And God ordered twelve stones to be taken out of the Jordan, and specified why. For he says: 'When your son asks you the meaning of these stones, tell him how the water left the Jordan by the divine command, and how the ark was saved and the whole people.' How, then, shall we not record on image the saving pains and wonders of Christ our Lord, so that when my child asks me, 'What is this?' I may say, that God the Word became man, and that for His sake not Israel alone passed through the Jordan, but all the human race gained their original happiness. Through Him human nature rose from the lowest depths of the earth higher than the skies, and in His Person sat down on the throne His Father had prepared for Him.

But the adversary says: 'Make an image of Christ or of His mother who bore Him ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU U+03c4~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI U+1fc6~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA U+03c2~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA U+03b8~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON U+03b5~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON U+03bf~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU U+03c4~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH TONOS U+03cc~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA U+03ba~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON U+03bf~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU U+03bd~}), and let that be sufficient.' O what folly this is! On your own showing, you are absolutely against the saints. For if you make an image of Christ and not of the saints, it is evident that you do not disown images, but the honour of the saints. You make statues indeed of Christ as of one glorified, whilst you reject the saints as unworthy of honour, and call truth a falsehood. 'I live,' says the Lord, 'and I will glorify those who glorify Me.' And the divine Apostle: therefore now he is not a servant, but a son. 'And if a son, an heir also through God.' Again, 'If we suffer with Him, that we also may be glorified:' you are not waging war against images, but against the saints. St John, who rested on His breast, says, that we shall be like to Him: just as a man by contact with fire becomes fire, not by nature, but by contact and by burning and by participation, so is it, I apprehend, with the flesh of the Crucified Son of God. That flesh, by participation through union ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA U+03ba~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI U+1f00~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA U+03b8~}' {~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH DASIA U+1f51~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI U+03c0~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH TONOS U+03cc~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA U+03c3~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU U+03c4~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA U+03b1~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER SIGMA U+03c3~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA U+03b9~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU U+03bd~}) with the divine nature, was unchangeably God, not in virtue of grace from God as was the case with each of the prophets, but by the presence of the Fountain Head Himself. God, the Scripture says, stood in the synagogue of the gods, so that the saints, too, are gods. Holy Gregory takes the words, 'God stands in the midst of the gods,' to mean that He discriminates their several merits. The saints in their lifetime were filled with the Holy Spirit, and when they are no more, His grace abides with their spirits and with their bodies in their tombs, and also with their likenesses and holy images, not by nature, but by grace and divine power.

God charged David to build Him a temple through his son, and to prepare a place of rest. Solomon, in building the temple, made the cherubim, as the book of Kings says. And he encompassed the cherubim with gold, and all the walls in a circle, and he had the cherubim carved, and palms inside and out, in a circle, not from the sides, be it observed. And there were bulls and lions and pomegranates. Is it not more seemly to decorate all the walls of the Lord's house with holy forms and images rather than with beasts and plants? Where is the law declaring 'thou shalt not make any graven image'? But Solomon receiving the gift of wisdom, imaging heaven, made the cherubim, and the likenesses of bulls and lions, which the law forbade. Now if we make a statue of Christ, and likenesses of the saints, does not their being filled with the Holy Ghost increase the piety of our homage? As then the people and the temple were purified in blood and in burnt offerings, so now the Blood of Christ giving testimony under Pontius Pilate, and being Himself the first fruits of the martyrs, the Church is built up on the blood of the saints. Then the signs and forms of lifeless animals figured forth the human tabernacle, the martyrs themselves whom they were preparing for God's abode.

We depict Christ as our King and Lord, and do not deprive Him of His army. The saints constitute the Lord's army. Let the earthly king dismiss his army before he gives up his King and Lord. Let him put off the purple before he takes honour away from his most valiant men who have conquered their passions. For if the saints are heirs of God, and co-heirs of Christ, they will be also partakers of the divine glory of sovereignty. If the friends of God have had a part in the sufferings of Christ, how shall they not receive a share of His glory even on earth? 'I call you not servants,' our Lord says, 'you are my friends.' Should we then deprive them of the honour given to them by the Church? What audacity! What boldness of mind, to fight God and His commands! You, who refuse to worship images, would not worship the Son of God, the Living Image of the invisible God, and His unchanging form. I worship the image of Christ as the Incarnate God; that of Our Lady ({~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU U+03c4~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ETA WITH PERISPOMENI U+1fc6~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA U+03c2~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA U+03b8~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON U+03b5~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON U+03bf~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU U+03c4~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH DASIA AND OXIA U+1f45~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER KAPPA U+03ba~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON U+03bf~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON U+03c5~}), the Mother of us all, as the Mother of God's Son; that of the saints as the friends of God. They have withstood sin unto blood, and followed Christ in shedding their blood for Him, who shed His blood for them. I put on record the excellencies and the sufferings of those who have walked in His footsteps, that I may sanctify myself, and be fired with the zeal of imitation. St Basil says, 'Honouring the image leads to the prototype.' If you raise churches to the saints of God, raise also their trophies. The temple of old was not built in the name of any man. The death of the just was a cause of tears, not of feasting. A man who touched a corpse was considered unclean, even if the corpse was Moses himself. But now the memories of the saints are kept with rejoicings. The dead body of Jacob was wept over, whilst there is joy over the death of Stephen. Therefore, either give up the solemn commemorations of the saints, which are not according to the old law, or accept images which are also against it, as you say. But it is impossible not to keep with rejoicing the memories of the saints. The Holy Apostles and Fathers are at one in enjoining them. From the time that God the Word became flesh He is as we are in everything except sin, and of our nature, without confusion. He has deified our flesh for ever, and we are in very deed sanctified through His Godhead and the union of His flesh with it. And from the time that God, the Son of God, impassible by reason of His Godhead, chose to suffer voluntarily He wiped out our debt, also paying for us a most full and noble ransom. We are truly free through the sacred blood of the Son pleading for us with the Father. And we are indeed delivered from corruption since He descended into hell to the souls detained there through centuries and gave the captives their freedom, sight to the blind, and chaining the strong one.[7] He rose in the plenitude of His power, keeping the flesh of immortality which He had taken for us. And since we have been born again of water and the Spirit, we are truly sons and heirs of God. Hence St Paul calls the faithful holy; hence we do not grieve but rejoice over the death of the saints. We are then no longer under grace, being justified through faith, and knowing the one true God. The just man is not bound by the law. We are not held by the letter of the law, nor do we serve as children, but grown into the perfect estate of man we are fed on solid food, not on that which conduces to idolatry. The law is good as a light shining in a dark place until the day breaks. Your hearts have already been illuminated, the living water of God's knowledge has run over the tempestuous seas of heathendom, and we may all know God. The old creation has passed away, and all things are renovated. The holy Apostle Paul said to St Peter, the chief of the Apostles:[8] 'If you, being a Jew, live as a heathen and not a Jew, how will you persuade heathens to do as Jews do?' And to the Galatians: 'I will bear witness to every circumcised man that it is salutary to fulfil the whole law.'