J2  S !0 ( 4 ?  0 2 , )4 ( 4 !' 6   / 6 6 S  /(2:  (   :N T( ).”13 By these quick steps Eustratios has brought his audience to the understanding that an icon can only depict the visible traces of its given subject. The implications of this visible turn are developed further when the Lover of One’s Associates raises a series of objections. First, he points out that images have been made of the angels, even though they are intelligible rather than sensible beings and thus exist beyond the narrow limits of the Lover of Truth’s denition of what might be depicted.14 In response, the Lover of Truth argues that such forms of depiction are symbolic rather than iconic and so differ from the question of Christ’s icon. He cites Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite as an authority for this view and leans, in particular, on themes found in the Celestial Hierarchy. In developing this line of thought, Eustratios goes on to argue that there is a distinction to be drawn between things perceived by the sensible eye and things perceived through the intelligible eye.

12

Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 132. Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 132. 14 For a full account of the theoretical framing of the depiction of angels in Byzantium consult: Glenn Peers, Subtle Bodies: Representing Angels in Byzantium (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001). 13

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The images made after intelligible perceptions should be considered a condescension that allows humans to make sense of such manifestations. Since mankind discerns by means of the senses, it follows that there is a need for painting and writing to convey subjects that exist in the intelligible realm.15 Rather than asking whether this principle might not also be applied to the problem of Christ’s depiction, the Lover of One’s Associates then asks whether this adherence to the level of the sensible means that an image should show the esh, bones, sinews and everything else (a question that is almost an echo of Michael Psellos’s forensic eye). The Lover of Truth responds by saying: “Not all of these, but only that which is manifest (U( 4 & , )4 ( 4 !'  0 & ).”16 An answer that allows the Lover of Truth to reiterate and expand upon the idea that art pertains to the visible affect of things and not their entire material being. The Lover of One’s Associates then asks: “Is it then the essential or the accidental that is depicted (E2  N  !V& W !VV (' R /(2:;)?” The Lover of the Truth is astounded that he continues to ask this, but the Lover of One’s Associates then explains that he does not believe that a system of representation based only upon visible variables can truly allow for a differentiation between different beings. It is an objection that is based on an assumption that the form and nature of the person are necessarily identical.17 The Lover of Truth responds to this objection by drawing a rmer distinction between that which is essential and that which is accidental: he calls the hands, eyes, and feet essential, while their curve and color are accidental.18 The Lover of One’s Associates responds that this distinction is not only simplistic but also a mere mental or rhetorical gesture.19 In truth, no distinction need be drawn. The Lover of Truth then asks this question: “When delineating pictorially the features of a certain man, do I not give an account of his two feet and his two hands and his two eyes, and these are in due course naturally in accord with the man (XH!  @&    ) N B  (  @& /((,  2 6 (  2B (  ' ! Y, (  ; 5 ( = F ) NG Z'! ;)?” The implication of this question is that these essential features are also individuated. In 15 16 17 18 19

Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos,

Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca

Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica:

132–34. 134. 134. 134–135. 135.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 105 order to accept this translation of an essential feature of the subject into an accidental trait in the icon, the Lover of One’s Associates asks for a more precise account of such individuation, as they appear to be both essential and accidental: “For while these are essential to the imitation in painting or sculpting or some other form of image making, the color used in the outline and such things is accidental (E  ! N  ! C @ !$ / !2!  W 8!$ W [  /(:!$, !VV ('  6 B! B6 6 B! (  4   ).”20 The Lover of Truth then retorts: “Know this, the painter or the sculptor does not place anything essential into the fundamental materials themselves (\  *, 7   R @ ] W R ) 6  C %(!$  5  C  $ ).”21 He thereby considers it impossible to speak of anything essential in regard to the process that brought the painting into being. The two opponents then use this introduction of the question of the artist’s share to debate the nature of creativity. They rst discuss whether the notion of God’s creative force implies the continuing presence of the divine in all created things and then go on to consider whether the Creator can serve as a model for artistic making. The Lover of Truth begins by dening the manner in which God created all of nature and everything that lives.22 These were acts that had brought about an essential change in matter. In contrast, while mankind is able to work the land or to sow seed in the earth, these actions, although echoing God’s creative actions, cannot be deemed an original creation in their own right.23 This distinction then allows the Lover of Truth to dene what it is possible for the artist to do. Thus, in answer to this question: “How might you show the two feet in such a manner that they are not essential to man . . .?” the Lover of Truth responds by reiterating his earlier point that no one believes that a painting creates anything essential.24 As such, the question is meaningless, for the artist’s work cannot properly be compared to the work of creation. Rather than see art as a form of poetics akin to divine creation, Eustratios offers a more limited denition. This is introduced by a question: “Does art depict ($B # /((*;)?” This is answered in the afrmative, as Eustratios will go on to use the idea of depiction to distinguish the work of art 20 21 22 23 24

Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos,

Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca

Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica:

135. 135. 136. 136–37. 139.

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from the work of creation by noting that: “depiction is not a producer of essence (^_ /((0 S ( ` 'v).”25 The Lover of Truth develops this point further by asking the following question: “Do the gold and silver and bronze and wood and stones and colors and whatever other materials show the feet in the depiction essentially or in some other manner, that is according to accident (^U B6 (  [@ (  B (6 (  B (  2  (  BN!  (  a  Z$ 5  /((  6 2 I  = $B , W ( 4 !VV (';)?”26 Before offering an answer, he then asks a series of subsequent questions that were intended to unpack the complications inherent in the rst. These include: “Is it that the essential has followed after something essential (E6   @'! . $ ;)? . . . does this, that which it follows after, then make the essential form more complete by nature (E6  . ' ( 4  C (C, b @@$  ;)? . . . Would the more complete bring what was made to activity, projecting the more complete nature and hiding the former, which is also there (U!2   5  6 (  /(( @'! 6 $@  [@ $  (  (2 ;)? . . . Then would the essential which is born in that which is fundamental be brought to a more complete and hidden activity (0 2 )&@( 6  . ' C (  6 %(2! (  6 $@  [@ (2 (  $ ;)?”27 It is as if the Lover of Truth is trying to tease out all of the possibilities in the relation between an image and its subject. We are being asked to expand upon the essential difference that has already been deployed to distinguish the icon from its subject and to ask about the relative values of each. This does not only entail considering how the subject both precedes and exceeds its depiction, but also invites enquiries into whether and how a painting contributes to its subject. Does the material of the icon add in any way to the subject shown? Does it make it more complete by rendering it visible? If so, then are we still seeing the subject itself, or something else? If something else, then does the icon, paradoxically, mask that subject even as it brings it into the visibility of depiction? This series of questions prepares the way for the Lover of Truth to distinguish essential activity from the work of art itself: “For this reason both the eternal form and more properly the enmattered are and are

25 26 27

Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 139. Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 140. Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 140.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 107 called the material essence, this is what bears and underlies the same, but it is not that by which matter is able to be activated. It is apparent that this is properly the activity of essences (4  @4 (  6 . ) (     (N  5  2 2  (  $@ , ;  6 [@ (  6 %(2! ( ’ Z ', (  c  5 @C !0 &!. 7 .   ;  /('  6 @C  ).”28 What he is seeking to show here is that the material of the icon operates in a manner that is different from the essential properties of the subject. This distinction is absolute, cannot be overcome, and cannot permit any confusion of subject and depiction. The Lover of One’s Associates then suggests that the miraculous can overcome this distinction. We have already noted Michael Psellos’s resort to the miraculous in order to permit the presencing of the divine in the icon. In this instance, Eustratios, in the guise of the Lover of Truth resists the signicance of the miraculous by proposing that this was not a natural condition of the icon itself and therefore could not be used to dene the iconic per se:29 H/ @4 ! ,  ( 4 , )’ %   6 @'! DP /  /('  P    @2 , ( S  !&:, )’ d (  &  /(' 7   Z'!  P K &  2, ; !0  2, (  !&:  7 % 0  !  ( 2  [, ; R  0  /(' !0   ,  @C    B F *! . ef   /('  # $@ , )4  &    2  &!, 6 + Y #! OB  ) '!   C B C 4 8  (   @2  (  g2  ; @ !  /(' !'A h   C , )4 (    &@ 2  ( 

'(, (     & F.29

28 29

For if it is miraculous, [it is] not natural, but originates in the supernatural. Thence, if an image has its origin in nature, rather than by means of a miracle, then the image is wholly produced in nature. But if it is not entirely as such, then it is not natural, and is completed by a supernatural miracle. Since this is extraordinary, [it is something] that the maker of an icon is unable to do, namely to produce this from the hands of the maker. This is not the activity of icons, but is wholly attributed to the divine power, toward which our souls are lifted up by the prayers the blessed and the helpers address through it. Indeed, these [things] are not fullled by the icon of Christ alone, but also of the all-holy Lady and Theotokos, and all of the most blessed [who may be] in it.

Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 140. Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 141.

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The Lover of One’s Associates then turns the discussion towards the nature of form. This is an important question, as he wishes to nd a close identication between form and essence. The Lover of Truth responds in this manner:30 . . . / @4 R N   '@ (  #

!* i )!V j 6 6 N! &   ! !$ !0 /  2  $  .30

For substantiated form is both word and shape. Thence when what is spoken of is brought forth in what signies this is not done essentially.

Here again we see the pattern of rm distinctions between the medium and that which it is asked to convey. The bringing forth of some shape or some speech does not bring forth the subject signied in an essential manner. What is given to us is the impression made upon these media by the accidental traits of the subject. This is an act of translation from essential form to manifest form or shape:31 XH @4 . 6 /'! I@ V'! (   '!, ;  # !0 Z(& ( ’ & . U @4 / V&  # kO V&,   2  & , !'  B!  ( P Z 0 (   ( /  B !&, $@ ) !, (*, (  l   =, 9  !VV (' . m*(   K! (   4 ( ’ 2  a ( P R!'   ! Q!  $ . ’H!&: @4 (    (  (!C (  (  6 %(2!.31

Form is the visible or rather that which is seen or manifest, thence the shape is exact in accordance to appearance. For vision is not cast into the abyss, nor does it grasp the essential, but only the colors of this and their common sensible outlines, I speak of number, movements and other such things, which are all accidents. One must also transfer the name on to the essential form as it is named in accordance with the likenesses of the shape. For these simulate and adorn and beautify the subject.

The Lover of One’s Associates is still unconvinced by how the relation between the medium and its subject has been described. To begin to clarify this relation, the Lover of Truth offers three kinds of orientation for matter: the natural, the artistic, and the logical. These are not exclusive qualities, rather they are possibilities inherent in all matter. The natural refers to those elements of which all those that live are comprised. The artistic refers to those materials from which things 30 31

Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 142. Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 142.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 109 can be made. The logical is that which is directed toward the form. Given these denitions, the Lover of Truth argues that painting should be considered to be like writing. Both translate the essential form of a given subject into the manifest form of a visual or verbal text.32 Given this, the Lover of Truth is able to arrive at this denition: “Art imitates nature by setting forth form in matter (0  @4 # $B !!C   5A  C 4 a ).”33 This imitation does not embrace the substance of what is shown, but merely the external accidents of appearance. Hence, the image is not animate, rather it consists only of outlines and shapes, such as a triangle or a sphere or a cylinder ( !  `!OB, )4 B! !', 7 4 2@ (  Y  C  (  Y ( (  4 4 $@ ).34 In response to this formalist argument, the Lover of One’s Associates responds that he is neither adoring the accidents nor the essence of the subject seen in the icon: “But since the accidents artistically portrayed according to the shape in Christ disclose him in this divine portrait, we say that [one ought] to worship in terms of adoration what is disclosed in them (nP  4 !VV (' ( 4 0 !0  h B  '! B( 6 (C !  6 '  B  ( , (2  ! (C  (  ! !$ %P ).”35 This leads the Lover of Truth to ask what it is that is disclosed in these icons, that which is painted or that which is not painted (2 0 !    C; o @& , W o  @& ;)?36 In answer to his own question, the Lover of Truth notes that while we contemplate ( !$) Christ in terms of his having two natures in a single hypostasis, when we look at an icon it is the human alone that is seen there, hence we cannot adore what is in the icon.37 The Lover of One’s Associates asks: “Is this not God (B p6 ;)?”38 The Lover of Truth responds by arguing that reason has distinguished two natures in Christ’s hypostasis, the human and the divine. This distinction permits the representation of Christ’s humanity and also directs adoration towards his divine nature.39 Once the distinction is made, however,

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos,

Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca

Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica:

142. 143. 144. 144. 144. 145. 145. 147.

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the humanity is deemed to be other than the divinity and therefore cannot be adored. The Lover of One’s Associates resists this division by arguing that it introduces two kinds of worship, adoration and veneration, addressed to a subject with a common form.40 The Lover of Truth responds by arguing that the presence of the icon necessitates this double aspect for our worship: “For while our worship of him is unmediated, imitation is mediated ((C ! @4 )!$ (! F,    4 !$  !!*).”41 This entails that any worship brought to bear on the icon must also be mediated.42 Having arrived at this point we can see that Eustratios has taken us through a very concise account of painting. For him, the fundamental distinction between the human and the divine, the visible and the invisible, the material and the spiritual, has signicant consequences for the icon. The logic of these fundamental distinctions leads to an understanding that limits the icon to being the depiction of the accidental traits of a given subject available to the human senses. Such an understanding also necessitates that an icon can only receive worship that is appropriate to these conditions. In arguing in this manner, Eustratios has bequeathed a powerful and precise continuation of the ninth-century iconophile account of the icon. The second essay on the icon, the Demonstration, reiterates much of the content of the Dialogue and so I will not present its content at such length. The Demonstration consists of a chain of syllogisms that builds the same case found in the Dialogue, namely that as the divine cannot be in a material image it follows that this image cannot be adored.43 The basic point remains that an icon could not merit adoration as only Christ’s human nature could be shown there.44 Once again the discussion builds from an examination of Christ’s two natures. One development in the Demonstration discussion is an extended examination of the idea that Christ’s human nature should be dened as an acquisition (' !! ) by the Logos and so should be considered distinct from the Logos. It follows that this human nature can never be adored.45 From this premise, Eustratios again argues that the icon takes only the outline and the shape and not the essence of the subject depicted. Hence:

40 41 42 43 44 45

Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos, Demetrakopulos,

Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca Bibliotheca

Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica: Ecclesiastica:

147. 148. 149. 151–60. 151–52. 154.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 111 XH # /(j 6 B! (  0 !0  /(:!$  !V&  0   6  B! (  # !0 '  L (  $  @$ '  ?  L '  !VV ('   !VV (6  '  [ B! W !0  '. >&  ( [   2  ! !$  /('  ?  R '@ #!C  @4  B(  (  ( 4 !2!  ; R p6 J'@  N q P B&  #! Z  6 ' !! (  L@2  >  $ (  p'( %* , 0 ) B0  #!$ &!  (  %'  6 R p6 J'@    2  #!C B !&, 7  !? %& 4  C  . ^f !  Y6  p *  )& 4 % (4  /N!  , ( P r (2  > 6 (   >!  ( P %'  7  Y6 ) N sB   /N!  = , ( P r  $  ! 6 (    ) N. E  0 4  2  2 W !VV ('; Y'  $@, 6 B! ,  !$@ , # @'  B', # & 2B, #    & B !&,  B$,  Q !, (  Z(& !2 ( 4 0 s8  & , 9   C /(' @&, 2  @2:! 0 Z(&  /(:!$ /(' .46

Yet the icon takes the outline and the shape of the depicted, not the essence. The outline and shape are simply a quality and the fourth kind of quality. Every quality is simply an accident. No accident should be adored. Equally no outline or shape should be adored. What we are talking about when we talk about the icon is perfectly obvious: the artistic and the mimetic. The pre-eternal Divine Logos has assumed into himself at the end of days the additional from the holy virgin and Theotokos, the rst fruit of our mixture. The hypostasis of the Divine Logos has required the adoption of our nature, so that the two natures might be contemplated in the one hypostasis. So, just as the Son of God has maintained his infallible hypostatic particularities, according to which the hypostasis is distinguished from the Father and the Spirit. So, too, did the Son of Man possess other particularities by which he differs from the mother and other men. What are these secondary things, substance or accident? By which I mean, colors, size, perhaps the curve of a nose, or the hair for instance, or the outlines from which he has emerged: the eyebrows, the eyes, and each part that is manifest on his exterior, by means of which when we see them on icons we recognize who each icon is representing.

These are traces of the accidents that manifest this subject. In the case of Christ, these naturally pertain to his humanity and therefore cannot be worthy of adoration. Nonetheless, they do have great value, as they convey Christ’s particularity. As such they afrm that Christ was an individual and not some diffuse embodiment of human nature.46

46

Demetrakopulos, Biblitotheca Ecclesiastica: 154–55.

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This attention to the accidental ground of painting reiterates an account of painting that wishes to distinguish sharply between an icon, a man-made object, and its natural subject. This difference is substantial. While Eustratios identies the availability of the divine through a post-incarnational divinized nature, he is unwilling to allow this presence within the work of art. It becomes necessary, then, for him to distinguish that which is in nature from that which is visible in a painting. A painting remains the trace of the visible, a record of the accidents that describe the particular manifestation of a given subject but that should not be confused with their substance. As Herbert Kessler has shown, we nd echoes of this distinction in a representation of the Spiritual Tablets in an early twelfth-century Klimakos manuscript (g. 18).47 Here, not only have the written tablets of the Law been replaced by the iconic knowledge of the post-incarnational world, but the possibility of the reproduction of Christ’s face is afrmed by the relation between the mandylion and the tile. This form, here reversed in the transfer from the primary cloth to the secondary ceramic, remains distinct from the material that bears it. Neither the cloth nor the tile have become sacred in themselves, even as they become valued as a material medium that allows the form of Christ to become available to us as something visible. Turning to the question of worship, Eustratios argues that one cannot develop a theory of icon adoration that assumes that it is possible to use the image to bring one to the adoration of the divine in the person of Christ. This would be to ignore the material nature of the icon itself. Furthermore, one ought to build an iconic theory from premises drawn from the imagination or memory.48 Returning to the question of worship, Eustratios reminds his audience that any abstraction, such as human nature, cannot be worshipped, as worship is only owed to concrete particulars—those traits that have dened the individual.49 Finally, he reiterates that the Logos cannot be worshipped in the icon as this image can have nothing to do with the divine even when the divinity has become incarnate.50

47 Herbert L. Kessler, Spiritual Seeing: Picturing God’s Invisibility in Medieval Art (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000): 83. 48 Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 155–56 and 158. 49 Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 157. 50 Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 159.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 113 Eustratios’s two texts reiterate the ofcial church position on the icon that had been formulated by the ninth-century fathers, particularly Theodore of Stoudios and Nikephoros of Constantinople.51 This deployed logical categories to clarify the relation between an image and its prototype. In developing this line of thought, Eustratios provides a narrowly focused text that, with great concision, remains within the narrow constraints of the logic of painting. We are left with two signicant points. First, these texts reiterate the point that the icon remains embedded in the terms that dene the proper limits of human knowledge. Second, these essays mark a continuity of thought.52 What Eustratios presents to us is a very strong sense of the continuing power of the logical, ultimately Aristotelian denition of the work of art, whereby painting presents an account of the accidents of appearance, is limited to that which it is humanly possible to see, and allows nothing of the subject’s substance to be present in a given image. By these means, the logic of painting has both distinguished and limited the function of the manufactured object. Eustratios returned to the question of art in his commentaries on Books One and Six of the Nicomachean Ethics. This work was pursued under the patronage of Anna Komnena and perhaps dates to the years after Eustratios’s condemnation in 1117. In his discussion of art here Eustratios pulls themes from the text that continue his earlier discussions of the nature of art. He also adds something of signicance to Aristotle’s text. This addition, an identication of the best wisdom with theology, presents an attempt by Eustratios to remove the icon from the contentious theological position it had occupied throughout the eleventh-century in Byzantium by lessening its status in regard to theology proper. This was a challenge to the role to which the icon had been elevated by the seventh canon of the eighth oecumenical council and by the Synodikon of Orthodoxy itself. Eustratios introduces this addition towards the end of his commentary on the section in the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics that concerns Aristotle’s distinction of art from prudence and the respective values 51 The authority of these fathers is underlined by their use in the iconoclastic debate of the eleventh century. They are cited in the now lost dossier compiled against Leo of Chalcedon, which will be discussed in the next chapter. 52 Eustratios also addresses some aspects of art in his commentary on the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics: Eustratii et Michaelis et Anonyma in Ethica Nicomachea Commentaria, ed. Gustavus Heylbut, Commentaria in Aristotelem Graeca 20 (Berlin: George Reimer, 1892): 256–406.

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of doing and making. The particular passage is found in Eustratios’s response to section 1141a9 of Aristotle’s text:53 E0  2    C $B  C )(V& 4 $B  )2!, . 2   @6 6 (  >( ) ',   ! <  [  ! 2 0 2 , Wt ; )0 $B  2 53

The term wisdom is employed in the arts to denote those men who are the most accurate masters of their art, for instance, it is applied to Pheidias as a sculptor and to Polykleitos as a statuary. In this use then wisdom signies nothing other than artistic excellence.

In the course of his lengthy commentary on this passage Eustratios elaborates on the nature of the particular wisdom that belongs to the arts. Both Pheidias and Polykleitos are praised for the accuracy of their imitations in stone of natural things. For example:54 >( ) 6 6 7!&:, )(VC (  6 4 !!*  C 2  ( 4 6 @B F %(!$G !.54

Polykleitos is called a wise sculptor, making accurate imitations in the stones according to what is possible as regards the subject.

In this phrase we can hear a condition introduced by Eustratios when he tells us that the imitation is determined by that which is: “possible as regards the subject.” This recalls the distinction that Eustratios had drawn regarding Christ’s icon. There only the accidental traces of Christ’s humanity were available for depiction. It is a model that suggests that the artist is dependent upon what the subject discloses of itself. Eustratios then expands upon this:55 7 @4 # ! 2 u L, 4    2w (   0 2  B L k , )&  u =(   $@ , ( 2   2  k, x '  2  W '  2  W B$ W $, 7 6 (C  (  y   (  ) ((2 , W 6  'G .  0 2  W 6  B'G

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Since substance is being proper, the things in and around substance are not beings proper, but each is said to be a kind of being and a kind of being of substance, as the quantity of substance, or the quality of substance or the relation or position, like lying, standing and leaning, or substance being in a place or in time or any

Eustratios, In Ethica Nicomachea Commentaria VI.7 318.27–30. Eustratios, In Ethica Nicomachea Commentaria VI.7 319.19–21.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 115 I [   (  @, 5 (   B Z(& ,   2  %(!$    2w (   0 2  @&: 2 , (2  @(*, z  @&:  (  o   2w (   0 2  2 .  $  6 ( 4 0 $B  ., o   /(2w 5A  $B  %6  B2 )C .  $  !VV (', (  4 '  u B L, (  4 '  2 # ( ’ 6 '  (  )*, #  2 L  0  k @ (  @!$ , I  , K  u @N( )’ L k, I@  !VV (' ;  k  ’ 2  W L k [.] 7 <   @$ 0 !  !VV (' (  !0 .  @$ B L @$ )&  @$ $@!, 0   2  @$ ;, )’ K  4 6 ; k .  @$, 7 (  6 R ’3$  #!C   $(, 5 (  0 @ (  0 2   ! !VV (' Z(& @  (  2  &, (  6 ( ’ 0 '  6 ( 2  ', 6  ( 4 4 2  6 (  4 ( ’ %6  C 2  Z'! ; 6 (  L ', & ’ /$  2w (& 6  4 )B(N  k (  @'! (  2  ( 2  0 *!  , }  #

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55

of the other nine categories. Each of the arts is likewise, since something is worked from the underlying substance in the substance and around the substance. That which is known is that which is worked out and inheres in and around substance. This is artistic form, which is brought forth by the artist in the material proper to that art. And this is an accident, and therefore something that is not properly being, so that the excellence and perfection concerning it (i.e. accidence) is a kind of wisdom. But wisdom proper derives from the knowledge of beings, that is, of substances, which are not a kind of being, but being proper, namely, not accidence, which is a kind of being, but substance or being proper. Just as we say about coming-to-be, on the one hand, that the coming-to-be of accidence from non-being is not coming-to-be proper but a kind of coming-to-be, and on the other, that the coming-to-be of substance is complete and not a kind of coming-to-be on account of its actually being complete, as Aristotle has taught us, so too is the knowledge and wisdom of each accidence a kind of knowledge and a kind of wisdom. And the wise man concerning this wisdom is a kind of wise man about something kind of wise, and the wise man concerning substances and the things in themselves that follow upon substances is completely wise and wise in the proper sense, and moreover he is the best of all in wisdom, who concerns himself with the most fundamental aspects of beings and the best wisdom is his science, namely, theology.

Eustratios, In Ethica Nicomachea Commentaria VI.7 319.37–320.19.

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By the time the reader reaches this section she or he would have noted that Eustratios has elaborated upon but not really extended the scope of Aristotle’s text. Art is therefore already understood to be a rational process of making that proceeds under its own conditions.56 As it proceeds, art moves that which is external to the substance being worked.57 It brings something into existence and the cause of this is the artist.58 This artist is obliged to be accurate, as it is this accuracy that puts the material of the image and the form of the subject in contact with one another ((  s  6 7    5A (  F F %(!$G  )(V  O&!).59 Furthermore, one is asked to bear in mind that art, unlike natural things, is not necessary.60 Having prepared us in this manner, it is of little surprise to nd in the passage quoted above that the wisdom accredited to art is of a second order. Thus, while the artist might be called wise with reference to his accurate rendering of the accidents that adhere to or surround substance, this wisdom is of a different, lesser, order when compared to the wisdom of one who attends to being proper. This last, in its best form, is designated the work of the theologian. By these means Eustratios has continued his account of the icon to a logical conclusion. If the icon can only present the external and accidental traces of a given subject then the knowledge that derives from this medium cannot pertain to the more fundamental aspects of the given subject. In the case of Christ, this implies that while the icon can allow us to identify the human particularity of Christ’s historical existence, it does not bring us to knowledge of Christ’s divine being. As such, the icon cannot be said to pertain to theology proper. Rather, Eustratios has brought us back to the point of departure for both Symeon the New Theologian and Michael Psellos and has chosen not to go beyond this point of departure. The distinction that has been drawn here between the understanding to be gained from a work of art and from theology is signicant. Since the conclusion to the iconoclastic controversy the icon had been the expression of a theology that was built upon a belief that God was available to human thought and that this thought could adequately

56 57 58 59 60

Eustratios, Eustratios, Eustratios, Eustratios, Eustratios,

In In In In In

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Commentaria Commentaria Commentaria Commentaria Commentaria

VI.7 VI.7 VI.7 VI.7 VI.7

299–300, 307–308. 301–302. 300–301, 307–308. 319.26–28. 301.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 117 encompass divine knowledge. One’s attitude to the icon had thus become a litmus test of one’s understanding of orthodoxy. This was not only rehearsed, as we have seen in chapter one, in the annual reading of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy but had also been enshrined in the seventh canon of the Constantinopolitan council of 869–70. There, painting, theology and philosophy were placed on the same plane and were therefore subject to the same policing. It is this legacy that Eustratios seeks to dismantle when he follows Aristotle in distinguishing wisdom in the arts from wisdom proper. Where wisdom proper encompasses “substances and the things in themselves,” the wisdom of the arts addresses the accidental qualities of such a thing. This distinction, which is consistent in Eustratios’s writing on art, leads him to distinguish theology, the highest manifestation of wisdom proper, from what is now a different and secondary wisdom, namely that of the arts. In so doing, it can be suggested that by linking and then distinguishing artistic and theological wisdom in his Ethics commentary, Eustratios was attempting to escape from the trap that had snared his teacher John Italos, whose condemnation marked the rst major addition to the Synodikon of Orthodoxy and whose condemnation was distorted by the need to include reference to the icon in the proper judgement of the orthodoxy of his beliefs.61 The condemnation of John Italos has rightly been seen as a crucial moment in the history of philosophy in Byzantine culture. In particular, one can identify in the proceedings an attempt both to limit the scope of philosophical enquiry and an assertion of philosophy’s subordination to theology. John Italos had succeeded Michael Psellos as Consul of the Philosophers at some point in the reign of Michael VII Doukas (1071–78). This post had been created for Michael Psellos in the mideleventh century and was part of an attempt under Constantine IX Monomachos (1042–55) to exercise public control over higher education

61 The mid-eleventh century addition regarding Gerontios of Lampe merits a mere four lines (Gouillard, Synodikon: 57.180–83), in comparison with the sixty-one lines devoted to John Italos (Gouillard, Synodikon: 57.185–61.246). Key studies on Italos include: Perikles Joannou, Christliche Metaphysik in Byzanz, 1: Die Illuminationslehre des Michael Psellos und Joannes Italos (Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag, 1956); Gouillard, Synodikon: 188–202; Robert Browning, “Enlightenment and Repression in Byzantium in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries,” Past and Present 69 (1975): 3–23; Lowell Clucas, The Trial of John Italos and the Crisis of Intellectual Values in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century, Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia 26 (Munich: Institut für Byzantinistik, Neugriechische Philologie und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte der Universität, 1981).

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in Constantinople.62 It was striking, therefore, that Italos would be put on trial twice while he held this position.63 One can surmise that this hostility to Italos, like that addressed to Psellos earlier, emerged from among the adherents of a more mystical and anti-philosophical strand in Byzantine monasticism.64 The rst time was in 1076–1077, when it appears that comments drawn from notes taken from Italos’s teaching were cobbled together to bring charges against him. Emperor Michael VII Doukas managed the occasion so that Italos was not attacked personally.65 The second trial took place in 1082 after Alexios I Komnenos had come to the throne. The rst part of this trial was held in the galleries of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Among the judges was Leo of Chalcedon, who we have already met in this chapter and whose works we will discuss at length in the next chapter.66 The synod not only examined John Italos, but also tested his inuence by examining his students.67 A consistent theme throughout the proceedings was the claim that John’s teaching had misled these students.68 This charge was an attempt to destroy the type of philosophy that Italos embodied, which is to say a philosophy that built upon an extensive acquaintance with the breadth of the ancient philosophical tradition.69 The actual proceedings began with an examination of Italos’s Profession of Faith.70 This Profession had been produced and accepted at the end of his rst trial.71 The changed conditions that marked the second trial can be gleaned from the tenor of the opening discussion of this text. The Profession begins with this declaration: 62 Wanda Wolska-Conus, “Les écoles de Psellos et de Xiphilin sous Constantin IX Monomaque,” Travaux et Mémoires 6 (1976): 223–43. 63 The key source for these trials is available in a recent edition: Jean Gouillard, “Le procès ofciel de Jean l’Italien, les actes et leurs sous-entendus,” Travaux et Mémoires 9 (1985): 133–74. This edition is based on the sole manuscript witness: Mount Athos, Dionysiou 120, folios 711–718. 64 A manuscript of Niketas Stethatos contains a scholion that appears to reference Italos in disparaging terms: Jean Darrouzès, Nicétas Stethatos, Opuscles et lettres (Paris: Cerf, 1961): 136. 65 Gouillard, “Procès:” 141.108–143.121. 66 Gouillard, “Procès:” 141.68. 67 Gouillard, “Procès:” 141.80–84; 155.347–69; 159.431–160.463. Among these, the one identied as Eustratios, proximos of the school at St. Theodore might be identied as the Eustratios of Nicaea who concerns us in this chapter. The testimony of Niketas of Serres supports this possibility (see below). 68 For example: Gouillard, “Procès:” 141.108–143.112. 69 Gouillard, “Religion:” 307. 70 Gouillard, “Procès:” 145.164–155.340. 71 Gouillard, “Procès:” 143.125–28.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 119 I believe in a Father eternal and a Son co-eternal who is, on the other hand, not eternal, though not in a temporal sense but by a causal reection of one substance and one power from the Father, begotten before the ages and remaining in Him and returning to Him. For He is not different in substance even if He came about in a different hypostasis.72

The response to this somewhat heavy-handed description of the relation of God the Father and God the Son is telling in its focus on language. Two aspects of this statement were called into question: the notion of a “return (*)” of the Son toward the Father, and the idea that the hypostasis “came about (@$@).” The judges asked whence these terms had come. Italos replied that the idea of the return was drawn from a passage in Gregory Nazianzos, in which he had interpreted the Lamb of God in a spiritual manner.73 The idea that the hypostasis “came about” was attributed to a passage in the Treasures of Cyril of Alexandria. Italos then produced the works to show that these citations were correct.74 The judges rejected these interpretations. They argued that the “return” was directed at the incarnate Logos rather than at the Logos per se and that Cyril himself argued that the idea of having “come about” could not be applied to the divine nature itself.75 Having indicated these problems of interpretation, the text then turns to the personal motivations that might have led Italos to read these sources in this manner. It is because Italos: . . . trusted in Proklos and Iamblichos, his teachers of perdition. For this is their dogma: All beings are emanations, according to their slander, of gods and are brought forth by them and have their basis in them and nally return to them. Having sipped their draft of madness he has belched forth without consideration the impious terms “return” and “come about,” by means of which he has succeeded, with an unparalleled arrogance, in impugning the divinity of the Son of God.76

Italos is therefore accused of being misled by his adherence to pagan philosophical patterns of thought. These, or so his accusers think, have brought him to bring inappropriate concepts to bear on his explanations 72

Gouillard, “Procès:” 145.164–68; Clucas, Trial: 26. In fact this comes from an anonymous scholion on chapter 13 of Gregory’s fortyfth oration: Gouillard, “Procès:” 144 n. 24. 74 Gouillard, “Procès:” 145.172–78. The passage in question can be found at PG, 75.337–56. 75 Gouillard, “Procès:” 145.179–147.190. 76 Clucas, Trial: 27. Gouillard, “Procès:” 147.200–208. 73

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of doctrine. Once this line of thinking is established the accusers then expanded upon Italos’s errors by linking his writings to such Christian heresies as Arianism,77 Sabellianism and78 Apollinarism.79 A similar pattern is found when the Profession turned to the question of icons. The quote given is somewhat fragmentary, simply stating that Italos: “adores the image of the incarnate Son of God: not clinging to the shadows, but transferring the honor to the prototype.”80 Once again, Italos was faulted for his use of words.81 In particular, the use of the term adoration ( ) was problematic: Since worship is appropriate for the divine essence, we may be said to be worshippers of this, while reverence [is appropriate] to the icons on account of the honor directed to the prototype. But Italos has admitted to adoring the icon of the incarnate Son of God, which divine Scripture never applied to icons. For if we were to be called adorers of icons, then we would bear the same name applied to the Orthodox by the enemies of icons. But we ourselves have never accepted adoration for the holy icons, nor has this been a part of the canonical tradition from the holy fathers, to the extent that a synodikon has been written by them that does not describe the word adoration in relation to them. We only venerate and honor and kiss them relatively transferring honor through them to the prototype.82

Here Italos’s judges insist upon a distinction between the adoration that is owed God and the veneration that can be offered to icons. Having pointed to the problem in Italos’s Profession, the report then continues its ad hominem discourse by this time ascribing the terms in play to Italos alone: It is Italos who, perhaps out of wickedness or madness, has immoderately inserted this term into the text of this statement. Although he has tried with the help of problematic quotations to assert erroneously the use of adoration and its manifold meanings, he has not succeeded in legitimating his language. One knows the enormous controversy over the images, and that those who offered them a cult devotion were denounced as iconolaters by the heretics, and that nally, thanks to the grace of divine providence, honoring the holy images prevailed and that they were to be granted cult and veneration. Furthermore, one could not speak, in their text, of

77 78 79 80 81 82

Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard,

“Procès:” “Procès:” “Procès:” “Procès:” “Procès:” “Procès:”

147.209–17, 149.261–151.272. 149.225–54. 151.273–153.304. 153.315–16. 153.316–17. 153.317–28.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 121 adoration, for fear that the lack of verbal differentiation should allow evil spirits to cause serious harm to the more simple-minded through a lack of verbal differentiation. Indeed, we do not offer divine honor to icons thus making them divine, such as might be implied if one were to name this cult adoration, rather our practice is to venerate them in terms of the cult of the model.83

Once the examination of the Profession was completed a further ten passages were introduced into discussion. These were described as further evidence of Italos’s “hellenic godlessness.”84 Italos accepted his authorship of nine of these and took the occasion to denounce the opinions expressed in them. Curiously, the tenth charge was an accusation that Italos had thrown stones at an icon of Christ.85 The Emperor Alexios I asked that Italos formally disavow these nine opinions before the synod and that the Patriarch should in the meantime examine the tenth charge.86 The emperor then says the following on the topic of images: He also ought to know that that even if he has not committed this terrible outrage with his hand, but has only committed a verbal impiety by saying that the gures of the saints are merely manufactured temple statues and carvings and considering the veneration proffered them to be an error on the part of the devotees, that this is no less terrible.87

Clearly, then, a verbal iconomachy was as problematic as a physical iconoclasm. It is notable that it is the charge that concerns icons that required more extensive examination by the synod. The records then indicate that a second meeting was held on April 11th of 1082. This reported that Italos had disavowed his opinions in a series of anathemas announced in public on the Feast of Orthodoxy in St. Sophia on March 13th.88 The issue of the charge of iconoclasm raised by Kaspakes concerning the icons, however, remained unresolved.89 It is notable that the discussion of images that forms such a large part of the account of Italos’s trial does not feature in the anathemas pronounced by John and that were then entered into the Synodikon of

83 84 85 86 87 88 89

Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard, Gouillard,

“Procès:” “Procès:” “Procès:” “Procès:” “Procès:” “Procès:” “Procès:”

153.328–155.340. 155.370–71. 155.376–77. 157.378–85. 157.385–89. 159.424–30. 161.464–70.

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Orthodoxy itself. These were focused on the philosophical grounds for the language that becomes problematic in its application to theological problems such as those raised by icons. The third, fth and seventh anathemas examined the proper role of philosophy in regard to church doctrine. For example, the seventh anathema reads: Those who study the Greek disciplines and not only for the sake of educational training but also follow these vain doctrines and believe in them as having certainty, so that they initiate others into these doctrines, some by stealth, others openly, and teach them without hesitation. Anathema.90

The second, fourth, eighth and tenth anathemas develop this theme by condemning the introduction of various Platonic themes into theological discussion. In particular there was resistance to echoes of the Timaeus that challenged the Genesis account of creation, as can be seen in the eighth anathema: Those who, among other mythical ctions, reform on their own initiative our doctrine of the creation, and accept the Platonic ideas as true and say that matter as formed by the ideas is self-subsistent and manifestly reject the free will of the creator who brought all things into being from nothingness as the maker of all things and appointed their beginning and end by his authority as Lord,91

and again in the tenth: Those who accept and hand down the vain Greek proposition that there is a pre-existence of souls and that all things did not come from and were not brought out of nothingness, and that there will be an end of punishment or a restoration of both creation and human affairs, and on account of these notions introduce a kingdom of Heaven entirely destructible and transient, while Christ our God taught us that it is eternal and indestructible, and we have received from all the Old and New Testament that the punishment is without end and the kingdom eternal; those who through these doctrines destroy themselves and cause the eternal damnation of others.92

Furthermore, specic philosophical method was condemned in anathemas one, six and nine. Where it was forbidden to scrutinize key theological terms by these means. Hence, the rst anathema reads:

90 91 92

Gouillard, “Synodikon:”; Clucas, Trial: 154. Gouillard, “Synodikon:”; Clucas, Trial: 156. Gouillard, “Synodikon:”; Clucas, Trial: 159.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 123 Those who attempt to introduce a new inquiry and a new teaching with regard to the ineffable, incarnate economy of our Savior and God, and attempt to seek by what means God the Logos is united to a human frame, and according to what principle he deied the esh he assumed, and attempt to dispute with dialectical arguments the nature and position for the sake of innovation in doctrine about the two natures of God and man.93

While the sixth offers: Those who do not accept with clear faith and a simple and whole soul the extraordinary miracles of our Savior and God and of our Lady the Theotokos who gave birth to Him in immaculate fashion, and of the other saints, but attempt to reject them as impossible on the basis of sophistic demonstrations and arguments or, on the basis of subjective impression, to misinterpret them and explain them on the basis of personal opinion.94

These anathemas obviously address some specic doctrinal points. But more than this they seek to exclude a manner of thinking, namely the specic use of pagan philosophy (distinct from Aristotelian logic) in the practice of theological enquiry. Here the only authority lies in the texts of scripture and in an appropriate elucidation of these. In contrast to this overt dependence on the Late-Antique philosophical tradition, Italos’s fairly occasional writing on images adheres closely to Christian precedent. A point that makes the extensive discussions of the image question at his trial appear all the more surprising. In this regard, Italos shows a particular interest in John of Damaskos’s account of the icon. This is a relatively unusual choice at this period, for although John’s On the Orthodox Faith remained a primary resource for the denition of orthodox belief, it was Theodore of Stoudios and Patriarch Nikephoros who were more commonly cited as authorities on the question of images. The most notable example of Italos’s dependence on John of Damaskos occurs when he discusses the nature of the image in chapter 87 of his Quaestiones. Here, Italos offers a paraphrase of John of Damaskos’s First Oration on the Images. The entire passage can be translated:95 96979899

93 94

95 96 97 98 99

Gouillard, “Synodikon:”; Clucas, Trial: 140. Gouillard, “Synodikon:”; Clucas, Trial: 152.

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On Images An icon is a likeness portraying the prototype, but having some difference from it. The icon is not like the archetype in every way.95 It is called an icon because it is like the other, this is the likeness. The icon is spoken of in ve ways: natural, paradigmatic, gurative, enigmatic, mnemonic (this kind is twofold, logical and aesthetic). 96 The Son is a natural and undeviating image of the invisible God and Father, bearing in himself the whole Father, equal to him in every respect, differing only in being caused, for he is from the Father, without having his being after him.97 Paradigmatic is his will before eternity and thus eternal, portraying and representing everything predetermined by him, that will unfailingly come to pass before it comes to be, just as, if one wants to build a house, the mind gures and represents the outline so as to build the better house, as the great and insightful Dionysios has said.98 Figurative images are of invisible and formless things, that provide in bodily form a dim understanding of what is represented. For through the senses a certain imaginative image is constituted in the front part of the brain, then brought to the middle and the logical faculty, and then is stored in the memory behind. The intellect, tiring of trying to get past all things corporeal, realizes its impotence.99 For this reason wings and faces and eyes and hands and legs are applied

Cf. Bonifatius Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos III. Contra imaginum calumniatores orationes tres, Patristische Texte und Studien 17 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1975): I.9.3–6. 96 Cf. Kotter, Schriften III: III.18–23. 97 Cf. Kotter, Schriften III: I.9.6–13. 98 Cf. Kotter, Schriften III: I.10.2–3, 8–13. 99 Cf. Kotter, Schriften III: I.11.1–3, 16–21.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 125

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to angels although they differ from the living, and the uncircumscribable nature of God is represented also by the sun, its light and its ray, or in a fountain welling up or the stream owing out, or a rose, its ower and scent, or our mind and reason and spirit, by which we see outlines in living things, through which the divine appearance is dimly manifest to us.100 Enigmas represent the things to come through symbols that depict in accordance with the Apostle the sea as the water of baptism and the Holy Spirit as a cloud.101 In terms of memory, these present something for the benet of those who behold them later. This is twofold: through the written word, as God engraved the Law on stones, and commanded that the books of the saints be written in ancient times, and through sensible contemplation, as when the God of everything ordered the jar and the rod to be placed in the ark as a memorial, consequently we describe and most piously set up the images [showing] the excellent deeds of virtuous men.102

Granted that this is John Italos’s most extensive consideration of icons, it is notably orthodox in the manner in which it re-states John of Damaskos’s hierachical account of the various kinds of images that were available in the Biblical text. Icons are situated within the last category and are thus valued for their mnemonic qualities. Of course, this text does not address the question of worship and adoration that dominated the charges laid against him.100101102103

100

Cf. Kotter, Schriften III: I.11.25–29. Cf. Kotter, Schriften III: I.12.2, 5–7. 102 Cf. Kotter, Schriften III: I.13.1–12. 103 Ioannes Italos, Quaestiones Quodlibetales, ed. Perikles Joannou, Studia Patristica et Byzantina 4 (Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag, 1956): 151. Joannou is troubled by the orthodoxy of this text at Perikles Joannou, “Zwei vermisste Traktate aus den 93 Quaestiones quodlibetales des Iohannes Italos,” Studi bizantini e neoellenici 9 (1957): 235. Gouillard, “Religion:” 310 notes the text’s dependence on the writings on images of John of Damaskos: PG, 94.1240C–1244A, 1337C–1344A. 101

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This problem arose in the discussion of John Italos’s Profession. Once again, it appears that John was not using his own words when he formulated his denition of the icon and its worship. In this instance, it appears that he has borrowed from an earlier Profession that had been offered by John’s teacher, the philosopher Michael Psellos. Psellos’s text was probably written in 1054–55.104 Psellos’s Profession has a similar shape to that of Italos. It, too, denes the nature of the Trinity and the incarnation, but in terms that were both clear and clearly orthodox, thus avoiding some of the difculties that Italos’s more convoluted text presents. Furthermore, Psellos’s close dependence on John of Damaskos’s On the Orthodox Faith ensures that his Profession as a whole would not offend orthodox ears.105 The only potentially unusual passage occurs in the very last section, when Psellos turns to the question of images:106 >( (     /('   ( $ Y  , F G  N!   L@2   ! ',  C 4 B!& ! C  )’ /   & F, ( !!$  C  C ( C, )’ / 6 ' ) $ 0 R!'  .106

I venerate and adore the icon of the incarnate Son of God, the figure of the esh of His holy mother, the shapes in colors of those most beloved to him throughout time, not remaining with their shadows, but transferring the likeness to the prototype.

While the echoes of Basil the Great’s fundamental denition of icon worship, namely that veneration passes from the image to the prototype, are readily identied here, there are difculties in the language that would later come back to haunt John Italos. Although Italos’s discussion of the images is only quoted in part, what we are given makes the dependence apparent. Where Italos writes: “   /('   ( $ Y  ,   C ( C !!$, )P  6 ' 0 !0 ) $,”107 we nd this in Psellos: “   /('   ( $ Y   . . . ( !!$  C  C

104 Michael Psellus, Theologica, vol. II, ed. Leendert Westerink and John Duffy (Munich and Leipzig: K. G. Saur, 2002): 133–136. An earlier edition and translation can be found at Antonio Garzya, “On Michael Psellus’ Admission of Faith,” Epeteris tes hetaireias byzantinon spoudon 35 (1966–67): 41–46. 105 Garzya, “Admission.” 106 Psellus, Theologica II: 136.72–76. 107 Gouillard, “Procès:” 153.315–16.

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 127 ( C, )P / 6 ' ) $ 0 R!'  .”108 Both, therefore, consider adoration a possibility for the icon and this was a problematic concept. In light of our understanding of Psellos’s interpretation of the icon, it might be possible to suggest that this double sense of worship was intended to accommodate the icon in both its normal state as a work of art and in its possibility as a site of miraculous encounter. In the passage quoted he is at pains both to speak of the esh, colors, and shapes that make one of the Trinity (the Son of God) available for a higher contemplation. Such dualism does not surprise, but it was not strictly orthodox. Eustratios appears to have wished to escape from the ambiguities bequeathed by his teachers. His sustained critique of the possibility for the adoration of an icon, while provoked by Leo of Chalcedon, allowed him to distance himself from the charges leveled against Italos. Furthermore, when his own views on the icons came under scrutiny, he took his analysis further and, following the logic of painting, argued, as we have seen, that the work of art could not be theology. Eustratios was probably provoked into this further turn when, in the summer of 1117, Niketas of Serres, Metropolitan of Herakleia wrote a discourse that demanded the removal of Eustratios from his episcopal see. Niketas represented a new kind of ecclesiastical gure, the product of a reform edict issued by Alexios I in 1107.109 This edict emphasized the role of the clerical elite, rather than the monasteries, in safeguarding order and orthodoxy. Furthermore, the reform marks an attempt to improve the quality of the clergy by re-organizing education in the capital.110 One consequence of this was that the reform regularized the control of the schools by the church.111 Twelve teaching posts

108

Psellus, Theologica II: 136.72–73, 75–76. Paul Gautier, “L’Édit d’Alexis 1er Comnène sur la réforme du clergé,” Revue des études byzantines 31 (1973): 165–201; Paul Magdalino, “The reform edict of 1107,” in Alexios I Komnenos, ed. Margaret Mullett and Dion Smythe (Belfast: BBTT 4.1, 1996): 199–218. 110 For background on eleventh- and twelfth-century education in Constantinople see: Robert Browning, “The Patriarchal School at Constantinople in the Twelfth Century,” Byzantion 32 (1962): 167–202 and 33 (1963): 11–40; Paul Lemerle, “Le Gouvernement des philosophes: notes et remarques sur l’enseignement, les écoles, la culture,” Cinq études sur le XI e siècle byzantin (Paris: Éditions CNRS, 1977): 195–248. 111 Browning, “Enlightenment and Repression:” 16. The sharp divide between church and state implied by this characterization is complicated by the fact that the church has already been the space in which professional education has taken place. 109

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were designated.112 These teachers were to be both virtuous and to be capable of teaching, with their curriculum being tied to the liturgical life of the church. They were to instruct those living in their respective quarters of the city and to reprimand those among the citizens who were leading a less than virtuous life. Furthermore, they were to police itinerant monks and those acting as spiritual fathers.113 By these means a salaried and ecclesiastical elite was organized to oversee the intellectual and moral life of the city. While this reform did not produce an entity that should be deemed a “school,” it nonetheless supported an intellectual elite that was rmly located within the church hierarchy.114 As key rhetoricians and guardians of orthodoxy these teachers became signicant articulators of Byzantine orthodoxy.115 Niketas of Serres had served as one of the theological educators, didaskolos tou evangeliou, and has also left works on grammar, commentaries and catenae on Gregory of Nazianzos, Job, the Psalms, the Gospels, and the Epistles.116 In his work and in his attack on Eustratios Niketas represents a theology built upon the weight of tradition and a narrowly scholastic apparatus. In his critique he argued that Eustratios had not been sufciently punished for an overly philosophical approach to theological problems. To make this point, he chose to link the Demonstration text to Eustratios’s writings addressed to the Armenians, which had been written in 1114.117 The latter offer one of the most precise accounts of the terms in play in Christological discourse.118 Read together, Niketas argued that these texts betrayed a consistent and inappropriate overuse of logic to describe the mystery of Christ’s incarnate being. The most relevant passage from Niketas’s text reads:

112

Magdalino, “Edict:” 206–214. Gautier, “L’Édit:” 193.223–239. 114 Magdalino usefully corrects Browning. 115 Browning, “Patriarchal School (1962):” 168. Browning’s study provides lists the works associated with these teachers. 116 Browning, “Patriarchal School (1963):” 15–17. 117 Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 160–98. 118 This judgement is offered in Anthony C. Lloyd, “The Aristotelianism of Eustratios of Nicaea,” Aristoteles Werk und Wirkung, vol. 2, ed. Jürgen Wiesner (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1987): 341–51. 113

eustratios of nicaea and the constraints of theology 129 ; %2(! 0 8!'@  + R ‚( 2  * , $@ ; e @'!   '8A ( )@  W $ '  , 7 R p6 .,   , ’ 8 &A  )(' @!$    @4 (  6  4 4 '. ~  @4  F  /(' '@G  6 ' !! . )&,  )B !  '@ /2   )& .  ) '! 6 .  (', (  6 = h6 /  6 (  )&, (06 (  )( , [(  ,   F $  '@  2w  2 &@  *!! , (  6 ! $ ( ’ Z 6 %&8  B   V' J'@ ( ’ Z 6  (    2  (  (*, + (  %’    2 (C  &!,  ). E A   ’ 2   *!!   $ (   C  '@ x )V& B &!, / 6  )(' '8  !$( V& . J6 < 6 )  ( [  aA !  , 5  !? (   0 0 $.119

We nd that the vow taken by the metropolitan of Nicaea, where he states that: “I have been suspected of professing a bad doctrine that I have never borne in mind, as God knows, and that I do not now bear in mind.” was for the pleasure of those listening, for he has clearly had these things in mind many times before. For in his discourse concerning icons he considers that the assumed should not be adored. At the start of this discourse he demonstrates that when one is a creature one cannot be adored, and so he divides the one Christ into the adored and the nonadored, the worshipped and the nonworshipped, while at the end of the discourse he introduces a rational distinction for the assumed, and considering on its own terms that which has never existed without the Logos that has assumed it, he excludes this [the assumed] from the adoration and worship which is rendered to the heavenly powers themselves. Having also applied this rational distinction for the assumed in the two discourses for which he is being criticized [the Armenian texts], he has fallen into the abyss of a contrary doctrine. It follows therefore that one cannot say that he has repented these errors, rather, one is indeed suspicious regarding his approach.

While119one can criticize Niketas for confusing the problem of iconic depiction with the description of the incarnate Christ, it remains notable that Niketas wants to use a text on icons to establish a continuity in

119 Jean Darrouzès, Documents inédits d’ecclésiologie byzantine, Archieves de l’Orient chrétien 10 (Paris: Institut français de’études byzantines, 1966): 302.23–304.3. The text on icons refers to the Discourse and passages in the Demonstration at Demetrakopulos, Bibliotheca Ecclesiastica: 152 and 159.

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Eustratios’s thinking. Niketas identies this pattern of thought as the application of a rational distinction that treats the human nature in the hypostasis of Christ in a manner that markedly differentiates it from the divine nature. In brief, he accuses Eustratios of Nestorianism. For Niketas this not only reveals a continuity of erroneous thought, but, as he goes on to say in his discourse, it discloses the origins of this error in the thought of John Italos. Consequently, Eustratios is here condemned for failing to live up to the vow he took to distance himself from such thought. Ultimately, Niketas of Serres succeeded. Eustratios was condemned by the synod and was added to the list of those whose errors were commemorated in the Synodikon of Orthodoxy.120 This occurrence perhaps led him to respond in his commentary on the sixth book of the Nicomachean Ethics. Here, he sought to preserve and extend his understanding of the work of art as a rational product of the human mind made in imitation of that which was available to the human senses. In distinguishing this work from the practice of theology he maintained the icon as a product of and for human knowledge, leaving the more mysterious terrain of divine things for a higher knowledge that surpassed the logic of painting.

120

Gouillard, “Synodikon:” 206–10.

CHAPTER FIVE

LEO OF CHALCEDON, EUTHYMIOS ZIGABENOS AND THE RETURN TO THE PAST The case of Leo, Metropolitan of Chalcedon immediately followed upon the downfall of John Italos. As we shall see, in the course of challenging the emperor’s authority over the church Leo produced a relatively poorly constructed theology of the image that sought to defend the problematic possibility that one might adore an icon. Interestingly, as we have already noted, he was one of the judges who had condemned Italos for expressing the possibility of such adoration. Leo’s argument led to the strong and extended response from Eustratios of Nicaea discussed in the last chapter. In this chapter, we shall not only examine Leo’s own denition of the icon, but will also show that the responses he provoked led to a re-assertion of the authority of the ninth-century iconophile fathers for dening the question of images in Komnenian Byzantium. He will, therefore, allow us to come full circle and to return to the theological understanding of the icon formulated by the iconophiles of the ninth century. Leo’s difculties persisted for many years, having their beginning in early 1082 and only being resolved in 1095. He was a gure of some eminence. He had attained the rank of Metropolitan of Chalcedon, had acted as one of the judges at the trial of John Italos, and was regarded as a holy man by supporters. Nonetheless, once he challenged the authority of the recently installed and embattled emperor, Alexios I Komnenos, he was held to account for his opinions. The dispute had its origins in late 1081 when the Emperor Alexios I was in desperate need of funds to continue his war against the Norman ruler Robert Guiscard, who had invaded Byzantine territory at Dyrrachium (Dürres in Albania). In Constantinople, Alexios’s mother, Anna Dalassena, and his brother, Isaak Sebastokrator, decided to melt down sacred vessels and works of art in order to meet this need.1 They had a precedent for such an action. Alexios’s uncle, Isaak I Komnenos (1057–59), had done a similar

1

Anne Comnène, Alexiade, ed. Bernard Leib, vol. 3 (Paris: Budé, 1937): 5.2.

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thing with little opposition a generation earlier.2 Furthermore, in order to legitimate a potentially controversial act, Isaak Sebastokrator had sought patriarchal blessing for his actions and a synod of the church had met and approved the expropriation. The ensuing expropriations were carried out only in patriarchal foundations in order to avoid questions regarding the extent of this ruling. In spite of these safeguards, when silver and gold images were removed from the doors of the church of the Theotokos Chalkoprateia in Constantinople, Leo of Chalcedon was roused to resist the synodal decision and the subsequent expropriations. In early 1082 Leo wrote a letter of protest to Alexios.3 His account of the events is presented in somewhat dramatic terms: Our faith has been compromised, holy things profaned, the precious pearl has been sullied, the cross trampled under foot, and the image of God covered in blows, not having suffered the same at any other time, for this was altogether more undignied and dishonorable as the Savior’s limbs had never before been broken, yet now the Savior’s head and his eyes and all his limbs of his body are broken under a weight of iron, and he has been delivered to the re like a murderer; and we have delivered holy things to the dogs, and thrown the pearls before swine; and as if there was nothing wrong with this, we remain wholly indifferent. Who speaks thus? It is the whole church, that is all true Christians, who have not sold the truth like Judas for present things, nor by a perdious kiss. And if you want to know more, then listen to the witnesses: here the holy monasteries, how they have been ravaged! the houses of ascetes, how they have lost their ornament! the altars, how deprived of their beauty, like naked corpses; even the tabernacles, where are the vessels which contain God, by their emptiness, like some sort of mouth, they cry more clearly than a thousand witnesses, that they are no longer what they once were: [these are] numerous witnesses of the real and therefore irrefutable. If you want written witnesses, search the diplomas: they will speak and not hide the truth. Some will tell of their being broken into pieces, others that they have been scraped, and others that they have been completely modied and transformed. Given such witnesses, who could oppose them? Who could refuse to accept them? Who could not admit the truth that they all proclaim? And so as to present you with witnesses from the enemies, for the truth has proofs in abundance, let us ask him who has produced

2 Michael Psellos, Chronographie, ed. Émile Renaud (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1926): 7.60; Michael Attaleiates, Historia, eds. Wladimir Brunet de Presle, Immanuel Bekker (Bonn: Weber, 1853): 60–62; John Zonaras, Epitome historiarum, ed. Louis Dinsdorf (Leipzig: Teubner, 1868–75): 18.5. 3 Venance Grumel, “Les documents Athonites concernant l’affaire de Léon de Chalcédoine,” in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, vol. III Letteratura e Storia Bizantini, Studi e Testi 123 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1946): 126.

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this work: has he dared to do what has been said, or not? And he will have nothing to say! For the doors of the Chalkoprateia fall on his mouth and do not let him breathe.4

With these words, Leo paints a picture of wholesale desecration and of a rampaging iconoclasm menacing Christendom. Needless to say, this was an exaggeration. Although the language of the letter is somewhat overheated, his protest did set in train some thirteen years of debate on the nature of iconic representation and veneration in Constantinople as Leo sought to provide a theological justication for his opposition to the imperial destruction of church property that bore images.5 4 Leo of Chalcedon, Epistole pros ton basilea Alexion ton Komnenon, ed. Alexander Lauriotes, Ekklesiastike Aletheia 20 (1900): 403AB:      

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 : "#  "    M   ,  2: . O ) *L. O 6    2; )  *L. P5 *( "# ?L ?1  ;     , 6  Q 2R    2 *L, )- ?;  -  "  ?!    $ S @ "# )1 TL $ / )1  ? / 1"  , . ! ) ?    , "# 6 *6 2 /  1 . We are dependent upon the

publications of Lauriotes for much of our knowledge of this material. The original manuscript from which he had worked disappeared before the publication of the 1925 Lavra catalogue. Note the comments on Lauriotes’s editorial practice offered at Paul Gautier, “Diatribes de Jean l’Oxite contre Alexis 1er Comnène,” Revue des Études Byzantines 28 (1970): 6, 16–17. 5 A reasonably extensive bibliography exists for this topic. Useful introductory narratives can be found at: Pelopidas Stephanou, “La Doctrine de Léon de Chalcédoine et de ses adversaires sur les images,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 12 (1946): 177–99; Apostolos Glavinas, He epi Alexiou Komnenou (1081–1118) peri hieron skeuon, keimelion kai agion eikonon eris (1081–1095) (Thessalonike: Centre for Byzantine Studies, 1972); John P. Thomas, Private Religious Foundations in the Byzantine Empire, Dumbarton Oaks Studies 24 (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1987): 192–207; Jeffrey C. Anderson, “The

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In addition to protesting the removal of church property, Leo also asked that the expropriations be investigated by Alexios and that the Patriarch Eustratios Garidas resign for having supported the removal of these materials.6 Leo was soon joined by others, including Basil, Metropolitan of Euchaita and George Palaeologos. In response to this rst letter, Alexios issued a chrysobull on August 5, 1082. This stated that he and his successors would never again expropriate church treasures. Alexios also undertook to repay the churches that had suffered losses when resources allowed.7 In spite of this proclamation, the matter did not go away. Alexios had to address the topic again in the course of the winter of 1083–84.8 Two lingering issues were brought to the forefront at this time: the reparations for damage caused and Leo’s repeated demand that the Patriarch be removed from ofce for having supported these expropriations.9 In early 1084 the Patriarch was exonerated of any wrongdoing. Nonetheless, he was to abdicate in July of the same year.10 In spite of this abdication, Leo continued to pursue the matter through 1084 and 1085. He felt that the Patriarch had not been punished. As a sign of this protest, he refused to celebrate the liturgy in Hagia Sophia until the name of Eustratios Garidas had been removed from the diptychs read in the course of the liturgy. At this point the Emperor’s patience appears to have worn thin and he brought proceedings against Leo in November 1085, accusing him of insubordination.11 Leo was unable to mount a strong case during this trial. He had, after all, opposed legitimate imperial and patriarchal actions. Nonetheless, the proceedings did provide Leo with an opportunity for a very strong reassertion, if not a convincing account, of his rejection Date and Purpose of the Barberini Psalter,” Cahiers Archéologiques 31 (1983): 35–67; Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Leo of Chalcedon and the Icons,” Byzantine East, Latin West: Art-Historical Studies in Honor of Kurt Weitzmann, ed. Doula Mouriki et al. (Princeton: Department of Art and Archaeology, 1995): 579–84. 6 Leo of Chalcedon, Alexion: 403–04. 7 Venance Grumel, “L’affaire de Léon de Chalcédoine. Le chrysobulle d’Alexis Ier sur les objets sacrés,” Études Byzantines 2 (1944): 130–33. 8 Alexiade: 6.3. 9 J. Sakkélion, “Décret d’Alexis Comnène portant déposition de Léon, Métropolitain de Chalcédoine,” Bulletin de Correspondance Hellénique 2 (1878): 116. 10 Sakkélion, “Décret:” 116. 11 The account of this phase of the debate is to be found in: Sakkélion, “Décret:” 102–128. Note the discussions of this text at: Venance Grumel, “L’affaire de Léon de Chalcédoine. Le décret ou ‘semeioma’ d’Alexis Ier Comnène (1086),” Échos d’Orient 39 (1940): 333–341 and Glavinas, Alexiou Komnenou: 99–132.

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of any alienation of consecrated property.12 The synod condemned Leo in January 1086. Despite this, Leo refused to be reconciled with the church and continued to espouse his position. In a letter to Anna the Protovestiarios, Alexios I’s mother-in-law, that was written immediately following his condemnation in January 1086, Leo set forth a defense of his position that described icons and their veneration in terms that laid him open to the charge of heresy. He argued that there was a very close relation between an image and its subject, such that when one insults or harms an icon one does this to the person represented therein.13 This need not have necessarily been problematic, but Leo’s expression of this relation was both novel and clumsy.14 With this letter in hand the synod met again in February or March of 1086 and removed Leo from his bishop’s throne. Finally, following Leo’s protest at new expropriations in the summer of 1086, Alexios had the synod banish Leo to Sozopolis in the Crimea. This action brought the rst phase of this dispute to a conclusion. While much of the discussion had focused upon the question of the respective rights of church and state over church property, by 1086 Leo had begun to formulate a novel theological account of the sacred image. The second phase of the affair opened in 1091. Then, John, the Patriarch of Antioch revived the debate over the control of church property when he opposed Alexios’s request for further expropriations.15 He did this in the course of a homily delivered before Alexios I and also in a text that offered advice to the same emperor. John argued that the Empire’s ills could be healed by a number of reforms. John found support for these views in the Patriarchate. The early 1090s also saw many at court seeking the recall from exile of Leo, whose return was permitted once Leo had agreed to renounce his views on the adoration of icons.16 Leo’s restoration became ofcial and the affair came to an end at the synod held at the Blachernae palace in 1094/5.17 12

Thomas, Private Religious: 197. Sakkélion, “Décret,” 123; Leo of Chalcedon, Epistole pros [Marian] ten Protovestiarisan, ed. Alexander Lauriotes, Ekklesiastike Aletheia 20 (1900) 404–05. 14 Leo of Chalcedon, [Marian] ten Protovestiarisan: 405. 15 Paul Gautier, “Diatribes de Jean l’Oxite contre Alexis Ier Comnène,” Revue des Études Byzantines 28 (1970): 5–55. 16 Venance Grumel, Les regestes des actes du Patriarcat de Constantinople, vol. 1,3 (Paris: Socii Assumptionistae Chalcedonenses, 1932): no. 967. 17 PG, 127:972–84. The precise date of this synod remains uncertain. Compare: Paul Gautier, “La synode de Blachernes (n 1094). Étude prosopographique,” Revue des Études Byzantines 29 (1971): 213–84 and Glavinas, Alexiou Komnenou: 179–82. 13

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Leo of Chalcedon’s position has justly been seen as part of a wider concern about the proper boundaries of lay and ecclesiastical domains.18 Our concern is less with this broader point and rather more with the specic issue of the nature of iconic representation that Leo developed to justify his defense of church objects. As such, the focus in what follows will be on Leo’s reading of the implications of the depiction of Christ for the proper denition of worship. One of the overriding themes of Leo of Chalcedon’s understanding of the icon was his assertion of a particular kind of presence within the image, one in which little distinction could be drawn between the image and the one represented therein.19 In asserting this position he continually returns to a description of the icon as living or animate (thus playing with the idea of zoographos, painting, or more literally living writing). In contrast to Michael Psellos’s occasional account of such animation in the icon, Leo argued for its inherence there. His focus was the paradigmatic image of Christ, and he argued that Christ’s icons deserved adoration rather than veneration because of what they showed (g. 1). To make this argument, he needed to demonstrate that Christ was formally present in the icon, a participation that was not essential but that nonetheless transformed the value of the object in which the image was inscribed. Leo’s position is outlined most fully in a letter to his nephew, Nicholas of Adrianople. This was perhaps written in 1093 or 1094.20 This letter was written to refute a position proposed by an old ally of Leo, Basil, Metropolitan of Euchaita, who will be discussed below. It was the terms of Leo’s response that led to the council held at the Blachernae on the image question in 1094/95.21 The key point from which Leo builds the argument in his letter was that it was a sacrilege to use matter once impressed with a holy image for any other purpose. To justify this point, he needed to demonstrate

18 Strongly argued in Thomas, Private Religious: 192–207. For responses to this reading see: Rosemary Morris, Monks and laymen in Byzantium 843–1118 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995): 267–95 and Michael Angold, Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comnenoi 1081–1261 (Cambridge: Cambridge University, 1995): 46–48. 19 Carr, “Leo of Chalcedon:” 581–82 emphasizes the question of presence. 20 Leo of Chalcedon, Epistole pros ton Nikolaon Adrianoupoleos, ed. Lauriotes, Ekklesiastike Aletheias 20 (1900) 414A–16A, 445A–47A, 455B–456B. Stephanou, “Doctrine:” 178–79 followed by Glavinas, Alexiou Komnenou: 161 and Carr “Leo of Chalcedon:” 580–81 identify this letter as the key source for our understanding of Leo’s interpretation of the icons. 21 The importance of the letter and its widespread dissemination are noted at the very start of the published record of the council: PG, 127:972B.

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both what an image was and, as a manifestation of this understanding, to describe the kind of worship the image deserved. For Leo, as for most Christian theologians, the word image was rooted in an essential relation between the image and its archetype, a point that builds from the trinitarian notion of the relationship between God the Father and God the Son:22 "#  $"% V ?  "# , "#  E-  & W! , "%   ** " 2 !    “8 ?  $"%  &  2 ” "% )" 9 1 X 7    Y  , )*( 1Z , )*( 1 T "# ?  , 2’ $"% 0 , A *, "# )  0; )" ? 1; ! , 2[ )Q Q ) R, 2 " * :0 .22

For the Son of God the Father both is and is called an icon, as the great apostle teaches, saying: “Who is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15):” an image that is not inanimate, nor cut by hand, nor a work of art or intelligence, but a living image and, indeed, a self-existing life. They remain indistinguishable, not through the forms of likeness, but essentially.

This was a common point of departure for the denition of an image. John of Damaskos had begun his denition of the image from this point in his eighth-century orations in defense of images.23 As we have seen, John Italos had also used this concept of the image in his denition of the icon. Next, Leo pointed out that Adam and his descendents were also an image of God, having been made in the image and likeness of God.24 From this, according to Leo, it follows that an icon was “a portrait inscribed in matter ($"%    "# !  / @ ?7! 1";).”25 To make this point he leans on passages from the fourth-century Cappadocians Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzos to argue that the portrait and its archetype should not be distinguished.26 The text from Basil reads: “One calls the image of the emperor “emperor” without thereby implying that there are two emperors, for one neither splits the power nor divides the glory.” The

22 Leo, Nikolaon: 414B. The reference to Basil is from his Fourth Homily on the Sabellians, Arios, and the Anomians: PG, 31:608A. 23 Bonifatius Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos III. Contra imaginum calumniatores orationes tres (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1975): 83–84, 126–27. 24 Leo, Nikolaon: 414. 25 Leo, Nikolaon: 414. 26 Leo, Nikolaon: 414; Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit 18.45 (PG, 32:149C); Gregory Nazianzos, Homily 40: On the Holy Baptism (PG, 36:396C).

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passage from Gregory reads: “Let us take two seal rings, one is gold, the other iron, which bear the same engraved imperial image . . . Let us then impress these in the wax. What difference is there between the two seals? None. Look at the wax and, even if you are very wise, can you tell me which form has been impressed with iron and which with gold. How then have these two become the same? It is because the difference derives from the material and not the portrait.” These passages lead Leo to make two points. First, that only the portrait and not the material can be addressed by the name of the subject. Second, that this formal identity means that there is no difference between the image and the subject as regards their portrait, they are only distinguished in terms of matter: T *( )* *7 \", ]   ?   "# ^ " 2 < ? #  G- "# = ) 1"B .27 What he is attempting to do here is to distinguish the portrait of the given subject from the materials of the icon itself. This portrait shares both the formal and essential qualities of its subject and is therefore in effect identical with that subject. Leo then attempts to resolve potential difculties in the denitions of an image found in canon 82 of the Quinisext Council of 691/692 as well as the synodikon of the seventh oecumenical of 787. To do this Leo argues that we need mentally to distinguish the portrait from the material of the icon when worship is brought to the image. Thus on the one hand the icon-as-object can receive a relative worship because of the relation between the material and the image inscribed in it. On the other hand, the sensible image of Christ himself that is seen in the icon can receive adoration, as this cannot be separated from Christ.28 Here one might think back to Psellos’s use of both adoration and veneration in reference to the worship of icons. It is the presence of the divine in the icon that leads Leo to value the icon as an object and to denounce the destruction of sacred images. To support this point he quotes from a canon on the Mandylion, which was the perfect model for his notion of an identity mediated by the sacred portrait.29 The Mandylion was one of the most signicant relics held in the Great Palace at Constantinople. The Emperor Constantine VII had brought it to the city in 944 and installed it as a 27

Leo, Nikolaon: 414. Leo, Nikolaon: 415. 29 Venance Grumel, “Léon de Chalcédoine et le canon de la Fète du Saint Mandilion,” Analecta Bollandiana 68 (1950): 135–52. 28

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major object of devotion. The relic was a cloth that Christ had reportedly pressed against his face, thus making an image, and had then sent to Abgar, King of Edessa. Aspects of this narrative can be seen in a tenth-century icon from Sinai where we see the Abgar—in the guise of Constantine VII—receive the Mandylion (g. 19).30 In his letter to Nicholas, Leo used a verse from the canon of the feast of the Mandylion (August 16th) to support his ideas. This can be translated:31 _5 ! ` W# " 6 )  6 a";, 2 "# 1 B "  , 2  ? "7# $"/ < K 1 , b  ?7 /. cI - : 1"B  1  B "-   C*!L  &- "#  .31

Being equal in honor to the Father according to the divine essence, O immortal one and maintainer of the creation, inclined by an innite compassion, because you are full of pity, you have appeared to us as well. Those to whom you have presented your divinized eshly portrait offer you an orthodox cult as God and man.

This verse has not survived into modern texts, a fact that Grumel attributes to the presence of the problematic formulation: “a divinized eshly portrait.” This conception is echoed in Leo’s writing and is perhaps what had attracted him to this passage, offering, as it does, some legitimation for his understanding of the iconic portrait being divine.32 Although Leo was insistent that the portrait of Christ was itself divine, he rejected any notion that the material of the icon that conveyed this portrait became divine thanks to the presence of this portrait. In so doing, Leo sought to distance himself from an old ally, Basil of Euchaita, who had proposed this possibility. Basil had raised this profoundly problematic, almost sacramental understanding of the icon in a letter to Isaak Sebastokrator.33 Here, Basil wrote of his own change of opinion regarding the nature of icons. The basis for his change of

30 There has been a recent ourishing of writing around the Mandylion. The essays in The Holy Face and the Paradox of Representation, ed. Herbert L. Kessler and Gerhard Wolf (Bologna: Nuova Alfa Editoriale, 1998) and Mandylion: intorno al Sacro Volto, da Bisanzio a Genova, ed. Gerhard Wolf, et al. (Milan: Skira, 2004) should be consulted. 31 Leo, Nikolaon: 415B. The relevant text has been edited and translated at Grumel, “Léon de Chalcedoine:” 136–37. 32 Grumel, “Léon de Chalcedoine:” 135–36. 33 Basil of Euchaita, Letter to Isaak Sebastokrator, ed. Alexander Lauriotes, Ekklesiastike Aletheia 20 (1900): 411B–413A. On his earlier opposition to Leo see Grumel, “Documents Athonites:” 117. Grumel, “Documents Athonites:” 122–23 notes that Leo misrepresents Basil’s ideas.

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heart was to be found in the 68th canon of the Quinisext Council that had met in Constantinople in 691–92. This canon reads: That volumes of the Old and New Testament are not to be destroyed, nor to be cut up for the perfumers. [That] absolutely no one is to be allowed to destroy any volume of the Old or New Testament, or of our holy and approved preachers and teachers, nor to cut it up, nor to give it to so-called perfumers or anyone else who will destroy it, unless it has been completely ruined by worms or dampness or in some other wise. Anyone found doing this henceforth shall be excommunicated for one year. Likewise, if anyone buys such books, unless he keeps them for his own edication or gives them to another as a benefaction and for safekeeping, but rather undertakes to destroy them, he shall be excommunicated.34

Basil interpreted this text to be saying that the fathers of the Quinisext Council had sought to protect the sacred thing, namely the vellum and ink that formed the manuscript, because they believed that the material of these books had been transformed by the sacred texts that they now made present in the physical object. His argument was thus that the sacred content of the text transformed the medium that conveyed that text. Furthermore, he argued that this principle should be extended to include holy icons.35 Given this, Basil argued that all matter has the potential to be iconic:36 K *( $""6  "[ d e   , - 6 $"! 7    , "#   "  , 6 6 *0   - - 21  2[ ?" d e  K $"";, 6 2*!7, "# *[ g *  6 * $"! S * *7 .36

No one should call matter iconic because it bears an image of the prototype, and that we worship this believing that the honor passes to the prototype. Rather let us call this [matter] iconic matter even if it has no shape, and through which we might be able to shape such and such an image.

This presents a remarkable re-evaluation for the material aspect of an image, granting it more than a passive and mediatory role. Leo of Chalcedon, however, did not want to be identied with such a

34 The whole canon is quoted at Basil, Isaak: 411B–412A. The translation is from: The Council in Trullo Revisited, ed. George Nedungatt and Michael Featherstone, Kanonika 6 (1995): 150–151. 35 Basil, Isaak: 412A. 36 Basil, Isaak: 412A.

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re-evaluation of matter. Hence, he declared that he did not worship the iconic material, but only the person represented there.37 In so doing he kept his attention rmly on the relation between the subject and its portrait, rather than between the subject and the icon understood as both form and matter. Leo used a number of sources to support his understanding of the relation between the subject and its icon. For example, he quoted from Theodore of Stoudios’s Third Refutation of the Iconoclasts:38 _h 1  " - i ? .  4 -  e "# ) *     , S !

 - B )  *7.38

Relation is used in regard to the copy in the prototype. And the one is not distinguished from the other because of this, excepting the difference of essence.

This point is then reiterated in an often-quoted borrowing from PseudoDionysios the Areopagite:39 - 2( ? . ! - 21  ? Q $"!, - ?" ? ?"4

 - B )  *7.39

The truth in the likeness, the archetype in the image, the one in the other, except for the difference of essence.

Leo used these texts to support his double understanding of the relation between the subject and its icon. On the one hand the essence of the icon, its material being, cannot be a part of the subject it conveys, while on the other hand the portrait seen in the icon does establish a truthful relation between this icon and its subject.40 Having identied a relation between these entities Leo then needed to describe a distinction between the sensible form of the original and its manifestation in the image, as these could not be distinguished by

37

Leo, Nikolaon: 446B. Leo, Nikolaon: 445B; Theodore of Stoudios, Antirrheticus III: PG, 99:424D. The notion of the “copy in the prototype” can be traced to John of Damaskos’s chapter on images in his Expositio Fidei: Bonifatius Kotter, Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos II. Expositio Fidei, Patristische Texte und Studien 12 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1973): 206.8–10. 39 Leo, Nikolaon: 446A; Dionysios the Areopagite, Ecclesiastical Hierarchy 4.3 (PG, 3:473C). Used in iconophile literature: for example, Theodore of Stoudios, Letter to Plato Concerning the Worship of Holy Icons, in Theodori Studitae, Epistulae, vol. 1, ed. Georgios Fatouros (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991): 164.19–21 and Theodore of Stoudios, Second Refutation of the Iconoclasts 10: PG, 99:357C. 40 Leo, Nikolaon: 446A. 38

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the normal conditions of perception.41 To assist him, Leo used two terms to address the idea of form: - i* (form) and - 1"; (portrait). The rst term denes the form that belongs to the subject, the second expresses the secondary manifestation of this form in a sensible image.42 The more common term for this iconic manifestation was “shape (7).” But Leo resists using this, as he seeks to avoid the usual understanding that shape is the form mediated by the material of the icon. As we have seen, Leo needed to limit the function of this iconic matter. The distinction he draws thereby allows him to argue that one sees the hypostasis, the person, of Christ in the icon and not simply a sensible outline. It is by these means that the Trinity can come into presence.43 Yet the material aspect of the icon was distinct from this formal presence, instead gaining value and the right to veneration because of its role in making Christ available.44 The distinctions that Leo has drawn in his account of representation lead him to dene a double worship for the icon. For Leo, the icon presents the divine portrait of Christ while not actually bearing this image in its iconic material. As such, a need arises for two descriptions of the worship addressed to the icon. On the one hand a relative worship is addressed to the icon itself, while adoration is addressed to the one portrayed there. Hence:45 ( $""6 K " "# 1"  " / )  * 6 - - j !  k  1"B 1   *( ? )B : ) 1";, ) *[ l , 2[ \- *[ G -  "

 " /.45

While the iconic matter is to be worshipped honorably and relatively (this relation is mediated by the divinized portrait of Christ), when we see his portrait in itself, not through something else, but through itself, we venerate in terms of adoration.

This could be understood as an attempt to verbalize the multivalent performance of worship. It invites us to accept that those bringing worship to bear on an icon could both see and worship the Christ in the icon and see and adore Christ himself. But Leo’s articulation of this distinction was not clear. The biggest problem was the lack of

41 42 43 44 45

Leo, Leo, Leo, Leo, Leo,

Nikolaon: Nikolaon: Nikolaon: Nikolaon: Nikolaon:

415A. 445B–446A. 415A, 446B. 446B. 415A.

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denition regarding the meaning of his key description of the icon as a divinized portrait.46 For Leo, the term was a necessary description, as it maintained language that underlined that Christ was one of the Trinity. Furthermore, he suggested that this understanding not only permitted adoration, but that the adoration addressed to the image would also necessarily embrace God the Father and God the Holy Spirit.47 It is this possibility that ensures the holy status of the icon as a bearer, if not a participant, of the divinized portrait.48 The circulation of this letter to Nicholas provoked a response from the Sebastokrator Isaak, who appears to have played a leading role in the intellectual trials of the 1080s and early 1090s.49 Our understanding of his role revolves around a orilegium, a collection of citations, gathered from earlier iconophile writers. These were used both to refute Leo’s conception of the icon and also to re-assert the authority of the fathers of the iconoclastic era over the question of icons. Unfortunately, the manuscript that contained this orilegium has been lost and so we can only reconstruct a partial account from Lauriotes’ description of the codex published in 1886/1887 and from other more circumstantial evidence.50 The authorities cited include Theodore of Stoudios, the Patriarch Nikephoros, the Patriarch Germanos, and the Seventh Oecumenical Council. Not all of the passages are readily identiable. Nonetheless, from those that can be located and from a signicant related document it is possible to discern how Isaak or the theologians that worked with him shaped a counter argument to that proposed by Leo.51 46

Look at texts at 406B, 415B, and 446A. Leo, Nikolaon: 415A. 48 Carr, “Leo of Chalcedon:” 581 draws attention to this question. 49 For an account of Isaak Sebastokrator see: Basile Skoulatos, Les Personnages byzantins de l’Alexiade: Analyse prosopographique et synthèse (Louvain: Éditions Nauwelaerts, 1980): 124–130. 50 Alexander Lauriotes, “Anagraphe chierographou tes en Athoi hieras Mones Megistes Lauras,” Eklesiastike Aletheia 2 (1886/1887): 168–172. For discussions of this lost manuscript see: Grumel “Documents Athonites:” 123–124 and Stephanou, “Doctrine:” 180, 188–89. 51 The passages in the orilegium are taken from: Theodore of Stoudios, Letter to the monk Severianos (Fatouros 445: 627–29); Theodore of Stoudios, Letter to the spatharios Niketas (Fatouros 476: 685–87); Theodore of Stoudios, Letter to the asecretis Diogenes (Fatouros 491: 725–26); Theodore of Stoudios, Letter to Athanasios (Fatouros 428: 599–600); Theodore of Stoudios, Letter to John the Grammarian (Fatouros 546: 825–27); Theodore of Stoudios, Letter to Platon (Fatouros 57: 164–68); Theodore of Stoudios, unidentiable excerpt from his First Refutation of the Iconoclasts (PG 99.328–52); Nikephoros of Constantinople, unidentiable passage; Nikephoros of Constantinople, unidentiable excerpt from his 47

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Much of the orilegium echoes themes found in Leo’s arguments, but gives greater value to the material aspect of the icon and denies the possibility of an adoration offered to this object. To begin with the material nature of the icon is given great signicance by Germanos’s Letter to John of Synada as well as Theodore of Stoudios’s Letter to John the Grammarian. For both of them this material nature is a key to the visibility of Christ. It is thanks to the iconic matter itself that one can see Christ in the icon.52 The challenge then is to dene the relation between the material nature of the icon and the form mediated therein. One means of tackling this problem is offered by mental worship. Leo of Chalcedon had rejected this, arguing that it diminished the actual value of what was present in the icon.53 The iconophile texts, in contrast, used this notion to deny any presence in the icon. For example, in the Letter to the monk Severianos Theodore of Stoudios argued that worship was not only relative, but also a mental process that directed one beyond the icon to that which it portrayed.54 In his Letter to the spatharios Niketas Theodore rened this point further by distinguishing between the relative worship mediated by the icon and the absolute worship owed the Trinity itself.55 In the Letter to the asecretes Diogenes it was argued that this distinction prevented any confusion between object and subject. Indeed, it underscored the point that the depicted Christ could only be worshipped relatively in the icon.56 This point is then extended in the Letter to Athanasios in which Theodore argued that while worship was directed at the depicted Christ and not the image as a whole, this worship was not the absolute worship reserved for the Trinity, rather it was a relative worship directed at Christ in so far as he is a man visible in the icon.57 The points raised in this letter are very important. Its signicance is underlined by the fact that it was also used in the council of 1095 as an authoritative rejection of Leo of Chalcedon’s views. Finally, the differences between Isaak’s position and

First Discourse against the Iconoclasts; Germanos of Constantinople, Letter to John of Synada (Mansi 13.100B–105B); unidentiable excerpt from the Acts of the Seventh Oecumenical Council; Synodikon of the Seventh Oecumenical Council (Mansi 13.1135C–1154E). 52 Mansi 13.100B–105B and Fatouros 826. 53 Leo, Nikolaon: 415A–416A. 54 Fatouros 627. 55 Fatouros 686. 56 Letter to the asecretis Diogenes: Fatouros 725. 57 Fatouros 599.

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those of Leo are brought out in the use of Theodore of Stoudios’s Letter to Platon.58 This letter also offers a meditation on Basil’s example of the imperial icon and on the sealed image, as well as Pseudo-Dionysios.59 Where Leo had argued that the identity of form permitted the adoration of Christ in the icon, Theodore wrote that the icon as a whole dened both a distinction and a relation between Christ himself and his depiction. Consequently, for Theodore, the icon could only permit a relative worship:60 . . . ? # *( B "B $"! "#

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. . . in the case of the imitative picture and its archetype, such as Christ and Christ’s image, granted that the person of Christ is one, then the worship is also one, because it is clear that the identity of the one is hypostatic, and does not have the difference of natures [that exists between] Christ and his icon. If, however, we acknowledge that the worship towards icon and archetype was one, not only because of the identity of person but also of nature, we would be disregarding the difference between the image and the one depicted, and would thus speak of one person and of one nature of the icon of Christ and Christ himself, and falling into pagan polytheism by deifying every kind of material which is fashioned into an icon of Christ.

Theodore then argues against adoration being directed toward the material of the icon by drawing an analogy between an icon and a mirror:61

58

Fatouros 1.164–68. Fatouros 1.165 for Basil. The seal is discussed at 1.167–68. Theodore does not specically cite Gregory Nazianzos, but is clearly indebted to his example. PseudoDionysios is cited at 1.164. 60 Fatouros 1.165:49–66:59. 61 59

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Now a man might also say this: “Granted that worship is adoration, it follows that the image of Christ is adored together with the Holy Trinity.” This man would appear not to know the different nature of worship, inasmuch as we worship the saints, but do not adore them, neither do we adore those who rule by God’s dispensation. Furthermore, he should learn that worship is not directed to the essence of the image (for it would be extraordinary to adore the creator by means of the created work), but towards Christ who is revered in His image, while the material of the image remains altogether unrelated to Christ who is revered in it by virtue of likeness: which is the same as the person of Christ, when formed in matter and seen in this. It seems to me that the example of the mirror is appropriate, for in it, too, the spectator’s face is, as it were, represented, but the likeness remains outside the material. It also seems that when one embraces the image of this one, it is not the material that one touches, nor the one himself, rather it is the likeness of the same represented in it, because of which one also the matter. And when he moves away from the mirror, the reection is simultaneously removed since it has nothing in common with the material of the mirror. The same applies to the material of the image: once the likeness that is visible upon it and towards which worship is directed has been obliterated, the material remains without worship inasmuch as it has no connection whatever with the likeness.

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This prepares the reader to accept Theodore’s use of the Gregorian example of the seal ring. Here Theodore points out that the likeness belongs to the ring itself and not to the materials in which the image is impressed. He then applies this point to the icon:62 K M "# -  k  , "d ? R Ku "1"; , 2":! ?  Q ? w *"  Ku,  ? Q  k  \   , g  ?  "# e*. "# ]  $ /, )  $"%  k , 2[  ? )Q  "  k ! , "#  "  )Q "  )- B \     k ,

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The same applies to the likeness of Christ irrespective of the materials upon which it is portrayed, it is not a participant in the designated material, but remains in the person of Christ, which is also particular. And to say simply, the icon of Christ is not to be adored, but the Christ in it is to be worshipped, and to be worshipped in it in terms of this very person of Christ, which differs from the essence of the icon.

It is this last section that distinguishes Theodore and Leo. For Theodore the person of Christ is available for veneration rather than adoration in the icon. For Leo, this person deserved adoration. The Leo of Chalcedon affair was brought to an end at a synod held at the Blachernae Palace in Constantinople in 1194/95. There the Emperor Alexios I himself posed a series of carefully prepared questions to the synod. The rst of these was: “Do you say that the icon of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ is to be worshipped relatively or in terms of adoration (1" x  " 7  " / ; $"!  H  " & " B  ’5  k ;)?”63 The answer was: “We worship it relatively, as an icon of our Lord and God and Savior Jesus Christ. Those that do not worship in this manner, anathema (1"  "  );, < $"!  H  " & "# B  ’5  k  E * ; z

 "  , 2).”64 The Emperor then asked: “What do you call images? The iconic materials or the likenesses appearing in these ({$"!  ;  $"" z x  ?  7! :;)?”65 To which the response was: “The likenesses appearing

62 63 64 65

Fatouros 1.167:107–168:113. PG, 127:980D. PG, 127:980D. PG, 127:981A.

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in the materials (O : ? z 7!).”66 Alexios then asked: “Is it possible to worship in terms of adoration the likeness of Christ that is visible in the material (o !   k  ! ? zu :  "  " / ;)?”67 The participants in the synod replied: “No.”68 John of Claudiopolis then asked a question: “Some say that holy icons do not participate in divine grace (O ) 1    1  ] $"! ).”69 To which the emperor and everyone answered: “Anathema to those who say this. For while the holy icons participate in divine grace, they are not of the same nature as the prototypes (| . z4    1 1  E d $"! , 7 / * /   )" $ ).”70 Then the emperor asks: “The likeness of Christ inscribed in matter, is this the divine nature (O! ? zu 7! !  k , ! ?   7  ;)?”71 He was answered: “No. The divine nature is uncircumscribable (c)1   7  2   ).”72 A concluding passage from the Synodikon of Orthodoxy was then read.73 After which, Alexios I drew the following conclusion: Christ himself and the other members of the Trinity were owed adoration, while icons could only be offered a relative worship. The two could not be confused.74 The authority cited for this was the letter of Theodore of Stoudios to Athanasios that had been cited in Isaak Sebastokrator’s orilegium.75 This crisp conclusion to the affair is notable for its reiteration of an understanding of the icon formulated in the ninth century. The authorities cited are Theodore of Stoudios and the Synodikon of Orthodoxy. The interpretation given reiterates that the image resides in the likeness seen in the icon and not in the materials of the icon itself. This likeness is worthy of veneration, but cannot be adored, as it has become inscribed in matter. The icon nonetheless has a special status in that while it participates in divine grace it does not have the same nature

66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75

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127:981A. 127:981A. 127:981A. 127:981A. 127:981A. 127:981B. 127:981B. 127:981C–D. 127:984A. 127:981D–984A.

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as the prototypes. Rather, this participation is mediated by likeness.76 None of this betrays any addition to the logical understanding of the icon that had been formulated in the ninth century. Indeed, the synod and the preparations that led up to it mark a precise return to and reassertion of this model for the interpretation of the icon. This model was followed in arguably the denitive Komnenian essay on the question of images. This was “authored” by a court theologian, Euthymios Zigabenos, who, at the request of Alexios I, produced a denition of dogmatic theology and a lengthy account of the major heresies that had aficted Orthodoxy.77 The text as a whole can be understood as part of a wider attempt to police the permissible limits of theological discourse in the Komnenian court and church of the early-twelfth century. In particular, it manifested a preference for existing authority rather than enquiries led by the overt use of philosophical categories. The interpretations of this change in intellectual discourse have been several. Robert Browning, for one, has drawn a strong comparison between the ourishing of philosophy in the eleventh century and its repression under the Komnenian regime.78 In particular, he identied the trial of John Italos as a turning point: “I believe that this event more than any other marks the beginning of the emasculation of Byzantine culture so characteristic of the age of the Comneni.”79 Further studies have supported the identication of this moment as marking a signicant change in Byzantium’s intellectual history.80 More nuanced accounts of this climate have emphasized the continuities rather than occasions for change in Byzantine culture and society at this period.81

76

Barber, Figure and Likeness: 107–23. The lengthy panegyric for Alexios I at the start of the text (PG, 130:20–26) as well as references to the work by Anna Komnena (Alexeiade, ed. B. Leib 223–224) indicate that Alexios I had much to do with the commissioning of the work. 78 Robert Browning, “Enlightenment and repression in Byzantium in the eleventh and twelfth centuries,” Past and Present 69 (1975): 3–23; Robert Browning, “Church, State, and Learning in Twelfth Century Byzantium (London: Friends of Dr. Williams’s Library, 1981) 79 Browning, “Enlightenment and Repression:” 15. 80 Paul Lemerle, Cinq études sur le Xie siècle byzantin (Paris: CNRS, 1977): 293–312 and Lowell Clucas, The Trial of John Italos and the Crisis of Intellectual Values in Byzantium in the Eleventh Century, Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia 26 (Munich: Institut für Byzantinistik, Neugriechische Philologie und Byzantinische Kunstgeschichte der Universität, 1981). 81 Alexander Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985). 77

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Paul Magdalino, in particular, has questioned the model of repression that Browning proposed.82 In its place he has argued that a more apt description might be to think of this as a persecuting society. It is a conception that invites us to think of this as a society in which one should imagine a contest of ideas in play. By these means, it is possible to avoid a simple binarism of oppressor and oppressed, of the forces of ignorant reaction opposed to the forces of a medieval enlightenment. Rather, a more uid model emerges, in which both parties are considered to be of equal intellectual stature. As such, it becomes possible to argue that the reform led by a newly professionalized clergy should be seen less as a moment of repression than as a broadening of the intellectual terrain engendered by the Komnenian reforms. Even granted this expansive reading, the play of ideas is rarely without questions of power and in the case of Byzantium rarely operates far from the imperial purview.83 In the case of the Panoplia Dogmatica, this is made overt by the effusive dedication to Alexios I Komnenos and, in the case of a Vatican manuscript of this text, an illustration that brings these authorities to the hands of Alexios himself (gs. 20–21).84 Written by ca. 1111, this Panoplia Dogmatica included a chapter on iconoclasm, chapter twenty-two.85 This chapter is in need of a new edition.86 Granted this, it is apparent that Euthymios adhered closely to an earlier work of uncertain pedigree for the core of his essay on the image 82 Paul Magdalino, Manuel I; Paul Magdalino, “Enlightenment and Repression in Twelfth-Century Byzantium, the Evidence of the Canonists,” in Byzantium in the 12th Century: Canon Law, State and Society, ed. Nicolas Oikonomides (Athens: Society of Byzantine and Post Byzantine Studies, 1991): 357–373; Paul Magdalino, “The reform edict of 1107,” in Alexios I Komnenos, ed. Margaret Mullett and Dion Smythe, Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations 4.1 (Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Enterprises, 1996): 199–218. 83 Here one should bear in mind Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Knowledge (New York: Pantheon, 1982). 84 Iohannis Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts (Leiden: Brill, 1976): 122–29. 85 PG, 130:1164–73. An introduction to Euthymios and the Panoplia can be found at Jacob Wickert, “Die Panoplia dogmatica des Euthymios Zigabenos: Untersuchung ihrer Anlage und ihrer Quellen, ihres Inhaltes und ihrer Bedeutung,” Oriens Christianus 8 (1908): 278–388. 86 For example, the Patrologia Graeca edition contains a lengthy quotation from John of Damaskos’s chapter on icons in the On the Orthodox Faith that is by no means a persistent presence in the manuscript tradition. It is also notable that the fteenth-century manuscript that was the basis for Hergenröther’s edition (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Palatinus greca 361) is largely devoted to issues that were signicant in the later eleventh century, particularly matters of dispute between the Latin and Greek churches. A more thorough edition of this text and its afterlife in the works of Euthymios Zigabenos and Niketas Choniates will clarify this situation.

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question. Hergenröther and Thümmel have attributed this earlier work to the Patriarch Photios.87 As such the chapter on iconoclasm is often treated as an historical rather than a contemporary text. Certainly, the passages referenced by this document depend upon earlier sources, but, as we shall see below, its relationship to the contemporary discussion and understanding of icons is more complicated and perhaps indicates a more recent authorship. Direct quotations recur throughout this text (unusually for Zigabenos, he does not provide attributions for these sources). In addition he also paraphrases a number of texts. Once these are disentangled, it becomes clear that this text is a carefully constructed meditation on the icon and its worship that is wholly fabricated from iconophile sources.88 Theodore of Stoudios is the primary source used, with quotes from his First Refutation of the Iconoclasts, as well as his letters to Platon, Athanasios, and Niketas Spatharios.89 There are also quotes from the Seventh Oecumenical Council and Patriarchs Germanos and Nikephoros.90 Of these it is clearly the letter written by Theodore of Stoudios to his uncle Platon that has most inuenced Zigabenos’s account of iconoclasm. We have already noted its importance in the Sebastokrator’s orilegium.

87 Joseph Hergenröther, Monumenta Graeca ad Photium ejusque Historiam Pertinentia (Regensburg: George Joseph Manz, 1869): 53–62; Hans-Georg Thümmel, “Patriarch Photius und die Bilder,” in Eikon und Logos. Festschrift Konrad Onasch, ed. H. Goltz (Wittenberg: Wissenschaftliche Beiträge der Martin-Luther Universität, 1981): 275–289; Hans-Georg Thümmel, “Eine Schrift über das Wesen der Ikone,” Stimme der Orthodoxie 10 (1982): 53–58; Hans-Georg Thümmel, “Eine wenig bekannte Schrift zur Bilderfrage,” in Studien zum 8. und 9. Jahrhundert in Byzanz, ed. Helga Köpstein and Friedhelm Winkelmann (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1983): 153–157. 88 Attempts to identify these sources can be found at: Jacob Wickert, “Die Panoplia dogmatica des Euthymios Zigabenos: Untersuchung ihrer Anlage und ihrer Quellen, ihres Inhaltes und ihrer Bedeutung,” Oriens Christianus 8 (1908): 278–388 and Andreas Papavasileiou, Euthymios-Ioannes Zygadenos: vios, syngraphai (Nicosia: Papavasileiou, 1979): 102–119. Additional references are to be found in Hergenröther and Thümmel. 89 The passage from the First Refutation is PG, 99:341B–C, this is found at PG, 130:1165D; the letter to Platon is quoted and paraphrased at various points in Zigabenos’s text: Fatouros 57.33–35 at PG, 130:1165A; Fatouros 57.93f at PG, 130:1168A, Fatouros 57.98–100 at PG, 130:1168B, Fatouros 57.102–110 at PG, 130:1168B–C, and Fatouros 57.118 at PG, 130:1169C; cf. Fatouros 428.4–11 at PG, 130:1165D–68D; cf. Fatouros 476.31–43 at PG, 130:1168A. 90 Seventh Oecumenical Council: PG, 130:1169B–B6 is based on Mansi 13:225A2; PG, 130:1169B6–C is based on Mansi 13:44D; PG, 130:1169D8–13 is based on Mansi 13:45A. Germanos: PG, 130:1169C5 is based on the letter to John of Synada: PG, 98:160C4. Nikephoros: PG, 130:1164D–1165A quotes Nikephoros’s First Antirrhetikos, PG, 100:277A; PG, 130:1165D–1168A is also from the First Antirrhetikos, PG, 100:277C–D.

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The account of iconoclasm given in the Panoplia Dogmatica opens with a direct quote from Patriarch Nikephoros’s First Antirrhetikos:91 |1 ! ?  216 "# * \7 "-  2 [ ) 1"0 e* , "# B B   "! e. {$": ?   21  8 ? G Q  ?   - i* * B ?7 ? , . *7!4 B )  " 6 @ !   x   21  , "# 2 " , V 1 2   "    21  $*  Q ) R *7.91

The archetype is an existing origin and paradigm of a form portrayed after it, the cause from which derives the resemblance. An icon is a likeness of an archetype, having represented in itself by means of likeness the entire form of the one being represented, distinguished only by an essential difference with respect to matter; or an imitation and copy of an archetype, differing in essence, or an artifact completely formed in imitation of an archetype, but differing in essence.

It is a very strong opening, one that immediately and repeatedly proposes an essential difference between the icon and its subject. The point is continued when Zigabenos draws on Theodore of Stoudios’s second Antirrhetikos and his Letter to Platon to elaborate upon the distinction between a natural and a thetic image: {$"%    ?". Pp 7 "6 $"% "#  "6 ( ) 7 "6 *7 T1  - b, 2’ \  "6, <  }E- - - W  (   7  , * *( \     *( ) )1 \  "6 *7 T1  - 21 , 2 7 "6, < $"%  k  - - k !. D (   \ !   , * *( 7  . Pp  7  \7 , "#  k  " - 2: , "’ ~ "# 7, "# 21  $"! " . ’{ # ( B "B

An icon is named according to that of which it is a likeness. A natural image is one thing, an imitative icon is another. One has no natural difference from its cause, but an hypostatic one, as the Son [differs] from the Father: for they have one nature, but two hypostaseis. While the other has no hypostatic distinction from the archetype, only a natural one, such as the icon of Christ in terms of Christ: for these have one hypostasis, but two natures. For the iconic material is one thing, while Christ’s humanity, according to which he is circumscribed, is another. And the icon renders the

91 PG, 100:277A quoted at PG, 130:1164D–65A. This is probably the text identied in the descriptions of the manuscript containing the orilegium as being: From the rst discourse of St. Nikephoros against the iconoclasts.

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archetype: that which is in the imitative icon accords with form, which is shape or likeness; that which is natural accords with essence, which is divine and the same. In terms of the natural, there is one nature for the Son and the Father, because of this there is one worship for the two of them, and not two because of the difference of the hypostases. In terms of the mimetic, because there is one hypostasis for the icon of Christ and Christ himself, there is also one worship of them, and not two because of the difference of nature. For the mimetic icon is not self-existent, but bears the person from the archetype, and the icon is itself in relation to this. Now we do not call the hypostasis a simple thing, but an essence with particularities, by which it is differentiated from those with the same form. Therefore the self-existent is not an icon, but the archetype.

It is notable that the passage uses the difference between the material of the icon and the material of Christ’s human nature to lead us toward the formal relation, mediated by likeness and manifest in a shape that allows us to see Christ in the icon.92Having arrived at this denition, Zigabenos is able to argue that veneration is mediated by the common appearance of the image and the prototype, and that an icon depicts the person and not the nature of the one represented. This is the form impressed into the image, but not the material itself, which becomes worthy of worship.93 Zigabenos then introduces, by way of Theodore of Stoudios, a relational model to dene more precisely how an icon and its subject are linked:

92 PG, 130:1165A–C. The opening denition perhaps draws on Theodore of Stoudios, Antirrhetikos II: PG, 99:368C. This is then followed by a direct quote from Theodore of Stoudios, Letter to Plato: Fatouros, 57:33–35. The remaining section of the quote paraphrases the Letter to Plato: Fatouros, 57:17–70 until the last few lines, when the writer echoes Nikephoros, Antirrheticus I:16 (PG, 100:225–28). 93 PG, 130:1165C.

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€ $"% 1  T1 - - 21 , "# $ ? # $!. ’p" M *  "#  !  i  "#  . O !   1  ,  *( !  ) l  ? # G i , "# 2 7 6 1  - . ’p1   $"! 21  "# $"% 21  $":. H# )"    1 $"! 6 - $"! 7. p   , "#  / 4 .94

The icon has a relation towards the archetype, and derives from this cause. It is also necessary for this to be both toward something and to be called. For being towards something is a relation, the things toward which one is are to be called other, and the relation toward these others is the converse. For the archetype of an image is an archetype; the image of an archetype is an image. Nor can an image, which has no relation to anything, be called an image of something. For both follow upon the other, and manifest the one in the other.

Continuing94this thread, Zigabenos introduces the notion of the icon as a mirror that was found in Theodore of Stoudios’s letter to Platon. This is then reinforced by reference to the discussions of the implications of the imperial image and the seal found in the same source, which are used to illustrate the by now familiar point that the form seen in the image is not to be confused with the material that bears it.95 Having introduced this idea, Zigabenos then denes the visual quality of the icon:96 O E $"! 2  e   *’ ) *"   ) 21 , "#  / \ ;, "#   !  -   ! .96

What the sacred icons make visible are those visible aspects of their archetypes that become the memory and desire for the prototypes for us.

Zigabenos then returns to one of the primary themes in the debates introduced by Leo of Chalcedon, namely the nature of the worship brought to bear on icons. He states that while the Holy Trinity is to be adored, icons can only be venerated, doing otherwise would be to adore creation or matter.97 Thus: “I worship Christ in it (the icon), who is visible there in a carnal depiction according to his carnal form, whence

94 PG, 130:1165D–68A. This quote paraphrases Theodore of Stoudios, Letter to Athanasios, within a Letter to John the Grammarian: Fatouros, 528:51–54. 95 PG, 130:1168A–C. 96 PG, 130:1168C. 97 PG, 130:1168C–D.

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the veneration is relative and hypostatic.”98 Hence, it is Christ’s somatic visibility that brings value to an icon. Underscoring the importance of visibility, Zigabenos then contrasts the icon with shadows, and praises the clarity that such icons bring.99 This clarity comes from the forms portrayed and not from the materials of the icon itself. Indeed, should an image be damaged or a cross broken, then it should be thrown away.100 Zigabenos thus reiterates, through the words of his theological forebears, the conception of the icon proposed at the Blachernae Council of 1095. The precise terms of the Zigabenos material betray interests that respond to some of the particular problems raised by Leo of Chalcedon’s letter to Nicholas. There, Leo had argued for a distinction between the portrait and the iconic material that permitted the presence of the divine within the space of the icon and therefore made the adoration of the icon possible. The Zigabenos text addresses the same issues by drawing a distinction between the portrait and the material of the icon. This, however, did not lead to adoration, rather the material presence of the icon itself differentiated the portrait from its subject rather than identied it with it. The possibility of a connection between Zigabenos’s account of the icons and this recent discussion of the topic can be extended when we take note of the choice of texts used in the Zigabenos text and compare these with the records that we have of the orilegium associated with Isaak Sebastokrator that was produced to respond to Leo’s letter to Nicholas. The record of the orilegium that has come down to us describes excerpts from the following texts:101 a letter of Theodore of Stoudios to the monk Severianos;102 a letter of Theodore of Stoudios to the spatharios Niketas;103 a letter of Theodore of Stoudios to the

98

PG, 130:1168D. PG, 130:1169A. 100 PG, 130:1169B. 101 Alexander Lauriotes, “Anagraphe chierographou tes en Athoi hieras Mones Megistes Lauras.” Eklesiastike Aletheia 2 (1886/1887): 168–172; the orilegium was found on folios 42–55 of the now lost manuscript. The list is also to be found in Venance Grumel, “Les documents Athonites concernant l’affaire de Léon de Chalcédoine,” in Miscellanea Giovanni Mercati, vol. III Letteratura e Storia Bizantini, Studi e Testi 123 (Vatican City: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1946): 123–124; Pelopidas Stephanou, “La Doctrine de Léon de Chalcédoine et de ses adversaires sur les images,” Orientalia Christiana Periodica 12 (1946): 188–189; Glavinas, 175–176. 102 Fatouros: 445. 103 Fatouros: 476. 99

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asekretis Diogenes;104 the rst Antirrhetikos by Theodore of Stoudios;105 a letter of Theodore of Stoudios to Athanasios;106 a passage written by Nikephoros of Constantinople;107 quotes from the Seventh Oecumenical Council held at Nicaea in 787;108 the letter of Patriarch Germanos of Constantinople to Bishop John of Synada;109 a letter of Theodore of Stoudios to John the Grammarian;110 the rst Logos against the Iconoclasts by Patriarch Nikephoros of Constantinople;111 a letter of Theodore of Stoudios to his uncle Platon.112 The Panoplia offers direct quotes and paraphrases from: the rst Antirrhetikos of Nikephoros;113 the Antirrhetoikoi of Theodore of Stoudios;114 the letters from Theodore of Stoudios to Platon, Diogenes, Niketas, Severianos, John the Grammarian and Athanasios;115 the letter of Germanos to John of Synada;116 and excerpts from the seventh oecumenical council.117 This proximity is suggestive and probably excludes the possibility that these are entirely independent works. Granted this, some options arise. First, the orilegium and the Zigabenos text might rely on an older common source. Second, that the orilegium provided the raw material for Zigabenos’s composition. Third, that a composition that accompanied the orilegium was copied into Zigabenos’s compilation. While the relationship between this orilegium and the text of Euthymios Zigabenos’s treatment of iconoclasm awaits both a modern edition of the “Photios” essay and the Panoplia Dogmatica as well as the

104

Fatouros: 491. PG, 99:328–352. 106 Fatouros: 428 or 528. 107 Unidentiable. 108 Unidentiable. 109 PG, 98:156–161. 110 Fatouros 586. 111 Unidentiable. 112 Fatouros 57. 113 PG, 130:1164D–1165A = PG, 100:277A; PG, 130:1165BC = cf. PG, 100.225–228; PG, 130:1165D–1168A = PG, 100:277CD; PG, 130:1168CD = PG, 100:584. 114 PG, 130:1165A = PG, 99:368C; PG, 130:1165C = PG, 99:405A; PG, 130:1165D = PG, 99:421A; PG, 130:1165D = PG, 99:341BC; PG, 130:1168D–1169A = PG, 99:433B; PG, 130:1169D = PG, 99:404D. 115 PG, 130:1165AB, 1168A–C, 1169C = Fatouros 57:33–53, 91–110, 118–121; PG, 130:1165C = Fatouros 491:12–17; PG, 130:1168A = Fatouros 476:31–33; PG, 130: 1168CD = Fatouros 445:22–42; PG, 130:1168CD = Fatouros 546 ; PG, 130:1168D = Fatouros 428:4–10. 116 PG, 130:1168C = PG, 98:160C. 117 PG, 130:1168C = Mansi 13:377D; PG, 130:1169B = Mansi 13:225A; PG, 130:1169BC = Mansi 13:44D; PG, 130:1169D = Mansi 13:45A. 105

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re-discovery of the missing Athonite manuscript containing the Leo of Chalcedon dossier, the striking parallels between these ensembles remain suggestive. Until this editorial work happens, the precise relationship between these bodies of material remains open to debate. Nonetheless, what can be seen is that the two texts suggest that court theologians drew upon the same corpus of iconoclastic texts when they sought to resolve the problem of the implications of worship. It is a model that is narrowly focused upon existing authority. It avoids the existential mysticism that Symeon the New Theologian propounds. It also avoids the overt application of philosophical method found in both Psellos and Eustratios. The Zigabenos text should, therefore, be understood as an exemplary instance of the Komnenian re-assertion of a narrowly dened and traditional theological practice. It is the weight of authority, rather than the essays of Eustratios of Nicaea, that ultimately denes the response to Leo of Chalcedon’s extraordinary attempt to describe a divine presence in the icon.

AFTERWORD Euthymios Zigabenos appears to have brought us full circle. The language that frames the icon in the early years of the twelfth century is the same language that had framed the icon in the ninth century, with the texts of Nikephoros of Constantinople and Theodore of Stoudios overshadowing both eras. But we should be wary of the insistence of this return, just as we should resist the constraints of the grounding offered by the Synodikon of Orthodoxy. For, as the preceding chapters have shown, the icon remained a site of contest throughout the eleventhand early-twelfth centuries. While this iconomachy did not, in the end, overturn the dominant discourse on the icon, it disclosed discontent with the limits of this inheritance. Each of the major authors addressed by this study—Symeon the New Theologian, Michael Psellos, Eustratios of Nicaea, Leo of Chalcedon, and Euthymios Zigabenos—sought to dene the truth in painting. Each examined how the icon framed the visible limits of human knowledge, setting forth a truth bound to human perception and production, which, given its subject, deserved worship. Some of our authors reiterated or extended this horizon of the visible, while others sought to overcome its limitations, opening the iconic space for divine things, and thence asked whether it might not be apt to adore what was seen in an image. Although they each shared an assumption that the icon has its ground in the human, both the body and the mind, each also developed a distinct reading of the implications of the logic of this common ground, as they went on to ask whether the icon was in fact an adequate medium for a knowledge of God. In the case of Symeon the New Theologian the challenge was directly aimed at the existing theological status quo. Symeon argued that theology was impossible. First, because without rst having experienced God one could not speak of divine things and, second, one could not practice theology because this experience of God could not be adequately represented in either words or images. Consequently, while Symeon was not hostile to images and, indeed, deployed them in the cult of his own spiritual father and in prayer, he considered them to be inadequate for true theological understanding. Of necessity, he came to disregard the icon as a true source of the knowledge of divine things. Such knowledge was to be achieved by a different kind of visual

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experience, one marked by the divine revealing itself to the deserving recipient of such a vision. Icons could not in themselves convey this experience, as they were the products of human making and thus were necessarily limited by the horizon dened by this origin. Michael Psellos shared this understanding of the origin of painting. For him, painting was a human product, however, this origin was not considered a negative attribute, as painting, as was proper to it, could manifest all that was possible for the human mind to encompass. Nonetheless, Psellos, like Symeon, considered the divine to be other than and beyond this material medium. Unlike Symeon’s insistence upon the extraordinary experience of formless divine light, Psellos was drawn by the extraordinary experience of the divine that could be had through the medium of the icon. Here, the miraculous disclosure of the divine both took on the shape of the material medium and also transformed it momentarily into its divine subject. By these means, Psellos retains a value for the icon in the process of divine perception. In contrast to the desire for an authentic divine experience that guides Symeon the New Theologian and Michael Psellos along their divergent readings of the icon’s possibility, Eustratios of Nicaea remained rmly focused upon describing its limited capacities to their fullest extent. In his hands the icon remained inextricably bound to its human origins. For Eustratios this was appropriate. God was manifestly knowable thanks to the incarnation. The icon was, therefore, the perfect expression of man’s somatic relation to God. Like Symeon the New Theologian, he too believed that the icon was inadequate for the task of theology itself. But unlike Symeon, Eustratios sought to argue for a human knowledge that was higher than the iconic and so distinguished the work of art from the intellectual work of either theology or philosophy. In this way, he hoped to remove the icon from its central role in the denition and description of Orthodoxy. Unlike these other thinkers, Leo of Chalcedon had attempted to account for a permanent presence for the divine in the icon. Sharing the basic distinction between the material and the spiritual, he did not argue that the icon as a whole was an holy object. Rather, he argued that the image conveyed by, but not to be confused with, the material of the icon could be considered divine and thence receive adoration. In this way, like Symeon and Psellos, he had sought to satisfy the desire for the divine in human experience. Against this, the responses found in Isaak Sebastokrator’s orilegium and in Euthymios Zigabenos’s Panoplia reveal a strong re-assertion by court theologians of the iconophile argument that such an experience was not to be had in the icon itself.

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In their different ways, these thinkers offer us a lively and varied account of the icon, confronting, opening, and exploring the implications of the fundamental understanding of this object that had been bequeathed by the iconoclastic era. These varied attempts to describe the conditions of Christian sacred art in eleventh-century Byzantium not only open the potential variety of Byzantine thinking on the icon to us, but they also pose a challenge to our own art-historical assumptions regarding the painted image. While I have primarily presented these studies in terms of the narrow context of Byzantine intellectual history, I believe that some of the lines of enquiry found in these writings can be brought to bear upon our present practice as art historians. Here, one might begin by considering the problematic fate of the icon within modernist discourse. In the hands of Giorgio Vasari, the icon functioned as a foil for his account of the re-emergence of a naturalistic paradigm, an instance of repetitive copying from one image to another image rather than the creative product of an attentive and observant artist.1 On a more positive note we can nd Roger Fry co-opting Byzantine art as he sought to dene what has come to be termed Neo-Impressionism in opposition to the Vasarian paradigm.2 Needless to say, neither use of the icon does justice to the evident dualism of the icon’s surface, where likeness and unlikeness, visibility

1

GiorgioVasari, Vite de’ più eccellenti architetti, pittori e scultori italiani: nel readaioni del 1550 e 1568, ed. Rosanna Bettarini (Firenze: Sansoni, 1966): 37.26–30: “la qual maniera scabrosa e goffa et ordinaria avevano non mediante lo studio, ma per una cotal usanza insegnato l’uno all’altro per molti e molti anni I pittori di que’ tempi, senza pensar mai a migliorare il disegno a belleza di colorito o invenzione alcuna che buona fusse (Giorgio Vasari, The Lives of the Artists: A Selection, trans. George Bull (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1965): 50–51: To be sure, their crude, stiff, and mediocre style owed nothing to study, but came from blindly following what had been handed on year after year by painters who never thought of trying to improve their drawing and never sought after lovely colours or any creditable inventions);” and: 97.4–9: “Là dove venuto, in poco tempo, aiutato dalla natura et ammaestrato da Cimabue, non solo pareggiò il fanciullo la maniera del maestro suo, ma divenne così buono imitatore della natura che sbandì afatto quella goffa maniera greca, e risuscitò la moderna e buona arte della pittura, introducendo il ritrarre bene di naturale le persone vive, il che più di dugento anni non s’era usato (Bull: 58: After he had gone to live there, helped by his natural talent and instructed by Cimabue, in a very short space of time Giotto not only captured his master’s own style but also began to draw so ably from life that he made a decisive break with the crude traditional Byzantine style and brought to life the great art of painting as we know it today, introducing the technique of drawing accurately from life, which had been neglected for more than two hundred years).” 2 For discussion see: J. B. Bullen, “Byzantinism and Modernism 1900–14,” The Burlington Magazine 141 (1999): 665–75. Note these essays by Roger Fry: “Post-Impressionism,” and “The Post-Impressionists,” in A Roger Fry Reader, ed. Christopher Reed (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1996): 99–110 and 81–85.

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and invisibility play off each other and work against the unity of the painted surface.3 While our art-historical practice remains bound by the modernist representational values that have privileged rst the artist’s perception recorded on the painting and then the viewer’s recognition of what is seen there, we will be unable to incorporate the elusive aspects of the icon into a History of European Art that assumes representation to be its fundamental ground. This ground has given rise to the expectation that the work of art is intended to provide an adequate rendering of the visible world in the visual language that is common to a given space and moment in time. As such it embodies an historically-situated horizon of human understanding. Importantly, our eleventh-century thinkers have challenged us to consider whether this model of adequation is sufcient for a true knowledge of the subject depicted therein and thereby have drawn our attention to the historical conditions that dene representation. In effect they invite us to consider whether it might be possible or desirable for the work of art to break this hermeneutic circle of human production and perception and thus expand our understanding of painting’s potential. To do this, we need to turn from the traditional grounds of arthistorical enquiry, the hand of the artist or the eye of the viewer, and enquire further into the possibility that the icon manifests an experience that lies beyond both its manufacture and the occasions when it was viewed. This entails that we consider the nature of the relationship between the subject and the icon that depicts that subject. For our authors, the question became focused upon the conditions that permit the subject to disclose itself in painting. For Symeon the New Theologian the distinction between matter and spirit rendered this impossible. Similarly, Eustratios of Nicaea also believed that the icon, while an adequate account of Christ’s humanity, was an inadequate medium for the description of Christ’s divine being. In contrast, Leo of Chalcedon attempted to place the divine nature in the icon without identifying it with the material of the icon itself. For Michael Psellos, the subject became present as and when it chose to emerge through the human framing provided by the material image. None of these models overcame the prevailing narrow understanding of the icon’s adequate

3

See Barber, Figure and Likeness: 120–21.

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rendering of Christ. Nonetheless they opened a signicant broadening of the icon’s possibility. By drawing attention to that which lies beyond human representation, these thinkers sought to overcome the limits of knowledge embodied in the work of art. It was an attempt to bring that which was fundamental to but outside the icon, its subject, into human experience. Yet the only means by which this could be expressed and the circle broken was by means of miraculous intervention. This event changes the object, as the one depicted in the painting becomes present there, marking the introduction of a second order of truth within the painting. The rst of these was the circular human understanding of the visible. The second was the fullness of the truth in painting when its subject let itself become present through the icon. It is the advent of this double truth that is desired in the age of the icon. Neither the painting, the painter, nor the beholder has power over this experience. The icon bears the traces marked upon it by the painter, who delineates empty forms on the icon’s surface, where they can be viewed by an onlooker, who can see the outline of a face. Yet there is nothing there to be seen, only a space that opens itself toward an absent subject, awaiting the fulllment of a presence that is beyond representation.

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INDEX Aaron, 3 Abgar, 139 Adam, and Eve, 28; and Paradise, 28–45, 48; seeing God, 28–29, 44–49, 59 Akathistos Hymn, 63 Alexander of Aphrodisias, 93 Alexios I Komnenos, Emperor, 88, 99–100, 118, 121, 127, 131–32, 134–35, 147–50 Anna Komnena, 100, 113; Alexiad, 99 Angelic depiction, 103 Anti-semitism, 7 Apollinarism, 120 Apollonios of Tyana, 8 Arianism, 120 Aristotle, 20, 30, 57, 65, 71, 100, 113, 116; On Sense Perception, 93–96 Arsakios, 9 Art, and wisdom, 116–117 Art History, xii; 161–63 Artist, 74, 92–93, 105–06, 114–16 Aspasius of Athens, 93 Balaam, 8 Baltimore, Walters Art Gallery, Adam outside Paradise ivory, 45 Basil the Great, 4, 11, 67, 126, 137, 145 Basil, Metropolitan of Euchaita, 134, 136, 139–40 Bera, Theotokos Kosmosoteira Monastery, 3 Blachernae Synod, 147–48, 155 Book of Ceremonies, 2 British Museum, Feast of Orthodoxy icon, 7, 9 Browning, Robert, 149–50 Chios, monks, 71 Christ, Antiphonetes, 6–7, 12, 83–85, 88, 97; crucixion, 5–6, 72–80; depiction, 1; face, xi, 45–46, 58, 111; Kerameion, 112; Mandylion, 112, 138–39; polymorphous, 92–93 Chrysippos, 68–69 Constantine V, Emperor, 10 Constantine VII Porphyrogenitos, Emperor, 138–39

Constantine IX Monomachos, Emperor, 14, 65, 117 Constantinople, Blachernae Palace, 135, 147–48; Great Palace, 138, Chalke Gate, 10; Hagia Sophia, 10, 118; St. Mamas Monastery, 3, 27, 55; Stoudios Monastery, 26–27; Theotokos Blachernae, 80, 97–98; Theotokos Chalkoprateia, 132–33; Theotokos Everegetis Monastery: Abbot Timothy, 3, Synaxarion, 3–22; Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, Treasures, 119 Dalassena, Anna, 131 Delphi, 86 Democritus, 95 Dodona, 86 Dyrrachium (Dürres), 131 Empedocles, 95 Eustratios, Metropolitan of Nicaea, 99–130, 131, 156, 159–60, 162; Demonstration, 110–12, 128; Dialogue, 101–10; On the Nicomachean Ethics, 100, 113–16, 130; On Book 2 of the Posterior Analytics, 100 Ezekiel, Prophet, 18 Feast of Orthodoxy, 3, 10, 13, 19, 121 Fry, Roger, 161 Gadamer, Hans-Georg, 97 Gabriel, Archangel, 63 Garidas, Eustratios, Patriarch, 134 George the Monk, Chronicle, 7 Germanos, Patriarch, 10, 143, 151; Letter to John of Synada, 144, 156 Gregory II, Pope, 11–12 Gregory Nazianzos, Patriarch, 67, 119, 128, 137–38, 145, 147; Homilies, 92; In novam dominicam, 14 Grossolanus, Peter, Archbishop of Milan, 99–100 Grumel, Venance, 139 Guiscard, Robert, 131 Hergenröther, Joseph, 151

178

index

Iamblichus, 119 Icon, and the accidental, 104–12; and accuracy, 114–16; and ambiguity, 72–80; Antiphonetes, 6–7, 12, 83–85, 88, 97; Beirut, 5–7, 15; Blachernae, 80–98; and body, 17, 21; and change, 97; as divine portrait; 101, 137–39, 141–43; and ethics, 15; and the essential, 104–12; and formalism, 13, 108–09; ground, xii, 1–22; and horizon, xii, 21; and incarnation, 15–16; and Jews, 5–7; living, 72–80, 136; and miracles, 80–98, 107; and prophetic vision, 17–19; as relative, 20; subject, xii; and veneration, 13; and the visible, 21–22, 72–80, 102–03, 154–55 Iconoclasm, xii, 1, 121, 132–33 Iconomachy, xii, 19, 121, 159 Ioannikios of Mt. Olympos, 8, 9 Isaak I Komnenos, Emperor, 131 Isaak Sebastokrator, 131–32, 139, 143, 148, 151, 155 Isaiah of Nikomedia, 9 Italos, John, 99–100, 117–27, 130, 131, 137; Quaestiones, 123; Profession of Faith, 118–21, 126–27; trials, 117–27, 149 Jerusalem, Patriarchal Library, Taphou 14, 74, 91–93 Job, 128 John VII, Patriarch, 8, 9 John VIII Xiphilinos, Patriarch, 64–65 John of Antioch, Patriarch, 135 John of Claudiopolis, 148 John of Damaskos, 92, 137; First Oration on the Images, 123–25; On the Orthodox Faith, 123; John Klimakos, Ladder of Divine Ascent, 43–44 Kaspakes, 121 Kerameion, 112 Kessler, Herbert, 112 Lauriotes, Alexander, 143 Lazarios of Mt. Galesion, 3 Leo III, Emperor, 10, 11–12 Leo V, Emperor, 14 Leo, Metropolitan of Chalcedon, 101, 118, 127, 131–57, 159, 162; Alexion, 132–34; and the divine portrait; 101, 137–39, 141–43; Isaakion, 139–41; Marian, 135; Nikolaon, 136–43, 155

London, British Library, Add. 19.352 (Theodore Psalter), 44 Louis the Pious, Emperor, 12 Magdalino, Paul, 150 Magus/Magi, 92 Mandylion, 112, 138–39 Maximos the Confessor, 66–67 Methodios, Patriarch, 8, 9, 10, 20 Michael II, Emperor, 12, 14 Michael III, Emperor, 7, 9 Michael VII Doukas, Emperor, 80, 88, 117 Michael I Keroularios, Patriarch, 13, 19, 27, 70, 86 Michael Synkellos, 9 Modernism, xii, 161–63 Monophysitism, 100 Moscow, Khludov Psalter, 7, 8 Moses, 3; and Sinai, 67–68 Mother of God: icons of, 23, 61–64, 80–98 Mt. Athos, Dionysiou Monastery ms. 587m, 3 Mt. Olympos, 8, 9, 62, 64 Neoplatonism, 61–98, 100 Nicholas, Abbot of the Monastery of the Beautiful Source, 62–64, 88 Nicholas of Adrianople, 136 Nikephoros, Patriarch, 8–9, 20, 113, 123, 143, 151, 156, 159; First Antirrhetikos, 152, 156 Niketas of Serres, Metropolitan of Herakleia, 127–30 Niketas Stethatos, 27, 54–59 Oecumenical Council: Seventh, 11, 19, 138, 143, 151, 156; Eighth, 20, 113, 117 Oropos, 86 Palaeologos, George, 134 Pheidias, 114 Philotheos: Kletorologion, 2 Photios, Patriarch, 151, 156 Plato, 65–69, 71, 95; Republic, 35, 40–42, Timaeus, 122 Pliny, 75 Polykleitos, 114 Postmodernism, xii Proclus, 71, 90, 119; Elements of Theology, 90 Psellos, Michael, 61–98, 100, 104, 107,

index 117–18, 136, 138, 156, 159–60, 162; Accusation, 71, 86; Chronographia, 83–84; and color, 85, 96–97; Discourse on the Crucixion, 72–80; Discourse on the Miracle, 80–98; Epitaphios, 61–64; Letter to Michael Keroularios, 70–71; Letter to John Xiphilinos, 64–69; and oracles, 86–87; On Perception and Perceptibles, 93–96; Profession, 126–27; and ritual, 90–91 Pseudo-Dionysios the Areopagite, Celestial Hierarchy, 103, 145 Quinisext Council, Canon 68, 140; Canon 82, 138 Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 666, 150; Rossianus gr. 251, 112 Sabellianism, 120 Sergios II, Patriarch, 54 Simon Magus, 8 Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine, Mandylion icon, 139; Miracles icon, 81–82 Sozopolis, 135 Stephen of Nikomedia, 27, 54–59 Symeon the New Theologian, 23–59, 62, 68, 98, 100, 156, 159–60, 162; against philosophy and theology, 29–30, 32, 34; Allegory of the Prisoner, 34–45; First Ethical Discourse, 28–45; Fourth Ethical Treatise, 51–53; Hymn 21, 32–33; Hymn 23, 49–51; Hymn 52, 33–34; Hymn 53, 45–49; Life, 54–59; and penitence, 43–45, 48; First Thanksgiving, 58; Second Thanksgiving, 23–26; and tears, 32, 43–45; trial, 54–59 Symeon the Pious, 27, 54–59

179

Synodikon of Orthodoxy, xi, 1–22, 100, 113, 117, 121–22, 130, 148, 159 Tarasios, Patriarch, 10 Theodora, Empress: Life, 7–9, 10 Theodore Graptos, 9 Theodore, Abbot of Stoudios, 9, 12–13, 20, 113, 123, 143, 148, 159; Letter to Athanasios, 144, 148, 151, 156; Letter to the asecretes Diogenes, 144, 156; Letter to John the Grammarian, 144, 156; Letter to the spatharios Niketas, 144, 151, 155, 156; Letter to Platon, 145–47, 151, 152–54, 156; Letter to the Monk Severianos, 144, 155, 156; First Refutation, 151, 156; Second Refutation, 152–53; Third Refutation, 141 Theoktistos kanikleos, 9 Theophanes the Confessor, 9 Theophanes Graptos, 9 Theophilos, Emperor, 8, 9, 12, 14 Thümmel, Hans-Georg, 151 Trisagion Hymn, 13 Vasari, Giorgio, 75, 161 Vision, 25, 49–54, 93–96, 103–04; and body, 64; and light, 28–29, 36–40, 45–51, 53–54, 98; and touch, 96 Word and image, 14–18 Worship, adoration, 20, 109–10; 120, 126–27, 138, 141–47, 155; veneration, 20, 126–27, 138, 141–47, 153 Zeus-Helios, 92 Zigabenos, Euthymios, 149–57, 159–60; Panoplia Dogmatica, 149–57 Zoe, Empress, 14, 83–85, 88

ILLUSTRATIONS

illustrations

183

Fig. 1. St. Athanasios prays to an icon Christ. London, British Library, Add. 19.352, fol. 15r. Source: by permission of The British Library.

Fig. 2. Reading of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy. Mt. Athos, Dionysiou Monastery, ms. 587m, fol. 43r. Source: after Stylianos Pelekanidis et al., The Treasures of Mount Athos: Illuminated Manuscripts, vol. 1 (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1973), g. 220.

184 illustrations

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185

Fig. 3. Crucixion. Moscow, State Historical Museum, cod. 129, fol. 67r. Source: Collection Gabriel Millet, École Pratique des Hautes Études.

186

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Fig. 4. Christ Antiphonetes. Koimesis Church, Nicaea (Iznik). Source: after Theodor Schmit, Die Koimesis-Kirche von Nikaia. Das Bauwerk und die Mosaiken (Berlin and Leipzig: Walter de Gruyter, 1927), pl. XXVII.

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187

Fig. 5. Synodikon of Orthodoxy. Icon, London, British Museum. Source: copyright The Trustees of the British Museum.

188

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Fig. 6. Nikephoros tramples John the Grammarian. Moscow, State Historical Museum, cod. 129, fol. 51v. Source: Collection Gabriel Millet, École Pratique des Hautes Études, Paris.

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189

Fig. 7. Nikephoros of Contantinople, Theodore of Stoudios and the Iconoclastic Synod. London, British Library, Add. 19.352, fol. 27v. Source: by permission of The British Library.

190

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Fig. 8. Matthew the Monk prays to the Mother of God. Jerusalem, Patriarchal Library, Taphou 55, fol. 260r. Source: Panayotis L. Vocotopoulos, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (Athens and Jerusalem: Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 2002), g. 31.

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191

Fig. 9. Monks in a Penitential Prison. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 394, fol. 42r. Source: courtesy of the Vatican Library.

192

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Fig. 10. The Creation of Adam. London, British Library, Add. 19.352, fol. 162r. Source: by permission of The British Library.

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Fig. 11. Adam outside Paradise. Baltimore, The Walters Art Museum. Source: The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore.

194

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Fig. 12. Michael Psellos before Michael VII Doukas. Mt. Athos, Pantokrator Monastery, ms. 234, fol. 254r detail. Source: after Stylianos Pelekanidis et al., The Treasures of Mount Athos: Illuminated Manuscripts, vol. 3 (Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1979).

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195

Fig. 13. Crucixion and Saints. Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine. Source: reproduced through the courtesy of the Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai.

196

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Fig. 14. A Persian artist depicts the Mother of God. Jerusalem, Patriarchal Library, Taphou 14, fol. 106v detail. Source: after Panayotis L. Vocotopoulos, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (Athens and Jerusalem: Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 2002), g. 69.

Fig. 15. The Blachernae Theotokos detail. . Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine. Source: reproduced through the courtesy of the Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai.

illustrations 197

198

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Fig. 16. Ambassadors before the Oracle at Delphi. Mt. Athos, Esphigmenou Monastery, ms. 14, fol. 396v detail. Source: Collection Gabriel Millet, École Pratique des Hautes Études.

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199

Fig. 17. The Magi and Christ. Jerusalem, Patriarchal Library, Taphou 14, fol. 106v. Source: after Panayotis L. Vocotopoulos, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Patriarchate of Jerusalem (Athens and Jerusalem: Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem, 2002), g. 69.

Fig. 18. The Mandylion and Keramion. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Rossianus gr. 251, fol. 12v detail. Source: courtesy of the Vatican Library.

200 illustrations

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201

Fig. 19. Abgar and the Mandylion detail. Sinai, Monastery of St. Catherine. Source: reproduced through the courtesy of the Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expedition to Mount Sinai.

202

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Fig. 20. Fathers in the Dogmatic Panoply. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 666, fol. 1v. Source: courtesy of the Vatican Library.

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Fig. 21. Alexios I Komnenos before Christ. Rome, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, gr. 666, fol. 2r. Source: courtesy of the Vatican Library.