Framework for Exploring Pre-Nicene Image Veneration
Clarifying the scope of my case against Gavin Ortlund
To discover whether images were venerated in early Christianity, inquiry must be framed in a way that allows us to be accurate, precise, and thorough. The process of sorting this out should begin with asking the following questions: (a) what counts as evidence of veneration? and (b) how much evidence is needed to show that veneration of images was an early Christian practice?
What counts as evidence?
There have been an array of responses to Dr. Ortlund, most of which did not put forward (or did not successfully put forward) positive evidence that the pre-Nicene Church venerated icons. It will therefore be useful to begin with a basic consideration of what a good case for the existence of an early Christian practice would look like.
Writings and artifacts that do not plausibly count as evidence should excluded. For example, the mere existence of some kind of Christian visual art before 325 AD should not lead us to conclude that images were venerated. If one wanted to bring forward arguments that some of the specific images which survive were venerated that would be one thing; in the absence of any reason to think they were venerated, it is not enough.
To take another example, if we find no evidence of bowing to and kissing images in the second century (which are two of several typical modern Orthodox veneration practices) but do find other forms of veneration practiced (such as crowning images or decorating them) we should not say “images were not venerated” but rather “images were venerated, but we cannot confirm the forms of veneration included bowing and kissing.”
A final example will be instructive. If a pre-325 AD source attests to someone practicing image veneration, but is not part of the central “core” Church (which Protestants, Catholics, and Orthodox would all look at as being in continuity with what Christ founded, and Christianity later on) how should this be weighed? If the source is a Gnostic or semi-Gnostic source, this does not seem to show that images were venerated by the “core” Church. However, there might be a complex interplay between Gnostic sources and the “core” Church. Is the “someone” practicing image veneration a Gnostic, who is doing this simply because of pagan ideas? Or is the “someone” a Gnostic who is venerating images in order to signal that he has a legitimate lineage, and claim legitimacy against early “core” Church Christians? If the former, that would do nothing to indicate that the early “core” Church venerated images. But if the latter, you would have an implicit acknowledgement that image veneration is a practice of “core” Church Christians.
How much evidence is needed?
Another question is the quantitative one. How many witnesses to image veneration practices would we need in order to say it was a practice of the pre-Nicene Church? It may be tempting to hold the pre-Nicene written sources to a very high standard, and insist that we only call image veneration a practice in the Church if every single early Christian author affirmed it explicitly. This, however, would not be a fair expectation. Pre-Nicene Christian writings have many different purposes, and few of them take as their goal the detailed explication of the Church’s practices and worship. Very few Christian practices are universally attested in the first three centuries of Christianity. At the same time, if there were no statements approving any image veneration practice and numerous statements that seemed to denounce it as idolatrous or heterodox, that would be an issue.
For this series, the questions of (a) what counts as evidence and (b) what counts as enough evidence will be approached in relation to the specific goal of overturning Dr. Ortlund’s fairly universal claims about veneration of images in the pre-325AD Church. This will require four different propositions that (if supported by enough of the right kind of evidence) would not merely undercut but refute Ortlund’s claims. The evidence must therefore include a specific instance of support for image-veneration before 325AD, since this would show that the relevant universal claims Ortlund makes such as “no actual Christians venerated images before 325AD” are not true.
It can be anticipated that Dr. Ortlund and those who hold similar views could simply modify their claims slightly to state that the vast weight of evidence is against the veneration of images in the pre-Nicene Church, and most early Christian writings disapprove of it, even if there are some exceptions. Therefore, it will not be enough to bring forward one piece of evidence; a cumulative case must be offered that image veneration was approved of and practiced by a variety of pre-Nicene Christians at different times and locations.
From showing that veneration of images was practiced by an array of early Christians it does not follow that it was the consensus teaching and practice of the early Church. That would be a different project, though a worthy one. For our purposes, it will suffice to give enough evidence to show that image veneration was practiced to a significant extent in early Christianity. This would show the falsity of Ortlund’s current claims, and the falsity of a slightly-revised (less universal and sweeping) version of his claims.