On Iconoclasm

Order of Contents

History
. Whole 5
. Early & Medieval Church 1
. Early Church 1
. Byzantium 25
. Carolingians 3
. Post-Reformation 12

History

Whole of

Article

McClintock & Strong – ‘Iconoclasm, or Imagebreaking’

Books

Besançon, Alain – The Forbidden Image: an Intellectual History of Iconoclasm tr. Jane M. Todd (University of Chicago Press, 2000) 440 pp. ToC

eds. Asselt, Geest, D. Muller, Salemink – Iconoclasm & Iconoclash: Struggle for Religious Identity Pre (Brill, 2007) 489 pp. ToC

eds. Kolrud, Kristine & Marina Prusac – Iconoclasm from Antiquity to Modernity Pre (Ashgate, 2014) ToC

Aron-Beller, Katherine – Christian Images & Their Jewish Desecrators: The History of an Allegation, 400-1700 Pre (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2024) 297 pp. ToC

On the Early & Medieval Church

Book

Schonborn, Christoph – God’s Human Face: the Christ Icon, tr. Lothar Krauth (Ignatius Press, 1994) 275 pp. ToC

On the Early Church

Articles

Tertullian & Minucius Felix – ‘Early Christian Attacks on Idols & Images’ in ed. Caecilia Davis-Weyer, Early Medieval Art 300-1150: Sources & Documents (University of Toronto Press, 1986), pp. 3-11

On Byzantium

Primary Sources

Councils

ed. Sahas, Daniel J. – Icon & Logos: Sources in Eighth-Century Iconoclasm: an Annotated Translation of the Sixth Session of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (Nicea, 787), containing the definition of the Council of Constantinople (754) & its refutation, & the Definition of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (University of Toronto Press, 1986) 230 pp. ToC

Bibliography of

Brubaker, Leslie & John Haldon – Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca 680–850): The Sources: An Annotated Survey in Birmingham Byzantine & Ottoman Studies, vol. 7 Pre (Ashgate / Routledge, 2001, 2016) ToC

General Articles

Barry, William – ch. 4, ‘Iconoclast Emperors & Lombard Kings (604-739)’ in The Papal Monarchy from St. Gregory the Great to Boniface VIII (590-1303) (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1902), pp. 64-72 ToC

Barry (1849–1930) was a British, Romanist priest, educator and writer.

Crone, Patricia – ch. 3, ‘Islam, Judeo Christianity & Byzantine Iconoclasm’ in From Kavad to al-Ghazali: Religion, Law & Political Thought in the Near East c. 600 – c. 1100 Pre (Ashgate, 2005), pp. 59-96

“The argument of this paper is that Byzantine Iconoclasm was a response to the rise of Islam. This is an old-fashioned point of view. First advanced by the Byzantines themselves, the theory of Saracen influence was accepted by older scholarship on the subject, and long remained academically respectable. In the last generation, however, it has fallen out of favour.

Contemporary literature on the subject, though far from agreed in other respects, is virtually unanimous that, whatever may have been the causes of Iconoclasm, Islam was not among them… the assumption that the Byzantines paid attention to what the successful Arabs believed is now deemed unproven, unnecessary or even incredible.

Yet the case for Islam seems so effortless that the determination to exclude it must strike the outsider as an almost wilful exercise of professional scepticism… it is considerably simpler to assume that it was the role of Islam to make epidemic what had hitherto been merely endemic [in Christianity]…” – p. 59

Specialized Articles

Meanings of Images

Ladner, Gerhart B. – ‘The Concept of the Image in the Greek Fathers & the Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy’ in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 7 (1953), pp. 3-34

“‘The honor rendered to the image passes to the prototype,’ to the model or original… This is the locus classicus of the defenders of the images in the Byzantine Iconoclastic Controversy… The sentence just cited is taken from St. Basil’s late fourth century anti-Arian treatise On the Holy Spirit, where it had served to illustrate the unifying image relation of the Son to the Father in the Divine Trinity, a relation first expressed by St. Paul when he said that Christ was the Image of God.” – p. 3

“…the attitude of the early Fathers had been anything but friendly toward the images of art. They had rejected their use by Christians and had held a quite derogatory view of religious imagery. It was only in the age of the great Cappadocians, toward the end of the fourth century, when in religious literature and learning, too, the first phase of the fusion between Christianity and Hellenism was well-nigh completed, that religious imagery was no longer considered as idolatry by the leaders of Christian thought. But it remained for the [iconophiles in the] era of the Iconoclastic Controversy to give a thorough theoretical foundation to the distinction between idols and icons.” – p. 5

Anastos, Milton V. – ‘The Ethical Theory of Images Formulated by the Iconoclasts in 754 & 815’ in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 8 (1954), pp. 153-60

“At their famous council of 754, the iconoclasts, as is well-known, did not denounce all representations of Christ but only those which attempted in one way or another to stimulate his outward form or appearance by means of painting or sculpture. In fact, they specifically endorsed what they called the image of Christ as set forth in the Eucharist… Many, however, seem not to be aware that the iconoclasts at the same time announced their approval of still another, and, from the ethical point of view, at least, more significant conception of an image, which described the virtues of the saints as living images and called for their imitation.

This spiritual or ethical interpretation of the image is probably to be understood as a part of the iconoclastic campaign to purify Christian worship of what many took to be superstitious and idolatrous practices. Our knowledge of these iconoclastic efforts in the direction of reform, dating from the so-called First Iconoclastic period (726-787), we owe principally to the text of the oros, (Horos, or dogmatic definition) and anathemas pronounced by the iconoclastic Council of 754… Apart from a brief general introduction and conclusion, the florilegium of 754 consists of eight excerpts from the fathers, of which all but two deal with what I shall, for the sake of brevity, call the ethical theory of the image.” – p. 153

“the eighth anathema of the Council of 754, which condemns anyone who would contemplate the incarnate Logos ‘through the medium of material colors, and does not worship him with the whole heart, with the eyes of the mind, as he sits in excelsis, more dazzling than the sun, at the right hand of God, on the throne of glory.’ The whole case in behalf of this type of image is summarized in the sixteenth anathema of the Council as follows:

‘If anyone ventures to set up profitless figures of all the saints in soul-less, speechless images made of material colors — for this is a vain invention and the discovery of diabolical craft — and does not, on the contrary, reproduce their virtues in himself as actually living images, with the aid of what has been recorded about them in books, in order to be stimulated to zeal like theirs, as our inspired fathers have said, let him be anathema.’” – p.155

“…we must conclude that the florilegium of the Council of 815 does not advance beyond the iconoclastic theology of the earlier period… its authors made no original contributions, and merely re-used materials or repeated arguments current among the iconoclasts of 754. The most that can be said is that the iconoclasts of 815 added 12 (or 28) patristic references to the florilegium of 754, none of which, however, can be regarded as constituting an innovation or substantial addition to the iconoclastic armory.” – p. 159

Chrysostomides, Anna – ‘John of Damascus’s Theology of Icons in the Context of Eighth-Century Palestinian Iconoclasm’ in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 75 (2021), pp. 263–96

Niewöhner, Philipp – ‘The Significance of the Cross before, during & after Iconoclasm: Early Christian Aniconism in Constantinople & Asia Minor’ in Dumbarton Oaks Papers 74 (2020), pp. 185–242

Aniconism is the absence of certain figures in religions.

Early Iconoclasm

Glynias, Joe – ‘Prayerful Iconoclasts: Psalm Seals & Elite Formation in the First Iconoclast Era (726–750)’ in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 71 (2017), pp. 65-93

“I will analyze how a group of Byzantine seals mark a subgroup of this elite [class] that emerged at the forefront of Byzantine society at the beginning of the iconoclast era… The common feature shared by these seals is that they all contain quotations of the Psalms, and represent nearly the only quotations—scriptural or otherwise—that occur on Byzantine seals. This short-lived sigillographic trend was, moreover, restricted to prominent early iconoclast lay officials.” – pp. 65-66

Gregory, Timothy E. – ch. 8, ‘The Isaurian Dynasty & Iconoclasm’ in A History Of Byzantium 2nd ed. (Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), pp. 244-66

Leo III the Isaurian ( c. 685 – 741) issued a series of edicts against the veneration of images in 726–729. The defiant attitude of Popes Gregory II and later Gregory III on behalf of image-veneration led to a fierce quarrel with the Emperor.

Specific Areas or People Groups

Codoñer, Juan S. – ‘Melkites & Icon Worship during the Iconoclastic Period’ in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 67 (2013), pp. 135-87

Melkites here refers to Christians and their churches in Palestine, specifically in close proximity to Muslims. The term comes from the root for “royal”, referring to their loyalty to the Byzantine emperor. They accepted the Council of Chalcedon.

“Beginning in the second half of the sixth century, a slow but steady diffusion of icons of saints, of Christ, and of the Virgin is evident in the Empire… These icons do not, however, indicate the prevalence of a form of icon worship during this period, for most of them were, in fact, ‘simple commemorative and ex voto images,’ with the exception of some that were considered relics and therefore endowed with miraculous or intercessory powers. The origin of the cult of icons apparently dates to a later time, probably toward the end of the seventh century.” – p. 135

“…there is, in fact, a wide range of attitudes toward icons that have defied every attempt at schematic classification. Thus, the mere presence of icons is, by itself, never a proof of icon worship: the place of the icon, its character as a relic, the (holy) persons it represents, or even the name it was given, are always points to consider.” – pp. 136-37

Barnard, Leslie – ‘The Paulicians & Iconoclasm’ in ed. Bryer & Herrin, Iconoclasm: Papers given at the Ninth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (University of Birmingham, March 1975), pp. 75-83 with a bibliography

Paulicianism was a heretical medieval Christian sect which originated in Armenia in the 7th century. Little is known about the Paulician faith and various influences have been suggested, including Gnosticism, Marcionism, Manichaeism and Adoptionism, with other scholars arguing that doctrinally the Paulicians were a largely conventional Christian reform movement unrelated to any of these currents.

Later Iconoclasm

Alexander, Paul J. – ‘The Iconoclastic Council of St. Sophia (815) & its Definition’ in Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 7 (1953), pp. 37-66

Dvornik, Francis – ‘The Patriarch Photius & Iconoclasm’ in Theology & Philosophy, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, vol. 7 (1953), pp. 69-97

Photios I (c. 810/820 – 893) was an ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople.

Books

General

1900’s

Martin, Edward James – A History of the Iconoclastic Controversy (SPCK, 1930) 290 pp. ToC

This has two chapters at the end on the iconoclasm of Charlemagne the Great (748-814) and the Franks.

Barnard, L.W. – The Graeco-Roman & Oriental Background of the Iconoclastic Controversy Pre (Brill, 1974) 147 pp. ToC

eds. Bryer & Herrin – Iconoclasm: Papers given at the Ninth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies (University of Birmingham, March 1975) 200 pp. ToC

2000’s

Barber, Charles – Figure & Likeness: On the Limits of Representation in Byzantine Iconoclasm Ref (Princeton University Press, 2002) 207 pp.

Blurb: “Barber rejects the conventional means of analyzing this crisis, which seeks its origin in political and other social factors. Instead, he argues, iconoclasm is primarily a matter of theology and aesthetic theory.

Working between the theological texts and the visual materials, Barber demonstrates that in challenging the validity of iconic representation, iconoclasts were asking: How can an image depict an incomprehensible God? In response, iconophile theologians gradually developed a notion of representation that distinguished the work of art from the subject it depicted… This pivotal step allowed these theologians, of whom Patriarch Nikephoros and Theodore of Stoudios were the most important, to define and defend a specifically Christian art…

in offering a full and clearly rendered account of iconoclastic notions of Christian representation, Barber reveals that the notion of art was indeed central to the unfolding of iconoclasm.”

Brubaker, Leslie – Inventing Byzantine Iconoclasm Ref (Bristol Classical Press, 2012) 134 pp.

Blurb: “Byzantine ‘iconoclasm’ is famous and has influenced iconoclast movements from the English Reformation and French Revolution to Taliban, but it has also been woefully misunderstood: this book shows how and why the debate about images was more complicated, and more interesting, than it has been presented in the past. It explores how icons came to be so important, who opposed them, and how the debate about images played itself out over the years between c. 680 and 850. Many widely accepted assumptions about ‘iconoclasm’… are shown to be incorrect.”

Brubaker, Leslie & John Haldon – Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era, c. 680-850: A History Ref (Cambridge University Press, 2015) 944 pp.

“Iconoclasm, the debate about the legitimacy of religious art that began in Byzantium around 720 and continued for nearly one hundred and twenty years… The authors have worked together to provide a comprehensive overview of the visual, written and other materials… they challenge many traditional assumptions about iconoclasm and set the period firmly in its broader political, cultural and social-economic context.”

Domínguez, Óscar P. – Literary Circles in Byzantine Iconoclasm: Patrons, Politics & Saints Pre (Oxford Univ. Press, 2020) 525 pp. ToC

ed. Humphreys, Mike – A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm in Brill’s Companions to the Christian Tradition, vol. 99 Pre (Brill, 2021) 570 pp. ToC

Blurb: “Supposedly for more than a century the Orthodox Church and Byzantium were wracked by controversy over religious figural imagery, culminating in 843 in the establishment of icon veneration as a fundamental Orthodox practice.”

Early Iconoclasm

Shedlock, Robert J. – The Iconoclastic Edict of the Emperor Leo III, 726 A.D. Master of Arts thesis (University of Massachusetts, 1968) 85 pp. ToC

Gero, Stephen

Byzantine Iconoclasm During the Reign of Leo III: with Particular Attention to the Oriental Sources in Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, vol. 39-41 Ref (1973) 220 pp.

Leo III the Isaurian ( c. 685 – 741) put an end to the Twenty Years’ Anarchy, a period of great instability in the Byzantine Empire between 695 and 717.

He issued a series of edicts against the veneration of images in 726–729. In 730, Patriarch Germanus I of Constantinople opted to resign rather than subscribe to iconoclasm; Leo replaced him with Anastasius, who willingly sided with the Emperor on the question of icons.

The defiant attitude of Popes Gregory II and later Gregory III on behalf of image-veneration led to a fierce quarrel with the Emperor. The former summoned councils in Rome to anathematize and excommunicate the iconoclasts (730, 732). In 740 Leo retaliated by transferring Southern Italy and Illyricum from the papal diocese to that of the patriarch of Constantinople.

Scholars have discussed the mutual influence of Muslim and Byzantine iconoclasm, noting that Caliph Yazid II had issued an iconoclastic edict, also targeting his Christian subjects, already in 721.

Byzantine Iconoclasm during the Reign of Constantine V, with Particular Attention to the Oriental Sources in Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium, vol. 384 (Louvain, 1977) 205 pp. ToC

Constantine V (718–775) was Byzantine emperor from 741 to 775. His reign saw a consolidation of Byzantine security from external threats.

Religious strife and controversy was a prominent feature of his reign. His fervent support of Iconoclasm and opposition to monasticism led to his vilification by some contemporary commentators and the majority of later Byzantine writers.

On the Medieval Western Church

Articles

Martin, Edward James – chs. 13-14 in A History of the Iconoclastic Controversy (SPCK, 1930), pp. 222-75

ch. 13, ‘Iconoclasm & the Franks: (i) Charles the Great’

Charlemagne (748–814) was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian Empire from 800. He united most of Western and Central Europe, and was the first recognised emperor to rule in the west after the fall of the Western Roman Empire approximately three centuries earlier. Charlemagne’s reign was marked by political and social changes that had lasting influence on Europe throughout the Middle Ages.

ch. 14, ‘(ii) The Affair of Claudius of Turin’

Claudius (fl. 810–827) was the bishop of Turin and a writer during the Carolingian Renaissance. He is most noted for teaching iconoclasm and for some teachings that prefigured those of the Protestant Reformation. He was attacked as a heretic in written works by Saint Dungal and Jonas of Orléans.

Book

Noble, Thomas F.X. – Images, Iconoclasm & the Carolingians Pre (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009) 370 pp. ToC

Quote

McClintock & Strong

‘Iconoclasm, or Imagebreaking’

“…the French Church declared most positively against image-worship in the Synod of Gentiliacum in 767, and in 790 Charlemagne presented to the Council of Nicaea a memorial, De inmpio imne qunzcum cultu (Libri Carolini). Thereupon images were allowed to be retained for purposes of education only. At the Synod of Frankfort in 794, Charlemagne, with the assent of the English Church, caused image-worship to be condemned.”

Post-Reformation

Switzerland, Germany & France

Wandel, Lee Palmer – Voracious Idols & Violent Hands: Iconoclasm in Reformation Zurich, Strasbourg & Basel (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1995) 220 pp. ToC

Eire, Carlos – War Against the Idols: the Reformation of Worship from Erasmus to Calvin (1989) 336 pp.

This excellent history book shows that purity of worship and the removal of religious images from the place of worship, including all images of Christ (whether in worship or not) was a hallmark of the reformed wing of the reformation.

Netherlands

Books

Crew, Phyllis M. – Calvinist Preaching & Iconoclasm in the Netherlands, 1544-1569 (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1978) 230 pp. ToC

Arnade, Peter J. – Beggars, Iconoclasts & Civic Patriots: the Political Culture of the Dutch Revolt Pre (Cornell University Press, 2008) 360 pp. ToC

Mochizuki, Mia M. – The Netherlandish Image after Iconoclasm, 1566-1672: Material Religion in the Dutch Golden Age Ref (Ashgate, 2008) 400 pp. ToC

Blurb: “Debunking the myth of the stark white Protestant church interior, this study explores the very objects and architectural additions that were in fact added to Netherlandish church interiors in the first century after iconoclasm. In charting these additions…

The text is heavily illustrated with images of the objects under discussion, many of them never before published… It provides a religious art companion to general studies of Dutch Golden Age art and lends greater depth to our understanding of iconoclasm…”

Art Books

Kloek, Halsema-Kubes, Baarsen – Art before the Iconoclasm: Northern Netherlandish Art, 1525-1580 (Amsterdam, 1986) 190 pp. ToC

This includes chapters covering the decades of iconoclasm at the Dutch Reformation, and shortly after.

Vanhaelen, Angela – The Wake of Iconoclasm: Painting the Church in the Dutch Republic (Pennsylvania State Univ. Press, 2012) 230 pp. ToC

Scottish Reformation

Article

Kirk, James – ‘Iconoclasm & Reform: Presidential Address’ (Scottish Church History Society, 1992) 18 pp.

Kirk is an excellent, contemporary, presbyterian, Scottish Church historian.

English Puritanism

Books

Spraggon, Julie – Puritan Iconoclasm in England, 1640-1660 (Univ. College London, 2000) 290 pp. PhD thesis Published later as: Puritan Iconoclasm during the English Civil War in Studies in Modern British Religious History Pre (Boydell, 2003) 330 pp. ToC

Abstract: “…this thesis looks at the reasons for the resurgence of large-scale iconoclasm a hundred years after the break with Rome… the attack on recent ‘innovations’ introduced into the church (such as images, stained glass windows and communion rails) developed into a drive for further reformation led by the Long Parliament. Increasingly radical legislation targeted not just ‘new popery’, but pre-reformation survivals and a wide range of objects including some which had been acceptable to the Elizabethan and Jacobean church (for instance organs and vestments).”

ed. Cooper, Trevor – The Journal of William Dowsing: Iconoclasm in East Anglia during the English Civil War (Boydell Press, 2001) 640 pp. ToC

Relating to Theater

Books

O’Connell, Michael – The Idolatrous Eye: Iconoclasm & Theater in Early-Modern England (Oxford Univ. Press, 2000) 200 pp. ToC

Tassi, Marguerite A. – The Scandal of Images: Iconoclasm, Eroticism & Painting in Early Modern English Drama (2005) 260 pp. ToC

Related Pages

Idolatry

Expositions of the 2nd Commandment