Letter 499: Theodore Studite, Letter 499; Greek heading: Νικήτᾳ μονάζοντι.

We have read the book sent to us by Your Holiness through the most God-beloved metropolitan; and the man who composed it is not orthodox in his thinking concerning the doctrine of the venerable icons [eikon = sacred image]. For he says the following: "We for our part lay it down that God's ineffable and incomprehensible love for mankind, together with the holy contests of the saints, is to be celebrated in sacred writings, taking pleasure in no molded image or painting whatsoever where we ourselves are concerned; but we concede to the simpler folk, since they are more imperfect, that, owing to their innate guidance and by the sight proportionate to them, they may learn such things in the manner of an introduction." What, then, is to be said about these statements? First, that he produces a division within our one and complete faith, which admits not the least addition or subtraction, assigning to himself the formulation that comes through the sacred writings, while consigning to those who are supposedly simpler and more imperfect the depiction that is in molded image and painting; and next, that he would attach to himself the perfection of grace, but cast upon the others the Jewish infancy [the immaturity of those still under the Law], as needing an innate elevation. Therefore, according to him, the holy Apostle speaks falsely when he says: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male and female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus" [Galatians 3:28]. But if he speaks truly, as indeed he has spoken truly, and there is "one Lord, one faith, one baptism" [Ephesians 4:5], what is this novel division into two unequal portions? That "the holy nation, the royal priesthood" [1 Peter 2:9] should be split apart, and that the one part should belong to the more complete share and the other to the more inferior. Next, since every right-minded person aspires to perfection, he will regard imperfection as a thing of reproach, and from this it follows of necessity that the doctrine of pictorial representation is something superfluous. But above all he sets himself against Basil the Great as well, by not regarding as equivalent the things laid down by him as doctrine on equal terms; for, as he says, "the things which the account of the history sets before us through hearing, these the painting silently shows through imitation." The fine fellow [said with irony] therefore sets himself in opposition to the sacred oracles, just as also to the foremost father, and, while supposing that he is correcting another upon this very doctrine, he himself is caught incurring vain reproach. And for this reason we for our part wholly strike out such babblings, and we also remind Your Diligence to walk by the same rule of orthodoxy, knowing that, just as every perfect person, even though he be enrolled in apostolic rank, has need of the gospel tablet [the written record of the Gospels], so also of the pictorial representation that corresponds to it, because both are of equal honor and veneration [proskynesis = the bowing reverence offered to holy images, distinct from the worship due to God alone].