This dissertation concentrates on two aspects of the Iconoclast controversy in eighth- and ninth-century Byzantium—the aesthetic questions that formed the basis of the conflict concerning Christian icons and the cultural atmosphere that governed the manner in which views in favor of and in opposition to sacred representation were to be articulated.

Through a discussion of the efforts of the major writers on icons in the Iconoclast period, I argue that the trajectory of Iconophile argumentation from the eighth to the ninth century indicates a shift in the understanding of the icon—first as mimetic object, and later as symbol. This marked reconsideration, exemplified by the writings of Nikephoros of Constantinople and Theodore of Stoudios, suggests an Iconophile effort to adapt some aspects of the Iconoclast understanding of Christian symbolism to the defense of icons. Against this backdrop, I examine how an implicit or explicit reliance on ancient Greek philosophical concepts—aesthetic and linguistic—enabled the Iconophiles to modify and develop their position in order to emphasize the symbolic nature of sacred representation.

The second portion of this study investigates several aspects of the tension between Greek learning and the Christian tradition in order to challenge the value of the terms “dark age,” traditionally assigned to the period of Iconoclasm, and “revival,” to that directly after it. By examining how the Iconophiles gradually reconsidered the boundaries of sacred and secular within the theological debate and began to assert the indebtedness of their own position on icons to the ancient Greek philosophical tradition, I question the scholarly view of a reintroduction of Aristotelian thought in the late-eighth and early-ninth centuries in Constantinople. Finally, I examine the complex nature of the “Triumph of Orthodoxy,” which has been viewed primarily as an exoneration of Christian iconography. A discussion of Byzantine attitudes toward Greek learning suggests that the final end of Iconoclasm represented a reconsideration of the traditional alignment of Greek learning with paganism that in fact positioned ancient Greek philosophical thought as a safeguard of Christian Orthodoxy against heresy.