Like John of Damascus, Theodore the Studite was an important literary figure and one of the main people involved in the writing of the Canons. Theodore the Studite lived from 759 to 826 CE and was abbot of the Studius Monastery in Constantinople from 798 CE until his death. Like John, Theodore was a defender of icons and believed that iconoclasm was heresy. Theodore's arguments against iconoclasm can be found in his three formal treatises and in his letter which opposed iconoclasm on the basis of the human side of Christ's nature and on Theodore's belief that symbolism was necessary in religious worship. Although Theodore admitted that God could not and should not be represented in art, he still believed that the denial of the legitimacy of icons of Christ meant the denial of the Incarnation. He argued that it was wrong to believe, as the iconoclasts did, that the symbol was the same as the essence it symbolized. If this had been true, he believed that the defenders of the images would have agreed that the legitimate icon of Christ was the sacred element of prayer and conscience. Alongside his writings and stances against iconoclasm, Theodore also created two important funeral orations, one for his mother Theoctistus, whom he painted as a pious but practical Byzantine lady, and another for his uncle Plato , abbot of the Saccudion monastery, whose rules had provided Theodore with a model that would aid him in his own monastic reforms. These works, by Theodore, provide arguments drawn from the iconoclasm periods, as well as his personal history, which give scholars insight into this period of Byzantine history. Another influential scholar was Maximus the Confessor. In his early years, he studied philosophy, g...... middle of paper ......s FX The Western Humanities Volume I: The Beginnings of the Renaissance. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 2010. Newman, Garfield. Echoes of past world history up to the 16th century. Whitby, ON: McGraw-Hill Ryerson Limited, 2001. Nicol, Donald MacGillivray, Teall, John L. “Byzantine Empire.” Britannica Online Academic EditionEncyclopaedia. Accessed January 27, 2014. Retrieved from http://0-www.britannica.com.aupac.lib.athabascau.ca/EBchecked/topic/87186/Byzantine-Empire “St Maximus the Confessor.” Orthodox Church in America. Last modified January 21, 2014. Accessed February 20, 2014. Retrieved from http://oca.org/saints/lives/2014/01/21/100249-st-maximus-the-confessor “Who is Saint Maximus? Saint Maximus the Confessor Orthodox Mission. Accessed February 20, 2014. Retrieved from http://www.stmaximus.org/who_is_st_maximus.html