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Images, Spirituality, and Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 April 2015

Richard Stith
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let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.

- Genesis 1:26

[T]he honor which is paid to the image passes on to that which the image represents, and he who reveres the image reveres in it the person who is represented.

- Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicea II, 787)

Technological consciousness and libertarian doctrine reduce the material world to an instrument—or better, to an amorphous resource existing solely for those ends which we freely choose. We are trapped in matter without true form or meaning.

Even for the Christian, such reduction has grave consequences. God resides in a distant heaven or in a distant time. Only after years of exile in a nature bereft of divinity can we hope, perhaps, to be rewarded with bodily salvation in a different universe. In the meantime, any spirituality we hold to must be necessarily non-material— founded in a dualistic belief in the presence of the intangible Deity whispering to our own intangible selves. We are put asunder, into godless brains and disembodied souls.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Law and Religion , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , February 1993 , pp. 33 - 47
Copyright
Copyright © Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University 1993

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References

1. Cavarnos, Constantine, Concerning the Holy Icons, in Orthodox Iconography Appendix A, 54 (Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, Belmont, Mass, 1977)Google Scholar. I have here substituted the word “image” where Cavarnos has “icon.”

2. See Pieper, Josef, The Philosophical Act, in Leisure, the Basis for Culture, translated by Dru, Alexander, 69–125, especially at 81 (Pantheon-Random House, 1963)Google Scholar; and Heidegger, Martin, The Question Concerning Technology, in The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, translated by Lovitt, William, 3–35 (Harper and Row, 1977)Google Scholar. In a similar vein, but with explicit discussion of Christian icons (from a non-Christian point of view), see Roszak, Theodore, Where the Wasteland Ends 109–41 (Doubleday, 1972)Google Scholar.

3. Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature 176 (Princeton University Press, 1979)Google Scholar.

4. This element of agreement is obscured by disagreements between opponents and supporters of icons on how to describe this state of perfect identity. See Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700) 109, 113 (University of Chicago, 1974)Google Scholar. For a general critical history of the iconoclast struggles, see Beck, Hans-Georg, The Greek Church in the Epoch of Iconoclasm, in Kempf, Friedrichet al, The Church in the Age of Feudalism, in 3 Jedin, Hubert & Dolan, John eds, Handbook of Church History 26–53 (Herder and Herder, 1969)Google Scholar.

5. St. Theodore the Studite, On the Holy Icons, translated by Roth, Catherine P., 111 (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

6. Perhaps our problem with the painting above was simply that we could not conceive of a perfect copy.

7. Id at 31, 102. See also St. John of Damascus, On the Divine Images 19 (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1980)Google Scholar; and Ouspensky, Leonide, The Meaning and Language of Icons, in Ouspensky, Leonide and Lossky, Vladimir, The Meaning of Icons, translated by Palmer, G.E.H. and Kadloubovsky, E., 32, note 4 (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

8. Theodore, St., Holy Icons at 104Google Scholar (cited in note 5). As far as I have been able to discover, even the most extreme iconoclasts, who had every motive for undermining all connection between copy and original, did not claim that the eighth century icons at issue bore no resemblance to Christ or to the saints.

9. Id at 107.

10. Id at 33.

11. Id at 103, 107. Vladimir Lossky has reemphasized more recently that an “icon or a cross does not exist simply to direct our imagination during our prayers. It is a material centre in which there reposes an energy, a divine force, which unites itself to human art.” Lossky, Vladimir, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, translated from the French, 189 (Clarke, 1957)Google Scholar. Even between iconoclasts and iconodules, it was non-controversial “that material objects can be the seat of divine power and that this power can be secured through physical contact with a sacred object.” Pelikan, , Eastern Christendom at 93Google Scholar (cited in note 4), quoting Alexander, Paul J., The Patriarch Nicephorus of Constantinople 5 (Oxford, 1958)Google Scholar. Thus the form of the Cross was venerated even by the iconoclasts. Pelikan, , Eastern Christendom at 110Google Scholar (cited in note 4). Later Protestant iconoclasm seems to have been unsympathetic to, or even unaware of, such incarnational assumptions. Roszak, , Where the Wasteland Ends at 124–31 (cited in note 2)Google Scholar.

12. St. John of Damascus treats the holiness of saints' bodies and bones as analogous to the holiness of painted icons. John, St., Divine Images at 27, 42Google Scholar (cited in note 7). (Ouspensky cites him approvingly on this point. Ouspensky, , The Meaning of Icons at 44 (cited in note 7)Google Scholar.

Fully to describe the theory of being held by these Christian centuries would require (in my opinion) an explanation of how a person is present at least in all that is “proper” to him or her, not only in his or her image. Furthermore, in order fully to comprehend the sanctity even of icons, one should be aware of the various ways, in addition to form, in which painted icons are related to their prototypes. For example, in Eastern practice prayer is offered during the writing of an icon, and the icon is afterwards solemnly blessed. Also very important is the fact that the icon bears the proper name of the prototype. St. Theodore says that a name is “a sort of natural image of that to which it is applied.” Theodore, St., Holy Icons at 35 (cited in note 5)Google Scholar.

13. Theodore, St., Holy Icons at 108 (cited in note 5)Google Scholar.

14. “Communion” is the word used for this relation of image to prototype by Ouspensky. Ouspensky, , The Meaning of Icons at 36 (cited in note 7)Google Scholar.

15. Translated in Cavarnos, , Orthodox Iconography at 54 (cited in note 1)Google Scholar. Daniel Sahas renders it “‘[T]he honour to the icon is conveyed to the prototype’. Thus, he who venerates the icon venerates the hypostasis of the person depicted on it.” Sahas, Daniel, Icon and Logos: Sources in Eighth Century Iconoclasm 179 (U Toronto Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

16. Quoting St. John of Damascus, Divine Images at 36 (cited in note 7)Google Scholar.

17. Id at 68.

18. Ouspensky states that “it is the grace of the Holy Spirit which sustains the holiness both of the represented person and of his icon …. The icon participates in the holiness of its prototype and, through the icon, we in turn participate in this holiness in our prayers.” Ouspensky, Leonide, Theology of the Icon 191 (St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1978)Google Scholar.

19. Daniel Sahas may be incorrect in asserting that “the first Byzantine Emperor to take an official position against the icons was Leo III the Isaurian” in the eighth century. Sahas, , Icon and Logos at 24Google Scholar (cited in note 15). Prohibition of icons had already occurred in a decree of the Emperors Theodosius and Valentinian in the year 427, stating “As it is Our diligent care to guard in every way the religion of the Celestial Divinity, we specially command that no one shall be permitted to trace, carve, or paint the image of Christ the Saviour either upon the earth, upon stone, or upon marble placed in the earth, but it shall be erased wherever found ….” Title VIII, Book I, The Code of Justinian, translated by Scott, Samuel P., 3 The Civil Law 74–75 (The Central Trust Company, 1932)Google Scholar. The important word here may be “earth.” The decree may be not so much anti-image as anti-matter, concerned to safeguard spiritual form from material interpolation. It is striking that this iconoclast edict occurred almost on the eve of the Council of Ephesus (431), the incarnational doctrines of which were later to play such an important role in St. Theodore's defense of icons. Theodore, St., Holy Icons at 85–87, 90–91Google Scholar (cited in note 5). God could no longer be regarded as wholly “celestial” after that council, because His eternal Son and Mary's Child, brought forth from her womb one day in Bethlehem, were then known to be one and the same Person or Hypostasis, and so divinity could be represented by an earthly and sensible image. (However, note that the Emperor Justinian reaffirmed this iconoclast decree long after Ephesus, in the above-cited codification.).

20. See, for example, the influence of the mystery religions, described by Schmemann, Alexander, Introduction to Liturgical Theology, translated from the Russian by Moorhouse, Asheleigh E., 85 (The Faith Press—St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1966)Google Scholar. Pelikan has emphasized the impact of the neo-platonic philosophy of the Pseudo-Dionysius. Pelikan, , Eastern Christendom at 120Google Scholar (cited in note 4). Indeed, for the Greek and the Hellenistic world in general the image is “an emanation, … a revelation of the being with a substantial participation … in the object. … It has a share in the reality. Indeed, it is the reality.” Kleinknecht, Hermann, in Kittel, Gerhard ed, 2 Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, translated by Bromiley, Geoffrey W., 389 (Eerdmans, 1964)Google Scholar.

21. Ouspensky has written that “in the conscience of the Church the Divine dispensation is organically connected with the image. Therefore the doctrine relating to the image is not something separate, not an appendix, but follows naturally from the doctrine of salvation, of which it is an inalienable part.” Ouspensky, , The Meaning of Icons at 28Google Scholar (cited in note 7). I am by no means suggesting that the same or a similar theory did not inform the New Testament authors themselves. According to Kittel, “in the NT the original is always present in the image.” Kittel, ed, Theological Dictionary at 395 (cited in note 20)Google Scholar.

22. John, St., Divine Images at 74Google Scholar (cited in note 7). Kittel states that “the being of Jesus as image is only another way of talking about His being as the Son.” Kittel, ed, Theological Dictionary at 389 (cited in note 20)Google Scholar.

23. Theodore, St., Holy Icons at 105 (cited in note 5)Google Scholar.

24. Image theory can also explain human dignity in another way. When Christ took on human flesh, He united Himself indirectly with all other examples (images) of that flesh. “He has deified our flesh forever, and has sanctified us by surrendering His Godhead to our flesh without confusion.” John, St., Divine Images at 29 (cited in note 7)Google Scholar.

25. But we do so without losing our own human nature. St. John of Damascus suggests that a saint participates in divinity as a red-hot iron participates in fire. John, St., Divine Images at 27, 84–85 (cited in note 7)Google Scholar.

26. Id at 102-03.

27. Quoted by Cavarnos, , Orthodox Iconography at 47 (cited in note 1)Google Scholar.

28. Id. See also, for example, Pieper, , The Philosophical Act at 88 (cited in note 2)Google Scholar.

29. See Wolin, Sheldon S., Politics and Vision 141–64 (Little, Brown, 1960)Google Scholar on Luther's reduction of law from an end in itself to a civil and theological instrument.

30. Quoted by Harold Berman (in a 1988 presentation to the Center on Religion and Society) from Eckhardt, Karl August ed, Sachenspiegel V: Landrecht in Hochdeutscher Ubertragung prolog (1967)Google Scholar.

31. Cavarnos, , Orthodox Iconography at 41 (cited in note 1)Google Scholar.

32. Pelikan calls icon doctrine the very “melody of theology,” citing Nicephorus. Pelikan, , Eastern Christendom at 133 (cited in note 4)Google Scholar.

33. On anamnesis, see Lossky, Mystical Theology (cited in note 11).

34. See here Mâle's, Emile classic work, The Gothic Image: Religious Art in France in the Thirteenth Century, translated by Nussey, Dora (Harper and Row, 1913, 1958)Google Scholar. Mâle quotes Adam of St. Victor (who in turn was echoing St. Augustine) saying: “What is a nut if not the image of Jesus Christ? The green and fleshy sheath is His flesh, His humanity. The wood of the shell is the wood of the Cross on which that flesh suffered. But the kernel of the nut from which men gain nourishment is His hidden divinity.” Id at 30. After other examples, Male adds: “Never was a doctrine more closely knit or more universally accepted. It dates back to the beginning of the Church, and is founded on the words of the Bible itself. In the Scriptures, indeed, as interpreted by the Fathers, the material world is a constant image of the spiritual world.” Id at 31.

35. Aquinas, Thomas, Summa Theologica I–II, Q 93Google Scholar, Art. 1, ob 3, asserts that a thing contains truth in so far as it resembles the divine intellect.

36. Both iconoclasts and iconodules taught the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ. Pelikan, , Eastern Christendom at 93–94 (cited in note 4)Google Scholar.

37. For a beautiful exposition of the transtemporal character of the Liturgy, see Kalokyris, Constantine, The Essence of Orthodox Iconography, translated by Chamberas, Peter, 85–87 (Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1985)Google Scholar.

38. Aquinas says that the divine nature is the eternal law itself. Summa Theologica, I–II, Q 93Google Scholar, Art. 4. Because Christ is born of the Father, rather than made by God, He is also Himself the eternal law. Id at 2.

39. Id at Q 96, Art. 6.

40. Id at Q 96, Art. 4.

41. This self could be the answer to Roberto Unger's call for “concrete universality,” the “power to infuse a universal significance into one's finite life.” See Unger, Roberto, Knowledge and Politics 224, 234 (Macmillan—The Free Press, 1975, 1984)Google Scholar. Unger himself reflects upon the problems of instrumentalism but does not reject it.

42. Hindu spirituality is particularly strong here, in its adherence to duty regardless of consequences. See especially the classic Bhagvad-Gita (a lengthy religious meditation at the very climax of the epic Mahabharata).

43. See generally Simpson, A.W. Brian, Cannibalism and the Common Law (U Chicago Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

44. Regina v Dudley and Stephens, 14 QBD 273 (1884).

45. See Stith, Richard, Toward Freedom from Value, 38 The Jurist 48–81 (1978)Google ScholarPubMed, where I argue for reverencing, rather than only valuing, human beings. Reverence prefers non-violence to preservation at all costs.

46. The nineteenth century London Times opined that it “would be dangerous to … tell seafaring men that they may freely eat others in extreme circumstances, and that the cabin boy may be consumed if provisions run out.” Simpson, , Cannibalism and the Common Law at 216 (cited in note 43)Google Scholar.

47. For an excellent survey of the difficulties which utilitarianism has with all rules, see Alexander, Larry, Pursuing the Good-Indirectly, 95 Ethics 315–32 (1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48. Roberto Unger's early work, Knowledge and Politics, contains in my opinion by far the most profound critique of law by a member of the C.L.S. circle. A recent secondary source summarizing C.L.S. and comparing it to other legal philosophies is Sinha, S. Prakash, What is Law? 201–16 (Paragon House, 1989)Google Scholar. While C.L.S. situates itself on the political left, similar views from the right can be found, for example, in Posner, Richard A., The Problems of Jurisprudence (Harvard U Press, 1990)Google Scholar.