Idolatry, Idol-worship

(Col 3:5). After the Flood, as can be seen from the sacred history of the Old Testament, wicked people and wicked deeds multiplied among men, and it came to the point that they ceased to honor God, and having ceased to honor Him, began to forget Him altogether. But when they had forgotten the true God, while some feeling still remained in their conscience that one could not be without a God, they took it into their heads to honor the sun, moon, stars, and other creatures as God. This is what is called idolatry, idol-service, or otherwise, paganism.

Knowledge of the true God in the earliest ages of the world was barely preserved among the descendants of Shem. St. Paul, in his epistle to the Romans, admirably explains the origin and causes of idolatry among men in the following words: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things” (1:22-23). The deification of animals in Egypt serves as a striking confirmation of the apostle Paul’s words.

We find representations of the various forms of idol-worship, besides in the Bible, also on ancient monuments, in classical writers, in the apologies of very early Christian writers, and in the accounts of various travelers concerning present-day pagans. Nowhere does the extreme immorality of man and his obstinacy in sin appear so clearly and strikingly as in ancient and modern idolatry. The strong pull of men toward this sin explains not only its universal prevalence in the ancient world, but also the history of the Jews from the time of Moses to the Babylonian captivity.

Despite God’s condemnations, rebukes, and punishments for this sin, the Jews repeatedly fell into idolatry; but after the captivity they renounced it forever. Christianity has always sought to protect its followers from this dreadful evil. This great aim has been pursued continually by all true Christians with greater or lesser steadfastness even to our own time, and it is to be hoped, on the basis of the experience of the past and of the divine word, that idolatry will disappear entirely from the earth.

Being in itself an immense evil, it is at the same time the root of countless evils; and therefore, for the good of mankind and the glory of God, it is incumbent upon all of us to watch, to pray, and to labor zealously against idolatry.