Abstract
As Hegel once said, in Byzantium, between homoousis and
homoiousis, the difference of one letter could decide the life and
death of thousands. As this article seeks to argue, Byzantine thinking
was not only attentive to conceptual differences, but also to iconic
ones. The iconoclastic controversy (726-842 AD) arose from two
different interpretations of the nature of images: whereas iconoclastic
philosophy is based on the assumption of a fundamental 'iconic
identity', iconophile philosophy defends the idea of'iconic difference'.
And while the reception in the Latin West of the controversies over
the image as a mere problem of referentiality of the letter explains
why its originality has remained underestimated for centuries, reexamining
Byzantine visual thinking in the light of today's 'pictorial turn' reveals its striking modernity.