The Lie That Became a Religion
- Michelle Hayman
- 11 minutes ago
- 19 min read
From the earliest centuries of the Christian Church, the leading theologians spoke with remarkable unity on the subject of idolatry and the use of images in worship. Whether confronting pagan religions or addressing errors within the Church, writers such as Origen, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and Lactantius consistently upheld the biblical principle that God, as Spirit, is not to be represented by material forms nor approached through created intermediaries. Their works reveal that early Christianity preserved the commandment against images and rejected practices that directed prayer or devotion to anything other than God Himself. Far from being a later development, the refusal to worship images or invoke angels belonged to the core of Christian faith from its beginning, and the testimony of these Fathers shows how deeply this conviction shaped the Church’s understanding of true worship.
Origen presents one of the clearest patristic arguments against both idolatry and the veneration or invocation of angels. Throughout Contra Celsum, he contrasts Christian worship with the material and image-based worship of the Greeks and Egyptians. He emphasizes that the Law of Moses forbids the worship of images, teaching men to raise their minds above created things and fix them upon the Eternal God. As he writes: “Moses’s Law… forbids the Jews to worship Images, and teaches them to raise their Minds above all created Beings, and fix them on the Eternal God.” (Contra Celsum, p. 363) This principle is, for Origen, essential to the very nature of true religion. Since God is Spirit, He must be worshiped in spirit and in truth, not through images, statues, or material likenesses, a point he reiterates when he notes that God is to be worshiped in Spirit and in Truth (p. 408–409).
Origen criticizes idolaters for giving divine adoration to created objects, writing that they are “naturally ready to pay Divine Adoration to the most insignificant Trifle, rather than the Supreme and adorable Majesty.” (p. 333–334) He explains that such errors arise from pagan religion, which trusted in omens, magical arts, and visible images inhabited by demons. Celsus attempted to minimize Christianity’s rejection of images by appealing to Greek philosophy, citing Heraclitus, who said that those who approach lifeless images as if they were gods behave like men attempting to converse with houses. Origen answers that such insights arise from moral principles engraved by God upon the human mind, which is why Persians and philosophers like Zeno of Citium reached similar conclusions. He argues that these scattered recognitions reveal a universal sense that lifeless images cannot be divine.
Origen also exposes the inconsistency of those who defend Moses while denying Christ. He writes of those “who firmly believe, that the Miracles, which Moses wrought, were perform’d by the extraordinary assistance of the Spirit of God… can’t be prevail’d with to acknowledge, that our Blessed Saviour perform’d His miracles by an immediate assistance from above, but are so strangely fond of imitating the Egyptians, whom you know to be your sworn and irreconcilable enemies.” (p. 363–364) To imitate the Egyptians, Origen explains, is to adopt their idolatrous worldview, attributing divine power to physical objects, carved representations, and the demons believed to inhabit them.
Origen also rejects any appeal to angels or spirits as intermediaries. Although he describes angels as having distinct ministries under God, he never suggests that prayers should be directed to these beings. Their role relates to God’s administration of the world, not to receiving devotion from men. His theological teaching on prayer makes this absolutely explicit.
Origen is the earliest Christian writer to give a full treatise on prayer, De Oratione (On Prayer). In that work, he explicitly prohibits praying to angels or any created beings. His key statements are as follows.
Origen, On Prayer 10.2: “For we are not to pray to angels, but to God through His only-begotten Son. We must not pray to any created being, not even to Christ as man, but only to the God and Father of all, through the High Priest who is above all angels.” This is one of the clearest condemnations in the early Church of angel-invocation.
Origen, Contra Celsum 5.4: “It is not to beings without bodies, or to angels, or to any of those who are called gods by the Greeks that we pray, but to God the Father, through Jesus Christ.” Here he intentionally contrasts Christian prayer with pagan invocation of spiritual intermediaries.
Origen, Contra Celsum 8.26: “Christians send up prayers to God alone, who is over all, through His Word, whom we call our High Priest.” By excluding all others, Origen implicitly rules out angels, saints, heroes, planetary beings, and every spiritual entity other than God.
Origen, On Prayer 15.1: “We do not pray to Christ Himself, but to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, to whom Christ also prayed.” If even Christ’s humanity is not the final object of prayer, then angels certainly cannot be.
From these statements, Origen’s doctrinal position is unmistakable. No prayer may be directed to angels. No prayer may be directed to any created being whatsoever. Prayer is addressed to the Father through the Son. Christ, as High Priest, mediates prayer but is not replaced by angelic intermediaries. The pagan system of invoking lower spiritual powers is expressly rejected. This makes Origen one of the strongest early witnesses against angelic invocation.
For Origen, idolatry is irrational because it gives divine honor to created things. Images are forbidden because they reduce the invisible God to material form. Angels must not be invoked because prayer belongs to God alone. True worship is directed to the Father alone, through Christ alone, in the Holy Spirit. Christianity, in Origen’s view, did not modify the biblical prohibition of images or the worship of intermediaries; it preserved it. The church, like ancient Israel, was to worship the invisible God without statues, icons, or appeals to angelic beings.
See attached the writings of Origen
Clement of Alexandria (c. AD 150–215) provides one of the strongest and most philosophically sophisticated arguments against idolatry in all early Christian literature. He lived in the intellectual heart of the ancient world, where Greek philosophy, Egyptian religion, mystery cults, and the full array of pagan artistic traditions converged. Because of his classical education and deep familiarity with pagan literature, Clement understood the appeal of image-worship from the inside. Yet after embracing Christianity, he rejected the entire system as fundamentally irrational and spiritually destructive. His treatise known as The Exhortation to the Greeks is not merely a Christian critique of paganism; it is a relentless dismantling of every aspect of image-based religion.
Clement begins by addressing the origins of idols. He shows that the first images were nothing more than rough pieces of wood and stone, objects selected not for their beauty or sanctity but for convenience. Over time, these crude materials were shaped into the likenesses of men and animals. The gods of Greece, he explains, were originally mortals; only later were they depicted in art forms that reflected the desires, whims, and fantasies of the sculptors. The very fact that gods could be represented in different shapes, forms, and styles proves, for Clement, that they are nothing more than projections of the human imagination. The sculptor, not the deity, determines the divine appearance. He notes that craftsmen “make them look like their own favourites,” meaning that the gods resemble actors, athletes, lovers, or public figures of the sculptor’s choosing. This is not revelation but creativity gone astray. Clement’s conviction that the pagan gods were originally mortal men also exposes a deeper spiritual pattern behind idolatry. If men were elevated to divine status through myth and imagination, then the entire system reflects the ancient lie that first entered the world through the serpent: the promise that humans “shall be as gods.” The elevation of mortals into divine figures echoes the same temptation offered by Satan to Christ in the wilderness, when he displayed “all the kingdoms of the world” and promised them to Him in exchange for worship. Christ refused, but the idolatrous nations accepted such promises gladly. They transformed ambitious, violent, or charismatic men into deities and bowed before their images, repeating in ritual form the original delusion of becoming gods through the power of the adversary. Clement saw this clearly: the gods of Greece were not eternal beings, but men who succumbed to pride and were later exalted by others who inherited the same deception.
From this observation Clement turns to the moral corruption inherent in the stories depicted by these images. The myths that inspire Greek art are full of shameful acts: adulteries, violent passions, drunkenness, seduction, incest, and murder. He uses these stories to show how absurd it is to revere any image drawn from such immoral material. If the stories are false, then the images based on them are empty inventions. If the stories are true, then the gods represented in the images are unworthy of honor. Either way, image-worship is exposed as irrational. Clement argues that people who adore such idols are not only misled in doctrine; they are morally degraded by imitating the vices of the gods they worship.
Clement then concentrates on the physical helplessness of idols. They cannot move, see, speak, or hear. He mocks the worshipers who bow before statues that must be cleaned, dressed, polished, carried, or repaired by human hands. Temples, he says, are in reality tombs, for the gods honored there were once mortal men whose remains are often buried beneath the sanctuary. The gods are stolen by thieves, shattered by earthquakes, consumed by fire, eaten by worms, and exposed to the same decay that affects any lifeless object. Clement stresses that if a god must be guarded by men from such dangers, then men and not the god possess the greater power. “Now even the gods are stolen,” he remarks, pointing out that pagan worshipers spend more energy rescuing their idols than receiving help from them.
He rejects not only the making and existence of images but the entire culture of reverence that surrounds them. Clement ridicules those who kiss the images, bend the knee before them, decorate them with wreaths, place crowns upon them, or carry them in processions accompanied by hymns and ritual music. For him, these gestures are not signs of devotion but acts of profound misunderstanding. The object receiving reverence cannot return the affection, cannot answer prayer, cannot protect, cannot bless, and cannot hear. The worshiper’s piety is wasted on what is less powerful than himself. Christians, he insists, must not lower their dignity by bowing to lifeless matter.
The treatise also condemns the use of pictures, carvings, amulets, rings, and symbolic decorations. Clement explains that images displayed in temples or worn on the body as charms serve the same purpose as statues: they turn the mind toward material representations and away from the invisible God. Even when images are used as symbols or ornaments, they still draw the soul into the habit of valuing sacredness in matter. This is why he opposes carved symbols on rings or household items. To Clement, there is no such thing as a harmless religious image. All images are rooted in the same fundamental error: the belief that divinity can be expressed or mediated by material form.
Clement also attacks the veneration of relics. In his critique, the remains of pagan heroes, the bones of famous men, and the objects associated with them are treated as sacred, even divine. Temples become shrines where the dead are honored above the living God. Clement insists that Christians must not regard any material object as holy in itself. Holiness, he says, belongs to God alone and is communicated spiritually, not through matter or artifacts. The reverence shown to relics is simply another form of idolatry.
One of Clement’s most distinctive points is his insistence that Christians themselves are the true living images of God. Humans alone bear the divine likeness, not statues or paintings. Therefore, he says, Christians must not “listen to images” or treat them as guides or mediators. Their calling is to reflect God through virtue, wisdom, purity, and the imitation of Christ. A Christian who seeks God through carved or painted shapes abandons the very truth that makes him a living image. For this reason Clement states plainly and without qualification that “image-making is forbidden to Christians.” This is not a prohibition limited to pagan images; it is a theological principle rooted in the nature of God as invisible Spirit.
The deeper philosophical thread running through Clement’s work is that God, being transcendent, cannot be circumscribed, represented, or contained. An image confines the infinite within a finite form, reducing the divine majesty to something perceptible by the senses. Clement argues that the moment one attempts to depict God materially, one has already abandoned the truth of who God is. Such depictions invite error, for they shift worship from the invisible Creator to visible creation. Idolatry, therefore, is not merely an error of worship; it is a fundamental mistake about the nature of God.
Clement’s condemnation of images reaches its fullest force when he connects idolatry to spiritual ignorance. The nations, he says, fell into idolatry because they lost knowledge of the true God. They projected their own desires, fears, and passions onto the gods they imagined and then fashioned images according to these delusions. The result was a religion rooted in human weakness rather than divine revelation. Clement urges his readers to abandon these ancient customs and to seek the truth revealed in Christ, who brings people out of darkness into the light of the knowledge of God.
For Clement, idolatry is incompatible with Christianity at every level. Christians must not make religious images. They must not worship, bow before, kiss, decorate, or carry images in procession. They must not use carved or painted symbols in devotion. They must not treat relics or sacred objects as holy. They must not rely on pictures, rings, amulets, or carved emblems. They must not seek God through material forms of any kind (including a wafer). The Christian’s worship must rise above all visible representations and be directed to the living, invisible God.
Clement’s Exhortation to the Greeks is therefore one of the clearest and most comprehensive testimonies from the early Church on the absolute incompatibility between Christianity and image-worship. His argument rests on Scripture, reason, philosophy, morality, and the nature of God Himself. It stands as a powerful reminder that the faith of the early Christians was radically opposed to any use of images in worship and firmly committed to a spiritual, intellectual, and moral devotion to the one true God.
Tertullian of Carthage, writing at the end of the second and early in the third century, is one of the most forceful and original voices of the early Latin Church. Trained as a lawyer and skilled in rhetoric, he brought a sharp legal mind and uncompromising moral seriousness into Christian theology. He was the first major Christian author to write extensively in Latin and helped shape the vocabulary and discipline of Western Christianity. Tertullian lived in a society saturated with pagan religious customs, imperial ceremonies, images, statues, and public spectacles, and he viewed all of these through the lens of Scripture and the Christian baptismal vow. Because he believed that Christians were called to radical separation from the idolatrous culture of Rome, he wrote with unmatched clarity and intensity on the dangers of images, symbols, and all forms of pagan worship. His works, especially De Idololatria and De Corona Militis, stand as some of the earliest and most decisive testimonies against the intrusion of idolatry into Christian life.
Writing from Carthage in the late second and early third century, he confronted a Roman world saturated with images, statues, civic cults, imperial rituals, spectacles, trade-guild ceremonies, and social customs tied to the veneration of idols. For Tertullian, idolatry was not merely one sin among others. It was the foundational rebellion of the human race, the fountainhead of every deviation from God. He opens De Idololatria with an astonishing assertion: “The principal crime of the human race, the highest guilt of the world, the whole cause of judgment, is idolatry” (p.115, ch.1). Every other sin, he argues, is gathered up and judged under the greater crime of idolatry because every sin ultimately participates in the rebellion against God that idols represent.
From the outset, Tertullian broadens the definition of idolatry far beyond bowing before statues. He insists that idolatry encompasses the entire complex of actions, trades, and cultural habits that cooperate with the world of images. He writes that the idolater is also “a murderer” because he destroys his own soul by offending God (p.116, ch.1), and he continues by declaring idolatry to be adulterous, fraudulent, impure, deceitful, and steeped in immorality (pp.116–117, ch.1). Later he clarifies why: idols are the domain of demons, and “every sin belongs to the demons who possess the idols” (p.117, ch.1). To participate in anything connected to idols is to serve the spirits that operate behind them.
Tertullian’s rejection of images is absolute. He begins by explaining that idolatry existed even before images, but once images entered the world, they gave idolatry its form, strength, and language: “Idolum aliquamdiu retro non erat… yet idolatry existed before the image, and when images arose, idolatry derived from them its name and growth” (p.118, ch.3). Even before people carved idols, the false gods existed in human imagination, but when men began to give shape to their fantasies in wood, stone, and metal, idolatry entered its mature and destructive form.
He condemns not only worshiping statues but also making them. In one of the clearest early Christian statements on the issue, he writes that the craftsmen who develop artistic skills for the production of images do so because demons “from the beginning foresaw for themselves the pollution of spectacles and idolatric arts, and inspired the inventors of these arts” (p.82, ch.10). The very existence of artistic trades that create images, symbols, or temple decorations is, in Tertullian’s view, the result of demonic influence. No Christian, therefore, may practice or profit from any work that produces images for religious use or that contributes to a visual culture rooted in idolatry.
This includes not only full statues, but also engraved symbols, decorative images, amulets, portraits used in ritual contexts, and rings bearing figures connected to idols. Any object forming part of the apparatus of idolatry is forbidden. Tertullian makes this explicit when he states that “whatever is done to the idol is idolatry, and whatever pertains to the idol in dress, ritual, or decoration contaminates” (p.199, De Corona, ch.10). A crown, a garland, or even a symbolic ornament can become an “idol-offering” if it is associated with idols or appears in contexts tied to their honor.
Tertullian repeatedly warns that Christians must not attend civic ceremonies, festivals, or spectacles that involve images. These public events were steeped in the veneration of gods and imperial figures, often filled with garlands, statues, incense, and ritual processions. Even the military was inseparably linked to idolatry through standards, emblems, and ceremonial crowns. He records a story of a Christian rebuked in a vision because his household servants crowned his door during a public celebration, even though he himself had not ordered it (p.150, ch.15). This, for Tertullian, demonstrates how seriously God views even indirect participation in image-related customs.
He explains the danger: “If you have renounced the temples, do not make your own house into a temple. If you have renounced the brothels, do not clothe your home with the face of a new brothel” (p.151, ch.15). The image, no matter how small, carries with it contamination. To adorn one’s doorway with laurel, to carry a crown, to wear an emblem, or to imitate any ritual gesture connected to idols is to violate baptismal renunciation. Christians, he insists, vowed at baptism to “renounce the devil and his pomp and his angels,” and the pomp of the devil consists chiefly in “idolatry” (p.68, De Spect., ch.4; echoed in p.151, De Idol., ch.15).
Tertullian intensifies his argument in the later chapters of De Idololatria by addressing daily behaviors. He condemns joining in public feasts, anniversaries, or civic events tied to idols. Even gestures of polite participation can amount to idolatry. He argues that when people bless or curse by the names of idols, they implicitly confess the power of those false deities (p.103, ch.22). Christians, he says, must not even accept blessings that mention the names of pagan gods.
In De Corona Militis, Tertullian returns to the question of ceremonial crowns, symbols, and military honors. These crowns were placed on soldiers during festivals or rites that invoked the gods (demons). A Christian soldier who refused such a crown, he says, “was better crowned with the white crown of martyrdom” (p.115, ch.1). Tertullian then ridicules the idea that a Christian can wear symbols invented for idol worship: “For this crown, by its ritual and dress and decoration, is sacrificed to idols, whose invention it is” (p.199, De Corona, ch.10). Anything not found in the worship of God, he says, cannot be used by Christians if its origin lies in idolatry.
He also addresses the consecration of the dead. The pagans decorated corpses with flowers and crowns in ceremonies that effectively turned the dead into idols. He writes that “the dead too are made idols by the form and service of consecration, which is with us a second kind of idolatry” (p.197, ch.15). This makes clear that Tertullian condemns not only images of gods but also relic-like treatment of human remains.
For Tertullian, idolatry is not simply the worship of carved objects; it is the entire network of cultural practices, artistic industries, symbolic rituals, and social behaviors that elevate creation above the Creator. Idolatry includes the production of images, the decoration of houses with symbolic greenery, attending ceremonies containing statues, wearing crowns tied to the gods, handling objects consecrated to idols, using symbols invented by pagans, and participating in any event where images receive honor.
His theology is strict because it is rooted in his understanding of baptism, the renunciation of Satan, and the call to holiness. Idolatry is, in his view, the direct opposite of Christian faith. Throughout the treatise he warns that Christians must not imitate the gentiles, must not touch anything belonging to idols, must not even appear in the attire or surroundings of idolatry, and must not allow their households to mimic the decorations used for idol-processions. To cross any of these boundaries is to violate the vow made to God and to plunge back into the world ruled by demons.
Tertullian’s writings therefore provide one of the strongest, clearest, and most detailed condemnations of idolatry in early Christianity. He opposes the making of images, the dressing of images, the use of artistic symbols, the presence of idols in spectacles, the honor paid to imperial images, the wearing of crowns connected to gods, the veneration of the dead as semi-divine, the attendance of image-laden ceremonies, and every gesture of reverence toward carved or represented forms. For him, idolatry is the pollution of the soul, and Christians must separate from it totally and uncompromisingly.
Lactantius, whose full name was Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius, was a Christian teacher writing in the late third and early fourth century. He was trained as a Roman rhetorician and was appointed professor of Latin rhetoric by the emperor Diocletian, but later resigned after rejecting paganism and embracing Christianity. His works, especially the Divine Institutes and the shorter treatises grouped in this volume, are among the clearest and most forceful condemnations of pagan religion in the early Church. In the material preserved in this volume, Lactantius consistently argues that the pagan gods were once men, that idols are nothing but dead material, and that any form of veneration toward them is irrational, foolish, and offensive to God. His arguments often expose the philosophical incoherence of pagan worship and assert that idolatry is not merely an error, but the very foundation of injustice and impiety.
From the beginning of the collection, Lactantius sets the stage by showing that religion cannot exist where God is not feared, and that worship directed toward images undermines both reason and morality. He writes that the first step toward truth is “to understand false religions, and to throw aside the impious worship of gods which are made by the hand of man” (p. 2 ). Idolatry, therefore, is not only a theological mistake but the first and greatest corruption of human life. Throughout the treatises Lactantius describes idols as “earthly and frail images,” lifeless, corruptible, and incapable of perceiving those who pray to them (p. 3 ). He argues that statues cannot be divine because they are produced by artisans: “the worship of gods which are made by the hand of man” is the most obvious evidence of human ignorance, for no being that depends on a craftsman for existence can be a god (p. 2–3 ). This theme recurs repeatedly: the very act of sculpting and fashioning an idol proves its non-divinity.
Lactantius also teaches that the origin of image-worship lies in the deification of dead men. He reports that the earliest pagans conferred divine honors upon mortal kings and heroes, turning their tombs into temples and their likenesses into objects of veneration. On this subject he cites earlier writers such as Euhemerus and Ennius, who recorded “the birth-days, marriages, offspring, governments, exploits, deaths, and tombs of all of them” (p. 23 ). For Lactantius, this historical testimony is decisive proof that the gods of the nations were once human beings and that their statues were no more than memorials. In his argument, therefore, every idol is ultimately a monument to death masquerading as divinity.
Because idols have no life, no breath, no perception, and no power, Lactantius regards every form of attention paid to them; bowing, touching, carrying, kissing, offering gifts, lighting lamps, or building temples; as irrational. If the gods have no ability to benefit or to harm, he asks, “what is so senseless, what so foolish, as to build temples, to offer sacrifices, to present gifts, to diminish our property, that we may obtain nothing?” (p. 12 ). Worship of images is therefore not simply an error; it is a complete inversion of reason, since men enrich lifeless objects while depriving themselves. In this same passage Lactantius quotes the Epicureans, who denied divine involvement in human life, and responds that their view, which eliminates divine judgment, makes all religion impossible. Since idols have no anger and no power, they remove the fear of God and thus destroy morality.
Lactantius further emphasizes that the world itself demonstrates the existence and providence of the one true God and exposes the emptiness of idolatry. He argues that the careful order, design, and beauty of creation cannot be attributed to chance, atoms, or to the art of men, and therefore must come from the true divine Maker (p. 17–20 ). The gods of the nations, meanwhile, are unable to do anything, and their images are incapable even of self-preservation: they are broken, stolen, burned, or destroyed by fire and earthquakes. For this reason, Lactantius says that idolatry renders men worse than animals, because animals at least do not bow before dead matter. In his words, “nothing can be spoken more contemptible with respect to God” than to suppose that the divine nature dwells in a statue (p. 12–13 ).
Idolatry, for Lactantius, is also the source of moral corruption. Because idols cannot see or punish sin, those who worship them fall into vice. Without belief in the true God, he says, “the life of men is full of folly, of wickedness, and enormity” (p. 13 ). The pagan rites that surround idols do not cultivate virtue but increase superstition and moral blindness. Religion without the true God becomes a tool of tyranny, or a hollow ceremony designed to bind society together while leaving men spiritually dead.
His clearest positive statement occurs in his discussion of providence: because God made the world and governs it, “honour and worship are due to the author and common parent of all things” (p. 21 ). True worship therefore excludes all images, since the divine nature is invisible and cannot be represented by material forms. This becomes the foundation of Christian teaching: God alone deserves worship, and all image-based piety is an affront to His majesty.
In summary, Lactantius teaches that idols are lifeless and powerless; that the gods represented by them were originally mortal men; that all veneration of statues is irrational; that idolatry destroys true religion and undermines morality; and that God, being invisible, eternal, and the Maker of all things, must be worshipped without images. His witness forms one of the strongest voices against image-worship in the early Christian tradition.
Questions
If the earliest Christian Fathers unanimously condemned the making, venerating, or displaying of images, statues, relics, and sacred objects, why do so many churches today surround worship with exactly the things the Fathers rejected?
If Clement of Alexandria taught that the gods of the nations were once mortal men exalted by superstition, why are the tombs of bishops and popes still treated as holy ground, and why are churches built over their bodies?
If Tertullian warned that even “whatever pertains to the idol in dress, ritual, or decoration” is idolatry, how should Christians view a monstrance that displays the faces of dead men within a sun-burst of gold?
If Origen insisted that no prayer may be directed to angels, saints, or any created being, why do some Christian traditions encourage prayers, petitions, and processions directed toward relics and images?
If Lactantius taught that every idol began as a dead man raised to divine status, what does it mean when churches parade statues through the streets as objects of devotion?
If the second commandment forbids the making of carved images for religious use, why do modern Christians accept practices that the earliest Christians; those closest to the apostles; rejected as idolatry?
If the second commandment explicitly forbids making carved images for religious use, why did the Roman Church adopt a version of the commandments in which the prohibition of images is absorbed into the first commandment and the warning against “graven images” is no longer stated separately? And why was this change made precisely in the tradition that also developed the veneration of statues, icons, relics, and sacred objects; practices the earliest Christians rejected? If Scripture keeps the commandment distinct and clear, what authority has the Church to reword or renumber what God Himself spoke aloud from the mountain?
If Scripture says God will not share His glory with another, how can the lifting, kissing, crowning, and carrying of images and relics be reconciled with the absolute purity of worship demanded by the prophets and upheld by the earliest Christian writers?
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