Letter 409: Theodore Studite, Letter 409; Greek heading: Ναυκρατίῳ τέκνῳ.

Since I have learned from the letter-carrier, O good brother, that quarrels have sprung up among you (I mean this: that one says, "I venerate the icon [eikon, image] of Christ as Christ himself," while the other denies it), I neither received it without grief, knowing that these wranglings, sown in by the devil, are wont to cut even the very healthy part of orthodoxy, which is a thing that gives joy to our adversaries, who establish their own impiety as sound from our infirmities; nor again did I think it good to keep what I had heard in silence, but rather to find from myself also some medicine of healing, God being well pleased. The matter, then, stands thus. The word "as" is in one place taken in the sense of likeness by the God-inspired Scripture, and in another in the sense of confirmation. The first: "I became as a sparrow dwelling alone upon a housetop," and "I am as a fruitful olive tree." The second: "As good is the God of Israel," and "As beloved are thy dwellings, O Lord of hosts"; for here the word is not according to likeness but according to confirmation. If, then, someone should say in this way that he venerates the icon of Christ as Christ himself, he is sound in his thinking; but if confirmatively, by no means; for the icon and the archetype are not the same in nature, but they are the same in likeness. For though both are identified in being, they differ altogether [in substance], on the matter of artificial icons, I mean. How, then, will he venerate the icon as Christ himself confirmatively, since Christ is not in it naturally but relatively, that is, by way of likeness? What is said is false to the truth, and otherwise as well. In the icon the archetype is made manifest, and in the icon Christ is venerated. To say, then, "in the icon" is to declare one thing in another, and one thing is venerated through another. Chrysostom [John Chrysostom] saw an angel in an icon, but Cornelius [the centurion of Acts 10] saw the angel himself; we behold Christ in an icon, but the apostles beheld Christ himself, "for we have seen the Lord," it says. We venerate him in his proper icon, but they venerated that very one himself, "and seeing him," it says, "they worshipped." By way of likeness, then, whether relatively or homonymously, Christ is venerated in the icon (for both run together into the same), and not by direct sight. And so apart from an icon also he is venerated intellectually; for he could not at all times altogether be beheld in a perceptible icon. But if someone should say, "Therefore, since it is possible for me to venerate intellectually, what is in the icon is superfluous," let such a one know that he has also denied venerating Christ intellectually; for unless the mind should mirror him as seated, in the likeness of a man, at the right hand of God and the Father, it will not offer the veneration, unless indeed it does away with the Word having become flesh. And that he has been made like to a man, his faithful icon is witness; and by its reception and veneration Christ is received and venerated, just as conversely in the case of its rejection. Abgar [Augaros, the king of Edessa], having received the faith, venerated Christ intellectually, but he venerated him still more manifestly in the not-made-by-hands icon [acheiropoietos, an image not made by human hands] sent to him by Christ himself. So that in it Christ has been venerated both by way of likeness and at the same time intellectually, now indeed in this manner, but in the age to come by direct sight, when we shall be fulfilled, with regard to his visible theophany, as the all-wise Dionysius [Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite] says, in all-pure contemplations, as it shines round about us with most radiant flashes, as it did the disciples in that most divine Transfiguration; and when we partake of his intelligible bestowal of light in the impassible and immaterial mind. These things, whether deficiently or sufficiently, are from us. And I exhort you, in the discussions concerning God, to make your inquiries both reverently and attentively at the same time, and to find out the truth either from yourselves or also from others, putting far away the wrangling; nor yet, moreover, if anything has been mistaken in what has been said, [I exhort you] that it should obtain correction, since I am one of small account and a sinner.