An iconographic status in keeping with the inception of Christian dogma (3rd to 5th century)
Crafting and handling images was no light matter in the early Christian world. The question of whether it is permissible or not to create images harks back to the origins of Christianity and was first met with extreme reservations, given the explicit prohibition extant in what Christians would henceforward refer to as the Old Testament: “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below” (Exodus 20: 4). Tertullian[1] equated the use of images to paganism; his rejection may also be understood as a determined effort to be distinguished from the pagan religions even as Jews and Christians were not always clearly identified as different in the communities of the three first centuries of the Christian era.
Still, this initial prohibition remained the object of intense scrutiny. Closely bound with the rejection of paganism, it is first and foremost concerned with the image of God. However for some of the Church Fathers[2], this prohibition was overturned with the advent of Christ: with the belief in an “incarnation” of God made man, according to the terms fixed between the Councils of Nicaea (325) and Constantinople (381), Christians held that God did represent himself, de facto overruling the aniconic prohibition. The “Son” was thus defined as the image of the “Father”, the perfect image of God. The Old and New testaments were thus understood as two distinct moments under two distinct iconographic regimes: in the first, the “son” was but hinted at; in the second the “incarnation” has maid Him plain for all to see, in human form: the Invisible had made Himself visible. Henceforward, this position eased Christian communities into a space with an iconographic theory entirely their own.
The term imago, much in use throughout the Middle Ages, applied to all forms of visible representation of a real or imaginary being, whatever the support, the material or the technique. Still the notion was loaded with implications, since it carried in and of itself a religious dimension. According to the translation choice approved by Jerome[3], the first time man is named in the bible, he is imago: God created man in his image and likeness “ad imaginem et similitudinem nostram” (Genesis 1: 26-27). The term image is therefore much broader than mere representation: a painting is an image but Christ is one too, the more perfect for being that of the “Father”. And if God created man in his image, then the whole creation is accordingly conceived as a terrestrial image of divine truths: “Homo in imagine ambulat” (“Man walks in an image” Psalm 38:7/39:6)
This definition bestows an inescapably religious dimension on every image, which explains the care theologians took in defining and controlling imagery and its usage. An image is not just an illustrative sketch; it does not offer the eye an object but part of the Creation, the reflection of a Divine Hereafter. It is as such endowed with a spiritual dimension and is in permanent dialogue with the Sacred Texts: its visible is the gateway to the invisible. Latin Christian thinking concerning figuration thus set a close connection between representation and religious conception, the former never being actually envisaged without the latter. The surviving iconography for that period is thus almost exclusively religious, reflecting the context of its production.
