![]() ![]() Therefore if the image should be obliterated, we would throw it into the fire as so much scrap lumber. Athanasius sums it up in his thirty-eighth chapter of the one hundred chapters written to Antiochus the Prefect with the following words: “We the faithful do not worship images as gods, as did the heathen Greeks – God forbid! – but our only purpose and desire is to see in the image a reflection of the facial form of the beloved. The wood and the metal did not heal the people from their ailments, but God Himself worked through the material to heal the people, so when the people looked at the cross and the bronze snake, they were looking for hope through God, rather than the snake and the wood itself. Another case with Moses was the wooden cross with the bronze snake on. The Cherubim were heavenly creatures, and were made as commanded by the Lord, but they were not worshipped – Moses used this altar to offer praise and sacrifice to the Lord. In fact, God, who gave the second commandment, told Moses himself to build a tabernacle, where in the first tent there was the Holy of Holies, covered by two golden, forged Cherubim. Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever!” (Rom 1:22-25). So, in answer to the second iconoclastic argument, we can say that the mistake of these ancient peoples is that they worshipped created matter, rather than use matter as an aid of worshipping the true Creator. ![]() Paul the Apostle wrote: “Claiming to be wise, they became fools and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles. So with us, we glorify Christ through the cross, and not the wood itself.”Īlso, during the days when the commandments were given to Moses, there were various nature religions, and all civilizations on earth, such as that of the Ancient Egyptians, worshipped idols by turning the created matter into a god, just as St. Leo of Cyprus wrote the following in a book entitled Against the Jews: “If you, O Jew, reproach me by saying that I worship the wood of the cross as I worship God, why do you not reproach Jacob for bowing down before the point of Joseph’s staff? It is obvious that he was not worshipping wood, but that he was bowing before Joseph by means of the wood. As such, in the Orthodox Church, the second commandment is not broken, since the icons are not worshipped by Orthodox Christians. The commandment, then, was given to lead the people of Israel away from idolatry – they should not make the idols or images to worship them. You shall not bow down to them or worship them…” (Ex. The second commandment does not merely state that images must not be made, but it continues by saying that images should not be worshipped: “You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Let us begin with a response to the first iconoclastic argument. Three main arguments have been made by Iconoclasts against the use of icons: First, the second commandment clearly says that no one should make idols or images others would think that Christians worship the icons in the same way that pagans worshipped images and statues of the gods and yet others would hold that representations of Christ imply a Nestorian tendency of separating the human nature and the divine nature of the Incarnate Logos. ![]() There has been various ways that the use of icons has been attacked, whether by Christians themselves (known as the Iconoclasts) or by people of other faiths, such as Islam. Cyril of Alexandria, in his address to the emperor Theodosius, said, “Images are representations of their archetypes and therefore are similar to them.” This is due to the fact that icons are essentially representations of what they portray, and as such we venerate what the icon represents. Later, in the early house churches, there were icons that focused on Old Testament themes, which were in turn taken from elaborate Jewish synagogues in the Diaspora, such as the Dura-Europos synagogue.Īs Orthodox Christians, we do not worship icons, but we praise what and whom the icons represent. The earliest evidence of icons is found in the catacombs. Iconography has existed within Christianity perhaps since apostolic times. Iconography of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Theotokos Virgin Mary, and the saints who have died in the faith, stands as a great heritage in the Coptic Orthodox Church. Written by Matthew Saadalla, and edited by Bishoy Kamal Rofail. ![]() An article that defends the use and veneration of icons in the Church against the three main iconoclastic arguments. ![]()
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