8. Chapter VII. Or, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry — Chapter V
Chapter VII. Or, On the Origin and Progress of Idolatry — Chapter V T he beginnings of idolatry assigned by the ancients to the age of Serug, without reason or authority — Eusebius's Chronicle; Suidas interpolated — Serug of the family of Shem — whether Terah, the father of Abraham, was a statuary — the opinion of Epiphanius on the origin of idolatry; and of Tertullian — the arts of painting and statuary, in the service of idolatry — the rude beginnings of the art of painting — according to Pliny and Athenagoras, who its authors were — the distinction between σκιά [shadow] and εἰκών [image], Hebrews 10:1 — the sun and moon the first idols — the first worship of idols simple adoration — its progress — to worship God, natural — all superstition full of fluctuations — the absence of the new gods — Elijah's mockery of the idolaters on account of the absence of their idols — the Ithyphallic song sung by the Athenians to Demetrius Poliorcetes — the occasion of making Aaron's calf — the general influences of the heavenly bodies — the madness and hardness of heart of the idolaters — the occasions of this new kind of superstition — the origin of pillars, stelae, and images — the testimony of Maimonides; and of
Plotinus — the manner of making images; the idolatry of astrologers — the folly of the old and the more recent image-making.
I. Almost all the ancients assign the beginnings of idolatry to the age of Serug. Serug was born in the sixty-third year after the dispersion of Babel.
That span of time they hold to have been free from this crime. We ourselves have no doubt that, immediately upon the dispersion, the greatest part of the apostate multitude bade farewell to the worship of the one true God. Nor is any reason given why the age of Serug should be believed to have given a special beginning to this crime. Most follow Eusebius in his Chronicle. He asserts that Serug was of the tribe or family of Japheth, to whom Shem was a great-great-grandfather. Eusebius's words are twice cited in Suidas, and in both places Serug is said to have been of the family of Japheth; for a great many things in that work are inserted two or three times over, which are the additions of later hands. But what they ascribe to Serug pertains to Hellenism; for they imagine that he was the first to enter upon the way of religiously worshipping the dead — a practice which, they say, Terah, the father of Abraham, promoted by the fabrication of statues. Epiphanius says this of Serug: Οὔπω δὲ ἐν ξοάνοις καὶ ἐν τορείαις λίθων ἢ ξύλων ἢ ἀργυροτεύκτων ἢ χρυσοῦ ἢ ἐξ ἄλλης τινὸς ὕλης πεποιημένων, μόνον δὲ διὰ χρωμάτων καὶ εἰκόνων ἡ τοῦ ἀνθρώπου διάνοια ἐφ' ἑαυτῇ ηὕρισκε τὴν κακίαν — that is: "Not yet had that superstitious worship attached itself to images, or to carved stones or wood or silver statues or those of any other material; nor was there anything besides colours and likenesses, in which the mind of men had of itself devised this new kind of wickedness." In pictures and colours, then, consisted, at that time, the whole preparation for idolatry, as Tertullian says.
II. It would be easy to prove that the arts of painting and statuary had their beginnings in the service of idolatry; but that the latter preceded the former in that service is not so easily shown. The art of γραφική
[drawing/painting] remained, for several centuries, altogether rude, and unfit for representing the gods, unless these were first fashioned out of some solid material. Pliny teaches that it had its beginning in σκιαγραφία
[shadow-drawing], a rude likeness traced from the observation of a man's shadow. So Athenagoras, in his Legation for the Christians: Καὶ σκιαγραφίας μὲν εὑρεθείσης ὑπὸ Σαυρίου, ἵππον ἐν ἡλίῳ περιγράψαντος
— that is, "Saurias invented the picture of shadow, having traced round the shadow of a horse in the sun." But to paint the Sun itself in shadow — which they held, almost alone above all else, to be a god — was a matter of very great difficulty. He adds: Γραφικῆς δὲ Κράσωνος ἐν πίνακι λελευκωμένῳ σκιὰς ἀνδρὸς καὶ γυναικὸς ἐναλείψαντος — that is: "Craton was the first to show graphice" (that is, the art which added colours to outlines), "who traced, on a whitened tablet, the shadows of a man and a woman." Others added still other things. Hence that distinction of the apostle, Hebrews 10:1: Σκιὰν γὰρ ἔχων ὁ νόμος τῶν μελλόντων ἀγαθῶν, οὐκ αὐτὴν τὴν εἰκόνα τῶν πραγμάτων — "For the law, having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things." Terah was, through his son Nahor, the grandson of Serug; that he practised the potter's and statuary's art, and fashioned images, the Jews have feigned, and most of the ancient Christians have believed.
III. The image-making of Terah, therefore, followed the idolatry of Serug by about eighty or a hundred years. And this is commonly assigned as the first stage in the progress of idolatry. We, however, have entered upon other lines of inquiry in investigating the beginnings of superstitious worship;
and, where we have begun our path, we shall proceed further. ֱא ֹלִהים ֲחָד ִׁשים
[Elohim ḥadashim], as the Holy Spirit speaks, Judges 5:8, or "new gods," which the apostates, scattered from Babel, first procured for themselves, were the Sun and Moon, as we have shown, and the other heavenly bodies.
They used these as guides for their wanderings. Their first worship consisted in simple adoration. By what stages the human race gradually slipped into other seeds of error, and into the most hideous rites of superstition, we shall, as the matter and the occasion allow, briefly set forth.
IV. That some God should be acknowledged and worshipped, that very nature demands, by which we are men. Hence, forgetting the true God, until they adopt false ones, the goads of conscience harass men. It was thus that the first apostates went to the sun, moon, and stars of heaven. The novelty of the thing, and the name of "gods," pleased them for a time. But, driven by the loss of their dearest into these new and rugged straits, the goads and terrors of conscience afflicted them with fresh anxiety and distress. For no one can enjoy true peace of mind, whereby depraved superstition war is declared against the true God. At first, then, those deities did not seem sufficiently present; for unless God be present, he cannot be held a deity. By the same instinct of nature by which we are persuaded that God exists, we are persuaded also that he is present. Nor, for the warding off of dangers — which is, among men, the greatest use of a deity, at least to those wise only in earthly things — can the use of a deity suffice, if he be not more present than every danger, and therefore not God at all. Hence Elijah reproaches the Baalite Israelites with the absence of their idol, 1 Kings 18:27: "Cry aloud, for he is a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, or peradventure he sleepeth." With severe εἰρωνεία [irony] he strips the idol
of all divine nature, of every attribute proper to God, and thereby takes from it all power, and removes it from the divine government.
V. And this consideration kept all idolaters ever thus suspended and anxious, so that, although they attempted to remedy their fear and wavering by means of sacred pillars and images — as we shall presently see — it could not but be that this uncertainty of mind, by which they were troubled, should sometimes break out and betray itself. Hence, it was that the Athenian people, receiving Demetrius Poliorcetes, the liberator of their city, with divine honours, inserted among other things, in the Ithyphallic song, or sacred hymn, sung to him as he entered the walls, these words:
Ὦ τοῦ κρατίστου παῖ Ποσειδῶνος θεοῦ,Καὶ θεᾶς Ἀφροδίτης·Ἄλλοι μὲν ἢ μακρὰν γὰρ ἀπέχουσιν θεοί,Ἢ οὐκ ἔχουσιν ὦτα.Ἢ οὐκ εἰσὶν, ἢ οὐ προσέχουσιν ἡμῖν οὐδὲ ἕν·Σὲ δὲ παρόνθ' ὁρῶμεν,Οὐ ξύλινον, οὐδὲ λίθινον, ἀλλ' ἀληθινόν· — that is: "Hail, O son of Neptune, most mighty god, and of Venus: for the other gods are either far away, or have no ears, or do not exist at all, or pay not the least heed to our affairs; but thee we see present before us — no god of wood or stone, but a true one." Athenaeus,
Deipnosophistae, book VI, relates this from Duris of Samos.
VI. For this cause the Israelites in the wilderness compelled Aaron to cast the golden calf, Exodus 32:1: "Up," they say, "for as for this Moses, we wot not what is become of him. Up, make us gods, which shall go before us."
They do not say, "other gods," nor "gods" absolutely, but "gods which shall go before us," and aid us with their help. For they did not demand another
God besides Jehovah, but some visible sign of the divine presence, to which they might have recourse in matters doubtful and difficult. And such signs were afterwards, indeed, granted by God to that carnal people — but instituted by himself alone. And this was the beginning of that fatal
transgression for that people. Whence the proverb arose:אין לך ישראל פורענות שאין בה אונקיא מעון העגל — — that is, "There befalls thee, O Israel, no retribution in which there is not an ounce of the iniquity of the calf." It is frivolous, and Ἰουδαικώτατον [most Jewish], that certain of the rabbis attempt, from those words of Aaron — "I cast the gold into the fire, and there came out this calf" — as though it had leapt forth unforeseen and without his intending any such thing, to transfer the sin of the calf's formation onto a rabble of Egyptians (among whom, they say, were certain magicians), by whose art it was contrived that, beyond everyone's expectation, the calf should come forth.
VII. This, then, was the occasion of a new superstition for the first idolaters, after they had judged the heavenly bodies worthy to be held as deities. For as every lie is full and fruitful of others, so is the greatest lie the most fruitful of all. Nor is there any error that does not either offer allurements to those who err, or bring upon them some necessity, in the greater number of cases. These deities were absent. But in dangers, in matters set in doubt and difficulty, a present God was needed. Cast into these straits, they ought, by the dictate of right reason, to have returned to the God who is everywhere present. "But it did not seem good to them to retain that true God in their knowledge," as the apostle says, Romans 1:28; and so God gave them over to a mind void of all judgement. Being possessed of such a mind, something had now to be done, by which they might make present to themselves the gods they had chosen.
VIII. Moreover, since the effects of the operations of the heavenly bodies were common, and equal to all, it was exceedingly difficult to understand how each individual might make himself, in some peculiar manner, a partaker of those benefits which they believed flowed from them. For he
who is a God of all in such a way that he takes no care even of individuals, and does good to no one otherwise than when he bestows something on the whole together, is in truth a God to no one. He who is not my God is no God to me. And hence they might very easily have perceived that they had cast themselves into incredible difficulties. But the die was cast, and they had to go further along the road they had begun. Force had to be done, then, to their own κοιναῖς ἐννοίαις [common notions], and to nature itself. The defection of mankind from the rule and government of the one God cost them no less than this. New sensible gods having been set up, what remained of right reason cried out against it, that they were not present, that they took no care of individuals, and therefore were neither to be worshipped nor feared as gods. A bad wedge was applied to a bad knot, and lies were covered over with lies, lest the roof should leak through. To meet this twofold defect, arising from the first and greatest sin of idolatry, the idolaters, by Satan's aid, entered upon new ways, by which they might exhibit the absent deities as present, and draw down their beneficent influences, and enclose them within some present object exposed to each individual. And this was the origin of the sacred pillars, stelae, statues, and images, which we shall next set forth.
IX. There were, as we have said, two inconveniences which the idolaters felt pressing upon them in the choice of their new gods: first, that they were absent and far distant; second, that they took no care of individuals. These they sought to remedy by the erection of pillars and stelae. For they supposed that, by the relation of these to the sun, moon, and stars — whether induced by diabolical incantations, or imposed by the force of dedication — the stars themselves could be made present, and their beneficial influences drawn from them, through a certain Ethereal Spirit, by
anyone's vows and prayers. So, Maimonides teaches us, from the ancient monuments of the Sabaeans, in the Guide for the Perplexed, part III, chapter 29: "According to the opinions of the Sabaeans, they set up images to the stars; to the sun, indeed, images of gold, but to the moon, of silver; and thus they divided the metals and the climates of the earth among the stars. For they said of such-and-such a climate, 'the god and star of it is such-and-such.' Then they built shrines, and placed images in them, supposing that the powers of the stars flowed into those images, and that these had the faculty of understanding, could bestow on men the gift of prophecy, and, finally, could indicate what was useful and salutary for them; so too they speak of trees, which are under the compact of those stars — when a certain tree is dedicated to some star, it is planted in its name, and is cultivated in this or that manner, so that the spiritual powers of the star may be infused into that tree."
Plotinus unveils the whole mystery, Enneads IV, book III, chapter 11: Καί μοι δοκοῦσιν … οἱ πάλαι σοφοὶ ὅσοι ἐβουλήθησαν θεοὺς αὐτοῖς παρεῖναι, ἱερὰ καὶ ἀγάλματα ποιησάμενοι εἰς τὴν τοῦ παντὸς φύσιν ἀπίδοντες, ἐν νῷ λαβεῖν, ὡς πανταχοῦ μὲν εὐάγωγον ψυχῆς φύσις· δέξασθαί γε μὲν ῥᾷστον ἂν εἴη ἁπάντων, εἴ τις πρὸς πάθεσί τι τεκτήναιτο δυνάμενον μοῖραν τινὰ αὐτῆς — that is: "Now it seems to me that the ancient wise men, whoever desired the gods to be present with them" (that is, whom they saw with their own eyes to be far removed from them), "in fashioning shrines and statues, directed the gaze of their minds toward the very nature of the universe; and thence perceived that the nature of soul is everywhere most easily led and inclined, and can most readily of all things be caught, if one should fashion something capable of easily receiving an impression from it, and, by receiving that impression, of obtaining some portion from it."
This is what we have taught: namely, that the idolaters — these Plotinian sages — hoped to capture the power or virtue of the soul of heaven and of the stars, and to enclose it within stelae or statues, so that it might always be present to them. To show, indeed, how this could be brought about, he adds:
Προσπαθὲς δὲ τὸ ὁπωσοῦν μιμηθέν, ὥσπερ κάτοπτρον ἁρπάσαι εἶδός τι δυνάμενον — "That which is in any way fitted for imitation is easily susceptible of impression, just as a mirror is able to seize hold of some likeness."
That is: wherever an ἄγαλμα [image] or statue is set up to a heavenly power, that power is inclined to descend into it, so as to correspond to the imagination of its maker; and the ἄγαλμα at once catches that power, no otherwise than a mirror catches the likeness of a body set before it: Καὶ γὰρ
… ἡ τοῦ παντὸς φύσις πάντα εὐμηχάνως ποιησαμένη εἰς μίμησιν ὧν εἶλε τοὺς λόγους — "For the nature of the universe fashions all things by a certain admirable craftsmanship, in imitation of those things whose rational principles it possesses within itself." That is: there is nothing among these lower things which is not fashioned after the likeness of some power which first existed in the mind of the universe — which is the doctrine of the Platonists concerning the Ideas. The philosopher continues: Ἐπειδὴ ἕκαστον οὕτως ἐγένετο ἐν ὕλῃ λόγος, ὃς κατὰ τὸν πρὸ ὕλης ἐμεμόρφωτο, συνήψατο τῷ Θεῷ ἐκείνῳ καθ' ὃν ἐγίνετο, καὶ εἰς ὃν εἶδε ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ εἶχε, ποιοῦσα — "Since, then, each thing comes into being in this way, surely the rational principle in matter, having been formed according to that principle which is prior to matter, is joined to that God according to whom it was made, and upon whom the soul looked, and whom it possessed, while it was making it."
These words unfold the whole mystery. There is given, in the matter cast into an image, a certain rational principle, which corresponds exactly to that heavenly principle which existed before that matter; and hence arises, between the image and that very being to whom it is consecrated, a relation.
But why this image, or this particular portion of matter, should have this god, or this portion of heavenly power, attached to it, rather than any other, is not yet clear. This, he shows, comes about for a twofold reason. First, because it was fashioned according to that God: Συνήψατο τῷ Θεῷ ἐκείνῳ καθ' ὃν ἐγίνετο ["it was joined to that God according to whom it came into being"]. But how could the maker of the image know according to the power of which god that matter, thus fashioned by him, had proceeded?
This he could perceive from his own soul; for that god upon whom the soul looked when it made the ἄγαλμα [image], is he according to whom it is fashioned. But whether the image-worshippers of today can give better reasons why this or that image should represent this or that saint, rather than any other, I greatly doubt.
X. For the rest, to add this in passing: this idolatrous delirium still clings openly to very many who hawk about that unspeakable art under the name of judicial astrology. For they fashion figures and images, which they pretend correspond to the forms of the heavenly bodies; and thence they persuade fools that these acquire virtue and wondrous effects from the heavenly figure. They have, too, statues and images, in which they say the spirits of the stars are enclosed. These spirits, however, they do not know whether they are the powers of the heavenly bodies, or demons that attend upon the stars. But all this smacks of gross idolatry — although Albertus
Magnus, in his Speculum, Marsilio Ficino, in his De Vita Coelitus Comparanda, Girolamo Cardano, and others, have not been ashamed to
thrust these most absurd portents of the heathen upon the Christian world, without either truth or modesty. In these, indeed, consists the whole rationale of magic — from which crime I can by no means acquit the consecration, among the Papists, of little images, which they call Agnus
Dei, of candles, of holy water, and of other such things.