Iconoclasm in the literal sense of destroying icons was something that only first appeared in the West in Turin around 820; this provoked a negative reaction, and resulted in the eventual clearing away of any opposition to venerating icons, ironically, as figures like Dungal of Pavia had to form a positive defense of icons, instead of asserting simple propriety, eventually leading to writers like Walafrid Strabo.
About Images and Pictures
8. Some things should now be said about the images and pictures which increase the splendour of churches. They should not be cultivated in their various forms with a kind of excessive fervour, as some foolish people do, but on the other hand their splendour should not be scorned with a kind of contempt, as some defenders of nothingness think. For what reasonable person is going to believe that the injunctions, "the Lord thy God shalt thou worship and Him only shalt thou serve", and "Thou shalt not make to thyself any likeness of those things which are in heaven or in earth or in the waters under the earth" were flouted by Moses and Solomon in constructing tabernacle or temple, because Moses ornamented a variety of veils and priestly vestments with diverse figures in accordance with the divine command? Or because Solomon adorned nearly the entire fabric of the Temple with pictures and carvings not only of animals but also of trees and vegetation, in accordance with the wisdom bestowed on him from heaven? Or because each built over the Ark and the Propitiatorium likenesses of the heavenly Cherubim? For it is certain that they held, as we should hold, that the veneration and honour owed to God should not be paid to things of their own making, or of ours, whether made in order to signify some mystery, as in all the buildings of the tabernacle and the temple, or to commemorate great deeds, as in pictures from history, or to impress more sharply on the minds of the viewer the love of those portrayed, as in the images of the Lord and His Saints. It was not for nothing that a further injunction was added to those just quoted: "Thou shalt not bow down before them nor worship them"; so naturally we come to understand that the devotion and utility in making these objects, made for our improvement or instruction, should not be condemned. Equally we understand that what is blameworthy in their veneration is the superstition and folly with which the misguided strive to transfer a spiritual worship to material things.
Of course, if anyone thinks the art of painting or sculpture should be censured because things made by artists and sculptors might, by their grace and elegance, entice the foolish to worship them, logically he could also object to the works of God -- why has God created the heavenly bodies of such splendour or the plants and vegetables of such loveliness and fragrance that these, like other created things, have been adored and worship in the liturgy by the deluded? This error is not ascribed to the Author of good, but to the urging of demons and to the evil custom of men who learned to abuse good things for an evil purpose. Indeed, it should be noted that just as some people venerate these same images excessively, so others, wishing to appear more cautious than others in religious matters, scorn images as idolatrous, and they offend the simple-hearted by their obstinate arrogance.
Controversy on this matter often aroused such contention among the Greeks that under Pope Gregory II, Emperor Constantine abolished all images in Constantinople, and under Gregory III a Synod was held at Rome against the aforesaid heresy, as they called it, in which it was affirmed that images of Saints were to be restored according to the ancient use of the Universal Church. This same controversy of the Greeks, brought into Francia in the time of Emperor Louis of blessed memory, was through his provident rule finally confuted in the documents of a Synod.
A certain Claudius, Bishop of Turin, halting and lame (as his name denotes) in the pilgrimage of truth, sought among his other empty blunders to renew this controversy as well, but he was pierced through by the shafts of diverse opponents, and died condemned by his own judgment. And indeed anyone who has dishonoured the image of the Emperor of the faithful even on a coin pays in full before the Emperor's tribunal the penalties for his insolence and disturbance. For the powerful of the world used to think that no trifling injury had been inflicted upon them if they learned that their image or name, or any sort of coin, was degraded or trampled upon by their subjects.
However, because the people of Israel, while they were in the desert, and King Jeroboam offended God by making calves, the bronze serpent which Moses made by the Lord's command was not to be despised -- in fact when bites by real snakes were healed by gazing on the image of a snake, because the people (always prone to idolatry) worshiped it afterwards with a kind of superstitious religious awe, Hezekiah, a very devout King of Judah, is read to have destroyed it.
Therefore, since Christian people have been introduced to the treasuries of spiritual wisdom by such a great aptness for being taught divine matters that they believe that quite apart from pictures and images not even holy men themselves, living or dead, should be worshiped and adored in the liturgy -- for we ask the Saints, not that they themselves should supply the things that are necessary for our salvation, but that they seek from the Author of all good things, from Whom "every good gift and every perfect gift is given", what they know to be useful for the salvation of suppliants, seeing that they are nearer to Him by their merits and therefore more certain to be heard: indeed we pray God that by His gracious goodness and by the merits and intercessions of the Saints He may grant what He deems suitable for us; and indeed as we entreat Him, the Lord God, Judge, Omnipotent Creator and Saviour, so we certainly appeal for support to them, friends of God, servants of the Lord, truly respected protectors and fully redeemed; that such are the supplications of the faithful no one can doubt who takes heed of the public prayers of the Church -- and so, since such is the richness of Christian thinking, the sincere and moderate veneration of images should not altogether be abandoned.
For if, therefore (because we knew that icons must not be worshiped nor adored), pictures must be despised and abolished as if unnecessary or harmful, and then because we believe temples must be destroyed because the Creator of all things, Who is everywhere and fills heaven and earth, "does not live in houses made by human hands", lest we appear to think that the Creator can be confined within walls and roofs, the result could be that while we took care that there be nothing anywhere through which the mind of the simple could err, we should have nothing left by which to practice our devotion or to attract the simple and unlearned to the love of unseen thing.
Moreover, the usefulness of paintings can be shown in a multiplicity of ways: first because a painting is a kind of literature for the illiterate, and we read that one of our forefathers learned the history of ancient times from pictures; then too, although I will omit details for the sake of brevity, we read in the deeds of Pope Sylvester that the Emperor Constantine recognized the Apostles, seen in a vision, through being shown their busts. And sometimes we see that the simple and unlettered folk, who can scarcely be led to give credence to events presented in words, are so moved by a painting of the Lord's Passion or other marvelous events that they show by their tears that the outward images have been imprinted upon their hearts as if painting with a brush stroke.
Thus just as "all things are clean for the clean, but for the defiled and unbelieving nothing is clean because both their mind and their conscience are defiled", so for evil men all ways are full of pitfalls: and just as good men deal well with evil things, so also do evil men use good things badly.
Therefore, images and paintings should be possessed and loved in such a way that their usefulness is neither negated through their contempt for them -- for any irreverence inflicted on them is an offense to those whose images they are -- nor should the wholesomeness of faith be harmed through paying them excessive reverence, for paying too much honour to material things suggests that we give less consideration to what is spiritual.
[Libellus de exordiis, "About Images and Pictures", Sec. 8, pages 73-81]
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