4. From these forementioned and other authorities, the excessive use of images is forbidden. The Apostle saith also to the Corinthians, 'We know that an idol is nothing in the world: and there is no god but One.' [Footnote 249] For they who are simple and infirm may easily by an excessive and indiscreet use of images, be perverted to idolatry. Whence he saith in Wisdom, 'There shall be no respect of the idols of the nations, which have made the creatures of God hateful, and temptations for the souls of men, and snares for the feet of the unwise.' [Footnote 250] [Footnote 251] But blame there is none in a moderate use of pictures, to teach how ill is to be avoided, and good followed.
[Footnote 249: I Corinth, viii, 4.]
[Footnote 250: Wisdom xiv, 11.]
[Footnote 251: A more solemn protest against the sin of idolatry can hardly be found than the above passage: and they who brand every return to, and every wish for the restoration of, Catholic practices, by so hateful a name, would do well to bear it in mind.]
Whence saith the Lord to Ezekiel, 'Go in, and behold the abominations which these men do. And he went in, and saw the likeness of reptiles and beasts, and the abominations, and all the idols of the house of Israel portrayed on the wall.' [Footnote 252] Whence saith Pope Gregory in his Pastorale, When the forms of external objects are drawn into the heart, they are as it were painted there, because the thoughts of them are their images. Again, He saith to the same Ezekiel, 'Take a tile, and lay it before thee, and describe in it the city Jerusalem.' [Footnote 253] But that which is said above, that pictures are the letters of the laity explaineth that saying in the Gospel, 'He saith. They have Moses and the prophets: let them hear them.' [Footnote 254] Of this, more hereafter. The Agathensian [Footnote 255] Council forbids pictures in churches: and also that that which is worshipped and adored should be painted on the walls. But Gregory saith, that pictures are not to be put away because they are not to be worshipped: for paintings appear to move the mind more than descriptions; for deeds are placed before the eyes in paintings, and so appear to be actually carrying on. But in description, the deed is done as it were by hearsay: which affecteth the mind less when recalled to memory. Hence, also, is it that in churches we pay less reverence to books than to images and pictures.
[Footnote 252: Ezekiel viii, 10.]
[Footnote 253: Ezekiel iv, 1.]
[Footnote 254: S. Luke xvi, 29.]
[Footnote 255: A.D. 605]
5. Of pictures and images some are above the church, as the cock and the eagle: some without the church, namely, in the air in front of the church, as the ox and the cow: others within, as images, and statues, and various kinds of painting and sculpture: and these be represented either in garments, or on walls, or in stained glass. Concerning some of which we have spoken in treating of the church: and how they are taken from the tabernacle of Moses and the temple of Solomon. For Moses made carved work, and Solomon made carved work, and pictures, and adorned the walls with paintings and frescoes.
6. The image of the Saviour is more commonly represented in churches three ways: as sitting on [Footnote 256] His throne, or hanging on His cross, or lying on the bosom of His Mother.
[Footnote 256: Durandus had doubtless in his mind the ancient mosaic over the apsides of the earliest churches in Rome. The extremely beautiful one in San Clemente represents our Lord as crucified. The frescoes with which the walls of our own churches were anciently adorned, seem usually to have represented the Saviour as seated on the Throne of His Majesty. In the chancel of Widford, Herts, is, or was till lately, a fresco of the Saviour seated on a rainbow, a sword proceeding from His mouth, His feet and His hands pierced. In Alfriston, Sussex, there was, we believe, before it was whitewashed over by Bishop Buckner's order, a painting of a similar kind. There is a singular, and, we believe, undescribed painting over the altar in Llandanwg church, Merion. The Saviour is seated in judgment, as before: at His side is His Blessed Mother in a kneeling posture: around Him are angels blowing trumpets, and S. Peter in eucharistical vestments. There is a representation of the souls under the altar. Below are devils torturing souls in cauldrons of brimstone. The evangelistic symbols are also represented.
In a fresco at Beverstone, Gloucestershire, our Saviour is represented on the Cross, with blood flowing from His side into a chalice. (See App. I.) There are remains also of a crucifixion in fresco, in the exquisite, but desecrated chapel of Prior Crauden, in the Deanery, Ely. On the Iconostasis of the Greco-Russian Church, all the three positions are to be found.
In stained glass, the Crucifixion generally supplies the place of any other representation of the Saviour. Brasses occasionally, as a very curious one in Cobham, Surrey, represent His nativity or epiphany: but most commonly the Crucifixion, or a Trinity.
There can be no doubt, that many of the most graphic pictures in our old poets owed their origin to the then undestroyed fresco paintings of churches. Some painting, like that above described, of hell, very probably suggested the noble lines of Spenser (i. ix. 50. 6):
He showed him painted in a table plaine.
The damned ghosts that doe in torments waile.
And thousand feends that doe them endless paine
With fire and brimstone, which for ever shall remaine.