Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/731

711 IMAGE WORSHIP 711 worshipped through natural symbols, such as serpents, trees, meteoric stones, and in some cases temples occurred which contained no visible symbol at all. Even in the Homeric poems, the allusions to images of the gods are but few : where an image is mentioned (as in II. vi. 301), it is evident that it was of the rudest description, and but little indebted to human art. The same remark applies to the cultus of ancient Home. It was carried on without the use of images until the comparatively late period at which the state entered into relations with Etruria, Magna Gnecia, and Sicily. 1 The date of the oldest statue in Home, that of Diana on the Aveutine, can be given with considerable precision as between 577 and 534 B.C. As regards the ancient Germans also, we have the testimony of Tacitus that down to his time at least their gods were still invisible and had neither temples nor images. 2 And, whatever be our construction of the primitive history of the Semitic races, there can be little doubt, so far as the Jews at least are concerned, of the correctness of their own impres sion that &quot; idolatry,&quot; in the strict etymological sense of that word, was not the most primitive form of religion practised among them. The decalogue contains a direct precept against the making of any &quot;graven image&quot; (peseL or pasil), for religious uses at least (Ex. xx. 4, 5 ; Deut. v. 8, 9 ; with which compare Deut. iv. 15-18). The &quot;graven images&quot; contemplated in the passage last cited are images of men, quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, and fishes ; and the manner in which the prohibition is made is fitted to suggest that all these &quot; likenesses &quot; had made their appearance and already become objects of religious veneration prior to its pro mulgation. Nothing certain, however, is known as to the &quot; stnnge gods &quot; alluded to in Gen. xxxv. 4 as having been buried by Jacob under the oak at Shechem ; nor can much be said with regard to the &quot;teraphim&quot; which are first mentioned as having been worshipped in one of the branches of the family of Terah (Gen. xxxi. 19), but are often subsequently referred to as having been used in the time of the judges (Judg. xvii. 5 ; cf. xviii. 30), and at various stages throughout the history both of the northern and of the southern kingdom (Hos. iii. 4 ; Zech. x. 2 ; 2 Kings xxiii. 24). Soaietimes they must have been but small ; but from other passages it may be inferred that they may have been, occasionally at least, of human form and size (1 Sam. xix. 13, 16). Much obscurity attaches also to the calf worship of which an instance occurred in thd wilderness (Ex. xxxii. 4), and which was a prominent feature in the religion of the northern kingdom from the days of Jeroboam i) the end; it is a disputed question whether the cult was of Egyptian or of purely Semitic origin. The difficulty in Lev. xvii. 7, and perhaps also in Deut. xxxii. 17, Ps. cvi. 37, is by some interpreters explained by a reference to the Egyptian goat worship (Mendes) ; if so, these passages contain no allusion to image worship. The various forms of the Baal cultus so often referred to in the Old Testament were no doubt Semitic ; there are no explicit references to any images, however, in this connexion ; and in point of fact (see BAAL) that deity was generally represented in his &quot;high- places,&quot; not by images, but by obelisks or pillars. That the plastic arts, even in a religious connexion, were not wholly discouraged among the Jews, appears from what we read, not only about the bra/en serpent in the wilderness, but also about the existence in tabernacle and temple of such figures as cherubs (Ex. xxv. 18-20; xxvi. 1 ; xxxvi. 1 See Preller, RiJm. Mylhologie, p. 10, &c. The statement of Plut arch (Numa, 8), that for 170 years after the foundation of the city images were unknown, recurs in many later writers. 2 The statements of Tacitus on this head, as well as those of later historians are discussed very fully in Grimm s Deutsche Mythologie,. P. 93 sag. 35 ; 1 Kings vi. 23, 32, 35) executed in various materials) lions, oxen, lotus fiowers, and pomegranates (cf. Ex. xxxi. 4, 5). The graphic descriptions of the process of idol- making, both &quot;graven images&quot; and &quot; molten images &quot;in Isa. xl. and xliv. (with which may be compared Visd. xv.; see also the reference in Isa. xxx. 22 to molten images overlaid with a precious metal) show that the exercise of those arts was far from being confined, at the periods to which these passages relate, within the limits fixed by the second commandment. After the captivity, however, there developed itself among the Jews a steadily growing tendency to interpret the language of the law with the most stringent literality ; and at the time of the Roman occupation the masses, under Pharisaic influences, showed a sensitiveness on the subject of images which in certain recorded instances led to very striking results. Thus, the existence of trophies in the theatre at Jerusalem was violently objected to; Vitellius found it necessary to avoid Judsea in his march from Antioch to Petra, lest the Holy Land should be defiled by the presence of the Roman eagles ; at the outbreak of the Jewish war the house of Antipas at Tiberias was destroyed because it was adorned with sculptures (Joseph., Ant., xv. 8. 1, 2 ; xviii. 3. 1; Vit., 12). This aversion to every exercise of the imitative arts, as regards living things at least, passed over from Judaism to Mahometanism. 3 As regards the attitude towards religious images assumed by the primitive Christian church, several questions have often been treated as one which cannot too carefully be kept quite apart. There can be no doubt, for example, that the early Christians were absolutely unanimous in utterly condemning all heathen image-worship and the various customs, many of them obviously immoral, with which it was associated ; it is needless to multiply citations from iconolatry specially deprecated in the New Testament was the then prevalent adoration of the images of the reigning emperors (see Rev. xv. 2). It is also tolerably certain that, if for no other reasons besides the fewness, obscurity, and poverty of the early converts to Christianity, the works of art seen in their meeting houses cannot possibly at first have been numerous. Along with these reasons would certainly cooperate towards the exclusion of visible aids to devotion, not only the church s vivid recollection of what Christ had been, and its living sense of His continued real though unseen presence, but also, during the first years, its constant expectation of His second advent as imminent. In point of fact it was a common accusation brought against the Christians by their enemies that they had &quot; no altars, no temples, no known images&quot; (Min. Fel., Oct., c. 10), that &quot;they set up no image or form of any god &quot; (see Arnob., Adv. Gent., vi. 1 ; similarly Celsus) ; and this charge was never denied. At a comparatively early date indeed we read of various Gnostic sects calling in the fine arts to aid their worship ; thus Irenseus (Hcer i. 25, 6), speaking of the followers of Marcellina, says that &quot;they possess images, some of them painted, and others formed from different kinds of material; and they maintain that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at that_ time when Jesus lived among men. 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 honouring these images after the same manner as the Gentiles&quot; (cf. Aug., De Ihvr., c. 7). It is 3 On the pre-Islamitic polytheism of Arabia, and the extent to which it consisted in the worship of living animals or their images, see a sug gestive paper by Prof. W. Robertson Smith on &quot; Animal Worship and Animal Tribes among the Arabs and in the Old Testament &quot; in the Journal oj rhilolngy, vol. ix. p. 75-100 (1880).
 * the fathers in proof of so undisputed a fact. A form of