How did the Church address the question of acceptable iconography?
Having inherited from the Old Covenant both an aversion to idols and an acceptance of certain sacred representations, the early Christians had to confront two opposite extremes.
One extreme holds that no sacred representation whatsoever should be allowed, a position later expressed in the Islamic religion. Yet, this does not accord with the allowance made, even under the Mosaic Law, for certain representations; indeed, the Jews of the Lord’s own time decorated their synagogues, following the example of King Solomon in his years of wisdom (1Kg 6:29–35; 7:36).
The other extreme is the abuse of even sacred representations through unrestrained and superstitious misuse, joined to the opinion that images could never become idols.
Although statues of Christ and the saints were in use, notably in the fourth century16, the Orthodox Fathers set wise boundaries: prohibiting certain representations, and favoring the flat, two-dimensional images that are readily distinguishable from the three-dimensional statues of the pagans. The Council in Trullo, for instance, instructed:
In certain reproductions of venerable images, the Forerunner is pictured indicating the Lamb with his finger… a hidden figure of that true Lamb who is Christ our God… Having thus welcomed these ancient figures and shadows as symbols of the truth transmitted to the Church, we prefer today grace and truth themselves, as the fulfillment of this law. Therefore… we decree that henceforth Christ our God must be represented in his human form, and not in the form of the ancient lamb. (Council in Trullo, canon 82).
The Samaritans were mixed people of northern Israel who intermarried with foreigners after the Assyrian conquest. They accepted only the Pentateuch and worshiped on Mount Gerizim instead of in Jerusalem. For these reasons the Jews despised them.
