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IMAGE WORSHIP
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See also:IMAGE See also:WORSHIP . It is obvious that two religious votaries kneeling together before a statue may entertain widely different conceptions of what the image is and signifies, although their outward attitude is the same. The one may regard it as a See also:mere image, picture or See also:representation of the higher being, void in itself of value or See also:power. It is to him, like the photograph hung on a See also:wall of one we love, cherished as a picture and no more. But the other may regard it, as a little girl regards her See also:doll, as an animated being, no mere picture, but as See also:tenement and vehicle of the See also:god and fraught with divine See also:influence. The former is the attitude which the Latin See also: But he is not an idolater, for he has not " made unto himself any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in See also:heaven above or in the See also:water beneath or in the water under the See also:earth."
The question arises: must the See also:stage of aniconic gods historic-ally precede and See also:lead up to that of pictures and images? Are the latter a development of the former? In the history of human religions can we trace, as it were, a See also:law of transition from sacred stock and stone up to picture and image? Is it true to say that the latter is characteristic of a later and higher stage of religious development? It was perhaps the facility with which a See also:pillar of stone or See also:wood can be turned into an image by See also:painting or sculpturing on it eyes, ears, mouth, marks of See also:sex and so on, which led anthropologists of an earlier See also:generation to postulate such a law of development; but facts do not See also:bear it out. In thefirst See also:place, what we are accustomed to See also:call higher religions deliberately attach greater sanctity to aniconic gods than to iconic ones, and that from no See also:artistic incapacity. The See also:Jews were as well able as their neighbours to See also:fashion See also:golden calves, See also:snakes and the See also:minor idols called See also:teraphim, when their legislator, in the words we have just cited, forbade the See also:ancillary use of all plastic and pictorial See also:art for religious purposes. And of our own See also:Christianity, See also:Robertson See also: And yet in the See also:European Stone age which followed, the age in which the See also:great menhirs and cromlechs were erected, in which the domestication of animals began and the first See also:corn was sown, we find in the strata no image of See also:man or beast, big or little. Whence this seeming blight and decay of art? Salomon See also:Reinach, guided by the See also:analogy of similar practices among the See also:aborigines of See also:Australia, and noticing that these See also:primitive pictures represent none but animals that formed the See also:staple See also:food.of the age and place, and that they are usually found in the deepest and darkest recesses of the caves where they could only be See also:drawn and seen by torchlight, has argued that they were not intended for artistic gratification (a See also:late See also:motive in human art), but were magical representations destined to influence and perhaps attract the See also:hunter's See also:quarry. In a word this earliest art was ancillary to the See also:chase. It is a See also:common practice in the magic of all ages and countries to acquire See also:control and influence over men and animals by making images of them. 'The prototype is believed to suffer whatever is done to the image. Reinach, therefore, supposes that in the Stone age which succeeded, pictorial art was banned because it had got into the hands of magicians and had come to be regarded as inevitably uncanny and malefic. This is certainly the See also:secret of the See also:ordinary See also:Mahommedan See also:prohibition of pictures and statues, which goes even to the length of denying to poor little Arab girls the enjoyment of having dolls. It is See also:felt that if you have got a picture of any one, you have some power of harming him through it; you can bind or loose him, just as you can a Djinn whose name you have somehow learned. It is as dangerous for your enemy to have a picture of you as for him to know your name. The old See also:Hebrew prohibition of graven images was surely based on a like superstition, so far as it was not merely due to the See also:physical impossibility for nomads of heavy statues that do not admit of being carried from See also:camp to camp and from pasture to pasture. Possessing no images of Yahweh the Jews were also not exposed to the same See also:risk as were idolaters of having their gods stolen by their foes and used against them. Lastly, the restriction to aniconic worship saved them from much superstition, for there is nothing which so much stimulates the growth of a See also:mythology as the manufacture of idols. The artist must indeed start with imaginative types, revealed to him in visions or borrowed from current myths. But the tendency of his art is to give rise to new tales of the gods. There is perpetual See also:action and reaction between picture and myth; and a legislator desiring to purify and raise his countrymen's religion must devote no less See also:attention to their plastic art than to their hymnology. Motives drawn from homoeopathic magic may thus explain the occasional disuse and prohibition of pictorial and plastic art in cult; they may equally explain its See also:genesis and rise in certain ages and countries. See also:Prayer is much more hopeful and efficacious for a worshipper who has means of bringing near to himself, and even coercing the god he worships. An image fashioned like a god, and which has this See also:advantage over a mere stock and stone that it declares itself and reveals at a glance to what god it is sacred, must surely attract and influence the god to choose it as his home and tenement. And having the god thus at See also:hand and imprisoned in See also:matter, the simple-minded worshipper can punish him if his prayers are See also:left unanswered. Dr E. B. See also:Tylor accordingly (in his See also:chapter on " Idolatry " in Primitive Culture, ii. 170), reminds us of " the See also:negro who feeds ancestral images and brings them a See also:share of his See also:trade profits, but will See also:beat an idol or fling it into the See also:fire if it cannot give him See also:luck or preserve him from sickness." So See also:Augustus See also:Caesar, having lost some See also:ships in a See also:storm, punished See also:Neptune by forbid-ding his image to be carried in procession at the Circensian See also:games (Sueton. Aug. 16). In certain cases the wish to carry elsewhere the cult of a favourite or ancestral cult, may have dictated the manufacture of images that declare themselves and reveal at a glance whose they are. Thus a Phoenician colonist might See also:desire to carry abroad the cult of a certain See also:Baal or See also:Astarte who lived in a conical stone or pillar. Pilgrims visiting See also:Paphos, the See also:original home and See also:temple of Astarte, could of course be in no doubt about which of the heavenly See also:powers inhabited the See also:cone of stone in. which she was there held to be immanent; nor was any Semite ever ignorant as to which Baal he stood before. It was necessarily the Baal or See also:Lord of the region. But small portrait statues must surely have been made to be carried about or used in private worship. Meanwhile the shapeless cone remained the See also:object of public See also:adoration and See also:pilgrimage. The See also:Egyptian writer See also:Hermes Trismegistus (c. 25o), in a See also:work called Asclepius (cited by See also:Augustine, De See also:civil. Dei, viii. 26), claims that his ancestors discovered the art of making gods, and since they could not create souls, they called up the souls of demons or angels and introduced them into the See also:holy images and divine mysteries, that through these souls the idols might possess powers of doing See also:good and harm. This was the belief of the pagans; and the Christians for centuries shared it with them. Not a few Christian martyrs sought and won the See also:palm by smashing the idols in See also:order to dislodge the indwelling See also:devil; occasionally their zeal was further gratified by beholding it pass away like See also:smoke from its ruined home. Image worship then is a sort of See also:animism. It is a continuance by adults of their childish games with dolls. In the See also:Roman religion, on a feast of thanksgiving for a great victory, couches were spread in the temples for the gods, whose images were taken down from their pedestals and laid on the couches, and tables set before them loaded with delicate viands. This was called a See also:Lectisternium. So Marco See also:Polo (i. See also:chap. 53) relates how theTatars had each a figure of Natigay, the god of the earth, who watched over their See also:children, See also:cattle and crops. The image was made of felt and See also:cloth, and similar images of his wife and children were set on his left hand and in front of him. "And when they eat, they take the See also:fat of the See also:meat and grease the god's mouth withal, as well as the mouths of his wife and children." The old See also:Greek statues moved of themselves, shook their spears, kneeled down, spoke, walked, wept, laughed, winked, and even bled and sweated, —a mighty portent. Images of See also:Christ, of the Virgin and saints have achieved many a similar miraculous portent. A figure of Christ has been known even to give its shoes to a poor man, and a Virgin to drop a See also:ring off her See also:finger to a suppliant. In Umbrian villages on See also:Easter See also:Sunday the images of Jesus and His See also:Mother are carried in rival processions from their respective chapels, and are made to See also:bow when they meet See also:face to face. The spectators applaud or hiss according as they make their bow well or See also:ill. In antiquity it was a common ceremony to arrange a holy See also:marriage between male and See also:female images, and such unions acted on the earth as a fertility charm. Much of a See also:priest's See also:time was given up to the See also:toilet of the god or goddess. Thus See also:Isis was dressed and coiffed every day by her See also:special attendantsaccording to See also:Apuleius (Met. xi. 9). Like the statue of St See also:Agatha of See also:Catania to-day, her image was loaded with jewels, and an inscription of See also:Cadiz (C.I.L. ii. 3386) contains an See also:inventory of the jewels with which Isis had been endowed by See also:Spanish devotees.
Idolatrous cults repose so largely on make-believe and credulity that the priests who administered them, perhaps oftener than we know, See also:fell into the See also:kind of imposture and trickery of which the See also:legend of See also:Bel and the See also:dragon represents a classical example. " Thinkest See also:thou not," said See also: The invectives against idolatry of the See also:early Jewish and Christian apologists, of See also:Philo, Minucius See also:Felix, See also:Tertullian, See also:Arnobius, Lactantius and others, are very good See also:reading and throw much See also:light on the question how an ancient See also:pagan conceived of his idols. One See also:capital See also:argument of the Christians was the absurdity of a man making an idol and then being afraid of or adoring the work of his own hands. Lactantius preserves the See also:answer of the pagans so attacked (De origine Erroris, ii.2): We do not, they said, fear the images themselves, but those beings after whose likeness they were fashioned and by whose names they were consecrated. Few such See also:rites of See also:consecration remain, but they must have been similar to those used in See also:India to-day. There the Brahmin invites the god to dwell within the image, specially made hollow to contain him, performing the ceremony of adhivasa or inhabitation, after which he puts in the eyes and the prana, i.e. breath, See also:life or soul."1 Similarly Augustine (De civ. Dei, viii. 23) relates how, according to Hermes, the See also:spirits entered by invitation (spiritus invitatos), so that the images became bodies of the gods (corpora deorum). Thus the invisible spirits by a certain art are so joined unto the visible See also:objects of corporeal matter that the latter become as it were animated bodies, images dedicated to those spirits and controlled by them (see CONSECRATION). Such statues were animated with sense and full of spirit, they foresaw the future, and foretold it by See also:lot, through their priests, in dreams and in other ways. See E. B. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ed. 1903 (See also:list of authorities and See also:sources vol., p. 171); L. R. Farrell, The See also:Evolution of Religion (See also:London, 19o5); See also:Jacob See also:Grimm, See also:Teutonic Mythology, See also:translation by J. S. Stallybrass. (F. C. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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