Graven Image
"You shall not make idols for yourselves; neither a carved image nor a sacred pillar shall you rear up
for yourselves; nor shall you set up an engraved stone in your
land, to bow down to it; for I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 26:1).
Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the LORD your
God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the
form of anything which the LORD your God has forbidden you." (Deuteronomy 4:23).
"You shall make no molded gods for yourselves." (Exodus 34:17).
"Do not turn to idols, nor make for yourselves molded gods: I am the
LORD your God." (Leviticus 19:4).
"‘Cursed is the one who makes a carved or molded image, an abomination
to the LORD, the work of the hands of the craftsman, and sets it up in
secret.’" (Deuteronomy 27:15).
And, or Or?
In those periods when Muslims honor Mohammed's prohibition of all representational
art, they also interpret the second of the ten commandments disjunctively,
as intending to prohibit all representation. What is the status of the
KJV's colon, separating the two clauses of this command?:
"(1.) Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that
is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: (2.) Thou shalt not
bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto
the third and fourth generation of them that hate me; and showing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my
commandments." (Exodus 20:4-6 KJV).
Is that colon effectively a period, so that the second commandment intends to prohibit all image-making, regardless of
function: instruction manuals, driver's license photos, children's refrigerator art? Is the second clause then a non-functioning appendix,
a coda hanging useless to further criminalize a certain behavior connected with a sub-category of the now non-existent imagery, just wiped out
by a stroke of the Legislator's pen? Or do these two clauses work together?
Christians usually understand this commandment to prohibit two things in
conjunction, namely 1.) making graven images, AND 2.) bowing down to them.
As Gracie Allen used to say, Never put a period where God puts a comma.
During their abstract periods, Muslims understand the commandment disjunctively:
do not make graven images at all, whether you subsequently bow down to
them or not. Experience fails to show that making graven images inevitably
leads to idolatry.
Practice
Indirect corroboration against the disjunctive interpretation of the second
commandment (which puts a period after the 'make no graven images' clause)
appears in the same law code's instructions to make figurative images:
"And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work you shall
make them at the two ends of the mercy seat....And the cherubim shall stretch
out their wings above, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and they
shall face one another; the faces of the cherubim shall be toward the mercy
seat." (Exodus 25:18-20).
Since the same law code which prohibits bowing down to graven images also
commands making these winged figures, the offense would seem to lie more
in the intended use of the imagery than in the mere fact of representation.
Solomon made a brazen 'sea' for the temple:
"Then he made the molten sea; it was round, ten cubits from brim to brim, and five cubits high...It stood
on twelve oxen, three facing north, three facing west, three facing south, and three
facing east; the sea was set on them." (1 Kings 7:23-25).
It can be very tricky to argue from what people do, to what people ought
to do; it is not the legislator's goal to tell the world, 'As you were.'
But the prophets do not condemn these images as they do the calves of Bethel.
Pictures of God
The prohibition of idolatry forbids, not making images as such,-- though
it has at times been so interpreted by Jews and Muslims,-- but rather making
images and then bowing down before them in worship. It is not just false
gods who may not be served by this means, but also the true and living God:
"Take careful heed to yourselves, for you saw no form when the LORD spoke to you at Horeb out of the
midst of the fire, lest you act corruptly and make for yourselves
a carved image in the form of any figure: the likeness of male
or female, the likeness of any animal that is on the earth or
the likeness of any winged bird that flies in the air, the likeness
of anything that creeps on the ground or the likeness of any
fish that is in the water beneath the earth." (Deuteronomy 4:15-18).
What is a statue of Jesus Christ but an image of God? To suppose that it is possible to
craft a likeness of the 'humanity' of Christ which is not also
an image of God is the Nestorian heresy. And worshipping images
of God are unlawful: "For it is unlawful for a Christian to set
up any such image for God in a temple; much more nefarious is
it, [therefore], to set it up in the heart, in which truly is
the temple of God, provided it be purged of earthly lust and error."
(St. Augustine, Faith and the Creed, vii. 14). Augustine seems
to have been unacquainted with any statuary in human form in use
in Christian worship: "But, it will be said, we also have very
many instruments and vessels made of materials or metal of this
description for the purpose of celebrating the Sacraments...But
have they mouth, and yet speak not? have they eyes, and see not?...This
is the chief cause of this insane profanity, that the figure resembling
the living person, which induces men to worship it, hath more
influence in the minds of these miserable persons, than the evident
fact that it is not living, so that it ought to be despised by
the living." (Augustine, Commentary on Psalms, Psalm 115:7).
Roman Catholics defend sculpting an image of God, and then bowing down
before it, by noting that in becoming incarnate, Jesus Christ made it possible
to sculpt a true-to-life image of God. Prior to the incarnation, drawing
pictures of God led to confusion: "Professing to be wise, they became
fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made
like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things."
(Romans 1:22-23). Imagery which may have been intended as symbolical caused
grave confusion about the nature of God, and polytheism luxuriated.
God prohibited bowing down before graven images. It is not obvious why
this prohibition should be construed as lifted once better quality, more
true-to-life, images come onto the market.
As the Pagans Do
Roman Catholics distinguish their practice of kneeling before statues from
pagan idolatry by noting they do not worship the object itself, but that
which it represents. The pagans defended their own practices...just the
same way. The pagan theologian Plutarch chided the silly people who thought
the stone "memorials of the gods" were themselves gods:
"And men employ consecrated symbols, some of them obscure and others
clearer, and thereby guide their understanding to a knowledge of things
divine, though not without hazard...Among the Greeks, for instance, there
are persons who have not learned or trained themselves to speak of bronze
and painted and stone images as statues and memorials of gods, but call
them gods themselves." (Plutarch, 'Isis and Osiris,' 68-71).
Likewise the pagan controversialist Porphyry explains that images 'evoke
the memory' of the god:
"[And those] who make images as objects of veneration for the gods
do not imagine that God [himself] is in the wood or the stone or the bronze
used in the making of the image. They do not think for a moment that if
a part of the image is cut off that the power of God is thereby lessened.
Such images -- such as those of animals and those in temples -- were erected
by ancient peoples for the sake of evoking the memory of the god. They
were created so that those who saw them would remember the god..."
(Porphyry's Against the Christians, The Literary Remains, R. Joseph Hoffmann, p. 85)
Nevertheless, the prophets of Israel accused the pagans of worshipping
sticks and stones: "Saying to a tree, ‘You are my father,’ and to
a stone, ‘You gave birth to me.’ For they have turned their back to Me,
and not their face." (Jeremiah 2:27). The prophets are not offering
descriptive psychology, as if the pagans had said, 'We worship sticks and
stones.' Rather, the pagans said, we worship our splendiferous gods. But
the prophets looked around and said, where are they?: "But in the
time of their trouble they will say, ‘Arise and save us.’ But where are
your gods that you have made for yourselves? Let them arise, if they can
save you in the time of your trouble..." (Jeremiah 2:27-28). There
ain't nobody home; there is no magnificent heavenly being under, in, behind,
or around the idol. It is owing to the nullity of the pagan gods that the
idolators are left worshipping sticks and stones, not because that is their
stated preference.
Fathers Know Best
- "For I ask, if any one should often contemplate the likeness of a
man who has settled in a foreign land, that he may thus solace himself
for him who is absent, would he also appear to be of sound mind, if, when
the other had returned and was present, he should persevere in contemplating
the likeness, and should prefer the enjoyment of it, rather than the sight
of the man himself? Assuredly not. For the likeness of a man appears to
be necessary at that time when he is far away; and it will become superfluous
when he is at hand. But in the case of God, whose spirit and influence
are diffused everywhere, and can never be absent, it is plain that an image
is always superfluous."
- (Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, Book 2, Chapter 2).
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- "...but it is not possible at the same time to know God and to address
prayers to images."
- (Origen, Against Celsus, Book 7, Chapter 65).
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- "And what greater wrong, disgrace, hardship, can be inflicted than
to acknowledge one God, and yet make supplication to something else — to
hope for help from a deity, and pray to an image without feeling?"
- (Arnobius, Case Against the Pagans, Book 6, Chapter 9).
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- "But the devil has always slipped into the human mind in the guise
of someone righteous, and made human images with a great variety of arts,
to deify mortal human nature in human eyes. And yet the men who are worshipped
have died, and their images, which have never lived, are introduced for
worship -- and since they've never lived they can't be called dead either!
And with adulterous intent they have rebelled against the one and only
God, like a common whore who has been excited to the wickedness of many
relations and rejected the temperate course of lawful marriage to one husband...Which
scripture has spoken of it? Which prophet permitted the worship of a man,
let alone a woman?"
- (Ephipanius, Panarion, Section VII, 59 [79], 4.4-5.1).
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- "The senseless earth is dishonoured by the makers of images, who change
it by their art from its proper nature, and induce men to worship it; and
the makers of gods worship not gods and demons, but in my view earth and
art, which go to make up images. For, in sooth, the image is only dead
matter shaped by the craftsman’s hand. But we have no sensible image of
sensible matter, but an image that is perceived by the mind alone,—God,
who alone is truly God."
- (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks, Chapter 4).
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Use of images in Christian worship apparently originated with the gnostics: "They style themselves Gnostics. They also possess images, some of them painted, and others formed from different kinds of material; while they maintain that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at that time when Jesus lived among them. They crown these images, and set them up along with the images of the philosophers of the world, that is to say, with the images of Pythagoras, and Plato, and Aristotle, and the rest. They have also other modes of honoring these images, after the same manner of the Gentiles." (Irenaeus, Against Heresies, Book 1, Chapter 26.6).
Excluded Middle
A conflict raged in the eighth century between 'iconoclasts,' who smashed
the images, and 'iconodules,' who frankly and unapologetically wanted to
worship the images. Many Roman Catholics today are under the impression
that their church chose the sane middle ground in this conflict. It did
not, but rather embraced one of the indefensible extremes.
The pictures and statuary in a Roman Catholic Church are not harmless artwork offered for expressive or instructional
purposes. These images are intended to be "venerated": "Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate
Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons -- of Christ,
but also of the Mother of God, the angels, and the saints." (2131, Catechism of the Catholic Church).
What Second Nicaea permits is precisely what the Bible forbids: images
to bow down before, to venerate ['proskyneo'].
Synod of Hieria
It was in the eighth century that the Byzantine Emperor Leo II began smashing
images. Leo's son Constantine V called the Synod of Hieria in mid-century
which affirmed his father's icon-smashing policy. It is sometimes suggested
that Leo II was responding to Islam's challenge. There must have been many
conversations in those days which ran something like this:
Muslim.--Do you believe the ten commandments have been abrogated or superseded,
or are they still in force?
Christian.---Still in force. Didn't Jesus say, "You know the commandments..." (Mark 10:19).
Muslim.--Does this include the second, which prohibits making graven images and
bowing down before them?
Christian.--Yes.
Muslim.--So why do you bow down before images?
Christian.--But we don't...
Muslim.--Yes you do, I've seen you. You genuflect before your statues, and kiss
them. I've even seen worn spots on the statues which have been ground down
by worshippers' repeated kisses. What do you think the Bible means by 'bow down'?
Christian.--Ummm....
The plain fact is, the Christians of the day were bowing down before images,
precisely the behavior which the second commandment criminalizes. As pagans
entered the church, they had brought with them habits and patterns of worship.
The solution? Stop doing it--stop bowing down before the images. This is what's prohibited.
Leo's solution, however, was to smash the images. If their presence in
the churches was a snare to the weak, why not privatize them? The Byzantine
Emperor was the power in the church in those days; the bishop of Rome could
only weakly protest. One can only weep at the wonderful artwork left in
pieces on the pavement.
Second Nicaea
Here is the language justified by the Second Council at Nicaea:
"Proceeding as it were on the royal road and following the divinely inspired teaching of our holy Fathers,
and the tradition of the Catholic Church (for we know that this
tradition is of the Holy Spirit which dwells in the Church),
we define, with all care and exactitude, that the venerable
and holy images are set up in just the same way as the figure
of the precious and life-giving cross; painted images, and those
in mosaic and those of other suitable material, in the holy
churches of God, on holy vessels and vestments, on walls and
in pictures, in houses and by the roadsides; images of our Lord
and God and Saviour Jesus Christ and of our undefiled Lady,
the holy God-bearer, and of the honourable angels, and of all
saintly and holy men. For the more continually these are observed
by means of such representations, so much the more will the
beholders be aroused to recollect the originals and to long
after them, and to pay to the images the tribute of an embrace
and a reverence of honour ['timetike proskynesis], not to pay to them the actual worship
['alethine latreia'] which is according to our faith, and
which is proper only to the divine nature: but as to the figure
of the venerable and life-giving cross, and to the holy Gospels
and the other sacred monuments, so to those images to accord
the honor of incense and oblation of lights, as it has been
the pious custom of antiquity. For the honour paid to the image
passes to its original, and he that adores an image adores in
it the person depicted thereby..." (Definition of the Second
Council of Nicaea, 787 A.D., p. 94, Documents of the Christian Church, Henry Bettenson).
This cannot be considered an effort to understand the second commandment, but rather a defiant statement that one does not intend to observe it.
Proskynesis
This word,-- 'proskynesis',- is the very word the translators of the Septuagint saw fit
to use in translating the second commandment: "Thou shalt not make to thyself an idol, nor
likeness of anything, whatever things are in the heaven above, and whatever are in the earth beneath,
and whatever are in the waters under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down ['proskuneo'] to them, nor serve ['latreuo']
them; for I am the Lord thy God, a jealous God, recompensing the sins of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth
generation to them that hate me..." (Exodus 20:4-5, Brenton Septuagint). Exactly what God forbade: bowing
down ['proskuneo'] before graven images -- is precisely what Empress Irene's Council legalized!
"Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness
for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet
for bitter!" (Isaiah 5:20). God does not allow the one and forbid
the other, He says you shall do neither one nor
the other: "And the Lord made a covenant with them, and charged them,
saying, Ye shall not fear other gods, neither shall ye worship ['proskuneo'] them, nor serve ['latreuo'] them,
nor sacrifice to them: but only to the Lord, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt with great strength and with a high arm:
him shall ye fear, and him shall ye worship; to him shall ye sacrifice." (2 Kings 17:35 Brenton Septuagint).
Roman Catholics claim 'proskynesis' is a lower form of worship than 'latreia,' the latter being reserved for God but the former available to the creature.
But the way the Bible uses these Greek words does not reflect any intent
to set up a two-tier scheme of worship. The Roman Catholics themselves
translate 'proskuneo' in Matthew 4:10 as "worship." Satan
demanded 'proskynesis' not 'latreia,' eliciting this rebuke from the Lord: "Then Jesus replied, 'Be off, Satan!
For scripture says: You must worship ['proskuneo'] the Lord your God, and serve him alone.'" (Jerusalem Bible). The
background of these words in classical Greek is that 'proskynesis' means 'worship,' 'latreia' means 'menial
service': "proskuneo...to make obeisance to the gods, fall down and worship, to worship, adore..." (Liddell &
Scott); "latreia...the state of a hired workman, service, servitude" (Liddell & Scott); "latreuo,
to work for hire or pay, to be in servitude, serve..." (Liddell & Scott).
The literal meaning of the word is roughly 'make like a dog,' originally referring to a peculiar
gesture employed by the pagans: kissing the hand, then blowing
the kiss toward the object of adoration, sort of the way a dog
licks its master's hand. Job seems to be referring to the gesture:
"If I beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon walking in brightness;
And my heart hath been secretly enticed, or my mouth hath kissed
my hand:..." (Job 31:26-27). "...the payer of 'proskynesis'
would bring a hand, usually his right one, to his lips and kiss the tips of his fingers, perhaps blowing
the kiss towards his king or god, though the blowing of kisses
is only known for certain in Roman society. In the carvings of
Persepolis, the nobles mounting the palace staircase or the attendants
on King Artaxerxes's tomb can be seen in the middle of the gesture,
while the Steward of the Royal Household kisses his hand before
the Great King, bending slightly forwards as he does so. These
Persian pictures and the Greeks' own choice of words show that
in Alexander's day, 'proskynesis' could be conducted with the body upright,
bowed or prostrate...In Greece it was a gesture reserved for the
gods alone, but in Persia it was also paid to men..." (Robin Lane
Fox, Alexanderthe Great, pp. 320-321).
When Alexander the Great 'went Persian'
and demanded worship from his subjects,- - 'proskynesis' --
they understood him to be demanding, not the honor a monarch might reasonably expect from the populace,
but divine honors: "It is true that in Greece 'proskynesis'
was only paid to the gods, and that Alexander was doubtless aware of this...he had been wearing the
diadem, which among Greeks was a claim to represent Zeus...It
was to be the same with 'proskynesis': his own Master of Ceremonies
described the first attempt to introduce it and as theincident
took place at a dinner party, he would have been present inthe
dining-room and able to see the result for himself...Then they
went Oriental: they paid 'proskynesis' to Alexander, kissing their hand and
perhaps bowing slightly...This unassuming little ceremony went
the round of all the guests, each drinking, kissing his hand and
being kissed in return by the king, until it came to Callisthenes,
cousin of Aristotle. He drank from the cup, ignored the 'proskynesis'
and walked straight up to Alexander, hoping to receive a proper kiss...Alexander refused to kiss him.
'Very well,' said Callisthenes,'I go away the poorer by a kiss.'"
(Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great, pp. 322-323). This poverty
of a kiss would cost Callisthenes his life; he was executed as
a traitor. Even a pagan like Callisthenes aware one should not
offer 'proskynesis' to a mortal, while Roman Catholics
are not aware of this!
Once 'proskynesis' came to be used to translate foreign words that more properly
mean 'bow down' or 'prostrate oneself', the word's meaning broadened beyond this original sense,
but the various gestures of obeisance the Greeks called 'proskynesis' were bound by the
common thread that these were gestures of such servility the democratically-minded Greeks did not
think them appropriate for one mortal to offer to another. 'Proskynesis' is a strong word,
not a weak one, albeit if you read the LXX you'll find it used to translate 'bowing down' without
theological implications, for instance, "And Moses went forth to meet his father-in-law, and did
him reverence ['proskuneo' LXX], and kissed him, and they embraced each other, and he brought
them into the tent." (Exodus 18:7 Brenton Septuagint). Neither Jews nor Christians employed the
peculiar gesture the word originally described; the word is best understood in the New Testament as
meaning 'worship,' which is how the King James version consistently translates it.
'Latreia,' whose original sense is 'menial service' or 'slave-service', is used
in the Bible to describe the ministrations in the Hebrew temple: "Then
indeed, even the first covenant had ordinances of divine service ['latreia'] and the earthly sanctuary." (Hebrews 9:1).
It remains unclear how Roman Catholics have convinced themselves that it's OK to "worship"
['proskuneo'] all and sundry, provided one does not "serve" ['latreuo'] all comers. The definitions of Second
Nicaea allow that worship ('proskynesis') belongs to the creature,
but service ('latreia') only to God. God's word says otherwise:
"And I fell at his feet to worship ['proskuneo'] him. But he
said to me, 'See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the
testimony of Jesus. Worship ['proskuneo'] God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy.'" (Revelation 19:10).
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