"Pictures Fertile with Truth": How Christians Managed to Make Images of God without

Violating the Second Commandment

Author(s): Herbert L. Kessler
Reviewed work(s):
Source: The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, Vol. 49/50 (1991/1992), pp. 53-65
Published by: The Walters Art Museum
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 "Pictures Fertile with Truth:"
How Christians Managed to Make Images of God
without Violating the Second Commandment

Herbert L. Kessler

This paper was delivered as the eleventh annual Theodore L. was a vast field to be searched for evidence of God's
Low Lecture at the Walters Art Gallery on November 17, plan as they had come to understand it. The third
1991. It appears here in the original unannotated text pre century theologian Origen offers example. a good

pared for that occasion. Struck by the identity of the names Joshua and Jesus
(both Ihsous in Greek), Origen wrote a 200-page trea
the introduction to his acclaimed The Book ofj tise in which he demonstrated his belief that the

In (New York, 1990), Harold Bloom reminds us of the Hebrew Book of Joshua had been written "much less
extent to which a particular Christian position persists to inform us of the deeds of Joshua, Son of Nave, than
in the very terminology we use for Jewish to describe the mysteries of Jesus, our Savior."
scripture.
Bloom writes, {Homilies onJoshua, I, 3).
Christians call the Hebrew Bible the Old Verse 21 of Psalm 68
suggests (69) how the
Testament, or Covenant, in order to
supersede it Christian reading proceeded. King David's scorching
with their New Testament... Imyself that
suggest lament, "They gave me also gall for my food, and
Jewish critics and readers of their
might speak made me drink for my noth
as the Original and the vinegar thirst," becomes
Scriptures Testament,
other than a reference to the sour wine mixed
Christian work as the Belated Testament, for that, ing
after all, is what it is, a revisionary work that at with gall offered to Christ on the cross. As the
to a book, with a man,
tempts replace Torah,
Evangelist John already recognized, "Jesus, aware that
of Nazareth, Messiah of the
Jesus proclaimed all had now come to its appointed end, said in fulfill
House of David by Christian believers, (p. 3) ment of Scripture, T thirst.' So they soaked a sponge
The notion that God's covenant with Israel had been with the sour wine, fixed it on a javelin, and held it up
replaced by a new and more perfect alliance is, of to his lips. Having received the wine, he said, 'It is ac
course, introduced in the New Testament itself. complished.'" (John, 19:29) Many of the allegorical
There, Christ's life not
only completes the events and
readings of the Hebrew Bible seem ludicrously undis
prophecies described in the Hebrew Bible?which it ciplined to us. During the Middle Ages, however, the
must if Jesus is to be recognized as the Messiah?it very difficulty of Christian in the Old
finding meaning
also replaces God's compacts with the Chosen People. Testament only contributed to the sense of the mys
The Epistle to Hebrews presents the case clearly. tery of God's plan. To discern the true message in the
words of was a act; the sa
Had the first covenant been faultless, there would scripture spiritual animating
have been no need to look for a second in its cred text was a to God.
way approach
. . For the Law contains but a shadow and
place. The burning bush described in the book of
no true of the which were to
image good things Exodus for where Moses was in
come.
(3:2ff.)> instance,
(8:7-10:1)
structed to deliver his people from bondage in Egypt,
Accordingly, not
only the explicit visions of future came to be understood as a of Christ's miracu
sign
events that the Jews too took to be Messianic lous birth. How? The bush not consumed
prophe by flames
cies, but any passage in the Old Testament became a was taken as a sign of unaltered
Mary's virginity, by
prefigurement if read attentively the knowledge with the divine As a hymn sung in church on
conception.
of Christ's life. For Christians, every person, event, the Feast of Moses 4) recounts, "Moses
(September
and object in Hebrew scripture was a cryptic fore knelt down when he saw the vision of the
stupefying
telling of Jesus and, hence, the whole Old Testament bush and of the fire, the extraordinary union that fig

TheJournal of theWalters Art Gallery 49/50 (1991 /92) 53

 ? ":y?Y<
]'f'H**'r-
^^?f^^^jf??^ff?f^^P^?^PJs&f

H?pH?? t|wi|nii pmb?frito? ?fc

;^:ytmi?m

:^x:^:

Fig. 1. Manuscript illumination, Psalm 68, Moscow, Historical Museum, cod. gr.
129, fol. 67.

ures ahead of time the untainted birth by the Virgin prophecy of Christ's advent by inserting a portrait of

Mary." Read literally, Exodus tells only of Moses' mis Mary into the burning bush (Mt. Sinai, Monastery of
sion to free the Israelites, of little interest to Gentiles. St. Catherine's; fig. 2). It was art's
capacity
to encom

Read as prophecy?with Christ's life in mind?the an pass

more than one textual account in a coherent and

cient Jewish scripture discloses a Christian mystery plausible narrative, however, that gave their
pictures
with universalappeal. special appeal in this process of Christian interpreta
From
the very beginning, Christians embraced art tion. Pictures could present the Jewish story intact
as one means for providing spiritual readings of the and, at the same time, reveal its hidden
significance?
Old Testament and, hence, for
rendering scriptural
not only in association with texts or through symbolic

exegesis
accessible. Sometimes, this was done foot
interpolations?but in fully unified depictions that
note-like, by appending a picture to the text itself. seemed both real and true. For as rendered
example,
The ninth-century illuminator of a Byzantine psalter by a ninth-century Byzantine illuminator, Ezekiel's vi
in Moscow (Historical Museum, cod. gr. 129, fol. 67; sion of the "appearance of the glory of the Lord" en

fig. 1), for instance, introduced the Crucifixion along throned in heaven (1:28) becomes a prophecy of
side Psalm 68, by means of this illustration converting Jesus Christ (Vatican, Biblioteca Apost?lica, cod. gr.
the verses of a Jewish poem into a prophecy of Christ's 699, fol. 74; fig. 3). To be sure, written commentaries
Passion. Other times, the meaning of the Old also recognized Christ in the unspecific words of
Testament event was introduced with
symbols,
as Hebrew scripture; in this case, the accompanying text
when a
thirteenth-century
icon
painter
transformed notes that "[Ezekiel], like the others, under a figure
the scene of Moses' on Mt. Horeb into a foreshadows the founder and ruler of our sec
theophany great

54
ond state, and foreshadows its constitution." (5, 172).
means of a picture, however, could the I
Only by
Christian understanding be assimilated fully and natu
to the several sacred texts.
rally
The great fifth-century theologian Cyril of ;
Alexandria offers insight into this process of trans- !
Old Testament words into Christian pictures. I
forming
Trying to explain how Jewish scripture is "very much
less than the truth and an incomplete indication of
the things signified," Cyril turned to art.
We say that the law was
a shadow and a type like
unto a set as a thing to be viewed before
picture
those watching reality. The underdrawing (shad
ow) and lines are the first elements in the pic

tures, and if the of the colors is added

brightness
to these, the of the picture flashes forth.
beauty
(Epistle 41, 21; trans. J. McEnery)
Cyril surreptitiously substituted "underdrawing" here
in Greek) for "shadow" (skia) in the text
(skiagraphia
of Hebrews. The result is that Jewish scripture is
likened to an artist's preliminary sketch, blocking in
essentials (in the Ezekiel miniature, the Lord seated
on a throne); Christ's covenant becomes the
precise
and brilliant painting laid on top. And just as a paint
ing does not totally obscure its preparatory delinea
ments, Christianity does not destroy Hebrew scripture; Fig. 2. Icon, Moses Before the Burning Bush, Mt. Sinai, St. Catherine';
the general forms of to Mt.
rather, Christianity perfects Monastery [Michigan-Princeton-Alexandria Expedition

in extend Sinai].
Jewish law by clarifying the significance the
ed economy. In contrast to who read
theological Jews,
the Bible as a closed and rigid written document,
Christians understand it as art, to quote Cyril again,
"as a picture fertile with truth." (Epistle 41, 23).
use of artistic to how
Cyril's process explain
Christians appropriate Hebrew scripture for their own

purposes came to be deployed from the eighth centu

on as a real in of His
ry argument support images.
was deemed
especially
metaphoric interpretation
forceful during this period against a growing cohort
of critics who increasingly attacked images, and by
730, instituted real iconoclasm in Byzantine lands,
that is, the systematic destruction of all religious art.
offered ammunition one of
Cyril's argument against
the iconoclasts' that are not
charges, namely images
authorizedanywhere in scripture; his likening of the
New Testament to a completed was based on
painting
the to Hebrews, after all. commentary
Epistle Cyril's
was read at the Second Council of Nicaea assembled
in 787 (J. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum, vol. 13, p. 12),
the first time a church body met with the express pur
pose of defining formally the place of icons in
Christian worship. Even earlier, John of Damascus had
reduced it to an aphorism in his important treatise, Fig. 3. Manuscript illumination, Vision ofEzekiel, Vatican, Biblioteca

On the Divine "As the Law is a ad Apost?lica, cod. gr. 699, fol. 74.
Images'. preliminary

55
 Ai
.0TieH?J?mt^5r.c?&b?

<%..?'*f

8k\??r

Tf' n<rl

Fig. 4. Manuscript illumination, Afosas Receiving the Laws, Florence, Fig. 5. Manuscript illumination, Christ inMajesty, Florence,
Biblioteca Laurenziana, cod. Plut. 6, 32, fol. 7v. Biblioteca Laurenziana, cod. Plut. 6, 32, fol. 8.

umbration of the colored picture, so Grace and Truth Cyril's metaphor came to the mind of the great ninth
are the colored
picture" (paraphrasing John century Patriarch of Constantinople, Photios, when he
Chrysostom, PG94, 1363). And in this version, a second read Christ's claim in the Gospel of Matthew, "I came

scripture added to the mix enhanced the metaphor's not to destroy the law but to fulfill it" (5:17):

authority, John 1:17: "The Law was given through Here is designated the preliminary sketch of the

Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ." image filled by colors, certainly the perfection of
the drawing and not its abrogation. Christ
The trope was refashioned further and recycled coming
to the human commonwealth served the first un
in numerous later writings on images, completely fus in the law and it. in
derdrawing completed (Frag,
ing the Old Testament with an artist's preparatory Matt. 5:17; PG 101, 1193)
sketch and the Gospels with the completed picture. In like Tarasios and Photios a patriarch of
Nicephorus,
the life of the Patriarch Tarasios
by Ignatius written
Constantinople, put it bluntly, calling those who
the Deacon in the ninth century, for instance, pictures or
would dare destroy images "persecutors of color,
are defended precisely as a means for explicating the
rather, persecutors of Christ" (Adversos Iconomachos,
Old Testament and for presenting the New.
chap. 20; J.B. Pitra, Spicilegium Solesmense, p. 282). This
Who would not venerate a colored illus
depiction
point is made visual in the Moscow Psalter (fig. 1).
of piety, which one can
trating examples through
Iconoclasts "crucify" an icon just as the soldier push
be taught the ancient lessons about the world, the
Law, and the prophets, completing the under ing a vinegar-soaked sponge to his lips tortures Christ
standing of the old covenant and archaic himself, not by breaking or defacing the image but by
one comes to learn
thought? Through [pictures]
covering its color with whitewash.
the divine and great wonders, which
perfectly in the Epistle to Hebrews a
What is simply
leads beholders to the glory of God. (PG, 98, 1415
and I.A. Heikel, metaphor for describing the levels of God's revelation
p. 416)

56
 transformed to Grace and Truth which we have received as the
?shadow/image/celestial reality?was
fulfillment of the Law. in order
means of elaboration into a de Consequently,
by Cyril's powerful
that the perfect should be set down before every
fense of pictures. It could now be said that images
eyes even
one's in we decree that Christ
painting,
were indeed in the Bible, in the Gospels as our Lord should henceforward be set in
grounded up
well as Epistles. And like the Gospels, pictures were human form on
images
in place of the ancient
lamb. Sac. cone, 11, 977; trans. C. Mango)
constructed as theological meditations of the Old (Mansi,

Testament. Just as Christ had fulfilled and perfected According to this edict, art was no longer simply to
the Jewish prophecies, so too images of him complet stand in for scriptural exegesis, it had actually to pre
ed the bare words of the old law and resolved the sent the interpretation. The Epistle to Hebrews under

enigmas they contained. Because of their fullness and lies the

language
of this seventh-century canon, and

presence, pictures belong to a later, better, Christian its rephrasings, in the contrasts here of Old Testament

phase of sacred history in which truth is known directly. shadows and tracings to the perfected images of
From the tenth century, this opposition of written Christ.
revelation and Christian image was introduced in cer Some seven hundred years later, the argument
tain Gospel books that, anomalously, included fron was elaborated in a depiction of Moses before the

tispieces of Moses Receiving the Commandments and Burning Bush in a manuscript unfortunately de

juxtaposed them with pictures of Christ in Majesty. stroyed in the great Smyrna fire of 1922 and known
The late twelfth-/early thirteenth-century codex in today only in photographs (Evangelical School, cod. B
Florence (Laurenziana, cod. Plut. 6, 32, fols. 7v-8; figs. 8, p. 166; fig. 6). Representing the words of Exodus
4 and 5) is typical. On the left, Moses is shown striding 3:6, "Moses covered his face, for he was afraid to gaze
forward through the valley of Sinai and receiving the on God," the miniature the prophet shield
depicted
tablets from a hand emerging from a celestial arc, a ing his eyes as he listened to the divine voice symbol
symbol of the
invisible God known only through ized by the hand. As on the thirteenth-century icon
words. On the right, Christ is portrayed, God made (fig. 2), the viewer of the miniature is shown the mys
man and the source of the four Gospels. The caption tery of Moses' in the figures of the Virgin
theophany
quotes John 1:17 to clarify the meaning: "The Law was and Child, something that the prophet himself could

given through Moses, grace and truth came through not see. Here, however, the Christian vision is intro
Jesus Christ." Here, exactly, isHarold Bloom's contrast duced simply through an inserted motif
not but by an
of Torah and man. Here also is the evolved opposition icon. Mary and Christ portrayed above the Old
of Jewish revelation locked in history and law, as Testament narrative not
only convey the message that

against the continuously accessible Christian covenant the burning bush symbolized God's plan to deliver his
an eighth
available in effigies of Christ. Germanos, Chosen People through a son born of a virgin; pre
century patriarch of Constantinople, explained it this sented in a framed portrait, they also assert that this
way. message is to be found in images. A hymn attributed
The Gospel is the
coming of God, when He was to Theodore of Stoudios sung on the feast commemo
seen is no to us as
by us; He longer speaking rating the cult of images?which not just incidentally
a cloud and as He did to
through indistinctly, is celebrated on the day of the Feast of Moses and
Moses thunder and and trum
through lightning
on the same revelation.
pets, by a voice, by darkness and fire the Aaron?proclaims
mountain. But he appeared as a true man Moses was deemed to you,
visibly worthy contemplate
and we have beheld his glory as the Mother of God,
mystically manifested in the burn
only begotten
Son, full of and truth. Through Him, the bush; we have been introduced to you more
grace ing
God and the Father to us face to face, and clearly, seeing the image of your form;
spoke judged
not riddles. (On the Divine trans. to adore it, we receive the grace
through Liturgy-, worthy directly
P. Meyendorff) emanating from your which resides in
protection
it. (J.Johannet, Ate II, p. 149)
Attempting to incorporate this remarkable argu
ment into canon a church in 692 had Like Christ in Majesty in the Florence Gospels, the
law, council
icon of the Virgin and Child reminds the faithful that,
long before demanded that all symbols be replaced by
full depictions: whereas in the past, God made himself only available

On some a a through enigmatic words uttered to a few chosen

venerable lamb is depicted,
images
a living God is now
symbol of Grace us in advance,
showing through prophets, always accessible every
the Law, the true
Lamb, Christ our Lord. While where through images.
the ancient and shadows inas
embracing symbols Sinai, it should be remembered, is where God be
much as are and
they signs anticipatory tracings stowed writing on mankind, inscribing the tablets de
handed down to the Church, we
give preference

57
 Fig. 7. Manuscript illumination, Moses Recdving the Laws and Moses
and Aaron Depositing Tablets in the Ark of the Covenant, formerly
Moses on Horeb, formerly Smyrna, Smyrna, Library of the Evangelical cod. B 8, p. 167 [Vienna,
Fig. 6. Manuscript illumination, School,

Library of the Evangelical School, cod. B 8, p. 166 [after Nationalbibliothek].

Strzygowski].

livered with his own finger and dictating

to Moses the a prefigurement of Christ's life, Cyril recalled a leg
Torah for the prophet to transcribe. The miniature end about Moses' death (StromataVl, 15, 132, 3; PG9,
suggests that it was also on Sinai that God inaugurated 356f.). Caleb, an Israelite, saw
only
a natural occur

images, or at least that is the possibility raised by the rence: Moses carried into a cave and buried; but

miniature's "Mt. Sinai, the true beholding" that is Jesus, perceived a supernatural event:
caption: Joshua,
(alethes theoria). The reference is purposefully ambigu angels descending to take the prophet's soul to heav
ous. In Greek "theoria" means both the actual en. with carnal senses, see
usage, Jews comprehend they only

contemplation of perceptible things and also a deep the historical occurrence; Christians read the same
intellectual activity that goes beyond sensible percep words and witness the same events, but
they
under

tion to penetrate the meaning of events. As physical stand the true

significance.
"theoria" here alludes to Moses' encounter with The icon in this miniature is a theoria in both sens
seeing,
God and to
viewing
the icon, to the momentous theo es of the word. the mystery of the bush not
It clarifies

phany that culminated in the Exodus of the Israelites consumed by fire and offers a material contemplation
and the giving of laws, but also to the continuing theo of God's revelation. In contrast to the Jews who failed

phany available to Christians in images. As interpreta to excavate truth from the law?even Moses who was

tion, it refers to the process demonstrated in the allowed to talk to God

the holy mountain on
and to
miniature, the revelation that Mary and Christ are the his back?Christians are granted the privilege
glimpse
true theophany veiled in this Old Testament story. of seeing God, because Christ resolved the enigmas of
comes to mind. the biblical prophecies and by entering matter, God
Once again, Cyril of Alexandria
In trying to explain how the Book of Joshua can be became visible.

read both as an account of and as The argument is expanded further on

Joshua's conquests pictorial

58
the facing page, which confronts the icon and episode could never merit due God alone, the
the veneration
of the burning bush with two more scenes from the creator of man. Those
who opposed the cult of images
re always invoked the Second Commandment; the Jewish
story of Moses (p. 167; fig. 7). At the top, Moses
ceives the tablets from God's hand (as was common in prohibition is the starting point of every iconoclastic
art, these are shown as slabs of
Byzantine rectangular polemic.
veined marble, but here unusually large and strapped Defenders of images had, then, to respond direct

together). Below, with Aaron and the Israelites, he de ly to this attack, and they did so in various ways. Some
the enshrouded commandments in the ark of asserted that because Jews had lived in Egypt, a land
posits
the covenant, rendered as a tomb-like chest. The of idols, they were predisposed to idolatry and had to
tablets of law sealed from view and evoking a sense of be curbed in ways no longer necessary for Christians.
death, contrast with
the painted tablet of the life-giv Others pointed out that the injunction could not have
and child open to all. God's truth former been meant since Jews themselves also
ing mother absolutely,
ly cloaked in the Old Testament's dark mysteries?in revered holy objects, the tabernacle and holy vessels
sounds and words, in symbols and obscure tracings? kept inside it, indeed, the tablets of the law them
is made visible now through Christ, who fulfilled the selves. These, too, were entered into the debate as

on a par with holy

prophecies and enabled full, colored images to disen "material contemplations" scripture
gage the true sense of the words in Hebrew scripture. itself. Thus, John of Damascus could argue,
An foreshadows that is yet to
image something
hidden in riddles and shad
happen, something
ows. For instance, the ark of the covenant is an
But what of the explicit prohibition of images in the
of the Holy and Theotokos, as are
image Virgin
laws that Moses received from God on Sinai? How the rod of Aaron and jar of manna. . .
Again,
could Christians get around the Second Command things which have taken place
are remembered
means of . . . two kinds of images: either
ment's unqualified injunction of all pictorial repre by they
are words written in books, as when God had the
sentation?
law engraved on tablets and desired the lives of
On the the Lord to you out of
day when spoke men to be recorded, or else are material
holy they
the fire on Horeb, you saw no of any kind;
figure such as the jar of manna, or Aaron's staff,
images,
so take care not to fall into the degrading
good which were to be in the ark as a memorial.
kept
of making carved in relief of a
practice figures (On theDivine 1,12-13; trans. D. Anderson)
Images,
man or a woman, or of any animal on earth or
bird that flies in the air, or of any on the same argument,
The indeed paraphrased from
reptile
or fish in the waters under the earth . . . was a
ground John of Damascus, forcefully advanced in little
made out of wood and
gods by human hands
known treatise on icons written by the
that can neither see nor neither philosopher
stone, gods hear,
eat nor smell. John Italos at the end of the eleventh century, which
(Deut. 4:15-28)
concludes with the claim that icons are answers to the
As Theodore suggested in his influential
of Stoudios
"riddles" found in Hebrew scripture and replacements
treatise, On theHoly Icons, the Second Commandment
for the sacred vessels formerly kept in the tabernacle.
could be either dismissed as irrelevant to Christians or
Images represent the future through painted sym
could be subjected to a spiritual reading.
bols, as the Red Sea to the Apostle,
according
Whatever the Law says, it says to those under the which the water of and the
represents baptism
Law. The ancient commandments should not be cloud the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 10:2). The contem
on those under . . . But we must
imposed grace plation (theoria) by means of the past assists future
understand these as a remembrance. These
things only foreshadowing. generations through images
The apostle says that the Law is a shadow but not are of two kinds: either are written as
they words,
the true of the realities. (II, 36; trans. C. when God himself the law on tablets of
image engraved
Roth) stone and old
holy books he commanded to be
or are material
Unlike the stories they took as prophecy and in con written, they contemplations (theo
rias), as when God arranged everything together,
trast to the 613 Levitical regulations they rejected as the manna as a memo
jar and rod kept in the ark

parochial, however, Christians maintained the rial. According to the custom of excellent men,

Decalogue, believing that the Ten Commandments we make and set up holy and venerable icons. (P.
P. Joannou, Ioannes Italos
coincided with natural law. Just as the condemnation quaestiones quodlibetales,

of stealing and adultery and the requirements to p. 151)

honor God and one's parents were regarded as inher And the same claim ismade visual in the Smyrna
ent rules governing social behavior, so too the a series of miniatures
prohi manuscript through juxtaposing
bition of images. Made by men of dead matter, images diverse icons of Mary and Christ with their material

59
 '?
?

Fig. 8. Manuscript illumination, "The far ofManna," formerly

Smyrna, Library of the Evangelical School, cod. B 8, p. 178 [Paris,
?cole pratique des Hautes Etudes, Collection Millet].

the tabernacle, table, menorah,

prefigurements:
Aaron's budding rod, jar of manna, and tablets of the Fig. 9. Manuscript illumination, "77 Tabernacle," formerly Smyrna,
of the School, cod. B 8, p. 179 [Paris, ?cole pra
law. One miniature, for example, depicts Moses and Library Evangelical
tique des Hautes ?tudes, Collection Millet].
Aaron flanking the jar of manna (p. 178; fig. 8)?a
classic prefigurement of the Virgin whose womb con God, invisible to the Jews, could be represented be
tained Christ?and its theoria in the form of an enor cause he had assumed flesh and was seen. To deny im
mous icon of the Virgin and Child suspended above. ages was tantamount to questioning the reality of
Another represents the tabernacle's interior with the Christ's incarnation, or so the defenders of images
tablets, jar of manna, and budding rod below and a maintained. The liturgy performed on the feast of im
circular icon of Mary and Christ above (p. 179; fig. 9); ages asserts,

quite literally, here, the Christian image fulfills Jewish Those who penetrate the words of Moses, "Watch

in material to those because the day the Lord to you

revelation forms far superior yourselves, spoke
on the mountain at Horeb, you heard the sound
Moses made after he descended from the holy moun
of words but you did not see his form," they know
tain, superior even to the tablets of the law inscribed how to . .Thus, those who have received
respond.
as the caption recalls, the
by God himself. Moreover, from God the power to
distinguish the prohibi
vessels were kept hidden; only the high priest tion contained in the law and the instruction
Jewish
borne by Grace, the one which, in the law is invisi
could approach them and then but once a year when
ble, the other which, in Grace, is visible and pal
he sought the people's redemption inside the taber for this in im
pable and, reason, they represent
nacle. Christian icons, in contrast, were to the realities seen and touched and venerat
always open ages
because God had become visible in Christ ed. (Synodikon of Orthodoxy;Gouillard, p. 51)
everyone,
and had provided an eternal sacrifice through the Another refutation of the Second Commandment
Crucifixion. ?implied by Italos, for instance?was the claim that
It was the christological argument that proved pictures are the spiritual significance beneath the law.
most effective in disposing the Second Commandment: Whoever attacks images because of the old prohibi

60
 ^n?A'lcGC Jl/??lcA? 3:?

' : "#
..i*-"<

10. Manuscript illumination, "The Spiritual Tablets" Vatican, Biblioteca cod. Ross. fol. 12v.
Fig. Apost?lica, gr. 251,

tion reads the Bible literally, the way Jews do, missing bright that the Israelites could not gaze steadily
on him . . . [Moses] a veil over his face to
its higher truth. As John of Damascus put it, put
keep the Israelites from on the fading
are gazing
They in error, brothers, for they do not
truly until it was gone. But in any case their
splendor
know the Scriptures, that the letter kills, but the
minds had been made insensitive, for that same
spirit gives life. They do not find in the written veil is there to this very
day when the lesson is
word its hidden, (On the Divine
spiritual meaning. read from the old covenant; and it is never lifted,
Images, I, 5; trans. C. Roth) because in Christ
only is the old covenant abro
The reference here?now tethered to the defense But to this very time the Law of
gated. day, every
Moses is read, a veil lies over the minds of the
of images?is to the most
potent argument against the
hearers. However, as of Moses,
Scripture says
old covenant anywhere in the New Testament,
found "whenever he turns to the Lord the veil is re
Paul's Second Letter to the Corinthians. Developing moved." Now the Lord of whom this passage
the account in the book of Exodus which describes speaks is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the
Lord is, there is liberty. And because for us, there
Moses' transfigured face when he read the law to
is no veil over the face, we all reflect as in a mirror
Israel, the apostle advanced the essentially spiritual the splendor of the Lord. (3:6-18)
nature of Christianity.
Put more by Cyril of Alexandria,
succinctly "Because
[Christ's covenant is a] new covenant, a covenant
we are led in Christ
toward the sight of God and the
expressed
not in a written document, but in a

spiritual bond; for the written law condemns to Father, we will see glory without the veil of Moses, un
death, but the Spirit gives life. The law, then, en
derstanding the laws spiritually" (Glaphyrorum in
letter letter stone,
graved by upon dispensed Exodum, HI; PG69, col. 537). For Christians, then, the
death, and yet it was with divine
inaugurated law instituted to mediate man
. . . which made the face of Moses so through Moses between
splendor

61
 likens the author to "Moses of old on that same moun
4 tain [who has] seen in the vision of God and [has
sent] us a book like the divinely written tablets, for the
An \^i ti jon rr ?rWi'l Y^"1*11
<Srt>i f ? >
onp* jWipi instruction of the New Israel." (PG 88, col. 624; trans.
L. Moore). Whereas in such earlier manuscripts of the

Heavenly Ladder as the tenth-century Climacus on Mt.

ei c to t4? ioMToy Ysppio -^V*i Sinai (Monastery of St. Catherine's, cod. fol. 4;
^iMoy. 417,
il i^TWOTTgy ? "ni?l\H J>*0-35Ptn^-CtiA*
fig. 11) the
"Spiritual Tablets" are shown simply as
-* ^ marble the Byzantine convention for repre
nT6Ti6ipta?m4^?^Wrslpa^cBci plaques,
senting Moses' laws (cf. figs. 4, 7, and 9), in the
Vatican miniature, two icons of Christ replace the
liths, thus demonstrating the claim that holy images
have superseded the Old Testament. In fact, the

empty plaques remain visible as squares beneath the

twin portraits; quite literally, here, the law is the shad
ow, a preparatory outline, and Christ really the paint
ed image. As Cyril had explained it, by understanding
the laws spiritually, the faithful are led toward the
1
lW?6' sight of God through Christ.
*T33^xSL^C3L^ljAyQQtZITp6DOUaCL^
The icons pictured in the Vatican miniature are
the originary Byzantine portraits of Christ
poo v^fivtnj?joulinp
^ict
tr Toyenrob specifically
i^?u?yvuiyCpj,!uupp?rv?
and hence the holiest of all images. The one at the left
is the Mandylion, a fringed white cloth decorated with
a diaper design and bearing Christ's face encircled by
' a halo. According to legend, it was created without
v.?; ' . ??t'y..
^%
artistic intervention when a cloth was pressed to

"The Spiritual Tablets," Mt. Sinai,

Christ's face. The Mandylion is less a work of art, then,
Fig. 11. Manuscript illumination,
St. Catherine's cod. gr. 417, fol. 4 [Kurt Weitzmann]. than a relic God's on earth and,
Monastery, witnessing presence

hence, was taken by defenders of images as proof that

and God has lost its grasp, and Jews, adhering to it the prohibition of graven images did not pertain to
are doomed to death. Christ is now offered in those who had actually seen God on earth. The
blindly,
for cited the
place of the law, and with him grace and freedom of Patriarch Nicephorus, instance,
the spirit. By understanding the Old Testament Mandylion against those who demanded scriptural
Christ's life, Christians lift the veil from proof that the Mosaic injunction had indeed been ab
through
Moses' face, revealing the spirit of God's law and see rogated; Christ's act of transferring the imprint of his

ing God's glory face to face. face onto the cloth, he maintained, was more
persua
The implications of Paul's argument and the oth sive than writing (Antirrheticus III, 42; PG, 100, 461).
ers we have been examining are fully realized in an The icon at the right is the Keramion, a terra-cotta tile

eleventh-century miniature decorating a copy of John ornamented with the same lozenge and vegetal pattern
Climacus's Heavenly Ladder in the Vatican Library as the Mandylion only in white, and the same portrait
(cod. Ross. 251, fol. 12v; fig. 10). Its oxymoronic cap only
in mirror reversal. The Keramion, too, was
pro

tion, nAAKEC duced when a tile was laid atop the

nN(EUMAT)IKAI, "spiritual tablets," miraculously
the contrast Paul set up between the law? to protect it; a mechanical offset of the first,
picks up Mandylion
written letter by letter on stone?and the life-giving it asserts the possibility of reproducing holy images.
of the new covenant. In the immediate context, Because the two icons were not manufac
spirit actually
this refers to Climacus's own treatise written in the sev tured, they confound one of the principles underlying
enth century at St. Catherine's on Mt. Sinai and called the Mosaic prohibition of images, "the degrading

"Spiritual Tablets," both

to link it to Moses' law trans practice of making figures carved in relief and the
mitted in the same place and, at the same time, to dis worshipping of gods made by human hands." And
its own Christian message. Thus, a letter from shown together, the Mandylion and Keramion also re
tinguish
of Raithu to Climacus, included in the Vatican fute a second tenet of the biblical proscription, name
John
manuscript
as in other exemplars
of the treatise, ly, that because they are themselves made of inani

62
^l^l^^^y^JBMiM^jPK fff ;JG?y* ???IT,
^'r'^i^KIV V\

12. Fresco, Aios?s B^?wtp /A?Burning Bush, Moses Recdving theLaws, and the //o?y Mandylion, Cyprus, Panhaghia Podithou [after Papageorghiou].
Fig.

an idle and
"gods that can neither
mate are dead artificial is in this respect inef
matter, images image,
fective. . . If he who looks at the seal and its im
see nor hear, neither eat nor smell." The reversals of
sees a similar and unchanged form in both,
print
tone and color produce the effect of matrix and print the imprint exists even before the impression is
in the paired images, recalling modern photographic made. (On the Holy Icons, III, D, 9-10; trans. C.

processes; and within the limits of symmetry, such Roth)

minor modifications as the turn of the eyes and fall of To be seen by human eyes, the image must be realized
hair reinforce the suggestion of an offset also in the in matter; but it exists independent of that impression
faces. But the portraits of Christ are themselves virtu and of the specific material chosen. By referring to
to one resistant to as
ally identical another, them tablets, the miniature's
completely plakes, caption empha
the reversals of color established so carefully in the sizes the icons' materiality; but this only serves to un
material supports. In other words, the paired icons derscore the notion that they are plakes pneumatikai,
make the claim that the holy visage exists indepen "spiritual tablets." It is the portrait that gives the icons
the matter their spirit, the holy face expressed in?
dent of cloth and clay, outside through through?not
which it is realized. the matter. The mysterious amalgam of dead matter
Theodore of Stoudios how this worked and immaterial image is precisely what sanctifies the
explained
by likening the icon to an intaglio seal that can im icon, just as the Christian reading of Jewish scripture
as animates the old covenant. Once again, Christians do
press an identical image into such diverse materials
or wax. not simply reject Jewish custom; they appropriate it
clay
A seal is one and its is another. for their own
thing, imprint purposes.
Nevertheless, even before the impression
is made, The connection of icon to the Mosaic tablets was
the is in the seal. There could not be an
imprint remembered in 944 when the Byzantine emperor res
effective seal which is not on some ma
impressed
he in
cued the authentic Mandylion from the Muslims and
terial. Therefore, Christ also, unless appears
brought it into his chapel in Constantinople. Senate

63
 the old law, including the prohibition of images, had
been at one time both fulfilled and superseded. The
stone tablets "engraved letter by letter" yield to an

image that reveals rather than veils the "splendor of

the Lord."

Christians could have images without violating the

Second Commandment, then, because are a
pictures
theoria of the biblicalinjunction, a spiritual contempla
tion, both of the words themselves and of the material
tablets on which they were inscribed. Precisely by
seeming to violate one of God's most emphatic prohi
bitions, images assert the belief that the old covenant
no longer pertains and that adherence to the law is

heresy or, at the very least, Jewish blindness. Like the

Christian Bible having a New Testament and an Old,

pictures reminded the Christian faithful that the laws

delivered to Moses his ascent on Sinai were im
during
what was shown and under
perfect, containing only
stood before the
Indeed, they draw
Incarnation.
power from the tension between the two scriptures
and from the process used to harmonize the dual rev
elation. If Torah contains God in every letter, every
word, every line, revealing divine will only through

permanent interpretation, images present the unity of

the divine economy in Christ?immediately and all at
once. Just as Christians called Hebrew law the "Old
Testament" to supersede
in order it with their new
Fig. 13. Mosaic, Mary and Christ, Istanbul, Hagia Sophia so
D.C., Dumbarton Oaks]. scripture, too they asserted the superiority of their
[Washington,
covenant every time they made an icon. For like
and priests acclaimed the chest in which the holy por Christ's Gospels?to which it was frequently equat
trait was carried into the city as a second Ark of the ed?the holy image was a mysterious fusion of the ac
Covenant, superior
to "the other less elevated ark con tual and the spiritual.
the most and mysterious The icon, then, does not merely
taining holy, venerable, symbolize
covenant" (PG, 113, 420). Tacked to a board and set Christian supersession, though the themes and liturgi
in a gold frame, the Mandylion was then displayed in cal literature surrounding it insistently advance that
the Pharos Chapel where the actual tablets were kept idea, too. It re-enacts the central Christian mystery.
as relics. The association between law and Christ brought mankind a life-giving spirit that abro
Jewish
Christian image continued to be recalled in church gated the law; the holy image does the same. And just
services. on a feast established to celebrate as in Jesus Christ a true man is united with God, in the
Readings
the Mandylion include Moses' admonition not to for icon, matter acquires Grace when it is impressed with

get the law, and a recapitulation of the Ten Com the sacred form.

mandments. the recollection

And of the covenant
with Moses, not
its suppression, persisted in art as well.

Sixteenth-century frescoes on the apse wall of the As complicated as were these theological claims, set
church of Panhaghia Podithou on Cyprus down in voluminous treatises, images succeeded not
(fig. 12)
give pride of place to Moses Receiving the Laws and because of the theological logic but because of a mys
Moses before the Burning Bush where, as usual, the tery inherent in art itself. Pictures triumphed in

prefigurement of Mary and Christ appear. At the apex Christian culture because of the magical facility of all
above the window, the Holy Mandylion is pictured to art to transform stone and wood and pigments and
assert a fundamental point: with the coming of Christ, glass and metal into living things. What had provoked

64
 a grace
by which
the Second Commandment in the first place, the dan and of the mind, carried the di
vine love in us is uplifted to the intelligible beauty
ger that material objects animated through art would of truth. You think her not of
might incapable
be mistaken for living creatures, was what led ulti even if one were to ask her, "How didst
speaking
mately to the injunction's annulment. For when thou give birth and remainest a To such
virgin?"
an extent
Christian viewers saw
pigments composed
of base mat have the lips been made flesh by the
colors, that to be to
ter converted into beautiful faces, or marble tesserae they appear merely pressed
and stilled as in the yet their si
gether mysteries,
mysteriously transformed into radiant cheeks, they dis lence is not at all inert neither is the fairness of
covered further evidence of the wondrous wedding of her form but rather is it the real
derivatory,
flesh and spirit in their Incarnate God. Photios under archetype. (Homily XVII, 2; trans. C. Mango)

stood this well and he will once again be our witness. 'You might think her not incapable of speaking ..."
of the mosaic set up in Hagia Sophia shortly in Photios'
Writing Hear, words, the echo of the Second Com
after the end of Iconoclasm (fig. 13)?an icon of the mandment's prohibition against "gods made by
Virgin and Child, incidentally, quite like that in the human hands that can neither see nor hear neither
Smyrna Cosmas (fig. 8)?the great patriarch embed eat nor smell."
ded the most profound theology in the very process "To such an extent have the lips been made flesh
through which art imbues matter with life. See in the image
by colors." itself, in the life-bestowing
Before our eyes is the Virgin the Creator all art how the commandment is sub
carrying power possesses,
in her arms as an infant, in as in the mystery
depicted painting sumed of the Incarnation.
she is in writings and visions, a grace of the eyes
The Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore, Maryland

65