"My glory will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven
images." - Jehovah.
"The saints reigning together with Christ are to be honored and
invocated; ... they offer prayers to God for us... their relics are
to be venerated." - Creed of Pope Pius IV.
"For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men - the man
Christ Jesus." - Paul.
"Mary is everything in heaven and earth, and we should adore her." -
The South American Priest.
"Who changed the truth of God into a lie and worshipped and served
the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever." - Paul
"All power was given to her." - Peter Damian, Cardinal of Rome.
"Search the Scriptures." - The Christ.
"All who read the Bible should be stoned to death." - Pope Innocent
III.
PART VI.
MARIOLATRY AND IMAGE WORSHIP.
[Illustration: OUR LADY OF GUADALOUPE. Many legacies are left to this
image.]
CHAPTER XIV.
MARIOLATRY AND IMAGE WORSHIP.
Before the light of Christianity dawned on ancient Rome, the Pantheon
contained goddesses many and gods many. Chief of these deities to
receive the worship of the people seems to have been Diana of the
Ephesians, a goddess whose image fell down from Jupiter; the
celestial Venus of Corinth, and Isis, sister to Osiris, the god of
Egypt. These popular images, so universally worshipped, were
naturally the aversion of the early followers of Christ. "The
primitive Christians were possessed with an unconquerable repugnance
to the use and abuse of images. The Jewish disciples were especially
bitter against any but the triune God receiving homage, but, by a
slow, though inevitable, progression, the honors of the original were
transferred to the copy, the devout Christian prayed before the image
of a saint, and the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminaries, and
incense stole into the Christian Church." [Footnote: Gibbons'
"Rome."]
Having Paul's masterly epistle to the Romans, in the first chapter of
which he so distinctly portrays man's tendency to change "the glory
of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man,"
and worship and serve the creature more than the Creator, who is
blessed forever, they were careful to remember that "God is a
spirit," and to be worshipped only in spirit. Peter, in his epistle
to them, also wrote of the One "whom having not seen ye love." As
time wore on, however, the original inclination of man to worship a
god he could see and feel (a trait seen all down the pages of
history) asserted itself, and Mary, the mother of Christ, took the
place in the eye and the heart previously occupied by her
predecessors. [Footnote: Just as this work goes to press, the dally
papers of the world announce that the oldest idol ever discovered has
just been unearthed. The idol is a goddess, who is holding an infant
in her arms.] Being in possession of the Acts of the Apostles, which
plainly declares that Mary herself met with the rest of the disciples
"for prayer and supplication," and, knowing from the four Gospels
that no worship had been at first given to her, the innovation was
slow to find favor; but, in the year 431, the Council of Ephesus
decided that Mary was equal with God.
"After the ruin of paganism they were no longer restrained by the
apprehension of an odious parallel" in the idol worship. Symptoms of
degeneracy may be observed even in the first generations which
adopted and cherished this pernicious innovation. "The worship of
images had stolen into the Church by insensible degrees, and each
petty step was pleasing to the superstitious mind, as productive of
comfort and innocent of sin. But, in the beginning of the eighth
century, in the full magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous Greeks
were awakened by an apprehension that, under the mask of
Christianity, they had restored the religion of their fathers. They
heard with grief and impatience the name of 'idolaters,' the
incessant charge of the Jews and Mahometans, who derived from the Law
and the Koran an immortal hatred to graven images and all the
relative worship." [Footnote: Gibbons' "Rome."]
It should be a most humiliating fact to the Romanists to have it
recorded as authentic history that "the great miracle-working Madonna
of Rome, worshipped in the Church of St. Augustina, is only a pagan
statue of the wicked Agrippina with her infant Nero in her arms.
Covered with jewels and votive offerings, her foot encased in gold,
because the constant kissing has worn away the stone, this haughty
and evil-minded Roman matron bears no possible resemblance to the
pure Virgin Mary; yet crowds are always at her feet, worshipping her.
The celebrated bronze statue of St. Peter, which is adored in the
great Church, and whose feet are entirely kissed away by the lips of
devotees, is but an antique statue of Jupiter, an idol of paganism.
All that was necessary to make the pagan god a Christian saint was to
turn the thunderbolt in his uplifted right hand to two keys, and put
a gilded halo around his head. Yet, on any Church holiday, you will
see thousands passing solemnly before this image (arrayed in gorgeous
robes, with the Pope's mitre on its head), and after bowing before
it, rise on their toes and repeatedly kiss its feet." [Footnote:
Vickers' "Rome"]
This method of receiving heathen deities as saints has been common
all over South America, and many Indian idols may be seen in the
churches, now adored as Roman Catholic saints, while the worship of
Mary has grown to an alarming extent.
