Christopher Sweeney: Material Images: Image Veneration in the Age before Iconoclasm

The early manifestations of image veneration in Christian practice arose in a context with already well-developed traditions of relic veneration. But, despite similarities between these two practices, it has long been established that we must not look for a relic behind every early venerated image, and that there is thus no direct evolution. Aware of this, and in light of recent scholarship on the sensory mediation of holiness, this paper returns to the question of the relationship between image and relic veneration. Post-Iconoclasm, icons functioned according to a theory of paradigmatic visual holiness, and relics functioned on a paradigm of material holiness. Looking at select narratives of image veneration in the 7th century, this paper shows that a sense that images, as visible entities, were inadequate as conveyors of holiness predominated. Given this ambivalence about visuality, in these early image narratives, images came to receive veneration by being integrated into a material conception of holiness. When images are venerated or perform miracles in the 7th century, they are thought of not as representations but as tangible material objects. They are thus incorporated into the cult of the relics and modeled after it, despite the lack of any actual relic being present.