On two general features of the OT idolatry as exhibited by the sacred writers a remark may be made. The first feature is the astonishing strength of its fascinations. The perverse obstinacy of the chosen people in opposition to the logic of con- science, liistory, and heaven, can only be explained on the assumption that idolatry offered some deeply- satisfying proWsion for human nature. Wherein did this attraction lie ? As regards the form which has been described as heathenism, the answer is obvious : it was popular because it was not ethical. There are many things which are felt to be attrac- tive if only they were lawful, and the genius of heathenism, especially of the Canaanitish type, was to make it possible to overleap the boundaries of right and wrong with an appeased conscience. Were we confronted by a new religion which in a solemn spirit, and with a reasoned claim, threw its mantle over all which we assign to the world, the flesh, and the devil, we should realize some- thing of the strength of the opposition with which tlie prophets of J" had to contend. As regards idolatrous worship of God, again, the need which it met is a universal one. The invisible God of the infinite attributes is a being whom thought with difficulty grasps, to whom the heart hardly warms — and the necessity of a more vivid and concrete manifestation of His essence is common ground of all the great religions save one. As a Fact, we can approach God only through the aid of symbols — mental pictures and words are no less symbols than paintings and statues ; and it is not clear that tnere is any difference in principle between the verbal representation of God as our Father and the more graphic representation of the same conception whicn can be given in His special material by the artist. The prophet did not scruple to use imagery which represented God as 9ying and even as roaring and ravening like a beast of the forest, and the image of the idolater was more effective than the imagery. But the justification of the prophetic attitude is that the image was too effective. Where a certain spiritual
level has been reached, the visible symbol may ba a real aid to devotion ; but on lower levels the worshipjier stops at the outward form, and sinks back into a true heathenism. And so it worked out, against the wise opposition of the prophets, in Israel : the symbol became to the unsjiiritual people a fetisli, and the fetish poisoned the national life.
From what ha-s been said, we are in a better position to appreciate the scheme of retributive jus- tice which the prophetical writers find exemi)lilied in the history of Israel and Judah, and of their kings. Because of idolatry Israel was removed from its place, and Judah after it went into captivity. The religious reformation is followed by a prosperous reign, the backsliding is avenged by the Philistine, the Assyrian, or the Chaldiean. Tliat, says criticism, is not history. As a fact it is, in the main outline, history, and it is besides the vehicle of the grandest and most certain of historical generali7,ation.s — viz. that the Ruler of the world is on the side of purity and righteous- ness. The idolatry of Israel was, as we have seen, a description from the religious side of the evil doings which God hates, and it is therefore rightly written down as the cause of His vindictive and chastening judgments upon Israel.
Idolatry in NT The references to idolatry in
NT are naturally of much more contracted scope. With the Jews the opposition to idolatry had become since the days of Antiochus Epiphanes a fanaticism, and the subject scarcely finds a place in the sayings of our Lord. From the circum- stances of his mission it occupied a considerable space in the thoughts of St. Paul. Of peculiar importance is what we may call his philosophy of heathenism expounded in Ko 1, where lie traces it to its origin in a sin against the light of nature, shows that this was punished by tlie withdrawal of the former light, and sets forth the hideous moral corruption of the Roman world as the result of the religious apostasy. A somewhat milder judgment of the heathen world is pa.ssed in the speech at Athens (Ac 18), where ignorance of God is not insisted on as matter of guilt, and an appeal is made to men on the ground of the dignity of their origin to rise to the recognition of the true God, and hearken to His latest ac- credited word. A special problem arose for Chris- tian casuistry in connexion with meats ofl'ered to idols, which the apostle resolves by referring it to the arbitrament of a conscience enlightened by the twin principles of Christian liberty and Christian sympathy (1 Co 8). To the view popu- larized by ftlilton that the idols of the heathen were in reality devils, some colour is lent by I Co 10""- ; but, against this is to be put the emphatic protest, ' we know that no idol is any- thing in the world' (1 Co 8*). Idolatry appears m the catalogue of the works of the flesh (Gal 5?"), and of those which exclude from eternal salvation (1 Co 6") ; but, as is characteristic of NT thought, the apostle widens the old religious conception, and makes it include all practices which are tanta- mount to a dethronement of God in favour of a creature. So gluttony and covetousness, where ' non objecto sed solo acto peccatur,' are species of idolatry (Eph 5°, Ph 3'°). The recollection of the blessed deliverance from the darkness of heathen- ism is appealed to as furnishing a motive to sanctification (I Th 1»). Finally, St. John predicta an idolatrous apostasy in the last days (Rev O-'").