Europe's centuries-long debates about the nature and status of images of God and sacred figures often upset the established order, shaking established societies to their core. Moshe Barasch finds that an identifiable doctrine emerges out of the arguments employed in attacking sacred images and defending them, of the image in general and of the image of the divine in particular. In "Icon", Barasch concentrates on the arguments for and against iconic representation in the early Christian world, from the period of Late Antiquity up to the great, and classic, defence of the images by St. John of Damascus and Theodore of Studion. Over this period, and within a number of different political, cultural and religious contexts, several definable themes regarding the icon arose and recurred. One is the theme of the image itself, and how "truthful" or "valid" the image is considered to be; a second is the metaphysical resemblance of the icon to the true Christ; a third theme concerns what the image does as opposed to what it "is", ranging from relatively crude beliefs in the healing power of images to highly sophisticated analyses of the inner experience of the spectator of a hallowed icon.
