The Case for Early Image Veneration w/ Michael Garten

[Music] welcome welcome to the transfigured life this is uh Luther with Father Jonathan and we have a special guest with us uh the one and only Michael garton how are you doing doing really well uh had a a wonderful time celebrating the Feast of or celebrating the day for the uh elevation of the Holy Cross at my Parish today and I'm ready to talk about that very thing amen amen amen yeah it was it was a beautiful service today Father did you how was things for you we we had a great service we moved aside all the chairs so we could make the frustrations appropriately and that that threw a few people but it was fun to to have that that that freedom of being able to do that it was a wonderful service a beautiful service beautiful day and um looking forward to this discussion some of what what happened today we'll tie into that as as many of our viewers will know uh uh Michael outstanding to have you with us thank you for taking the time to be on the transfigured life um not a lot of people may know you so this is uh your opportunity to introduce yourself to our listeners to our viewers and uh tell us how you got involved in all of this we want to hear a little a lot more thank you guys both so much for having me on and uh for your kind words father well I've I've been um I was received into the Orthodox Church uh in 2008 um my wife Tatiana and I uh we got married at our our Parish in Southern California in 2013 and um we have three beautiful children we have a a nine-year-old a six-year-old and a six-month-old and it's a very happy house uh before all of this I I attended uh bioli University went uh through their uh Tory honors program excellent Academic Program um did a little bit of graduate work in philosophy at Northern Illinois University and then kind of um went uh away from that academic world in order to start a family put that stuff on hold I've helped found uh two Orthodox uh schools and uh right now my my primary uh day job my day job is doing kind of project management um Junior PM type of a role at an engineering firm um used to be a little bit more involved in shall we say online apologetics uh but the past 10 years of of family life have been my primary focus but with uh with this particular topic of whether or not uh holy images and their veneration was part of the prying church that's something that uh I've I've kind of kept a little bit of tabs on over the years I had a a friend back in the day who was an anabaptist who would challenge me on this sometimes but what really got me kicked off was um my godson Christian um hopefully he'll watch this uh back back in January of 2023 he uh watched the video that Dr Gavin ortland put out um which I I believe most people who will watch this podcast are familiar with it but if they're not I do recommend that they kind of you know see what he has to say about this um and it did seem to me as I watch people give uh responses to it that a lot of the the replies that were out there by Catholic apologists Orthodox apologists trying to defend uh the seventh ecumenical council second NAA that dogmatized the teaching and practice of Christian holy images and their veneration it seemed like a lot of those responses defending second NAIA we're not taking a shall we say like a positive evidence approach so much as trying to defend um uh early Christian authors against the accusation that they were opposed to Icon veneration it seemed like people were more uh on shall we say a defensive stance and I actually think people did a good job of responding to Dr Orland in that venue but um I thought it would be it would be really great if there was a positive case that could be put forward based on um a careful look at primary sources based on the latest scholarship uh and so I I prayed and I asked God to like light my path and help me to uncover evidence that would be encouraging to people um that would help to uh encourage their faith fortify them and show them that this um this practice isn't isn't just something that we can know was present in the early church by means of trusting Orthodoxy holy tradition but also that we can detect in the actual records of History um and at first there was like a little trickle of evidence that came in and then there was a deluge of evidence that came in and so um I I was uh starting to put together this book project very modest just a couple pages on um some evidence that had been overlooked and now I find myself wanting to divide it into like three volumes um the working title is early icons um Christian image veneration before 325 ad I sell like hot cakes man that's a I hope I hope it's encouraging to people um I have been frankly a little surprised by how much evidence there is uh in this area I was aware of a couple things that were being overlooked when Dr Orland put out that first video but um it's been a deluge since then and um I had some initial videos I did with Sarah from Hamilton who wonderful Orthodox apologist personal friend of mine um his family and my wife's family are are quite close outstanding series by the way oh thank you yeah thank you yeah and sarap laid a great foundation in terms of the biblical material but um I uh I do recommend people you know take a look at that um some of the material I'll present here today is more original it's it's newer stuff um and so I'm I'm excited to share that with everyone nice um and then in terms of I I would say that my goal has been um to focus on one of one primarily on one of the things that Dr ortland brought up as a grounds for criticism for the Orthodox teaching about holy icons and their veneration um it seems to me that his critique is basically threefold he has a Biblical critique uh where he basically focuses on how the second commandment appears to um contradict the practice of venerating images and then he points to the alleged lack of uh image veneration in the scriptures secondly he has a historical critique um where he puts forward um evidence that the Prine Church didn't just lack but in his opinion also so firmly rejected had like actual teaching against the veneration of images and from that he infers that it cannot be uh an early or much less Apostolic uh practice or tradition and then I think there's kind of a third pillar of his critique which is a shall we say a dogmatic and moral critique that basically the um Council of second NAA to him seems uh to be unnecessarily anathematizing people um that it seems like it's just kind of flip-flopping on what the stated position of the church was at least in his opinion up to that point um and my focus is mainly going to be on responding to that second critique that historical one you'll get a little bit of I think you'll get a little bit of the scriptural side of things and a little bit of the dogmatic and moral response in the course of what I have to say but um I'm mainly going to be focusing on this evidence that the anti nyine the pre 325 Ad Council of NAA Church um did actually have image veneration practices and and I'm glad you you bring that up uh Michael just because I mean we we're not like we're not picking on Dr Gavin U it's just that he's the one presenting these arguments and you know actually because we have a lot of respect for him you know that we're engaging a lot of this stuff um but he was he was one of the uh first ones to really put something out there that was catching a lot of win for a lot of people and and people wanted to see it addressed so um that's that's the main reason for it and so we're going to you know I know that you'll provide a lot of that amazing uh evidence which I'm pretty sure you probably saw that discussion between Father you know Stephen D young as well as uh Gavin ortland and that was something that uh he was reverting to a lot but um if there's evidence for that then at this point wouldn't he have to I mean hopefully would be able to in not well I don't know if he' change his view but engage that in a in a fair way and say Hey you know well there is there is that evidence for it so I have to kind of retrack some of my statements that I make he was making some bold claims I don't know if you had any thoughts on some of the Bold claims that he made uh before I uh get to uh basically you summarizing uh his arguments against you know pre nyine image vation of the pre- nyine church but I don't know what your thoughts initial thoughts were on that from him yeah I I think that um what he presented on uh in that discussion with Father Steven is very much in line with his previous video series I think he has at least um five other videos where he's covered this the main one from January of last year is over 100,000 views and I think his case has been pretty consistent over time there might have been a couple modifications here and there he did briefly respond to my series with sarim some of the videos at least he responded to and we have a response video to his responses that people can watch um and uh I think that um I think that uh as I continue to lay the case out I think there will be more things that would be worthy of his attention and response potentially um because uh you know when I initially presented things on Sim's channel for the first time I was more giving like an outline or like an overview of certain C categories of evidence without really kind of you know filling in each of the individual pieces that would actually uh cross that finish line of of showing showing the evidence um and so you know I maybe maybe there's something there that he would like to engage with at some point um I did I did appreciate you know father Steven D Young's responses I did think it was very interesting that things went in the direction they did in terms of um going towards uh a particular case that illustrates the overall concern that Dr ortland had about holy tradition namely the case of Icon veneration I thought it was very interesting he went there um and I think that um there are some things I'd like to do to kind of like you know lift father Steven up and get give him a uh some assistance because um I actually think there's a lot that could be said in response to Dr Orton's particular claims and some of the challenges he laid out and uh yeah I'd like to do some of that today yeah for sure for sure I'm pretty sure you love that that Unitarian uh uh defense that that the argument he made there which was like great I was like yeah that that is an important point that um basically he said you know unitarians make the same argument for why you know you'd you know reject or accept a certain Council and not seeing it in in the biblical text but let's get on to it so um how would you summarize uh his case there against image generation in the Prine church and what would you say I I would say basically that there's there's four main claims um I think I think this is a fair summary of him although obviously if if he felt that it wasn't you know I'd be open to correction about it but I say the first claim is that we basically don't have um any reason to think that any of the surviving art that we have any of the surviving Christian images from before 325 were venerated so that's a claim about like archaeology uh none of that stuff that we have from the catacombs or dur europas the House Church um in Syria uh he would say there's no evidence that that stuff was venerated or at least he would say make the case for me you know show me the evidence that it was venerated um the second claim would be that uh there are these all these early Christian attacks this early Christian uh invective against images and that these attacks against images and their cultic use uh that they would apply to not just Idols but to Christian images so that's I think a key thing is that you know everyone Orthodox Catholic Protestant they all agree that there's a strong early Christian attack against images it's just the question then becomes well what were they talking about were the pre were the were the Christian writers after the apostles and before the time of s say St Constantine were they just talking about idolatry or were they talking about other stuff too and I think what Dr ortland would say is that the claims that they make about uh problems with images problems with cult use of images I think you would say that those um those criticisms and concerns at least um can apply to Christian icons the third the third claim would be that there's no positive evidence uh in early Christian authors for um image generation being done or approved of until significantly after um uh the First Council of NAA and then lastly um in addition to their not any evidence for Christian image generation I think Dr ortland would say scholarship is basically on his side that either all or almost all Scholars uh with maybe like an exception or two basically would take the same the same sort of view that he does uh about those first three claims uh the archaeological evidence isn't there the written evidence is against it there's no written evidence for it you know there's a lot of of things about the the presentation of these arguments that invites not only a response based on evidence but it it seems to me it also invites and when when Luther and I did our response to the Dr ortland father Steven D young discussion which was meant to be a discussion on solos scriptura and segue rather quickly into Dr Orton's favorite accretion discussion um one of the things that we um that that we talked about and and it's a big thing for me when I talk with Protestants about this kind of thing is not only what I would call the evid Ence argument which we're going to go into obviously here but it's also what I call the rational or logical argument and I'll give you an example when people like Dr ortland and others and I believe me I've had lots of discussion with those others say well there's no evidence of of of icons even existing before let's say NAA 2 let alone NAA one but NAA 2 they say there's no evidence of icons before that time and I say to them well you do realize there was a huge civil war that lasted about 150 years during which time the emperor and the full force of the Roman army behind him went into the churches and monasteries grabbed whatever they could grab that that was that was grabbable and burned it and broke it and destroyed it and that's why where we have this famous icon of the Ponto crer in in St Katherine's Monastery that dates from the around the middle of the 6th Century the only reason that still exists is because that territory at that time was under Islam and the Roman army couldn't get to it so that's what I call The Logical argument it it's logical to to assume or to to put forth the proposition that well there is no evidence because it was all destroyed and that's why we really don't have a lot of portable icons you know kissing icons we might call them that's why there still is in many churches that predate and I see it too there still is beautiful iconography that dates back to that time so so you've got the evidentiary argument and you've got what I call The Logical argument so what what do you think are the main weaknesses of do ortland arguments well I I would Echo that there's uh I would Echo you that there's this question of how to deal with the actual evidence that's in front of us that has to be asked and what would we kind of expect to see if icon veneration was the practice and early church versus if it wasn't and I think that I think that what people sort of expect to see is that literally every person literally every pre-christian author pre ning Christian Author would be referencing kissing and bowing towards panel portrait icons um and that every single Church would have those kind of like hidden in the back every church that you can excavate from before 325 they they'd have them just kind of hidden in the back I think a little bit more realism about what to sort of expect to see would be would be like helpful for this discussion because yes there was this period of great destruction there's also just the sands of time and the way in which images get destroyed and there were just probably probably Millions if not at least thousands of Roman portraits that were created and used um during the uh the late an antique period but most of the surviving ones that we have are only from Egypt and that's particularly because of the climate and so if you start reasoning in that way and realizing maybe it's not reasonable to expect to see certain things um because of just the nature of material culture and how things Decay and so forth I think that kind of alleviates some of the um the uh concern that people might have about like well where are all those panel portrait icons from before 325 but Michael could we we we could also make the argument it would seem well why aren't there any manuscripts from before that time and and you know the argument could be made the same way there's no man there's no Bible there's no manuscript of the entire Bible before Nia pretty much I mean so you've got that kind of evidentiary argument that goes right to what you're saying what are the ones we have come from Egypt right yeah and that's very interesting that codc catticus and so forth yeah so I I think that having a a kind of healthy realism about what to expect in terms of the physical and the written evidence is good um so well and let let me lay out this in terms of what I think of as the primary weaknesses of Dr Orton's case so the first the first thing I would bring up is that um the way that he uses the pricing written sources I don't think it takes into account uh fully or doesn't do a deep dive into um the context and the terminology that's used in the quotes um that he brings forward as being allegedly opposed to image generation and cultic use of images uh and and what I would say is that when you really look deeply into uh each of the quotes that he used um it's either definitely un you can either say one of the or uh one or the other of the following either that it's not a slam dunk against image veneration being done by Christians or that there's things in the terminology and the context to make it really clear that it's that it's not applicable um and so uh that's then the challenge um I think after we lay out certain responses to his claims about these quotations there's you know then it's on him to show that they actually would apply to icons the second concern that I'd bring up the second criticism I'd bring up is that um and this is um a contribution of my own many of the sources which he alleges are opposed to images or their cultic use have image veneration practices and I think that when you're looking at pre nicing texts and you're expecting to see descriptions of rectangular wooden portrait panel icons in the in the sense that we have so widely in Orthodox Churches today and you're expecting to see it being explicitly referred to that they were bowed towards or kissed um or that they were prayed through if that's what you're looking for well you'll probably Overlook other things that legitimately count as images some of which we even still have today in Orthodoxy images on Eucharistic cups um images that are on kind of small engraved gems whether those are placed in a signant ring or on a pendant or something like that um there's other kinds of images and various sort of symbolic images as well that are not strictly speaking portraiture um and I think that it's it's very interesting uh to look at these pricing Christian authors with what with the cor lenses with this wider category of what counts as an image and with a wider understanding of what counts as veneration that there's many different modes of veneration and when you do so I think it actually becomes quite easy to see a number of cases of image generation in them including the very authors such as Clement tertullian origin um that Dr ortland brings up as being allegedly aniconic I would also add that I mean eus uh minucius Felix there's traces of image generation in almost every off that Dr ortland uh quoted in his initial video um and I I'll lay out a little bit of of that today the third criticism that I'd give is that his um his case focused basically almost entirely on written evidence you know he very briefly touches on the archaeological side of things he very briefly addresses the idea of uh kind of like enemy attestation or hostile sources uh and what they have to say about whether Christians had images early on I think these are categories of evidence unto themselves that deserve at least as much attention as the written evidence and I would say particularly the scholarship about um the archaeology from the Prine Church uh there's quite a lot of um acknowledgement of the ritual and cultic use of some of our surviving Christian art um and not just among like Orthodox Scholars so um I think that drawing from multiple strands of evidence uh whether that's archaeological or enemy attestation or just looking at the things that prising authors say about Old Testament images when you start to take this broader approach and look at multiple strains of evidence I think it becomes a lot harder to sustain this idea that you know the pran church was firmly opposed to image veneration so yeah no thanks for that good good stuff um now as we kind of discuss these things um I don't want to put the cart before the horse here if you want to uh back track but what would you say are some of the strongest evidence for image veneration in the prein scene church or actually I don't know if you want to before that Define image veneration how you differentiate that from idolatry that might be helpful um so I don't know if you want to uh dive into to that um if you feel like there's a scriptural distinction uh please uh feel free to share yeah let's do that because that's at the heart of a lot of protestant objections they call what we would call veneration they would call worship and I think there's there's there's something where we have to stop and Define terms and really clearly understand that there are several different words for images and and things like that so please uh Enlighten us here yeah sure sure so um so in terms of distinguishing uh image veneration from idolatry I would say that veneration itself basically is uh any act or gesture which acknowledges that um some person or thing has like an honorable status um and uh bowing kissing and praying through that's only some of the modes of veneration that are possible there's a lot of other things that people can do um there's the of exaltation which is you know part of what we did today in church is to exalt the cross that is a mode of veneration that's a way of showing honor um there's such a thing also as adorning an image um again something that we still do today in Orthodoxy um we covered our cross with you know flowers all around it that's part of how we show honor to um to the cross and ultimately then to Christ himself um there's other there's other modes of veneration such as um crowning an image uh lighting candles in front of an image um you can even say that praising an image can be a potential way of showing honor to it um and then uh I would also say that there's some categories that are a little bit more hard to pin down like uh honorable placement like if you place something high up as opposed to kind of on the floor this can be a way of uh inciting um attention and honor and reverence towards it um there's also I guess you could say uh a category of reverential looking that you can do towards an image uh anthropologists distinguish between the normal way of like looking at things um you know you're looking at like an ant uh you're kind of your mind is like wandering while you're watching an ant cross uh across the sidewalk versus the cultic stair is what they call it where you're like beholding something that's seen as holy or honorable there's just a different attitude involved inside of you when you look in one case versus the other I'd also bring up a very interesting category of veneration that Americans should all be familiar with which is the ceremonial handling of images and this is something we do with the American flag without really like thinking about it uh the American flag it's supposed to be carried by a color guard in state ceremonies well that's part of How It's shown honor is by setting apart specific people as the designated bearers of it they're entrusted with it um there's also even specific ways that the flag is supposed to be folded held presented uh if you want to talk honorable placement with that the American flag is not supposed to be lower than other flags um it's there's actually quite strict rules that are officially part of us code even um that dictate that you know you're not supposed to have like the flag of some other country like way way higher up here and then the American flag way way lower down here um and you know we could be like oh that's just being fussy but uh it means something like it means something how the image gets placed um and so I would put all that kind of stuff into this category of the ceremonial reverent handling of an image and yes the flag it is an image it's a symbolic image so it's it doesn't contain a likeness of a person or a place but the components of it they do visually represent various things that are facts about America you know the number of colonies that originally were a part of it the number of states that currently compose it so on and so forth so um I think it's good to have all of those categories in mind and to realize that in um we have in our experience familiar examples of images that are venerated but not worshiped such as the flag um now I would say that uh idolatry on the other hand is of course specifically the act of worshiping an image and I would say that one of the things that distinguishes worship from Mere veneration um when you worship something you treat it as deity uh and and father Steven D young actually has been really helpful in this regard and father Andre Steven damic in drawing attention to the fact that worship is specifically connected at least in terms of outward actions with the act of offering sacrifice and that sacrifice being understood as something that uh allows you to share life and enter into communion with what is being sacrificed to um frankly uh to offer a sacrifice basically involves feeding someone or something uh creating a meal that is a space of shared life between you and what you're sacrificing to and therefore when you offer a literal actual sacrifice to someone or something as opposed to you know the kind of more metaphorical way we sometimes speak about sacrifice like I'm gonna you know sacrifice some time so that I can be with my you know family over the weekend when we're talking about a literal actual sacrifice it does imply that the thing you're sacrificing to is alive and is being is receiving the food uh that you're giving to it or receiving the smells that you're giving to it and um therefore idolatry does involve the idea that an image is actually alive that the idols the cult statues as they're often called by anthropologists were literal living beings that were believed to be either identical to gods or to be the bodies of gods or at least to be kind of um objects that captured the spirit of a God and would allow you to negotiate with them and plate them and enter into communion with them uh by your own will as a kind of assertion of your own will and Mastery over them um I I strongly recommend people listen to the excellent lecture about this um by the Oxford I believe he's an art historian Jos elner who talks about uh the tradition of animated statuary um and it and the idea with animated statuary in the GRE Roman world uh was very much in continuity with the Egyptian idea of statues as actually literally being alive um that's the kind of default Baseline understanding of idolatry and paganism is that this image is a God or the body of a God and I'm feeding the God by offering a sacrifice to it so that I would say is is the basic distinction and one of the places I like to go to in scripture for this distinction between image veneration and idolatry the actual worship of images and treating them as Gods is actually a um an example that some people they tend to kind of shy away from because they don't quite know what to do with it um the bronze serpent image that was commanded to be by God yeah and that Moses crafted and that then was destroyed by King Hezekiah now people focus on what happens with this when King Hezekiah destroys it and he's praised by God and considered to basically be in the memory of God forever because he destroyed this Idol well when we look at actually what happens here that is a Corruption of the use that the bronze serpent image had in its original context that was divinely sanctioned and that was rightly done by Moses and the children of Israel when it's destroyed the bronze serent image is destroyed uh in connection with two facts that are stated about it and one is that it begins to be called um I believe it would be pronounced nushan thing of brass it's interesting to note as um uh my friend San Hamilton and I have discussed that this language of thing of brass it really draws attention to the idea of self- reference that the image is kind of for itself it's not pointing to a Transcendent reality it's not pointing upwards towards God it's a thing of brass and it's literally a thing of brass and so there's not this Transcendent Dimension it doesn't take you beyond um Beyond creation and point upwards towards God the second thing that's interesting is that it specifically is described as being given sacrifices and sometimes that word for sacrifices gets translated um incense offerings but I actually think that that word could be just translated as like burnt offerings or sacrifices in a more General sense the idea there is that uh someone in Israel began to believe that this image much like other images that they would unfortunately put in the temple sometime of false gods someone began to believe that this image was actually capable of receiving Savory scents like that its nostrils could be ceremonially opened in the same way that Idol's nostrils were ceremonially opened in order to receive uh scent offerings and that in doing so it would this image could be kind of plated and therefore used in order to get stuff out of it um and this is straight up idolatry it's an actual belief that the image is alive that it's inhabited by a Divine being and that it can be manipulated but if you rewind the clock back to when Moses originally crafts this image and look at how it was first used there's a number of interesting things and I don't think people really I don't think people focus in enough on the details of what said or go with the kind of symbolic implications of what's going on with this image often enough because so Moses creates it um at God's command so it's obviously a complet completely lcit image and God specifically has Moses created for the purpose of healing people from the attacks of the fiery serpents that are plaguing Israel due to their grumbling their Disobedience towards god well one of the things that's said about this image is that it's set on a pole but the specific word that's used for pole in the septu agent version could also be translated standard and if you know anything about Roman battle standards or Greek battle standards this obviously contains within itself already the idea of veneration that which you put upon a battle standard think American flag times 10 that which you put on a battle standard is automatically the object of reverential attention the second thing you notice is that the bronze serpent image receives the very cultic stare that anthropologists talk about the reverential looking at something I mean what do you want to say do you want to say that people just casually looked at it I mean it makes much more sense to to uh bring out the implications of what's already there that they were looking upon it with faith it with faith that God would heal them through the mediation of this image and if anyone wants to be contentious about that I would Point them to a very interesting verse that is ex extremely overlooked on this topic which is John 3:14 so this is Christ himself and he says as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness even so must the son of man be lifted up now this word for lift up it's very interesting um it doesn't just mean place in a physically High location this word gets used repeatedly in the synoptic gospels uh and every single time it's used it means to exalt so that Greek word carries within itself U at least it seems to me and I would I would say anyone who wants to disagree feel free to put that forward and challenge it but this word I believe it's pronounced hips huso um pardon me because I'm not like a big Greek speaker whatever um this word seems to contain within itself already the idea of exaltation which is an act of honoring something and it's not as focused on placing something physically high up and this mirrors the fact that Christ's own going to the Cross is a kind of pre- Ascension for him it's a pre exalt by God he says father glorify me now with the glory I had with you before the world began he says that before going to the Cross he's asking God the Father to exalt him by giving him this supreme honor of being the savior of the world and going to the Cross um so this word that's used for lift up could just as easily or perhaps even more accurately have been translated um exalt uh and therefore the idea of veneration of this bronze serpent image which is ultimately a prototype of Christ himself a type of Christ um seems to be there already in the biblical text well Michael let me jump in here for a moment because you said something very interesting and you know we're talking about words we're talking about what words mean and the Greek is is often very very precise certainly much more so than English is and a lot of people who criticize iconography or or our icon veneration point to the translation of the word Eon or some Eon or some you know variation of image or images and they point to this translation Eon image the fact of the matter is that in the Old Testament there were other words that existed that have been also translated as image are there not yeah I believe that is the case and I would I would definitely advise people to look carefully this is a big Le this has been a big lesson for me is to uh when you can I mean look at the actual uh original Greek or original Hebrew of the scriptures look at the original Greek or Latin of early patristic writings and confirm things because oftentimes what you're looking at in in English it'll say image you'll think all images the actual word is e I think is is the Greek I think that's the Greek word for Idol but again forgive me for my lack of being a Greek whiz or whatever um but uh that's a very specific word and it contains those connections to cult statues um that were so common in the Pagan world and that were distinct from iconography that countries and religions would have but that were not the same as the cult statues that were actually believed to be like literal Gods um and there and there is at at least one place where the word alter that I'm aware of is translated uh as which is the word Vos is is translated as image so the term image really was applied to a number of things involved in in cultic veneration and worship is that not true or am I wrong on that yes and so so this relates to some of Dr ortland um uh sources from the pricing Church uh many of the many of the um quotations that he brings up in his videos uh where you see for instance origin of Alexandria decrying um the use of temples altars and images it gives the impression of like wow that kind of sounds like an orthodox church or something like that like oh man sounds like they were like really opposed to the material aspect of worship well I think when you look more carefully at it and look at the original language um what you see is that Orin makes the following claim he says that Christians not only avoid temples altars and images but are ready to suffer death when it is necessary rather than to base by any such impiety the conception which they have of the most high God but that word for images it's not icon it's not the Greek word for Icon it is like you said uh I believe bulos that's the word that in Acts 1723 St Paul uses to describe the altar the Pagan altar to the unknown God so the idea that you can get from a condemnation of that to a condemnation of the cultic use of any and all images I don't really see how you could get from A to B there need to be an argument that icons are like the same as those well I just don't think that you could make that argument they're very different and our as I've laid out already our entire Theology of Icon veneration is really different from the theology behind idolatry um the understanding of what the image does is totally different um and I'll be happy you know towards the end of this I can lay out a couple of uh early antonine instances of people that Express this principle that the honor given to the image passes to the Prototype but so so yeah so that one with um it's it's really important to to actually check what did this word that's translated in English as image what word was that originally um I would also say that there some problems of I guess context that sometimes come up with some of Dr Orton's quotes as well um you know one of the quotes that he gives I I'll give an illustration here Clement of Alexandria makes the statement that works of art cannot then be sacred and divine um and Dr ortland puts this forward as evidence that Clement was completely aniconic uh rejected all not just image veneration but all images all right well I actually I actually kind of like the fact that dark dortland is going from a description of an image to conclusions about whether or not it would be venerated that is actually a good way of arguing I buy that way of arguing um but I think the issue is that when you look at the context of this statement about images not being sacred and divine um it doesn't really mean what it seems to so let me read you know uh with a little bit more context what this means um Clement says it is ridiculous as the philosopher themselves say for man the play thing of God to make God and for God to be the play thing of art then he says he points out that regardless of what physical stuff you make art out of it will still be quote inert and material and profane and then he goes on to say from there works of art cannot then be sacred and divine now this idea of man who is the creation and the play thing of God making God makes it pretty clear that what's actually in view here is idolatry very specifically this idea that the work of art is a Divine being that's what's in view this emphasis upon the physical stuff that you make the art out of it still stays inert material and profane this is pointing out that like images they're not alive there we go back to that idea of animated statuary that Jos sner uh emphasizes is kind of behind the idea of the cult statue in paganism um and so by the time we get to the actual statement that works of art cannot then be sacred and divine it's quite clear that what we're looking at is you know by by sacred and divine what's meant is an actual Divine being made out of like Immortal Divine substance and there's nothing in there as far as I can see about Christian holy images or their veneration there doesn't seem to be any connection any meaningful close connection to what we understand as being holy icons because we don't believe that they are literal living gods and we don't believe that they're alive either um and so I would say that uh I do encourage people to uh listen to a number of the videos that are circulating out there on the internet by Catholic and Orthodox apologists that dealt with the alleged instances that Dr ortland put forward and to look very carefully into this and what again the context of the quote and the original word in Greek or Latin that was used and um I think that all of the examples that he gives they fall into either the category of that's not 100% clear or wow that really clearly is just talking about Idols wow good point good point um I do want to uh I know you may mention of the the bronze serpent a moment ago and just having that right there in scripture right you know uh and making a a good positive case there is there any other uh strong evidence for image veneration preyen era that you think is probably good to note um anything that comes to mind yeah so let let me lay out um I'll give like three particular pieces of evidence and I'll kind of Point towards an entire category of evidence as well without getting into I'll give one example from that category but uh you know please feel free to um you know take a look at other material I've published on this on uh sar from Hamilton's Channel or my substack or the upcoming book for a more uh in-depth dive on sure that category but so here I I'll take us to one and this example is uh from the early Christian text called the Epistle of Barnabas and this text is really interesting because because many people do believe that it's from the apostolic age and that's particularly interesting in light of the claim of second Isa that Holy images in their veneration date back to that time certainly the Epistle of Barnabas is no later than like the first few Decades of the second century there's textual clues in it that point to yeah it can't be later than that because it references things like the rebuilding of the temple by Gentiles that didn't happen after say I don't know if it's 140 or 130 ad but but Emperor hadrien was the last time that happened so you have these kind of cut off points with the epistle Barnabas it has this very early feel to it there's not a lot of quotations from the canonical gospels but the same teaching and material from them is there that's what you would expect for like a first century or really early second century document someone who was alive during the time of the Apostles so um this epistle uh the Epistle of Barnabas whether it was written by St Barnabas himself who venerate definitely or someone else um regardless it has this uh it has several teachings about the cross and The Honorable status and ritual use of the Cross but I'll go into one of these today and that's in connection with the bronze serpent image so I'm going to be taking from um uh the upand cominging uh UK patristics and theology scholar Robert button this is the translation he uses um of this text and um a lot some of my uh thoughts about this are from his uh taken from his book or rather his dissertation envisioning the sign of God that's about early Christian use of the cross in um ritual activity so he says uh the Epistle of Barnabas then says this uh again Moses makes a type of Jesus showing that he had to suffer and that he will again give life this one whom they will think they have destroyed this type came in a sign given when Israel was fa falling for the Lord made every serpent bite them and they were dying since the act of transgression came by Eve through the serpent this was to convince them that they will be handed over to the Affliction of death because of their transgression moreover even though Moses himself issued this command that you will have no molten or carved image as your God he that is Moses himself made one that is made an image that he might show forth a type of Jesus and so Moses made a bronze Serpent and displayed it prominently and he called the people through a proclamation and when they came together They begged Moses to offer up a prayer on their behalf that they might be healed but Moses said to them quote and this is words that the epistle Barnabas is putting into the mouth of Moses when any of you is bitten come to the serpent that is displayed on the tree and hope in faith that even though dead it can restore a person to life and you will then immediately be saved end quote so the epistle Barnabas finishes this section out saying and they did this again you have the glory of Jesus in these things for everything is in him and for him now here's what I would draw from this quote First you have the beginning of the image Incarnation principle that is so important to the Theology of second isah that the reason that it's okay to make images of God specifically of the Incarnate God Christ is because he became incarn carnate that by appearing in the flesh he gives us the form of God that can actually be depicted um and there is a Biblical theology behind this idea that because of his condescension in the flesh that that would legitimate the making of images of God um secondly I would point out this language of displaying it prominently displaying the image prominently um this Builds on the seent translation and um uses a word that could be translated again as standard as in a battle standard a flag pole to talk about what the snake gets put on or set on so there again you have the idea of the exaltation of a battle standard thirdly and this is very important consider what it says about how the people approach the image it says and hope in faith that even though dead it can restore a person to life that's the attitude with which they were supposed to approach this image that is the cultic stare that anthropologists talk about approaching an image with Faith hoping that by means of this image God could heal you that is definitely approaching with a reverential attitude that is the cultic use of an image and then the comment that the epistle Barnabas makes you have the glory of Jesus in these things for everything is in him and for him this seems to basically bring the image into the events that manifest the glory of Christ in the world it's portraying as a holy image through which the glory of God was able to shine out and heal the people um and so I think that what's so amazing about this uh about this passage from the Epistle of Barnabas is that it shows not just um the pre that early that some early Christians approved of the practice of image veneration but also that there was even theology behind it that would later be uh explained in more detail using more precise language shall we say in at the Council of second NAA but the content does seem to be there already basically so that's one um that's one piece of evidence that um I think is particularly strong and even points like I said towards the apostolic age now there's another category of evidence um which is that of what you might call inherently honorable images and uh this is something that I gradually became aware of as I was looking into early Christian images I noticed references to I notice references to battle standards to Signet rings and to Ritual cups that had images of divine beings on them and then I also I noticed um honorific portraits of Great Men like savior figures philosophers and stuff being mentioned often in uh Christian texts from the first 300 years of Christianity and so I I was kind of aware of some of these before but it had never occurred to me to really look deeply into what do anthropologists think was the use of these images like how were they interacted with um the more I looked at it the more it started to become clear that it was very common for all four of those kinds of images to receive various honorific gestures um and so when these kinds of images are mentioned as belonging to Christians I would basically say this that even if there is no further description of veneration being given BAS Bas on the kind of image and based on its set use in that ancient Mediterranean culture it's already implied in the very mention of the image that certain kinds of ceremonial gestures would be shown towards the image um and if someone were to say yeah but how do we know that uh these kinds of images actually were venerated by Christians I would say that the person that responds that way is kind of like someone who's being told uh Hey that over there that is a walking stick and then they respond by saying okay so is that something that you like sit on is that something that you use to like type on your computer from like a great distance or something like that um it's just an a not grappling with what's already implied by calling it a walking stick the idea of I hold this in my hand I walk with this it's already implicit and calling it a walking stick in the first place right so in the same way the set the culturally set definitions of these kinds of images signets standards cultic cups honorific portraits of Savior figures the set definition of these kinds of images already in the culture already implies honor AIC gestures would be given um now we see references to these kinds of images in a lot of early Christian texts so I'll just mention some of these St Ignatius of Antioch bordering you know on the border of the first and the second centuries uh the homy called second Clement but that is not necessarily given by Clement pope of Rome not and definitely not by Clement of Alexandria it's just called second Clement St Justin Martyr Clement of Alexandria origin tertullian minucius Felix St Methodius of Olympus uh and Yus of cesaria all of them make mention of these categories of images some of them like tulan even he actually mentions having three of those kinds of images the idea that tulan was aniconic yeah I I don't buy it I think that there's something that needs to be addressed and looked more deeply into there um so overall this is a new category of evidence that hasn't really been I think focused on to this point um there are people out there there's a an article by a fellow named John Carpenter that lays out um a concern that Orthodox Christians conflate the presence of images with their veneration in the early church and that all of the Orthodox evidence it all falls apart once you acknowledge that there's not actually uh there's nothing implied by the mere presence of an image and what I would say is sure with you know with little grap leaf designs on you know catacombs there's there's no veneration implied but if you know what's meant by a standard a Signet a ritual cup or an honorific portrait you know it is actually implied that there is veneration in those cas and interestingly some of these some of these Anton authors in addition to mentioning these kinds of images they also will mention their veneration and describe it so that's a I think a category of evidence that deserves a big look from people that are trying to understand this well Michael you you uh when we talk about um the these kind of things I think we also have to explore an issue and you you you mentioned it briefly earlier and that is the type prototype principle we we have a lot of people encountering Orthodoxy and they hear that which is given to the the type is given to the Prototype and you know vice versa or whatever and they people really may not know what those categories mean so can you explain that and where do we first see it yes um so so let let me give um Let me give one example of um let's see let me give okay I I'll I'll start us I'll start us off with uh let's see um let's go first to scripture and talk about really briefly I think that what father Steven D young said uh in that conversation with Dr ortland about Matthew 25 and that which you did to the least of these you did to me I think that's a a starting place um that's that's good there's also teaching in I believe the epistle to the eans that service rendered to a Master is ultimately rendered to God so that seems to be another instance of this principle now in both of those cases it's applied to humans and there and how honoring the Divine image within a human gives honor to God but in terms of actually seeing how this is connected to uh handcrafted images it actually shows up a lot sooner than St basil so I would point to first of all uh St irenaeus who he has this celebrated passage in book one of against heresies where he talks about how um the figure of um he he uses this analogy to describe the gospel and how the gospel gets corrupted by the various Gnostic sects and what he says is that the gospel is to be compared to a beautiful Mosaic image of a king and then he says that what the gnostics do to this beautiful well-crafted image composed of jewels is that they basically pull it apart and then they rearrange the pieces into the form of a dog or a fox now already in the idea of a dog or a fox you see the idea of Dishonor so thinking of how Christ says do not give what is Holy to dogs a dog is not the most uh exalted of animals shall we say you know and then Fox um Christ calling Herod a fox there seems to be this idea of Dishonor that's already implicit in this Distortion of this image there's a connection here to a broader phenomena in the ancient world of U damnatio memor the the practice of kind of blotting out the memory of certain rulers certain Royal figures particularly by means of defacing their images um and so St Urus equates this action of distorting the image with blasphemy or slander so you do see there already implied the idea that dishonor shown to shown to certain kinds of images transfers to the one who is depicted the principle um itself of the honor given to the image passes to the Prototype it's a good point Thank than yeah thanks yeah um it shows up also in uh uh in origin so origin who many people think is aniconic he actually has this very interesting passage in his commentary on the Psalms uh where he comments on the verse in the Psalms that says the enemy hath reproached O Lord and so he takes that in the first place he goes to it is he says how how do people how do unbelievers reproach God how do they speak against God well first of all by mistreating the Servants of God who are in His image and he brings up Matthew 25 and quotes the gospel then he goes to uh he said uh he then says that there's more teaching on this in the Bible says that you can find the following teaching in the quote holy letters so that seems to be a reference to the Epistles either of Paul or Peter and there are places in the Epistles of Paul and Peter that speak about honor given to rulers uh fear God honor the emperor and so here's what origin says he says if anyone abuses the wooden or waxen image of an emperor he is condemned as if he had been AB as if he had abused the emperor since he commits an abuse against the image so already there long before St basil you already have the idea that there's certain kinds of images where depending on how you treat them the dishonor can transfer to the Prototype um you also see the same teaching in St Methodius of Olympus as well in the late third or early 4th Century um he talks about the Imperial image in a similar way he I would say most likely there's a common Christian tradition that he and origin are both drawing from so I don't think origin is like the originator of this idea he's a suspicious figure in church history but he does seem to be witnessing to certain practices and beliefs that early Christians had and St Methodius seems to pick up the same strand of tradition and he says the following that the person who speaks evil against the image of the emperor quote is not acquitted as if he had only spoken against Clay nor condemned for having despised gold but for having been disrespectful towards the king and Lord himself and then he applies this principle to Christian images in his second discourse on the resurrection he speaks of the images of God's angels made of gold the principalities and Powers uh that we make in order to give honor and glory to God and there's a kind of parallelism between describing the image of the Emperor as king and Lord made out of gold and the image of the angels as principalities and Powers made out of gold um and so St Methodius is taking this principle that's accepted by basically everyone um and then he decides to apply it to Christian images specifically images of God's angels um and let me give a clarification also about St Basil's quote because I know that in the discussion between Father Steven and Dr ortland there was this question of well what was that quote really talking about the honor given to the image passes to the Prototype is that talking about just the father and the son that the honor given to the son passes to the father or is that talking about actual handcrafted images as well well answer is both it is actually talking about both and if you look a little further back in that quote from on the Holy Spirit you'll see it very clearly annunciated by St basil that this principle that the honor given to the image passes to the Prototype that it's most commonly accepted in the context of Honor given to again the Imperial portrait the image of the emperor passing to the emperor himself he then takes that principle that everyone accepts he applies it to the relationship between the father and the son so obviously there were Christian Emperors by this time and so this isn't just talking about pagan images Pagan Emperors these are images that Christians had since the Empire had already been christianized by this point um and obviously I think we can make a an an argument this is an argument made by my uh uh my comrade in-arms John from the channel according to John that I highly recommend his videos on preying um image veneration as well he points out that hey if if Christians were okay with honoring the Imperial image and they were Christian Emperors at that point like is it really credible to say that they didn't honor images of other Saints and that they didn't honor images of Christ as well that seems kind of like right yeah right a good point that's only one that's that's a logical argument yeah like I was saying earlier yeah and I'll bring up one more example of um the honor given to the image passing the Prototype um and this comes from a very interesting Source it's not what you would kind of expect or maybe hope for in a certain sense but bear with me this takes a little bit of teasing out there is this interesting Gnostic text called the acts of John and it was it's widely accepted that it was written in either the second or the third Century so all we're talking either 100s or 200s ad now this text it appears to be in some ways pical against the Orthodox Church against um typical Christians who believed in the goodness of creation made by their creator God who sent Christ into the world to be in fleshed and to save us and to transform the material world and restore it to life the acts of John seems to be kind of poking at uh us Orthodox as being kind of spiritually immature unenlightened ones shall we say and there's this very interesting passage in it where it seems that the acts of John is uh get this it appears to be depicting um the practice and teaching of second Nia um and so here let me let me read uh let me read the text and explain why I think this is significant because you don't want to just trust the gnostics and be like oh yeah what they said is true tell them how early this is too uh so second or third Century so it's 100s or 200s it's not post ncing no I don't think anyone thinks that this is after the of Na right right so uh so it describes the following that uh the Apostle John he approaches his disciple that he's converted named ledes who's a convert from paganism and then he accuses him of idolatry in the following context having said this in a sportive manner he John entered with him like amides into his bed chamber and saw there the image of a man crowned and tapers and altars set before it on which he addressed thus likei said John what have you to do with this image which of your Gods is it that is painted here I see you still live like a heathen and ledes answered him he alone is my God who has rescued me and my wife from death but if after God we may call men who have done good to us Gods then Thou Art the God who represented in that picture whom therefore I crown and love and reverence as have been a good guide to me in the way as in the way of Christianity so uh then John had who had never seen his own face said to ledes my son you are mocking me am I so Superior to my Lord and form how can you make me believe that this picture is like unto me then a little further along John makes the following criticism a follow-up criticism but this that thou has done is childish and imperfect thou has drawn a dead likeness of the Dead okay so what do we have going on here we have a panel portrait icon of St John the Evangelist the Apostle which his disciple venerates by placing it on pedestals it sounds like lighting candles in front of it and placing a crown on it now when accused of idolatry the disciple says nope it's not idolatry and then lays out a sophisticated theology that talks about the monarchy and uniqueness of God as alone deserving worship he talks about the deification of the Servants of God that basically they become participants in the energies The Works of God um but they remain human at the same time still human and it's very clear that John doesn't or ledes doesn't think John has you know uh divested himself of human nature there's the veneration of saints and of images of them by non idolatrous actions and that the honor given to these images passes to the one who's depicted and then we have that interesting reply from the pseudo the fake Gnostic Apostle John who's a mouthpiece for the Gnostic author where he says what you have done is childish and imperfect you have drawn a dead likeness of the dead and this shows the Gnostic author's anti-material attitude as the reason why he rejects icon veneration so this text shows that gnostics were attacking the Theology and practice of second NAA in the second or third Century but here's what's so funny what is the Theology and practice of second NAA doing in the second or third Century facts what do we have time traveling gnostics like what's going on here this is extremely hard to explain unless the church actually had panel portrait icons that they venerated and had a theology behind it people don't you know sit around on Saturday mornings and invent not just enemy practices but like entire justifications for it that are really sophisticated like you just don't you don't do that right it's hard to explain what's going on here if there weren't Orthodox Christians venerating panel portrait icons of saints during these early years right and this practice it gets attested it gets referred to by euseius as well since he refers to the likenesses of Christ and the apostles being preserved on portraits by a kind of you could almost call it an Apostolic succession of art like because they had the image during the apostolic era someone copies it in the Next Generation Faithfully preserves it that's what youus says in ecclesiastical history happens and this is it's part of a widely known practice of portraiture of Great Men savior figures philosophers not necessarily idolatrous images of gods and goddesses but that this practice of honorific portraiture that's not idolatrous is really actually widespread among the Gentiles Romans Greeks Egyptians really whoever um and so even though I don't take the acts of John to be a historically faithful document that's actually telling us what happened during the apostolic era right it at least is telling us it at least is telling us what the gnostics saw and wanted to attack in the 100s and the two or the 200s depending on when you date the document um and it it also does seem to present the Orthodox the actual church as kind of thinking they had images that were traceable back to Apostolic times as well so for all of those reasons I think this is a really fascinating document yeah and you have to kind of approach it the right way like it's not that we trust it it's that we it's like how would you know it reflects yeah it's reflective right and this is similar to how in Christian apologetics people sometimes in talking about the resurrection of Christ they'll point out how the first Jewish criticism of the the gospel was that you know uh the disciples stole the body but there's even if you don't trust that criticism and don't accept it there's something implicit in it already which is that no one is claiming that the body is still in the Tomb so even though it's an enemy source it can still imply certain things uh about the facts on the ground and so I would say that people that want to say there was no image veneration in the antonine church that's something that you know I think that they should they'll have a hard time given an answer for wow fantastic wow this has really been a an incredibly inating and um fascinating um lesson here and I'm I'm very impressed Michael thank you very much I I can't wait till your book comes out and certainly we're going to plug it when that happens and uh I'm going to make it mandatory for my entire Parish to read it so you know this is really really good stuff thank you this needed to be done someone needs to get out there and do this kind of work and there's not enough of this kind of work being done and thank you very much for your efforts in this and and for doing this God bless you thank you I really hope that it encourages Orthodox Christians to you know to trust that when when we say the church has handed things down protected by the spirit from error um that that's not said in vain and that even like looking at the history it may not be strictly necessary to do so but that it does tend to go in the direction of confirming that yeah we do preserve the original teachings the authentic teachings of Christ and the apostles well done well guys it's been a pleasure and uh we'll definitely be back on the transfigured life again and and Michael is it was great love the work you're doing and we look forward to seeing what what comes up next in the future God willing Amen to that thank you both this has been really wonderful thanks for having me on I hope your channel thank you and God bless you [Music]

Channel: The Transfigured Life

Views: 9,849

Keywords: gavin ortlund, orthodox christian, truth unites, icons, Nicea, Idolatry, Veneration, Latria, Dulia, Worship, Honor

Id: czYK5Q068ww

Length: 74min 0sec (4440 seconds)

Published: Fri May 10 2024