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IDOLATRY

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Originally appearing in Volume V14, Page 288 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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IDOLATRY , the See also:

worship (Gr. ?arpeia) of idols (Gr. elawXov), i.e. images or other See also:objects, believed to represent or be the See also:abode of a superhuman See also:personality. The See also:term is often used generically to include such varied forms as litholatry, dendrolatry, pyrolatry, zoolatry and even necrolatry. In an See also:age when the study of See also:religion was practically confined to Judaism and See also:Christianity, idolatry was regarded as a degeneration from an uncorrupt primeval faith, but the See also:comparative and See also:historical investigation of religion has shown it to be rather a See also:stage of an upward See also:movement, and that by no means the earliest. It is not found, for instance, among See also:Bushmen, Fuegians, Eskimos, while it reached a high development among the See also:great civilizations of the See also:ancient See also:world in both hemispheres.' Its earliest stages are to be sought in naturism and See also:animism. To give concreteness to the vague ideas thus worshipped the idol, at first rough and crude, comes to the help of the See also:savage, and in course of See also:time through inability to distinguish subjective and See also:objective, comes to be identified with the See also:idea it originally symbolized. The degraded See also:form of animism known as fetichism is usually the See also:direct antecedent of idolatry. A fetich is adored, not for itself, but for the spirit who dwells in it and See also:works through it. Fetiches of See also:stone or See also:wood were at a very See also:early age shaped and polished or coloured and ornamented. A new step was taken when the See also:top of the See also:log or stone was shaped like a human See also:head; the See also:rest of the See also:body soon followed. The See also:process can be followed with some distinctness in See also:Greece. Sometimes, as in Babylonia and See also:India, the See also:representation combined human and See also:animal forms. but the human figure is the predominant See also:model; See also:man makes See also:God after his own See also:image.

Idols may be private and See also:

personal like the See also:teraphim of the See also:Hebrews or the little figures found in early See also:Egyptian tombs, or—a See also:late development, public and tribal or See also:national. Some, like the ancestral images among the Maoris, are the intermittent abodes of the See also:spirits of the dead. As the earlier stages in the development of the religious consciousness persist and are often See also:manifest in idolatry, so in the higher stages, when men have attained loftier spiritual ideas, idolatry itself survives and is abundantly visible as a reactionary 1 According to See also:Varro the See also:Romans had no animal or human image of a god for 170 years after the See also:founding of the See also:city; See also:Herodotus (i. 131) says the Persians had no temples or idols before See also:Artaxerxes I. ; See also:Lucian (De sacrif. H) bears similar testimony for Greece and as to idols (Dea Syr. 3) for See also:Egypt. See also:Eusebius (Praep. Evang. i. 9) sums up the theory of antiquity in his statement "the See also:oldest peoples had no idols." Images of the gods indeed presuppose a definiteness of conception and See also:powers of discrimination that could only be the result of See also:history and reflection. The iconic age everywhere succeeded to an era in which the objects of worship were aniconic, e.g. wooden posts, stone steles, cones.tendency. The history of the Jewish See also:people whom the prophets sought, for See also:long in vain, to wean from worshipping images is an See also:illustration: so too the vulgarities of See also:modern popular See also:Hinduism contrasted with the lofty teaching of the See also:Indian sacred books.

In the New Testament the word ei&wXoXarpela (idololatria, afterwards shortened occasionally to ei&oXarpeia, idolatria) occurs in all four times, viz. in I See also:

Cor. x. 14; Gal. v. 20; I See also:Peter iv. 3; See also:Col. iii. 5. In the last of these passages it is used to describe the See also:sin of covetousness or " See also:mammon-worship." In the other places it indicates with the utmost generality all the See also:rites and practices of those See also:special forms of paganism with which Christianity first came into collision. It can only be understood by reference to the LXX., where elawXov (like the word " idol " in A.V.) occasionally translates indifferently no fewer than sixteen words by which in the Old Testament the objects of what the later See also:Jews called " See also:strange worship " (a nrjin t) are denoted (see See also:Encyclopaedia Biblica). In the widest acceptation of the word, idolatry in any form is absolutely forbidden in the second commandment, which runs " See also:Thou shalt not make unto thee a graven image; [and] to no visible shape in See also:heaven above, or in the See also:earth beneath, or in the See also:water under the earth, shalt thou See also:bow down or render service " (see See also:DECALOGUE). For some See also:account of the questions connected with the breaches of this See also:law which are recorded in the history of the Israelites see the See also:article JEws ; those See also:differences as to the See also:interpretation of the See also:prohibition which have so seriously divided Christendom are discussed under the head of See also:ICONOCLASTS. In the ancient See also:church, idolatry was naturally reckoned among those magna crimina or great crimes against the first and second commandments which involved the highest ecclesiastical censures. Not only were those who had gone openly to See also:heathen temples and partaken in the sacrifices (sacrificati) or burnt See also:incense (thurificati) held guilty of this See also:crime; the same See also:charge, in various degrees, was incurred by those whose renunciation of idolatry had been private merely, or who otherwise had used unworthy means to evade persecution, by those also who had feigned themselves mad to avoid sacrificing, by all promoters and encouragers of idolatrous rites, and by idol makers, incense sellers and architects or builders of structures connected with idol worship. Idolatry was made a crime against the See also:state by the See also:laws of See also:Constantius (See also:Cod.

Theod. xvi. ro. 4, 6), forbidding all sacrifices on See also:

pain of See also:death, and still more by the statutes of See also:Theodosius (Cod. Theod. xvi. 10. 12) enacted in 392, in which See also:sacrifice and See also:divination were declared treasonable and punish-able with death; the use of See also:lights, incense, garlands and libations was to involve the See also:forfeiture of See also:house and See also:land where they were used; and all who entered heathen temples were to be fined. See See also:Bingham, Antigq. bk. xvi. c. 4. See also IMAGE-WORSHIP; and on the whole question, RELIGION.

End of Article: IDOLATRY

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