Editing Icon (section)

==History==

===Emergence of the icon===
{{further|Image of Edessa}}
{{further|Religious images in Christian theology}}
[[File:Trinity tikhon filatiev.jpg|thumb|upright|Russian icon of the [[Holy Trinity]]]]
[[File:MikołajDSC 0186.jpg|thumb|upright|The icon of [[St Nicolas]] carved in stone (between {{circa}} 12 and 15th centuries), at the [[Radomysl Castle]], in Ukraine<ref>Bogomolets O. Radomysl Castle-Museum on the Royal Road Via Regia".  Kyiv, 2013 {{ISBN|978-617-7031-15-3}}</ref>]]
[[File:Evangelist Luka pishustchiy ikonu.jpg|thumb|upright|Luke painting the [[Theotokos of Vladimir]] (16th century, [[Pskov]])]]
[[File:Byzantine - Saint Arethas - Walters 4820862.jpg|thumb|A rare ceramic icon depicting [[Arethas of Caesarea|Saint Arethas]] (Byzantine, 10th century)]]
[[File:Ushakov Nerukotvorniy.jpg|thumb|''Image of the Saviour [[Acheiropoieta|Not Made by Hand]]'': a traditional Orthodox [[iconography]] in the interpretation of [[Simon Ushakov]] (1658).]]

====Origins in primitive Christianity in the first century====
Pre-Christian religions had produced and used art works.<ref>{{cite book |last=Nichols |first=Aidan |author-link=Aidan Nichols |title=Redeeming Beauty: Soundings in Sacral Aesthetics |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=2orYAAAAMAAJ |via=Google Books |series=Ashgate studies in theology, imagination, and the arts |location=Aldershot |publisher=Ashgate |date=2007 |page=84 |isbn=9780754658955 |access-date=31 May 2020 |quote=...&nbsp;ancient religious art can be said to have created, all unconsciously, a pre-Christian icon.}}</ref> Statues and paintings of various gods and deities were regularly worshiped and venerated. It is unclear when Christians took up such activities. Christian tradition dating from the 8th century identifies [[Luke the Evangelist]] as the first icon painter, but this might not reflect historical facts.<ref>Michele Bacci, ''Il pennello dell'Evangelista. Storia delle immagini sacre attribuite a san Luca'' (Pisa: Gisem, 1998).</ref> A general assumption that [[Aniconism in Christianity#Early Christianity|early Christianity was generally aniconic]], opposed to religious imagery in both theory and practice until about 200, has been challenged by Paul Corby Finney's analysis of early Christian writing and material remains (1994). His assumption distinguishes three different sources of attitudes affecting early Christians on the issue: "first that humans could have a direct vision of God; second that they could not; and, third, that although humans could see God they were best advised not to look, and were strictly forbidden to represent what they had seen".<ref name="ReferenceA">Finney, viii–xii, viii and xi quoted</ref>

These derived respectively from Greek and Near Eastern pagan religions, from Ancient Greek philosophy, and from the Jewish tradition and the Old Testament. Of the three, Finney concludes that "overall, Israel's aversion to sacred images influenced early Christianity considerably less than the Greek philosophical tradition of invisible deity apophatically defined", so placing less emphasis on the [[Jewish Christianity|Jewish background]] of most of the first Christians than most traditional accounts.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

Finney suggests that "the reasons for the non-appearance of Christian art before 200 have nothing to do with principled aversion to art, with other-worldliness, or with anti-materialism. The truth is simple and mundane: Christians lacked land and capital. Art requires both. As soon as they began to acquire land and capital, Christians began to experiment with their own distinctive forms of art".<ref>Finney, 108</ref>

Aside from the legend that Pilate had made an image of Christ, the 4th-century [[Eusebius of Caesarea]], in his [[Church History (Eusebius)|''Church History'']], provides a more substantial reference to a "first" icon of Jesus. He relates that King [[Abgar V|Abgar]] of [[Edessa]] (died {{circa|50 CE}}) sent a letter to Jesus at Jerusalem, asking Jesus to come and heal him of an illness. This version of the Abgar story does not mention an image. A later account found in the Syriac ''[[Doctrine of Addai]]'' ({{circa|400?}}) mentions a painted image of Jesus in the story. Even later, in the 6th-century account given by [[Evagrius Scholasticus]], the painted image transforms into an image that miraculously appeared on a towel when Christ pressed the cloth to his wet face.<ref>''Veronica and her Cloth'', Kuryluk, Ewa, Basil Blackwell, Cambridge, 1991</ref> Further legends relate that the cloth remained in Edessa until the 10th century, when it was taken by General [[John Kourkouas]] to [[Constantinople]]. It went missing in 1204 when [[Fourth Crusade|Crusaders]] sacked Constantinople, but by then numerous copies had firmly established its iconic type.

The 4th-century Christian [[Aelius Lampridius]] produced the earliest known written records of Christian images treated like icons (in a [[Paganism|pagan]] or [[Gnostic]] context) in his ''Life of Alexander Severus'' (xxix) that formed part of the ''[[Augustan History]]''. According to Lampridius, the emperor [[Alexander Severus]] ({{reign|222|235}}), himself not a Christian, had kept a domestic chapel for the [[veneration]] of images of deified emperors, of portraits of his ancestors, and of Christ, [[Apollonius of Tyana|Apollonius]], [[Orpheus]] and [[Abraham]]. Saint [[Irenaeus of Lyons|Irenaeus]], ({{circa|130–202}}) in his [[On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis|''Against Heresies'']] (1:25;6) says scornfully of the Gnostic [[Carpocratians]]:

{{Blockquote|They also possess images, some of them painted, and others formed from different kinds of material; while they maintain that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at that time when Jesus lived among them. They crown these images, and set them up along with the images of the philosophers of the world that is to say, with the images of Pythagoras, and Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest. They have also other modes of honouring these images, after the same manner of the Gentiles [pagans].}}

On the other hand, Irenaeus does not speak critically of icons or portraits in a general sense—only of certain gnostic sectarians' use of icons.

Another criticism of image veneration appears in the non-canonical 2nd-century [[Acts of John]] (generally considered a [[gnostic]] work), in which the [[Apostle John]] discovers that one of his followers has had a portrait made of him, and is venerating it:

{{Blockquote|[John] went into the bedchamber, and saw the portrait of an old man crowned with garlands, and lamps and altars set before it. And he called him and said: Lycomedes, what do you mean by this matter of the portrait? Can it be one of thy gods that is painted here? For I see that you are still living in heathen fashion.|[[Acts of John]], 27}}

Later in the passage John says, "But this that you have now done is childish and imperfect: you have drawn a dead likeness of the dead."

At least some of the hierarchy of the Christian churches still strictly opposed icons in the early 4th century. At the Spanish non-ecumenical [[Synod of Elvira]] ({{circa|305}}) bishops concluded, "Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration".<ref>{{cite web | url= http://www.conorpdowling.com/library/council-of-elvira | title= The Gentle Exit » Council of Elvira | work= Conorpdowling.com | access-date= 2012-12-10 | archive-date= 2018-11-06 | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20181106195812/http://www.conorpdowling.com/library/council-of-elvira | url-status= dead }}</ref>

Bishop [[Epiphanius of Salamis]], wrote his letter 51 to John, Bishop of Jerusalem ({{circa|394}}) in which he recounted how he tore down an image in a church and admonished the other bishop that such images are "opposed{{nbsp}}[...] to our religion".<ref>{{cite web|url= http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3001051.htm|title= Church Fathers: Letter 51 (Jerome)|website= www.newadvent.org}}</ref>

====Icons in Eusebius to Philostorgius (425 AD)====
Elsewhere in his ''Church History'', [[Eusebius]] reports seeing what he took to be portraits of Jesus, [[Saint Peter|Peter]] and [[Paul the Apostle|Paul]], and also mentions a bronze statue at [[Banias]]/Paneas under Mount Hermon, of which he wrote, "They say that this statue is an image of Jesus".<ref>Eusebius, ''Church History'', 7:18</ref> Further, he relates that locals regarded the image as a memorial of the healing of the [[woman with an issue of blood]] by Jesus (Luke 8:43–48), because it depicted a standing man wearing a double cloak and with arm outstretched, and a woman kneeling before him with arms reaching out as if in supplication.

John Francis Wilson<ref>John Francis Wilson: ''Caesarea Philippi: Banias, the Lost City of Pan'' [[I.B. Tauris]], London, 2004.</ref> suggests the possibility that this refers to a pagan bronze statue whose true identity had been forgotten. Some{{who|date=September 2016}} have thought it to represent [[Aesculapius]], the Greek god of healing, but the description of the standing figure and the woman kneeling in supplication precisely matches images found on coins depicting the bearded emperor [[Hadrian]] ({{reign|117|138}}) reaching out to a female figure—symbolizing a [[Roman province|province]]—kneeling before him.

When asked by [[Flavia Julia Constantia|Constantia]] (Emperor [[Constantine I|Constantine]]'s half-sister) for an image of Jesus, Eusebius denied the request, replying: "To depict purely the human form of Christ before its transformation, on the other hand, is to break the commandment of God and to fall into pagan error."<ref>David M. Gwynn, From Iconoclasm to Arianism: The Construction of Christian Tradition in the Iconoclast Controversy [Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 47 (2007) 225–251], p. 227.</ref> Hence [[Jaroslav Pelikan]] calls Eusebius "the father of iconoclasm".<ref name="auto1">{{Cite web|url=https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/answering-eastern-orthodox-apologists-regarding-icons/|title=Answering Eastern Orthodox Apologists regarding Icons|website=The Gospel Coalition}}</ref>

After the emperor Constantine I extended [[Edict of Milan|official toleration of Christianity]] within the Roman Empire in 313, huge numbers of pagans became converts. This period of the [[Historiography of Christianization of the Roman Empire]] probably saw the use of Christian images become very widespread among the faithful, though with great differences from pagan habits. Robin Lane Fox states<ref>Fox, ''Pagans and Christians'', [[Alfred A. Knopf]], New York, 1989.</ref> "By the early fifth century, we know of the ownership of private icons of saints; by {{c.|480–500}}, we can be sure that the inside of a saint's shrine would be adorned with images and votive portraits, a practice which had probably begun earlier."

When Constantine himself ({{reign|306|337}}) apparently converted to Christianity, the majority of his subjects remained pagans. The [[Roman Imperial cult]] of the divinity of the emperor, expressed through the traditional burning of candles and the offering of incense to the emperor's image, was tolerated for a period because it would have been politically dangerous to attempt to suppress it.<ref>{{Cite web |last=BDEhrman |date=2024-08-27 |title=The Conversion of the Emperor Constantine |url=https://ehrmanblog.org/40368-2/ |access-date=2025-04-28 |website=The Bart Ehrman Blog |language=en}}</ref> In the 5th century the courts of justice and municipal buildings of the empire still honoured the portrait of the reigning emperor in this way.<ref name="Dix 1945 413–414">{{cite book |first=Dom Gregory |last=Dix |title=The Shape of the Liturgy |location=New York |publisher=Seabury Press |date=1945 |pages=413–414}}</ref>

In 425 [[Philostorgius]], an allegedly [[Arian]] Christian, charged the Orthodox Christians in Constantinople with [[idolatry]] because they still honored the image of the emperor Constantine the Great in this way. [[Gregory Dix|Dix]] notes that this occurred more than a century before the first extant reference to a similar honouring of the image of Jesus or of his apostles or saints known today, but that it would seem a natural progression for the image of Christ, the King of Heaven and Earth, to be paid similar veneration as that given to the earthly Roman emperor.<ref name="Dix 1945 413–414"/> However, the Orthodox, Eastern Catholics, and other groups insist on explicitly distinguishing the veneration of icons from the worship of idols by pagans.<ref>[http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/icon_bowing.aspx "Is Venerating Icons Idolatry? A Response to the Credenda Agenda"].</ref>{{crossreference|printworthy=y|(See further below on the doctrine of veneration as opposed to worship.)}}

===Theodosius to Justinian===
[[File:Kristus a svatý Menas.jpg|thumb|[[Icon of Christ and Abbot Mena|Christ and Saint Menas]], 6th-century [[Coptic art|Coptic icon]] from [[Egypt]] ([[Musée du Louvre]])]]

After adoption of Christianity as the only permissible Roman state religion under [[Theodosius I]], Christian art began to change not only in quality and sophistication, but also in nature. This was in no small part due to Christians being free for the first time to express their faith openly without persecution from the state, in addition to the faith spreading to the non-poor segments of society. Paintings of martyrs and their feats began to appear, and early writers commented on their lifelike effect, one of the elements a few Christian writers criticized in pagan art—the ability to imitate life. The writers mostly criticized pagan works of art for pointing to false gods, thus encouraging idolatry. Statues in the round were avoided as being too close to the principal artistic focus of pagan cult practices, as they have continued to be (with some small-scale exceptions) throughout the history of [[Eastern Christianity]].

[[Nilus of Sinai]] ({{abbr|d.|died}} {{c.|430}}), in his ''Letter to Heliodorus Silentiarius'', records a miracle in which Saint Plato of Ankyra appeared to a Christian in a dream. The saint was recognized because the young man had often seen his portrait. This recognition of a religious apparition from likeness to an image was also a characteristic of pagan pious accounts of appearances of gods to humans, and was a regular ''topos'' in hagiography. One critical recipient of a vision from [[Saint Demetrius of Thessaloniki]] apparently specified that the saint resembled the "more ancient" images of him—presumably the 7th-century mosaics still in [[Hagios Demetrios]]. Another, an African bishop, had been rescued from Arab slavery by a young soldier called Demetrios, who told him to go to his house in Thessaloniki. Having discovered that most young soldiers in the city seemed to be called Demetrios, he gave up and went to the largest church in the city, to find his rescuer on the wall.<ref name="RC">Robin Cormack, "Writing in Gold, Byzantine Society and its Icons", 1985, George Philip, London, {{ISBN|0-540-01085-5}}</ref>

[[File:Spas vsederzhitel sinay.jpg|thumb|upright|The oldest surviving icon of [[Christ Pantocrator]], [[Encaustic painting|encaustic on panel]], {{c.|6th century}} ([[Saint Catherine's Monastery]], [[Mount Sinai]])]]

During this period the church began to discourage all non-religious human images—the Emperor and donor figures counting as religious. This became largely effective, so that most of the population would only ever see religious images and those of the ruling class. The word ''icon'' referred to any and all images, not just religious ones, but there was barely a need for a separate word for these.

===Luke's portrait of Mary===
It is in a context attributed to the 5th century that the first mention of an image of Mary painted from life appears, though earlier paintings on [[Catacombs of Rome|catacomb walls]] bear resemblance to modern icons of Mary. [[Theodorus Lector]], in his 6th-century ''History of the Church'' 1:1<ref>Excerpted by Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos; this passage is by some considered a later interpolation.</ref> stated that [[Licinia Eudoxia|Eudokia]] (wife of emperor [[Theodosius II]], {{abbr|d.|died}} 460) sent an image of the "[[Theotokos|Mother of God]]" named [[Hodegetria|Icon of the Hodegetria]] from Jerusalem to [[Pulcheria]], daughter of [[Arcadius]], the former emperor and father of Theodosius II. The image was specified to have been "painted by [[Luke the Evangelist#As an artist|the Apostle Luke]]."

[[Margherita Guarducci]] relates a tradition that the original icon of Mary attributed to Luke, sent by Eudokia to Pulcheria from Palestine, was a large circular icon only of her head. When the icon arrived in Constantinople it was fitted in as the head into a very large rectangular icon of her holding the Christ child and it is this composite icon that became the one historically known as the Hodegetria. She further states another tradition that when the last Latin Emperor of Constantinople, [[Baldwin II of Constantinople|Baldwin II]], fled Constantinople in 1261 he took this original circular portion of the icon with him.<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.avellinomagazine.it/foto%20home%20page/madonna.jpg|title=Photo |website=www.avellinomagazine.it|access-date=2020-08-08}}</ref><ref name="mariadinazareth_it">{{cite web |url=http://www.mariadinazareth.it/www2005/Apparizioni/Montevergine4.jpg |title= Photo |website=www.mariadinazareth.it|access-date=2020-08-08}}</ref>

This remained in the possession of the [[Capetian House of Anjou|Angevin dynasty]] who had it inserted into a much larger image of Mary and the Christ child, which is presently enshrined above the high altar of the Benedictine Abbey church of [[Montevergine]].<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.avellinomagazine.it/foto%20home%20page/madonna.jpg|title=Photo |website=www.avellinomagazine.it|access-date=2020-08-08}}</ref><ref name="mariadinazareth_it" /> This icon was subjected to repeated repainting over the subsequent centuries, so that it is difficult to determine what the original image of Mary's face would have looked like. Guarducci states that in 1950 an ancient image of Mary<ref>{{cite web|url=http://vultus.stblogs.org/icona%20sta%20maria%20%20nuova.jpg|title=STblogs.org|access-date=2009-05-07|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160303180545/http://vultus.stblogs.org/icona%20sta%20maria%20%20nuova.jpg|archive-date=2016-03-03|url-status=dead}}</ref> at the Church of [[Santa Francesca Romana]] was determined to be a very exact, but reverse mirror image of the original circular icon that was made in the 5th century and brought to Rome, where it has remained until the present.<ref>Margherita Guarducci, The Primacy of the Church of Rome, (San Francisco: [[Ignatius Press]], 1991) 93–101.</ref>

[[File:vladimirskaya.jpg|right|thumb|upright|The "[[Theotokos of Vladimir]]" icon (12th century) symbol of [[Russia]]]]

In later tradition the number of icons of Mary attributed to Luke greatly multiplied.<ref>James Hall, ''A History of Ideas and Images in Italian Art'', p. 111, 1983, John Murray, London, {{ISBN|0-7195-3971-4}}</ref> The [[Salus Populi Romani]], the [[Theotokos of Vladimir]], the [[Theotokos Iverskaya]] of [[Mount Athos]], the [[Theotokos of Tikhvin]], the [[Theotokos of Smolensk]] and the [[Black Madonna of Częstochowa]] are examples, and another is in the cathedral on [[St Thomas Mount]], which is believed to be one of the seven painted by [[Luke the Evangelist]] and brought to India by [[Thomas the Apostle]].<ref>Father H. Hosten in his book ''Antiquities'' notes the following "The picture at the mount is one of the oldest, and, therefore, one of the most venerable Christian paintings to be had in India."</ref> [[Ethiopia]] has at least seven more.<ref>{{cite book|last=Cormack|first=Robin|title=Painting the Soul; Icons, Death Masks and Shrouds|page=46|year=1997 | publisher=Reaktion Books, London}}</ref> Bissera V. Pentcheva concludes, "The myth [of Luke painting an icon] was invented in order to support the legitimacy of icon veneration during the [[Iconoclastic controversy]]" (8th and 9th centuries, much later than most art historians put it). According to Reformed Baptist pastor John Carpenter, by claiming the existence of a portrait of the Theotokos painted during her lifetime by the evangelist Luke, the [[iconodule]]s "fabricated evidence for the apostolic origins and divine approval of images."<ref name="auto1"/>

In the period before and during the [[Iconoclastic Controversy]], stories attributing the creation of icons to the New Testament period greatly increased, with [[Acheiropoieta#Conventional images believed to be authentic|several apostles and even Mary herself]] believed to have acted as the artist or commissioner of images (also embroidered in the case of Mary).

===Iconoclast period===
{{main|Byzantine Iconoclasm}}
[[File:Unknow - The Angel with Golden Hair - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right|12th-century icon of [[Archangel Gabriel]] from [[Novgorod]], called ''[[The Angel with Golden Hair]]'', currently exhibited in the [[State Russian Museum]]]]

There was a continuing [[Aniconism in Christianity|opposition to images and their misuse]] within Christianity from very early times. "Whenever images threatened to gain undue influence within the church, theologians have sought to strip them of their power".<ref>Belting, ''Likeness and Presence'', Chicago and London, 1994.</ref>  Further, "there is no century between the fourth and the eighth in which there is not some evidence of opposition to images even within the Church".<ref>Ernst Kitzinger, ''The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm'', Dumbarton Oaks, 1954, quoted by Pelikan, Jaroslav; ''The Spirit of Eastern Christendom'' 600–1700, University of Chicago Press, 1974.</ref> Nonetheless, popular favor for icons guaranteed their continued existence, while no systematic apologia for or against icons, or doctrinal authorization or condemnation of icons yet existed.

The use of icons was seriously challenged by Byzantine Imperial authority in the 8th century. Though by this time opposition to images was strongly entrenched in Judaism and Islam, attribution of the impetus toward an iconoclastic movement in Eastern Orthodoxy to Muslims or Jews "seems to have been highly exaggerated, both by contemporaries and by modern scholars".<ref>Pelikan, ''The Spirit of Eastern Christendom''</ref>

Though significant in the history of religious doctrine, the Byzantine controversy over images is not seen as of primary importance in Byzantine history; "[f]ew historians still hold it to have been the greatest issue of the period".<ref>Patricia Karlin-Hayter, ''Oxford History of Byzantium'', [[Oxford University Press]], 2002.</ref>

The Iconoclastic period began when images were banned by Emperor [[Leo III the Isaurian]] sometime between 726 and 730. Under his son [[Constantine V]], a council forbidding image veneration was held at [[Council of Hieria|Hieria]] near Constantinople in 754. Image veneration was later reinstated by the [[Irene (empress)|Empress Regent Irene]], under whom another council was held reversing the decisions of the previous iconoclast council and taking its title as [[Seventh Ecumenical Council]]. The council anathemized all who hold to iconoclasm, i.e. those who held that veneration of images constitutes idolatry. Then the ban was enforced again by [[Leo V the Armenian|Leo V]] in 815. Finally, icon veneration was decisively restored by [[Theodora (9th century)|Empress Regent Theodora]] in 843 at the [[Council of Constantinople (843)|Council of Constantinople]].

From then on all Byzantine coins had a religious image or symbol on the [[Obverse and reverse|reverse]], usually an image of Christ for larger denominations, with the head of the Emperor on the obverse, reinforcing the bond of the state and the divine order.<ref name="RC"/>