From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   March 27th - John of Damascus, hymn-writer, defender of icons   
      
   John is generally accounted "the last of the Fathers". He was the son of a   
   Christian official at the court of the moslem khalif Abdul Malek, and succeeded   
   to his father's office.   
      
   In his time there was a dispute among Christians between the Iconoclasts   
   (image-breakers) and the Iconodules (image-venerators or image-respectors). The   
   Emperor, Leo III, was a vigorous upholder of the Iconoclast position. John   
   wrote   
   in favor of the Iconodules with great effectiveness. Ironically, he was able to   
   do this chiefly because he had the protection of the moslem khalif (ironic   
   because the moslems have a strong prohibition against the religious use of   
   pictures or images).   
      
   John is also known as a hymn-writer. Two of his hymns are sung in English at   
   Easter ("Come ye faithful, raise the strain" and "The Day of Resurrection!   
   Earth, tell it out abroad!"). Many more are sung in the Eastern Church.   
      
   His major writing is The Fount of Knowledge, of which the third part, The   
   Orthodox Faith, is a summary of Christian doctrine as expounded by the Greek   
   Fathers.   
      
   The dispute about icons was not a dispute between East and West as such. Both   
   the Greek and the Latin churches accepted the final decision.   
      
   The Iconoclasts maintained that the use of religious images was a violation of   
   the Second Commandment ("Thou shalt not make a graven image... thou shalt not   
   bow down to them").   
      
   The Iconodules replied that the coming of Christ had radically changed the   
   situation, and that the commandment must now be understood in a new way, just   
   as   
   the commandment to "Remember the Sabbath Day" must be understood in a new way   
   since the Resurrection of Jesus on the first day of the week.   
      
   Before the Incarnation, it had indeed been improper to portray the invisible   
   God   
   in visible form; but God, by taking fleshly form in the person of Jesus Christ,   
   had blessed the whole realm of matter and made it a fit instrument for   
   manifesting the Divine Splendor. He had reclaimed everything in heaven and   
   earth   
   for His service, and had made water and oil, bread and wine, means of conveying   
   His grace to men. He had made painting and sculpture and music and the spoken   
   word, and indeed all our daily tasks and pleasures, the common round of   
   everyday   
   life, a means whereby man might glorify God and be made aware of Him. (Note: I   
   always use "man" in the gender-inclusive sense unless the context plainly   
   indicates otherwise.)   
      
   Obviously, the use of images and pictures in a religious context is open to   
   abuse, and in the sixteenth century abuses had become so prevalent that some   
   (not all) of the early Protestants reacted by denouncing the use of images   
   altogether. Many years ago, I heard a sermon in my home parish (All Saints'   
   Church, East Lansing, Michigan) on the Commandment, "Thou shalt not make a   
   graven image, nor the likeness of anything in the heavens above, nor in the   
   earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth - thou shalt not bow down to   
   them, nor worship them." (Exodus 20:4-5 and Deuteronomy 5:8-9) The preacher   
   (Gordon Jones) pointed out that, even if we refrain completely from the use of   
   statues and paintings in representing God, we will certainly use mental or   
   verbal images, will think of God in terms of concepts that the human mind can   
   grasp, since the alternative is not to think of Him at all. (Here I digress to   
   note that, if we reject the images offered in Holy Scripture of God as Father,   
   Shepherd, King, Judge, on the grounds that they are not literally accurate, we   
   will end up substituting other images - an endless, silent sea, a dome of white   
   radiance, an infinitely attenuated ether permeating all space, an   
   electromagnetic force field, or whatever, which is no more literally true than   
   the image it replaces, and which leaves out the truths that the Scriptural   
   images convey. (One of the best books I know on this subject is Edwyn Bevan's   
   Symbolism and Belief, Beacon Press, originally a Gifford Lectures series.) C S   
   Lewis repeats what a woman of his acquaintance told him: that as a child she   
   was   
   taught to think of God as an infinite "perfect substance," with the result that   
   for years she envisioned Him as a kind of enormous tapioca pudding. To make   
   matters worse, she disliked tapioca. Back to the sermon.) The sin of idolatry   
   consists of giving to the image the devotion that properly belongs to God. No   
   educated man today is in danger of confusing God with a painting or statue, but   
   we may give to a particular concept of God the unconditional allegiance that   
   properly belongs to God Himself. This does not, of course, mean that one   
   concept   
   of God is as good as another, or that it may not be our duty to reject   
   something   
   said about God as simply false. Images, concepts, of God matter, because it   
   matters how we think about God. The danger is one of intellectual pride, of   
   forgetting that the Good News is, not that we know God, but that He knows us (1   
   Corinthians 8:3), not that we love Him, but that He loves us (1 John 4:10).   
      
   (Incidentally, it was customary in my parish in those days for the preacher to   
   preach a short "Children's Sermon," after which the children were dismissed for   
   Sunday School, and the regular sermon and the rest of the service followed.   
   What   
   I have described above was the Children's Sermon. I remained for the regular   
   sermon, but found it a bit over my head - a salutary correction to my   
   intellectual snobbery.)   
      
   In the East Orthodox tradition, three-dimensional representations are seldom   
   used. The standard icon is a painting, highly stylized, and thought of as a   
   window through which the worshipper is looking into Heaven. (Hence, the   
   background of the picture is almost always gold leaf.) In an Eastern church, an   
   iconostasis (icon screen) flanks the altar on each side, with images of angels   
   and saints (including Old Testament persons) as a sign that the whole church in   
   Heaven and earth is one body in Christ, and unites in one voice of praise and   
   thanksgiving in the Holy Liturgy. At one point in the service, the minister   
   takes a censer and goes to each icon in turn, bows and swings the censer at the   
   icon. He then does the same thing to the congregation - ideally, if time   
   permits, to each worshipper separately, as a sign that every Christian is an   
   icon, made in the image and likeness of God, an organ in the body of Christ, a   
   window through whom the splendor of Heaven shines forth.   
      
      
   <><><><>   
   Whoever will come after Me, let him deny himself.  (Matthew 16:24)   
      
   "Take heed not to foster thy own judgment, for, without doubt, it will   
   inebriate   
   thee; as there is no difference between an intoxicated man and one full of his   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)