The Word Made Flesh – How Gospel Books Transformed Late Antique and Byzantine Icons

Late antique and Byzantine representations of Christ almost always include a book in his hands, yet few scholars have investigated what these books meant to the images’ original audiences or why artists continued to include them. Looking at both books in icons and icons asbooks, this talk addresses representations of codices in early icons of Christ and discusses the ways that Byzantine theologians used gospel books as comparanda for icons during the period of iconoclasm. It traces the development of the Pantocrator iconography and the growth of icons as they benefited from their connection to the Gospels.

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