more frequently these are observed by means of such
representations, so much the more will the beholders be aroused to
recollect the originals and to long after them, and to pay the images
the tribute of an embrace and a reverence of honor, not to pay to
them the actual worship which is according to our faith, and which is
proper only to the divine nature: but as to the figure of the venerable
and life-giving cross, and to the holy Gospels and the other sacred
monuments, so to those images to accord the honor of incense and
oblation of lights, as it has been the pious custom of antiquity. For
the honor paid to the image passes to its original, and he that honors
an image honors in it the person depicted thereby.”
The real purpose of the commandment is to steer the people of God away
from idolatry, that is, the worship of any false god. Consider the following
passages:
“For they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other
gods; then the anger of the Lord would be kindled against you, and he
would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall
break down their altars, and dash in pieces their pillars, and hew down
their Asherim, and burn their graven images with fire” (Deut. 7:4-5).
“And the people of Israel did secretly against the Lord their God things
that were not right. They built for themselves high places at all their towns,
from watchtower to fortified city; they set up for themselves pillars and
Asherim on every high hill and under every green tree; and there they
burned incense on all the high places, as the nations did whom the Lord
carried away before them. And they did wicked things, provoking the Lord
to anger, and they served idols, of which the Lord had said to them, ‘You
shall not do this’” (2 Kgs. 17:9-12).
God obviously abhors idolatry; however, in the same Scriptures we see the
Jews making statues for legitimate religious purposes, and under God’s
command:
“And the Lord said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent, and set it on a pole;
and every one who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. So Moses made a
bronze serpent, and set it on a pole; and if a serpent bit any man, he would
look at the bronze serpent and live” (Num. 21:8-9).
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