Why do we adore the Cross? Is it not through tradition? Therefore the holy apostle says: “Brethren, stand fast; and hold the traditions which you have learned, whether by word, or by our epistle.” (II Thess. 2.15) Many things, therefore, being handed down to the Church by unwritten tradition and kept up to the present day, why do you speak slightingly of images? The Manicheans followed a gospel according to Thomas, and you will follow that of Leo. I do not admit an emperor’s tyrannical action in domineering over the Church.
The emperor has not received the power to bind and loose. I know of the Emperor Valens, a Christian in name, who persecuted the true faith, Zeno and Anastasius, Heraclius and Constantine of Sicily, and Bardaniskus, called Philip (filippikon). I am not to be persuaded that the Church is set in order by imperial edicts, but by patristic traditions, written and unwritten. As the written Gospel has been preached in the whole world, so has it been an unwritten tradition in the whole world to represent in image Christ, the incarnate God, and the saints, to adore the Cross, and to pray towards the east.
The customs which you bring forward do not incriminate our worship of images, but that of the heathens who make idols of them. The pious practice of the Church is not to be rejected because of heathen abuse. Sorcerers and magicians exorcise; the Church exorcises catechumens. The former invoke demons, the Church calls upon God against demons. Heathens sacrificed to demons; Israel offered to God both holocausts and victims. The Church, too, offers an unbloody sacrifice to God. Heathens set up images to demons, and Israel made idols of them in the words, “These are thy gods, O Israel, who brought thee out of Egypt.” (Ex. 32.4)
Epiphanius clearly rejected
Now we have set up images to the true God incarnate, to His servants and friends, who have put the demon host to flight. If you say to this that blessed Epiphanius clearly rejected our use of images, you must know that the work in question is spurious and written by some one else in the name of Epiphanius, as often happens. A father does not fight his own children. All have become participators in the one Spirit. The Church is a witness of this in adorning images, until some men rose up against her and disturbed the peace of Christ’s fold, putting poisoned food before the people of God.
If I venerate and worship, as the instruments of salvation, the Cross and lance, and reed and sponge, by means of which the Jews (qeoktonoi) scorned and put to death my Lord, shall I not also worship images that Christians make with a good intention for the glory and remembrance of Christ?
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