213. Adoration of an image of Christ
213. ADORATION OF AN IMAGE OF CHRIST
When we turn to a crucifix and bow and pray, we not only use it to remind us of Christ, but we direct our adoration for Christ to it, even though we know it is only made of wood. We adore only Christ, but we honor images of Him with not just human honor, as we would honor a picture of the President, but with divine honor, i.e., with adoration. Is it idolatry to “adore the image” in this sense?
Damascene quotes Basil as saying: The honor given to an image reaches to the prototype, i.e., the exemplar. But the exemplar itself, namely Christ, is to be adored . . . therefore also His image.
As the Philosopher says, there is a twofold movement of the mind towards an image: one indeed towards the image itself as a certain thing; another towards the image in so far as it is the image of something else . . . the latter movement, which is towards the image as an image, is one and the same as that which is towards the thing. . . .
As Damascene observes, It is the highest absurdity and impiety to fashion a figure of what is divine. But because in the New Testament God was made man, He can be adored in His corporeal image (III,25,3).
Protestants who protest the adoration of images usually misunderstand what an image is or does. An image is more than just a picture which functions as a nonverbal label for the real thing, like a bar code in a store. Nor is it merely a memory prod, for words can also prod the memory, but no one adores words. It is an image of a real person. Even a Protestant, if he is a romantic lover, will kiss a photo of his beloved. He is not kissing photo ink on paper, he is kissing his beloved.
When we see an image, we experience two acts of the mind, as even “the Philosopher” (Aristotle) noted. (1) We look at the image, (2) but we also, and primarily, look along it, as we look along a sign. Let’s say it is an image of Socrates. (1) When we look at the image, we say “It is wood.” We do not seek philosophical wisdom from wood. (2) But when we look along it, we say “It is Socrates”, and we seek philosophical wisdom from him. And insofar as the image directs our thoughts to Socrates, we seek philosophical wisdom from the image. Not that we expect wood to talk, of course, but we expect it to direct our attention to Socrates, who did talk, and very wisely. But the Christ we adore via images not only talked but continues to talk to His people through His Spirit.
This natural, secular principle thus applies all the more to supernatural, religious images. When we adore a crucifix, we do not adore the wood, but the Person. For this Person is human as well as divine. He has a body made of atoms, like ours. He bled to death for us, literally. Therefore we can direct our worship not merely to the divine and invisible Person but also to His incarnate human nature. We adore the Body and the Blood because it is the Body and Blood of God.
Jews and Muslims are forbidden to make images of God, and rightly so, since they do not believe in the Incarnation. But ever since the Incarnation, God has become visible to us in human flesh. “God is spirit” (Jn 4:24). But God is also flesh (John 1:14). Thus what is not permitted for a Jew or a Muslim is permitted for a Christian: to have literal, physical images of God. God in fact had (and still has!) a human body and soul. The soul is seen in and through the body, as happiness is seen in a smile, and in the eyes, “the windows of the soul”. God has a corporeal shape—it is a human shape, made of flesh and bones, it is male and young and Jewish—and therefore it can be imaged, as the Father cannot, in another corporeal matter (e.g., wood).
If this is not true, the heart and essence of Christianity is a lie: this literal, physical, corporeal man is not God. Thus the issue of “iconoclasm”, the issue whether images are to be abolished or used, is central, not peripheral, to Christianity.