And early Christian tombs and catacombs bear paintings which are representations of biblical scenes.įor example, the fourth century Church historian Eusebius tells us that outside the house of the woman in the Gospels with a hemorrhage cured by Christ was “a bronze statue of a woman, resting on one knee and resembling a suppliant with arms outstretched. Here are images directly connected with the presence of God, and commanded by Him.įrom the very earliest years of the Church, Christians used such symbols as the cross, the fish, the peacock, the shepherd, and the dove. God said, “And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the ark of the Testimony, of all things which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel” (Exodus 25:22). In God’s commands to Moses concerning the tabernacle, given just a few chapters after the giving of the Ten Commandments, is this instruction: “Moreover you shall make the tabernacle with ten curtains woven of fine linen thread, and blue and purple and scarlet yarn with artistic designs of cherubim you shall weave them.”Ī similar command with respect to the Ark of the Covenant instructed Moses to have two cherubim of hammered gold at the ends of the mercy seat.
The Biblical Parametersīut was this done contrary to the command of God? Look at Exodus 26:1. And a recently unearthed synagogue of the last few centuries before Christ has paintings of biblical scenes on its walls. In both the tabernacle and the later temples there were images used, especially of the cherubim.
Certainly we know that even in legal-minded Israel, paintings and other artistic representations used to help the people remember spiritual truth were not at all unknown. The use of representations for instruction and as aids to piety goes back to the earliest centuries of the Church, and likely they were there in some form from the very beginning. Nor were they invented by an apostate medieval Church. The history of icons and of their use in the Orthodox Church is not only fascinating but instructive. So, the question is, do those icons, those paintings portraying Christ, His Mother, the saints, and special biblical events, come under the category of graven images? And the Bible, specifically the Old Testament law, does say, “Thou shalt have no graven images” (Exodus 20:4, KJV). That particular Church, like most Orthodox Churches, was very beautiful. His reference, of course, was to the icons, painted images of Jesus Christ and His followers who, through the centuries of our history as the Church, have been portrayed for all to see. “It’s pretty,” he said, “but doesn’t the Bible warn against graven images?” The first time I invited a particular Protestant friend to step inside an Orthodox Church, he looked around very slowly, carefully, cautiously.
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