The subject of Alexander's study is the Iconoclastic Controversy: the arguments concerning the legitimacy of Christian images that raged in the Byzantine Empire during the 8th and 9th centuries. The Controversy is studied through the Emperor Nicephorus, who became Patriarch of Constantinople in 806. As well as providing a complete picture of the issues involved in the struggle over religious images in his own Refutatio et Eversio and other writings, Nicephorus was almost alone in preserving documents of the Iconoclasts. The volume includes a paraphrase of Nicephorus' (unpublished) Refutatio et Eversio. (1958)
