If Christ is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3), and if it is absolutely impermissible to portray God, as Rome herself says in Catechism 2129, then how can it be right to portray him who is the image and revelation of God? For if the essence of the Son’s imagehood consists in his likeness to the Father, and if it is impermissible to image the Father, then is it not mere logical consistency to say that it is also unlawful to make an artificial image of the Father’s eternal image?

In her catechism the Roman communion teaches the propriety of worshipping images, but denies that this is idolatry, saying, “the Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols” (2132).[1] Her argument is that “‘whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it”’ (id.), and that “by becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new ‘economy’ of images” (2131). Compare that last claim to Christ’s own words: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matt. 5:17).

Perhaps Rome will say that this new ‘economy’ is a fulfillment of the Law. But what fulfillment is this which abolishes the word that “you shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth” (Deut. 5:8)? That Christ fulfilled the Law in questions of ceremonial cleanness (Acts 10:9-16) and in the purpose of the Old Testament service of temple, sacrifice, etc. (Heb. 9; 10:8-9) is plain. Yet in so doing he reduced faith’s visual elements, for with his perfect sacrifice there is now no magnificent temple, nor high priest in costly uniform, nor animal sacrifice, nor the ark of the covenant.

Rome would retain such things, baptizing the Jewish in Christian garb with her cathedrals and altars, her vestments and notions of transubstantiation. Yet we must ask: how do images of Christ, Mary, saints, and angels fulfill the Law? Which command do they fulfill? What “you shall not” is made into a “you shall” regarding images with Christ’s advent?

Or again, they say that “‘the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype,’” quoting Basil’s Of the Holy Spirit 18.45. The larger passage is instructive:

How, then, if one and one, are there not two Gods?  Because we speak of a king, and of the king’s image, and not of two kings.  The majesty is not cloven in two, nor the glory divided.  The sovereignty and authority over us is one, and so the doxology ascribed by us is not plural but one; because the honour paid to the image passes on to the prototype.  Now what in the one case the image is by reason of imitation, that in the other case the Son is by nature; and as in works of art the likeness is dependent on the form, so in the case of the divine and uncompounded nature the union consists in the communion of the God.

I.e., Basil’s aim was not to teach the propriety of image worship, but to uphold the unity of the Godhead: the Son is the image in view, to honor whom is to honor the Father of whom he is the image.

If one says that, nonetheless, his argument presumes it is true that honor passes through images to their prototypes, I rejoin that there is a difference between “the king’s image” he presents as example and images of Christ. For in Basil’s day the image of Caesar (e.g., on a coin, Matt. 22:19-21) could have been formed in light of Caesar’s actual appearance and borne a likeness to it. But we have no idea what Christ looked like in his first advent, so that any image of him will be wholly dreamt up by the artist’s imagination, and probably grossly misrepresent him because of the artist’s preferences or cultural bias.[2] This trading of his actual appearance for human imaginations of it is the problem which such images, for it entails misrepresentation and as many notions of Christ as there are artists that portray him; and God is a God of truth and order, not of confusion (1 Cor. 14:33).

Maybe Basil elsewhere expressed sympathy with images.[3] But he also wrote that people “should, on the other hand, conceive of the image of the invisible God, not as that which is produced later than the archetype like those images produced by human skill, but as that which is co-existent with and subsists alongside the one who brought him into subsistence”[4] (emphasis mine), which at a minimum proves he conceived of Christ’s ‘imagehood’ as different from that of a drawn image. And if it is essentially different – lo, if its essence consists in perfectly representing the Father (Basil’s point in that section, working off Col. 1:15 and Heb. 1:3) – then how can it be communicated accurately through manmade images?[5] If Christ is “the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature” (Heb. 1:3), and if it is absolutely impermissible to portray God, as Rome herself says in Catechism 2129,[6]  then how can it be right to portray him who is the image and revelation of God? For if the essence of the Son’s imagehood consists in his likeness to the Father, and if it is impermissible to image the Father, then is it not mere logical consistency to say that it is also unlawful to make an artificial image of the Father’s eternal image?

Rome says Christ’s incarnation has inaugurated the so-called ‘new economy’ that permits images (“basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons,” Catechism 2131). To which I ask: tell me, why do you believe that God doing something by the mystery of incarnation enables men to do it by artistic imitation or imagination? For God revealed himself in Jesus of Nazareth with unvarying perfection, but men cannot portray Christ accurately, as they do not know what he looked like to faithfully represent him, nor can they attempt to portray anything more than one of his two natures (his humanity) and at one, since-passed point in time (his first advent).

Christ, ascended to heaven, no longer looks like that and has not for nearly 2,000 years (Rev. 1:10-20), and our faith toward him is future-facing, as we await his return in glory (Heb. 9:28; Rev. 19:11-21). “We no longer know even ‘Christ according to the flesh’ (2 Cor. 5:16).”[7] They who make images divide Christ’s two, inseparable natures in the minds of men, who are trained by images to think of a fantasy of his human nature, and to think of him in reference to the past and not that eminent return which shall consummate our salvation. At least, there is a real risk that will be its practical effect upon many who view them, particularly novices and the young.

In any event, I do not believe it is in accordance with Basil’s purpose in Of the Holy Spirit 18.45 to use a trinitarian argument to advocate for image worship.[8] That questionable use of original sources also appears in the quote of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae that appears in Catechism 2132 to argue that “the honor paid to sacred images is a ‘respectful veneration,’ not the adoration due to God alone”:

Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.

This does not establish Rome’s point, but only elaborates on the ‘technical’ nature of how images are alleged to work as vessels for transporting worship to their prototypes. And brief aside, if images actually worked that way, idolatry would be impossible, provided one’s intentions were good. But to our point, the very next sentence in the Summa says “neither ‘latria’ nor the virtue of religion is differentiated by the fact that religious worship is paid to the images of Christ.”

That’s convoluted, unlovely English prose when translated, but it means that there is no difference between the religious impulse (“virtue of religion”) that worships God and that one which worships Christ’s images, nor is there any difference between the external act (“latria”) that results from this religious impulse in the two cases; for elsewhere Aquinas says that Christ’s image is to be worshipped with latria (“since, therefore, Christ is adored with the adoration of ‘latria,’ it follows that His image should be adored with the adoration of ‘latria,’” Summa IIIa, Q. 25, Art. 3). In Rome’s thinking latria is adoration, the worship that belongs to God alone.[9] And in Aquinas’s thinking, working off the whole ‘honor passes through’ principle that Rome asserts authoritatively in this very section of her catechism, it is appropriate to give this form of worship to Christ’s image.

In other words, the authority Rome quotes to argue that there is a difference between the veneration of images and the adoration of God actually teaches the exact opposite. With Aquinas the veneration of Christ’s image is to be the same as that divine adoration which is given to God. Granting that she might still say that there is a difference[10] between veneration and adoration in the case of images of saints, Mary, and angels, in the most important case, that of images of Christ, Rome stands condemned by that by which she asserts herself justified.

And pardon me, but if worship really does pass through images to what they purport to be images of, then it would be inconsistent and irreverent to offer images of Christ anything less than latria/adoration, since lesser veneration would pass through to him and he would then be honored with it rather than that highest praise which is his due as God. He would receive the same veneration as an angel or saint, and thus be degraded and his divinity practically denied; and we know such things displease God (Gen. 4; Mal. 1:6-14), who demands the first fruits and worship without blemish (Lev. 23:9-14). On this point Aquinas is logically consistent and modern Rome is not.

Her inconsistency does not end there. In her catechism she is adamant that it is impermissible to represent God by manmade images (2129). And yet the Sistine Chapel, where Rome’s cardinals meet to elect the pope, features Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam upon its ceiling, which work purports to represent God the Father. Far from censuring that painting in accords with her own doctrine, Rome makes a heady revenue from it: general passes to visit the Vatican museums (inc. the Sistine) are 20 euros apiece, and they see nearly seven million visitors annually. Such revenue apparently makes hypocrisy easy on this point.

In closing, the essence of idolatry is that those who do it have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator” (v. 25). In this case, they have “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man” (Rom. 1:23). Such worship is without scriptural warrant or example and only detracts from worshiping God, whom we may directly approach at any time: “we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus” (Heb. 10:19; comp. 4:16; Eph. 2:18-19; 3:12). Not, ‘by the transfer of our worship through images.’ That such access is only through Christ, not images, he himself said (“no one comes to the Father except through me,” Jn. 14:6), just as he said worship belongs to God alone, not God with or through images, as though that were possible (“you shall worship the Lord your God and him only shall you serve,” Matt. 4:10). And where God says “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Rom. 10:17), Rome would put images in the place of the word, especially to the most impressionable. Where Christ said “ blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (Jn. 20:29), Rome anathematized those that refuse to venerate images.[11] As such, let those who desire to honor God do so by his appointed means of prayer, faith, and submission to the word, not the images he has forbidden.

Tom Hervey is a member of Woodruff Road Presbyterian Church, Five Forks/Simpsonville (Greenville Co.), SC. The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not of necessity reflect those of his church or its leadership or other members. He welcomes comments at the email address provided with his name. He is also author of Reflections on the Word: Essays in Protestant Scriptural Contemplation. 

[1] In Rome’s thinking the first and second commandments (“you shall have no other gods before me,” Ex.  20:3, and “you shall not make for yourself a carved image,” v. 4) are combined as one.

[2] Hence Jesus is often presented as a pale, somewhat effeminate, rather handsome medieval European in many Western paintings, whereas we know he was a Levantine Jew whose complexion was probably very swarthy and whose attractiveness is far from clear: some say he was homely, appealing to Is. 53:2; others, that he was handsome, appealing to Ps. 45:2.

[3] He has a letter, 360, which suggests as much, but whose authenticity is widely disputed.

[4] Against Eunomius, 2.16

[5] The opening sentence in the paragraph in Against Eunomius 2.16 from which the quote above was taken says: “I think anyone with even a slight concern for the truth would dismiss corporeal comparisons, avoid sullying the notions about God with material imaginations, and follow the theological teachings transmitted to us by the Holy Spirit.”

[6] “The divine injunction [“you shall not make a graven image”] included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man.”

[7] Herman Bavinck, Reformed Ethics, Vol. II, p. 173

[8] It is in fact contrary to the gist of his argument. For honoring the image (the Son) honors the prototype (the Father) precisely because the two are united in the Godhead and share a common nature (“according to the community of Nature, one”). But the Son does not have any intrinsic unity with images of himself, for they have a different nature (temporal, imaginary, manmade vs. eternal, divine, real).

[9] “This worship called forth by God, and given exclusively to Him as God, is designated by the Greek name latreia (latinized, latria), for which the best translation that our language affords is the word Adoration.” (New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia)

[10] To be sure, Aquinas does distinguish veneration and adoration in the case of images, reserving the latter for the cross and images of Christ (Summa III, Q. 25). Contemporary Rome asserts all images ought to receive only veneration, and appeals to Aquinas as proof when this was not what he taught.

[11] Canons of the Council of Trent, Session XXV and Canons of the Second Nicene Council. Many contemporary Romanists say that the anathemas pronounced were not blanket curses (as in Paul’s use of the Greek anathema in Gal. 1:8-9) but simply meant that the anathematized were liable to a particular form of excommunication called an anathema, which has been abolished under her current canon law, so that such anathemas are no longer relevant. That seems doubtful on historic grounds, but even if it were granted, Rome’s belief that she can never err in the teaching of her approved councils means she believes she was justified to treat people in such a way at the time for believing the truth against her errors; and it is never right to punish people for adhering to the truth (Prov. 17:26), nor to refuse to acknowledge the error after the fact.