The History of Images in Christianity

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Images have been used through out history to depict everything from people to gods and everything in between. It was a way for those who could not read to understand the bible stories and lessons. When Christianity started to become more popular early theologians believed that images were considered to be idolatry. When Iconoclasm started they believed that images were bad as well, but people started to find a purpose for images and the issue of images in religion was some what concluded with Bernard of Clairvaux who believed they were good as long as the were used to honor God. Theologians through out time have all had many different ideas on what images should and should not be used for in Christianity.
According to Exodus 20:4 God tells his chosen people “Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”(KJV). Early Christian theologians took the second commandment very seriously; they thought that images of Christ and God were wrong because they considered them to be idols or graven images; breaking the second commandment. Most Christians, in the early days and now, believe that God has no form, allowing Him to be omnipresent; early theologians believed that making in image of God or Jesus Christ confines Him. According to Justin Martyr in First Apology, ch. IX because earlier cultures used images to have the presence of certain gods around, which would make the Christian God “soulless and dead,” like the gods in the other cultures. Minucius Felix also argues that God is to big to confined into a small temple or shrine, he says in Octavius, ch. XXXII “What temple can I build for him, when the whole uni...

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...stracted and read the fictional stories on the wall rather than the important stories and lessons in the bible. Many would agree that certain images can be a distraction and that it should be troubling to those of the Christian faith.
All of these theologians had different opinions on what images are good for, but there is one thing that they all agreed on; images should not be used for idolatry, or as a distraction from studies. One thing that the images were good for, as mentioned latter on by Bernard of Clairvaux is that as long as the images glorify God they are not considered idolatry, which does seem to contradict itself. Today there are many images of Jesus Christ, God and the Holly Spirit. They are used not only as decoration, but to remind those who are religious of the different stories of the bible and that God sent down his son to die for their sins.

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