One of the greatest disproves of the Roman
Catholic and Eastern Orthodox claim to be the only true Church is their
dogmatic teachings about the veneration of icons. To see the overwhelming
biblical and patristic evidence showing that there is nothing in
so-called “apostolic tradition” (whether written or oral), and instead, there is a
wealth of evidence refuting such, see the listing of articles at:
Answering
Fundamentalist Protestants and Roman Catholic/Eastern Orthodox on Images/Icons
On this issue, and how the Christianity of
the 8th century, where icon veneration was elevated to a dogma at
the Second Council of Nicea (787) is at odds with early Christianity on this
issue, note the following from Latter-day Saint Daryl Chase:
Use of
Images by Christians
The use
of images by Christians is merely one phrase of the total story of Christianity
and the ancient arts. During the first two centuries Christians, like Jews, ridiculed
and abhorred the pagan practice of using images in their religious devotions.
Intelligent pagans defended their practice on the grounds that they were not
idolaters, worshiping the object before which they knelt, but merely employed
various symbols of the gods to focus their minds upon the deity whose aid they
sought or the virtue which they desired to emulate. However, it is known that
pictures appeared in Christian churches before peace was won from the state.
The Synod of Elvira (305) ruled that pictures or images ought not to be in the
churches because of the danger that they might become objects of worship or
adoration in themselves. But the practice was not checked. The use of pictures
and images by Christians were so common by the seventh century that Jews and
Mohammedans called them idolaters, just as the Christians centuries earlier had
taunted the pagans. In addition to the old pagan arguments in defense of
images, the Christians cited in the Old Testament scriptures that God commanded
the ancient Israelites to make two cherubim of beaten gold to be placed on each
side of the oracle (Exodus 25:18); and he ordered Moses to make a brazen
serpent and set it up for the people to gaze upon and thereby save themselves from
the fiery serpents (Numbers 21:8).
In the
west the practice of making images of the Saints, the Virgin Mary, and Jesus
continued practically unchecked. In the east bitter controversy grew out of the
practice. The Emperor Leo, the Isurian (718-741), prohibited prostration before
images and ordered them placed so high that people could not kiss them.
Finally, after a century of controversy and much blood shed over the subject,
the iconoclasts (i.e. image breakers) lost out in the east. From the middle of
the ninth century pictures and mosaics were used widely in the east, but the “artists”
were forced to follow rigorously the traditional and conventional models. Quite
in contrast, in the west the Christian Church proved to be the greatest patron
of the arts. (Daryl Chase, Christianity Through the Centuries [Salt Lake
City: Deseret Book Company and The Department of Education of The Church of
Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1947], 103-4)
