Become a Good Painter: Symbols and Art in Ante-Nicaean Theology

I've found at this art history blog on icons (here) that distinguishes between art (or maybe symbols) and icons. He has a few posts on the history of iconography in Christianity. In short, he distinguishes between images/art which was symbolic and episodic, engaging the mind in teaching and icons, with subsequent veneration. The former had roots in Greco-Roman culture, utilizing symbolic tropes for the purposes of conveying biblical stories. Thus the church and synagogue in Duros Europos had various art pieces depicting scenes of David, Moses, and Christ. Even Clement of Alexandria is quoted in saying Christians who use wax-seals should adopt images that connect to Christian themes (e.g. fish, boats, etc.), forbidding use of pagan themes or vanities. Icons, however, involved veneration and linkage, and were condemned as pagan ("gentile") rites. Of course condemnation meant that there were people who practiced these things. Irenaeus mentions that the Carpocratians utilized these "gentile" practices, and Alexander Severus (who was reputed to be favorable to Christians) had a portrait of Jesus, set aside portraits to Abraham, Orpheus, and Appollonius of Tyre. It was not until the seventh century when icons (in contrast to symbolic or episodic images/art) began to have apologists.

But what's most interesting is how, from a very early period, there was a clear-cut discomfort with the practice of icons. The following is from the Acts of John, an apocryphal collection of narratives about the St. John the Elder from the middle of the second century. It's worth consideration, especially when engaged with Orthodox apologetics for their theology of icons:

There came together therefore a gathering of a great multitude on John’s account; and as he discoursed to them that were there, Lycomedes, who had a friend who was a skillful painter, went hastily to him and said to him: You see me in a great hurry to come to you: come quickly to my house and paint the man whom I show you without his knowing it. And the painter, giving some one the necessary implements and colors, said to Lycomedes: Show him to me, and for the rest have no anxiety. And Lycomedes pointed out John to the painter, and brought him near him, and shut him up in a room from which the apostle of Christ could be seen. And Lycomedes was with the blessed man, feasting on the faith and the knowledge of our God, and rejoiced yet more in the thought that he should possess him in a portrait. 

And he took it and set it up in his own bedchamber and hung it with garlands: so that later John, when he perceived it, said to him: My beloved child, what is it that you always do when you come in from the bath into your bedchamber alone? do not I pray with you and the rest of the brethren? or is there something you are hiding from us? And as he said this and talked jestingly with him, he 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 your gods that is painted here? for I see that you are still living in heathen fashion. And Lycomedes answered him: My only God is he who raised me up from death with my wife: but if, next to that God, it be right that the men who have benefited us should be called gods -it is you, father, whom I have had painted in that portrait, whom I crown and love and reverence as having become my good guide. 

And John who had never at any time seen his own face said to him: You mock me, child: am I like that in form, [excelling] your Lord? how can you persuade me that the portrait is like me? And Lycomedes brought him a mirror. And when he had seen himself in the mirror and looked earnestly at the portrait, he said: As the Lord Jesus Christ lives, the portrait is like me: yet not like me, child, but like my fleshly image; for if this painter, who has imitated this my face, desires to draw me in a portrait, he will be at a loss, [needing more than] the colors that are now given to you, and boards and plaster (?) and glue (?), and the position of my shape, and old age and youth and all things that are seen with the eye. 

But do you become for me a good painter, Lycomedes. You have colors which he gives you through me, who paints all of us for himself, even Jesus, who knows the shapes and appearances and postures and dispositions and types of our souls. And the colors wherewith I bid you paint are these: faith in God, knowledge, godly fear, friendship, communion, meekness, kindness, brotherly love, purity, simplicity, tranquillity, fearlessness, grieflessness, sobriety, and the whole band of colors that paint the likeness of your soul, and even now raise up your members that were cast down, and levels them that were lifted up, and tends your bruises, and heals your wounds, and orders your hair that was disarranged, and washes your face, and chastens your eyes, and purges your bowels, and empties your belly, and cuts off that which is beneath it*; and in a word, when the whole company and mingling of such colors is come together, into your soul, it shall present it to our Lord Jesus Christ undaunted, whole (unsmoothed), and firm of shape. But this that you have now done is childish and imperfect: you have drawn a dead likeness of the dead.

This passage is quite clear that the living image of the human person has much more to commend than the dead image of a painting. Now, it's important to note what this painting is and is not. It is not a symbolic image, conveying a textual/word-based meaning through color and shape. Rather, it's very much in the vein of votive offering. St. John isn't even dead, but the portrait is commissioned to honor the revered apostle. But, as John makes clear, the best way to honor John as a father in the faith is to follow him in a life of devotion. A life of godliness is so powerful that it will physically transform you from the inside-out. Thus, contrary to the theology of many unreformed churches, devotion to art or icon is "childish" and a false substitute to live piety. A living image honors God far more than a dead one (no matter how many glittery gems or gold leaf is used).

Now, as the above summaries of various early Christians show, Christianity isn't radically averse to art. It simply depends what that art does. If the art is part of kerygmatic proclamation, if it directs the "hearer" to "saving knowledge of the truth", then it is valid. Clement sees the image on the signet ring as a way to reassure the user of his faith. Every time he sees the symbol, he knows where he stands. Similarly, early synagogues and churches used decorative images that would direct the mind through the central event of reading/teaching God's word. Tombs were decorated with art, showing passerbys the sleeper's faith in Christ and the resurrection. If such is the case, then Christians using art find common faith with the first centuries of the church. Prohibiting such arts is perhaps necessary for pastoral economy (meaning, if people are misusing the art, then it is better to take it away). But blanket prohibitions, based on superficial readings of the second commandment and a kind of rationalist aesthetic, is superstitious or worse. Similarly, devotion to art as a substitute for piety courts idolatry and infantile faith. The living colors of virtue degenerates into chipped paint and murky rocks. Rather, visual representation of God's symbols is only an aid to "hear, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest".

The better position, concurrent through all the ages of the church, is nicely summarized in the following from Luther:

"I have myself heard those who oppose pictures, read from my German Bible. . . . But this contains many pictures of God, of the angels, of men, and of animals, especially in the Revelation of St. John, in the books of Moses, and in the book of Joshua. We therefore kindly beg these fanatics to permit us also to paint these pictures on the wall that they may be remembered and better understood, inasmuch as they can harm as little on the walls as in books. Would to God that I could persuade those who can afford it to paint the whole Bible on their houses, inside and outside, so that all might see ; this would indeed be a Christian work. For I am convinced that it is God's will that we should hear and learn what He has done, especially what Christ suffered. But when I hear these things and meditate upon them, I find it impossible not to picture them in my heart. Whether I want to or not, when I hear of Christ, a human form hanging upon a cross rises up in my heart: just as I see my natural face reflected when I look into water. Now if it is not sinful for me to have Christ's picture in my heart, why should it be sinful to have it before my eyes"

*This text is clearly anti-gnostic, as its John connects virtues in the soul to the effects one sees in the flesh. The point is not that the soul is important, forget about the body, but only the soul can shine forth through our flesh.