Miracles of Technology and Art: Ancient Religious Aesthetics and Byzantine Iconoclasm

Abstract

This article explores the role of technology in arousing religious awe from classical antiquity to the time of Emperor Theophilos. People’s fascination with technology ensured that this trend, increasingly popular in Greco-Roman religious festivals from the Hellenistic period onwards, gained pace among Christians after an initial period of rejecting pagan religious aesthetics. Technology was highly prised by both pagan and Christian rulers who typically sought to impress their subjects by displaying the technology available at their disposal. However, while the emperors’ reliance on technology to allude to divine favour was tolerated, technology employed to stage miracles or influence faith was deeply harmful for Christianity. Theophilos’ father is reported by Eutychius to have punished paradigmatically the mastermind of one such mechanically enabled miracle in his native Phrygia. Thus, Theophilos’ iconoclastic views as well as his known obsession with automata are explored as part of a longstanding debate on Christian religious aesthetics.