Irreparable damage is damage that cannot be repaired, not necessarily serious or fatal. - Edit 1
Before modification by Joel at 11/03/2012 10:59:17 AM
I contend it was somewhat serious but not in itself fatal; it contributed to the growing sense of alienation between the eastern and western Christian Church.
I stand by my statement up to that point. The first sentence does not seem open to much controversy; I understood it to be generally accepted European missionaries routinely equated or merged pagan deities with Catholic saints in their apologetics to pagans. It is impossible to imagine that without veneration of icons connected with those saints but not directly connected to the Trinity, so iconoclasm would remove an arrow from that quiver and thus be undesirable (i.e. iconoclasm has less orthodoxy.) Likewise fifty years of the Byzantine church periodically but harshly condeming veneration of icons added to the existing strains on its relationship with the Roman church in which that remained an important and integral part of worship even apart from pagan missions. I am obviously no professional scholar, but enough of them attest to that for it to be taught in US high schools, where I first learned of it.
The rest of my statement is speculation I thought my tone conveyed as such even if I did not expressly state it:
I am not claiming those positions to be matters of documented fact, only that they are plausible within the contemporary context.
A key reason, yes, I stand by that simply because that is how they taught it to me in school, and other sources still contend the same. Obviously not THE key difference; my impression is that was the longstanding rivalry between Constantinoples Patriarch and Romes Bishop, or perhaps the latters rivalry with both Patriarch and Emperor. The former probably began (i.e. more speculation, not documented historical fact) long before iconoclasm, with the fertile ground Constantinople heresies (e.g. Arianism) in the Churchs early centuries. Not that I am inclined to receive more expletives for going down that rabbit trail.
My primary evidence is that iconoclasm held sway off and on for half a century in the Eastern Church but never in the Western Church. About the closest it came in the latter was Charlemagnes ironic condemnation of what he mistakenly believed Constantinoples ENDORSEMENT of iconoclasm as idolatry, because the Western Church never equated worship with veneration or saints with the Trinity (although, IMHO, their Mariology often skirts the line, but that is a separate debate, and hopefully my opinion on that is at least valid AS my opinion.) It might have been a hard sell even without pagan missions, because icon veneration was rooted fairly deeply. However if Constantinople was also still preaching to pagans (which you may recall I only claimed had "largely" ceased "in Asia Minor") that was not given urgency by the threat Rome faced of being overrun by a pagan onslaught. I imagine Constantinoples tendency to alternate between using Rome as a pagan foil and abandoning Italy to marauding pagans did not help relations between the Eastern and Western Churchs either.
It was a critical but not decisive factor, as scholars have held since long before either of us was born. Its significance, so far as I can tell, lies not in the Pope attacking iconoclasm, but the Empresses through the Patriach of Constantinople attacking icons, which exacerbated existing theological and secular competition between the two churches that culminated in the formal Schism.
None of that is novel or original with me except for speculations I have now tried to more explicitly label as such. If that is not enough, so be it.
Your first statement, which you're backing off from already in a big way, was:
Incorporating pagan deities as Catholic saints rather than attacking them as idols was vital to Christianitys spread throughout both Western Europe and the New World, so iconoclasm has less orthodoxy. The irreparable damage it inflicted in the Great Schism
I stand by my statement up to that point. The first sentence does not seem open to much controversy; I understood it to be generally accepted European missionaries routinely equated or merged pagan deities with Catholic saints in their apologetics to pagans. It is impossible to imagine that without veneration of icons connected with those saints but not directly connected to the Trinity, so iconoclasm would remove an arrow from that quiver and thus be undesirable (i.e. iconoclasm has less orthodoxy.) Likewise fifty years of the Byzantine church periodically but harshly condeming veneration of icons added to the existing strains on its relationship with the Roman church in which that remained an important and integral part of worship even apart from pagan missions. I am obviously no professional scholar, but enough of them attest to that for it to be taught in US high schools, where I first learned of it.
The rest of my statement is speculation I thought my tone conveyed as such even if I did not expressly state it:
makes more sense on that basis. The Roman Catholic Church would have been naturally reluctant to surrender a missionary tool indispensable in Early Medieval northern and western Europe.
I am not claiming those positions to be matters of documented fact, only that they are plausible within the contemporary context.
Note that you say "the irreparable damage it inflicted in the Great Schism". That doesn't sound anything like "the iconoclast controversy in the East led the Pope to intervene and centuries later that intervention was used as a precedent to establish papal primacy, which helped lead to the Great Schism". No. You're saying that iconoclasm was rejected in the West because of some pagan affiliation, and it was a key reason for the Schism.
A key reason, yes, I stand by that simply because that is how they taught it to me in school, and other sources still contend the same. Obviously not THE key difference; my impression is that was the longstanding rivalry between Constantinoples Patriarch and Romes Bishop, or perhaps the latters rivalry with both Patriarch and Emperor. The former probably began (i.e. more speculation, not documented historical fact) long before iconoclasm, with the fertile ground Constantinople heresies (e.g. Arianism) in the Churchs early centuries. Not that I am inclined to receive more expletives for going down that rabbit trail.
Of course, you have absolutely no evidence to support this statement, which WAS pulled out of your ass based on its value. Iconic representations originated in the East, not in the West, and pagan conversion was ongoing in the East at the same time as it was in the West (the Bulgars, Serbs, Romanians and Russians were all being proselytized to by Eastern missionaries, such as Cyril and Methodius, who were active just as the second iconoclast wave was ending). There is no historical, cultural or geographic justification why the Western Church would be predisposed to attack iconoclasm any more (or less) than the Eastern Church.
My primary evidence is that iconoclasm held sway off and on for half a century in the Eastern Church but never in the Western Church. About the closest it came in the latter was Charlemagnes ironic condemnation of what he mistakenly believed Constantinoples ENDORSEMENT of iconoclasm as idolatry, because the Western Church never equated worship with veneration or saints with the Trinity (although, IMHO, their Mariology often skirts the line, but that is a separate debate, and hopefully my opinion on that is at least valid AS my opinion.) It might have been a hard sell even without pagan missions, because icon veneration was rooted fairly deeply. However if Constantinople was also still preaching to pagans (which you may recall I only claimed had "largely" ceased "in Asia Minor") that was not given urgency by the threat Rome faced of being overrun by a pagan onslaught. I imagine Constantinoples tendency to alternate between using Rome as a pagan foil and abandoning Italy to marauding pagans did not help relations between the Eastern and Western Churchs either.
So, we have a typical Joel rant that is dead wrong, making grandiose statements about iconoclasm that are dead wrong. So, if "the irreparable damage it inflicted in the Great Schism" is not your attempt at saying that you believed the Popes were attacking iconoclasm for the spurious reasons you give, and that the Papist position on iconoclasm was a decisive factor (or does "irreparable damage" mean something else to you than to the rest of the world), then just what were you trying to say, Joel? Try working on your writing skills.
It was a critical but not decisive factor, as scholars have held since long before either of us was born. Its significance, so far as I can tell, lies not in the Pope attacking iconoclasm, but the Empresses through the Patriach of Constantinople attacking icons, which exacerbated existing theological and secular competition between the two churches that culminated in the formal Schism.
None of that is novel or original with me except for speculations I have now tried to more explicitly label as such. If that is not enough, so be it.