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officials, sternly condemned their use in any fashion. And, Irenaeus and Clement distinctly appeal
to the second commandment as authority (p. 60).

Later, there was another bishop of the fourth century, whom Catholic historians regard as
one of the saintliest and most orthodox, who had an energetic abhorrence for anything resembling a
sacred picture. This was Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis. Farrar records an excerpt from one of his
letters to the Bishop of Jerusalem. It concerned a condition he found existing in the Jerusalem area.
It appears that on a journey to Jerusalem, near Bethel, he had come upon a building in which he
saw a lamp burning. On being informed the building was a church, he entered to pray. He saw
there a curtain which had on it (as he goes on to write), "an image, as it were, of Christ, or of some
saint, for I cannot quite remember whose likeness it was. Horrified to see the likeness of a man,
hanging contrary to Scripture, in a Christian Church, I tore it down and ordered the vergers [at-
tendants] to use it as the shroud of some pauper." (See also the article "Iconoclasts," Encyclopae-
dia Britannica, 11th edition, vol. 14, p. 272.)

Yes, even in the fourth century, the majority of Catholic officials were vehemently against
the violation of the second commandment. Although, from this example, you can see that some
bishops were beginning to allow pictures even in the churches.

By the end of the fourth century, because of the increased influx of pagan influence, the tide
was beginning to turn in favor of the use of pictures for worship. Augustine, at the beginning of the
fifth century, "complains that he knew many worshippers of superstitious pictures" (Farrar, p. 59).
However, the majority was still opposed to their use. Farrar goes on to say that about the year 600
A.D., there was one Serenus, Bishop of Massilia who "broke up pictures and images in churches."
This act of the bishop's reached the ears of Pope Gregory who disapproved "of his breaking them,
though he commends his opposition to their idolatrous use" (p. 59).

Yes, there was still opposition to such violations of God's law even this late in the Catho-
lic Church. Notice the Pope commended this bishop for his motives. This plainly shows that a
knowledge of what was right was known to the ones in authority.

As strong paganistic influences entered the Catholic Church, however, a council of Catho-
lic leaders was called in Constantinople in 691 A.D., in which they officially sanctioned the use of
images and pictures in churches (Farrar, p. 100). There were some bishops dissenting from this
form of idolatry, but the majority carried and the decree passed.

It was not until another Council of Constantinople, in 842 A.D., that the last vestiges of op-
position to images and pictures were stamped out. From that time, until the present, most of pro-
fessing Christianity has sanctioned images and the like in its churches. Some Protestants made a
feeble attempt to reform the Catholic Church from this imagery in the Reformation, but this they
failed to accomplish.

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