Idolatry

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 of 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 — these are the psychological causes of idolatry.

The 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 Noah, 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 ff.). 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 ff.) . 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".

The 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 — 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 — e.g., the faithful dog, the sly fox, the cunning serpent, the patient ass — 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 — e.g., Egyptian later polytheism — 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.)