At the beginning of the 8th century, Leo III, emperor of the
Eastern Roman empire, attacked the use of images as aids in
worship.  As such, he was the first leader of the iconoclasts
(image breakers).  Statues and icons of Jesus, Mary, and various
other holy men and women were being used as aids in worship, and
many ordinary Christians were failing to distinguish between the
spiritual reality represented by the image and the image itself.
Leo III came into power after a series of military defeats.
There was also a major earthquake at the beginning of his reign.
Some scholars have speculated the Leo launched his attack on the
use of images because he felt that these disasters were the
result of God's judgement.  Other scholars think that he might
have yielded to pressure from Jews and Muslims who stated that
Christians were no longer obeying the commandment against
idolatry.  In any case, Leo III and successors for the next
century or so fought against the use of images in worship.  In
753, Constantine V, Leo's son, called a synod at which a
gathering of 338 bishops produced the statement below:

          The Synod of Constantinople (Hiera, 753 AD)

When, however, they are blamed for undertaking to depict the
divine nature of Christ, which should not be depicted, they take
refuge in the excuse:  We represent only the flesh of Christ
which we have seen  and handled.  But that is a Nestorian error.
For it should be considered that that flesh was also the flesh
of God the Word, without any separation, perfectly assumed by
the divine nature and made wholly divine. How could it now be
separated and represented apart? So is it with the human soul of
Christ which mediates between the Godhead of the Son and the
dullness of the flesh.  As the human flesh is at the same time
flesh of God the Word, so is the human soul also soul of God the
Word, and both at the same time, the soul being deified as well
as the body, and the Godhead remained undivided even in the
separation of the soul from the body in his voluntary passion.
For where the soul of Christ is, there is also his Godhead; and
where the body of Christ is, there too is his Godhead.  If then
in his passion the divinity remained inseparable from these, how
do the fools venture to separate the flesh from the Godhead, and
represent it by itself as the image of a mere man?  They fall
into the abyss of impiety, since they separate the flesh from
the Godhead, ascribe to it a subsistence of its own, a
personality of its own, which they depict, and thus introduce a
fourth person into the Trinity.  Moreover, they represent as not
being made divine, that which has been made divine by being
assumed by the Godhead.  Whoever, then, makes an image of
Christ, either depicts the Godhead which cannot be depicted, and
mingles it with the manhood (like the Monophysites), or he
represents the body of Christ as not made divine and separate
and as a person apart, like the Nestorians.

The only admissible figure of the humanity of Christ, however,
is bread and wine in the holy Supper.  This and no other form,
this and no other type, has he chosen to represent his
incarnation . . .