Sometimes, a ring appears where I look for something else. This happened when I analyzed the 3rd treatise of St. John of Damascus on the defense of the veneration of icons. Technically, I just wanted to consult the treatise because St. John gives a nice enumeration of images that God sent into the world. But upon reading the whole treatise I recognized that he wrote not only about images but about the veneration of images as well.
And as St. John enumerated the different kinds of images 1-6, he also enumerated the different kinds of veneration of the image 1-6 (ok, really 7, but why bother about one more or less?).
When looking into the parellels 1-6 of the different kinds of images and veneration – up came a ring with a central loading explaining why the veneration of images is actually good and proper and why the Orthodox churches should proceed in image making.
This time, I did not bother to draw a ring – the images are not very good reading, anyway, but I made a table showing the parallel and chiastic readings in St. John’s treatise:
| 18 Different kinds of images: 1st kind: natural images, the son of the Father, spirit of the son. | 38 6th kind of veneration: towards those in positions of rule and authority, 39 7th kind: slaves to their masters. |
| 19 2nd kind of images: prefigured in God, | 37 5th kind of veneration: each other as images of God |
| 20 3rd kind of image: brought about by God through imitation: mankind | 36 4th kind of veneration: images seen by the prophets, images of things to come, Aaron’s rod, the table, |
| 21 4th kind of image: scripture and nature as heavenly revelations | 35 3rd kind of veneration: things dedicated to God, e.g. Gospel |
| 22 5th kind of image: Old Testament becomes true in New Testament, the burning bush and the Mother of God | 34 2nd kind of veneration: creatures through whom God worked out salvation, Mount Sinai, Nazareth, manger 33 Objects of veneration |
| 23 6th kind of images: memorial signs like the Tablets of the Law | 28 how many kinds of veneration are there? 1st kind of veneration: worship 29 2nd kind of worship: wonder and desire 30 3rd kind of worship: thanksgiving for the good things 31 4th kind of worship: neediness and hope in his kindness 32 5th kind of worship: repentance and confession |
| 24 Bodies can reasonably be depicted 25 incorporeal creatures can be depicted, e.g. God through Scripture | 27 What is veneration? – Submission |
| 26 God himself made first images, in his son, in Adam – Central Loading | |
The numbers in the table refer to the numbers of paragraphs within the treatise.
The table shows an overall arch or ring of Heilsgeschichte literature used for the composition of the treatise. It begins with quotations of the Old Testament and the beginning of image-making during the flight of the Israelites from Egypt: God gave Moses the Ten Commandments and ordered to make an ark for them, embellished with the images of angels.
The last part of the text contains the so-called Florilegium with quotations from the Church Fathers on icons, their making and their veneration, including St. Basil the Great’s famous „the veneration of the image goes over to the archetype“. in this way, the literature quoted goes from the Old Covenant over the New Covenant to the Church fathers and the time of the author, giving a stringent history of image-making from the beginning until the historical present.
The central part of the treatise is what I have shown within the table: six kinds of veneration are juxtaposed with six kinds of images, the contents of the images or their veneration either crosswise or parallel. See e.g. 4th kind of images: scripture and nature as heavenly revelations, and the 3rd kind of veneration of images: venerated are things dedicated to God, e.g. the Gospel. Both numbers contain Scripture.
Though the table is a bit difficult to read, as the numbers go from 1-6 leading towards the central loading and again from 1-6 when going from the central loading towards the end of the text, the parallels and crosswise readings are obvious. One just has to ignore that the kinds of veneration should be read not 1-6 but 6-1.
The central loading gives the central Christian argument for the existence, making, and veneration of images: as God himself made the first images, Adam as his image, and the Son as his image, it is proper to venerate their images in order to venerate God. As man venerates each other as image of God.
The rest are justified paintings.
(c) Cornelia Soldat 2024