St. Theodore the Studite was arguably the most influential theologian on the subject of the veneration of icons for the Byzantines themselves. He wrote extensively on this topic in treatises, letters, and poetry, and these writings continued to be the major source for later discussions of the icon in Byzantium. Most notably, Theodore's writings provided the majority of the passages quoted and paraphrased in Euthymios Zigabenos's important discussion of iconomachy in his early twelfth-century Dogmatic Panoply. Given the continuing value of his work, it is remarkable that that we do not yet have a modern edition of Theodore's key statement on the veneration of icons, his Antirrhetici tres adversus iconomachos (hereafter Refutations). Fortunately, Torstein Tollefsen has now provided us with our first extended analysis of the philosophical grounds—the logic—of Theodore's argument in these Refutations. In this relatively concise study, Tollefsen provides a major step forward in our understanding of this crucial figure.
Four chapters shape Tollefsen's study. The first of these evaluates the role played by logic in Theodore's theology. Having established the importance of this for Theodore's theological practice, the book then tackles three key themes in his conception of the icon and its veneration: circumscription, relation, and truth. In addition to this focused analysis, an appendix asks the reader to consider a broader question: why should there be such a thing as Christian art at all?
Tollefsen's analysis of the Refutations clarifies the different format of each, while demonstrating their common method in addressing the case presented by the synod that met in 815 and revived arguments against the cult of images. This method developed from the application of the logical education prevalent in Byzantium. Tollefsen's investigation makes extensive use of recent and current research in this area to show that Theodore develops a pragmatic application of logical method, one that is manifest in the description rather than definition of particulars.
The iconomachic camp had proposed a definition of the image that emphasized the notion of circumscription. For them, a true image must circumscribe its subject. Given that Christ is both human and divine, this led them to the conclusion that an icon could not portray Christ. In response, Theodore argued that the icon did not present the totality of its subject. Rather, it showed the “genuine particular appearance of someone (93)” who had presented themselves to be seen (95). Tollefsen argues that this appearance can be embraced by any one of three terms: ἰδέα, εἶδος, and μορφή. Here, I would wish to see a fuller discussion of the possible implications of maintaining these different freighted terms as alternative descriptions of appearance.
The concept of relation, drawn from Aristotle's Categories and the later commentators on this text, helps Theodore to define how a prototype and an image, Christ and his icon, can maintain a connection between one another. For Tollefsen, this relationship is not governed by any magical thinking, but is “the dry ‘magic’ of the logical force of relation (21).” In making this point, he seeks to distance Theodore's theological account of the icon and its cult from the more animated understanding of the icon that can be found in much art-historical writing on the subject.
The fourth chapter examines the reasons for accepting the icon as a true image. Theodore argued that it was the appearance of the prototype found in the materials of the icon that validated both the icon and its prototype. As such, the encounter with the icon becomes an event in which the subject is disclosed through the experience and understanding made possible by that icon (136). Thanks to this, the mind of the one looking at or venerating the image in the icon is elevated to “the reality or truth that the likeness relates to.” The late eleventh-century appropriation of Theodore's theology by Leo of Chalcedon indicates the potential ambiguities in Theodore's attempts to describe the image's presence in the material icon.
In a lengthy appendix (151–166), Tollefsen turns from his close reading of Theodore to the larger question of the need for Christian art. Briefly stated, he argues that Christian art is necessary “because there is such a thing as historical Christianity, embedded in the real world of time and place, received by human beings who learn both through sensual and through intellectual experience (151).” For Tollefsen, this proposition depends upon a philosophical framing for the theology of the icon. Theodore's contribution includes:
focus on homonymous predication of descriptions, the notion of the showing itself of an entity as a whole appearance and not as a patchwork of sensible, accidental properties, his teaching of the icon as a semantic object, and his phenomenological-like idea of the image as if “absorbed” into the prototype (166).
This book provides the reader with a clear, compelling, and sustained reading of Theodore the Studite's theology of the icon. In particular, it demonstrates the value of a close and precise reading of these works. This entails reading Theodore in light of both his theological and his philosophical formation. By these means it becomes possible to discern more clearly the manner in which Theodore develops his fresh and profoundly influential thinking in regard to the icon and its veneration.
