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| Idolatry: Origin and Meaning of the Name.
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Chapter III.—Idolatry:
Origin and Meaning of the Name.
Idol in ancient times there was none. Before the
artificers of this monstrosity had bubbled into being,173
| 173 “Boiled
out,” “bubbled out.” | temples stood solitary and shrines empty,
just as to the present day in some places traces of the ancient
practice remain permanently. Yet idolatry used to be practised, not
under that name, but in that function; for even at this day it can be
practised outside a temple, and without an idol. But when the
devil introduced into the world artificers of statues and of images,
and of every kind of likenesses, that former rude business of human
disaster attained from idols both a name and a development.
Thenceforward every art which in any way produces an idol instantly
became a fount of idolatry. For it makes no difference whether a
moulder cast, or a carver grave, or an embroiderer weave the
idol; because neither is it a question of material, whether an idol
be formed of gypsum, or of colors, or of stone, or of bronze,174
or of silver, or of thread. For since even
without an idol idolatry is committed, when the idol is there it makes
no difference of what kind it be, of what material, or what shape; lest
any should think that only to be held an idol which is
consecrated in human shape. To establish this point, the interpretation
of the word is requisite. Eidos, in Greek,
signifies form; eidolon, derived
diminutively from that, by an equivalent process in our language, makes
formling.175
Every form or
formling, therefore, claims to be called an idol. Hence
idolatry is “all attendance and service about every
idol.” Hence also, every artificer of an idol is guilty of one
and the same crime,176
unless, the
People177
| 177 [Capitalized to mark its
emphatic sense, i.e., the People of God = the Jews.] | which consecrated for itself the likeness of
a calf, and not of a man, fell short of incurring the guilt of
idolatry.178
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