The Icon of Christ : The
Dogma of Chalcedon
The icon of Christ, God-man, is the
graphical expression of the
Dogma of
Chalcedon. The Council of Chalcedon (4th Ecumenical Council in A.D. 451)
affirms the two natures of Christ being present in one and the same person. The
icon represents the incarnated divine person, the Son of God who became Son of
man, consubstantial* with the Father through his divinity, consubstantial with
us through his humanity. Christ unified these two aspects in his life: "He
who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But
emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being made in the
likeness of men, and in habit found as man" (Phil. 2, 6) (emptied >
ekenosen, see
kenosis).
The foregoing
also reveals to us what is often referred to as 'the greatest attribute of
God', his Mercy: the Word made himself man in order to die as all men and
through his death guide all men back to the Father so as to enable them to
participate in his divine life.
Bibliography and
Links
- Catholic Encyclopedia:
Council
of Chalcedon
- Catholic Encyclopedia:
Kenosis,
The
Incarnation
- Daniel Rousseau, L'Icône - Splendeur de Ton
Visage,
Desclée de Brouwer, Paris, 1982, pp.
239-244
- Pope Pius XII,
Encyclical
on the Council of Chalcedon
- Faces of Christ
http://www.gamber.net/life/christ/index1.html
==> 22 images (out of 25)
- Early images of Christ
http://ntserver.shc.edu/www/Scholar/cutrone/cutrone.html
==> 7 mosaics (out of 18)
- Images and Icons of Christ
in the Middle Ages
http://departments.risd.edu/depts/arth/web/lecture6.html
==> 22 images
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Notes
* 'Consubstantial'. The Son of
God is as fully God as God is, and as fully man as man is. Christ possesses
those two natures, at the same time, all the time.
**
con·sub·stan·tial adjective. CHRISTIANITY having same
substance: having the same substance as something else, for example, another
member of the Holy Trinity. [14th century. From ecclesiastical Latin
consubstantialis, literally “substance together,” from Latin
substantia, “substance.”]
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