IMAGES, Veneration of, the of venerating, worshipping and honoring in pub lic or private graven or painted representations of sacred things or persons. Because of the general prevalence of idolatrous worship of images, the Jews in the Old Law were for bidden the making of images, although evidence of the lawfulness of the practice is afforded in the positive command to ((make two cherubim of beaten gold on the two sides of the oracle,* to ((make a brazen serpent and put it up for a sign? Though the walls of the catacombs, which were the refuge of the first Christians in times of persecution, show many symbols, such as the anchor, palm branch, dove and fish, it was not those primitive believers who intro duced images and pictures into the churches. Indeed, during the great struggle against heathenism, there was a strong opposition to any form of idolatry. It was not until after the period of the persecutions that the use of sacred images or paintings became open and undespised. The Council of Elvira (A.D. 306) decided against the use of pictures in churches, yet during • the following 90 years pictures of martyrs and saints were set up in sacred edifices. The representation of Christ in the form of a man was ordained at the Sixth Gen. eral Council (Constantinople 692), instead of, as heretofore, under the symbol of the Lamb.
Images of the Holy Trinity were later sanc tioned by the Second Council of Nice 087), though a distinction was laid down between adoration (latreia) and reverence (douleia), the latter to be paid only to the persons repre sented, and not their images. With the spread ing of the custom came the adoption of in cense and candles. A school of iconoclasts image-breakers — arose in the Eastern Church during the 8th century, entirely condemning not only the veneration paid to
images, but even the existence of them. In 726 the Emperor Leo III prohibited the practice and soon after (730) ordered the images to be destroyed. The Church split into two parties over the question, each in turn persecuting the other. The con troversy, which lasted over a century, was ended under the Empress Theodora by a council at Constantinople in 842 declaring in favor of image worship among the Greeks. The decision was confirmed by another coun cil in 869-70. In the modern Greek Church ikons or pictures are permitted, but no graven images; in the Roman Catholic Church the use of images was continued. Though not accepted by the English Church of that period, images were later introduced. Consult Damas cene,