Musings on Idolatry and the {real} 2nd Commandment

[missionseeker]

The walls of the underground city underneath St. Peter's in Rome (the Scavi tour) are COVERED in pictures.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='CoffeeCatholic' post='1043077' date='Aug 13 2006, 09:49 PM']
So, if Jesus really hated images of his face, why did he give us at least one directly?

Remember Veronica?
[/quote]

Well, to my knowledge, Veronica isn't mentioned in the bible either (if that's your criteria). And Protestants probably aren't really familiar with that either.

[Guest JeffCR07]

[quote]{ in case people are still confused, AD 32 - AD 100 is the Apostolic age... [/quote]

Eutychus, no scholar in his or her right mind would ever expect to find a image of Christ in that period. In 33 AD Paul was still killing Christians. Look at history and that will tell us what to expect. Paul's earliest epistle was written in 51 AD and his latest was written in 59 AD. So that means that, based on purely textual evidence, we can say with confidence that until at least 60 AD, the focus was still heavily on actually establishing Churches and the Faith in new areas. Art follows evangelization, not the other way around. So really, you're asking us to provide you with an example of depictions of Christ from between 60 AD and 100 AD.

But Christians were being persecuted by Nero in Rome from 64-68 AD, and we aren't gonna find much art amongst a persecuted group. So Roman Christian communities are out.

The largest and most stable christian community (and therefore the one most likely to have forms of art) was in Jerusalem. But before the Temple fell, the Christians were having part of their liturgical life at the Temple and then would go to a designated house for the Eucharist, and the eucharistic meal didn't demand any art. Moreover, the Temple didn't fall until 70 AD. Uh oh, now we have a problem, because the Christians [i]fled[/i] Jerusalem at the fall of the temple and didn't return from the surrounding deserts for about ten years, and at that point they were focusing on rebuilding, not painting.

So the fact remains that the time period you're demanding is a time period where Christians are either a.) trying to spread the religion in places like Corinth (you can't expect them to produce art when they are focused on conversion and forming a community), b.) trying to spread the religion while being persecuted in Rome (you can't expect people who are focused on conversion and forming a community while being persecuted to produce art), or c.) trying to spread the religion while remaining integrated into Judaic practice, then having to flee into the desert to escape ransacking Romans.

So the time period you suggest is the time period where no historical art scholar would expect to find much art. But the period immediately following, once the communities of faith [i]have[/i] been established, actually do produce art, and many times in spite of persecution.

History hurts your argument Eutychus.

Your Brother In Christ,

Jeff

[Brother Adam]

[quote]Why did not the early Christians make statues of Jesus and the other apostles first hand?[/quote]

I'm confused; did Jews make statues as part of their customs in the 1st century? We know that the Lord commanded them to make many images, including the image of the snake made in bronze who healed them (Numbers 21). Is there some writing that you have reference to that says that Jews were not allowed to make or have any images or pictures? How would the lack of any statues in the 1st century while the Church was very new indicate any idolatry? This is a logical fallacy. You will need to verify theologically that the presence of a statue or other types of images indicates the idolatrous worship of said object. I suggest starting with Schonborns "The Human Face of God: The Christ Icon" if you would like to speak intelligently on this subject.

[quote]Why is it that we have no true likeness of Jesus, contemporaneous to that age, if it is was "historically" customary within Catholicism to have statues of Saints and Deity?[/quote]

How do you know there were no images of Christ in the first century? Perhaps none of them survived, perhaps we have not found any of them to date, or perhaps as someone else mentioned maybe they were too busy dealing with the current persecutions.

[quote]Could it be that the early Christians were not Catholic and the early Christians would not think to make a statue of Jesus or other martyrs of their time? Or did they completely understand the prohibitions of God against making images of God for use in worship and religion, thus the bible is silent on word images of Jesus { while living } appearance?[/quote]

No, it could be though that you are making serious logical mistakes. If you want to prove that the early Church was not Catholic and that the creation or use of images, be they icons, photographical pictures, statues, paintings, or otherwise automatically indicate the sin of idolatry, I would at the very least strongly suggest reading the history of St. Cyril and the iconoclast controversy before making such rash accusations. However, reading Eusebius, Apollinaris, Gregory of Nyssa, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Athanasius, and Origen would be helpful as well. In reality the question of images, especially the question of any images of Christ is a very complex question reaching far back into Christian history. It ultimately asks who this Christ is, what is His nature, and how do these natures interact.

Now look, heretics that opposed images of Christ did so because they believed it is impossible to capture the image of Christ since He is God and man, and the image of Jesus Christ cannot capture at the same time the image of God. When we deal with the scriptures we want to understand what Jesus is telling us about himself. And the meaning of what he says. We want to understand what it means when he says he is the Son of the Father, when he inaugurates the kingdom, when he says he is the Christ, the Messiah. If you take, collectively the witness of the Gospels, Jesus is saying that the kingdom of God has come in Him, and that you must have personal communion with him in order to be a citizen of this kingdom. In order to be in communion with him, is to be in communion with God. Jesus is the consubstantial image of the Father.

God then is a communion of persons. There are not three God’s there is one God. If you want to know who God is you look at who Jesus is. Jesus reveals the character of God. This is the wonderful thing about Christianity, you can get an insight into the nature of God simply by reading the Gospels. When God tells us about God he tells us about us (image and likeness).

The Council at Nicea settled the question on what kind of divinity Jesus has. Affirms the HS is the same as the Father and Son is. It says that Apollinaris’ mistake is to be rejected (he rejected the human mind of Christ). We reject his thought because Jesus speaks of himself as having a human mind. Jesus saves us by becoming one of us. He overturns death by dying. He gives us life as one of us rising. He overturns human sin by a perfect human love of God. This truth is witnessed to all over the scriptures. All the heretics make the mistake that there cannot be a union between the word of God, the mind of God, and the human mind. They think of this union in too earthly terms. You can grant them their assumption in the case of any two created minds. You cannot have an intrinsic union of two creatures and yet observe the autonomy of both of them. But what Nestorius, Apollinaris, and Theodore don’t think of is that it doesn’t not apply to God. We realize the intimacy that God is able to have with his creation precisely because he is God.

We cannot think of the Son of God as the one assuming and the man Jesus as the one assumed. If Jesus is not the Son of God then the human actions of Jesus, in particular his suffering and death, they do not reveal the son of God. They are not his actions. The Son of God must make his own the human mind and the human body (Cyril), if they are not truly his, if they are not impressed with the identity with the Son of God, if they are not formed by his hypostasis, then they cannot reveal him and they cannot reveal the Father. The suffering and death reveal God to us. You cannot then say that they are not his.

Then if we see Christ, the Second Person of the Trinity in his incarnate form, and any image of the incarnate Christ does not intend to actually be Christ, but a reminder of Christ (just as the photograph of your girl or boyfriend in your pocket is not your boyfriend or girlfriend. You may look and point at the picture of your boyfriend and say “this is my boyfriend”, but indeed the picture itself is not your boyfriend. You see the illustration I am making here). One can point to Jesus and say “This is Jesus” without believing the statue is actually Jesus. It indicates a form of the second person of the Trinity which we dare make because He has come incarnate. We can pray with a statue of Jesus not because we believe the statue to be Jesus, the worship of stone, paint, graphite, oils, ink or otherwise is absurd to accuse any Catholic of unless Catholics shall accuse Protestants of idolatry for praying with their favorite Bible and accusing them of worshipping the pages and ink.

That’s about as far as I can go without my actual texts which are at home.


[quote]Without delving too deeply into Jesuit apologetics and excuses, this really IS a very interesting historical question, one worth pondering.[/quote]

Iconoclasm is an interesting question, but I hardly see what "Jesuit apologetics" has anything to do with it. I'm not even sure why you would bring the Jesuit society up unless if it is out of ignorance or arrogance.

[Eutychus]

[quote]do you believe in apostasy after the death of St. John?? [/quote]

I believe in apostacy starting INSIDE the life of John. So did John, by the way.

[quote]1 John 4:1 (KJV)[u][b] Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.
[/b][/u]
2 Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is of God:

3 And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that [spirit] of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world.[/quote]

[Eutychus]

[quote]So, if Jesus really hated images of his face, why did he give us at least one directly?

[b][u]Remember Veronica?[/u][/b] [/quote]

No, do you?

Or as ex Catholics like to do, we turn to the bible and see if Veronica can be found there...shall we?

[quote]1Ti 4:7

[b][u]But refuse profane and old wives' fables,[/u][/b] and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.

2Pe 1:16

[b[u]]For we have not followed cunningly devised fables,[/u][/b] when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.[/quote]

By the way...WHICH of the many competing TRUE VIEL's are we referring to?

Oh, yeah, forgot...one more thing. The iggerunts that believe such things....might want to know that there was NEVER A VERONICA, yeah, no such chick. It is a igguruntestesistes bastardization of VERA ICONIA, or "true image"

But hey, never let real history get in the way of a Catholic fable and fairy tale, right? Maybe a flying house that moves from here to there, or saints that walk into town carrying their severed head are where old Veronica hid that veil...you never know, now do you?

[quote]Origin of story

The story of Veronica and her veil does not occur in the Bible, though the apocryphal "Acts of Pilate" mentions a woman called Veronica who was cured by touching the hem of Jesus' cloak. The name "Veronica" is a colloquial portmanteau of the Latin word Vera, meaning truth, and Greek Icon meaning "image"; the Veil of Veronica was therefore largely regarded in medieval times as "the true image", and the truthful representation of Jesus, preceding the Shroud of Turin.

The white, diaphanous cloth that was venerated as the Veil of Veronica or Sudarium of Veronica during the middle ages reportedly measured about 6½ inches by 9½ inches and displayed the features of a bearded man with long hair and open eyes.[/quote]

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/Francesco_Mochi.jpg/180px-Francesco_Mochi.jpg[/img]

[Eutychus]

[quote]So, if Jesus really hated images of his face, why did he give us at least one directly?

[b][u]Remember Veronica?[/u][/b] [/quote]

No, do you?

Or as ex Catholics like to do, we turn to the bible and see if Veronica can be found there...shall we?

[quote]1Ti 4:7

[b][u]But refuse profane and old wives' fables,[/u][/b] and exercise thyself rather unto godliness.

2Pe 1:16

[b[u]]For we have not followed cunningly devised fables,[/u][/b] when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.[/quote]

By the way...WHICH of the many competing TRUE VIEL's are we referring to?

Oh, yeah, forgot...one more thing. The iggerunts that believe such things....might want to know that there was NEVER A VERONICA, yeah, no such chick. It is a igguruntestesistes bastardization of VERA ICONIA, or "true image"

But hey, never let real history get in the way of a Catholic fable and fairy tale, right? Maybe a flying house that moves from here to there, or saints that walk into town carrying their severed head are where old Veronica hid that veil...you never know, now do you?

[quote]Origin of story

The story of Veronica and her veil does not occur in the Bible, though the apocryphal "Acts of Pilate" mentions a woman called Veronica who was cured by touching the hem of Jesus' cloak. The name "Veronica" is a colloquial portmanteau of the Latin word Vera, meaning truth, and Greek Icon meaning "image"; the Veil of Veronica was therefore largely regarded in medieval times as "the true image", and the truthful representation of Jesus, preceding the Shroud of Turin.

The white, diaphanous cloth that was venerated as the Veil of Veronica or Sudarium of Veronica during the middle ages reportedly measured about 6½ inches by 9½ inches and displayed the features of a bearded man with long hair and open eyes.[/quote]

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/Francesco_Mochi.jpg/180px-Francesco_Mochi.jpg[/img]

[desertwoman]

What about the iconoclasts? It seems as if they wouldn't be around if the early Church didn't have statues.

It seems that the Iconoclasts started to gain ground when the influx of Islam began, since any drawing is considered to be idolatrous.

Strick Islamic law even forbids fiction writing, hence little Islamic writings and stories since it is against Allah's laws.

I'm a little rusty on the subject, but it was very intresting to learn this in class years ago. I have to dig for my old notes in WC.

[Mitchell_b55]

Most contemporay likeness' of Jesus Christ are considered descendants of images created with reference to the Holy Shroud, I believe they are called the Paul Vignon Markings.

If you don't believ in the valdity of the Shroud, go to [url="http://www.shoudstrory.com"]Shroud Story[/url]

Also look at this, [url="http://www.shroudofturin4journalists.com/pantocrator.htm"]Pantocrator[/url]

Edited August 14, 2006 by petrus_scholasticus

[EcceNovaFacioOmni]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043701' date='Aug 14 2006, 03:15 PM']
Oh, yeah, forgot...one more thing. The iggerunts that believe such things....might want to know that there was NEVER A VERONICA, yeah, no such chick. It is a igguruntestesistes bastardization of VERA ICONIA, or "true image"

But hey, never let real history get in the way of a Catholic fable and fairy tale, right? Maybe a flying house that moves from here to there, or saints that walk into town carrying their severed head are where old Veronica hid that veil...you never know, now do you?
[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/09/Francesco_Mochi.jpg/180px-Francesco_Mochi.jpg[/img]
[/quote]
The Church has never taught that we are required to believe in the story of Veronica. The story of Veronica is a pious tradition, certainly not a doctrinal position binding on Catholics. That's not to say there was not a real Veronica somewhere - there are Veronicas recorded in the Roman Martyrology. God bless!

[ReinnieR]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043691' date='Aug 14 2006, 02:03 PM']
I believe in apostacy starting INSIDE the life of John. So did John, by the way.
[/quote]
i meant total apostasy.

to believe in total apostasy is to call Jesus Christ a liar.

Jesus said that the gates of hell will not prevail against his church (Matthew 16:18

so you're saying Jesus lied to us about that??

i like 1 John

it talks about the false messiahs the false prophets, the antichrist.

in 1 John 2:18-19

we see this

18 Children, it is the last hour; and just as you heard that the antichrist was coming, so now many antichrists have appeared. Thus we know this is the last hour.

19 They went out from us, but they were not really of our number; if they had been, they would have remained with us. Their desertion shows that none of them was of our number.

St. Matthew and St. Mark talks about the same antichrist, St. Paul's lawless one.

Matthew 24:24



24 False messiahs and false prophets will arise, and they will perform signs and wonders so great as to deceive, if that were possible, even the elect.



Mark 13:22



22 False messiahs and false prophets will arise and will perform signs and wonders in order to mislead, if that were possible, the elect.



And St. Paul’s lawless one



3 Let no one deceive you in any way. For unless the apostasy comes first and the lawless one is revealed, the one doomed to perdition,


so who is this antichrist that they are talking about??

remember in 1 John 2:19 it says that they went out from us.

Acts 20:30

30 And from your own group, men will come forward perverting the truth to draw the disciples away after them.


and from our own group they will come forward perverting the truth.

let's see

hmm

Martin Luther was Catholic

hmm

King Henry VIII

should i go on??

i think you know where i'm going.



i think i'll stick with the group that's apostolic. that have kept the truth safeguarding it. The ONE HOLY CATHOLIC [b]APOSTOLIC[/b] CHURCH.

I wouldn't hold my own private interpretation.

2 Peter 3:16

speaking of these things as he does in all his letters. In them there are some things hard to understand that the ignorant and unstable distort to their own destruction, just as they do the other scriptures.

because people's interpretations can be wrong. i'll stick with the 2000 year tradition.

i will listen to the Apostles and their succcessors

Luke 10:16

"He who hears you hears me, and he who rejects you rejects me, and he who rejects me rejects him who sent me"

i will listen to the church that is guided by the holy spirit

John 14:16-18, 26

16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate to be with you always,
17 the Spirit of truth, which the world cannot accept, because it neither sees nor knows it. But you know it, because it remains with you, and will be in you.
18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

26 The Advocate, the holy Spirit that the Father will send in my name--he will teach you everything and remind you of all that (I) told you.


how can i go wrong with that?

The church which is the pillar and foundation of truth (1 Timothy 3:15)


Mathew 18:17

If he refuses to listen to them, tell the church. If he refuses to listen even to the church, then treat him as you would a Gentile or a tax collector.

Edited August 14, 2006 by ReinnieR

[Socrates]

[quote name='Eutychus' post='1043701' date='Aug 14 2006, 01:15 PM']
No, do you?

Or as ex Catholics like to do, we turn to the bible and see if Veronica can be found there...shall we?
[/quote]
Perhaps we should turn to the Bible and see if this prohibition of all images for Christians can be found there...shall we?

Not in my Bible, nor is there anything about the Church apostasizing.

Protestant fairy tales . . .

[Eutychus]

[quote] The Church has never taught that we are required to believe in the story of Veronica. [u]The story of Veronica is a pious tradition, certainly not a doctrinal position binding on Catholics.[/u] That's not to say there was not a real Veronica somewhere - there are Veronicas recorded in the Roman Martyrology.[/quote]

Pious TRADITION?

Is that Cathlolicspeak for OLD WIVES TALE? Or SUPERSTITION handed down?

[quote]2 Timothy 4:3 (KJV)

For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; [i]but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;

4 And they shall [b]turn away [their] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.[/b][/i][/quote]



[quote]Perhaps we should turn to the Bible and see if this prohibition of all images for Christians can be found there...shall we? [/quote]

Oh, yeah, forgot.

The NAB has Exodus 20 and the Ten Commandments excised, specifically #2?



[quote]i think i'll stick with the group that's apostolic. that have kept the truth safeguarding it. The ONE HOLY CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC CHURCH. [/quote]

Oh, sorry, I guess you are right. The Greek Orthodox, having the best claim to historically being tied to the chuches as written to by Jesus and John in Revelation, just might be.

Thank you for reminding me of the Orhtodox claim to apostolic succession.

[Anomaly]

Eut,
Wake up dude. I've been reading your posts. It seems you've just decided to join the denomination, 'Anything that's not Catholic'. Sadly, you've abandoned all intellectual honesty and any adherence to moral principles based on 'Christianity' or 'goodness'.

Even worse, you've become boring and pointless with silly diatribes against 'Catholics'. I challenge you to post 5 positive points about your 'christian' denomination that aren't rooted in 'anti-catholicsm'.

[Eutychus]

[quote] i meant total apostasy.

to believe in total apostasy is to call Jesus Christ a liar.[/quote]

Yeah, sure, Jesus taught that a HUGE STRONG CHRUCH would be there upon His return....right?

[quote]Lu 18:8

I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.[b] [u]Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth[/u]?[/b][/quote]

It rather looks like, Jesus was saying, will there even BE FAITH, upon the earth when He returns?

[quote]Even worse, you've become boring and pointless with silly diatribes against 'Catholics'. I challenge you to post 5 positive points about your 'christian' denomination that aren't rooted in 'anti-catholicsm'. [/quote]

Well, unlike some.....I don't consider "my denomination" to be anything more or less than a gathering of believers for worship and study.

And in the five years, I can count on one hand, the times that the Catholic Church has even been mentioned, and that was in passing, mostly in reference to the movie, the PASSION OF THE CHRIST.

Personal faith saves you, not your building or denomination. Nicodemus was given the answer, being in the Sanhedrin he was up to his eyeballs in "demonination"....yet did Jesus tell him to stay in "his church" or even leave "his church?"

No. Neither.

What Jesus told him, in a nutshell, is that you needed to be "born from above/again" in SPIRIT to be saved.

Edited August 15, 2006 by Eutychus