Idolatry

The worship of idols, or the act of ascribing to things and persons, properties which are peculiar to God alone. The principal sources of idolatry seem to be the extravagant veneration for creatures and beings from which benefits accrue to men. Dr. Jortin says, that idolatry had four privileges to boast of. The first was a venerable antiquity, more ancient than the Jewish religion; and idolaters might have said to the Israelites, Where was your religion before Moses and Abraham? Go, and enquire in Chaldes, and there you will find that your fathers served other gods.

2. It was wider spread than the Jewish religion. It was the religion of the greatest , the wisest, and the politest nations of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, and Phoenicians, the parents of civil government, and of arts and sciences.

3. It was more adapted to the bent which men have towards visible and sensible objects. Men want gods who shall go before them, and be among them. God, who is every where in power, and no where in appearance, is hard to be conceived.

4. It favoured human passions: it required no morality: its religious ritual consisted of splendid ceremonies, revelling, dancing, nocturnal assemblies, impure and scandalous mysteries, debaucined priests, and gods, who were both slaves and patrons to all sorts of vices. "All the more remarkable false religions that have been or are in the world, recommend themselves by one or other of these four privileges and characters." The first objects of idolatrous worship are thought to have been the sun, moon, and stars. Others think that angels were first worshipped. Soon after the flood we find idolatry greatly prevailing in the world. Abraham’s father’s family served other gods beyond the river Euphrates; and Laban had idols which Rachel brought along with her. In process of time, noted patriots, or kings deceased, animals of various kinds, plants, stones, and, in fine, whatever people took a fancy to, they idolized.

The Egyptians, though high pretenders to wisdom, worshipped pied bulls, snipes, leeks, onions, &c. The Greeks had about 30, 000 gods. The Gomerians deified their ancient kings, nor were the Chaldeans, Romans, Chinese, &c. a whit less absurd. Some violated the most natural affections by murdering multitudes of their neighbours and children, under pretence of sacrificing them to their god. Some nations of Germany, Scandinavia, and Tartary, imagined that violent death in war, or by self-murder, was the proper method of access to the future enjoyment of their gods. In far later times, about 64, 080 persons were sacrificed at the dedication of one idolatrous temple in the space of four days in America. The Hebrews never had any idols of their own, but they adopted those of the nations around. The veneration which the Papists pay to the Virgin Mary, and other saints and angels, and to the bread in the sacrament, the cross, relics, and images, lays a foundation for the Protestants to charge them with idolatry, though they deny the charge.

It is evident that they worship them, and that they justify the worship, but deny the idolatry of it, by distinguishing subordinate from supreme worship: the one they call latria, the other dulia: but this distinction is thought by many of the Protestant to be vain, futile, and nugatory. Idolatry has been divided into metaphorical and proper. By metaphorical idolatry, is meant that inordinate love of riches, honours, and bodily pleasures, whereby the passions and appetites of men are made superior to the will of God; man, by so doing, making a god of himself and his sensual temper. Proper idolatry is giving the divine honour to another. The objects or idols of that honour which are given are either personal, 1:e. the idolatrous themselves, who become their own statues; or internal, as false ideas, which are set up in the fancy instead of God, such as fancying God to be a light, flame, matter, &c. only here, the scene being internal, the scandal of the sin is thereby abated; or external, as worshipping angels, the sun, stars, animals, &c. Tenison on Idolatry; A. Young on Idolatrous Corruptions; Ridgley’s Body of Div. qu. 106. Fell’s Idolatry of Greece and Rome; Stillingfleet’s Idolatry of the Church of Rome; Jortin’s Ser. vol. 6: ser. 18.

These things have been generally confined to the idea of the worshipping of creatures or images, but, in fact, may be properly applied to every thing which men set up in their hearts to regard, and which tend to the lessening their reverence for the Lord. (Exo 20:3, 4. Ezek. 14. 1.5.)

from ειδωλολατρεια, composed of ειδος, image, and λατρευειν, to serve, the worship and adoration of false gods; or the giving those honours to creatures, or the works of man’s hands, which are only due to God. Several have written of the origin and causes of idolatry; among the rest, Vossius, Selden, Godwyn, Tenison, and Faber; but it is still a doubt who was the first author of it. It is generally allowed, however, that it had not its beginning till after the deluge; and many are of opinion, that Belus, who is supposed to be the same with Nimrod, was the first man that was deified. But whether they had not paid divine honours to the heavenly bodies before that time, cannot be determined; our acquaintance with those remote times being extremely slender. The first mention we find made of idolatry is where Rachel is said to have taken the idols of her father; for though the meaning of the Hebrew word תרפים , be disputed, yet it is pretty evident they were idols. Laban calls them his gods, and Jacob calls them strange gods, and looks on them as abominations. The original idolatry by image worship is by many attributed to the age of Eber, B.C. 2247, about a hundred and one years after the deluge, according to the Hebrew chronology; four hundred and one years according to the Samaritan; and five hundred and thirty-one years according to the Septuagint; though most of the fathers place it no higher than that of Serug; which seems to be the more probable opinion, considering that for the first hundred and thirty-four years of Eber’s life all mankind dwelt in a body together; during which time it is not reasonable to suppose that idolatry broke in upon them; then some time must be allowed after the dispersion of the several nations, which were but small at the beginning, to increase and settle themselves; so that if idolatry was introduced in Eber’s time, it must have been toward the end of his life, and could not well have prevailed so universally, and with that obstinacy which some authors have imagined. Terah, the father of Abraham, who lived at Ur, in Chaldea, about B.C. 2000, was unquestionably an idolater; for he is expressly said in Scripture to have served other gods. The authors of the Universal History think, that the origin and progress of idolatry are plainly pointed out to us in the account which Moses gives of Laban’s and Jacob’s parting, Gen 31:44, &c. From the custom once introduced of erecting monuments in memory of any solemn covenants, the transition was easy into the notion, that some deity took its residence in them, in order to punish the first aggressors; and this might be soon improved by an ignorant and degenerate world, till not only birds, beasts, stocks, and stones, but sun, moon, and stars, were called into the same office; though used, perhaps, at first, by the designing part of mankind, as scare-crows, to overawe the ignorant.

Sanchoniathon, who wrote his “Phenician Antiquities” apparently with a view to apologize for idolatry, traces its origin to the descendants of Cain, the elder branch, who began with the worship of the sun, and afterward added a variety of other methods of idolatrous worship: proceeding to deify the several parts of nature, and men after their death; and even to consecrate the plants shooting out of the earth, which the first men judged to be gods, and worshipped as those that sustained the lives of themselves and of their posterity. The Chaldean priests, in process of time, being by their situation early addicted to celestial observations, instead of conceiving as they ought to have done concerning the omnipotence of the Creator and Mover of the heavenly bodies, fell into the impious error of esteeming them as gods, and the immediate governors of the world, in subordination, however, to the Deity, who was invisible except by his works, and the effects of his power. Concluding that God created the stars and great luminaries for the government of the world, partakers with himself and as his ministers, they thought it but just and natural that they should be honoured and extolled, and that it was the will of God they should be magnified and worshipped. Accordingly, they erected temples, or sacella, to the stars, in which they sacrificed and bowed down before them, esteeming them as a kind of mediators between God and man. Impostors afterward arose, who gave out, that they had received express orders from God himself concerning the manner in which particular heavenly bodies should be represented, and the nature and ceremonies of the worship which was to be paid them. When they proceeded to worship wood, stone, or metal, formed and fashioned by their own hands, they were led to apprehend, that these images had been, in some way or other, animated or informed with a supernatural power by supernatural means; though Dr. Prideaux imagines, that, being at a loss to know how to address themselves to the planets when they were below the horizon, and invisible, they recurred to the use of images. But it will be sufficient to suppose, that they were persuaded that each star or planet was actuated by an intelligence; and that the virtues of the heavenly body were infused into the image that represented it. It is certain, that the sentient nature and divinity of the sun, moon, and stars, was strenuously asserted by the philosophers, particularly by Pythagoras and his followers, and by the Stoics, as well as believed by the common people, and was, indeed, the very foundation of the Pagan idolatry. The heavenly bodies were the first deities of all the idolatrous nations, were esteemed eternal, sovereign, and supreme; and distinguished by the title of the natural gods. Thus we find that the primary gods of the Heathens in general were Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Apollo, Mercury, Venus, and Diana; by which we can understand no other than the sun and moon, and the five greatest luminaries next to these. Plutarch expressly censures the Epicureans for asserting that the sun and moon, whom all men worshipped, are void of intelligence.

Sanchoniathon represents the most ancient nations, particularly the Phenicians and Egyptians, as acknowledging only the natural gods, the sun, moon, planets, and elements; and Plato declares it as his opinion, that the first Grecians likewise held these only to be gods, as many of the barbarians did in his time. Beside these natural gods, the Heathens believed that there were certain spirits who held a middle rank between the gods and men on earth, and carried on all intercourse between them; conveying the addresses of men to the gods, and the divine benefits to men. These spirits were called demons. From the imaginary office ascribed to them, they became the grand objects of the religious hopes and fears of the Pagans, of immediate dependence and divine worship. In the most learned nations, they did not so properly share, as engross, the public devotion. To these alone sacrifices were offered, while the celestial gods were worshipped only with a pure mind, or with hymns and praises. As to the nature of these demons, it has been generally believed, that they were spirits of a higher origin than the human race; and, in support of this opinion, it has been alleged, that the supreme deity of the Pagans is called the greatest demon; that the demons are described as beings placed between the gods and men; and that demons are expressly distinguished from heroes, who were the departed souls of men. Some, however, have combated this opinion, and maintained, on the contrary, that by demons, such as were the more immediate objects of the established worship among the ancient nations, particularly the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, we are to understand beings of an earthly origin, or such departed human souls as were believed to become demons.

Although the Hindoo inhabitants of the East Indies deny the charge of idolatry, using the same description of arguments as are so inconclusively urged by superstitious Europeans in defence of image worship, it is still evident that the mass of the Hindoos are addicted to gross idolatry. The gods of Rome were even less numerous, certainly less whimsical and monstrous, than those at Benares. In Moore’s Hindoo Pantheon are given exact portraits of many scores of deities worshipped, with appropriate ceremonies, and under various forms and names, by different sects of that grossly superstitious race. Some of these portraits are of images colossal to a degree perhaps unequalled by any existing statues; others are exceedingly diminutive. Some are metallic casts, and some apparently extremely ancient, which exhibit every gradation of art from the rudest imaginable specimen, up to a very respectable portion of skill, so as to approach to elegance of form, and to ease and expression of attitude.

The principal causes which have been assigned for idolatry are, the indelible idea which every man has of God, and the evidence which he gives of it to himself; an inviolable attachment to the senses, and a habit of judging and deciding by them, and them only; the pride and vanity of the human mind, which is not satisfied with simple truth, but mingles and adulterates it with fables; men’s ignorance of antiquity, or of the first times, and the first men, of whom they had but very dark and confused knowledge by tradition, they having left no written monuments, or books; the ignorance and change of languages; the style of the oriental writings, which is figurative and poetical, and personifies every thing; the scruples and fears inspired by superstition; the flattery and fictions of poets; the false relations of travellers; the imaginations of painters and sculptors; a smattering of physics, that is, a slight acquaintance with natural bodies and appearances, and their causes; the establishment of colonies, and the invention of arts, mistaken by barbarous people; the artifices of priests; the pride of certain men, who effected to pass for gods; the love and gratitude borne by the people to certain of their great men and benefactors; and, finally, the historical events of the Scriptures ill understood. “One great spring and fountain of all idolatry,” says Sir William Jones, “was the veneration paid by men to the sun, or vast body of fire, which ‘looks from his sole dominion like the god of this world;’ and another, the immoderate respect shown to the memory of powerful or virtuous ancestors and warriors, of whom the sun and the moon were wildly supposed to be the parents.” But the Scriptural account of the matter refers the whole to wilful ignorance and a corrupt heart: “They did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” To this may be added, what indeed proceeds from the same sources, the disposition to convert religion into outward forms; the endeavour to render it more impressive upon the imagination through the senses; the substitution of sentiment for real religious principle; and the license which this gave to inventions of men, which in process of time became complicated and monstrous. That debasement of mind, and that alienation of the heart from God, and the gross immoralities and licentious practices which have ever accompanied idolatry, will sufficiently account for the severity with which it is denounced, both in the Old and New Testaments.

The veneration which the Papists pay to the Virgin Mary, and other saints and angels, and to the bread in the sacrament, the cross, relics, and images, affords ground for the Protestants to charge them with being idolaters, though they deny that they are so. It is evident that they worship these persons and things, and that they justify the worship, but deny the idolatry of it, by distinguishing subordinate from supreme worship. This distinction is justly thought by Protestants to be futile and nugatory, and certainly has no support from Holy Writ.

Under the government of Samuel, Saul, and David, there was little or no idolatry in Israel. Solomon was the first Hebrew king, who, in complaisance to his foreign wives, built temples and offered incense to strange gods. Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, who succeeded him in the greater part of his dominions, set up golden calves at Dan and Bethel. Under the reign of Ahab, this disorder was at its height, occasioned by Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, who did all she could to destroy the worship of the true God, by driving away and persecuting his prophets. God, therefore, incensed at the sins and idolatry of the ten tribes, abandoned those tribes to the kings of Assyria and Chaldea, who transplanted them beyond the Euphrates, from whence they never returned. The people of Judah were no less corrupted. The prophets give an awful description of their idolatrous practices. They were punished after the same manner, though not so severely, as the ten tribes; being led into captivity several times, from which at last they returned, and were settled in the land of Judea, after which we hear no more of their idolatry. They have been, indeed, ever since that period, distinguished for their zeal against it. See IMAGE.

In giving a summary view of the forms of idolatry which are mentioned in the Bible, it is expedient to exclude all notice of those illegal images which were indeed designed to bear some symbolical reference to the worship of the true God, but which partook of the nature of idolatry; such, for example, as the golden calf of Aaron (cf. Neh 9:18); those of Jeroboam; the singular ephods of Gideon and Micah (Jdg 8:27; Jdg 17:5); and the Teraphim.

Idolatry was the most heinous offence against the Mosaic law, which is most particular in defining the acts that constitute the crime, and severe in apportioning the punishment. Thus, it is forbidden to make any image of a strange god to prostrate oneself before such an image, or before those natural objects which were also worshipped without images, as the sun and moon (Deu 4:19); to suffer the altars, images, or groves of idols to stand (Exo 34:13); or to keep the gold and silver of which their images were made, and to suffer it to enter the house (Deu 7:25-26); to sacrifice to idols, most especially to offer human sacrifices; to eat of the victims offered to idols by others; to prophesy in the name of a strange god; and to adopt any of the rites used in idolatrous worship, and to transfer them to the worship of the Lord (Deu 12:30-31). As for punishment, the law orders that if an individual committed idolatry he should be stoned to death (Deu 17:2-5); that if a town was guilty of this sin, its inhabitants and cattle should be slain, and its spoils burnt together with the town itself (Deu 13:12-18). To what degree also the whole spirit of the Old Testament is abhorrent from idolatry, is evident (besides legal prohibitions, prophetic denunciations, and energetic appeals like that in Isa 44:9-20) from the literal sense of the terms which are used as synonyms for idols and their worship. Thus idols are called the inane (Lev 19:4); vanities (Act 14:15; Jer 2:5); nothing (Isa 66:3); abominations (1Ki 11:5); and their worship is called whoredom.

The early existence of idolatry is evinced by Jos 24:2, where it is stated that Abram and his immediate ancestors dwelling in Mesopotamia ’served other gods.’ The terms in Gen 31:53, and particularly the plural form of the verb, seem to show that some members of Terah’s family had each different gods. From Jos 24:14, and Eze 20:8, we learn that the Israelites, during their sojourn in Egypt, were seduced to worship the idols of that country; although we possess no particular account of their transgression. In Amo 5:25, and Act 7:42, it is stated that they committed idolatry in their journey through the wilderness; and in Num 25:1, sq., that they worshipped the Moabite idol Baal-peor at Shittim. After the Israelites had obtained possession of the Promised Land, we find that they were continually tempted to adopt the idolatries of the Canaanite nations with which they came in contact. The book of Judges enumerates several successive relapses into this sin. The gods which they served during this period were Baal and Ashtoreth, and their modifications; and Syria, Sidon, Moab, Ammon, and Philistia, are named in Jdg 10:6, as the sources from which they derived their idolatries. Then Samuel appears to have exercised a beneficial influence in weaning the people from this folly (1 Samuel 7); and the worship of the Lord acquired a gradually increasing hold on the nation until the time of Solomon, who was induced in his old age to permit the establishment of idolatry at Jerusalem. On the division of the nation, the kingdom of Israel (besides adhering to the sin of Jeroboam to the last) was specially devoted to the worship of Baal, which Ahab had renewed and carried to an unprecedented height; and although the energetic measures adopted by Jehu, and afterwards by the priest Jehoiada, to suppress this idolatry, may have been the cause why there is no later express mention of Baal, yet it is evident from 2Ki 13:6; 2Ki 17:10, that the worship of Asherah continued until the deportation of the ten tribes. This event also introduced the peculiar idolatries of the Assyrian colonists into Samaria. In the kingdom of Judah, on the other hand, idolatry continued during the two succeeding reigns; was suppressed for a time by Asa (1Ki 15:12); was revived in consequence of Joram marrying into the family of Ahab; was continued by Ahaz; received a check from Hezekiah; broke out again more violently under Manasseh; until Josiah made the most vigorous attempt to suppress it. But even Josiah’s efforts to restore the worship of the Lord were ineffectual; for the later prophets, Zephaniah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, still continue to utter reproofs against idolatry. Nor did the capture of Jerusalem under Jehoiachim awaken this peculiarly sensual people; for Ezekiel (1 Kings 8) shows that those who were left in Jerusalem under the government of Zedekiah had given themselves up to many kinds of idolatry; and Jeremiah (Jer 44:8) charges those inhabitants of Judah who had found an asylum in Egypt, with having turned to serve the gods of that country. On the restoration of the Jews after the Babylonian captivity, they appear, for the first time in their history, to have been permanently impressed with a sense of the degree to which their former idolatries had been an insult to God, and a degradation of their own understanding—an advance in the culture of the nation which may in part be ascribed to the influence of the Persian abhorrence of images, as well as to the effects of the exile as a chastisement. In this state they continued until Antiochus Epiphanes made the last and fruitless attempt to establish the Greek idolatry in Palestine (1 Maccabees 1).

The particular forms of idolatry into which the Israelites fell are described under the names of the different gods which they worshipped [ASHTORETH, BAAL, etc.]: the general features of their idolatry require a brief notice here. According to Movers, the religion of all the idolatrous Syro-Arabian nations was a deification of the powers and laws of nature, an adoration of those objects in which these powers are considered to abide, and by which they act. The deity is thus the invisible power in nature itself, that power which manifests itself as the generator, sustainer, and destroyer of its works. This view admits of two modifications: either the separate powers of nature are regarded as so many different gods, and the objects by which these powers are manifested—as the sun, moon, etc.—are regarded as their images and supporters; or the power of nature is considered to be one and indivisible, and only to differ as to the forms under which it manifests itself. Both views coexist in almost all religions. The most simple and ancient notion, however, is that which conceives the deity to be in a human form, as male and female, and which considers the male sex to be the type of its active, generative, and destructive power; while that passive power of nature whose function is to conceive and bring forth, is embodied under the female form. The human form and the diversity of sex lead naturally to the different ages of life—to the old man and the youth, the matron and the virgin—according to the modifications of the conception; and the myths which represent the influences, the changes, the laws, and the relations of these natural powers under the sacred histories of such gods, constitute a harmonious development of such a religious system.

Those who saw the deity manifested by, or conceived him as resident in, any natural objects, could not fail to regard the sun and moon as the potent rulers of day and night, and the sources of those influences on which all animated nature depends. Hence star-worship forms a prominent feature in all the false religions mentioned in the Bible. Of this character chiefly were the Egyptian, the Canaanite, the Chaldean, and the Persian religions. The Persian form of astrolatry, however, deserves to be distinguished from the others; for it allowed no images nor temples of the god, but worshipped him in his purest symbol, fire. It is understood that this form is alluded to in most of those passages which mention the worship of the sun, moon, and heavenly host, by incense, on heights (2Ki 23:5; 2Ki 23:12; Jer 19:13). The other form of astrolatry, in which the idea of the sun, moon, and planets is blended with the worship of the god in the form of an idol, and with the addition of a mythology (as may be seen in the relations of Baal and his cognates to the sun), easily degenerates into lasciviousness and cruel rites.

The images of the gods were, as to material, of stone, wood, silver, and gold. Those of metal had a trunk or stock of wood, and were covered with plates of silver or gold (Jer 10:4); or were cast. The general rites of idolatrous worship consist in burning incense; in offering bloodless sacrifices, as the dough-cakes and libations in Jer 7:18, and the raisin-cakes in Hos 3:1; in sacrificing victims (1Ki 18:26), and especially in human sacrifices [MOLOCH]. These offerings were made on high places, hills, and roofs of houses, or in shady groves and valleys. Some forms of idolatrous worship had libidinous orgies [ASHTORETH]. Divinations, oracles (2Ki 1:2), and rabdomancy (Hos 4:12) form a part of many of these false religions. The priesthood was generally a numerous body; and where persons of both sexes were attached to the service of any god, that service was infamously immoral. It is remarkable that the Pentateuch makes no mention of any temple of idols; afterwards we read often of such.

Idolatry. Idolatry, strictly speaking, denotes the worship of deity in a visible form, whether the images to which homage is paid are symbolical representations of the true God or of the false divinities, which have been made the objects of worship in his stead.

I. History of idolatry among the Jews. -- The first undoubted allusion to idolatry or idolatrous customs in the Bible, is in the account of Rachel’s stealing her father’s teraphim. Gen 31:19.

During their long residence in Egypt, the Israelites defiled themselves with the idols of the land, and it was long before the taint was removed. Jos 24:14; Eze 20:7.

In the wilderness, they clamored for some visible shape, in which they might worship the God, who had brought them out of Egypt, Exo 32:1, until Aaron made the calf, the embodiment of Apis and emblem of the productive power of nature.

During the lives of Joshua and the elders who outlived him, they kept true to their allegiance; but the generation following, who knew not Jehovah nor the works he had done for Israel, swerved from the plain path of their fathers and were caught in the toils of the foreigner. Jdg 2:1. From this time forth, their history becomes little more than a chronicle of the inevitable sequence of offence and punishment. Jdg 2:12; Jdg 2:14. By turns, each conquering nation strove to establish the worship of its national God.

In later times, the practice of secret idolatry was carried to greater lengths. Images were set up on the corn-floors, in the wine-vats, and behind the doors of private houses, Isa 57:8; Hos 9:1-2, and to check this tendency, the statute in Deu 27:15 was originally promulgated.

Under Samuel’s administration, idolatry was publicly renounced, 1Sa 7:3-6, but in the reign of Solomon, all this was forgotten, even Solomon’s own heart being turned after other gods. 1Ki 11:14. Rehoboam perpetuated the worst features of Solomon’s idolatry, 1Ki 14:22-24, erecting golden calves at Beth-el and at Dan, and by this crafty state’ policy, severed forever the kingdoms of Judah and Israel. 1Ki 12:26-33.

The successors of Jeroboam followed in his steps, till Ahab. The conquest of the ten tribes by Shalmaneser was, for them, the last scene of the drama of abominations, which had been enacted uninterruptedly for upwards of 250 years.

Under Hezekiah, a great reform was inaugurated, that was not confined to Judah and Benjamin, but spread throughout Ephraim and Manasseh, 2Ch 31:1, and to all external appearances, idolatry was extirpated. But the reform extended little below the surface. Isa 29:13.

With the death of Josiah, ended the last effort to revive among the people a purer ritual, if not a purer faith. The lamp of David, which had long shed but a struggling ray, flickered for a while, and then went out in the darkness of Babylonian Captivity.

Though the conquests of Alexander caused Greek influence to be felt, yet after the captivity, better condition of things prevailed, and the Jews never again fell into idolatry. The erection of synagogues had been assigned as a reason for the comparative purity of the Jewish worship after the captivity, while another cause has been discovered in the hatred for images acquired by the Jews in their intercourse with the Persians.

II. Objects of idolatry. -- The sun and moon were early selected as outward symbols of all-pervading power, and the worship of the heavenly bodies was not only the most ancient, but the most prevalent system of idolatry. Taking its rise in the plains of Chaldea, it spread through Egypt, Greece, Scythia, and even Mexico and Ceylon. Compare Deu 4:19; Deu 17:3; Job 31:20-28. In the later times of the monarchy, the planets or the zodiacal signs received, next to the sun and moon, their share of popular adoration. 2Ki 23:5.

Beast-worship, as exemplified in the calves of Jeroboam, has already been alluded to of pure hero-worship among the Semitic races we find no trace. The singular reverence with which trees have been honored is not without example in the history of the Hebrew. The terebinth (oak) at Mamre, beneath which Abraham built an altar, Gen 12:7; Gen 13:18, and the memorial grove planted by him at Beersheba, Gen 21:33, were intimately connected with patriarchal worship.

Mountains and high places were chosen spots for offering sacrifice and incense to idols, 1Ki 11:7; 1Ki 14:23, and the retirement of gardens and the thick shade of woods offered great attractions to their worshippers. 2Ki 16:4; Isa 1:29; Hos 4:13. The host of heaven was worshipped on the house-top. 2Ki 23:12; Jer 19:3; Jer 32:29; Zep 1:5.

(The modern objects of idolatry are less gross than the ancient, but are none the less idols. Whatever of wealth or honor or pleasure is loved and sought before God and righteousness becomes an object of idolatry. -- Editor).

III. Punishment of idolatry. -- Idolatry to an Israelite was a state offence, 1Sa 15:23, a political crime of the greatest character, high treason against the majesty of his king. The first and second commandments are directed against idolatry of every form. Individuals and communities were equally amenable to the rigorous code.

The individual offender was devoted to destruction, Exo 22:20, his nearest relatives were not only bound to denounce him and deliver him up to punishment, Deu 13:2-10, but their hands were to strike the first blow, when, on the evidence of two witnesses at least, he was stoned. Deu 17:2-5.

To attempt to seduce others to false worship was a crime of equal enormity. Deu 13:6-10.

IV. Attractions of idolatry. -- Many have wondered why the Israelites were so easily led away from the true God, into the worship of idols.

(1) Visible, outward signs, with shows, pageants, parades, have an attraction to the natural heart, which often fail to perceive the unseen spiritual realities.

(2) But the greatest attraction seems to have been in licentious revelries and obscene orgies with which the worship of the Oriental idols was observed. (This worship, appealing to every sensual passion, joined with the attractions of wealth and fashion and luxury, naturally was a great temptation to a simple, restrained, agricultural people, whose worship and law demands the greatest purity of heart and of life. -- Editor).

(See IDOL.)

Idolatry. The worship of other objects or beings than the one true God. Probably the heavenly bodies were among the earliest objects of idolatrous reverence. Thus the sun and moon, the Baal and Astarte of Phœnician worship, were regarded as embodying these active and passive principles respectively. And the idol deities of other nations bore similar characters. It is easy to see how such worship would be tainted by licentiousness of thought, and that the rites of it would be immoral and obscene. Unnatural lusts would be indulged, till the frightful picture drawn by the apostle Paul of heathenism was abundantly realized among even the most refined nations of antiquity. Rom 1:18-32. It was in order to guard the Israelites against such abominable things that many of the enactments of the Mosaic law were directed.

Deu 22:5. The ancient Hebrews had no fixed form of idolatry; but they frequently imitated the superstitions of other nations. Gen 31:30; Jos 24:23; Jdg 2:11-12; Jdg 8:27; Jdg 17:5; Jdg 18:30-31. Solomon, seduced by his strange wives, caused temples to be erected in honor of their gods, and himself impiously offered incense to them. 1Ki 11:6-7. Under the reign of Ahab, idolatry reached its greatest height; and the impious Jezebel endeavored to destroy the worship of Jehovah. Even the sacrifice of children, forbidden as it was under the most severe and summary penalties, became common. Lev 20:2; Jer 7:31; Eze 16:21. The severe chastisement of the captivity in a great measure uprooted Hebrew idolatry. Perhaps those who went into Egypt were the worst class of the Jews. Jer 44:15-30. Yet even there idolatry did not last among them. And, though after the return there was much lukewarmness shown, and alliances were made afresh with ungodly nations,, and false prophets appeared, Ezr 9:1-2; Neh 6:14, yet so far as we can judge by the national covenant, Neh 10:1-39, and the general tone of the post-exilian prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, idolatry ceased to nourish. In the New Testament the Christians, who were continually brought into contact with idolaters through the extent of the Roman empire, were cautioned as to their behavior. Not only were they to abhor idol-worship itself, but they were also to abstain from meats which had been offered to idols. Act 15:29. It was true that the meat itself was not thereby defiled, for an idol was nothing; and therefore Christians need not be too particular in inquiring into the history of what was set before them But, if any one apprised them that it had been so presented, they were not to eat, lest an occasion of offence should be given to a weak brother or to a censorious heathen. 1Co 8:4-13; 1Co 10:25-32.

The worship of idols - a sin which is mentioned as committed after the flood. There seems to have been a universal giving up of the knowledge of the true God. Paul, speaking of men, says that when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, notwithstanding that what may be known of God in nature, His eternal power and Godhead, was manifested to them. They degraded the worship of the true God everywhere, and idolatry became universal. In this, man had no excuse. Images were made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things. Rom 1:20-23. From this state Abram was rescued by the God of glory appearing to him. Scripture shows the folly of a man cutting down a tree, and burning part of it to cook his food and to warm himself, and yet making a god of the rest, and worshipping it, Isa 44:14-17; and yet Israel, to whom God had revealed Himself, not only as Creator but in redemption, adopted these wicked follies. There were also molten images and images of stone.

Imaginary creatures were regarded as gods, and these were feared and propitiated. Some believed in a fetish of good and a fetish of evil. Others had an elaborate system of mythology, as the Greeks, with husbands and wives and sons and daughters of the gods and goddesses. Man himself was exalted by some into a god, as with the Greeks and the Romans.

In Israel at first there might have been the thought that the idol was only a representative of God, just as the Egyptians professed to have representations of their unseen gods. When the golden calf was made Aaron built an altar before it, and said, "To-morrow is a feast to Jehovah;" but the people said, "These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought thee up out of the land of Egypt." Exo 32:4-5. Yet they had been commanded to make no graven image, because they saw no similitude when God spake to them at Horeb. This species of idolatry is seen further developed in the case of Micah, who had a house of gods. See MICAH.

The secret of all the abominations in idolatry is, that Satan is the grand mover of it. To Israel it was said that they were no more to offer sacrifices unto demons. Lev 17:7. They "sacrificed their sons and their daughters unto demons ." Psa 106:37. They made their children pass through the fire to Molech, 2Ki 23:10; Eze 23:37; Eze 23:39; "slaying the children in the valleys under the clefts of the rocks." Isa 57:5.

As to the sacrificing being to demons, the same thing is said of the idolatry at Corinth, with its Grecian mythology. 1Co 10:20. Satan being the real promoter of it all, he knows how to lead a poor unintelligent heathen to be satisfied with an imaginary fetish; the Greeks and Romans to be pleased with their stately statues; and the Brahmins and Hindus to pride themselves in their superior and refined mysticism. Satan has also succeeded in introducing into the professing church the worship of the Virgin Mary and of the saints. To this must be added another species of idolatry to which Christians are sometimes enticed, namely, that of letting anything but Christ have the first place in the heart; for in Him God is revealed, He "is the image of the invisible God" - "He is the true God." "Little children, keep yourselves from idols." 1Jn 5:21. The word εἴδωλον is from εἶδος, ’that which is seen, ’ and covetousness is specially characterised as idolatry. Col 3:5.

Idolaters

Exo_22:20; Lev_20:1-5; Deu_27:15; Psa_73:26-27; Psa_97:7; Psa_115:4-8; Psa_135:15-18; Isa_42:17; Isa_44:9-19; Isa_45:20; Isa_57:3-13; Jer_13:9-10; Eze_14:6-10; Amo_8:14; Hab_2:18-19; Rev_21:8; Rev_22:13-15.

Idols

Exo_32:1-6; Deu_4:27-28; Deu_7:25; Deu_16:22; Deu_27:15; 2Ki_19:17-18; Psa_106:35-36; Psa_115:4-7; Psa_135:15-17; Isa_2:12-20; Isa_37:18-19; Isa_41:29; Isa_44:9-10; Isa_46:6-7; Jer_2:11; Jer_2:28; Jer_10:2-5; Jer_10:11; Jer_10:14-15; Jer_11:12; Jer_16:19-20; Jer_18:13-15; Jer_51:17-18; Dan_5:23; Mic_5:10-15; Hab_2:18-19; Act_14:11-15; Rev_9:20.

Not Being An Idolater

Exo_20:2-5; Exo_20:23; Exo_23:13; Exo_23:24; Exo_34:11-17; Lev_19:4; Lev_26:1; Deu_4:15-18; Deu_5:6-9; Deu_6:14; Deu_7:16; Deu_12:29-31; Deu_16:22; Deu_28:14; Jos_23:6-7; Jos_24:14-15; 2Ki_17:12; 2Ki_17:35-38; Psa_81:9-10; Jer_25:4-6; Hos_13:4; 1Co_10:7; 1Co_10:14; 1Jn_5:21.

The Reward For Idolatry

Exo_23:31-33; Exo_32:7-8; Deu_4:23-28; Deu_8:19-20; Deu_11:16-18; Deu_11:26-28; Deu_29:17-29; Deu_30:15-18; Deu_31:16-18; Deu_32:17-24; Jos_23:15-16; Jos_24:20; Jdg_2:19; Jdg_10:11-14; 1Sa_8:4-18; 1Ki_9:6-9; 1Ki_11:31-37; 1Ki_14:15-16; 2Ki_17:7-23; 2Ki_21:10-16; 2Ki_22:16-17; 2Ch_28:23; 2Ch_34:24-25; Psa_106:19-23; Psa_106:35-36; Jer_5:18-19; Jer_11:17; Jer_16:11-13; Jer_18:13-17; Jer_19:3-15; Jer_22:8-9; Jer_25:4-14; Jer_32:34-36; Eze_36:16-19; Hos_9:1-9; Zec_10:2; Act_7:42-43; Col_3:5-6.

Those That Are Not Idolaters

Eze_18:5-9.

What Is Idolatry

1Sa_15:23; 1Ch_16:26; Psa_96:5; Col_3:5.

What Should Be Done To Idols

Exo_23:24; Exo_34:11-13; Num_33:50-52; Deu_7:5; Deu_7:25; Deu_12:2-3; Jos_24:23; Jdg_2:1-2.

Who Is An Idolater

Eph_5:5.

IDOLATRY.—Hebrew religion is represented as beginning with Abraham, who forsook the idolatry, as well as the home, of his ancestors (Gen 12:1, Jos 24:2); but it was specially through the influence of Moses that Jehovah was recognized as Israel’s God. The whole subsequent history up to the Exile is marked by frequent lapses into idolatry. We should therefore consider (1) the causes of Hebrew idolatry, (2) its nature, (3) the opposition it evoked, and (4) the teaching of NT. The subject is not free from difficulty, but in the light of modern Biblical study, the main outlines are clear.

1. Causes of Hebrew idolatry.—(1) When, after the Exodus, the Israelites settled in Canaan among idolatrous peoples, they were far from having a pure monotheism (cf. Jdg 11:24). Their faith was crude. (a) Thus the idea that their neighbours’ gods had real existence, with rights of proprietorship in the invaded land, would expose them to risk of contamination. This would be the more likely because as yet they were not a united people. The tribes had at first to act independently, and in some cases were unable to dislodge the Canaanites (Jdg 1:1-36). (b) Their environment was thus perilous, and the danger was intensified by intermarriage with idolaters. Particularly after the monarchy was established did this become a snare. Solomon and Ahab by their marriage alliances introduced and promoted idol cults. It is significant that post-exilic legislation had this danger in view, and secured that exclusiveness so characteristic of mature Judaism (Ezr 10:2 f.). (c) The political relations with the great world-powers, Egypt and Assyria, would also tend to influence religious thought. This might account for the great heathen reaction under Manasseh.

(2) But, specially, certain ideas characteristic of Semitic religion generally had a strong influence. (a) Thus, on Israel’s settling in Canaan, the existing shrines, whether natural (hills, trees, wells—each understood to have its own tutelary baal or lord) or artificial (altars, stone pillars, wooden poles), would be quite innocently used for the worship of J″ [Note: Jahweh.] . (b) Idols, too, were used in domestic worship (Jdg 17:5; cf. Gen 31:19, 1Sa 19:13). (c) A darker feature, inimical to Jehovism, was the sanction of sexual impurity, cruelty and lust for blood (see below, § 2 (1)).

Here then was all the apparatus for either the inappropriate worship of the true God, or the appropriate worship of false gods. That was why, later on in the eighth and seventh centuries b.c., when the earlier Jehovism was changing into typical Judaism, all such apparatus was felt to be wrong, and was attacked with increasing violence by prophets and reformers, as their conception of God became more clear and spiritual.

2. Its nature.—(1) Common to all Canaanite religions, apparently, was the worship of Baal as representing the male principle in nature. Each nation, however, had its own provincial Baal with a specific name or title—Chemosh of Moab, Molech of Ammon, Dagon of Philistia, Hadad-Rimmon of Syria. Associated with Baalism was the worship of Ashtoreth (Astarte), representing the female principle in nature. Two features of these religions were prostitution [of both sexes] (cf. Num 25:1 f., Deu 23:17 f., 1Ki 14:24, Hos 4:13, Amo 2:7, Bar 6:43) and human sacrifice (cf. 2Ki 17:17, Jer 7:31, and art. Topheth). Baalism was the chief Israelite idolatry, and sometimes, e.g. under Jezebel, it quite displaced Jehovism as the established religion.

(2) The underlying principle of all such religion was nature-worship. This helps to explain the calf-worship, represented as first introduced by Aaron, and at a later period established by Jeroboam i. In Egypt—which also exercised a sinister influence on the Hebrews—religion was largely of this type; but living animals, and not merely images of them, were there venerated. Connected with this idolatry is totemism, so widely traced even to-day. Some find a survival of early Semitic totemism in Eze 8:10.

(3) Another form of Hebrew nature-worship, astrolatry, was apparently of foreign extraction, and not earlier than the seventh cent. b.c. There is a striking allusion to this idolatry in Job 31:26-28. There were sun-images (2Ch 34:4), horses and chariots dedicated to the sun (2Ki 23:11); an eastward position was adopted in sun-worship (Eze 8:16). The expression ‘queen of heaven’ in Jer 7:18; Jer 44:19 is obscure; but it probably points to this class of idolatry. In the heathen reaction under Manasseh the worship of the ‘host of heaven’ is prominent (2Ki 17:16). Gad and Meni (Isa 65:11) were possibly star-gods. Related to such nature-worship perhaps was the mourning for Tammuz [Adonis] (Eze 8:14, Isa 17:10 RVm [Note: Revised Version margin.] ). Nature-worship of all kinds is by implication rebuked with amazing force and dignity in Gen 1:1-31, where the word God as Creator is written ‘in big letters over the face of creation.’ Stars and animals and all things, it is insisted, are created things, not creators, and not self-existent.

(4) There are no clear traces of ancestor-worship in OT, but some find them in the teraphim (household gods) and in the reverence for tombs (e.g. Machpelah); in Isa 65:4 the context suggests idolatry.

(5) A curious mixture of idolatry and Jehovism existed in Samaria after the destruction of the Northern Kingdom. The foreign colonists brought with them the worship of various deities, and added that of J″ [Note: Jahweh.] (2Ki 17:24-41). These gods cannot be identified with certainty. By this mixed race and religion the Jews of the Return were seriously hindered, and there resulted the Samaritan schism which, in an attenuated form, still exists.

3. Opposition to idolatry.—While fully allowing for the facts alluded to in § 1, it is impossible to account—not for mere temporary lapses, but—for the marked persistence of idolatry among the Hebrews, unless we recognize the growth which characterizes their laws and polity from the simple beginning up to the finished product. Laws do but express the highest sense of the community—however deeply that sense may be quickened by Divine revelation—whether those laws are viewed from the ethical or from the utilitarian standpoint. If the legislation embodied in the Pentateuch had all along been an acknowledged, even though a neglected, code, such a complete neglect of it during long periods, taken with the total silence about its distinctive features in the sayings and writings of the most enlightened and devoted men, would present phenomena quite inexplicable. It is needful, therefore, to observe that the true development from original Mosaism, though perhaps never quite neglected by the leaders of the nation, does not appear distinctly in any legislation until the closing decades of the 7th cent. b.c. This development continued through and beyond the Exile. Until the Deuteronomic epoch began, the enactments of Mosaism in regard to idolatry were clearly of the slenderest proportions. There is good reason for thinking that the Second of the Ten Commandments is not in its earliest form; and it is probable that Exo 34:10-28 (from the document J [Note: Jahwist.] , i.e. c [Note: circa, about.] . b.c. 850) contains an earlier Decalogue, embodying such traditional Mosaic legislation as actually permitted the use of simple images (distinct from molten cultus-idols, Exo 34:17). Such development accounts for the phenomena presented by the history of idolatry in Israel. For example, Samuel sacrifices in one of those ‘high places’ (1Sa 9:12 ff.) which Hezekiah removed as idolatrous (2Ki 18:4). Elijah, the stern foe of Baalism, does not denounce the calf-worship attacked later on by Hosea. Even Isaiah can anticipate the erection in Egypt of a pillar (Isa 19:19) like those which Josiah in the next century destroyed (2Ki 23:14). As with reforming prophets, so with reforming kings. Jehu in Israel extirpates Baalism, but leaves the calf-worship alone (2Ki 10:28 f.). In Judah, where heathenism went to greater lengths, but where wholesome reaction was equally strong, Asa, an iconoclastic reformer, tolerates ‘high places’ (1Ki 15:12-14; cf. Jehoshaphat’s attitude, 1Ki 22:43). It was the work of the 8th cent. prophets that prepared the way for the remarkable reformation under Josiah (2Ki 22:1-20; 2Ki 23:1-37). Josiah’s reign was epoch-making in everything connected with Hebrew religious thought and practice. To this period must be assigned that Deuteronomic legislation which completed the earlier attempts at reformation. This legislation aims at the complete destruction of everything suggestive of idolatry. A code, otherwise humane, is on this point extremely severe: idolatry was punishable by death (Deu 17:2-7; cf. Deu 6:15; Deu 8:19; Deu 13:6-10 etc.). Such a view of idolatry exhibits in its correct perspective the teaching of Jeremiah and Ezekiel, the elaborate Levitical enactments, the exilic and post-exilic literature. Distinctive Judaism has succeeded to Jehovism, monotheism has replaced henotheism, racial and religious exclusiveness has supplanted the earlier eclecticism. The Exile marks practically the end of Hebrew idolatry. The lesson has been learned by heart.

A striking proof of the great change is given by the Maccabæan war, caused by the attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to force idolatry on the very nation which in an earlier period had been only too prone to accept it. Relations with Rome in the 1Jas 2:1-26 nd centuries a.d. illustrate the same temper. Had not Caligula’s death so soon followed his insane proposal to erect his statue in the Temple, the Jews would assuredly have offered the most determined resistance; a century later they did actively resist Rome when Hadrian desecrated the site of the ruined Temple.

4. Teaching of the NT.—As idolatry was thus nonexistent in Judaism in the time of Christ, it is not surprising that He does not allude to it. St. Paul, however, came into direct conflict with it. The word itself (eidôlolatreia) occurs first in his writings; we have his illuminating teaching on the subject in Rom 1:18-32, Act 17:22-31, 1Co 8:1-13 etc. But idolatry in Christian doctrine has a wider significance than the service of material idols. Anything that interferes between the soul and its God is idolatrous, and is to be shunned (cf. Eph 5:5, Php 3:19, 1Jn 5:20 f., and the context of Gal 5:20 etc.). See also art. Images.

H. F. B. Compston.

(Greek: eidololatreia, image worship)

Broadly, extends to all divine worship given to anyone or anything but the true God. Opposed to the virtue of religion it bestows reverence due to God alone directly on the image itself or on the creature represented. All religious systems indicate a primitive, pure Monotheistic concept degraded by man and devil. Disordered affections, need of sense-images, ignorance of God’s excellence, and diabolical agency have led unbridled imagination to attribute divine power to myriad false gods of every kind. Idolatry was Israel’s national sin. Absolutely considered, idolatry and atheism are the greatest sins, a direct attempt to despoil and dethrone God and to substitute a creature. Circumstances determine the actual guilt. Inculpable ignorance and right intent divert the worship to the one true God.

Catholic veneration of images is not directed to the images as such, but is a form of respect paid to them as representative of the original to whom alone honor is due and attributed.

(Gr. eidololatria.)Idolatry etymologically denotes Divine worship given to an image, but its signification has been extended to all Divine worship given to anyone or anything but the true God. St. Thomas (Summa Theol., II-II, q. xciv) treats of it as a species of the genus superstition, which is a vice opposed to the virtue of religion and consists in giving Divine honour (cultus) to things that are not God, or to God Himself in a wrong way. The specific note of idolatry is its direct opposition to the primary object of Divine worship; it bestows on a creature the reverence due to God alone. It does so in several ways. The creature is often represented by an image, an idol. "Some, by nefarious arts, made certain images which, through the power of the devil, produced certain effects whence they thought that these images contained something divine and, consequently, that divine worship was due to them." Such was the opinion of Hermes Trismegistus. Others gave Divine honours not to the images but to the creatures which they represented. Both are hinted at by the Apostle (Romans 1:23-25), who says of the first: "They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the likeness of the image of a corruptible man, and of birds, and of four-footed beasts and of creeping things"; and of the second: "They worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator". These worshippers of creatures were of three kinds. Some held that certain men were gods, and these they honoured through their statues, e. g., Jupiter and Mercury. Others opined that the whole world was one God, God being conceived of as the rational soul of the corporeal world. Hence they worshipped the world and all its parts, the air, the water, and all the rest; their idols, according to Varro, as reported by St. Augustine (De Civ. Dei, VIII, xxi, xxii), were the expression of that belief. Others again, followers of Plato, admitted one supreme God, the cause of all things; under Him they placed certain spiritual substances of His creation and participating in His Divinity; these substances they called gods; and below these they put the souls of the heavenly bodies and, below these again the demons who, they thought, were a sort of aerial living beings (animalia). Lowest of all they placed the human souls, which, according to merit or demerit, were to share the society either of the gods or of the demons. To all they attributed Divine worship, as St. Augustine says (De Civ. Dei, VIII, 14).An essential difference exists between idolatry and the veneration of images practised in the Catholic Church, viz., that while the idolater credits the image he reverences with Divinity or Divine powers, the Catholic knows "that in images there is no divinity or virtue on account of which they are to be worshipped, that no petitions can be addressed to them, and that no trust is to be placed in them. . . that the honour which is given to them is referred to the objects (prototypa) which they represent, so that through the images which we kiss, and before which we uncover our heads and kneel, we adore Christ and venerate the Saints whose likenesses they are" (Conc. find., Sess. XXV, "de invocatione Sanctorum"). MORAL ASPECTConsidered in itself, idolatry is the greatest of mortal sins. For it is, by definition, an inroad on God’s sovereignty over the world, an attempt on His Divine majesty, a rebellious setting up of a creature on the throne that belongs to Him alone. Even the simulation of idolatry, in order to escape death during persecution, is a mortal sin, because of the pernicious falsehood it involves and the scandal it causes. Of Seneca who, against his better knowledge, took part in idolatrous worship, St. Augustine says: "He was the more to be condemned for doing mendaciously what people believed him to do sincerely". The guilt of idolatry, however, is not to be estimated by its abstract nature alone; the concrete form it assumes in the conscience of the sinner is the all-important element. No sin is mortal &#151 i.e. debars man from attaining the end for which he was created &#151 that is not committed with clear knowledge and free determination. But how many, or how few, of the countless millions of idolaters are, or have been, able to distinguish between the one Creator of all things and His creatures? and, having made the distinction, how many have been perverse enough to worship the creature in preference to the Creator? &#151 It is reasonable, Christian, and charitable to suppose that the "false gods" of the heathen were, in their conscience, the only true God they knew, and that their worship being right in its intention, went up to the one true God with that of Jews and Christians to whom He had revealed Himself. "In the day when God shall judge the secrets of men by Jesus Christ . . . . . the gentiles who have not the law, shall be judged by their conscience" (Romans 2:14-16). God, who wishes all men to be saved, and Christ, who died for all who sinned in Adam, would be frustrated in their merciful designs if the prince of this world were to carry off all idolaters. CAUSESIdolatry in its grosser forms is so far removed from the Christianized mind that it is no easy matter to account for its origin. Its persistence after gaining a first footing, and its branching out in countless varieties, are sufficiently explained by the moral necessity imposed on the younger generation to walk in the path of their elders with only insignificant deviations to the right or to the left. Thus Christian generations follow upon Christian generations; if sects arise they are Christian sects. The question as to the first origin of idolatry is thus answered by St. Thomas: "The cause of idolatry is twofold: dispositive on the part of man; consummative on the part of the demons."Men were led to idolatry first by disordered affections, inasmuch as they bestowed divine honours upon someone whom they loved or venerated beyond measure. This cause is indicated in Wisdom 14:15: ’For a father being afflicted by bitter grief, made to himself the image of his son who was quickly taken away; and him who then had died as a man, he began now to worship as a god . . . ’, and 14:21: ’Men serving either their affection or their king, gave the incommunicable name to stones and wood’. "Second: By their natural love for artistic representations: uncultured men, seeing statues cunningly reproducing the figure of man, worshipped them as gods. Hence we read in Wisdom 13:11 sq., ’An artist, a carpenter has cut down a tree proper for his use in the wood . . . . . . and by the skill of his art fashioneth it and maketh it like the image of a man . . . . . and then maketh prayers to it, inquiring concerning his substance and his children or his marriage’. "Third: By their ignorance of the true God: man, not considering the excellence of God, attributed divine worship to certain creatures excelling in beauty or virtue: Wisdom 13:1-2:’ . . . . . neither by attending to the works have [men] acknowledged who was the workman, but have imagined either the fire, or the wind, or the swift air, or the circle of the stars, or the great water, or the sun and moon, to be the gods that rule the world’."The consummative cause of idolatry was the influence of the demons who offered themselves to the worship of erring men, giving answers from idols or doing things which to men seemed marvelous, whence the Psalmist says (Psalm 95:5): ’All the gods of the gentiles are devils’" (II-II, Q. xciv, a. 4).The causes which the writer of Wisdom, probably an Alexandrian Jew living in the second century B. C., assigns to the idolatry prevalent in his time and environment, are sufficient to account for the origin of all idolatry. Man’s love for sense images is not a vagary but a necessity of his mind. Nothing is in the intellect that has not previously passed through the senses. All thought that transcends the sphere of direct sense knowledge is clothed in material garments, be they only a word or a mathematical symbol. Likewise, the knowledge of things impervious to our senses, that comes to us by revelation, is communicated and received through the senses external or internal, and is further elaborated by comparison with notions evolved from sense perceptions; all our knowledge of the supernatural proceeds by analogy with the natural. Thus, throughout the Old Testament God reveals Himself in the likeness of man, and in the New, the Son of God, assuming human nature, speaks to us in parables and similitudes. Now, the human mind, when sufficiently ripe to receive the notion of God, is already stocked with natural imagery in which it clothes the new idea. That the limited mind of man cannot adequately represent, picture, or conceive the infinite perfection o God, is self-evident. If left to his own resources, man will slowly and imperfectly develop the obscure notion of a superior or supreme power on which his well-being depends and whom he can conciliate or offend. In this process intervenes the second cause of idolatry: ignorance. The Supreme Power is apprehended in the works and workings of nature; in sun and stars, in fertile fields, in animals, in fancied invisible influences, in powerful men. And there, among the secondary causes, the "groping after God" may end in the worship of sticks and stones. St. Paul told the Athenians that God had "winked at the times of this ignorance" during which they erected altars "To the unknown God", which implies that He had compassion on their ignorance and sent them the light of truth to reward their good intention (Acts 17:22-31). As soon as the benighted heathen has located his unknown god, love and fear, which are but the manifestations of the instinct of self-preservation, shape the cultus of the idol into sacrifices or other congenial religious practices. Ignorance of the First Cause, the need of images for fixing higher conceptions, the instinct of self-preservation &#151 these are the psychological causes of idolatry. IDOLATRY IN ISRAELThe worship of one God is inculcated from the first to the last page of the Bible. How long man, on the strength of the revelation transmitted by Adam and subsequently by Noe, adored God in spirit and truth is an insoluble problem. Monotheism, however, appears to have been the starting-point of all religious systems known to us through trustworthy documents. The Animism, Totemism, Fetishism of the lower races; the nature-worship, ancestor-worship, and hero-worship of civilized nations are hybrid forms of religion, evolved on the psychological lines indicated above; all are incarnations in the uncultured or cultured mind, and manifestations of one fundamental notion, namely, that there is above man a power on whom man is dependent for good and evil. Polytheism is born of the confusion of second causes with the First Cause; it grows in inverse ratio of higher mental faculties; it dies out under the clear light of reason or revelation. The first undoubted mention of idolatry in the Bible is in Genesis 31:19: "Rachel stole away her father’s idols [teraphim]", and when Laban overtook Jacob in his flight and made search for "his gods", Rachel "in haste hid the idols under the camel’s furniture, and sat upon them" (31:34). Yet Laban also worshipped the same God as Jacob, whose blessing he acknowledges (30:27), and on whom he calls to judge between him and Jacob (30:53). A similar practice of blending reverence to the true God with the idolatrous worship of surrounding nations runs though the whole history of Israel. When Moses delayed to come down from the holy mount, the people, "gathering together against Aaron, said: Arise, make us gods, that may go before us". And Aaron made a molten calf, "and they said: These are thy gods, O Israel, that have brought thee out of the land of Egypt. And . . . they offered holocausts, and peace victims, and the people sat down to eat, and drink, and they rose up to play" (Exodus 32:1 sqq.). In Settim "the people committed fornication with the daughters of Moab, . . . and adored their gods. And Israel was initiated to Beelphegor" (Numbers 25:1-3). Again, after the death of Josue, "the children of Israel . . . served Baalim . . . and they followed strange gods, and the gods of the people that dwelt round about them" (Judges 2:11 sq.) . Whenever the children of Israel did evil in the eyes of Jehovah, swift retribution overtook them; they were given into the hands of their enemies. Yet idolatry remained the national sin down to the times of the Machabees. This striking fact has for its causes, first, the natural endeavour of man to come in contact with the object of his worship; he wants gods that go before him, visible, tangible, easily accessible; in the case of the Israelites the strict prohibition of worshipping images added to idolatry the allurement of the forbidden fruit; secondly, the allurement of the pleasures of the flesh offered to the worshippers of the strange divinities; thirdly, mixed marriages, occasionally on a large scale; fourthly, the intercourse in peace and war and exile with powerful neighbours who attributed their prosperity to other gods than Jehovah. The less enlightened Israelites probably conceived of the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as "their God", Who laid no claim to universal rule. If so, they may frequently have become idolaters for the sake of temporal advantage.But why did God permit such deviations from the truth? If in His judgment idolatry, as practised by the Jews, is the unmitigated evil which it appears to our judgment, no satisfactory answer can be given to this question, it is the eternal problem of sin and evil. The best that can be said is that the constantly recurring cycle of sin, punishment, repentance, forgiveness, were for God the occasion of a magnificent display of justice, mercy, and longanimity; to the Chosen People a constant reminder of their need of a Redeemer; to the members of the Kingdom of Christ a type of God’s dealings with sinners. It may also be pleaded that idolatry in Israel had more the character of ignorant superstition than of contempt of Jehovah. Like the superstitious or quasi-superstitious practices and devotions to which even Christian populations are prone, much of the idolatrous cult in Israel was an excess of piety, rather than an act of impiety, towards the Supreme Power distinctly felt but dimly understood. The well-meant but ill-directed worship never became the religion of Israel; it was never more than a temporary invasion of extraneous religious practices, often deeply overlaying the national religion, but never completely supplanting it. As a last consideration, the punishment of idolatry in Israel was always national and temporal. The prophets held out no eternal bliss or eternal torments as incentives to faithful service of God. And the Prophet of prophets, Christ the Judge, may well repeat from the seat of judgment the words He spoke on the Cross: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do". IDOLATRY AMONG THE HEATHENThe causes at work in the genesis of idolatry have produced effects as varied and manifold as the human family itself. The original idea of God has taken in the mind of man all the distorted and fanciful forms which a liquid is liable to assume in a collapsible vessel, or clay in the potter’s hands. As, in the course of ages, the power of healing has been attributed to almost every substance and combination of substances, so has the Divine power been traced in all things, and all things have been worshipped accordingly. As an illustration, the worship of animals may be briefly considered. From the beginning and throughout his history, man is associated with the lower animals. Adam is surrounded by them in Eden, and Eve speaks familiarly to the serpent. Sacrificed animals link man to God, from the sacrifice of Abel to the taurobolium of the latest superstition of pagan Rome. The scapegoat carries with it the sins of the people, the paschal lamb redeems them. The Lamb that taketh away the sins of the world, the dove which represents the Holy Ghost, the animal emblems of the Evangelists, the dragon of St. Michael and of St. George of England, not to mention others, are familiar to Christians.The heathen mind has moved in similar grooves. In oldest Egypt we find the bull associated with the godhead and receiving divine homage &#151 whether as a special representative, a manifestation, a symbol, or a receptacle of the divinity, it is impossible to decide. From the seventh century B. C. onwards every god is figured with the head of some animal sacred to him; Thot has the head of an ibis, Amon a ram’s, Horus a hawk’s, Anubis a jackal’s, etc. Were the Egyptians and other zoolaters guided by the same symbolism that leads us to call on "the Lamb of God" for forgiveness of our sins? If so animal-worship runs through the following stages: Man’s close association with animal life fills his mental storehouse with composite notions &#151 e. g., the faithful dog, the sly fox, the cunning serpent, the patient ass &#151 in which the animal embodies a human attribute. Next, the adjective is dropped, and the animal name is used as a predicate of persons, as a personal, family, tribal, or divine name. At this point the process branches off according to the religious temper of the people. Where Monotheism rules, the animal, alive or figured, is but an emblem or a symbol; among untutored savages, like the Red Indians, it is the bearer of the tribe’s tutelary spirit and the object of various degrees of worship; in decaying religions &#151 e. g., Egyptian later polytheism &#151 it is identified with the god whose characteristic it represents, and shares with him in divine honours. The light of Revelation has cleared away the aberrations of this natural process wherever it has penetrated, but traces of it remain embedded in many, perhaps in all, languages. Thus Wodan’s sacred wolf still enters into 357 personal names borne by Germans. (See also IMAGES; RELIGION; WORSHIP.)-----------------------------------For dogmatic and moral side, see works quoted in text. The history of idolatry is now studied as comparative religion, hut as yet there is no standard Catholic work on the subject. For monographs, see BABYLONIA; CHINA; EGYPT; GREECE; also the series of the London Catholic Truth Society, History of Religion (32 lectures in 4 vols., London, 1908 &#151 ); and two similar series, each called Science et Religion (Paris).J. WILHELM. Transcribed by Douglas J. Potter Dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus Christ The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume VIICopyright © 1910 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightNihil Obstat, June 1, 1910. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., CensorImprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

ı̄-dol´a-tri (תּרפים , t^erāphı̄m, “household idols,” “idolatry”; εἰδωλολατρεία, eidōlolatreı́a): There is ever in the human mind a craving for visible forms to express religious conceptions, and this tendency does not disappear with the acceptance, or even with the constant recognition, of pure spiritual truths (see IMAGES). Idolatry originally meant the worship of idols, or the worship of false gods by means of idols, but came to mean among the Old Testament Hebrews any worship of false gods, whether by images or otherwise, and finally the worship of Yahweh through visible symbols (Hos 8:5, Hos 8:6; Hos 10:5); and ultimately in the New Testament idolatry came to mean, not only the giving to any creature or human creation the honor or devotion which belonged to God alone, but the giving to any human desire a precedence over God’s will (1Co 10:14; Gal 5:20; Col 3:5; 1Pe 4:3). The neighboring gods of Phoenicia, Canaan, Moab - Baal, Melkart, Astarte, Chemosh, Moloch, etc. - were particularly attractive to Jerusalem, while the old Semitic calf-worship seriously affected the state religion of the Northern Kingdom (see GOLDEN CALF). As early as the Assyrian and Babylonian periods (8th and 7th centuries bc), various deities from the Tigris and Euphrates had intruded themselves - the worship of Tammuz becoming a little later the most popular and seductive of all (Eze 8:14) - while the worship of the sun, moon, stars and signs of the Zodiac became so intensely fascinating that these were introduced even into the temple itself (2Ki 17:16; 2Ki 21:3-7; 2Ki 23:4, 2Ki 23:12; Jer 19:13; Eze 8:16; Amo 5:26).

The special enticements to idolatry as offered by these various cults were found in their deification of natural forces and their appeal to primitive human desires, especially the sexual; also through associations produced by intermarriage and through the appeal to patriotism, when the help of some cruel deity was sought in time of war. Baal and Astarte worship, which was especially attractive, was closely associated with fornication and drunkenness (Amo 2:7, Amo 2:8; compare 1Ki 14:23 f), and also appealed greatly to magic and soothsaying (e.g. Isa 2:6; Isa 3:2; Isa 8:19).

Sacrifices to the idols were offered by fire (Hos 4:13); libations were poured out (Isa 57:6; Jer 7:18); the first-fruits of the earth and tithes were presented (Hos 2:8); tables of food were set before them (Isa 65:11); the worshippers kissed the idols or threw them kisses (1Ki 19:18; Hos 13:2; Job 31:27); stretched out their hands in adoration (Isa 44:20); knelt or prostrated themselves before them and sometimes danced about the altar, gashing themselves with knives (1Ki 18:26, 1Ki 18:28; for a fuller summary see EB).

Even earlier than the Babylonian exile the Hebrew prophets taught that Yahweh was not only superior to all other gods, but reigned alone as God, other deities being nonentities (Lev 19:4; Isa 2:8, Isa 2:18, Isa 2:20; Isa 19:1, Isa 19:3; Isa 31:7; Isa 44:9-20). The severe satire of this period proves that the former fear of living demons supposed to inhabit the idols had disappeared. These prophets also taught that the temple, ark and sacrifices were not essential to true spiritual worship (e.g. Jer 3:16; Amo 5:21-25). These prophecies produced a strong reaction against the previously popular idol-worship, though later indications of this worship are not infrequent (Eze 14:1-8; Isa 42:17). The Maccabean epoch placed national heroism plainly on the side of the one God, Yahweh; and although Greek and Egyptian idols were worshipped in Gaza and Ascalon and other half-heathen communities clear down to the 5th or 6th century of the Christian era, yet in orthodox centers like Jerusalem these were despised and repudiated utterly from the 2nd century bc onward. See also GOLDEN CALF; GODS; IMAGES; TERAPHIM.

Literature

Wm. Wake, A Discourse concerning the Nature of Idolatry, 1688; W.R. Smith, Lectures on the Religion of the Semites; E.B. Tylor, Primitive Culture; J.G. Frazer, Golden Bough (3 vols); L.R. Farnell, Evolution of Religion, 1905; Baudissin, Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte; Beathgen, Der Gott Israels u. die Götter der Heiden, 1888.

So deep-rooted was the Jewish hatred of idolatry, and so general had been the condemnation of the practice, that our Lord found no reason for insistence upon the generally accepted commandments on the subject. But soon as the gospel message began to be preached outside the pale of Judaism, the matter became one of the pressing questions of the day. Protests against the popular practice had not been wanting from the older Greek thinkers; Heraclitus, Xenophanes, and Zeno had all raised their voices against image-worship. But the popular mind was not affected by their teaching, and many were the apologists who wrote in favour of the established custom. It is not surprising to read (Act_17:16) that, when St. Paul visited Athens, ‘his spirit was provoked within him, as he beheld the city full of idols,’ even though the statement is not strictly accurate. His whole training rendered him antagonistic to anything approaching idolatry; and in his letters the same feeling is expressed. No Christian was to keep company with idolaters (1Co_5:10 f.), who could not inherit the Kingdom of God (1Co_6:9, Eph_5:5). He reminds the Thessalonians that they had abandoned the old idolatrous worship ‘to serve the living God’ (1Th_1:9). Yet from the Christian point of view there is only one God, and the true Christian cannot but recognize that thus ‘no idol is anything in the world’ (1Co_8:4).

But there are two aspects of idolatry which caused the greatest anxiety in the primitive Church.

(a) The decision of the Jerusalem Council as to the duties incumbent upon heathen converts contains the significant phrase, ‘that they abstain from the pollutions of idols’ (Act_15:20), ‘from meats offered to idols’ (Act_15:29). The command is intended as a comprehensive one, meaning that idolatry in every form is to be avoided; ‘participation in the idolatrous feasts is especially emphasised, simply because this was the crassest form of idolatry’ (A. Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. translation , 1909, p. 257). But it was also the means of subtle temptation, which gave rise to a serious question. The probability was that most of the meat sold in the markets as well as that set before the guests at Gentile tables had been ‘offered to idols.’ What was the Christian to do? Was he to buy no meat? Must he refuse all such invitations? It must not be forgotten that the breach between St. Paul and the Judaizers had never been really healed. The partisans on either side were ever on the look-out for opportunities to widen it. The leaders did their utmost to heal the quarrel. Therefore, in dealing with the questions raised by the Corinthian Church, St. Paul was compelled to remember that he must not give any offence to the Judaizing section, which was evidently represented there (1Co_1:11 ff.), since he had acquiesced in the Apostolic Decree. It is true that this was only in the nature of a compromise, but its recommendations must be carried out as far as possible. On the other hand, the Gentile section of the community, which was responsible for raising the question, was in favour of a broad-minded view. And St. Paul’s dilemma was increased by the fact that his sympathies were with them. He lays the greatest stress, therefore, upon the principle that idolatry is wholly hateful and must be carefully guarded against (1Co_10:14). In the worship of Israel, to eat the sacrifices of the altar is to have communion with the altar. It is true that the idol is nothing, and the sacrifice therefore has no meaning, yet idolatry among the heathen is demon-worship rather than the worship of God; would they wish to have communion with demons? (1Co_10:15 ff.). It was all very well to shelter behind the fact that Christians really know that there is only one God; but all have not this knowledge: consequently the weaker brethren-that is, those who are perplexed and troubled by these questions-may be led into danger by our actions. Yet a compromise is possible. They are to buy what is offered, and eat what is set before them, asking no questions (1Co_10:28 ff.). If either the seller or the host say, ‘This has been offered to idols,’ whether in a friendly or a hostile spirit, the Christians must have nothing to do with it. It is all a matter of expediency and, in part, of love. God’s glory must come first; neither Jew nor Greek nor the Church must be needlessly offended.

(b) The second aspect of idolatry afforded even more grievous trials, and was eventually the source of serious persecution: it was the rise of Emperor-worship. It is not difficult to see that such a cult was almost inevitable under existing circumstances. There had always been a tendency among Greeks and Romans to deify heroes of the past, but the practice gradually grew up of erecting temples in honour of living heroes (Plutarch, Lysander, xviii.; Herodotus, v. 47). It was perhaps not unnatural that a cult of the all-victorious city of Rome should arise, and as early as 195 b.c. there was a temple in its honour at Smyrna. Taking all these facts into consideration, the development of the Imperial cult under the Empire was only to be looked for. After the death of Julius Caesar a temple in his honour was erected at Ephesus (29 b.c.), and it was only a step to pay a like honour to Augustus during his lifetime (Tacitus, Ann. iv. 37). Such men as Gaius and Domitian were ready enough to encourage the idea (Suetonius, Domit. xiii.). In the province of Asia the cult was hailed with delight, and the result, as touching Christians, is seen in the Apocalypse (13). Such a cult was bound to change the whole relationship between Christianity and the Roman power. As a general rule it would be quite possible to escape offending susceptibilities with regard to the worship of the older gods, but the new cult was so universal and so popular that it soon became fraught with grave danger for members of the Christian community. Antichrist had indeed arisen, and fierce warfare could be the only result.

Literature.-For the whole subject: J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough2, 1900, also edition of Pausanias, 1898; V. Chapot, La Province romaine proconsulaire d’Asie, 1904; for (a): Commentaries of Heinrici (1896), Schmiedel (1892), Ellicott (1887), Stanley (21858), Robertson-Plummer (1911) on 1 Corinthians 8-10; and for (b): H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of St. John2, 1907, pp. lxxviii-xciii; B. F. Westcott, Epp. of St. John, 1883, pp. 250-282; E. Beurlier, Le Culte impérial, 1891; G. Boissier, La Religion romaine, 1892, i. 109-186; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer, 1902, pp. 71-78, 280-289.

F. W. Worsley.