“For them, I suppose,” Argyros said after a moment’s hesitation. “I’m no Jew, to say an icon is a graven image. And since it was a breaker of images (is ‘iconoclast’ a word?) who started the troubles here, I can’t look kindly on their cause—all the more so because I had my head split in the brawl.”
“I happen to agree with you,” Lakhanodrakon said. “I respect the tradition of the church, and icons have been a part of it for many, many years. Still, you’ll find honest men who think we’re wrong. In Consistory the other day, the Count of the excubitores called icons a pagan holdover and said that was reason enough to suppress them.”
“It must have made quelling the riot interesting, if you couldn’t decide which faction to put down,” Argyros said dryly.
The Master of Offices rolled his eyes. “Joke all you like, but it’s nothing to laugh at. Both sides can’t be right: either it’s proper to give reverence to icons, or it’s not. The Emperor and the patriarch have to lay down the proper doctrine for the people to follow. We can’t have icons destroyed here and hallowed there. One Empire, one faith.”
“Of course,” Argyros nodded. “Since there can be only one true creed, everyone should follow it.” In theory, as Lakhanodrakon had said, the whole Empire worshiped as Constantinople decreed. In fact, heresy persisted in Egypt, in Syria, in the western provinces reconquered from their German kings—Italia, Ispania, Africa, Narbonese Gallia. Only fitting to root it out wherever it sprang up.
“You have a good knowledge of the inner learning, Basil,” Lakhanodrakon said. “If you were going to justify the use of images in worship, how would you go about it?”
The magistrianos considered. As George Lakhanodrakon had said, he knew his theology; only in the barbarous lands of northwest Europe was such wisdom reserved for priests. He said, “Of course the argument that an icon is a graven image falls to the ground as soon as it is made. The Pauline dispensation frees us from the rigor of the Jewish law. I would say the chief value of images is to remind us of the holy ones they represent—Christ, the Virgin, or a saint. When we look at an icon, we contemplate the figure behind the portrait. Also, icons teach the truths of the faith to those who cannot read Scripture.”
The Master of Offices had been jotting down notes. “That last is a good point; I don’t recall it coming up in any of the council meetings I’ve attended. I’ll pass it on to the patriarch. Have no fear, I’ll mention whose suggestion it was.”
“You’re very kind, your illustriousness,” Argyros said, and meant it. Most imperial officers would have appropriated both the idea and the credit that went with it. Then the import of what Lakhanodrakon had said hit him. “The patriarch is collecting arguments in favor of icons?”
“Sharp as usual, aren’t you?” The Master of Offices was smiling. “Yes, so he is, to be ready in case of need. One of the options raised for putting an end to this quarrel over images is for the Emperor to convene an ecumenical council.”
Argyros whistled, soft and low. “They’re taking it as seriously as that, then?” Ecumenical councils were watersheds in the history of the church; in the thousand years since Constantine the Great, only nine had been called. Groups that refused to accept their decrees passed into heresy: notably the Nestorians of Syria, with their undue emphasis on Christ’s humanity; and the Monophysites, strong in Egypt and all through the Roman east, when the council of Chalcedon would not accept the way they overstressed His divinity.
“I think the Emperor was going to wait and see if things blew over,” Lakhanodrakon said, “until last night. That was when the grand logothete called the city prefect a filthy pagan-minded heretic and broke a crystal decanter over his head.”
“Oh, my,” the magistrianos said, blinking.
“Yes. Officially, of course, the prefect fell down a flight of stairs, and don’t forget it—the saints have mercy on you if you go around telling the other tale. But it was about then that Nikephoros decided a council might not be out of place.”
“When will the order summoning the bishops go out?” Argyros asked.
“Soon, I think. It’s late July now—or has August started yet? In any case, fall will be starting by the time prelates in places like Carthage and Rome and Ispania receive the call. By then it will be too late for them to travel—no ships will be sailing till spring. I imagine the synod will be held then.”
“Good. We’ll have some time to prepare a solid theological case.”
“Among other preparations,” the Master of Offices said with a grin. Ecumenical councils were as much exercises in practical politics as they were religious disputes. Most of the time, they ran as the Emperors who called them wanted them to. NikephorosIII was a thorough ruler; he would have no intention of letting this one go wrong.
Lakhanodrakon went on, “Write me a statement giving your views on the icons; let me have it sometime in the next couple of weeks. I’ll convey it to the patriarch, as I said. Don’t expect any immediate acknowledgment, though—it won’t be the only document he’s getting, I’m sure.”
“I daresay.” Everyone in the city who fancied himself a theologian—which meant, for all practical purposes, everyone in the city who could write—would be sending impassioned missives to the patriarchal residence attached to Hagia Sophia. Most of them, as was the way of such things, would end up in braziers or have their ink scraped off so they could be reused. Lakhanodrakon made a gesture of dismissal, saying, “I’ll look forward to seeing that commentary of yours.” Argyros bowed his way out, then hotfooted it over to the library in Hagia Sophia: best to start taking notes before half the tomes he needed disappeared.
The magistrianos submitted his long memorandum on the icons to George Lakhanodrakon. He was proud of the document, which he had thickly studded with quotations from such venerable authorities as St. John Chrysostom, St. Ambrose of Milan, St. Sophronios of Jerusalem, St. Athanasios of Alexandria, and the church historian Eusebios, who had been at the very first ecumenical council, the one Constantine had convened at Nikaia.
While he worked and afterward, reports of strife over the images kept coming into Constantinople. A riot convulsed Ephesos, with half the town burnt. Several monasteries were sacked outside of Tarsos when the monks refused to yield up their icons. The Jewish quarter of Neaplis in Italia was plundered because the Neaplitans blamed the Jews, who rejected images for their own reasons, for stirring up iconoclasm in the first place.
It was almost a relief when the stormy season set in and news grew harder to acquire. One of the last grain ships from Alexandria brought word that Arsakios, the patriarch of that city, had convened a local synod there to try to settle the issue for his ecclesiastical province. No one on the big merchantman knew how the synod had come out; it had still been going on when they sailed. Argyros wondered how much the gathering could accomplish. The patriarchate of Alexandria leaned over backward to avoid antagonizing the Monophysites, who were probably a majority in Egypt, and the Monophysites had always opposed images. As their name implied, they felt Christ had but one nature, the divine, after the Incarnation, with His humanity entirely subsumed. And since God by definition was uncircumscribable, the Monophysites rejected all attempts to portray Christ. Come to think of it, the magistrianos remembered, that was the line the Egyptian monk Sasopis had taken. Despite Argyros’s best efforts, the devil seemed to have vanished into thin air. Probably, the magistrianos thought gloomily, he was halfway across the Empire by now, spreading trouble as he wandered from town to town.
As winter wore on, Argyros forgot about Sasopis. The Master of Offices shared responsibility with the patriarch for lodging the bishops during the upcoming council, for one of his duties was seeing to embassies that came to Constantinople. George Lakhanodrakon passed the job on to Argyros, who went through the city checking on available cells in monasteries and on grander quarters for the more important or more luxury-minded prelates.