IMAGES
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IMAGES
me ", "Thou shall not adore them nor serve them " —
which are eternal natural law {prohibitum quia ma-
lum), from the clause: "Thou shaltnot make to thy-
self any graven image ", etc. In whatever sense the
archsBologist may understand this, it is clearly not
natural law, nor can anyone prove the inherent wick-
edness of making a graven thing; therefore it is Divine
positive law {malum quia prohibitum) of the Old Dis-
pensation that no more applies to Christians than the
law of marrying one's brother's widow.
Since there is no Divine positive law in the New Testament on the subject, Christians are bound firstly by the natural law that forbids us to give to any creature the honour due to God alone, and forbids the obvious absurdity of addressing prayers or any sort of absolute worship to a manufactured image; secondly, by whatever ecclesiastical laws may have been made on this subject by the authority of the Church. The situation was defined quite clearly by the Second Council of Nic^a in 787. In its seventh session the Fathers drew up the essential decision (Spos) of the synod. In this, after repeating the Nicene Creed and the condemnation of former heretics, they come to the burning question of the treatment of holy images. They speak of real adoration, supreme worship paid to a being for its own sake only, acknowledgment of absolute dependence on some one who can grant fa- vours without reference to any one else. This is what they mean by Xarpe/o, and they declare emphatically that this kind of worship must be given to God only; it is sheer idolatry to pay Xarpeio to any creature at all. In Latin, adoratio is generally (though not al- ways; see e. g. in the Vulgate, II Kings, i, 2, etc.) used in this sense. Since the council especially there is a tendency to restrict it to this sense only, so that adorare sandos certainly now sounds scandalous So in English by adoration we now always understand the Xarpela of the Fathers of the Second Nicajan Council. From this adoration the council distinguishes respect and honourable reverence (do-Traa-jnis xoi TifirjTiKi; rpoff- Kiv-ncris) such as may be paid to any venerable or great person — the emperor, patriarch, and so on. A fortiori may and should such reverence be paid to the saints who reign with God. The words TrpoaKiivriffi! (as distinct from Xarpefa) and dov\eia became the technical ones for this inferior honour. npoffKiivria-is (which oddly enough means etymologically the same thing as adoratio — ad + os, Kweiv, to kiss) corresponds in Christian use to the Latin veneratio; Sov\€la would generally be translated cultus. In English we use veneration, reverence, cult, worship for these ideas. This reverence will be expressed in signs determined by custom and etiquette. It must be noted that all out- ward marks of respect are only arbitary signs, like words; and that signs have no inherent necessary connotation. They mean what it is agreed and under- stood that they shall mean. It is always impossible to maintain that any sign or word must necessarily signify some one idea. Like flags these things have come to mean what the people who use them intend them to mean. Kneeling in itself means no more than sitting. In regard then to genuflexions, kisses, in- cense and such signs paid to any object or person the only reasonable standard is the understood intention of the people who use them. Their greater or less abundance is a matter of etiquette that may well dif- fer in different countries. Kneeling especially by no means always connotes supreme adoration. People for a long time knelt to kings. The Fathers of Nicaea II further distinguish between absolute and relative worship. Absolute worship is paid to any person for his own sake. Relative worship is paid to a sign, not at all for its own sake, but for the sake of the thing sig- nified. The sign in itself is nothing, but it shares the honour of its prototype. An insult to the sign (a flag or statue) is an insult to the thing of which it is a sign; so also we honour the prototype by honouring the
sign. In this case all the outward marks of reverence,
visibly directed towards the sign, turn in intention
towards the real object of our reverence — the thing
signified. The sign is only put up as a visible direc-
tion for our reverence, because the real thing is not
physically present. Every one knows the use of such
signs in ordinary life. People salute flags, bow to
empty thrones, uncover to statues and so on ; nor does
any one think that this reverence is directed to col-
oured bunting or wood and stone.
It is this relative worship that is to be paid to the cross, images of Christ and the saints, while the inten- tion directs it all really to the persons these things represent. The text then of the decision of the sev- enth session of Nicaea II is: "We define {bpliop.ev) with all certainty and care that both the figure of the sacred and life-giving Cross, as also the venerable and holy images, whether made in colours or mosaic or other materials, are to be placed suitably in the holy churches of Ciod, on sacred vessels and vestments, on walls and pictures, in houses and by roads; that is to say, the images of our Lord God and Saviour Jesus C!hrist, of our immaculate Lady the holy Mother of God, of the honourable angels and all saints and holy men. For as often as they are seen in their pictorial representations, people who look at them are ardently lifted up to the memory and love of the originals and induced to give them respect and worshipful honour {ofTiraafxbv Kal Tipi7]TLKi]v irpoffKiivrjaLv) l)ut not real atlo- ration {aXriBiPTip XaTpelav), which according to our faith is due only to the Divine Nature.> So that offerings of incense and lights are to be given to these as to the figure of the sacred and life-giving Cross, to the holy Gospel-books and other sacred objects in order to do them honour, as was the pious custom of ancient times. For honour paid to an image passes on to its proto- type; he who worships (6 Trpo(TKvvu>v) an image wor- ships the reahty of him who is painted in it" (Mansi, XIII, pp. .378-9; Harduin, IV, pp. 453-6; Denzinger, "Enchiridion", 10th ed., no. 302; Hefele-Leclercq, op. cit.. Ill, pp. 772-3).
That is still the stand-point of the Catholic Church. The question was settled for us by the Seventh Ecu- menical Council; nothing has since been added to that definition. The customs by which we show our "re- spect and worshipful honour " for holy images natu- rally vary in different countries and at different times. Only the authority of the Church has occasionally stepped in, sometimes to prevent a spasmodic return to Iconoclasm, more often to forbid excesses of such signs of reverence as would be misunderstood and give scandal.
The Schoolmen discussed the whole question at length. St. Thomas declares what idolatry is in the " Summa Theologica ", II-II, Q. xeiv, and explains the use of images in the Catholic Church (ib., a. 2, ad lum). He distinguishes between latria and dulia (ib., II-II, Q. ciii). The twenty-fifth session of the Council of Trent (Dec, 1543) repeats faithfully the principles of Nicaea II: "[The holy Synod commands] that images of Christ, the Virgin Mother of God, and other saints are to be held antl kept especially in churches, that due honour and reverence {debitum honorem et venera- tionem) are to be paid to them, not that any divinity or power is thought to be in them for the sake of which they may be worshipped, or that anything can be asked of them, or that any trust may be put in images, as was done by the heathen who put their trust in their idols [Ps. c.xxxiv, 15 sqq.]; but because the honour shown to them is referred to the prototypes which they represent, so that by kissing, uncovering to, kneeling before images we adore Christ and honour the saints whose likeness they bear " (Denzinger, no. 986) . As an example of contemporary Catholic teach- ing on this subject one could hardly quote anything better expressed than the "Catechism of Christian Doctrine " used in England by command of the Cath-,
