Who Owns the Early Church?: Icons as evidence

New Theopolis article: Icons and Images in the Early Church

Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics, and Protestants each claim to have the correct relationship with the early church. Eastern Orthodox believers, like Rod Dreher, a former Methodist who converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, assert, “Many evangelicals seek the early church; well, here it is, in Orthodoxy.”^[1] The Roman Catholic Church claims it sprung from the early church like a mighty oak tree springs from a small acorn. Protestants, on the other hand, neither claim to be the continuation of the early church nor to have developed organically from it. Instead, they claim to respect it, examining its trajectory by the Word of God, sometimes submitting to its traditions and sometimes not. Who is right?

To settle the debate, let us take a concrete issue that the early church clearly addressed and test the three claims by it. Icons serve as a prime example. Two questions: What did the early church say about icons? Which of the three traditions vying for the crown as the true heir of the early church abide by it?

• Irenaeus (c. 130–202) condemned honoring of images “after the same manner of the Gentiles.”^[2]

• Clement of Alexandria (c.150–c. 215) wrote, “Works of art cannot then be sacred and divine.”^[3]

• Tertullian (c. 155–c. 240) wrote “similitude [is] interdicted.”^[4]

• Origen wrote that Christians, “being taught in the school of Jesus Christ, have rejected all images and statues;”^[5] they “cannot allow in the worship of the Divine Being altars, or temples, or images”; they “not only avoid temples, altars, and images, but are ready to suffer death when it is necessary, rather than debase by any such impiety the conception which they have of the Most High God.”^[6]

• The Synod of Elvira (c. 300–314), consisting of 19 bishops from the Iberian peninsula, resolved, “Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration.”^[7]

• Methodius (250-311) wrote, “artificers . . . make images in human form, not perceiving and knowing their own Maker, are blamed by the Word.”^[8]

• Lactatius (250-325) wrote, “Wherefore it is undoubted that there is no religion wherever there is an image.”^[9]

• Arnobius of Sicca (255-330) wrote, “there is nothing divine in images.”^[10]

• Eusebius of Caesarea (c. AD 263–339) wrote, “To depict purely the human form of Christ before its transformation…is to break the commandment of God and to fall into pagan error.”^[11]

• Epiphanius (c. 310–403), bishop of Salamis, Cyprus, on a tour through Palestine, found a church that had a curtain in it with an image, of Christ or some saint. It may have only been a decoration. Whether a decoration or something more, Epiphanius tore it down, ripped it into shreds, and wrote the local bishop, John, reminding him that such images are “contrary to our religion.”^[12]

Finally is the utter lack of any written affirmation of iconography in the early church, despite the intense motivations of iconophiles to produce such evidence – a motivation that led to some forgeries during the iconoclastic controversy (such as Pseudo-Basil Letter 360). While we find some favorable descriptions of art (like from Ireneaus) and even Christians memorializing their heroes in pictures, like Meletios of Antioch (died 381), not one Christian before AD 500 can be quoted advocating for icons.^[13]

Besides written testimony, the early church has also left us archaeological evidence. Champions of icons regularly hold up the images in catacombs and on the walls of a house church in Dura-Europas, Syria. The problem with such evidence is that it depends on interpretation. Rarely does archaeology reveal the use of the images it uncovers. It can show us that some Christians had decorations but this is only evidence for icons if it can be shown that those images were venerated. Iconophiles make this distinction themselves, telling their disciples “The icon’s purpose is liturgical” (Hilarion Alfeyev, a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church).^[14] Thus, the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America defines an icon as “a sacred image, a window into heaven.… The primary purpose of the icon is to aid in worship.”^[15] That being the case, in order to prove that an image discovered via archaeology was an icon, one must prove that it was used liturgically, as an aid in worship. So, for example, while the house church in Dura-Europas had various decorations, the large hall, where presumably the church met, had “no paintings.” The actual worship space contained no images, perfectly consistent with Elvira canon 36, even if on the other end of the empire. Even if it had contained images, today’s iconophiles would have to prove that they were used liturgically in order to count as icons. Thus, while there are examples of early Christian art, symbolism, and decorations, there is no archaeological evidence for iconography among Christians prior to AD 500.

Few issues in history and theology allow a scholar to make sweeping, absolute claims of a whole era. But iconography is one of them. Simply, even if we accept the Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholic definitions of a distinction between veneration and worship and between icons and idols, there is not one Christian before AD 500 who can be shown to have venerated icons or approved of doing so . That is, even accepting their terms, neither iconography (the making of icons) nor iconodulia (the venerating of icons) can be shown to have been tolerated by any Christian in the early church.

Eastern Orthodoxy

The Eastern Orthodox typically respond by attempting to redefine the “early church” to include John of Damascus (675–749) and the seventh ecumenical council (787). However, the early church era is generally considered [7] to have ended as early as the First Council of Nicaea in AD 325 or possibly with the death of Augustine (430) or even with the Council of Chalcedon (451). If you like round numbers like me, we can round up the close of the early church era to AD 500. Even with the most generous expansion of the early church, there is no evidence of an early Christian using or approving of icons. The Eastern Orthodox dispute this, of course, claiming that iconography started with “St. Luke” creating the first icon of Mary. However, Augustine disproves that claim by incidentally noting, “neither do we know the countenance of the Virgin Mary.”^[16] Their claims for archaeological findings for early icons rely on conflating icons with decorations, the very thing they tell their own converts not to do. (Eastern Orthodox are careful to define an “icon” as a specific type of image—“a sacred image”—for a specific purpose: “They come from prayer to be used in prayer and worship.”^[17] “The icon’s purpose is liturgical.” Hence, “A gallery is the wrong place for icons.”^[18] They are not to be confused with mere art or decorations.) Moreover, the explicit teachings of the early church strictly prohibited icons.

We conclude that Eastern Orthodoxy broke with the tradition of the early church. The raison d’être of Eastern Orthodoxy for many evangelical converts—their claim to continuity with the early church—is actually their Achilles’ heel. Particularly regarding icons, their boasts to continuity with the early church are the opposite of true.^[19]

Roman Catholicism

Roman Catholicism takes another, more nuanced tack. It claims to be the rightful heir to the early church but explains the enormous differences between its current practices and those of the early church by asserting that the early church was the acorn from which the mighty oak of modern Roman Catholicism grew. They say that the early church contained the seeds of its traditions that matured over centuries. Cardinal John Henry Newman (1800–1890) argued in his An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, that just as an acorn holds the potential of the full-grown tree, the early church held within it the DNA that flowered into Roman Catholicism. This is why, they say, the early church did not perfectly reflect the modern Roman Catholic doctrines of Papal Authority, several of the supposed seven sacraments, the veneration of Saints and Mary, purgatory, and more. Therefore, modern Roman Catholics claim that their practices are a natural outgrowth of the early church.

The early church’s consensus against icons challenges this explanation. While we can grant that some doctrines and practices may evolve over time, like an acorn growing into an oak tree, an acorn does not forbid an oak tree. Genetically, an acorn is consistent with an oak tree, whereas the teachings of the early church on icons are herbicide to the iconodulia that grew up within Roman Catholicism. The early church did not simply leave room for future iconography, as if it was silent on the topic. It strictly prohibited it. Then, as Gavin Ortlund points out, the (so-called) Seventh Ecumenical Council does not only permit the veneration of icons but requires it and anathematizes the teachings and teachers who reject icons. The “Seventh Ecumenical Council” anathematizes every early Christian who addressed the topic of icons.

The Aniconic Spectrum

Every early Christian leader for whom we have any records addressing icons was “aniconic,” meaning they prohibited icons. (“A” – alpha privative for “no” plus “icon” – a sacred image used as a focus of worship. “Aniconic” is “no icons,” not necessarily no images.) However, this does not mean that every early Christian voice on the topic was harmonious. Some were more rigorous than others. Tertullian was perhaps the strictest. His “similitude is interdicted” prohibited all images for any reason, in any context, like your photo ID or the image the Theopolis editor chose to illustrate this article. He believed Christians who continued to practice visual arts should be excommunicated. Others, such as the 19 bishops of Elvira, were laxer. Their canon only prohibited images in church buildings (worship spaces), implicitly allowing Christians to have art elsewhere, like catacombs. Others, like a bishop who used a chalice for the Lord’s Supper with an image of a shepherd on it, were laxer still. But there’s no evidence that the image was a focus of worship. If it were, we can assume Tertullian would have objected loudly. This is the “aniconic spectrum.”^[20] Different early church leaders held different positions on the aniconic spectrum. But all of them were aniconic.

Protestantism

The Protestant position is that the traditions of the early church, while to be respected for their chronological proximity to the apostolic church, are not the final word on doctrine and practice. Scripture is. The Lord Jesus exemplified this stance Himself when He critiqued a sacred tradition in light of scripture (Matthew 15:6). This is Sola Scriptura.

When applied to icons, the second commandment demands that the church be aniconic, as the early church was. However, where, exactly, on the aniconic spectrum must we fall? That’s another question altogether. Even the early church did not reach a dogmatic consensus. Similar to the early church, different Protestants have different opinions. Some are rigorous, though likely none as sweepingly prohibitive of all images as Tertullian. Others, probably the vast majority, are lax, on the early church’s spectrum, often allowing symbolic imagery in worship spaces. Nevertheless, all are aniconic. To the five Solas defining Protestantism could be added a nullea: Nullae icones.

Protestantism aligns with the early church’s diagnosis of icons. They have no place in Christian worship. Like the early church, there is no Protestant consensus on images. C’est la vie. We should not be so presumptuous as to claim that we are the early church or even that we’ve evolved, through a continuous, genetic growth, uninterrupted from it. We don’t own it. But we can say, at least as far as icons are concerned, we’ve returned to it.

This article was published in Theopolis: “Don’t Convert: Icons and Images in the Early Church”

John B. Carpenter, Ph.D., is pastor of Covenant Reformed Baptist Church, in Danville, VA. and the author of Seven Pillars of a Biblical Church (Wipf and Stock, 2022) and the Covenant Caswell substack.

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[1] Rod Dreher, “Bible Answer Man Embraces Orthodoxy,” The American Conservative, 11 April 2017, https://tinyurl.com/yafxuenf

[2] Irenaeus, Against Heresies, 1.8.1.

[3] Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 7.5 (ANF 2:530).

[4] Tertullian, On Idolatry, 5.

[5] Origen, Contra Celsus, Book VII, Chapter 41.

[6] Origen, Contra Celsus, Book VII, Chapter 64.

[7] Canon 36, Synod of Elvira.

[8] Banquet of the Ten Virgins (Discourse 2), 7.

[9] Divine Institutes, Book II (Of the Origin of Error), 19.

[10] Against the Heathen (Book VI), 16.

[11] David M. Gwynn, “From Iconoclasm to Arianism: The Construction of Christian Tradition in the Iconoclast Controversy,” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 47 (2007): 227.

[12] Epiphanius, Letter 51 (c. 394).

[13] John Chrysostom (c. 347-407), "Homily in Praise of St Meletios.”

[14] Hilarion Alfeyev,“Theology of Icon in the Orthodox Church,” Lecture at St. Vladimir’s Seminary, 5 February 2011, https://mospat.ru/en/2011/02/06/news35783/.

[15] Cindy Egly, “Eastern Orthodox Christians and Iconography.”

[16] Augustine, Trin. 8:5 (NPNF¹ 3).

[17] “Icons,” Orthodox Church of Estonia.

[18] Alfeyev, “Theology of Icon in the Orthodox Church.”

[19] John B. Carpenter, “Answering Eastern Orthodox Apologists regarding Icons,” Themelios Volume 43, Issue 3 (2018).

[20] John B. Carpenter, “The Early Church on the Aniconic Spectrum,” Westminster Theological Journal (2021).