in a religious sense, is an artificial representation. sentation or similitude of some person or thing, used either by way of decoration and ornament, or as an object of religious worship and adoration; in which last sense, it is used indifferently with the word Idol.
The noble Romans preserved the images of their ancestors with a great deal of care and concern, and had them carried in procession at their funerals and triumphs; these were commonly made of wax, or wood, though sometimes of marble or brass. They placed them in the vestibules of their houses; and they were to stay there, even if the houses happened to be sold, it being accounted impious to displace them. Appius Claudius was the first who brought them into the temples, in the year of Rome 259, and he added inscriptions to them, showing the origin of the persons represented, and their brave and virtuous achievements.—It was not, however, allowed for all, who had the images of their ancestors in their houses, to have them carried at their funerals; this was a thing only granted to such as had honourably discharged themselves of their offices: for those who failed in this respect, forfeited that privilege; and in case they had been guilty of any great crime, their images were broken in pieces. See Ignominae and Jus.
The Jews absolutely condemn all images, and do not so much as suffer any statues or figures in their houses, much less in their synagogues or places of worship.
The use and adoration of images are things that have been a long time controverted in the world.
It is plain, from the practice of the primitive church, recorded by the earlier fathers, that Christians, for the first three centuries after Christ, and the greater part of the fourth, neither worshipped images nor used them in their worship. However, the greater part of the Popish divines maintain, that the use and worship of images were as ancient as the Christian religion itself: to prove this, they allege a decree, said to have been made in a council held by the Apostles at Antioch, commanding the faithful, that they may not err about the object of their worship, to make images of Christ and worship them. Baron. ad ann. 102. But no notice is taken of this decree, till 700 years after the Apostolic times, after the dispute about images had commenced. The first instance that occurs in any credible author of images among Christians, is that recorded by Tertullian de Pudicit. c. 10, of certain cups, or chalices, as Bellarmine pretends, on which was represented the parable of the good shepherd carrying the lost sheep on his shoulders: but this instance only proves, that the church, at that time, did not think emblematical figures unlawful ornaments of cups or chalices. Another instance is taken from Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. lib. vii. cap. 18. who says, that in his time there were to be seen two brass statues in the city of Paneas or Caesarea Philippi; the one of a woman on her knees, with her arms stretched out, the other of a man over against her, with his hand extended to receive her: these statues were said to be the images of our Saviour and the woman whom he cured of an issue of blood. From the foot of the statue representing our Saviour, says the historian, sprung up an exotic plant, which, as soon as it grew to touch the border of his garment, was said to cure all sorts of distempers. Eusebius, however, vouches none of these things; nay, he supposes that the woman who erected this statue of our Saviour was a pagan, and ascribes it to a pagan custom. Farther, Philostorgius, Eccl. Hist. lib. vii. c. 3. expressly says, that this statue was carefully preserved by the Christians, but that they paid no kind of worship to it, because it is not lawful for Christians to worship brass or any other matter. The primitive Christians abstained from the worship of images, not, as the Papists pretend, from tenderness to heathen idolaters, but because they thought it unlawful in itself to make any images of the Deity. Justin Mart. Apol. ii. p. 44. Clem. Alex. Strom. 5. Strom. i. and Protr. p. 46. Aug. de Civit. Dei. lib. vii. c. 5. and lib. iv. c. 3. Id. de Fide et Symb. c. 7. Lactant. lib. ii. c. 3. Tertull. Apol. c. 12. Arnob. lib. vi. p. 202. Some of the fathers, as Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Origen, were of opinion, that, by the second commandment, the arts of painting and engraving were rendered unlawful to a Christian, flaying them evil and wicked arts. Tert. de Idol. cap. 3. Clem. Alex. Admon. ad Gent. p. 41. Orig. contra Celsum lib. vi. p. 182. The use of images in churches as ornaments, was first introduced by some Christians in Spain, in the beginning of the fourth century; but the practice was condemned as a dangerous innovation, in a council held at Eliberis in 305. Epiphanius, in a letter preserved by Jerom, tom. ii. ep. 6. bears strong testimony against images, and may be considered as one of the first Iconoclasts. The custom of admitting pictures of saints and martyrs into the churches (for this was the first source of image-worship) was rare in the latter end of the fourth century; but became common in the fifth: however, they were still considered only as ornaments; and even in this view, they met with very considerable opposition. In the following century the custom of thus adorning churches became almost universal, both in the east and west. Petavius expressly says, (de Incar. lib. xv. cap. 14.) that no statues were yet allowed in the churches; because they bore too near a resemblance to the idols of the Gentiles. Towards the close of the fourth or beginning of the fifth century, images, which were introduced by way of ornament, and then used as an aid to devotion, began to be actually worshipped. However, it continued to be the doctrine of the church in the fifth and in the beginning of the seventh century, that images were to be used only as helps to devotion, and not as objects of worship. The worship of them was condemned in the strongest terms by Pope Gregory the Great; as appears by two letters of his written in 601. From this time to the beginning of the eighth century, there occurs no single instance of any worship given or allowed to be given to images by any council or assembly of bishops whatever. But they were commonly worshipped by the monks and populace in the beginning of the eighth century; insomuch, that in the year 726, when Leo published his famous edict, it had already spread into all the provinces subject to the empire.
The Lutherans condemn the Calvinists for breaking the images in the churches of the Catholics, looking on it as a kind of sacrilege; and yet they condemn the Romanists (who are professed image-worshippers) as idolaters: nor can these last keep pace with the Greeks, who go far beyond them in this point; which has occasioned abundance of disputes among them. See Iconoclasts.
The Mahometans have a perfect aversion to images; which which was what led them to destroy most of the beautiful monuments of antiquity, both sacred and profane, at Constantinople.
in Rhetoric, also signifies a lively description of any thing in a discourse.
Images in discourse are defined by Longinus, to be, in general, any thoughts proper to produce expressions, and which present a kind of picture to the mind.
But, in the more limited sense, he says, images are such discourses as come from us, when, by a kind of enthusiasm, or an extraordinary emotion of the soul, we seem to see the things whereof we speak, and present them before the eyes of those who hear us.
Images, in rhetoric, have a very different use from what they have among the poets; the end principally proposed in poetry is, astonishment and surprize; whereas the thing chiefly aimed at in prose, is to paint things naturally, and to show them clearly. They have this, however, in common, that they both tend to move, each in its kind.
These images, or pictures, are of vast use, to give weight, magnificence, and strength, to a discourse. They warm and animate it; and, when managed with art, according to Longinus, seem, as it were, to tame and subdue the hearer, and put him in the power of the speaker.
in Optics, a figure in the form of any object, made by the rays of light issuing from the several points of it, and meeting in so many other points, either at the bottom of the eye, or on any other ground, or on any transparent medium, where there is no surface to reflect them. Thus we are said to see all objects by means of their images formed in the eye.