The sign of universal execration, the sign of extremest punishment, has now become the object of universal longing and love. We see it everywhere triumphant. We find it in the houses, on the roofs and the walls; in cities and villages; on the markets, the great roads and in the deserts; on mountains and in valleys; on the sea, on ships; on books and on weapons; on wearing apparel; in the marriage chamber; at banquets; on vessels of gold and silver; in pearls; in pictures on the walls and on beds; on the bodies of brute animals that are diseased; on the bodies of those pestered by evil spirits; in the dances of
those going to pleasure; in the associations of those that mortify their bodies.[272:1]
Nilus, a disciple of Chrysostom, permitted the use of the cross and pictoral Bible stories in the churches, but opposed images of Jesus and the martyrs.
Churches began to be decorated in the fourth century, and in the fifth paintings and mosaics were introduced. Constantine had "symbols of the Good Shepherd" placed in the forums of Constantinople.[272:2] The Holy Ghost was commonly represented as a dove over the altar or the font.[272:3] The Nestorian Controversy and the Eutychian discussion helped to introduce pictures of the blessed Virgin and the Holy Child, Jesus. St. Cyril advocated the use of images in the fifth century so clearly that he has been called the "Father of image worship." By the fifth century, churches[272:4] and Church books, palaces and huts, and cemeteries were covered with images of Christ and the saints painted by the monks, while representations of the martyrs, monks, and bishops were found everywhere. Even pictures of the Trinity were in common use. In the East, women decorated their dresses with personal images and pictures, such as the marriage feast of Cana, the sick man who walked, the blind man who saw, Magdalene at the feet of Jesus, and the resurrection of Lazarus. Portraits of Peter and Paul covered the walls at Rome. Ambrose, Jerome, Augustine, Epiphanius, Gregory the Great, and many others of the Fathers, testified to the widespread employment of
images both for public and for private worship. The ceremony of kissing the image, of burning incense to it, of bowing before it, and of praying to it, was gradually developed and became very marked in the sixth century. The climax, however, was reached in the eighth century when the paint was literally scraped off the images and put into wine to make it holier, and when the consecrated bread was laid upon the image for a special blessing.[273:1]
When the portrait phase of image worship developed, pictures of miraculous origin were produced and superstitious practices began to abound. Not a few pictures of sacred characters were attributed to Luke. Others were described as "the God-made images, which the hand of man wrought not." It was but a short step to attribute miracles and cures to these images of divine origin.[273:2] To the wonder-working pictures was ascribed motion, speech, and action. Out of such conditions direct idolatry could easily develop.
The theory of the educated concerning images differed very much from that of the ignorant. The images were worshipped by the masses because it was believed that such worship drew down the saint into the image, an idea which came from the pagan belief concerning the statues of Jupiter and Mercury. Leontius, Bishop of Neapolis, near the end of the sixth century, said: "The images are not our gods; but they are the representations of Christ and his saints, which exist and are venerated in remembrance and in honour of these, and not as ornaments of the church."[273:3] To a hermit
who asked for some pious symbols, Pope Gregory the Great sent a picture of Jesus and images of the Virgin Mary, St. Peter, and St. Paul, with this admonition:
I am well aware that thou desirest not the image of our Saviour that thou mayest worship it as God, but to enkindle in thee the love of Him whose image thou wouldst see. Neither do we prostrate ourselves before an image as before a deity, but we adore Him whom the image represents to our memory as born or seated on the throne; and according to the representation, the correspondent feelings of joyful elevation, or of painful sympathy, are excited in our breasts.[274:1]
Images were put into churches "only to instruct the minds of the ignorant." Again, he explained the use of images thus: "It is one thing to worship a picture and another to learn from the language of a picture what that is which ought to be worshipped. What those who read learn by means of writing, that do the uneducated learn by looking at a picture."[274:2]