Fractured Windows: Reassessing the Early Church’s Resistance to Icons

J. Neil Daniels

A Shaky Claim to Continuity

The appeal of Eastern Orthodoxy, particularly for evangelicals adrift in a sea of denominational flux, lies in its claim of pristine continuity. Orthodoxy presents itself as the faith of the apostles unchanged, the church eternal, the original pattern preserved without distortion. Converts in America—whether Hank Hanegraaff in 2017 or Peter Gillquist’s entire network of house churches back in 1987—often testify that they have “found the early church.” The promise is intoxicating: no more squabbles over sola fide or episcopal polity; no more doctrinal innovations; just the unbroken stream of faith flowing back to Jerusalem itself.

Yet this claim of continuity falters when confronted with the stubborn evidence of history. And nowhere does the tension show more clearly than in the matter of icons. The Orthodox insist that the early church venerated sacred images, that what one sees in modern liturgies is simply the natural extension of practices stretching back to Luke the Evangelist himself. But the testimony of archaeology, patristics, and conciliar pronouncements tells another story—a story of deep unease with images, a story of aniconism in multiple shades, a story that makes the later triumph of icons in Byzantium look more like rupture than preservation.

Defining the Question: Art or Icon?

One of the most basic confusions in this debate is terminological. An icon is not simply any image. Frescoes in the catacombs or decorative motifs in a synagogue do not automatically qualify. Icons are images deployed in worship, functioning as what Orthodox theologians call “windows into heaven,” channels of veneration. The distinction may seem pedantic, but it is vital. Early Christian art existed. That is not in dispute. What is at stake is whether such art crossed the threshold into devotion.

Origen, Clement, Tertullian, even the Synod of Elvira, all drew that line firmly. Decoration? Perhaps permissible. Worship through images? Prohibited. The Orthodox, however, often blur the line, speaking as if a painted shepherd on a chalice proves iconography when, in fact, it demonstrates only ornamentation. The conflation is convenient, but historically indefensible.

The Jewish Backdrop: A Culture of Guardrails

The roots of Christian suspicion toward images lie in Judaism. Second Temple Judaism was not entirely devoid of imagery, as excavations at Dura-Europos or Sepphoris suggest, but its central current was rigorously aniconic. Josephus recounts the Jews’ fierce resistance when Pilate attempted to introduce imperial standards into Jerusalem—men willing to bare their necks to Roman swords rather than see the law violated. Coins, too, tell the tale: while Greek and Roman currency flaunted gods and emperors, Jewish minting stubbornly confined itself to palm branches and pomegranates.

Even rabbinic debates distinguish between decoration and worship. Statues of officials? Perhaps tolerable. Images for devotion? Absolutely forbidden. This context makes it implausible that the nascent church—composed of Jews who revered the Torah—suddenly embraced devotional imagery. The weight of evidence suggests precisely the opposite: they carried their inherited suspicion of idolatry into Christian practice.

Origen Against Celsus: The Absence of Images as Apology

Origen’s Contra Celsum provides one of the clearest windows into early Christian self-understanding. The pagan critic Celsus mocked Christians for their imageless worship, contrasting them with Greeks who at least understood that an image pointed beyond itself. Origen did not answer by appealing to icons painted by Luke or pointing to venerable images in churches. He doubled down: Christians, he said, reject all images and statues, being taught by Christ to worship without them. For Origen, the very absence of images was part of Christian witness.

It is both striking and indicting that the same philosophical defense Celsus used—that honor passes from image to prototype—would later become the backbone of iconophile theology in John of Damascus. But in the third century, Origen found it risible. His church had no use for images in worship, and he made that absence a badge of fidelity.

The Council of Elvira: A Conciliar Prohibition

If Origen shows the mindset of Christian intellectuals, the Synod of Elvira (ca. 305–314) shows pastoral policy. Canon 36 is blunt: “Pictures are not to be placed in churches, so that they do not become objects of worship and adoration.” Local? Yes. Binding? Not universally. But as historical evidence it is decisive. At least in early fourth-century Spain, bishops recognized the danger and drew the line. Art might exist elsewhere, but not in the worshiping space of the church.

Eastern Orthodox apologists often attempt to relativize Elvira, dismissing it as a mere regional synod or quibbling over translations. Yet the canon’s clarity resists such evasions. Whatever its scope, it testifies that images were absent—or at least contested—in Christian liturgy at the dawn of the Constantinian era.

Epiphanius Tears the Curtain

A century later, Epiphanius of Salamis dramatizes the same conviction. Entering a church in Palestine, he found a curtain embroidered with the image of Christ or a saint. Horrified, he ripped it down, instructing that it be used as a burial shroud for the poor. His reasoning was simple: such images were “contrary to our religion.”

Iconodules centuries later, desperate to blunt the force of his testimony, declared the letter a forgery. But modern scholarship—Karl Holl in 1910, followed by most twentieth-century experts—has judged it authentic. And Epiphanius, canonized by the Orthodox themselves, hardly fits the profile of a crypto-heretic. His action mirrors the spirit of Elvira: art may exist, but not in the sanctuary, not in the place of worship, not as an object of veneration.

The Basil Problem: A Misappropriated Prooftext

Eastern Orthodox defenders often quote Basil of Caesarea’s statement, “the honor paid to the image passes on to the prototype.” On the surface, it sounds tailor-made for icon theology. But context matters. Basil was not speaking of liturgical images at all but of the Son’s relation to the Father. The analogy of king and image served to explain consubstantiality, not to authorize kissing painted panels.

As for the oft-cited Letter 360, in which Basil allegedly confesses to honoring and kissing images of the apostles, the consensus is that it is spurious—a later forgery from the iconoclastic controversy, placed on Basil’s lips to bolster the iconophile cause. Even Calvin, centuries before modern critical scholarship, recognized the existence of a “Pseudo-Basil.” The real Basil, whatever his Trinitarian brilliance, leaves no evidence of icon veneration.

Archaeology and Its Limits

What of the Dura-Europos house church, that perennial exhibit in Orthodox apologetics? Certainly it had frescoes: biblical scenes, narrative motifs. But tellingly, the main assembly hall—the very place where Christians gathered to pray—was bare. The decorations adorned ancillary rooms, not the sanctuary. This silence speaks volumes.

Catacomb art, too, offers charming glimpses of Christian hope: Jonah and the fish, Noah’s ark, the Good Shepherd. But none of these images show signs of being kissed, crowned, or prayed to. They are visual sermons, not devotional media. Even Irenaeus could praise the beauty of a sculpted king’s likeness while condemning the Carpocratians for treating images of Christ like pagan idols. Archaeology cannot tell us how images were used, but the literary evidence fills in the gap: Christians did not venerate them.

Eusebius: Father of Iconoclasm

Eusebius, the great church historian, provides another revealing snapshot. When Constantine’s sister requested an image of Christ, Eusebius rebuked her, insisting that such portrayals were inadequate and dangerous. He even confiscated supposed portraits of Christ and Paul to prevent stumbling. Jaroslav Pelikan, hardly hostile to Orthodoxy, dubbed him “the father of iconoclasm.”

True, Eusebius reports the existence of a statue at Caesarea Philippi, interpreted as the woman healed by Christ. But he attributes it to pagan custom, not Christian devotion. His own theological instinct was clear: to portray Christ’s human form before glorification was to violate the commandment and lapse into error.

The Myth of Luke’s Brush

The Orthodox tradition that Luke painted the first icon of Mary is perhaps the most transparent anachronism. It surfaces no earlier than the sixth century, gains momentum during the iconoclastic controversy, and serves an obvious polemical function: to anchor icon veneration in apostolic origins. But Augustine, writing in the fourth century, bluntly admitted, “We do not know the countenance of the Virgin Mary.” If an icon by Luke existed, Augustine’s ignorance would be inexplicable. Modern scholars rightly regard the tradition as pious fiction, born of controversy, not history.

Spectrum of Aniconism

What emerges from this patchwork of evidence is not uniform rigorism but a spectrum of aniconism. Clement and Tertullian represent the strictest wing: no images at all. Hippolytus allows artists to work so long as they avoid idols. The Synod of Elvira permits art in general but bans it from churches. A bishop in North Africa drinks from a chalice with a Good Shepherd engraved. These positions vary, but they share a common denominator: none endorse the use of images in worship. The red line remained intact.

Eastern Orthodox apologists often frame the choice as binary—either one accepts radical iconophobia that would outlaw family photographs, or one embraces iconography. But the early church lived in the middle ground. They permitted decoration, resisted devotion. Their imagination was aniconic, not iconodule.

Why the Silence Speaks

Perhaps the most damning evidence against the Orthodox claim is the silence. If icons had been central to worship from the start, we would expect abundant testimony. We would expect defenders like Origen or Basil to appeal to them in apologetic or theological works. We would expect councils to regulate their use, not ban them outright. Instead, we find scattered art with no cultic function, repeated denunciations of image-worship, and an utter lack of positive reference to icons before the late patristic era.

Paul Finney puts it succinctly: “No distinctly Christian art predates the year 200. This is a simple statement of fact.” And when art does appear, it remains decorative, not devotional. The window to heaven had not yet been cut.

A Late Development

By the time of the Iconoclastic Controversy in the eighth and ninth centuries, the tide had turned. Icons had indeed become integral to Byzantine worship. Defenders like John of Damascus articulated sophisticated theological defenses: the incarnation sanctifies matter, the honor passes to the prototype, Christ’s humanity may be depicted. But these arguments, however ingenious, represent innovation, not continuity. They arose precisely because the older tradition of aniconism still lingered and needed to be overcome. The myth of Luke’s brush, the spurious Basil letter, the polemics against Epiphanius—all betray a consciousness of rupture.

Conclusion: Continuity or Reinvention?

The Orthodox church today stands draped in icons, suffused with their glow, the liturgy saturated with their presence. To enter an Orthodox sanctuary is to step into a world of painted saints gazing back at you, a forest of holy faces. For the faithful, these images are indispensable, as close as one comes to heaven on earth.

But history tells a more complicated tale. The early church was deeply wary of images, inherited from Judaism a tradition of aniconism, and consistently policed the boundary between art and worship. Councils prohibited images in churches, bishops tore them down, apologists defended imageless devotion against pagan critics. The continuity Orthodoxy claims is therefore illusory. What the Byzantines embraced in the medieval period was not the practice of the apostles but a late and contested development.

Perhaps that need not trouble the devout Orthodox believer, who sees in the church’s tradition a living organism capable of growth. But for those who appeal to unbroken continuity, the evidence proves otherwise. The windows into heaven were installed centuries after the foundation was laid.

Endnotes

Peter Gillquist, “Retrospect on the EOC Reception into the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese,” The Word (September 2007).
Jonathan M. Pitts, “Conversions Gradually Transforming Orthodox Christianity,” Baltimore Sun, June 24, 2017.
Rod Dreher, “Bible Answer Man Embraces Orthodoxy,” The American Conservative, April 11, 2017.
Origen, Contra Celsum 7.41, 7.64.
Synod of Elvira, Canon 36, in Karl Josef von Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1883), 1:151.
Epiphanius, Letter 51, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series 2, Vol. 6.
Basil of Caesarea, On the Holy Spirit 18.45.
Augustine, On the Trinity 8.5.
Bissera V. Pentcheva, Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), 124.
Paul Corby Finney, The Invisible God: The Earliest Christians on Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 99.