Were Origen And Eusebius Against Icons? - Michael Garten, Alex Sorin

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Now, immediately after this, Eusebius seems to be acknowledging that there's some question about whether that image has been correctly identified. Is it really an image of Christ or was it an image of something else and got repurposed?

[00:00:12]Now, Eusebius says, "You know what? It's not so crazy. It's not so crazy that there would be this image of um you know, of Christ healing this woman, the statue. It's not so crazy that that would exist because you know, we have these images that are copies of icons from the apostolic age that preserve the historical likenesses of Christ and the apostles." Yeah. Uh you're going to like this comment here.

[00:00:35]It says, "Origen famously states that Christians have rejected all images and statues." And like first of all, I wonder I mean when we say that Origen is uh triple heretic, I think people sometimes think I'm using like an ad hominem to wave him away or something. But that's not the point I'm making. Like I'm saying that his wrong theology is going to influence how he sees these things, right? Your theology influences how you see the world. And I wonder how you're going to match him up with people like Eusebius who talks about and Michael pointed this out to me, literally a portraiture succession from Christ and the apostles to preserve what their face looks like. Like they have made copies of copies of copies of the images to make sure that their likeness was preserved.

[00:01:23]I I'm actually I'm happy to talk about that um Yeah, let's get into it. Yeah, I know I want to I want to be respectful of your time as well. So, I know uh you have like what? 20 20 25 minutes? I I hope it'll stretch a little longer than that, but that might be my limit. So, sure. So, real quick here. So, this is actually something I talk about in my chapter um chapter five of early icons called Origen on veneration of altars.

[00:01:47]And so, uh you know, right off there on the first page I I do quote that uh I do include that quote from Contra Celsum from Against Celsus. So, the quote reads, "Those who being taught in the school of Jesus Christ have rejected all images and statues and even all Jewish superstition that they may look upward through the word of God to the one God who is the father of the word."

[00:02:12]All right. So, here's what I write in response to it.

[00:02:15]The word which gets translated as image is and and I think the Greek word is eedramata, but I'm I'm not a a Greek guy. So, forgive me if this is the incorrect incorrect um uh pronunciation, but it's definitely not the word eikon. Okay? So, it's not talking about images in a kind of general way.

[00:02:35]The word which gets translated as image is eedramata. This is better translated shrine or even temple. However, Can we repeat that last line? Did you guys hear that? Yeah. Which makes clear that image that images in general are not in view here. Rather, it is a specific kind of pagan structure for cultic use in the idolatrous worship of false gods. So, Flyer, you have a misquote. This is not an accurate quote. Well, and and it's hard because the the Schaff and Wade translation of the um the early church fathers, it does have this wording. It's just that the translation is, shall we say, a little bit misleading for the purposes of this kind of a conversation. Um so, it would be it would read more like Christians have rejected all all statues and shrines.

[00:03:25]And that really doesn't have the same ring as all statues and images. It really doesn't, you know, kind of land in the same way for the anti-icon side of things. And then the issue is you have to deal with the fact that Origen elsewhere is quite comfortable talking about the importance of being respectful of the imperial icon, the imperial portrait, the portrait of the Roman emperor, which is itself I know I I feel like a broken record saying this. It's kind of a sketchy image. It's not exactly the most clean of idolatry. And yet he says respect it because of the person who's depicted. So, yeah, I I think these attempts to to paint Origen as an iconic number one, they're not very well received by scholars of early Christian art. Number two, they don't tend to hold up to a careful scrutiny about the words themselves. And number three, um there's evidence that Origen accepts something that looks like iconoduly.

[00:04:20]Um so, yeah. Oh, yeah. And I have uh his the quote that you have from his homilies on Joshua from your book uh where he says, "Nevertheless, the great extent to which we are instructed by semblances of figures of this kind must be known because if there are any such persons among us whose faith is characterized only by this that they come to church and bow their head to the priests, exhibit courtesy, honor the servants of God, even bring something for the decoration of the altar or church, yet they exhibit no inclination to improve their habits or correct their impulses, there are those who are like this, let them know they will be assigned a part and lot with the Gibeonites by Lord Jesus." So, saying there are people that they do they venerate the priests, they venerate the clergy, they honor the altar, they honor the people there. This is like and why do you honor the clergy? Because they're representative that priesthood of Christ.

[00:05:12]And and you know, to this we can also add like this idea of um so so the bringing of a decoration for the altar of the church, that's in a list of these various modes of veneration that are done in the church. Now, when Origen is listing this stuff, he's actually talking about what he considers to be like people that just show up and like go through the motions. But the the things he's bringing up are things that he considers pious. He considers them right to do even if the people doing them, they're kind of doing it half-heartedly in like a just external way.

[00:05:43]Now, if you if you think about that list, um you know, it does seem like maybe that those final two examples of modes of veneration, bring something for the decoration of the altar, bring something for the decoration of the church, those may actually be kind of the most intense, you know, it involves giving something of yourself. Um if you're leaving a decoration there, if you're leaving flowers or candle, a votive crown, um whatever it is.

[00:06:11]So, so that's kind of interesting in and of itself.

[00:06:14]There's very clearly a veneration going on there. Elsewhere, Origen does accept a type-prototype connection between the physical Christian altar and Christ ministering in the heavenly places according to the order of Melchizedek.

[00:06:29]He draws this type-prototype connection.

[00:06:32]Lastly, I would point this out. Um churches by Origen's time already had images in them.

[00:06:39]Already had images in them. Dura-Europos being the prime example >> saw the catacombs and we know these are places where they worshipped, where they prayed and they used uh the I forgot the name for the cubicles where they actually put the person's remains, but they would use those as altars because they had relics of holy people inside. There is some evidence >> Jerome tells us this, I think.

[00:07:01]There I I believe there is some evidence that at least in some of the catacombs, there was a there was a use of um yeah, there was like a use of the the surfaces under which people were buried for that that kind of a purpose. I I think it would be called a cline. Is that surface that you would um you know, bury a person on or under?

[00:07:23]Um so, yeah. No. No, it's um I I I think that once you start to accept that churches at this time already would have had iconography, that that comment about bringing something for the decoration of them, it starts to actually look a little bit more Orthodox-coded. Like, well, where are you going to put these decorations? Well, you're probably going to put them in front of some kind of a representation of Christ, not just a blank wall or something like that. If you have an image of Christ in the church, um and then you have some blank space, you're probably going to put those decorations in front of in front of him, whether that's flowers or candles or whatever it is.

[00:08:02]So, um I think that Origen doesn't get us all the way there in terms of he doesn't explicitly say, "Hey, I have icons in my churches. Go kiss them." or something like that. But if you start to kind of consider all these things together, it doesn't really look so good for those that want to take him as purely an iconic. Um and then lastly, I'll I'll just say this too. Like um there's a really good argument to be made that the birthplace of Christian iconography, portrait iconography, is is um or a place where it was at least incubated is Egypt. That it took on a lot of its formal features and a lot of its uh canons developed as an expansion on uh the Egyptian artistic tradition associated with the place called Fayum.

[00:08:50]Um there are strong resemblances between our earliest icons that we have and what are called the Fayum mummy portraits.

[00:08:59]Now, that's Egypt and Origen is in Egypt. And the stylistic features that are carried over from the Fayum mummy portraits into uh Christian iconography and become permanently a part of it, certain ways of depicting the eyes, the use of certain materials to make uh an icon, um the way in which the figure is uh presented facing outwards and so forth, many of these stylistic features that become permanently a part of our iconography, they are most strongly present in those mummy portraits from the first century and the early second. Mm. Interesting.

[00:09:36]>> this is the argument of um uh Thomas Matthews and um I don't remember the first name of the guy, but Moller uh who co-authored the book The Dawn of Early Christian Art in Panel Painting and Iconography.

[00:09:48]They make this point and this is what leads them to conclude that the origins of iconography are actually connected with the origins of Christianity itself.

[00:09:56]That's a a great quote that from them that Craig Truglia brought to my attention. They think that portrait icons in Christianity existed and were venerated in as late as early as far back as the 2nd century, the 100s.

[00:10:12]Um so you know, this is something really important by the way about the scholarship on these matters.

[00:10:18]I know that um you know, the way that for instance Dr. Ortlund presented things in 2023 and and since then you know, it gave the strong impression that there was this consensus of scholars that icon veneration in Christianity didn't exist until the 6th or 7th century. Um but I think that >> Which is crazy to be honest. [laughter] That's like a really late really late date. So so um I I I think if one looks at you know, scholars of early Christian material culture and art, you see something different from the scholars of um Byzantine iconoclasm.

[00:10:55]>> That that Dr. Ortlund chose to focus on.

[00:10:57]Um those scholars of Byzantine iconoclasm that are part of this older generation of scholarship, their specialization is in that time period and the claims that they make about that time period are more likely to track accurately with the state of the question. When they venture into making comments on the first three centuries, first four centuries, they're not they're a little it's a little bit like asking it's a little bit like asking like a surgeon to like comment on like the health of a horse or something like that. It's like like you kind of have some ability to to say stuff, but like you're out of your wheelhouse a little bit. Yeah. Um so anyway, so hopefully that was helpful.

[00:11:36]Bringing it back in. Um if if the origins of iconography in Christianity are connected to Egypt, I think it's it's a little awkward to try and say the origin was an aniconist on top of all the other reasons I gave. So Uh I guess let's get to some of the more problematic problematic quotes. Um real quick, we have Didn't Eusebius say that they ought not to have recorded it in that manner and scolded them for it? I could be wrong. I haven't read Eusebius in a while. I'm very glad you asked this question because he did not do that. He did not say that.

[00:12:14]So so yeah, so this is a very interesting this is a very interesting topic. There's a lot of controversy about this.

[00:12:20]Um you will often hear Eusebius described as extremely iconophobic, extremely opposed to any you know, representations of Christ and the saints and definitely opposed to their veneration.

[00:12:32]Now, here's here's the issue. Um basically there are a number of of works by Eusebius that talk about images. Some of them are undisputed such as his I think it's called the preparation for the gospel and his church history. These are undisputedly works of Eusebius himself.

[00:12:49]There's another work that is called the letter to Constantia and this is a disputed text that may or may not have been written by Eusebius.

[00:12:57]Now, this disputed text has no physical traces and no quotations in other sources prior to the iconoclast controversy.

[00:13:08]Um Uh so it's not something that we have evidence of it being quoted prior to the time that this started to become a really big issue in the church.

[00:13:20]Now, in that letter to Constantia, Eusebius does chide and attack uh those who make images and he compares the making of images of Christ and the saints to idolatry and he gives theological reasons for why one ought not to make such images and insists that they should not be venerated and he makes some interesting historical statements. He says, "Who has ever heard of anyone making an image of this kind?"

[00:13:48]And I can bring up the exact Eusebius quote uh if it is so desired, but that's the gist of it. Now, this is very interesting because this is a a work that is disputed in in scholarship.

[00:14:01]This is not considered to be an utterly uncontroversial uh work. It is it is not unanimously unanimously accepted as authentic and for good reason.

[00:14:12]Um now, let's consider on the other hand uncontested works by Eusebius such as his church history, which is literally like what he's famous for.

[00:14:22]And his [snorts] work that I think is called the preparation of the gospel.

[00:14:26]In the ecclesiastical history, there it is.

[00:14:30]In the church history, um Eusebius talks about the existence of two images, two rather two categories yeah.

[00:14:39]>> Which he alleges to be of the apostolic age, which he alleges to be from apostolic times. One of those is a statue at Paneas that represents um a man in a cloak with his hand outstretched and a woman reaching out towards that cloak.

[00:14:59]This statue Eusebius says is regarded by Christians of the area as being a representation of Christ healing the woman with the issue of blood from the gospels.

[00:15:13]Now, so Eusebius talks about this and he also says that it was it is alleged to have been made by her. So it was made by that woman. Somehow she commissioned the making of this image.

[00:15:25]Now, immediately after this Eusebius seems to be acknowledging that there's some question about whether that image has been correctly identified. Is it really an image of Christ or was it an image of something else and got repurposed?

[00:15:38]Now, Eusebius says, "You know what? It's not so crazy. It's not so crazy that there would be this image of you know, of Christ healing this woman, the statue. It's not so crazy that it exist because you know, we have these images that are copies of icons from the apostolic age that preserve the historical likenesses of Christ and the apostles.

[00:15:58]Um this is a Gentile custom. This is a common way that Gentiles honor their savior figures. Um and here Eusebius has in mind not images of gods, but he's thinking specifically of images of like emperors, military generals, philosophers, >> Philosophers, yeah.

[00:16:15]>> heroes, ancestors.

[00:16:18]Um So this is this is uh what Eusebius has in mind when he speaks about this category of image and he's using this as an example to support the claim that hey, it's not so crazy to think that there's this statue from the apostolic age as well.

[00:16:38]So >> [clears throat] >> um that's in his ecclesiastical history.

[00:16:43]And if you try and set that alongside the letter to Constantia which says, "Who's ever even heard of someone making an icon of Christ or the apostles?"

[00:16:53]That is a very very awkward fit. That really at face value it's difficult to see how this makes sense.

[00:17:00]Now, in his uh >> That's because it seems to be a contradiction on its face. Here he's saying we have portraits that go back to the apostolic age and apparently here he just he got amnesia or something. Yeah.

[00:17:14]And in his I'll just mention this really briefly and then unfortunately I I do have to get going a second here Alex, but but in the in his preparation of the gospel, Eusebius attests to the existence of uh an image at Mamre at the oak of Mamre which really sounds very similar to our icon of the hospitality of Abraham where there's a symbolization of the Holy Trinity by means of depicting Christ in angelic form and the two angels that accompanied him.

[00:17:49]Uh Eusebius in his preparation of the gospel, he attests to the existence of this image at the oak.

[00:17:56]Um and he speaks of the greater honor of the figure in the center that's between the two angels. So um you don't get any sense there of Eusebius disapproving of this image and in fact, if anything he seems to be trying to draw something out theologically from it.

[00:18:12]Now, going back to church history, that image at Paneas, Eusebius regards that statue which is you know, apparently of Christ and the woman with the issue of blood, he talks about how there's a plant that grows up and touches near the or grows near the the cloak where the woman touched Christ's cloak. There's a plant that grows there that confers healing on the person that takes it.

[00:18:38]Now, this is if not an example of a wonder working image, I don't know what is. Like this seems to be basically a an image that imparts healing to the one that approaches it in a certain manner.

[00:18:50]Um and the scholar of early Christian art Robin Jensen, she acknowledges the existence of these two categories of images, that they were present in the 200s AD, that they were venerated. And she talks about how yeah, it really does seem like when Eusebius describes this statue at Paneas, there's a kind of convergence between the biblical story and what happened with Christ and the healing and the image. It's like the the story is being continued in the image.

[00:19:17]That's basically what we mean by holy images. That's basically what we mean by icons, that there's a participation between the material reality and what is depicted and that some of the power of what what what is depicted flows into the world through the depiction.

[00:19:34]So so anyway, so that's you know, a reason for thinking that the image was venerated also.

[00:19:41]Uh because if an image works wonders, then if it confers healing, then as the as the scholar Richard Price who who authored the translation of the acts of 2nd Nicaea that is most commonly in use.

[00:19:54]It's a scholar that, you know, Dr. Orland I know loves to quote. Richard Price acknowledges that evidence that an image worked wonders is evidence that it was venerated.

[00:20:03]>> [laughter] >> That's a pretty good point.

[00:20:05]>> Well, it is. It is. It's a It's a great point. It makes complete sense. It's one of those like It's kind of like duh moment, but like you you wouldn't I think intuitively think of that as a modern person, but like once you hear it you're like, oh well, yeah, of course.

[00:20:18]Yeah. Yeah.

[00:20:20]So so that's um those are reasons for thinking that veneration was occurring, but then I would also just add in um and this is something I'll be talking about a lot in early icons volume two because it's more focused on portraits and crucifixes.

[00:20:33]That that statue at Paneas um Eusebius uses a specific word for uh remembering it. And this word that he uses for remembering it is is the same word that he uses for talking about uh honoring the tombs of the martyrs in his book Martyrs of Palestine.

[00:20:51]So it does seem to be specifically connected to uh to honor. Um it's something that is to be It's something that is to be shown honor towards. It's It's to be venerated.

[00:21:02]Lastly, I will point out that he describes this image at Paneas as a trophy, a tropaeum.

[00:21:09]The word trophy in the Roman context very specifically denotes an honorable image type. A trophy is uh it's composed from, you know, the remnants of a battle.

[00:21:20]Um you set them up on a a pole, basically kind of like a cross-shaped pole. Early Christians had a lot to say about this. You set it up on a cross-shaped pole as a kind of representation of your triumph, and then you and your army show honor to this depiction.

[00:21:35]Well, to call something a trophy is to automatically pick it out as kind of in that category of venerated types of images.

[00:21:43]And the portraits that Eusebius talks about uh right afterwards in order to kind of uh you know, bolster the sense that it's credible that this image at Paneas could have been from the apostolic age.

[00:21:55]The portraits that he talks about, you know, they're they're part of a known a widely known It's It's not a mystery what type of art this is.

[00:22:05]Greco-Roman portraiture was existed for the purposes of memory and veneration.

[00:22:12]And then for Eusebius to specifically talk about how the making of these portraits was a gentile custom that gets brought into the church.

[00:22:20]This just automatically implies these were honored images. That's what they're made for. You can't say that, oh, they had them, that doesn't mean that they honored them. It's No, they have them because they honor them. It's It's the exact opposite of what they're saying.

[00:22:36]Um Yeah, sorry, go ahead. And I'll say one last thing and then I should probably jet. Th- This is I think part of the issue with one of Paul's points, which is that he can imagine having certain images in his church and not venerating them. He can imagine.

[00:22:52]He can.

[00:22:53]>> [laughter] >> But the real question is, right? The real question is >> Can these early Christians imagine, right? Given the Greco-Roman cultural context, given the prehistory of these types of images like portraits or trophies, signet ring seals, images on cups, given the prehistory of these images in their cultural context in the Greco-Roman world, um would that have been what was implied by Christians making them? Would it have been implied that like they could just be decorative? No, instead what's what's really suggested is by incorporating these images they were deliberately selecting to make images that were of the honorable types.

[00:23:31]Types of images that would be shown veneration.

[00:23:34]And [snorts] so an example you can can use as like consider if you were doing, you know, a dig in Egypt and you came up came across this little statuette and you're like, oh, this is a statuette of such and such Egyptian god.

[00:23:47]Would you sit there and would you go, oh man, I Doesn't mean they venerated it. I mean >> [laughter] >> I wonder if this was worshipped or maybe this was just >> Maybe this was just used to, you know, stir like the cooking pot or whatever.

[00:24:00][laughter] Maybe this Maybe this image was just used to, you know, hang dirty towels or something.

[00:24:05]Hold on a second. Like if the image is of a known type and it's clearly an idol, you can automatically infer from the type of image it is that worship was given to it. Now, take that same thing over to portraits in early Christianity.

[00:24:21]Um the very existence of them implies veneration was done because the same thing is true here.

[00:24:27]Um these are of a known recognizable image type.

[00:24:31]It was clearly defined. There were gestures that were definitely done towards them in the Roman context, and Christians knew what they were doing by incorporating this kind of image into their repertoire of of images they had.

[00:24:43]Um So anyways, hopefully that's helpful.

[00:24:45]That that point is what I mean when I speak of intrinsically honorable images.

[00:24:50]It's there's certain kinds of images that in a cultural context um they're kind of defined as being for the purpose existing partially for the purpose of veneration. And once you find evidence of those in early Christianity, it's like well, if you can find evidence that additional evidence that gestures were done, that's awesome, but you kind of already have the evidence in the very fact that those images were there in the early church. Um yeah, anyways. With that, I would like your reaction to one more thing here. There's cuz we have a super chat. Like it's five bucks. Thank you very much. He says the evidence and verses are all well and good. But when Paul had no issue with stepping on an icon of Christ or using a Bible as TP, it was over.

[00:25:33]What do you think about that? My whole point of like doing that ad absurdum uh argument or like taking them down that line was to show that like to the viewers, look, we are all iconodules. We all know this deep down. You just have to find it.

[00:25:47]I I think there's some extreme cases where in our even our history icons have been used have been returned to a you know, a no longer having a representation of the face on it and then being used for more practical purposes. Right. But you would have to remove the face first, and those are like in the most extreme situations imaginable maybe.

[00:26:10]Um doing such a thing deliberately or being asked to do such a thing is another story. And I think that Paul's reticence to um to make these logical connections, I think that it's I think that it is something that people who are on the other side of the fence from Orthodoxy, I think they need to think about this. This is really important. Are we you know, are we really being honest with ourselves uh in uh not taking that leap in acknowledging these type-prototype connections and that you know, veneration is a real is a real thing. Um So So yeah, that that's where I'd leave it at. This is book seven, section 18 of church history.

[00:26:50]This uh Paul Maier translation I think is quite good. This is very good. Very readable. It's more of like a thought for thought, but it's an accurate thought for thought.

[00:27:01]Since I have mentioned this city, I should not omit a story that should be recorded also for those who follow us.

[00:27:07]The woman with a hemorrhage who was cured by our savior, as we learn from the holy gospels, came from here, they claim. Her house was pointed out in the city, and amazing memorials of the savior's benefit to her were still there.

[00:27:19]On a high stone or base at the gates of her home stood a bronze statue of a woman on bent knee stretching out her hands like a supplicant.

[00:27:28]Opposite to this was another of the same material, a standing figure of a man clothed in handsome double cloak and reaching his hand out to the woman.

[00:27:37]Near his feet on the monument grew an exotic herb that climbed up the hem of the the bronze double cloak and served as an antidote for diseases of every kind.

[00:27:47]Hello, Ortho Chad.

[00:27:52]This statue, they said, What are you doing?

[00:27:58]>> [snorts] >> Sorry, guys.

[00:28:00]This statue, they said, resembled the features of Jesus and was still extant in my own time. I saw it with my own eyes when I stayed in the city.

[00:28:11]It is not surprising that those Gentiles who long ago were benefited by our savior should have made these things, since I have examined likenesses of his apostles also, Peter and Paul, and in fact of Christ, preserved in color portrait paintings.

[00:28:29]And this is to be expected, since ancient Gentiles customarily honored them as saviors in this unreserved fashion. Now, the counterargument usually is like, look, he says this is a pagan practice.

[00:28:40]No, he doesn't. He says it's a gentile practice. Gentile just means the nations.

[00:28:46]It's a practice of the It doesn't mean it's bad.

[00:28:48]It just says it's done by people that were not Jews.