Week 8 · AD 701–800
Images, Councils, and an Emperor
Boniface, the image dispute, and Charlemagne’s crown
This week
Mission, images, and a new empire
- Boniface brings Rome’s faith and sacraments to Germany
- Iconoclasm splits the Greek East over pictures of Christ
- Three councils take up images and the person of Christ
- Franks and popes become allies, and Charlemagne is crowned emperor
- Alcuin’s schools begin a Frankish revival of learning
Christ in Majesty
Unknown illuminator of Charlemagne’s court school, 781–783. Christ is enthroned and blessing, with a closed book.
Church life
Mission, teaching, and the church’s learning.
Christ and the sacraments
Rome’s sacraments reach Germany
- In 719 Pope Gregory II sent the English monk Boniface to bring the faith to Germany
- He must teach the Holy Trinity and keep Baptism and the Lord’s Supper as Rome kept them
- Boniface later swore loyalty to the pope, so his new churches were tied to Rome
- Willibald’s Life of Boniface says he cut down a sacred oak at Geismar
Church life
Franks and popes become allies
- Pepin the Short asked Pope Zacharias to recognize his rule as king of the Franks (751–752)
- In 754 Pope Stephen II crossed the Alps to ask Pepin for help against the Lombards
- The Lombards were a Germanic kingdom in northern Italy
- In 773–774 Charlemagne, at Pope Hadrian I’s request, conquered the Lombard kingdom
Controversy
Images, heresy, and the person of Christ
Controversy
Iconoclasm divides the Greek East
- Iconoclasm means rejecting and destroying religious images
- Tradition dates Leo III’s first edict against images to 726
- His son Constantine V carried the policy on through most of the century
- Defenders said the incarnation, God becoming man in Christ, made pictures lawful
Controversy
Adoptionism: a Spanish teaching
- Adoptionism taught that Christ, in his human nature, was God’s Son only by adoption
- Elipandus of Toledo and Felix of Urgell taught it in Spain
- Synods (church meetings) at Regensburg (792) and Frankfurt (794) condemned it
- Frankfurt’s letter: the Son born of the Virgin is truly God and man, one person
Councils and events
Hieria, Nicaea II, Frankfurt, and a coronation.
Councils and events
Hieria, 754: a palace synod
- Emperor Constantine V called about 340 bishops to a synod at the palace of Hieria near Constantinople
- It banned religious images and called itself the seventh ecumenical (worldwide) council
- Rome and the other great sees (major bishoprics) stayed away. Nicaea II later overturned it
- Lutheran classification: Spurious
Councils and events
Nicaea II, 787: honor for images
- Empress Irene and Patriarch Tarasius called it, and Roman legates (envoys) attended
- It confirmed the creeds and the two natures of Christ
- It permitted respectful veneration (honor) of images, apart from the worship due to God alone
- It was the last council that Rome and the East both number as ecumenical
- Lutheran classification: Mixed
Councils and events
Frankfurt, 794: a Frankish synod
- Charlemagne called this synod of Frankish bishops, with papal legates present
- It condemned Adoptionism and rejected Nicaea II’s decision on images
- The Latin copy turned the Greek word for “veneration” into “adoration”
- Treat this regional synod separately from Nicaea II
- Lutheran classification: Received
Councils and events
Charlemagne is crowned emperor
- On 25 December 800 Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne emperor at St. Peter’s in Rome
- Einhard, his biographer, says Charlemagne disliked the title
- The event joined the Frankish king and the Roman church under one imperial title
- Jean Fouquet painted it about 1455–1460, a late French view, not an eyewitness record
Major people
Two scholars and a defender of images
“I do not worship matter, I worship the God of matter, who became matter for my sake.”
John of Damascus, On Holy Images, Part I
Major people
Bede and Alcuin
- Bede (about 673–735), an English monk, finished his Ecclesiastical History (church history) in 731
- It is our main source for early English church history
- Alcuin of York (about 735–804) met Charlemagne in 781 and headed his palace school
- He helped frame the Frankfurt decrees against Adoptionism
Wider world
Events beyond the Frankish and Greek churches
Wider world
Conquest, battle, raid, and monument
- 711: Muslim forces cross from North Africa and begin conquering the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal)
- 732: Charles Martel defeats a Muslim army near Tours and stops its advance north of the Pyrenees
- 781: Christians in Tang China erect a stone monument in Chang’an (now Xi’an). Its text confesses the Trinity
- 793: Viking raiders attack the island monastery of Lindisfarne off Northumbria
Confessional Lutheran connection
What the Lutheran Confessions say about these events
Christ and the sacraments
Baptism, the Supper, and Christ
- One divine Son took on human nature, one person with two natures
- Mission makes disciples by Baptism, God’s gift, not by political loyalty
- The incarnate Christ gives his true body and blood in the Supper by his own word
- Hieria called bread and wine the only true image of his body. Lutherans reject that
For discussion
What must a picture of Christ never do in place of his Word and Sacraments?