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On the Edge of Self and Other: Holy Bodies in Late Antiquity

In the two centuries prior to the outbreak of the iconoclastic controversy in the eighth century, anecdotes about icons began to appear in hagiographies. This essay develops a reading of certain of these anecdotes as constituting a form of "picture theory" that teaches the reader how to engage with icons and how to imagine saintly presence. Reading backwards from the iconoclastic controversy in which positions regarding idolatry and the role of material images in Christian theology and ritual were debated openly, I argue that the hagiographical enterprise that preceded iconoclasm developed discursive pictorial strategies for advertising the importance of representation, of imaging, as a means for embracing the saints without idolizing them. Hagiographical anecdotes about icons in effect sidestepped an idolatrous impulse at the same time as they anticipated the later positive theorization of material expressions of religion.