“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: 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.”ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.2

We have seen that no similitude or likeness was seen on Sinai when God spoke His law, though there were many similitudes and likenesses there. We have seen that this was so, especially “lest ye corrupt yourselves, and make you a graven image” or likeness. And thus in the Second Commandment there is forbidden, in the worship of God, the use of any similitude or likeness of any kind in any way whatever.ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.3

Yet there are a great number of professed Christians who use images, similitudes, and likenesses in abundance in their professed worship of God. This is worth inquiring into.ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.4

“This first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross and of relics.”—Gibbons. In “honor” of Christ and the martyrs.ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.5

And the first introduction of the cross as a visible symbol was by Constantine, and in the midst of that flood of evil that made the papacy.ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.6

It is true that the sign of the cross was used as early as the days of Tertullian; but it was only a sign, made with a motion of the hand upon the forehead or breast.ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.7

Constantine enlarged upon this by the introduction of the visible cross itself: in the Labarum. He erected in Rome his own statue, “bearing a cross in its right hand, with an inscription which referred the victory of his arms and the deliverance of Rome to that salutary sign, the true symbol of force and courage.ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.8

“The same symbol sanctified the arms of the soldiers of Constantine; the cross glittered on their helmets, was engraved on their shields, was interwoven into their banners; and the consecrated emblems which adorned the person of the emperor himself were distinguished only by richer materials and more exquisite workmanship.”ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.9

The Labarum was “a long pike intersected by a transversal beam,” forming a cross. “The silken veil which hung down from the beam was curiously inwrought with the images of the reigning monarch and his children. The summit of the pike supported a crown of gold, which inclosed the mysterious monogram, at once expressive of the figure of the cross and the initial letters of the name of Christ.”ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.10

The basis of all this was the fiction and the imposture of Constantine’s “vision of the cross.” And from it “the Catholic Church, both of the East and of the West, has adopted a prodigy which favors, or seems to favor, the popular worship of the cross.”ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.11

Under Constantine’s patronage also, “magnificent churches were erected by the emperor in Rome, adorned with images and pictures, where the bishop sat on a lofty throne, encircled by inferior priests, and performing rites borrowed from the splendid ceremonial of the pagan temple.”—Lawrence.ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.12

Pictures were used first. The introduction of these pictures was made under the plea that they were useful to instruct the ignorant, to awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen proselytes. What some person imagined and produced as a picture of Christ, would be painted on the wall or window; and these people would gaze upon that, and sail away upon a sea of their own imagination. In this they thought they were contemplating Christ, and honoring Him, and indeed worshiping Him. But it was as sheer idolatry as ever was. They were only worshiping themselves, in their own imaginings. Never yet has there been made a picture of Christ. All that ever pretended to be such are only idolatrous imagings.ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.13

Soon images were set up along with the pictures, and thus “by a slow, though inevitable, progression, the honors of the original were transferred to the copy; the devout Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminiaries, and incense again stole into the Catholic Church. The scruples of reaon or piety were silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine energy, and may be considered as the proper objects of religious adoration.”ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.14

And thus “the use and even the worship of images was firmly established before the end of the sixth century [before A.D. 600]; they were fondly cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics; the pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a new superstition.... The style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how far their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry: ‘How can we with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose celestial splendor the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who dwells in heaven condescends this day to visit us by His venerable image. He who is seated on the cherubim visits us this day by a picture which the Father has delineated with His immaculate hand; which He has formed in an ineffable manner; and which we sanctify by adoring it with fear and love.’”—Gibbon.ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.15

This will be followed further next week.ARSH April 9, 1901, page 232.16

April 2, 1901

April 16, 1901