Ad Imaginem Dei: Coronavirus disruptions

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Coronavirus disruptions

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Saint Thecla Praying
for the Plague-Stricken
talian, c. 1758-1759
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art

At this uncertain time all of us on this planet are threatened by a new and insidious microbe, the COVID-19 virus. Here in New York City, almost everything is closed and those of us who have underlying medical conditions are staying home as much as possible. Some others are blithely ignoring all the warnings and pleas of health officials to stay off the streets while the death toll climbs higher day by day. It is an edgy time here and elsewhere in the world.

So long as I am able to keep from getting infected I will continue to update the right margin of the page with links to earlier articles and to continue to research and write additional things. But there will be tradeoffs. I was unable to complete an article about the iconography of Moses because of the shut down of the libraries, making it impossible to consult one of the most important books about his iconography, which is only available in full as a hard copy (and expensive) book. So, that will have to wait till the libraries are open again.

Those of us who are people of faith must support each other and the world with our prayers. We ask for good health for ourselves and our friends, of course, and for a speedy end to the epidemic. We ask also for God's loving presence to touch the ill and the dying, in their terrible isolation. We ask for the comfort of the Holy Spirit to those who are living in self-imposed isolation, especially for those who are fearful or lonely, and consolation to those who mourn. And we ask for human solidarity, which sadly we have not seen too much of up to now, though things are beginning to look a bit better. We ask for God's protection for the millions who are living in terrible conditions and in the midst of continuing wars. With resources already stretched so thin, even in prosperous countries, they have no real friend but him.

Lord, look kindly on your suffering people. Amen.

© M. Duffy, 2020

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Uniquely among the monotheistic religions Christianity permits the use of images of God. Why? The answer lies in the Christian belief in the reality of the Incarnation. Since God has assumed human nature and form the Biblical prohibition against making images of God ceases to apply. As the second Council of Nicea declared in 787 "Following the divinely inspired teaching of our holy Fathers and the tradition of the Catholic Church (for we know that this tradition comes from the Holy Spirit who dwells in her) we rightly define with full certainty and correctness that, like the figure of the precious and life-giving cross, venerable and holy images of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, our inviolate Lady, the holy Mother of God, and the venerated angels, all the saints and the just, whether painted or made of mosaic or another suitable material, are to be exhibited in the holy churches of God, on sacred vessels and vestments, walls and panels, in houses and on streets."
(Council of Nicaea II: DS 600)

This decree of Nicea II was promulgated for the entire church, both Greek and Latin speaking, and was a response to the strongly held beliefs of the iconoclasts, who wished to suppress the use of images, which had convulsed the Byzantine Empire and the eastern churches for almost 100 years. In addition, St. John Damascene, last of the Greek Fathers and a staunch defender of images, had written in De imagine ("In Defense of Images") "Of old, God the incorporeal and uncircumscribed was never depicted. Now, however, when God is seen clothed in flesh, and conversing with men, (Bar. 3.38) I make an image of the God whom I see. I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, who worked out my salvation through matter." (St. John Damascene, De Imagine, Part I, 15-16, from Internet Medieival Sourcebook.)

The ways in which this imaging of the divine has been accomplished in the course of time is the subject of Christian iconography. To quote from the Merriam-Webster dictionary, iconography is "1: pictorial material relating to or illustrating a subject; 2: the traditional or conventional images or symbols associated with a subject and especially a religious or legendary subject; 3: the imagery or symbolism of a work of art, an artist, or a body of art".

The iconography of any subject develops and changes over time. Christian iconography develops and changes too, as reflection on the Gospels and Tradition develops over time and as the act of making art develops and changes as well. This is the background for this blog.

Ad Imaginem Dei

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Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Coronavirus disruptions

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Central Park Sunset

Oscar Wild 1997(?)-2014