Homily 2.2 Against Idolatry

A Homily Against the Peril of Idolatry and the Excessive Adorning of Churches

Part One

The two previous Homilies have declared what the true ornaments of the church or temple of God consist in, treating of the right use of the temple or house of God and of the reverence that all true Christian people are bound to give it. The sum of it is this: the church or house of God is a place appointed by the holy Scriptures where the living word of God ought to be read, taught, and heard; where the Lord's holy Name is called upon by public prayer; where hearty thanks are given to his Majesty for the infinite and unspeakable benefits he has bestowed on us; and where his holy Sacraments are duly and reverently ministered. Therefore all who are truly godly ought both to come together diligently to that church at the appointed times, and there to conduct themselves before the Lord with all reverence. And that church, so used in godly fashion by the servants of the Lord in the Lord's true service, is called by the word of God — as indeed it is — the temple of the Lord and the house of God, because of the effectual presence of God's grace there, by which, through his holy word and promises, he endows his people present and assembled with the worldly benefits necessary for us and with all heavenly gifts and life everlasting. And therefore the reverence due to it is stirred up in the hearts of the godly by considering these true ornaments of God's house, and not by any outward ceremonies or costly and glorious decking of the Lord's house or temple.

Contrary to this most manifest doctrine of the Scriptures, contrary to the practice of the primitive Church, which was most pure and uncorrupt, and contrary to the judgments of the most ancient, learned, and godly doctors of the Church (as shall appear hereafter), the corruption of these later days has brought into the church countless multitudes of images. These, and other parts of the temple with them, men have decked with gold and silver, painted with colours, set with stone and pearl, and clothed with silks and precious vestments — imagining, untruly, that this is the chief decking and adorning of the temple or house of God, and that all people would be the more moved to due reverence for it if every corner of it were glorious and glittering with gold and precious stones. Whereas in fact, by these images and by such glorious decking of the temple, they have profited nothing at all those who were wise and of understanding, but have greatly hurt the simple and unwise, giving them occasion to commit the most horrible idolatry; and covetous persons, by the same occasion, seem to worship — and perhaps do indeed worship — not only the images, but the very material of them, gold and silver — as indeed that vice is, of all others, particularly called in the Scriptures idolatry, or the worshipping of images.

Against these foul abuses and great enormities there shall be set before you, first, the authority of God's holy word, out of the Old Testament as well as the New; secondly, the testimonies of the holy and ancient learned fathers and doctors of the Church, out of their own works and out of the ancient histories of the Church, both so that you may at once know their judgment and also so that you may understand what kind of ornaments were in the temples of the primitive Church in those times which were purest and most sincere; and thirdly, the reasons and arguments made in defence of images or idols and of the outrageous decking of temples and churches with gold, silver, pearl, and precious stone shall be refuted, and so this whole matter concluded.

But in case anyone should take occasion along the way to raise a doubt about words or names, it is thought good to note first of all that, although in common speech we usually call the likeness or similitude of men or other things images and not idols, the Scriptures always use those two words, idols and images, without distinction, for one and the same thing. They are words of different languages and different sounds, but one in sense and signification in the Scriptures. The one is taken from the Greek word eidolon, an idol; the other from the Latin word imago, an image; and both are used as English terms in the translating of the Scriptures without distinction. So, where the Septuagint has in its Greek translation eidola, St. Jerome in his translation of the same places in Latin has simulacra, in English images. And in the New Testament, what St. John calls eidolon St. Jerome likewise translates simulacrum, as he usually translates all other like places of Scripture. And Tertullian, a most ancient doctor and well learned in both tongues, Greek and Latin, expounding this place of St. John, "Beware of idols," says: "that is to say, of the images themselves." The Latin words he uses are effigies and imago, that is, an image. And therefore it does not matter whether in what follows we use the one term or the other, or both together, since they signify one thing.

And though some, to blind men's eyes, have before now craftily attempted to make them be taken for words of different meaning in matters of religion, and have therefore customarily called the likeness or similitude of a thing set up among the heathen in their temples or elsewhere to be worshipped an idol, but the like similitude set up among us in the church, the place of worship, they call an image — as though these two words, idol and image, differed in Scripture in propriety and sense, which (as has been said) differ only in sound and language, and in meaning are indeed all one, especially in the Scriptures and in matters of religion. And our images also have been, and are, and, if they are publicly allowed in churches and temples, ever will be worshipped too, and so idolatry committed to them, as shall be declared and proved at large in the last part of this Homily. Therefore our images in temples and churches are indeed nothing else but idols, since idolatry has been, is, and ever will be committed to them.

And first of all, the Scriptures of the Old Testament condemning and abhorring all idolatry or worshipping of images, and the very idols or images themselves, especially in temples, are so many and so plentiful that it would be an almost endless work, to be contained in no small volume, to record all the places concerning it. For when God had chosen to himself a peculiar and special people from among all other nations — nations that did not know God, but worshipped idols and false gods — he gave them certain ordinances and laws to be kept and observed by his people. But on no other matter did he give them either more laws, or more earnest and express laws, than on those that concerned the true worshipping of him and the avoiding and fleeing of idols and images and idolatry; both because idolatry is above all other vices most repugnant to the right worshipping of him and to his true glory, and because he knew the proneness and inclination of man's corrupt kind and nature to that most odious and abominable vice. Of the ordinances and laws so given by the Lord to his people on this matter I will rehearse and set out some of the most notable for this purpose, so that by them you may judge of the rest.

In the fourth chapter of the book named Deuteronomy there is a notable passage, most worthy to be marked with all diligence, which begins like this:

And now, Israel, hear the commandments and judgments which I teach you, says the Lord, that by doing them you may live, and may enter and possess the land which the Lord God of your fathers will give you. You shall put nothing to the word which I speak to you, nor shall you take anything from it. Keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you. (Deuteronomy 4:1-2)

And immediately after, he repeats the same sentence three or four times before he comes to the matter he means especially to warn them of — as it were a preface, to make them take the better heed to it:

Take heed to yourself, he says, and to your soul with all carefulness, lest you forget the things which your eyes have seen, and lest they go out of your heart all the days of your life. You shall teach them to your children and to your grandchildren, or posterity. (Deuteronomy 4:9)

And shortly after: "The Lord spoke to you out of the middle of the fire; you heard the voice or sound of his words, but you saw no form or shape at all." (Deuteronomy 4:12) And immediately there follows:

Take heed therefore diligently to your souls. You saw no manner of image on the day when the Lord spoke to you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire — lest, being deceived, you should make to yourselves any graven image or likeness of man or woman, or the likeness of any beast that is upon the earth, or of the birds that fly under heaven, or of any creeping thing that moves on the earth, or of the fishes that continue in the waters; or lest, lifting up your eyes to heaven, you should see the sun and the moon and the stars of heaven, and so, being deceived by error, should honour and worship them, which the Lord your God has created to serve all the nations that are under heaven. (Deuteronomy 4:15-19)

And again:

Beware that you do not forget the covenant of the Lord your God which he made with you, and so make to yourself any carved image of those things which the Lord has forbidden to be made; for the Lord your God is a consuming fire, and a jealous God. If you have children and grandchildren, and remain long in the land, and, being deceived, make to yourselves any likeness, doing evil before the Lord your God and provoking him to anger — I call this day upon heaven and earth to witness that you shall quickly perish out of the land which you shall possess. You shall not dwell in it any long time, but the Lord will destroy you and will scatter you among all nations; and you shall remain but a very few among the nations to which the Lord will lead you away. And then you shall serve gods which are made with man's hands, of wood and stone, which neither see nor hear, neither eat nor smell. (Deuteronomy 4:23-28)

And so it goes on. This is a notable chapter, and treats almost wholly of this matter; but because it is too long to write out entire, I have noted certain principal points out of it for you. First, how earnestly and how often he calls upon them to mark it and to take heed, and that upon the peril of their souls, to the charge he gives them. Then, how he forbids — by a solemn and long rehearsal of everything in heaven, in earth, and in the water — any image or likeness of anything at all to be made. Thirdly, what penalty and horrible destruction he solemnly denounces and threatens, calling heaven and earth to record, against them and their children and posterity, if contrary to this commandment they make or worship any image or likeness, which he has so strictly forbidden.

And when, notwithstanding all this, they did fall to the making and worshipping of images — partly through the inclination of man's corrupt nature, which is most prone to idolatry, and partly through the occasion given by the Gentiles and heathen people dwelling around them, who were idolaters — God, according to his word, brought upon them all those plagues which he had threatened them with, as appears at large in many places in the Books of the Kings and the Chronicles.

And there are many other notable places in the Old Testament that agree with this. Deuteronomy 27: "Cursed be he that makes a carved image, or a cast or molten image, which is an abomination before the Lord, the work of the craftsman's hand, and sets it up in a secret corner. And all the people shall say, Amen." (Deuteronomy 27:15)

Read the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of the Book of Wisdom concerning idols or images: how they are made, set up, called upon, and offered to; and how the writer praises the tree from which the gibbet is made as happy in comparison with the tree that an image or idol is made of, in these very words: "Happy is the tree through which righteousness comes" — meaning the gibbet — "but cursed is the idol that is made with hands, yes, both it and he that made it." (Wisdom 14:7-8) And immediately he shows how the things which were good creatures of God before, such as trees or stones, become an abomination once they are altered and fashioned into images to be worshipped, a temptation to the souls of men and a snare for the feet of the unwise. And why? "The seeking out of images is the beginning of sexual immorality," he says,[1] "and the bringing up of them is the destruction of life. For they were not from the beginning, nor shall they continue for ever. The wealthy idleness of men has found them out upon earth; therefore they shall shortly come to an end." (Wisdom 14:12-14)

And so on to the end of the chapter, which contains these points: how idols or images were first invented and offered to; how by an ungracious custom they were established; how tyrants compel men to worship them; how the ignorant and the common people are deceived by the cunning of the workman and the beauty of the image into doing honour to it, and so err from the knowledge of God; and many other great mischiefs that come by images. And for a conclusion he says that the honouring of abominable images is the cause, the beginning, and the end of all evil, and that the worshippers of them are either mad or most wicked. See and view the whole chapter with diligence, for it is worthy to be well considered — especially what is written about the deceiving of the simple and unwise common people by idols and images, which is repeated twice or three times lest it should be forgotten. And in the chapter following are these words: "The painting of the picture and the carved image with various colours entices the ignorant, so that he honours and loves the picture of a dead image that has no soul. Nevertheless, they that love such evil things, they that trust in them, they that make them, they that favour them, and they that honour them, are all worthy of death." (Wisdom 15:5-6)

In the book of Psalms the Prophet curses the honourers of images in various places: "Confounded be all they that worship carved images, and that delight or glory in them. Like be they to the images that make them, and all they that put their trust in them." (Psalm 97:7; 115:8)

And in the Prophet Isaiah the Lord says: "I am the Lord, and this is my name; and my glory will I give to no other, nor my honour to graven images." (Isaiah 42:8) And immediately: "Let them be confounded with shame that trust in idols or images, or say to them, You are our gods." (Isaiah 42:17) And in the fortieth chapter, after he has set forth the incomprehensible Majesty of God, he asks:

To whom then will you make God like? Or what likeness will you set up for him? Shall the carver make him a carved image? And shall the goldsmith cover him with gold, and cast him into a form of silver plates? And for the poor man, shall the image maker frame an image of timber, that he may have something to set up as well? (Isaiah 40:18-20)

And after this he cries out: "O wretches, have you never heard of this? Has it not been preached to you since the beginning?" (Isaiah 40:21) — and so on, showing how by the creation of the world and the greatness of the work they might have understood that the Majesty of God, the Creator and Maker of all, is greater than could be expressed or set forth in any image or bodily likeness.

And besides this preaching, even in the law of God, written with his own finger (as the Scripture speaks), and that in the first table and at the very beginning of it, is this same doctrine against images — not briefly touched, but set forth and preached at large, and that with a denunciation of destruction against the despisers and breakers of this law and against their posterity after them. And lest it should still not be marked, or not remembered, the same is written and reported not in one place but in several places of the word of God, so that by often reading and hearing it we might once learn and remember it. So you also hear it read daily in the church:

God spoke these words and said: I am the Lord your God. You shall have no other gods but me. You shall not make to yourself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them, nor worship them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, and visit the sin of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and show mercy to thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments. (Exodus 20:1-6)

For all this, neither could the notableness of the place — being the very beginning of the living Lord's law — make us mark it; nor could the plain declaration, recounting every kind of likeness, cause us to understand it; nor could the often repeating and reporting of it in many and various places, and the often reading and hearing of it, cause us to remember it; nor could the dread of the horrible penalty to ourselves and our children and posterity after us make us afraid to transgress it; nor could the greatness of the reward to us and our children after us move us at all to obedience and to the keeping of this great law of the Lord. But instead — as though it had been written in some corner, and not expressed at large but only briefly and obscurely touched; as though no penalty to the transgressors and no reward to the obedient had been joined to it — like blind men without any knowledge or understanding, like unreasonable beasts without dread of punishment or regard for reward, we have diminished and dishonoured the high Majesty of the living God by the baseness and vileness of all sorts of images of dead stocks, stones, and metals.

And as the Majesty of God, whom we have left, forsaken, and dishonoured — and therefore the greatness of our sin and offence against his Majesty — cannot be expressed, so the weakness, vileness, and foolish contrivance of the images by which we have dishonoured him is set out at large in the Scriptures: namely in the Psalms, the Book of Wisdom, the Prophet Isaiah, Ezekiel, and Baruch, and especially in these places and chapters of them: Psalms 115 and 135, Isaiah 40 and 44, Ezekiel 6, Wisdom 13, 14, and 15, and Baruch 6. These places I urge you to read often and diligently; but they are too long to be rehearsed here in a homily. Nevertheless I will make you certain brief and short notes out of them, of what they say about these idols or images.

First, that they are made only of small pieces of wood, stone, or metal, and therefore cannot be any likeness of the great Majesty of God, whose seat is heaven and the earth his footstool. Secondly, that they are dead: they have eyes and see not, hands and feel not, feet and cannot go, and so on; and therefore they cannot be fit likenesses of the living God. Thirdly, that they have no power to do good or harm to others. Though some of them have an axe, some a sword, some a spear in their hands, yet thieves come into their temples and rob them, and they cannot stir once to defend themselves from the thieves. Indeed, if the temple or church is set on fire, their priests can run away and save themselves, but the images cannot move at all: they stay still, like the blocks they are, and so are burnt. Therefore they can be no fit figures of the powerful and mighty God, who alone is able both to save his servants and to destroy his enemies everlastingly. They are trimly decked in gold, silver, and stone, the images of men as well as of women, like wanton wenches (says the Prophet Baruch) that love paramours; and therefore they can teach neither us, nor our wives and daughters, any soberness, modesty, or chastity. And so, although it is now commonly said that they are the laymen's books, yet we see they teach no good lesson, neither of God nor of godliness, but all error and wickedness.

Therefore God by his word, as he forbids any idols or images to be made or set up, so he commands that such as we find made and set up be pulled down, broken, and destroyed. It is written in the book of Numbers, the twenty-third chapter, that "there was no idol in Jacob, nor was any image seen in Israel, and the Lord God was with that people." (Numbers 23:21) Note here that the true Israelites, that is, the people of God, have no images among them; but God was with them, and therefore their enemies could not hurt them, as appears in the course of that chapter.

And concerning images already set up, the Lord says this in Deuteronomy: "Overturn their altars and break them to pieces; cut down their groves; burn their images: for you are a holy people to the Lord." (Deuteronomy 7:5-6) And the same is repeated more vehemently again in the twelfth chapter of the same book. Note here what the people of God ought to do to images wherever they find them.

But lest any private persons, under colour of destroying images, should make any stir or disturbance in the commonwealth, it must always be remembered that the redress of such public enormities belongs to the magistrates and to those in authority only, and not to private persons. And therefore the good kings of Judah — Asa, Hezekiah, Jehoshaphat, and Josiah — are highly commended for breaking down and destroying the altars, idols, and images; and the Scriptures declare that in that point especially they did what was right before the Lord. On the contrary, Jeroboam, Ahab, Joash, and other princes who either set up such altars or images, or allowed them to stand undestroyed, are reported by the word of God to have done evil before the Lord.

And if any, contrary to the commandment of the Lord, will needs set up such altars or images, or allow them to stand undestroyed among them, the Lord himself threatens, in the first chapter of the book of Nahum and by his holy Prophets Ezekiel, Micah, and Habakkuk, that he will come himself and pull them down. And how he will handle, punish, and destroy the people that set up or allow such altars, images, or idols to stand undestroyed, he declares by his prophet Ezekiel in this manner:

I myself, says the Lord, will bring a sword over you, to destroy your high places. I will cast down your altars and break down your images; your slain men will I lay before your gods, and the dead carcases of the children of Israel will I cast before their idols; your bones will I strew round about your altars and dwelling places. Your cities shall be desolate, the hill chapels laid waste, your altars destroyed and broken, your gods cast down and taken away, your temples laid even with the ground, your own works clean rooted out; your slain men shall lie among you: that you may learn and know that I am the Lord. (Ezekiel 6:3-7)

And so on to the end of the chapter, worthy to be read with diligence: that those who are near shall perish by the sword, those who are far off by the pestilence, those who flee into strongholds or the wilderness by hunger; and that if any are yet left, they shall be carried away prisoners into servitude and bondage. So that, if either the multitude or the plainness of these places might make us understand, or the earnest charge that God gives in them move us to take heed, or the horrible plagues, punishments, and dreadful destruction threatened against such worshippers of images or idols, and setters up or maintainers of them, might breed any fear in our hearts, we would at last leave and forsake this wickedness, which is in the Lord's sight so great an offence and abomination. Almost infinite places might be brought out of the Scriptures of the Old Testament concerning this matter; but these few shall serve for all at this time.

You will say perhaps: these things pertain to the Jews; what have we to do with them? Indeed they pertain no less to us Christians than to them. For if we are the people of God, how can the word and law of God not belong to us? St. Paul, quoting one text out of the Old Testament, concludes generally for the other Scriptures of the Old Testament as well as for that one, saying, "Whatever is written before" — meaning in the Old Testament — "is written for our instruction." (Romans 15:4) This sentence is most especially true of those writings of the Old Testament which contain the unchangeable law and ordinances of God, never in any age or time to be altered, nor to be disobeyed by persons of any nation or age — such as the places rehearsed above.

Nevertheless, for your further satisfaction in this, and according to my promise, I will likewise out of the Scriptures of the New Testament, the Gospel of our Saviour Christ, make a confirmation of that same doctrine against idols or images, and of our duty concerning them. First, the Scriptures of the New Testament in various places make mention with rejoicing, as of a most excellent benefit and gift of God, that those who received the faith of Christ were turned from their dumb and dead images to the true and living God, who is to be blessed for ever: namely in these places — the fourteenth and seventeenth chapters of the Acts of the Apostles; the eleventh chapter to the Romans; the first Epistle to the Corinthians, the twelfth chapter; the fourth to the Galatians; and the first to the Thessalonians, the first chapter.

And likewise these idols or images, and the worshipping of them, are in the Scriptures of the New Testament much abhorred and detested by the Spirit of God, and earnestly forbidden, as appears both in the places already named and in many others besides: in the seventh and fifteenth chapters of the Acts of the Apostles; in the first to the Romans, where the horrible plague of idolaters is set forth, who are given over by God to a reprobate mind to work all wickedness and abominations not to be spoken of — for spiritual and carnal immorality usually go together. In the first Epistle to the Corinthians, the fifth chapter, we are forbidden even to keep company, or to eat and drink, with such as are called brethren or Christians and yet worship images. In the fifth to the Galatians the worshipping of images is numbered among the works of the flesh; and in the first to the Corinthians, the tenth, it is called the service of devils, and those who use it shall be destroyed. And in the sixth chapter of that same Epistle, and in the fifth to the Galatians, it is declared that such image worshippers shall never come into the inheritance of the kingdom of heaven. And in various other places it is threatened that the wrath of God shall come upon all such.

And therefore St. John in his Epistle exhorts us, as his dear children, to beware of images; and St. Paul warns us to flee from the worshipping of them, if we are wise — that is to say, if we have any regard for our health and any fear of destruction, if we have any regard for the kingdom of God and life everlasting, and any dread of the wrath of God and everlasting damnation. For it is not possible that we should be worshippers of images and true servants of God as well. So St. Paul teaches in the second to the Corinthians, the sixth chapter, where he expressly affirms that there can be no more consent or agreement between the temple of God, which all true Christians are, and images than between righteousness and unrighteousness, between light and darkness, between the faithful and the unfaithful, or between Christ and the devil. This place enforces both that we should not worship images and that we should not have images in the temple, for fear and occasion of worshipping them, even though of themselves they are things indifferent[2] — for the Christian is the holy temple and living image of God, as the place well declares to any who will read it and weigh it.

And whereas all godly men have always abhorred that any kneeling and worshipping or offering should be made to themselves while they were alive, because that is the honour due to God only — as appears in the Acts of the Apostles, where St. Peter forbids it to Cornelius, and St. Paul and Barnabas forbid the same to the citizens of Lystra — yet we, like madmen, fall down before the dead idols or images of Peter and Paul, and give that honour to stocks and stones which they thought abominable to be given to themselves while they were alive. And the good angel of God, as appears in the book of St. John's Revelation, refused to be kneeled to when John offered him that honour. "Beware," says the angel, "that you do it not; for I am your fellow servant." (Revelation 19:10) But the evil angel Satan desires nothing so much as to be kneeled to, and thereby at once both to rob God of his due honour and to work the damnation of those who make him so low a courtesy, as appears in several places in the story of the Gospel. Indeed, he offered our Saviour Christ all earthly goods on condition that he would kneel down and worship him.

But our Saviour repels Satan by the Scriptures, saying: "It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him alone shall you serve." (Matthew 4:10; Deuteronomy 6:13) But we, by not worshipping and serving God alone as the Scriptures teach us, and by worshipping images contrary to the Scriptures, draw Satan to us, and are ready to follow his desire without any reward at all; indeed, rather than fail, we will offer him gifts and oblations to receive our service.

But let us rather, brethren, follow the counsel of the good angel of God than the suggestion of subtle Satan, that wicked angel and old serpent, who — after the pride by which he first fell — always attempts by such sacrilege to deprive God, whom he envies, of his due honour; and, because his own face is horrible and ugly, to convey that honour to himself by the mediation of gilded stocks and stones; and with it to make us the enemies of God and his own suppliants and slaves; and in the end to procure for us everlasting destruction and damnation as our reward. Therefore above all things, if we take ourselves to be Christians indeed, as we are named, let us believe the word, obey the law, and follow the doctrine and example of our Saviour and Master Christ, repelling Satan's suggestion to idolatry and the worshipping of images, according to the truth alleged and taught out of the Testament and Gospel of our heavenly Doctor and Schoolmaster Jesus Christ, who is God, to be blessed for ever. Amen.

Part Two

You have heard, well beloved, in the first part of this Homily, the doctrine of the word of God against idols and images, against idolatry and the worshipping of images, taken out of the Scriptures of the Old Testament and the New, and confirmed by the examples of the Apostles and of our Saviour Christ himself. Now, although our Saviour Christ neither takes nor needs any testimony of men, and although what has once been confirmed by the certainty of his eternal truth has no more need of the confirmation of man's doctrine and writings than the bright sun at noonday has need of the light of a little candle to drive away darkness and increase its light, yet, for your further satisfaction, it shall be declared in this second part (as was promised at the beginning of the first) that this truth and doctrine concerning the forbidding of images and of the worshipping of them, taken out of the holy Scriptures of the Old Testament as well as the New, was believed and taught by the old holy fathers and the most ancient learned doctors, and received in the old primitive Church, which was most uncorrupt and pure. And this declaration shall be made out of those holy doctors' own writings and out of the ancient histories of the Church belonging to the same.

Tertullian, a most ancient writer and doctor of the Church, who lived about a hundred and sixty years after the death of our Saviour Christ, both in various other places of his works and especially in his book written against the manner of Crowning, and in another little treatise entitled Of the Soldier's Crown or Garland, writes and inveighs most sharply and vehemently against images or idols; and upon St. John's words in the first Epistle and fifth chapter he says this:

St. John, considering the matter deeply, says: My little children, keep yourselves from images or idols. He does not now say, Keep yourselves from idolatry, as it were from the service and worshipping of them, but from the images or idols themselves, that is, from the very shape and likeness of them. For it would be an unworthy thing that the image of the living God should become the image of a dead idol.

Do not those persons, think you, who place images or idols in churches and temples — yes, and shrine them even over the Lord's table, as though on purpose for the worshipping and honouring of them — take good heed to either St. John's counsel or Tertullian's? For so to place images and idols: is that to keep themselves from them, or rather to receive and embrace them?

Clement, in his book to James the brother of the Lord, says: "What can be so wicked or so unthankful as to receive a benefit from God and to give thanks for it to stocks and stones? Therefore awake, and understand your salvation. For God has need of no man, nor requires anything, nor can be hurt in anything; but we are they who are either helped or hurt, according as we are thankful to God or unthankful."

Origen in his book against Celsus says this: "Christian men and Jews, when they hear these words of the Law, You shall fear the Lord your God, and shall not make any image, do not only abhor the temples, altars, and images of the gods, but, if need be, will rather die than defile themselves with any impiety." And shortly after he says: "In the commonwealth of the Jews the carver of idols and the image maker was cast far off and forbidden, lest they should have any occasion to make images, which might pluck certain foolish persons away from God and turn the eyes of their souls to the contemplation of earthly things." And in another place of the same book: "It is not only a mad and frantic thing to worship images, but even to dissemble or wink at it." And again: "A man may know God and his only Son, and those to whom such honour has been given by God that they are called gods; but it is not possible that anyone should by the worshipping of images get any knowledge of God."

Athanasius in his book against the Gentiles has these words:

Let them tell me, I pray, how God may be known by an image. If it is by the matter of the image, then there is no need of shape or form, seeing that God has appeared in all material creatures, which testify to his glory. But if they say he is known by the form or fashion, is he not better known by the living things themselves, whose fashion the images express? For surely the glory of God would be more evidently known if it were declared by reasonable and living creatures rather than by dead and unmoveable images. Therefore, when you carve or paint images in order to know God by them, surely you do an unworthy and unfitting thing.

And in another place of the same book he says: "The invention of images came of no good, but of evil; and whatever has an evil beginning can never in anything be judged good, seeing it is altogether worthless." Thus far Athanasius, a very ancient, holy, and learned bishop and doctor, who judges the first beginning, the end, and the whole of images or idols to be worthless.

Lactantius likewise, an old and learned writer, in his book Of the Origin of Error has these words: "God is above man, and is not placed beneath, but is to be sought in the highest region. Therefore there is no doubt that there is no religion in any place where an image is. For if religion stands in godly things, and there is no godliness except in heavenly things, then images are without religion." These are Lactantius' words, who lived above thirteen hundred years ago, and within three hundred years after our Saviour Christ.

Cyril, an old and holy doctor, upon the Gospel of St. John has these words: "Many have left the Creator and have worshipped the creature; nor have they been ashamed to say to a stock, You are my father, and to a stone, You begot me. For many, indeed almost all — alas for sorrow — have fallen into such folly that they have given the glory of deity" (or godhead) "to things without sense or feeling."

Epiphanius, Bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, a very holy and learned man who lived in the time of the Emperor Theodosius, about three hundred and ninety years after our Saviour Christ's ascension, writes this to John, Patriarch of Jerusalem:

I entered a certain church to pray, and found there a linen cloth hanging in the church door, painted, and having on it the image of Christ, as it were, or of some other Saint (for I do not well remember whose image it was). Therefore, when I saw the image of a man hanging in the church of Christ contrary to the authority of the Scriptures, I tore it, and gave counsel to the keepers of that church that they should wind in that cloth some poor man that was dead, and so bury him.

And afterwards the same Epiphanius, sending another unpainted cloth to the said Patriarch in place of the painted one he had torn, writes this:

I pray you, will the elders of that place to receive this cloth which I have sent by this bearer, and command them that from now on no such painted cloths, contrary to our religion, be hung in the church of Christ. For it becomes your goodness rather to have this care, that you take away such scrupulosity, which is unfitting for the church of Christ and offensive to the people committed to your charge.

And this epistle, as worthy to be read by many, St. Jerome himself translated into the Latin tongue. And so that you may know that St. Jerome held this holy and learned Bishop Epiphanius in the highest estimation, and therefore translated this epistle as a writing of authority, hear what a testimony he gives him in his treatise against the errors of John, Bishop of Jerusalem, where he has these words: "You have," says St. Jerome, "Pope Epiphanius, who openly in his letters calls you a heretic. Surely you are not to be preferred before him, neither for age, nor learning, nor godliness of life, nor by the testimony of the whole world." And shortly after in the same treatise St. Jerome says: "Bishop Epiphanius was ever held in such veneration and estimation that Valens the Emperor," who was a great persecutor, "did not once touch him. For heretics, being princes, thought it a shame to themselves if they should persecute so notable a man." And in the Tripartite Ecclesiastical History, the ninth book and forty-eighth chapter, it is testified that Epiphanius, while he was yet alive, worked miracles, and that after his death devils being expelled at his grave or tomb did roar. Thus you see what authority St. Jerome and that most ancient History give to the holy and learned Bishop Epiphanius, whose judgment of images in churches and temples — then just beginning by stealth to creep in — is worthy to be noted.

First, he judged it contrary to Christian religion and to the authority of the Scriptures to have any images in Christ's church. Secondly, he rejected out of Christ's church not only carved, graven, and molten images, but painted images too. Thirdly, he did not care whether it were the image of Christ or of any other Saint: being an image, he would not allow it in the church. Fourthly, he did not only remove it out of the church, but with a vehement zeal tore it apart, and urged that a corpse should be wrapped and buried in it, judging it fit for nothing but to rot in the earth — following in this the example of the good King Hezekiah, who broke the brazen serpent to pieces and burned it to ashes because idolatry had been committed to it. Last of all, Epiphanius thinks it the duty of vigilant bishops to be careful that no images be permitted in the church, because they are an occasion of scruple and offence to the people committed to their charge.

Now, since neither St. Jerome, who translated that epistle, nor the authors of that most ancient Tripartite History of the Church, who most highly commend Epiphanius (as has been said), nor any other godly or learned bishop of that time or shortly after, wrote anything against Epiphanius' judgment concerning images, it is an evident proof that in those days — about four hundred years after our Saviour Christ — there were no images publicly used and received in the Church of Christ, which was then much less corrupt and far purer than it is now. And whereas images began at that time secretly and by stealth to creep out of private men's houses into the churches, and that first in painted cloths and on walls, such bishops as were godly and vigilant, when they spied them, removed them away as unlawful and contrary to Christian religion, as Epiphanius did here. And to his judgment you have consenting and agreeing not only St. Jerome, the translator of his epistle, and the writer of the Tripartite History, but also all the learned and godly bishops and clergy — yes, and the whole Church of that age, and so upward to our Saviour Christ's time, a space of about four hundred years.

This is written the more fully about Epiphanius because our image maintainers nowadays, seeing themselves so hard pressed by this most plain and earnest deed and writing of a bishop and doctor of such antiquity, holiness, and authority, labour by all means — though in vain against the truth — either to prove that this epistle was neither of Epiphanius' writing nor of St. Jerome's translation, or else to say that, if it is, it is of no great force. For this Epiphanius, they say, was a Jew, and, being converted to the Christian faith and made a bishop, still kept in his mind the hatred that Jews have to images, and so did and wrote against them as a Jew rather than as a Christian.

O the Jewish impudence and malice of such inventors! It would need to be proved, and not merely said, that Epiphanius was a Jew. Furthermore, as for the reason they make, I would gladly admit it. For if Epiphanius' judgment against images is not to be admitted because he was converted to Christ's religion from being a Jew — an enemy to images, which are God's enemies — then it likewise follows that no sentence in the old doctors and fathers that sounds in favour of images ought to be of any authority; because in the primitive Church the greater part of the learned writers, such as Tertullian, Cyprian, Ambrose, Augustine, and countless others, were converted to the Christian faith from being Gentiles, who are favourers and worshippers of images, and so let something slip out of their pens sounding for images, rather as Gentiles than as Christians. Indeed, Eusebius in his History of the Church, and St. Jerome, say plainly that images came first from the Gentiles to us Christians.

And it follows much more that the opinion of all the rabble of the papal church maintaining images ought to be esteemed of small or no authority; for it is no marvel that those who from their childhood have been brought up among images and idols, and have drunk in idolatry almost with their mother's milk, should hold with images and idols, and speak and write for them. But indeed the thing to be marked is not so much whether the writer was converted to Christ's religion from being a Jew or from being a Gentile, but how agreeably or how contrarily to God's word he writes, and by that to credit or discredit him. Now, what God's word says of idols and images and the worshipping of them you have heard at large in the first part of this Homily.

St. Ambrose in his treatise on the death of the Emperor Theodosius says: "Helena found the cross and the title on it. She worshipped the King, and not the wood, surely — for that is a heathen error and the vanity of the wicked — but she worshipped him that hung on the cross, and whose name was written in the title," and so forth. See here at once both the godly Empress's deed and St. Ambrose's judgment. They thought it would have been a heathenish error and the vanity of the wicked to have worshipped the cross itself, which was stained with our Saviour Christ's own precious blood; and we fall down before every cross piece of timber, which is but an image of that cross.

St. Augustine, the best learned of all the ancient doctors, in his forty-fourth Epistle to Maximus says: "Know that none of the dead, nor anything that is made by God, is worshipped as God by the catholic Christians, of whom there is a Church also in your town." Note that by St. Augustine such as worship the dead or creatures are not counted among the catholic Christians. The same St. Augustine teaches, in the twenty-second book of the City of God, the tenth chapter, that neither temples nor churches ought to be built or made for Martyrs or Saints, but for God alone, and that no priests ought to be appointed for a Martyr or a Saint, but for God only.

The same St. Augustine in his book Of the Manners of the Catholic Church has these words: "I know that many are worshippers of tombs and pictures; I know that there are many that banquet most riotously over the graves of the dead, and, giving food to dead carcases, bury themselves upon the buried, and attribute their gluttony and drunkenness to religion." See, he esteems the worshipping of Saints' tombs and pictures to be as good religion as gluttony and drunkenness, and no better at all. St. Augustine greatly approves the judgment of Marcus Varro, that religion is most pure without images. And he says himself: "Images are of more force to warp an unhappy soul than to teach and instruct it." And he says further: "Every child, yes, every beast, knows that what they see is not God. Why then does the Holy Spirit so often admonish us of what all men know?" To which St. Augustine himself answers thus: "Because," he says, "when images are placed in temples and set in honourable height, and once begin to be worshipped, at once there breeds the most vile affection of error." This is St. Augustine's judgment of images in churches: that immediately they breed error and idolatry.

It would be too tedious to rehearse all the other places that might be brought out of the ancient doctors against images and idolatry; and so we shall content ourselves with these few at present.

Now, as concerning the Histories of the Church touching this matter — that you may know why and when and by whom images were first used privately, and afterwards not only received into the Christians' churches and temples but in the end worshipped also, and how the same was gainsaid, resisted, and forbidden, by godly bishops and learned doctors as well as by various Christian princes — I will briefly gather into a compendious history what is written at large and in many places by various ancient writers and historians concerning this matter.

As the Jews, having a most plain and express commandment of God that they should neither make nor worship any image (as has been declared at large above), did nevertheless, following the example of the Gentiles or heathen people that dwelt about them, fall to the making of images and the worshipping of them, and so to the committing of most abominable idolatry — for which God by his holy Prophets most sharply reproves and threatens them, and afterwards accomplished those threatenings by punishing them to the utmost, as has also been specified above — even so some of the Christians in old time, who had been converted from the worshipping of idols and false gods to the true living God and to our Saviour Jesus Christ, out of a certain blind zeal, and as men long accustomed to images, painted or carved images of our Saviour Christ, of his mother Mary, and of the Apostles, thinking that this was a point of gratitude and kindness towards those from whom they had received the true knowledge of God and the doctrine of the Gospel. But these pictures or images did not yet come into churches, nor were they worshipped, for a long time after.

And lest you should think that I say this merely of my own head and without authority, I cite for myself Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea and the most ancient author of the History of the Church (who lived about the three hundred and thirtieth year of our Lord, in the days of the Emperors Constantine the Great and his son Constantius), in the seventh book of his History of the Church, the fourteenth chapter; and St. Jerome upon the tenth chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah. Both of them expressly say that the "error" of images — for so St. Jerome calls it — has come in and passed over to the Christians from the Gentiles "by a heathenish use" and custom. Eusebius shows the cause and the means, saying:

It is no marvel if those who had been Gentiles before they believed seemed to offer this as a gift to our Saviour for the benefits they had received from him. Indeed, we see now that images of Peter and Paul and of our Saviour himself are made, and panels painted; which I think to have been observed and kept, without any distinction, by a heathen custom, for the heathen are accustomed so to honour those whom they judged worthy of honour. For that some tokens of men of old should be kept for the remembrance of posterity is a token of the honour of those who went before and of the love of those who come after.

Thus far I have rehearsed Eusebius' words. Note here that both he and St. Jerome agree in this, that these images came in among Christian men through those who were Gentiles and accustomed to idols, and who, being converted to the faith of Christ, still kept some remnants of heathenism not thoroughly purged; for St. Jerome plainly calls it an "error." And we see the like example in the Acts of the Apostles concerning the Jews, who, when they were converted to Christ, would have brought in their circumcision (to which they had so long been accustomed) with them into Christ's religion — a matter which the Apostles, and namely St. Paul, had much ado to stay. But circumcision was less to be marvelled at, since it came in first by God's ordinance and commandment. A man may most justly wonder how images, so directly against God's holy word and strict commandment, ever entered in at all.

But images were not yet publicly received into churches and temples; and those who had them privately erred out of a certain zeal, and not out of malice. Afterwards, however, they crept out of private houses into churches, and so bred first superstition and at last idolatry among Christians, as shall be declared hereafter.

In the time of the Emperors Theodosius and Marcian, who reigned about the year of our Lord 460,[3] eleven hundred years ago, the people of the city of Nola used once a year to celebrate the birthday of St. Felix in the temple, and to banquet there sumptuously; and Pontius Paulinus, Bishop of Nola, had the walls of the temple painted with stories taken out of the Old Testament, so that the people, beholding and considering those pictures, might the better abstain from too much surfeiting and riot. And about the same time Aurelius Prudentius, a very learned and Christian poet, tells how he saw painted in a church the history of the passion of St. Cassian, a schoolmaster and martyr, whom his own scholars, at the commandment of the tyrant, tormented by pricking and stabbing their pointels or brazen pens into his body, and so by a thousand wounds and more (as Prudentius says) most cruelly slew him. These were the first paintings in churches that were notable for their antiquity. And so by this example painting came in, and afterwards images of timber and stone and other material, into the churches of Christians.

Now, if you will consider this beginning, men are not so ready to worship a picture on a wall or in a window as an embossed and gilded image, set with pearl and stone. And the course of a story painted with the gestures and actions of many persons, and commonly with the sum of the story written alongside, has another use in it than one dumb idol or image standing by itself. But from learning by painted stories it came little by little to idolatry. And when godly men — emperors and learned bishops as well as others — perceived this, they commanded that such pictures, images, or idols should be used no more. And to declare it, I will begin with the decree of the ancient Christian Emperors Valens and Theodosius the Second, who reigned about four hundred years after our Saviour Christ's ascension, and who forbade that any images should be made or painted even privately; for it is certain that in their time there were none publicly in temples. These Emperors wrote to the Captain of the Army attending on the Emperors in this manner:

Valens and Theodosius, Emperors, to the Captain of the Army. Whereas we have a diligent care to maintain in all things the religion of God above, we will grant to no man to set forth, engrave, carve, or paint the image of our Saviour Christ in colours, in stone, or in any other material; but in whatever place it shall be found, we command that it be taken away, and that all such as shall attempt anything contrary to our decrees or commandment herein be most sharply punished.

This decree is written in the books named Libri Augustales, the Imperial Books, gathered by Tribonianus, Basilides, Theophilus, Dioscorus, and Satira, men of great authority and learning, at the commandment of the emperor Justinian; and it is alleged by Petrus Crinitus, a notably learned man, in the ninth book and ninth chapter of his work entitled De Honesta Disciplina, that is to say, Of Honest Learning. Here you see what Christian princes of the most ancient times decreed against images, which were then beginning to creep in among the Christians. For it is certain that for the space of three hundred years and more after the death of our Saviour Christ, and before the reign of these godly Emperors, there were no images publicly in churches or temples. How the idolaters would glory, if they had as much antiquity and authority for them as there is here against them!

Now, shortly after these days the Goths, Vandals, Huns, and other barbarous and wicked nations burst into Italy and into all the western countries of Europe with huge and mighty armies, spoiled all places, destroyed cities, and burned libraries; so that learning and true religion went to wreck and decayed incredibly. And so, the bishops of those later days being of less learning, and in the midst of wars taking less heed than the bishops before them — through ignorance of God's word and the negligence of bishops, and especially through barbarous princes not rightly instructed in true religion bearing the rule — images came into the Church of Christ in those western parts where these barbarous people ruled, made of timber, metal, and other such material; and they were not only set up, but began to be worshipped as well. And therefore Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles, the head town of Gallia Narbonensis (now called Provence), a godly and learned man who lived about six hundred years after our Saviour Christ, seeing the people fall by occasion of images into most abominable idolatry, broke to pieces all the images of Christ and of the Saints that were in that city; and for this he was complained of to Gregory, the first of that name Bishop of Rome, who was the first learned bishop that allowed the open having of images in churches, so far as can be known by any writing or history of antiquity.

And upon this Gregory all image worshippers at this day ground their defence. But as all things that are amiss have grown from a tolerable beginning worse and worse, until at last they became intolerable, so did this matter of images. First men used privately stories painted on panels, cloths, and walls; afterwards, gross and embossed images privately in their own houses. Then afterwards pictures first, and after them embossed images, began to creep into churches, learned and godly men ever speaking against them. Then by use it was openly maintained that they might be in churches, but it was still forbidden that they should be worshipped. Of this opinion was Gregory, as plainly appears by his Epistle to the aforesaid Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles, which Epistle is to be found in the book of the Epistles of Gregory, or Register, in the tenth part, the fourth Epistle, where he has these words:

That you forbade images to be worshipped, we altogether praise; but that you broke them, we blame. For it is one thing to worship the picture, and another thing by the picture of the story to learn what is to be worshipped. For what Scripture is to those who read, the same the picture performs for idiots (or the unlearned) who behold it.

And so forth. And after a few words: "Therefore that ought not to have been broken which was set up in churches, not to be worshipped, but only to instruct the minds of the ignorant." And a little after:

Thus you should have said: If you will have images in the church for that instruction for which they were made in old time, I permit that they may be made, and that you may have them. And show them that it was not the sight of the story, which is opened by the picture, but the worshipping that was improperly given to the pictures, that displeased you. And if any would make images, do not forbid them, but by all means avoid worshipping any image.

By these sentences taken here and there out of Gregory's Epistle to Serenus (for it would be too long to rehearse the whole) you may understand what the matter had come to six hundred years after Christ: that the having of images or pictures in the churches was then maintained in the western part of the world (for they were not yet so perverse in the eastern Church), but the worshipping of them was utterly forbidden. And you may note with this that, since there is no ground for the worshipping of images in Gregory's writing, but rather a plain condemnation of it, those who worship images unjustly allege Gregory in their favour. And further, if images in the Church do not teach men, as Gregory intended, but rather blind them, it follows by his own sentence that images should not be in the church, since he would have had them placed there only to the end that they might teach the ignorant. And therefore, if it be declared that images have been and are worshipped, and also that they teach nothing but errors and lies — which by God's grace shall be done hereafter — I trust that then, by Gregory's own determination, all images and image worshippers shall be overthrown.

But in the meantime Gregory's authority was so great in all the western Church that by his encouragement men set up images in all places. But their judgment was not so good as to consider why he would have them set up, and they fell all in heaps to manifest idolatry by worshipping them, which Bishop Serenus, not without just cause, had feared would come to pass. Now, if Serenus' judgment, which thought it fit that images to which idolatry had been committed should be destroyed, had taken place, idolatry would have been overthrown; for no man commits idolatry to that which does not exist. But what ruin of religion and what mischief followed afterwards to all Christendom from Gregory's opinion — that images might be allowed in churches, so long as it were taught that they should not be worshipped — experience has proved to our great hurt and sorrow: first, by the schism that arose between the eastern and western Churches about these images; next, by the division of the Empire into two parts on the same occasion of images, to the great weakening of all Christendom; and from this, last of all, has followed the utter overthrow of the Christian religion and of the noble Empire in Greece and in all the eastern parts of the world, and the increase of Mahomet's false religion, and the cruel dominion and tyranny of the Saracens and Turks, who now hang over the necks of us who dwell in the western parts as well, ready at every occasion to fall upon us. And all this we owe to our idols and images, and to our idolatry in worshipping them.

But now give ear a little to the course of the history. In it I chiefly follow the Histories of Paulus Diaconus and of others joined with Eutropius, an old writer; for although some of these authors were favourers of images, yet they most plainly and at large set out the histories of those times. Baptista Platina also, in his History of the Popes — as in the Lives of Constantine and Gregory the Second, Bishops of Rome, and in other places where he treats of this matter — chiefly follows them.

After Gregory's time, Constantine, Bishop of Rome, assembled a Council of bishops in the western Church, and condemned Philippicus, then Emperor, and John, Bishop of Constantinople, of the heresy of the Monothelites — not without cause indeed, but very justly. When he had done this, by the consent of the learned about him, the same Constantine, Bishop of Rome, had the images of the ancient fathers who had been at those six Councils which were allowed and received by all men painted in the entry of St. Peter's church at Rome. When the Greeks came to know of this, they began to dispute and to reason the matter of images with the Latins, and held this opinion, that images could have no place in Christ's Church; and the Latins held the contrary, and took part with the images. So the eastern and western Churches, which agreed badly before, upon this contention about images fell into utter enmity, which has never yet been well reconciled.

But in the meantime Philippicus and Arthemius, or Anastasius, Emperors, commanded images and pictures to be pulled down and erased in every place of their dominion. After them came Theodosius the Third, who commanded the defaced images to be painted again in their places; but this Theodosius reigned only one year. Leo, the third of that name, succeeded him, a Syrian born, a very wise, godly, merciful, and valiant prince. This Leo by proclamation commanded that all images set up in churches to be worshipped should be plucked down and defaced, and required especially the Bishop of Rome to do the same. He himself in the meantime caused all the images that were in the imperial city of Constantinople to be gathered into a heap in the middle of the city, and there publicly burned them to ashes, and whited over and erased all the pictures painted upon the walls of the temples, and sharply punished various maintainers of images. And when some therefore reported him to be a tyrant, he answered that such men above all others were most justly punished, who neither worshipped God aright nor regarded the imperial majesty and authority, but maliciously rebelled against wholesome and profitable laws.

When Gregory, the third of that name Bishop of Rome, heard of the Emperor's doings in Greece concerning images, he assembled a Council of Italian bishops against him, and there made decrees for images, and that yet more reverence and honour should be given them than before; and he stirred up the Italians against the Emperor, first at Ravenna, and moved them to rebellion. And, as Auspurgensis and Antoninus, Bishop of Florence, testify in their Chronicles, he caused Rome and all Italy at last to refuse their obedience and the payment of any more tribute to the Emperor, and so by treason and by the law of rebellion maintained their idolatry. This example other bishops of Rome have continually followed and carried through most stoutly.

After this Leo, who reigned thirty-four years, succeeded his son Constantine the Fifth, who after his father's example kept images out of the temples. And, being moved by the Council which Gregory had assembled in Italy for images against his father, he also assembled a Council of all the learned men and bishops of Asia and Greece; and in that great assembly (though some writers report the matter otherwise) they sat in Council from the fourth of the Ides of February to the sixth of the Ides of August, and concerning the use of images made this decree:

It is not lawful for those who believe in God through Jesus Christ to have any images, neither of the Creator nor of any creatures, set up in temples to be worshipped; but rather all images ought, by the law of God and for the avoiding of offence, to be taken out of churches.

And this decree was executed in all places where any images were found in Asia or Greece. And the Emperor sent the determination of this Council held at Constantinople to Paul, then Bishop of Rome, and commanded him to cast all images out of the churches; which he, trusting in the friendship of Pepin, a mighty prince, refused to do. And both he and his successor Stephen the Third, who assembled another Council in Italy for images, condemned the Emperor and the Council of Constantinople of heresy, and made a decree that "the holy images" (for so they called them) of Christ, of the blessed Virgin, and of other Saints were indeed worthy of honour and worship.

When Constantine was dead, Leo the Fourth his son reigned after him, who married a woman of the city of Athens named Theodora, who was also called Irene, by whom he had a son named Constantine the Sixth; and, dying while his son was yet young, he left the rule of the empire and the governance of his young son to his wife Irene. These things were done in the Church about this time.[3-1]

Note here, I pray you, in the course of this story, that in the churches of Asia and Greece there were no images publicly for the space of almost seven hundred years. And there is no doubt that the primitive Church, nearest to the Apostles' times, was the purest. Note also that, when the contention began about images, of six Christian Emperors — who were the chief magistrates to be obeyed by God's law — only one, Theodosius, who reigned but one year, held with images. All the other Emperors, and all the learned men and bishops of the eastern Church, and that in assembled Councils, condemned them; besides the two Emperors mentioned before, Valens and Theodosius the Second, who were long before these times, and who strictly forbade that any images should be made. And universally after this time all the Emperors of Greece, only Theodosius excepted, continually destroyed all images.

Now on the contrary part note this, that the Bishops of Rome, being no ordinary magistrates appointed by God outside their own diocese, but usurpers of princes' authority contrary to God's word, were the maintainers of images against God's word, and stirrers up of sedition and rebellion, and workers of continual treason against their sovereign lords, contrary to God's law and to the ordinances of all human laws — being not only enemies to God, but also rebels and traitors against their princes. These are the first bringers of images openly into churches; these are the maintainers of them in the churches; and these are the means by which they have maintained them, namely conspiracy, treason, and rebellion against God and against their princes.

Now to proceed in the history, which is most worthy to be known. During the minority of Constantine the Sixth, the Empress Irene his mother, in whose hands the rule of the empire remained, was much governed by the advice of Theodore, a Bishop, and of Tharasius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who practised and held with the Bishop of Rome in maintaining images most earnestly.

By whose counsel and entreaty the Empress first most wickedly dug up the body of her father-in-law Constantine the Fifth, and commanded it to be openly burned and the ashes thrown into the sea. Which example (as the constant report goes) was likely to have been put in practice with princes' corpses in our own days, had the authority of the holy father continued but a little longer. The reason why the Empress Irene used her father-in-law so was that, while he was alive, he had destroyed images and had taken away the sumptuous ornaments of churches, saying that Christ, whose temples they were, allowed poverty and not pearls and precious stones.

Afterwards the said Irene, at the persuasion of Adrian, Bishop of Rome, and of Paul the Patriarch of Constantinople and his successor Tharasius, assembled a Council of the bishops of Asia and Greece at the city of Nicaea; where, the Bishop of Rome's legates being presidents of the Council and ordering all things as they pleased, the Council which had been assembled before under the Emperor Constantine the Fifth, and had decreed that all images should be destroyed, was condemned as a heretical Council; and a decree was made that images should be set up in all the churches of Greece, and that honour and worship also should be given to those images. And so the Empress, sparing no diligence in the setting up of images nor any cost in decking them in all churches, made Constantinople within a short time altogether like Rome itself.

And now you may see that come to pass which Bishop Serenus feared, and which Gregory the First forbade in vain — namely, that images should in no wise be worshipped. For now not only the simple and unwise, to whom images (as the Scriptures teach) are especially a snare, but the bishops and learned men also fall to idolatry by occasion of images; yes, and make decrees and laws too for the maintenance of it. So hard is it, and indeed impossible, to have images publicly in churches and temples for any long time without idolatry; as most evidently appears in the space of little more than a hundred years between Gregory the First, most strictly forbidding the worshipping of images, and Gregory the Third, Paul, and Leo the Third, Bishops of Rome, with this Council, commanding and decreeing that images should be worshipped.

Now, when Constantine the young Emperor came to the age of twenty, he was daily held in less and less estimation. For those about his mother persuaded her that it was God's determination that she should reign alone, and not her son with her. The ambitious woman, believing this, deprived her son of all imperial dignity, and compelled all the men of war with their captains to swear to her that they would not allow her son Constantine to reign during her life. The young prince, moved by this indignity, recovered the rule of the empire to himself by force; and, having been brought up in true religion in his father's time, and seeing the superstition of his mother Irene and the idolatry committed by images, he cast down, broke, and burned all the idols and images that his mother had set up.

But within a few years after, Irene the Empress was taken again into her son's favour — after she had persuaded him to put out the eyes of Nicephorus his uncle, to cut out the tongues of his four other uncles, and to forsake his wife, and by such means to bring himself into hatred with all his subjects. Now, to declare further that she was no changeling, but the same woman who had before dug up and burned her father-in-law's body, and that she would be as natural a mother as she had been a kind daughter, seeing the images which she loved so well, and had set up at such great cost, daily destroyed by her son the Emperor, she deprived her son of the empire by the help of certain good companions; and first, like a kind and loving mother, put out both his eyes and laid him in prison, where at last, after long and many torments, she most cruelly slew him.

In this History joined to Eutropius it is written that the sun was darkened for the space of seventeen days most strangely and dreadfully, and that all men said the sun had lost his light for the horribleness of that cruel and unnatural deed of Irene, and for the putting out of the Emperor's eyes. But indeed God would signify by the darkness of the sun into what darkness and blindness of ignorance and idolatry all Christendom should fall by occasion of images, the bright sun of his eternal truth and the light of his holy word being blemished and darkened by the mists and black clouds of men's traditions; just as by the many most terrible earthquakes that happened about the same time God signified that the quiet state of true religion should by such idolatry be most horribly tossed and turmoiled.

And here you may see what a gracious and virtuous lady this Irene was: how loving a niece to her husband's uncles, how kind a mother-in-law to her son's wife, how loving a daughter to her father-in-law, how natural a mother to her own son! And what a stout and valiant captain the bishops of Rome had of her for the setting up and maintenance of their idols or images! Surely they could not have found a fitter patron for the maintenance of such a matter than this Irene, whose ambition and desire of rule was insatiable, whose treason, continually studied and worked at, was most abominable, whose wicked and unnatural cruelty surpassed Medea and Procne, and whose detestable murders of her own kin have given poets matter to write their horrible tragedies. And yet certain historians, who put in writing all these horrible wickednesses of hers, for the love they bore to images, which she maintained, praise her as a godly Empress and as one sent from God. Such is the blindness of false superstition: if once it takes possession in a man's mind, it will both declare the vices of wicked princes and commend them as well. But not long after, the said Irene, being suspected by the princes and lords of Greece of treason in alienating the empire to Charles king of the Franks, and of practising a secret marriage between herself and that king, and being convicted of the same, was by those lords deposed and deprived again of the empire, and carried into exile to the island of Lesbos, where she ended her wicked life.

While these tragedies about images were thus at work in Greece, the same question of the use of images in churches began to be raised in Spain also. And at Elvira, a noble city now called Granada, a Council of Spanish bishops and other learned men was assembled; and there, after long deliberation and debating of the matter, it was at length concluded by the whole Council in this manner, in the thirty-sixth article: "We think that pictures ought not to be in churches, lest that which is honoured or worshipped be painted on the walls." And in the forty-first canon of that Council it is written thus: "We think it good to admonish the faithful that, as much as in them lies, they allow no images to be in their houses; but if they fear any violence from their servants, at the least let them keep themselves clean and pure from images; and if they do not so, let them be accounted as none of the Church." Note here, I pray you, how a whole and great country in the western and southern parts of Europe, a great deal nearer to Rome than to Greece in situation of place, agrees with the Greeks against images, and does not only forbid them in churches but in private houses too, and excommunicates those who do the contrary. And another Council of the learned men of all Spain likewise decreed against images and image worshippers.

But when these decrees of the Spanish Council at Elvira came to the knowledge of the Bishop of Rome and his adherents, they, fearing lest all Germany also should decree against images and forsake them, thought to forestall the matter; and by the consent and help of the prince of the Franks, whose power was then greatest in the western parts of the world, they assembled a Council of Germans at Frankfurt, and there procured that the Spanish Council against images already mentioned should be condemned under the name of the Felician heresy (because Felix, Bishop of Aquitaine, was chief in that Council), and obtained that the acts of the second Nicene Council assembled by Irene — that holy empress you heard of before — and the sentence of the Bishop of Rome for images should be received. For much after this fashion do the papists report the history of the Council of Frankfurt.

Notwithstanding, the book of Charlemagne's own writing, as the title shows, which is now put in print and commonly in men's hands, shows the judgment of that prince, and of the whole Council of Frankfurt too, to be against images and against the second Council of Nicaea assembled by Irene for images, which he calls an arrogant, foolish, and ungodly Council; and it declares that the assembly of the Council of Frankfurt was directly made and gathered against that Nicene Council and against its errors. So that it must needs follow either that there were two Councils assembled at Frankfurt in one prince's time, the one contrary to the other, which appears by no history; or else that, after their custom, the popes and papists have most shamefully corrupted that Council — as their manner is to handle not only Councils but also all Histories and the writings of the old doctors, falsifying and corrupting them for the maintenance of their wicked and ungodly purposes, as has of late come to light, and appears in our days more and more evidently.

Let the forged gift of Constantine, and the notable attempt to falsify the first Nicene Council for the pope's supremacy, practised by popes in St. Augustine's time, be a witness of this — a practice which would indeed have taken effect then, had not the diligence and wisdom of St. Augustine and of other learned and godly bishops in Africa, by their great labour and cost, resisted and stopped it.

Now to come towards an end of this history, and to show you the chief point that came to pass by the maintenance of images. Whereas from the time of Constantine the Great until that day all imperial authority and princely dominion of the Empire of Rome had remained continually in the right and possession of the Emperors, who had their continuance and imperial seat at Constantinople, the royal city, Leo the Third, then Bishop of Rome, seeing the Greek Emperors so set against his gods of gold and silver, timber and stone, and having the king of the Franks or Frenchmen, named Charles, whose power was exceeding great in the western countries, very pliable to his mind for reasons that appear hereafter — under the pretence that those of Constantinople were, for this matter of images, under the Pope's ban and curse, and therefore unworthy to be Emperors or to bear rule, and because the Emperors of Greece, being far off, were not ready at a beck to defend the Pope against the Lombards his enemies and others with whom he was at variance — this Leo the Third, I say, attempted a thing exceedingly strange, unheard of before, and of incredible boldness and presumption. For by his papal authority he translated the government of the Empire, and the crown and name imperial, from the Greeks, and gave it to Charles the Great, king of the Franks; and this not without the consent of the aforenamed Irene, Empress of Greece, who also sought to be joined in marriage with the said Charles. For which cause the said Irene was by the lords of Greece deposed and banished, as one that had betrayed the Empire, as you have heard before.

And the princes of Greece did, after the deprivation of Irene, by common consent elect and create (as they had always done) an Emperor named Nicephorus; whom the Bishop of Rome and those of the West would not acknowledge for their Emperor, for they had already created another for themselves. And so there came to be two Emperors, and the Empire, which was before one, was divided into two parts upon occasion of idols and images and the worshipping of them; even as the kingdom of the Israelites was in old time divided in king Rehoboam's time for the like cause of idolatry. And so the Bishop of Rome, having by this means secured the favour of Charles the Great, was wondrously advanced in power and authority, and did in all the western Church, and especially in Italy, whatever he pleased; and there images were set up, garnished, and worshipped by all sorts of men. But images were not so fast set up and so much honoured in Italy and the West, but that Nicephorus, Emperor of Constantinople, and his successors Stauracius, the two Michaels, Leo, Theophilus, and the other Emperors their successors in the Empire of Greece, continually pulled them down, broke them, burned them, and destroyed them just as fast. And when the Emperor Theodorus would have agreed with the Bishop of Rome at the Council of Lyons and set up images, he was deprived by the nobles of the Empire of Greece, and another was chosen in his place.

And so there arose a jealousy, suspicion, grudge, hatred, and enmity between the Christians and the Empires of the eastern and western countries which could never be quenched nor pacified. So that, when the Saracens first, and afterwards the Turks, invaded the Christians, the one part of Christendom would not help the other. By reason of this, at the last the noble Empire of Greece and the imperial city of Constantinople were lost, and have come into the hands of the infidels, who have now overrun almost all Christendom, and, possessing more than the middle of Hungary, which is part of the western Empire, hang over all our heads to the utter danger of all Christendom.

Thus we see what a sea of mischiefs the maintenance of images has brought with it: what a horrible schism between the eastern and the western Church; what a hatred between one Christian and another; Councils against Councils, Church against Church, Christians against Christians, princes against princes; rebellions, treasons, unnatural and most cruel murders — the daughter digging up and burning the body of her father the emperor; the mother, for love of idols, most abominably murdering her own son, an emperor; and at the last the tearing asunder of Christendom and of the Empire into two pieces, until the Infidels, Saracens, and Turks, common enemies to both parts, have most cruelly vanquished, destroyed, and subdued the one part — the whole Empire of Greece, Asia Minor, Thrace, Macedonia, Epirus, and many other great and goodly countries and provinces — and have won a great piece of the other Empire, and put the whole in dreadful fear and most horrible danger.

For it is to be dreaded, and not without just and great cause, that as the Empire of Rome was for this very cause of images and the worshipping of them torn in pieces and divided, as the kingdom of Israel was divided of old for idolatry, so the like punishment for the like offence which fell upon the Jews will light upon us also: that is, that the cruel tyrant and enemy of our commonwealth and religion, the Turk, by God's just vengeance will likewise partly murder and partly lead away captive us Christians, as the Assyrian and Babylonian kings murdered and led away the Israelites; and that the Empire of Rome and the Christian religion will be as utterly brought under foot as the kingdom of Israel and the true religion of God were then. And the matter already, as I have declared, inclines shrewdly that way on our part, the greater part of Christendom within less than three hundred years' space being brought into captivity and most miserable thraldom under the Turks, and the noble Empire of Greece clean overthrown; whereas, if the Christians, divided by these matters of images, had held together, no infidels and miscreants could thus have prevailed against Christendom.

And all this mischief and misery into which we have fallen we owe to our mighty gods of gold and silver, stock and stone, in whose help and defence — where they cannot help themselves — we have trusted so long, until our enemies the infidels have overcome and overrun us almost altogether: a just reward for those who have left the mighty living God, the Lord of hosts, and have stooped and given the honour due to him to dead blocks and stocks, which "have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, feet and cannot go," and so forth, and which are cursed of God, "and so are all they that make them, and that put their trust in them." (Psalm 115:5-8)

Thus you understand, well beloved in our Saviour Christ, by the judgment of the old learned and godly doctors of the Church, and by the ancient Histories of the Church, agreeing with the truth of God's word alleged out of the Old Testament and the New, that images and image worshipping were in the primitive Church, which was most pure and uncorrupt, abhorred and detested as abominable and contrary to true Christian religion; and that, when images began to creep into the Church, they were not only spoken and written against by godly and learned bishops, doctors, and clergy, but also condemned by whole Councils of bishops and learned men assembled together; yes, and that these images were defaced, broken, and destroyed by many Christian emperors and bishops, and that above seven and eight hundred years ago; and that therefore it is not of late days only, as some would have you believe, that images and image worshipping have been spoken and written against.

Finally, you have heard what mischief and misery has fallen upon the whole of Christendom by occasion of these images, besides the loss of infinite souls, which is most horrible of all. Therefore let us beseech God that we, being warned by his holy word forbidding all idolatry, and by the writings of the old godly doctors and by the Histories of the Church, written and preserved by God's ordinance for our admonition and warning, may flee from all idolatry, and so escape the horrible punishment and plagues, both worldly and everlasting, that are threatened for it. Which God our heavenly Father grant us, for our only Saviour and Mediator Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

Part Three

The third part of the Homily against images and the worshipping of them, containing the refutation of the principal arguments that are commonly made for the maintenance of images; which part may serve to instruct the curates themselves, or men of good understanding.

Now you have heard how plainly, how vehemently, and in how many places the word of God speaks not only against idolatry and the worshipping of images, but against idols and images themselves. (I always mean it in this way: in so far as we are stirred and provoked by them to worship them, and not as though they were simply forbidden by the New Testament apart from such occasion and danger.) And you have heard out of the Histories of the Church the beginning, the progress, and the outcome of idolatry by images, and the great contention in the Church of Christ about them, to the great trouble and decay of Christendom. And with this you have heard the sentences of the old ancient fathers and godly learned doctors and bishops against images and idolatry, taken out of their own writings.

It remains that such reasons as are made for the maintenance of images, and of the excessive painting, gilding, and decking both of them and of temples or churches, should also be answered and refuted: partly by applying to those reasons some of the places already alleged, and partly by answering them otherwise. This part has the last place in the treatise because it cannot well be understood by the meaner sort, nor can the arguments of the image maintainers be answered without too tedious a prolixity, unless the treatise that goes before is known. And although various things mentioned before are here rehearsed again, yet this repetition is not superfluous, but in a manner necessary; for otherwise the simple sort cannot understand how the places already cited are to be applied to the arguments of those who maintain images, and by which they might otherwise be abused.

First, it is alleged by those who maintain images that all the laws, prohibitions, and curses noted by us out of the holy Scripture, and the sentences of the doctors also alleged by us, against images and the worshipping of them, pertain to the idols of the Gentiles or Pagans — such as the idol of Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, and so on — and not to our images of God, of Christ, and of his Saints. But it shall be declared, both by God's word and by the sentences of the ancient doctors and the judgment of the primitive Church, that all images, ours as well as the idols of the Gentiles, are forbidden and unlawful, and namely in churches and temples.

And first this is to be replied out of God's word: that the images of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, whether severally, or the images of the Trinity, which we had in every church, are by the Scriptures expressly and directly forbidden and condemned, as appears by these places: "The Lord spoke to you out of the middle of the fire; you heard the voice or sound of his words, but you saw no form or shape at all. Lest, being deceived, you should make to yourselves any graven image or likeness," and so forth, as is rehearsed at large in the first part of this treatise against images. (Deuteronomy 4:12, 15-16) And therefore in the old Law the middle of the propitiatory, which represented God's seat, was empty, lest any should take occasion to make any likeness or similitude of him.

Isaiah, after he has set forth the incomprehensible Majesty of God, asks: "To whom then will you make God like? Or what likeness will you set up for him? Shall the carver make him a carved image? And shall the goldsmith cover him with gold, or cast him into a form of silver plates? And for the poor man, shall the image maker frame an image of timber, that he may have something to set up as well?" And after this he cries out: "O wretches, have you never heard of this? Has it not been preached to you since the beginning?" — showing how by the creation of the world and the greatness of the work they might understand that the Majesty of God, the Maker and Creator of all, is greater than could be expressed or set forth in any image or bodily likeness. (Isaiah 40:18-21) Thus far the Prophet Isaiah, who from the forty-fourth chapter to the forty-ninth treats in a manner of nothing else. And St. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles evidently teaches the same, that no likeness can be made of God in gold, silver, stone, or any other material.

By these and many other places of Scripture it is evident that no image either ought or can be made of God. For how can God, a most pure Spirit, whom man never saw, be expressed by a gross, bodily, and visible likeness? How can the infinite Majesty and greatness of God, incomprehensible to man's mind, and much less able to be compassed by the senses, be expressed in a finite and little image? How can a dead and dumb image express the living God? What can an image — which when it has fallen cannot rise up again, which can neither help its friends nor hurt its enemies — express of the most powerful and mighty God, who alone is able to reward his friends and to destroy his enemies everlastingly? A man might justly cry with the prophet Habakkuk: "Shall such images instruct or teach anything rightly of God? Or shall they become doctors?" (Habakkuk 2:18-19)

Therefore men who have made an image of God in order to honour him have by that very thing most highly dishonoured him, diminished his Majesty, blemished his glory, and falsified his truth. And so St. Paul says that those who have framed any likeness or image of God like a mortal man, or any other likeness, in timber, stone, or other material, "have changed his truth into a lie." (Romans 1:25) For they both thought it to be no longer what it was, a stock or a stone, and took it to be what it was not, namely God, or an image of God. Therefore an image of God is not only a lie, but a double lie also. But the devil is a liar and the father of lies; and so the lying images which are made of God, to his great dishonour and to the horrible danger of his people, came from the devil. Therefore those who make images of God or of the Trinity are convicted of foolishness and of wickedness; for no image of God either ought or can be made, as by the Scriptures and by good reason evidently appears. Indeed, even to desire an image of God comes of unbelief, thinking God not to be present unless they might see some sign or image of him, as appears in the Hebrews in the wilderness, who wanted Aaron to make them gods whom they might see go before them.

Where they object that, seeing that in Isaiah and Daniel there are certain descriptions of God, as sitting on a high seat and so on, why may not a painter likewise set him forth in colours to be seen, as it were a judge sitting on a throne, as well as he is described in writing, since writing and picture differ but little — first it is to be answered that things forbidden by God's word, such as the painting of images of God, and things permitted by God, such as the descriptions used by the Prophets, are not all one; neither ought man's reason, nor can it, however fine a show it makes, prevail anything against God's express word and plain statute law, as I may well call it. Furthermore the Scripture, although it has certain descriptions of God, yet, if you read on, expounds itself, declaring that God is a pure Spirit, infinite, who fills heaven and earth. The picture does not do this, nor does it expound itself; but rather, when it has set God forth in a bodily likeness, it leaves a man there, and will easily bring him into the heresy of the Anthropomorphites, who think that God has hands and feet and sits as a man does. And those who do so, says St. Augustine, fall into that which the Apostle detests in those who "have changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of a corruptible man." (Romans 1:23) For it is wickedness for a Christian to set up such an image to God in a temple, and much more wickedness to set up such a one in his heart by believing it.

But to this they reply that, this reason notwithstanding, images of Christ may be made, because he took flesh upon him and became man. It would be well if they would first grant that they have hitherto done most wickedly in making and maintaining images of God and of the Trinity in every place, of which they are convicted by the force of God's word and of good reason, and would then descend to the trial of the other images.

Now, concerning their objection that an image of Christ may be made, the answer is easy. For in God's word and religion it is not only asked whether a thing may be done or not, but whether it is lawful and agreeable to God's word to be done. For all wickedness may be, and daily is, done which yet ought not to be done. And the words of the reasons alleged above out of the Scriptures are that images neither ought nor can be made of God. Therefore, to reply that images of Christ may be made, without also proving that it is lawful for them to be made, is to say something rather than hold one's peace — but nothing to the purpose.

And yet it appears that no image can be made of Christ but a lying image, as the Scripture particularly calls images lies. For Christ is God and man; and since therefore no image can be made of the Godhead, which is the most excellent part, it is falsely called the image of Christ. Therefore images of Christ are not only defective, but lies as well. This reason serves also for the images of Saints, whose souls, the more excellent part of them, can by no images be represented and expressed. So they are not images of the Saints, whose souls reign in joy with God, but of the bodies of Saints, which as yet lie rotting in the graves. Furthermore, no true image can be made of Christ's body, for it is now unknown of what form and countenance he was. And there are in Greece and at Rome and in other places various images of Christ, and none of them like another; and yet every one of them affirms that theirs is the true and living image of Christ, which cannot possibly be.

Therefore, as soon as an image of Christ is made, at once a lie is made of him, which is forbidden by God's word. The same is true of the images of any Saints of antiquity, since it is unknown of what form and countenance they were. Therefore, seeing that religion ought to be grounded upon truth, images, which cannot be without lies, ought not to be made or put to any use of religion, nor placed in churches and temples, places especially appointed for true religion and the service of God. And so much for this: that no true image of God, of our Saviour Christ, or of his Saints can be made. And by this their allegation is also refuted, that images are the laymen's books. For it is evident from what has been rehearsed above that they teach nothing of God, of our Saviour Christ, and of his Saints but lies and errors. Therefore either they are no books at all, or, if they are books, they are false and lying books, the teachers of all error.

And now, if it should be admitted and granted that an image of Christ could truly be made, yet it is unlawful that it should be made — yes, or that the image of any Saint should be made — especially to be set up in temples, to the great and unavoidable danger of idolatry, as shall be proved hereafter. And first, concerning the image of Christ: that, though it might truly be had, yet it would be unlawful to have it publicly in churches, there is a notable place in Irenaeus, who reproved the heretics called Gnostics because they carried about the image of Christ, made truly after his own proportion in Pilate's time, as they said, and therefore more to be esteemed than those lying images of him which we now have. These Gnostics also used to set garlands upon the head of that image, to show their affection to it.

But to go to God's word. Are not the words of the Scripture plain? "Beware lest you, being deceived, make to yourself" — that is to say, for any use of religion — "any graven image, or any likeness of anything," and so forth. (Deuteronomy 4:15-16) And, "Cursed be the man that makes a graven or molten image, an abomination before the Lord," and so forth. (Deuteronomy 27:15) Are not our images such? Are not our images of Christ and of his Saints either carved, or molten and cast, or likenesses of men and women? It is a happy thing that we have not followed the Gentiles in making images of beasts, fishes, and vermin as well. Notwithstanding, the image of a horse, and also the image of the ass that Christ rode upon, have in various places been brought into the church and temple of God.

And is not that which is written at the beginning of the Lord's most holy law, and daily read to you, most evident too? "You shall not make any likeness of anything in the earth," and so on. (Exodus 20:4) Could more be forbidden and said than this, either of the kinds of images — which are either carved, or molten, or otherwise likenesses — or of the things of which images are forbidden to be made? Are not all things either in heaven, or in earth, or in the water under the earth? And are not our images of Christ and of his Saints likenesses of such things?

If they continue in their former answer, that these prohibitions concern the idols of the Gentiles and not our images, then first, that answer has already been refuted at large concerning the images of God and of the Trinity, and concerning the images of Christ also by Irenaeus. And that the law of God is likewise to be understood against all our images, of Christ as well as of his Saints, in temples and churches, appears further by the judgment of the old doctors and of the primitive Church. Epiphanius, tearing a painted cloth in which was the picture of Christ or of some Saint, and affirming it to be against our religion that any such image should be had in the temple or church (as is declared at large above), judged that not only the idols of the Gentiles, but all images of Christ and of his Saints also, were forbidden by God's word and by our religion. Lactantius, affirming it to be certain that there can be no true religion where an image or picture is (as is declared before), judged that all images and pictures, as well as the idols of the Gentiles, were forbidden; otherwise he would not have spoken and pronounced of them so generally.

And St. Augustine (as is alleged before) greatly approves Marcus Varro, who affirms that religion is most pure without images; and he says himself: "Images are of more force to warp an unhappy soul than to teach and instruct it." And he says further: "Every child, yes, every beast, knows that what they see is not God. Why then does the Holy Spirit so often admonish us of what all men know?" To which St. Augustine answers thus: "Because," he says, "when images are placed in temples, and set in honourable height, and once begin to be worshipped, at once there breeds the most vile affection of error." This is St. Augustine's judgment of images in churches: that immediately they breed error and idolatry.

The Christian emperors, the learned bishops, and all the learned men of Asia, Greece, and Spain, eight hundred years ago and more, condemning and destroying all images set up by the Christians, of Christ as well as of the Saints (as is declared at large before), testify that they so understood God's word: that it forbade our images as well as the idols of the Gentiles. And as it is written (Wisdom 14) that images "were not from the beginning, neither shall they continue to the end," so were they not in the beginning in the primitive Church. God grant that they may in the end be destroyed! For all Christians in the primitive Church, as Origen against Celsus, and Cyprian also, and Arnobius testify, were sorely charged and complained of because they had no altars and no images. Why then, I pray you, did they not conform themselves to the Gentiles in the making of images, but for want of them endured their heavy displeasure — if they had taken it to be lawful by God's word to have images? It is evident therefore that they took all images to be unlawful in the church or temple of God, and therefore had none, though the Gentiles were for that reason most highly displeased; following this rule: "We must obey God rather than men." (Acts 5:29) And Zephyrus, in his notes upon the Apology of Tertullian, gathers that all Tertullian's vehement persuasion "would be but cold, unless we know this once for all, that Christian men in his time did most hate images with their ornaments." And Irenaeus (as is declared above) reproves the heretics called Gnostics because they carried about the image of Christ. And therefore the primitive Church, which is especially to be followed as being most incorrupt and pure, had publicly in churches neither the idols of the Gentiles nor any other images, as things directly forbidden by God's word.

And thus it is declared by God's word, by the sentences of the doctors, and by the judgment of the primitive Church, which was most pure and sincere, that all images, ours as well as the idols of the Gentiles, are by God's word forbidden, and therefore unlawful, especially in temples and churches.

Now if they, as their custom is, flee to this answer: that God's word does not absolutely forbid all images to be made, but only that they should not be made to be worshipped; and that therefore we may have images, so long as we do not worship them, because they are things indifferent, which may be either abused or well used (which seems also to be the judgment of Damascene and of Gregory, as declared before; and this is one of their chief allegations for the maintenance of images, alleged ever since Gregory the First's time) — well then, we come to their second allegation, which in part we would not hesitate to grant them.

For we are not so superstitious or scrupulous that we abhor either flowers worked in carpets, hangings, and other tapestry, or the images of princes printed or stamped on their coins, which, when Christ saw one on a Roman coin, we do not read that he reproved; nor do we condemn the making of pictures and images as wicked in themselves. But we would admit and grant them this: that images used for no religion, or rather for no superstition — we mean images that no man worships, nor is in danger of worshipping — may be allowed. But images placed publicly in temples cannot possibly be without danger of worshipping and idolatry; and therefore they are not publicly to be had or allowed in temples and churches.

The Jews, to whom this law was first given (and yet, being a moral commandment and not a ceremonial one, as all doctors interpret it, it binds us as well as them) — the Jews, I say, who ought to have the true sense and meaning of God's law, so peculiarly given to them, neither had at the beginning any images publicly in their temple, as Origen and Josephus declare at large; nor, after the restoring of the temple, would they by any means consent to Herod, to Pilate, or to Petronius that images should so much as be placed in the temple at Jerusalem, although no worshipping of images was required at their hands. Rather they offered themselves to death than assent that images should once be placed in the temple of God. Neither would they allow any image maker among them; and Origen adds this reason, lest their minds should be plucked away from God to the contemplation of earthly things. And they are much commended for this earnest zeal in maintaining God's honour and true religion. And it is true that the Jews and the Turks, who abhor images and idols as directly forbidden by God's word, will never come to the truth of our religion while these stumblingblocks of images remain among us and lie in their way.

If they still object the brazen serpent which Moses set up, or the images of the cherubim, or any other images that the Jews had in their temple, the answer is easy. In religion we must obey God's general law, which binds all men, and not follow examples of particular dispensation, which are no warrant for us; otherwise by the same reason we might take up circumcision again, and the sacrificing of beasts, and other rites permitted to the Jews. Nor can those images of cherubim, set in a secret place where no man might come or behold them, be any example for our public setting up of images in churches and temples.

But to let the Jews go. Where they say that images, so long as they are not worshipped, may as things indifferent be tolerated in temples and churches, we infer and say on the contrary that all our images of God, of our Saviour Christ, and of his Saints, publicly set up in churches and temples — places peculiarly appointed to the true worshipping of God — are not things indifferent, nor tolerable, but against God's law and commandment, even taking their own interpretation and exposition of it. First, because all images so publicly set up have been worshipped by the unlearned and simple sort shortly after they have been so publicly set up, and in the end by the wise and learned also. Secondly, because they are worshipped in various places in our own time also. And thirdly, because it is impossible that images of God, of Christ, or of his Saints can be allowed, especially in temples and churches, for any while or space of time without the worshipping of them; and because idolatry, which is most abominable before God, cannot possibly be escaped and avoided without the abolishing and destruction of images and pictures in temples and churches. For idolatry is to images, and especially to images in temples and churches, an inseparable accident, as they term it; so that images in churches and idolatry always go together, and therefore the one cannot be avoided unless the other, especially in all public places, be destroyed. Therefore, to make images and publicly to set them up in temples and churches, places appointed peculiarly to the service of God, is to make images for the use of religion; and this is not only against this precept, "You shall make no manner of image," but against this one also, "You shall not bow down to them, nor worship them." (Exodus 20:4-5) For images so set up have been, are, and ever will be worshipped.

And here is to be made and performed the full proof of what was touched at the beginning of the first part of this treatise: namely, that our images and the idols of the Gentiles are all one, both in the things themselves and also in this, that our images have been before, are now, and ever will be worshipped in the same form and manner as the idols of the Gentiles were worshipped, so long as they are allowed in churches and temples. From which it follows that our images in churches have been, are, and ever will be nothing else but abominable idols, and are therefore no things indifferent. And each of these parts shall be proved in order, as follows hereafter.

And first, that our images and the idols of the Gentiles are all one in themselves is most evident. The material of them is gold, silver, or other metal, stone, wood, clay, or plaster, as were the idols of the Gentiles; and so, being either molten or cast, or carved, graven, hewed, or otherwise formed and fashioned after the similitude and likeness of man or woman, they are dead and dumb works of men's hands, "having mouths and speak not, eyes and see not, hands and feel not, feet and go not" (Psalm 115:5-7); and so, in form as well as in material, they are altogether like the idols of the Gentiles. So much so, that all the titles which are given to idols in the Scriptures may be verified of our images. And therefore there is no doubt that the like curses which are mentioned in the Scriptures will light upon the makers and worshippers of them.

Secondly, it is now to be proved that they have been and are worshipped in our time in the same form and manner as the idols of the Gentiles were. And because idolatry stands chiefly in the mind, it shall first be proved in this part that our image maintainers have had and have the same opinions and judgment of the Saints whose images they have made and worshipped as the Gentile idolaters had of their gods. And afterwards it shall be declared that our image maintainers and worshippers have used and do use the same outward rites and manner of honouring and worshipping their images as the Gentiles used before their idols, and that therefore they commit idolatry as much inwardly and outwardly as the wicked Gentile idolaters did.

And concerning the first part, of the idolatrous opinions of our image maintainers. What, I pray you, are such Saints with us — to whom we attribute the defence of certain countries, robbing God of his due honour in this — but the dii tutelares of the Gentile idolaters, such as Belus was to the Babylonians and Assyrians, Osiris and Isis to the Egyptians, Vulcan to the Lemnians, and other such? What are such Saints, to whom the safeguard of certain cities is appointed, but the dii praesides of the Gentile idolaters, such as Apollo at Delphi, Minerva at Athens, Juno at Carthage, Quirinus at Rome, and so on? What are such Saints, to whom, contrary to the use of the primitive Church, temples and churches are built and altars erected, but the dii patroni of the Gentile idolaters, such as Diana at Ephesus, and the like? Alas, in thus thinking and doing we seem to have learned our religion, not out of God's word, but out of the pagan poets, who say:

Excessere omnes adytis arisque relictis
di quibus imperium hoc steterat…

that is to say, "All the gods by whose defence this empire stood are gone out of the temples, and have forsaken their altars."

And where one Saint has images in various places, that same Saint has various names accordingly, most like to the Gentiles. When you hear of our Lady of Walsingham, our Lady of Ipswich, our Lady of Wilsdon, and other such, what is it but an imitation of the Gentile idolaters' Diana Agrotera, Diana Coryphaea, Diana Ephesia, and their Venus Cypria, Venus Paphia, Venus Cnidia? By which it is evidently meant that the Saint, for the image's sake, should have a dwelling in those places — yes, in the images themselves; which is the ground of their idolatry, for where there are no images they have no such means. Terentius Varro shows that there were three hundred Jupiters in his time; and there were no fewer Venuses and Dianas. We had no fewer Christophers, Ladies, and Mary Magdalenes, and other Saints. Oenomaus and Hesiod show that in their time there were thirty thousand gods; and I think we had no fewer Saints, to whom we gave the honour due to God.

And they have not only robbed the true living God of his due honour in temples, cities, countries, and lands by such devices and inventions, as the Gentile idolaters did before them, but the sea and the waters also have their special Saints with them, as they had gods with the Gentiles — Neptune, Triton, Nereus, Castor and Pollux, Venus, and other such — in whose places have come St. Christopher, St. Clement, and various others, and especially our Lady, to whom seamen sing, Ave, maris stella. Nor has fire escaped their idolatrous inventions: for instead of Vulcan and Vesta, the Gentiles' gods of fire, our men have placed St. Agatha, and make letters on her day to quench fire with. Every craft and profession has its special Saint, as a peculiar god: scholars, for example, have St. Nicholas and St. Gregory, painters St. Luke; nor do soldiers lack their Mars, nor lovers their Venus, among Christians. All diseases have their special Saints, as gods, the curers of them: the pox St. Roch, the falling sickness St. Cornelius, the toothache St. Apollonia, and so on. Nor do beasts and cattle lack their gods with us: for St. Loy is the horse doctor, and St. Anthony the swineherd, and so forth.

Where is God's providence and due honour in the meantime? — who says, "The heavens are mine, and the earth is mine, the whole world and all that is in it" (Psalm 50:12; 24:1); "I give victory, and I put to flight" (Psalm 44:3-7); "Of me are all counsels and help" (Proverbs 8:14); "Unless I keep the city, in vain does he watch that keeps it" (Psalm 127:1); "You, Lord, shall save both men and beasts." (Psalm 36:6) But we have left him neither heaven, nor earth, nor water, nor country, nor city, nor peace, nor war, to rule and govern; nor men, nor beasts, nor their diseases to cure. So that a godly man might justly cry out in zealous indignation: O heaven, O earth and seas, into what madness and wickedness against God have men fallen! What dishonour do the creatures to their Creator and Maker!

And if we do sometimes remember God, yet, because we doubt his ability or his will to help, we join another helper to him, as though he were a noun adjective, using these sayings: those who are learning say, God and St. Nicholas be my speed; those who sneeze, God help, and St. John; and to the horse, God and St. Loy save you. Thus have we become "like horses and mules, which have no understanding." (Psalm 32:9) For is there not one God only, who by his power and wisdom made all things, and by his providence governs them, and by his goodness maintains and saves them? Are not all things of him, by him, and through him? Why then do you turn from the Creator to the creatures? This is the manner of the Gentile idolaters; but you are a Christian, and therefore by Christ alone you have access to God the Father, and help from him only.

These things are not written to the reproach of the Saints themselves, who were the true servants of God, and gave all honour to him, taking none to themselves, and who are blessed souls with God; but against our foolishness and wickedness in making false gods of the true servants of God, by attributing to them the power and the honour which is God's, and due to him only. And because we have held such opinions of the power and ready help of the Saints, all our Legends, Hymns, Sequences, and Masses contained stories, lauds, and praises of them, and prayers to them — yes, and sermons too, wholly about them and to their praise, God's word being clean laid aside. And in all this we did towards the Saints exactly as the Gentile idolaters did towards their false gods. For it was against just such opinions as men have had of mortal persons, however holy they were, that the most godly and learned Christians of old wrote against the feigned gods of the Gentiles, and that Christian princes destroyed their images; and those men, if they were now living, would doubtless likewise both write against our false opinions of the Saints and destroy their images too. For it is evident that our image maintainers have the same opinion of the Saints which the Gentiles had of their false gods, and are thereby moved to make images of them, as the Gentiles did.

If answer be made that they make the Saints only intercessors to God, and means for the things they would obtain from God, that is precisely, after the Gentiles' idolatrous usage, to make of Saints those gods called dii medioxumi, to be middling intercessors and helpers to God, as though he did not hear, or would be weary if he did all alone. So did the Gentiles teach that there was one chief power working by others as means; and so they made all gods subject to fate or destiny — as Lucian in his Dialogues imagines that Neptune made suit to Mercury that he might speak with Jupiter. And therefore in this also it is most evident that our image maintainers are all one in opinion with the Gentile idolaters.

Now remains the third part: that their rites and ceremonies in honouring or worshipping images are all one with the rites which the Gentile idolaters used in honouring their idols. First, what does it mean that Christians, after the example of the Gentile idolaters, go on pilgrimage to visit images when they have the like at home, but that they hold a greater opinion of holiness and virtue in some images than in others, just as the Gentile idolaters did? Which is the readiest way to bring them to idolatry by worshipping them, and is directly against God's word, who says: "Seek me, and you shall live; and do not seek Bethel, neither enter into Gilgal, neither go to Beersheba." (Amos 5:4-5) And against such as had any superstition about the holiness of a place, as though they should be heard for the place's sake, saying, "Our fathers worshipped in this mountain, and you say that at Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship," our Saviour Christ pronounces: "Believe me, the hour comes when you shall worship the Father neither in this mountain nor at Jerusalem, but true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth." (John 4:20-23) But it is too well known that by such pilgrimage going Lady Venus and her son Cupid were rather worshipped wantonly in the flesh than God the Father and our Saviour Christ his Son truly worshipped in the spirit. And it was very fitting, as St. Paul teaches, that those who fell into idolatry, which is spiritual immorality, should also fall into carnal immorality and all uncleanness, by the just judgment of God delivering them over to abominable concupiscences.

What does it mean that Christian men, after the use of the Gentile idolaters, doff their caps and kneel before images? Which images, if they had any sense and gratitude, would kneel before men — carpenters, masons, plasterers, founders, and goldsmiths, their makers and framers — by whose means they have attained this honour, and without whom they would have been ill-favoured and rude lumps of clay or plaster, pieces of timber, stone, or metal, without shape or fashion, and so without any esteem or honour at all; as that idol in the pagan poet confesses, saying, "I was once a vile block, but now I am become a god," and so forth. What a foolish thing it is for a man, who has life and reason, to bow himself before a dead and senseless image, the work of his own hand! Is not this stooping and kneeling before them the adoration of them, which is so earnestly forbidden by God's word? Let such as fall down before images of Saints know and confess that they exhibit to dead stocks and stones that honour which the Saints themselves, while they were alive, refused, and which the angel of God forbids to be given to any but God.

And if they say that they exhibit such honour not to the image but to the Saint whom it represents, they are convicted of folly for believing that they please the Saints with an honour which the Saints abhor as a robbery of God's honour. For the Saints are no changelings; but now, having greater understanding and a more fervent love of God, they abhor still more to deprive him of his due honour, and, being now like the angels of God, they flee with the angels from taking to themselves by sacrilege the honour due to God. And with this their foolish distinction of latria and dulia is refuted; for it is evident that the Saints of God cannot bear that so much as any outward worship be done or exhibited to them. But Satan, God's enemy, desiring to rob God of his honour, desires exceedingly that such honour should be given to himself. Therefore those who give the honour due to the Creator to any creature do a service acceptable to no Saints, who are the friends of God, but to Satan, the mortal and sworn enemy of God and of man. And to attribute such a desire of divine honour to the Saints is to blot them with a most odious and devilish disgrace and villainy, and indeed to make Satans and very devils of the Saints, whose property it is to claim for themselves the honour which is due to God only.

And furthermore, in that they say that they do not worship the images, as the Gentiles did their idols, but God and the Saints whom the images represent, and that therefore their doings before images are not like the idolatry of the Gentiles before their idols — St. Augustine, Lactantius, and Clement evidently show that by this very answer they are all one with the Gentile idolaters. "The Gentiles," says St. Augustine, "who seem to be of the purer religion, say: We do not worship the images, but by the bodily image we behold the signs of the things which we ought to worship." And Lactantius says: "The Gentiles say, We do not fear the images, but those after whose likeness the images are made, and to whose names they are consecrated." Thus far Lactantius. And Clement says: "That serpent the devil utters these words by the mouth of certain men: We, to the honour of the invisible God, worship visible images — which surely is most false."

See how, in using the same excuses which the Gentile idolaters pretended, they show themselves to be all one with them in idolatry. For notwithstanding this excuse, St. Augustine, Clement, and Lactantius prove them idolaters; and Clement says that the serpent, the devil, puts such excuses into the mouth of idolaters. And the Scriptures say that they worshipped the stocks and stones, notwithstanding this excuse, even as our image maintainers do. And Ezekiel therefore calls the gods of the Assyrians stocks and stones, although they were but images of their gods. And so our images of God and of the Saints are named by the names of God and of his Saints, after the use of the Gentiles. And the same Clement says this in the same book: "They dare not give the name of the Emperor to any other, for he punishes his offender and traitor at once; but they dare give the name of God to others, because for repentance's sake he bears with his offenders." And even so do our image worshippers give both the names of God and of the Saints, and also the honour due to God, to their images, even as the Gentile idolaters did to their idols.

What should it mean that they, as the Gentile idolaters did, light candles before them at noonday or at midnight, but to honour them thereby? For there is no other use in so doing. In the day it is not needed — indeed it was always a proverb of foolishness to light a candle at noonday; and in the night it is of no use to light a candle before the blind; and God has neither use nor honour from it. And concerning this candle lighting it is notable that Lactantius, above a thousand years ago, wrote after this manner:

If they would behold the heavenly light of the sun, then would they perceive that God has no need of their candles, who for the use of man has made so goodly a light. And whereas in so little a circle as the sun, which for its great distance seems to be no greater than a man's head, there is such brightness that the sight of man's eye is not able to behold it, but, if one looks steadfastly upon it a while, his eyes will be dulled and blinded with darkness — how great a light, how great a clearness, may we think there is with God, with whom is no night nor darkness?

And so forth. And presently he says: "Does he then seem to be in his right mind, who offers up to the Giver of all light the light of a wax candle for a gift? He requires another light of us, which is not smoky but bright and clear, even the light of the mind and understanding." And shortly after he says:

But their gods, because they are earthly, have need of light, and understand no heavenly thing, and draw down to the earth the religion they use; in which earth, being dark by nature, there is need of light. And therefore they give to their gods no heavenly understanding, but the earthly understanding of mortal men. And so they believe those things to be necessary and pleasant to them which are so to us, who have need either of food when we are hungry, or of drink when we are thirsty, or of clothing when we are cold, or, when the sun is set, of candlelight, that we may see.

Thus far Lactantius, and much more, too long to write here, about candle lighting in temples before images and idols for religion; by which appears both the foolishness of it, and also that in opinion and in act we agree altogether in our candle religion with the Gentile idolaters.

What does it mean that they, after the example of the Gentile idolaters, burn incense, offer up gold to images, and hang up crutches, chains, and ships, legs, arms, and whole men and women of wax before images, as though by them, or by the Saints (as they say), they had been delivered from lameness, sickness, captivity, or shipwreck? Is not this colere imagines, to worship images, which is so earnestly forbidden in God's word? If they deny it, let them read the eleventh chapter of the Prophet Daniel, who says of Antichrist, "He shall worship a god whom his fathers knew not, with gold, silver, precious stone, and other things of pleasure" (Daniel 11:38) — in which place the Latin word is colet. And in the second book of Chronicles, the twenty-ninth chapter, all the outward rites and ceremonies, such as the burning of incense and the like, by which God was honoured in the temple, are called cultus, that is to say, worshipping; which is strictly forbidden by God's word to be given to images.

Do not all the histories of the Church declare that our holy Martyrs, rather than they would bow and kneel or offer up one crumb of incense before an image or an idol, suffered a thousand kinds of most horrible and dreadful death? And whatever excuse they make, yet that all this running on pilgrimage, burning of incense and candles, hanging up of crutches, chains, ships, arms, legs, and whole men and women of wax, kneeling and holding up of hands, is done to the images appears by this: that where there are no images, or where there have been images and they have been taken away, they do no such things at all; but the places that were frequented when the images were there are, now that the images are taken away, forsaken and left desert — indeed, now they hate and abhor the place deadly. Which is an evident proof that what they did before was done in respect of the images.

Therefore, when we see men and women in heaps go on pilgrimage to images, kneel before them, hold up their hands before them, set up candles and burn incense before them, offer up gold and silver to them, hang up ships, crutches, chains, and men and women of wax before them, attributing to them health and safeguard, which are the gifts of God — or to the Saints whom they represent, as they would rather have it — who, I say, who can doubt that our image maintainers, agreeing with the Gentile idolaters in all idolatrous opinions and in outward rites and ceremonies, agree with them also in committing most abominable idolatry?

And to increase this madness, wicked men who have the keeping of such images, for their greater profit and advantage, after the example of the Gentile idolaters, have reported and spread abroad, by lying tales as well as by written fables, various miracles of images: that such an image was miraculously sent from heaven, just like the Palladium or the great Diana of the Ephesians; that another was as miraculously found in the earth, as the man's head was in the Capitol or the horse's head at Capua. Such an image was brought by angels; such another came of itself all the way from the East to the West, as dame Fortune flitted to Rome. Such an image of our Lady was painted by St. Luke — whom for that purpose they have turned from a physician into a painter. Such another a hundred yoke of oxen could not move, like Bona Dea, whom the ship could not carry, or Jupiter Olympius, who laughed to scorn the craftsmen that went about to remove him to Rome.

Some images, though they were hard and stony, yet out of tender heart and pity wept. Some, like Castor and Pollux helping their friends in battle, sweated, as marble pillars do in damp weather. Some spoke more monstrously than ever did Balaam's ass, who had life and breath in him. Such a cripple[4] came and saluted this Saint of oak, and immediately he was made whole; and lo, here hangs his crutch. Such a man in a tempest made a vow to St. Christopher, and escaped; and behold, here is his ship of wax. Such another by St. Leonard's help broke out of prison; and see where his fetters hang. And infinite thousands more miracles were reported by like or by even more shameless lies.

Thus do our image maintainers apply in earnest to their images all such miracles as the Gentiles feigned of their idols. And if it were to be admitted that some miraculous acts were done by the illusion of the devil where images are (for it is evident that most of them were feigned lies and crafty jugglings of men), yet it does not therefore follow that such images are either to be honoured or allowed to remain — no more than Hezekiah left the brazen serpent undestroyed when it was worshipped, although it had both been set up by God's commandment and approved by a great and true miracle, for as many as beheld it were immediately healed. Nor ought miracles to persuade us to do contrary to God's word; for the Scriptures foretell that Antichrist shall be mighty in miracles and wonders, to the strong delusion of all the reprobate.

But in this they surpass the folly and wickedness of the Gentiles, that they honour and worship the relics and bones of our Saints — which prove that they were mortal men and are dead, and therefore no gods to be worshipped; a thing the Gentiles would never for very shame have confessed of their gods. But the relics we must kiss and make offering to, especially on Relic Sunday. And while we offer, so that we should not grow weary or repent of our cost, the music and minstrelsy goes merrily all the offertory time, with praising and calling upon those Saints whose relics are then present. Yes, and the water in which those relics have been dipped must with great reverence be reserved, as very holy and effectual. Is this agreeable to St. Chrysostom, who writes thus of relics: "Do not regard the ashes of the Saints' bodies, nor the relics of their flesh and bones, consumed with time; but open the eyes of your faith, and behold them clothed with heavenly virtue and with the grace of the Holy Spirit, and shining with the brightness of the heavenly light." But our idolaters found too much profit in relics and relic water to follow St. Chrysostom's counsel.

And because relics were so profitable, there were few places that had not relics provided for them. And for a greater plenty of relics, some one Saint had many heads, one in one place and another in another. Some had six arms and twenty-six fingers. And whereas our Lord bore his cross alone, if all the pieces of the relics of it were gathered together, the greatest ship in England could scarcely bear them; and yet the greatest part of it, they say, still remains in the hands of the infidels, for which they pray in their bead-bidding, that they may get that also into their hands for such godly use and purpose.

And not only the bones of the Saints, but everything belonging to them was a holy relic. In one place they offer a sword, in another the scabbard, in another a shoe, in another a saddle that had been set upon some holy horse, in another the coals with which St. Lawrence was roasted, in another place the tail of the ass on which our Lord Jesus Christ sat, to be kissed and offered to for a relic. For rather than they would lack a relic, they would offer you a horse's bone instead of a virgin's arm, or the tail of the ass, to be kissed and offered to for relics. O wicked, impudent, and most shameless men, the devisers of these things! O helpless,[5] foolish, and cowardly jackdaws, more beastly than the ass whose tail they kissed, that believe such things! Now God be merciful to such miserable and helpless Christians, who by the fraud and falsehood of those who should have taught them the way of truth and life have been made, not only more wicked than the Gentile idolaters, but no wiser than asses, horses, and mules, which have no understanding.

By these things already rehearsed it is evident that our image maintainers have not only made images and set them up in temples, as the Gentile idolaters did their idols, but have also held the same idolatrous opinions of the Saints, to whom they have made images, which the Gentile idolaters held of their false gods; and that they have not only worshipped their images with the same rites, ceremonies, superstition, and all circumstances as the Gentile idolaters worshipped their idols, but in many points have far exceeded them in all wickedness, foolishness, and madness.

And if this is not enough to prove them image worshippers, that is to say idolaters, listen, and you shall hear their own open confession. I do not mean only the decrees of the second Nicene Council under Irene and of the Roman Council under Gregory the Third; for in those, although they teach that images are to be honoured and worshipped (as is declared before), they do it warily and fearfully in comparison with the blasphemous bold blazing of manifest idolatry to be done to images which has been set forth of late, even in these our days — the light of God's truth so shining that, above all their other abominable doings and writings, a man would marvel most at their impudent, shameless, and most shameful blustering boldness: for they would not so much as choose a time of greater darkness as fitter to utter their horrible blasphemies in, but have now taken a harlot's face, resolved not to blush, in setting abroad the furniture of their spiritual immorality.

And here the plain blasphemy of the reverend father in God, James Naclantus, Bishop of Chioggia, written in his exposition of St. Paul's Epistle to the Romans, the first chapter, and now of late put in print at Venice, may stand instead of all. His words about image worshipping are these in Latin, as he wrote them, not one syllable altered:

… adorare imaginem, sine quo volueris scrupulo; quin et eo illam …[6]

The sense of which in English is this: "Therefore it is not only to be confessed that the faithful in the Church do worship before an image (as some perhaps warily speak), but also that they worship the image itself, without any scruple or doubt at all; yes, and they worship the image with the same kind of worship with which they worship the copy of the image" (or the thing after which the image is made). "Therefore, if the copy itself is to be worshipped with divine honour" (as is God the Father, Christ, and the Holy Spirit), "the image of them is also to be worshipped with divine honour; and if the copy ought to be worshipped with inferior honour or with higher worship, the image also is to be worshipped with the same honour or worship."

Thus far Naclantus. Let Pope Gregory the First confute his blasphemies, and by his authority damn them to hell, as his successors have horribly thundered. For although Gregory permits images to be had, yet he forbids by any means that they should be worshipped, and greatly praises Bishop Serenus for forbidding the worship of them, and wills him to teach the people to avoid by all means the worshipping of any image. But Naclantus blows forth his blasphemous idolatry, that images are to be worshipped with the highest kind of adoration and worship. And, lest such wholesome doctrine should lack authority, he grounds it upon Aristotle in his book De Somno et Vigilia, that is, Of Sleeping and Waking, as may be seen in his printed book, so noted in the margin. Whose wickedness and idolatrous judgment I have therefore set out at more length, so that you may (as Virgil speaks of Sinon) from this one know them all — all these image worshippers and idolaters — and may understand to what point the public having of images in temples and churches has at last brought us, comparing the times and the writings of Gregory the First with our days and with the blasphemies of such idolaters as this beast of Belial, named Naclantus.

Therefore, now that it has been declared and shown — by the testimony of the old godly fathers and doctors, by the open confession of bishops assembled in Councils, by most evident signs and arguments, opinions, idolatrous deeds, and worship done to our images, and by their own open confession and doctrine set forth in their books — that our images have been and are commonly worshipped, yes, and that (as they say) they ought so to be, I will out of God's word make this general argument against all such makers, setters up, and maintainers of images in public places. And first of all I will begin with the words of our Saviour Christ: "Woe be to that man by whom an offence is given. Woe be to him that offends one of these little ones, or weak ones. It would be better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the middle of the sea and drowned, than that he should offend one of these little ones, or weak ones." (Matthew 18:6-7) And in Deuteronomy God himself pronounces him accursed who makes the blind to wander in his way; and in Leviticus: "You shall not lay a stumblingblock, or a stone, before the blind." (Leviticus 19:14) But images in churches and temples have been, and are, and (as shall afterwards be proved) ever will be offences or stumblingblocks, especially to the weak, simple, and blind common people, deceiving their hearts by the cunning of the craftsman, as the Scripture expressly testifies in various places, and so bringing them to idolatry. Therefore woe be to the erecter, the setter up, and the maintainer of images in churches and temples; for a greater penalty remains for him than the death of the body.

If answer be yet made that this offence may be taken away by diligent and sincere doctrine and preaching of God's word, or by other means; and that images in churches and temples are therefore not things absolutely evil to all men, though dangerous to some; and that therefore it should be held that the public having of them in churches and temples is inexpedient, as a perilous thing, rather than unlawful, as a thing utterly wicked — then there follows the third article to be proved, which is this: that it is not possible, if images are allowed in churches and temples, either by the preaching of God's word or by any other means, to keep the people from worshipping them, and so to avoid idolatry.

And first concerning preaching. If it should be admitted that, although images were allowed in churches, yet idolatry might be avoided by diligent and sincere preaching of God's word, it would follow of necessity that sound doctrine might always be had and continued as well as images; and so that, wherever an image was erected to give offence, there also in reason a godly and sincere preacher should and might be continually maintained. For it is reasonable that the warning should be as common as the stumblingblock, the remedy as large as the offence, the medicine as general as the poison. But that is not possible, as both reason and experience teach. Therefore preaching cannot stay idolatry while images are publicly allowed.

For an image, which will last for many hundred years, may be bought for a little; but a good preacher cannot be continually maintained for much. Again, if the prince will allow it, there will presently be many, yes, infinite images; but sincere preachers were, and ever shall be, but few in respect of the multitude to be taught. For our Saviour Christ says, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workmen are few" (Matthew 9:37) — which has been continually true until now, and will be so to the world's end; and in our time, and here in our country, so true that if they were divided every shire would scarcely have one good preacher. Now images will continually preach their doctrine to those who behold them, that is, the worshipping of images and idolatry; and to that preaching mankind is exceedingly prone and inclined to give ear and credit, as the experience of all nations and ages too plainly proves. But a true preacher, to stay this mischief, is in some places not there once in seven years, as may evidently be proved. And that evil opinion which has been long rooted in men's hearts cannot suddenly, by one sermon, be rooted clean out. And as few are inclined to believe sound doctrine as many — almost all — are prone to superstition and idolatry. So that here appears not only a difficulty, but also an impossibility, in the remedy.

Furthermore, it does not appear by any history of credit that true and sincere preaching has endured in any one place above a hundred years; but it is evident that images, superstition, the worshipping of images, and idolatry have continued many hundreds of years. For all writings and all experience testify that good things ever decay little by little until they are clean banished, and that on the contrary evil things increase more and more until they come to a full perfection of wickedness. Nor need we seek examples far off for a proof of this: our present matter is an example. For the preaching of God's word, most sincere in the beginning, grew by process of time less and less pure, and after that corrupt, and last of all was altogether laid down and left off, and other inventions of men crept into its place. And on the other side, images among Christian men were first painted, and that in whole stories together, which had some meaning in them; afterwards they were embossed, and made of timber, stone, plaster, and metal. And at first they were kept only privately in private men's houses; then afterwards they crept into churches and temples, but first by painting and after by embossing; and yet at first they were nowhere worshipped. But shortly after, they began to be worshipped by the ignorant sort of men, as appears by the Epistle that Gregory, the first of that name Bishop of Rome, wrote to Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles. Of these two bishops, Serenus, for the idolatry committed to images, broke them and burned them; Gregory, although he thought it tolerable to let them stand, yet judged it abominable that they should be worshipped, and thought, as is now alleged, that the worshipping of them might be stayed by the teaching of God's word, as he exhorts Serenus to teach the people, as appears in the same Epistle.

But whether Gregory's opinion or Serenus' judgment was the better in this, consider for yourselves, I pray you; for experience presently confutes Gregory's opinion. For, notwithstanding Gregory's writing and the preaching of others, images being once publicly set up in temples and churches, simple men and women shortly after fell in heaps to the worshipping of them; and at the last the learned also were carried away with the public error, as by a violent stream or flood; and at the second Council of Nicaea the bishops and clergy decreed that images should be worshipped. And so, by occasion of these stumblingblocks, not only the unlearned and simple but the learned and wise, not the people only but the bishops, not the sheep but the shepherds themselves — who should have been guides in the right way and a light to shine in darkness — being blinded by the bewitching of images, fell, as blind guides of the blind, both together into the pit of damnable idolatry. In which all the world, as it were drowned, continued until our own age, for the space of about eight hundred years, in a manner unspoken against. And this was the outcome of Gregory's order; which mischief would never have come to pass had Bishop Serenus' way been taken, and all idols and images been utterly destroyed and abolished; for no man worships that which does not exist.

And thus you see how, from the having of images privately, it came to the public setting up of them in churches and temples — although at first without harm, as was then judged by some wise and learned men; and from the simple having of them there it came at last to the worshipping of them: first by the rude people, who especially (as the Scriptures teach) are in danger of superstition and idolatry, and afterwards by the bishops, the learned, and the whole clergy. So that laity and clergy, learned and unlearned, all ages, sects, and degrees of men, women, and children of the whole of Christendom (a horrible and most dreadful thing to think of) have all at once been drowned in abominable idolatry, of all vices the most detested of God and the most damnable to man, and that for the space of eight hundred years and more. And to this end has come that beginning of setting up images in churches, then judged harmless, which in experience has proved not only harmful but deadly and pestilent, and to the destruction and subversion of all good religion universally.

So that I conclude thus: as it may be possible in some one city or little country to have images set up in temples and churches and yet, by earnest and continual preaching of God's true word and the sincere Gospel of our Saviour Christ, to keep idolatry away for a short time, so it is impossible that, images being once set up and allowed in temples and churches, any great country — much less the whole world — can for any long time be kept from idolatry. And the godly will have respect not only to their own city, country, and time, and to the health of the men of their own age, but will be careful for all places and times, and for the salvation of the men of all ages; or at the very least they will not lay such stumblingblocks and snares for the feet of men of other countries and other ages, which experience has already proved to have been the ruin of the world.

Therefore I make a general conclusion of all that I have said hitherto. If the stumblingblocks and poisons of men's souls set up by images will be many, yes, infinite, if they are allowed; and the warnings against those stumblingblocks and the remedies against those poisons by preaching are but few, as is already declared; if the stumblingblocks are easy to be had and the poisons soon provided, and the warnings and remedies hard to know or to come by; if the stumblingblocks lie continually in the way, and the poison is ready at hand everywhere, and the warnings and remedies are but seldom given; and if all men are more ready of themselves to stumble and be offended than to be warned, and all more ready to drink the poison than to taste the remedy (as is partly declared before, and shall hereafter be declared more fully); and if, in short, the poison is continually and deeply drunk by many and the remedy seldom and faintly tasted by a few — how can it be but that an infinite number of the weak and infirm shall be offended, an infinite number shall break their necks by that ruin, an infinite number be poisoned in their souls? And where is the charity of God, or the love of our neighbour, in our hearts then, if, when we may remove such dangerous stumblingblocks and such pestilent poisons, we will not remove them? What shall I say of those who will lay stumblingblocks where before there were none, and set snares for the feet — nay, for the souls — of the weak and simple, and work the danger of eternal ruin for those for whom our Saviour Christ shed his precious blood? It were better that the arts of painting, plastering, carving, engraving, and founding had never been found out nor used, than that one of those souls, which in the sight of God are so precious, should by occasion of an image or a picture perish and be lost.

And thus it is declared that preaching cannot possibly stay idolatry if images are set up publicly in temples and churches. And it is as true that no other remedy — writing against idolatry, councils assembled, decrees made against it, severe laws likewise and proclamations of princes and emperors, nor extreme punishments and penalties, nor any other remedy — could be, or can possibly be, devised for the avoiding of idolatry, if images are publicly set up and allowed.

For, concerning writing against images and the idolatry committed to them, there have been alleged to you in the second part of this treatise a great many places out of Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, St. Augustine, Epiphanius, St. Ambrose, Clement, and various other learned and holy bishops and doctors of the Church. And besides these, all the Histories of the Church, and the books of other godly and learned bishops and doctors, are full of notable examples and sentences against images and the worshipping of them. And as they wrote most earnestly, so they also taught and preached in their time sincerely and most diligently, according to their writings and examples. For they were then preaching bishops, and were more often seen in pulpits than in princes' palaces; more often busied about the embassy of him who said, "Go into the whole world, and preach the gospel to all men" (Mark 16:15), than about the embassies and affairs of the princes of this world. And as they were most zealous and diligent, so were they of excellent learning and godliness of life, and by both of great authority and credit with the people, and so of more force and likelihood to persuade the people, and the people the more likely to believe and follow their doctrine. But if their preaching could not help, much less could their writings, which come only to the knowledge of a few who are learned, in comparison with continual preaching, of which the whole multitude is partaker.

Nor did the old fathers, bishops, and doctors act only severally, by preaching and writing, but also together: great numbers of them assembled in synods and councils made decrees and ecclesiastical laws against images and the worshipping of them; and they did this not once or twice, but at various times and in various ages and countries assembled synods and councils and made severe decrees against images and the worshipping of them, as has been declared at large before in the second part of this Homily. But all their writing, preaching, assembling in councils, decreeing, and making of ecclesiastical laws could do nothing, either to pull down images to which idolatry was committed, or against idolatry while images stood. For those blind books and dumb schoolmasters — I mean images and idols, for they call them the laymen's books and schoolmasters — by their carved and painted writings, teaching and preaching idolatry, prevailed against all their written books and against their preaching with the living voice.

Well, if preaching and writing could not keep men from the worshipping of images and from idolatry — if pens and words could not do it — you would think that penalty and swords might do it: I mean, that princes by severe laws and punishments might stay this unbridled affection of all men to idolatry, though images were set up and allowed. But experience proves that this can help no more against idolatry than writing and preaching. For Christian Emperors, whose authority ought by reason and by God's law to be the greatest, above eight in number, and six of them reigning successively one after another (as is rehearsed in the histories before), making most severe laws and proclamations against idols and idolatry, against images and the worshipping of images, and executing most grievous punishments — yes, the penalty of death — upon the maintainers of images and upon idolaters and image worshippers, could not bring it to pass that either images once set up might be thoroughly destroyed, or that men should refrain from worshipping them once they were set up. And what do you think then will come to pass, if men of learning should teach the people to make them, and should maintain the setting up of them as things necessary in religion?

To conclude: it appears evidently by all the histories and writings, and by the experience of times past, that neither preaching, nor writing, nor the consent of the learned, nor the authority of the godly, nor the decrees of councils, nor the laws of princes, nor extreme punishments of offenders in that behalf, nor any other remedy or means, can help against idolatry if images are publicly allowed. And it is truly said that times past are the schoolmasters of wisdom to us who follow and live after them. Therefore, if in times past the most virtuous and best learned, the most diligent also, and in number almost infinite — ancient fathers, bishops, and doctors — with their writing, preaching, industry, earnestness, authority, assemblies, and councils, could do nothing against images and against the idolatry done to images once set up: what can we do, who are to be compared with them neither in learning, nor in holiness of life, nor in diligence, nor in authority, but are men held in contempt and of no estimation (as the world now goes), and a few also in number, among so great a multitude and malice of men — what can we do, I say, or bring to pass, to stay idolatry or the worshipping of images, if they are allowed to stand publicly in temples and churches?

And if so many and so mighty emperors, by such severe laws and proclamations, and by such rigorous and extreme punishments and executions, could not stay the people from setting up and worshipping images, what will follow, do you think, when men shall commend them as necessary books for the laymen? Let us therefore of these later days learn this lesson from the experience of ancient antiquity: that idolatry cannot possibly be separated from images for any long time, but that, as an inseparable accident, or as a shadow follows the body when the sun shines, so idolatry follows and cleaves to the public having of images in temples and churches; and finally, that as idolatry is to be abhorred and avoided, so images, which cannot long be without idolatry, are to be put away and destroyed.

Besides these experiments and proofs of times before, the very nature and origin of images themselves draws most violently to idolatry; and man's nature and inclination also is so vehemently bent to idolatry that it is not possible to sever or part images from it, nor to keep men from idolatry, if images are publicly allowed. What I say of the nature and origin of images is this. The first invention of them is worthless, and no good can come of that which had an evil beginning, for they are altogether worthless, as Athanasius declares in his book against the Gentiles; and St. Jerome also upon the Prophet Jeremiah, the sixth chapter, and Eusebius in the seventh book of his History of the Church, the eighteenth chapter, testify that they came first from the Gentiles, who were idolaters and worshippers of images, to us. And as the invention of them was the beginning of spiritual immorality, as the word of God testifies in Wisdom 14, so they will naturally, as it were, and of necessity turn back to the origin from which they came, and draw us with them most violently into idolatry, abominable to God and to all godly men.

For if the origin of images and of the worshipping of them, as is recorded in the fourteenth chapter of the Book of Wisdom, began from the blind love of a foolish father framing for his comfort an image of his son who was dead, so that at last men fell to worshipping the image of one whom they knew to be dead: how much more will men and women fall to the worshipping of the images of God, of our Saviour Christ, and of his Saints, if they are allowed to stand in churches and temples publicly! For the greater the opinion held of the majesty and holiness of the person to whom an image is made, the sooner will the people fall to the worshipping of that image. Therefore the images of God, of our Saviour Christ, of the blessed Virgin Mary, of the Apostles, Martyrs, and others of notable holiness are of all images the most dangerous for the peril of idolatry; and therefore the greatest heed is to be taken that none of them be allowed to stand publicly in churches and temples. For there is no great dread lest any should fall to the worshipping of images of Annas, Caiaphas, Pilate, or Judas the traitor, if they were set up. But to the others, it is already fully proved that idolatry has been, is, and is most likely continually to be committed.

Now, as was touched before, and is here to be declared more largely: the nature of man is no otherwise bent to the worshipping of images, if he may have them and see them, than it is bent to sexual immorality and adultery in the company of harlots. And just as it profits little to say to a man given to the lust of the flesh, who sees a wanton harlot, sits by her, and embraces her, "Beware of sexual immorality; God will condemn the immoral and adulterers" — for he will not, being overcome by the greater enticements of the strumpet, give ear or take heed to such godly admonitions, and when he is afterwards left alone with the harlot nothing can follow but wickedness — even so, allow images to be in sight in churches and temples, and you shall in vain bid men beware of images, as St. John does, and flee idolatry, as all the Scriptures warn us; you shall in vain preach and teach them against idolatry. For a number will nevertheless fall headlong into it, what by the nature of images, and what by the inclination of their own corrupt nature. Therefore, as it is a tempting of God for a man given to lust to sit down beside a strumpet, so likewise, in this proneness of man's nature to idolatry, to erect an idol is nothing but a tempting of God.

Now, if any will say that this comparison proves nothing, yet, I pray them, let the word of God, out of which the comparison is taken, prove something. Does not the word of God call idolatry spiritual immorality? Does it not call a gilded or painted idol or image a strumpet with a painted face? Are not the spiritual wickednesses of an idol's enticing like the flatteries of a harlot? Are not men and women as prone to spiritual immorality — I mean idolatry — as to carnal? If this is denied, let all the nations upon the earth that have been idolaters (as appears by all histories) prove it true. Let the Jews, and the people of God, who were so often and so earnestly warned concerning images and idolatry, so dreadfully threatened, and so extremely punished for it, and yet fell into it, prove it to be true, as appears most evidently in almost all the books of the Old Testament, and namely in the Kings, the Chronicles, and the Prophets.

Let all ages and times, and men of all ages and times, of all degrees and conditions — wise men, learned men, princes, simple men, the unlearned, and the common people — prove it to be true. If you require examples: for wise men, you have the Egyptians and the Indian Gymnosophists, the wisest men of the world; you have Solomon, the wisest of all. For learned men, you have the Greeks, and namely the Athenians, exceeding all other nations in superstition and idolatry, as St. Paul charges them in the history of the Acts of the Apostles. For princes and governors, you have the Romans, the rulers of the world (as they say); you have that same king Solomon, and all the kings of Israel and Judah after him, save David, Hezekiah, Josiah, and one or two more. All these, I say, and infinite others — wise men, learned men, princes and governors, all of them idolaters — you have for examples and for a proof of men's inclination to idolatry. And this is to pass over in silence, in the meantime, the infinite multitudes and millions of simple and unlearned people, the ignorant and gross sort, "like horses and mules, in whom there is no understanding" (Psalm 32:9), whose peril and danger of falling in heaps into idolatry by occasion of images the Scriptures especially foreshow and give warning of. And indeed, how should the unlearned, the simple, and the foolish escape the nets and snares of idols and images, in which the wisest and best learned have been so entangled, trapped, and wrapped?

Therefore the argument holds on this sure ground, that men are as inclined by their corrupt nature to spiritual immorality as to carnal. And the wisdom of God, foreseeing this, adds to the general prohibition that men should make to themselves any image or likeness a reason drawn from man's corrupt nature: "Lest," says God, "you, being deceived by error, should honour and worship them." (Deuteronomy 4:19) And from this ground of man's corrupt inclination, to spiritual immorality as well as to carnal, it must needs follow that, as it is the duty of the godly magistrate, loving honesty and hating sexual immorality, to remove all strumpets and harlots — especially out of places notoriously suspected, or resorted to by worthless people — for the avoiding of carnal immorality, so it is the duty of the same godly magistrate, after the example of the godly kings Hezekiah and Josiah, to drive away all spiritual harlots, I mean idols and images, especially out of suspected places, churches and temples, which are dangerous because idolatry is committed to images placed there, as it were in the appointed place and height of honour and worship (as St. Augustine says), where the living God only, and not dead stones or stocks, is to be worshipped. It is, I say, the office of godly magistrates likewise to remove images and idols out of churches and temples, as spiritual harlots out of suspected places, for the avoiding of idolatry, which is spiritual immorality.

And as he would be the enemy of all honesty who would bring strumpets and harlots out of their secret corners into the public market place, there freely to dwell and ply their filthy merchandise, so he is the enemy of the true worshipping of God who brings idols and images into the temple and church, the house of God, there openly to be worshipped, and to rob the jealous God of his honour, which he will not give to any other, nor his glory to carved images; who is as much forsaken, and the bond of love between man and him as much broken, by idolatry, which is spiritual immorality, as the knot and bond of marriage is broken by carnal immorality. Let all this be taken for a lie, if the word of God does not enforce it to be true. "Cursed be the man," says God in Deuteronomy, "that makes a carved or molten image, and places it in a secret corner: and all the people shall say, Amen." (Deuteronomy 27:15) Thus says God; for at that time no man dared to have or worship images openly, but only in corners. And, the whole world being the great temple of God, he who in any corner of it robs God of his glory and gives it to stocks and stones is by God's word pronounced accursed. Now he who will bring these spiritual harlots out of their lurking corners into public churches and temples, so that spiritual immorality may there be openly committed with them by all men and women without shame — no doubt that person is cursed of God, and twice cursed; and all good and godly men and women will say, Amen; and their Amen will take effect too.

Yes, and furthermore, the madness of all men professing the religion of Christ, now for the space of several hundred years and even in our own time, in so great a light of the Gospel — very many running in heaps by sea and land, to the great loss of their time, to the expense and waste of their goods, to the destitution of their wives, children, and families, and to the danger of their own bodies and lives, to Compostella, Rome, Jerusalem, and other far countries, to visit dumb and dead stocks and stones — sufficiently proves the proneness of man's corrupt nature to seek out idols once they are set up, and to worship them.

And thus, by the origin and nature of idols and images themselves, as well as by the proneness and inclination of man's corrupt nature to idolatry, it is evident that neither can images, if they are publicly set up, be separated from idolatry, nor can men, if they see images in temples and churches, be stayed and kept from it.

Now, whereas they still allege that, however the people, princes, learned, and wise of old time fell into idolatry by occasion of images, yet in our time the greater part — especially the learned, the wise, and those of any authority — take no hurt or offence from idols and images, nor run into far countries to them and worship them; and that they know well enough what an idol or an image is, and how it is to be used; and that therefore it follows that images in churches and temples are an indifferent thing, as being a thing that is not abused by some; and that they may therefore justly hold (as they alleged at the beginning of this part) that it is not absolutely unlawful or wicked to have images in churches and temples, though for the danger of the simpler sort it may seem not altogether expedient — to this it may well be replied that Solomon also, the wisest of all men, knew well what an idol or an image was, and for a great while took no harm from it himself, and also armed others against the danger of them by his godly writings; and yet afterwards that same Solomon, allowing his wanton paramours to bring their idols into his court and palace, was persuaded by carnal harlots and brought at the last to commit spiritual immorality with idols, and of the wisest and godliest prince became the most foolish and the most wicked also. Therefore it is better, even for the wisest, to regard this warning, "He that loves danger shall perish in it" (Sirach 3:26), and this, "Let him that stands beware lest he fall" (1 Corinthians 10:12), rather than wittingly and willingly to lay such a stumblingblock for his own feet and for other men's, which may perhaps bring them at last to break their necks.

The good king Hezekiah knew well enough that the brazen serpent was but a dead image, and therefore took no hurt himself by idolatry to it. Did he therefore let it stand, because he himself took no hurt from it? No, not so; but, being a good king, and therefore having regard to the health of his helpless subjects, who were deceived by that image and committed idolatry to it, he did not only take it down but broke it in pieces. And this he did to an image that had been set up by the commandment of God, in whose presence great miracles had been wrought, and which was a figure of our Saviour Christ to come, who should deliver us from the mortal sting of the old serpent Satan. Nor did he spare it in respect of its ancientness or antiquity, which had lasted about seven hundred years, nor because it had been allowed and preserved by so many godly kings before his time.

How, do you think, would that godly prince, if he were now living, handle our idols — set up directly against God's commandment, and being figures of nothing but folly, and for fools to gaze on, till they become as wise as the blocks they stare at, and so fall down as dazed larks in that gaze, and, being themselves alive, worship a dead stock or stone, gold or silver, and so become idolaters, abominable and cursed before the living God, giving the honour due to him who made them when they were nothing, and to our Saviour Christ, who redeemed them when they were lost, to a dead and dumb idol, the work of man's hands, which never did nor can do anything for them — no, is not able to stir, nor once to move, and is therefore worse than a vile worm, which can move and creep?

The excellent king Josiah also took no hurt himself from images and idols, for he knew well what they were. Did he therefore, because of his own knowledge, let idols and images stand? Much less did he set any up. Did he not rather, by his knowledge and by his authority also, relieve the ignorance of those who did not know what they were, by utterly taking away all such stumblingblocks as might be an occasion of ruin to his people and subjects?

Will they, because a few take no hurt from images or idols, break the general law of God, "You shall make to yourself no likeness" (Exodus 20:4), and so on? They might as well argue, because Moses was not seduced by Jethro's daughter, nor Boaz by Ruth, though these were strangers, that all the Jews might break the general law of God which forbids his people to join their children in marriage with strangers, lest they seduce their children so that they should not follow God. Therefore those who reason thus, "Though it is not expedient, yet it is lawful to have images publicly," and who prove that lawfulness by a few picked and chosen men, if they hold out to all men without distinction what only a very few can have without hurt and offence, seem to take the multitude for a worthless thing (as Virgil says), of whose loss or safeguard no account is to be had — and yet Christ paid as dearly for them as for the mightiest princes, or for the wisest and best learned upon the earth. And those who will have a thing generally taken as indifferent because a very few take no hurt from it, though infinite multitudes besides perish by it, show that they put little difference between the multitude of Christians and brute beasts, whose danger they esteem so lightly.

Besides this, if those who reason thus, "It is lawful to have images publicly, though it is not expedient," are bishops or parsons, or otherwise have charge of men's consciences, what manner of pastors do they show themselves to be to their flock, who thrust upon them what they themselves confess is not expedient for them, but is to the utter ruin of the souls committed to their charge, for whom they shall give a strict account before the Prince of pastors at the last day? For indeed to set such stumblingblocks before the weak, and before those who are ready to fall of themselves, is a thing not only inexpedient but unlawful — yes, and most wicked also. Therefore it is to be wondered at how they can call images set up in churches and temples "things indifferent," when they are to the profit or benefit of none, and to so great peril and danger — yes, to the hurt and destruction of many, or rather of infinite numbers. Is not the public setting up of them rather a snare for all men, and a tempting of God?

I beseech these reasoners to call to mind their own accustomed ordinance and decree, by which they determined that the Scripture, though commanded by God himself to be known by all men, women, and children, should not be read by the simple, nor had in the common tongue, because (as they said) it was dangerous, and brought the simple people into errors. And will they not forbid images to be set up in churches and temples, which are not commanded but most strictly forbidden by God, but let them stand there still — yes, and maintain them too — seeing that by them the people are brought, not into danger only, but indeed into most abominable error and detestable idolatry? Shall God's word, which God commanded to be read by all and known by all, be shut up for danger of heresy, as they say? And shall idols and images, notwithstanding that they are forbidden by God, and notwithstanding the danger of idolatry by them, yet be set up, allowed, and maintained in churches and temples? O worldly and fleshly wisdom, ever to maintain the inventions and traditions of men by carnal reason, and by the same to annul or deface the holy ordinances, laws, and honour of the eternal God, who is to be honoured and praised for ever. Amen.

Now it remains, for the conclusion of this treatise, to declare the abuse of churches and temples by too costly and sumptuous decking and adorning of them, and also the shameful painting, gilding, and clothing of idols and images, and so to conclude the whole treatise.

In Tertullian's time, a hundred and sixty years after Christ, Christians had no other temples but common houses, to which they for the most part secretly resorted. And so far were they from having, before his time, any goodly or gorgeously decked temples, that laws were made in the times of the Emperors Antoninus Verus and Commodus that no Christians should dwell openly abroad, and that if they were once accused of being Christians they should by no means be allowed to escape. As was practised upon Apollonius, a noble senator of Rome, who, being accused by his own bondman and slave of being a Christian, could not be delivered from death — neither by his defence and apology, learnedly and eloquently written and read publicly in the senate, nor in respect that he was a citizen, nor for the dignity of his order, nor for the vileness and unlawfulness of his accuser, being his own slave, who in all likelihood was moved by malice to forge lies against his lord, nor for any other respect or help. So that Christians were then driven to dwell in caves and dens: so far were they from having any public temples adorned and decked as they now are.

Which is rehearsed here to the confutation of those impudent, shameless liars who report such glorious glossed fables of the goodly and gorgeous temples that St. Peter, Linus, Cletus, and those thirty bishops their successors are said to have had at Rome until the time of the Emperor Constantine, and that St. Polycarp is said to have had in Asia, or Irenaeus in France; by such lies, contrary to all true histories, to maintain the superfluous gilding and decking of temples nowadays, in which they put almost the whole sum and pith of our religion. But in those times the world was won to Christendom, not by gorgeous, gilded, and painted temples of Christians, who scarcely had houses to dwell in, but by the godly and, as it were, golden minds and firm faith of those who in all adversity and persecution professed the truth of our religion.

And after these times, in the proclamation of the Emperors Maximian and Constantius, the places where Christians resorted to public prayer were called "conventicles." And in the Epistle of the Emperor Galerius Maximinus they are called oratories and dominica, that is to say, places dedicated to the service of the Lord. (And here, by the way, it is to be noted that at that time there were no churches or temples erected to any Saint, but to God only, as St. Augustine also records, saying, "We build no temples to our Martyrs.") And Eusebius himself calls churches "houses of prayer," and shows that in the Emperor Constantine's time all men rejoiced, seeing "high temples built" instead of the "low conventicles" which tyrants had destroyed.

See, then: until the time of Constantine, for the space of above three hundred years after our Saviour Christ, when Christian religion was most pure and indeed golden, Christians had but low and poor conventicles and simple oratories — yes, and caves under the ground, called cryptae, where for fear of persecution they secretly assembled together. A figure of this remains in the vaults that are still built under great churches, to put us in remembrance of the old state of the primitive Church before Constantine. Whereas in Constantine's time and after him there were built great and goodly temples for Christians, called basilicae, either because the Greeks used to call all great and goodly places basilicas, or because the high and everlasting King, God and our Saviour Christ, was served in them.

But although Constantine and other princes, out of good zeal to our religion, did sumptuously deck and adorn Christians' temples, yet at that time they dedicated all churches or temples to God or to our Saviour Christ, and to no Saint; for that abuse began long after, in Justinian's time. And that gorgeousness which was then used, as it was borne with because it arose from a good zeal, so it was signified by the godly learned even at that time that such cost might otherwise have been better bestowed. Let St. Jerome, although otherwise too great a liker and allower of external and outward things, be a proof of this, who has these words in his Epistle to Demetrias:

Let others build churches, cover walls with tables of marble, carry together huge pillars and gild their tops or heads, which do not feel or understand their precious decking and adorning; let them deck the doors with ivory and silver, and set the golden altars with precious stones. I blame it not. Let every man abound in his own sense; and it is better so to do than carefully to keep their riches laid up in store. But you have another way appointed you: to clothe Christ in the poor, to visit him in the sick, to feed him in the hungry, to lodge him in those who lack shelter, and especially such as are of the household of faith.

And the same St. Jerome touches the same matter somewhat more freely in his Treatise of the Life of Clerks, to Nepotian, saying this:

Many build the walls and erect the pillars of churches; the smooth marbles glisten, the roof shines with gold, the altar is set with precious stone; but of the ministers of Christ there is no election or choice. Nor let any man object and allege against me the rich temple that was in Jewry, the table, the candlesticks, the incense boats, the platters, cups, mortars, and other things, all of gold. Those things were then allowed by the Lord, when the priests offered sacrifices and the blood of beasts was accounted the redemption of sins. Howbeit all these things went before in figure, and they were written for us, upon whom the end of the world is come. And now that our Lord, being poor, has dedicated the poverty of his house, let us remember his cross, and we shall esteem riches as mire or dung. Why do we marvel at that which Christ calls the wicked mammon? Why do we so highly esteem and love that which St. Peter testifies, for a glory, that he did not have?

Thus far St. Jerome. See how St. Jerome teaches that the sumptuousness among the Jews was a figure to signify, and not an example to follow, and that those outward things were allowed for a time, until Christ our Lord came, who turned all those outward things into spirit, faith, and truth. And the same St. Jerome, upon the seventh chapter of Jeremiah, says: "God commanded both the Jews at that time, and now us who are placed in the Church, that we should have no trust in the goodliness of building, and in gilt roofs, and in walls covered with tables of marble, and say, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord. For that is the temple of the Lord in which dwells true faith, godly conversation, and the company of all virtues." And upon the prophet Haggai he describes the true and right decking or ornaments of the temple in this manner:

I do think the silver with which the house of God is decked to be the doctrine of the Scriptures, of which it is spoken: The doctrine of the Lord is a pure doctrine, silver tried in the fire, purged from dross, purified seven times. And I take the gold to be that which remains in the hidden sense of the saints and in the secret of the heart, and shines with the true light of God. And it is evident that the Apostle also meant this of the saints who build upon the foundation of Christ, some silver, some gold, some precious stones: that by the gold the hidden sense, by the silver godly utterance, by the precious stones works that please God, might be signified. With these metals the Church of our Saviour is made more goodly and gorgeous than was the Synagogue of old; with these living stones is the Church and house of Christ built, and peace is given to it for ever.

All these are St. Jerome's sayings.

No more did the old godly bishops and doctors of the Church allow the outrageous furnishing of temples and churches with plate, with vessels of gold and silver, and with precious vestments. St. Chrysostom says that in the ministry of the holy Sacraments there is no need of golden vessels, but of golden minds. And St. Ambrose says: "Christ sent his Apostles without gold, and gathered his Church without gold. The Church has gold, not to keep it, but to bestow it on the necessities of the poor." And: "The Sacraments look for no gold, neither do they please God for the commendation of gold, seeing they are not bought with gold. The adorning and decking of the Sacraments is the redemption of captives." Thus much St. Ambrose. St. Jerome commends Exuperius, Bishop of Toulouse, that he carried the Sacrament of the Lord's Body in a wicker basket and the Sacrament of his Blood in a glass, and so cast covetousness out of the Church. And Boniface, Bishop and Martyr, as is recorded in the Decrees, testifies that in old time the ministers used wooden, and not golden, vessels. And Zephyrinus, the sixteenth bishop of Rome, made a decree that they should use vessels of glass.

Likewise the vestments used in the Church in old time were very plain and simple and in no way costly. And Rabanus declares at large that this costly and manifold furniture of vestments used of late in the Church was fetched from the Jewish usage, and agrees with Aaron's apparelling almost altogether. For the maintenance of which, pope Innocent boldly pronounces that not all the customs of the old Law are abolished — so that we might, in such apparel, the more willingly become Jews instead of Christians.

And let all this be noted as spoken, not against churches and temples, which are most necessary and ought to have their due use and honour (as is declared in another Homily written for that purpose), nor against their convenient cleanliness and ornaments, but against the sumptuousness and the abuses of temples and churches. For that also is a church or temple which glisters with no marble, shines with no gold or silver, and glitters with no pearls or precious stones, but which by its plainness and frugality signifies a doctrine and a people that are not proud, but humble, frugal, and setting nothing by earthly and outward things, and yet gloriously decked with inward ornaments, as the Prophet declares, saying, "The King's daughter is all glorious within." (Psalm 45:13)

Now, concerning the outrageous decking of images and idols with painting, gilding, and adorning with precious vestments, pearl, and stone — what else is it but, for the further provocation and enticement to spiritual immorality, to deck spiritual harlots most costly and wantonly? Which the idolatrous Church understands well enough. For she, being indeed not only a harlot (as the Scriptures call her) but also a foul, filthy, old, withered harlot — for she is indeed of ancient years — and understanding her lack of natural and true beauty, and the great loathsomeness which she has of herself, does, after the custom of such harlots, paint herself, and deck and attire herself with gold, pearl, stone, and every kind of precious jewel, so that, shining as with their outward beauty and glory, she may please the foolish fancy of foolish lovers, and so entice them to spiritual immorality with her; who, if they saw her — I will not say naked, but in simple apparel — would abhor her as the foulest and filthiest harlot that ever was seen. As appears by the description of the garnishing of the great strumpet of all strumpets, the mother of sexual immorality, set forth by St. John in his Revelation, who by her glory provoked the princes of the earth to commit immorality with her.

Whereas, on the contrary part, the true Church of God, as a chaste matron espoused (as the Scripture teaches) to one husband, our Saviour Jesus Christ, whom alone she is content to please and serve, and does not look to delight the eyes or the fancies of any other strange lovers or wooers, is content with her natural ornaments, not doubting that by such sincere simplicity she best pleases him who well knows the difference between a painted visage and true natural beauty.

And concerning such glorious gilding and decking of images, both God's word written in the tenth chapter of the Prophet Jeremiah, and St. Jerome's commentaries upon the same, are most worthy to be noted. First, the words of the Scripture are these:

The workman with his axe hewed the timber out of the wood with the work of his hands; he decked it with gold and silver; he joined it with nails and pins and the stroke of a hammer, that it might hold together. They are made smooth as the palm, and they cannot speak; if they are carried, they are moved, for they cannot go. Fear them not, for they can neither do evil nor good. (Jeremiah 10:3-5)

Thus says the Prophet. Upon which text St. Jerome has these words: "This is the description of the idols which the Gentiles worship. Their material is vile and corruptible. And since the craftsman is mortal, the things he makes must needs be corruptible. He decks it with silver and gold, that with the glittering or shining of both metals he may deceive the simple. Which error indeed has passed over from the Gentiles, that we should judge religion to stand in riches." And presently after he says: "They have the beauty of metals, and are beautified by the art of painting; but good or profit is there none in them." And shortly after again: "They make great promises, and devise an image of vain worshipping out of their own fantasies; they make great brags to deceive every simple body; they dull and amaze the understanding of the unlearned, as it were with golden senses and with eloquence shining with the brightness of silver. And by their own devisers and makers are these images advanced and magnified, in which there is no utility nor profit at all, and the worshipping of which properly pertains to the Gentiles and heathen and to such as do not know God." Thus far of St. Jerome's words.

Whereupon you may note both his judgment of images themselves and also his judgment of the painting, gilding, and decking of them: that it is an error which came from the Gentiles; that it persuades men that religion consists in riches; that it amazes and deceives the simple and unlearned with golden senses and silver-shining eloquence; and that it belongs properly to the Gentiles and heathen and to such as do not know God. Therefore the having, painting, gilding, and decking of images is, by St. Jerome's judgment, erroneous, seducing and bringing men into error (especially the simple and unlearned), heathenish, and void of the knowledge of God. Surely the Prophet Daniel, in the eleventh chapter, declares such sumptuous decking of images with gold, silver, and precious stones to be a token of Antichrist's kingdom, who, as the Prophet foreshows, shall worship God with such gorgeous things.

Now, commonly such outrageous adorning and decking of images has arisen and been maintained either out of offerings provoked by superstition and given in idolatry, or out of spoils, robberies, usury, or goods otherwise unjustly gotten, of which wicked men have given part to the images or Saints (as they call them), so that they might be pardoned for the whole; as may well appear from various writings and old monuments concerning the cause and end of certain great gifts. And indeed such money, so wickedly gotten, is most fit to be put to so wicked a use. And what they take to be amends for the whole before God is more abominable in his sight than both the wicked getting and the still more wicked spending of all the rest. For how the Lord allows such gifts he declares evidently in the Prophet Isaiah, saying, "I," says the Lord, "love judgment, and I hate spoil and rapine offered in sacrifice." (Isaiah 61:8) Which even the Gentiles understood; for Plato shows that such men as suppose that God pardons wicked men if they give him part of their spoils and rapine take him to be like a dog, which would be entreated and hired with part of the prey to let the wolves worry the sheep.

And even in case the goods with which images are decked were justly gotten, yet it is extreme madness so foolishly and wickedly to bestow goods purchased by wisdom and truth. Of such folly Lactantius writes thus:

Men do in vain deck images of the gods with gold, ivory, and precious stone, as though the images could take any pleasure in these things. For what use have they of precious gifts, who understand nothing and feel nothing? Even the same use that dead men have. For with like reason do they bury dead bodies stuffed with spices and odours and clothed with precious vestments, and deck images, which neither felt nor knew when they were made, nor understand when they are honoured; for they get no sense or understanding by their consecration.

Thus far Lactantius, and much more, too long to rehearse here, declaring that, as little girls play with little puppets, so these decked images are great puppets for old fools to play with. And so that we may know what, not only men of our religion, but heathens also, judge of such decking of dead images, it is not unprofitable to hear what Seneca, a wise and excellently learned senator of Rome and a philosopher, says concerning the foolishness of ancient and grave men used in his time in the worshipping and decking of images. "We," says Seneca, "are not twice children, as the common saying is, but always children; but this is the difference, that we, being older, play the children." And in these plays they bring in before great and well-decked puppets — for so he calls images — "ointments, incense, and odours. To these puppets they offer up sacrifice, which have a mouth but not the use of teeth. Upon these they put attire and precious apparel, which have no use of clothes. To these they give gold and silver, which they who receive it" — meaning the images — "lack as much as they that have given it away." And Seneca much commends Dionysius, king of Sicily, for his merry robbing of such decked and jewelled puppets.

But you will ask: what does this, which is written against the idols of the Gentiles, have to do with our images? Everything, surely. For what use or pleasure have our images of their decking and precious ornaments? Did our images understand when they were made, or do they know when they are so trimmed and decked? Are not these things bestowed upon them as much in vain as upon dead men, who have no sense? It follows, therefore, that there is the same foolishness and folly in decking our images as great puppets, for old fools like children to play the wicked play of idolatry before, as there was among the heathens and Gentiles.

Our churches stand full of such great puppets, wonderfully decked and adorned. Garlands and coronets are set on their heads, precious pearls hang about their necks; their fingers shine with rings set with precious stone; their dead and stiff bodies are clothed with garments stiff with gold. You would believe that the images of our men Saints were some great lords with their proud apparel, and that the idols of our women Saints were dainty and well-trimmed harlots, tempting their paramours to wantonness. By which the Saints of God are not honoured but most dishonoured, and their godliness, soberness, chastity, and contempt of riches and of the vanity of the world are defaced and brought into doubt by such monstrous decking, most differing from their sober and godly lives.

And because the whole pageant must be thoroughly played out, it is not enough thus to deck idols; but at the last the priests themselves come in, likewise decked with gold and pearl, that they may be fit servants for such lords and ladies, and fit worshippers of such gods and goddesses. And with a solemn pace they pass forth before these golden puppets, and fall down to the ground on their knees before these honourable idols; and then, rising up again, they offer up odours and incense to them, to give the people an example of double idolatry, by worshipping not only the idol but the gold also and the riches with which it is garnished. Which things most of our old Martyrs, rather than they would do them, or once kneel or offer up one crumb of incense before an image, suffered most cruel and terrible deaths, as the histories of them declare at large.

And here again their allegation out of Gregory the First and Damascene, that images are the laymen's books, and that a picture is the scripture of idiots and of simple persons, is worthy to be considered. For, as it has been touched in various places before how they are books teaching nothing but lies — as evidently appears from St. Paul in the first chapter to the Romans concerning the images of God — so now note well, I pray you, what manner of books and scripture these painted and gilded images of Saints are to the common people. For after our preachers have instructed and exhorted the people to follow the virtues of the Saints — contempt of this world, poverty, soberness, chastity, and such like virtues, which undoubtedly were in the Saints — think, then: as soon as they turn their faces from the preacher and look upon the graven books and painted scripture of the glorious gilded images and idols, all shining and glittering with metal and stone and covered with precious vestments; or else, with Chaerea in Terence, behold a painted panel in which is set forth by the art of the painter an image with a dainty and wanton apparel and countenance, more like to Venus or Flora than to Mary Magdalene — or, if like to Mary Magdalene, it is when she played the harlot rather than when she wept for her sins — when, I say, they turn about from the preacher to these books and schoolmasters and painted scriptures, shall they not find them lying books, teaching quite another manner of lessons: the esteeming of riches, pride and vanity in apparel, daintiness and wantonness, and perhaps sexual immorality, as Chaerea was taught by like pictures, and as in Lucian one learned from Venus a lesson too abominable to be remembered here?

Are not these, do you think, pretty books and scriptures for simple people, and especially for wives and young maidens, to look in, to read, and to learn such lessons from? What will they think, either of the preacher, who taught them contrary lessons of the Saints, and is therefore charged with a lie by these carved doctors; or of the Saints themselves, if they believe these graven books and painted scriptures of them, which make the Saints now reigning in heaven with God — to their great dishonour — schoolmasters of that very vanity which in their lifetime they most abhorred? For what lessons of contempt of riches and of the vanity of this world can such books teach, so besmeared with gold, set with stone, and covered with silks? What lessons of soberness and chastity can our women learn from these pictured scriptures, with their dainty apparel and wanton looks?

But away, for shame, with these coloured cloaks of idolatry — with these books and scriptures of images and pictures to teach idiots; nay, to make idiots and stark fools and beasts of Christians! Do men, I pray you, when they have the same books at home with them, run on pilgrimage to seek the like books at Rome, Compostella, or Jerusalem, to be taught by them, when they have the like to learn from at home? Do men reverence some books, and despise and set light by others of the same sort? Do men kneel before their books, light candles at noonday, burn incense, offer up gold and silver and other gifts to their books? Do men either feign or believe miracles to be wrought by their books?

I am sure that the New Testament of our Saviour Jesus Christ, containing the word of life, is a more living, express, and true image of our Saviour than all the carved, engraved, molten, and painted images in the world are; and yet none of all these things are done to that book or scripture of the Gospel of our Saviour which are done to images and pictures, the books and scriptures of laymen and idiots, as they call them. Therefore, call them what they like, it is most evident by their deeds that they make of them no other books nor scriptures than such as teach the most filthy and horrible idolatry, as the users of such books daily prove by continually practising it. O books and scriptures, in which the devilish schoolmaster Satan has penned the wicked lessons of foul idolatry for his cowardly disciples and scholars to behold, read, and learn, to God's most high dishonour and to their most horrible damnation!

Have we not been much beholden, do you think, to those who should have taught us the truth out of God's book and his holy Scripture, that they have shut up that book and Scripture from us — and none of us so bold as once to open it or read in it — and instead of it have spread abroad for us these goodly carved and gilded books and painted scriptures, to teach us such good and godly lessons? Have they not done well, after they ceased to stand in pulpits themselves and to teach the people committed to their instruction, keeping silence about God's word and becoming dumb dogs (as the Prophet calls them), to set up in their stead, on every pillar and in every corner of the church, such goodly doctors, as dumb as themselves but more wicked? We need not complain of the lack of one dumb parson, having so many dumb devilish vicars — I mean these idols and painted puppets — to teach in their stead.

Now in the meantime, while the dumb and dead idols stand thus decked and clothed, contrary to God's law and commandment, the poor Christian people, the living images of God, commended to us so tenderly by our Saviour Christ as most dear to him, stand naked, shivering for cold, their teeth chattering in their heads, and no man covers them; they are pined with hunger and thirst, and no man gives them a penny to refresh them; whereas pounds are ready at all times, contrary to God's word and will, to deck and trim dead stocks and stones, which feel neither cold, nor hunger, nor thirst. Clement has a notable sentence concerning this matter, saying thus:

That serpent the devil utters these words by the mouth of certain men: We, for the honour of the invisible God, do worship visible images. Which doubtless is most false. For if you will truly honour the image of God, you should, by doing well to man, honour the true image of God in him. For the image of God is in every man; but the likeness of God is not in every one, but only in those who have a godly heart and a pure mind. If therefore you will truly honour the image of God, we declare the truth to you: that you do well to man, who is made after the image of God; that you give honour and reverence to him, and refresh the hungry with food, the thirsty with drink, the naked with clothes, the sick with attendance, the harbourless stranger with lodging, and prisoners with necessaries. And this shall be accounted as truly bestowed upon God. And these things belong so directly to God's honour, that whoever does not do this shall seem to have reproached and done villainy to the image of God. For what honour of God is this, to run to images of stock and stone, and to honour vain and dead figures as God, and to despise man, in whom is the true image of God?

And presently after he says: "Understand therefore that this is the suggestion of the serpent Satan lurking within you, which persuades you that you are godly when you honour senseless and dead images, and that you are not ungodly when you hurt, or leave unrelieved, the living and reasonable creatures." All these are the words of Clement. Note, I pray you, how this most ancient and learned doctor, within a hundred years of our Saviour Christ's time, most plainly teaches that no service of God, or religion acceptable to him, can consist in the honouring of dead images, but in the succouring of the poor, the living images of God; according to St. James, who says, "This is the pure and true religion before God the Father: to succour fatherless and motherless children and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself undefiled from this world." (James 1:27)

True religion, then, and the pleasing of God, does not stand in the making, setting up, painting, gilding, clothing, and decking of dumb and dead images, which are but great puppets and idols for old fools in their dotage and in wicked idolatry to dally and play with; nor in kissing them, doffing the cap to them, kneeling, offering to them, censing them, setting up candles, hanging up legs, arms, or whole bodies of wax before them, or praying to them, or asking of them or of the Saints things which belong to God only to give. All these things are vain and abominable and most damnable before God. Therefore all such persons do not only bestow their money and labour in vain, but with their pains and cost purchase for themselves God's wrath and utter indignation, and everlasting damnation of both body and soul.

For you have heard it evidently proved in these Homilies against Idolatry — by God's word, by the doctors of the Church, by the Histories of the Church, by reason, and by experience — that images have been and are worshipped, and so idolatry committed to them, by infinite multitudes, to the great offence of God's Majesty and to the danger of infinite souls; and that idolatry cannot possibly be separated from images set up in churches and temples, gilded and gorgeously decked; and that therefore our images are indeed very idols, so that all the prohibitions, laws, curses, and threatenings of horrible plagues, temporal as well as eternal, contained in the holy Scripture concerning idols and the makers, maintainers, and worshippers of them, belong also to our images set up in churches and temples, and to the makers, maintainers, and worshippers of them. And all those names of abomination which God's word in the holy Scripture gives to the idols of the Gentiles belong to our images, which are idols like them and have like idolatry committed to them: and God's own mouth in the holy Scriptures calls them vanities, lies, deceits, uncleanness, filthiness, dung, mischief, and abomination before the Lord. Therefore God's horrible wrath, and our most dreadful danger, cannot be avoided without the destruction and utter abolishing of all such images and idols out of the church and temple of God. Which to accomplish, God put it into the minds of all Christian princes!

And in the meantime let us take heed and be wise, O you beloved of the Lord, and let us have no strange gods, but one only God, who made us when we were nothing; the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who redeemed us when we were lost; and with his Holy Spirit, who sanctifies us. For this is life everlasting, to know him to be the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent. Let us honour and worship for religion's sake none but him; and let us worship and honour him as he wills himself, and as he has declared by his word that he will be honoured and worshipped — not in or by images or idols, which he has most strictly forbidden, nor by kneeling to them, lighting candles, burning incense, or offering up gifts to images and idols, and thinking that by these we shall please him; for all these are an abomination before God. But let us honour and worship God in spirit and in truth, fearing and loving him above all things, trusting in him only, calling upon him and praying to him only, praising and lauding him only, and all others in him and for him. For such worshippers does our heavenly Father love, who is the purest Spirit, and therefore will be worshipped in spirit and in truth. And such worshippers were Abraham, Moses, David, Elijah, Peter, Paul, John, and all the other holy Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, Martyrs, and all true Saints of God; who all, as the true friends of God, were enemies and destroyers of images and idols, as being the enemies of God and of his true religion.

Therefore take heed and be wise, O you beloved of the Lord; and what others, contrary to God's word, bestow wickedly and to their damnation upon dead stocks and stones — which are no images, but enemies, of God and of his Saints — that bestow, as the faithful servants of God and according to God's word, mercifully upon poor men and women, upon fatherless children, widows, sick persons, strangers, prisoners, and all others who are in any necessity; so that at that great day of the Lord you may hear that most blessed and comforting saying of our Saviour Christ:

Come, you blessed, into the kingdom of my Father, prepared for you before the beginning of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me food; thirsty, and you gave me drink; naked, and you clothed me; harbourless, and you lodged me; in prison, and you visited me; sick, and you comforted me. For whatever you have done for the poor and needy in my name and for my sake, that you have done for me. (Matthew 25:34-40)

To which his heavenly kingdom God the Father of mercies bring us, for Jesus Christ's sake, our only Saviour, Mediator, and Advocate; to whom, with the Holy Spirit, one immortal, invisible, and most glorious God, be all honour and thanksgiving and glory, world without end. Amen.

1. Original "whoredom" (and, elsewhere in this Homily, "fornication"); modernized throughout as "sexual immorality." Where the source pairs "spiritual and carnal fornication," the shorter "immorality" is used so that the pairing survives: idolatry is the spiritual kind, and the Homily's whole argument turns on the parallel.↩︎

2. "Things indifferent" is the technical term of the period (Latin adiaphora): matters neither commanded nor forbidden by God, and so in themselves morally neutral. The modern sense of "indifferent" — uninterested, or of poor quality — is not meant.↩︎

3. Source reading uncertain here. Two dates in this narrative are damaged in the scanned text: the year given as 460 has been supplied from the reigns named and should be treated as approximate, and the year given here, at the death of Leo the Fourth, is lost entirely, so the source's own figure could not be reproduced.↩︎↩︎

4. Source reading uncertain here. The subject of this sentence is damaged in the scanned text; "such a cripple" has been supplied from the sense of the passage.↩︎

5. Original: "seely" (= poor, defenceless, pitiable), rendered "helpless" here and below. It is the ancestor of the modern word "silly," whose sense has since reversed.↩︎

6. The Latin of Naclantus is damaged beyond recovery in the scanned text, and only this fragment survives. The Homily's own full English rendering of the passage follows immediately.↩︎