AVhen the process of adorning the image was com- pleted, it was placed in a temple or shrine appointed for it (oiKta, Epist. Jer. 12, 19 ; o(k:);/ict, Wisd. xiii, 15; ti'cw- \iiov, 1 Cor. viii, 10; see Stanley's note on the latter passage). In Wisd. xiii, 15, o'iKijjia is thought to be used contemptuously, as in Tibull. i, 10, 19, 20, "Cum paupere cultu Stabat in exigua ligneus wde deus" (Fritsche and Grimm, Ilandh.), but the passage quoted is by no means a good illustration. From these temples the idols were sometimes carried in procession (Epist. Jer. 4, 26) on festival daj's. Their priests were main- tained from the idol treasury, and feasted upon the meats which were appointed for the idols' use (Bel and the Dragon, 3, 13). These sacrificial feasts formed an important part of the idolatrous ritual, and were a great stumbling-block to the early Cliristian converts. They were to the heathen, as Prof. Stanley has well observed, what the observance of circumcision and the IMosaic ritual were to the Jewish converts, and it was for this reason that Paul especially directed his attention to the subject, and laid down the rules of conduct contained in his first letter to the Corinthians (viii-x).— Smith ; Kitto, See Idolatkv.
Idolatry is divine honor paid to any created object. It is thus a wider term than image-u-orship (q. v.). For many old monographs on the various forms of ancient idolatry, see Volbeding, Index Programmatuiii, p. 108 sq. See Gons, False ; Beast- worship.
We find the idea of idolatry expressed in tlie O. T. by !3T3 (a lie, Psa. xlv, 5; Amos ii, 4), or XVJ {nullity^, and still oftener by fia^^'Fl {abomination). In after times the Jews designated it as ny'H in"12^ (foreign worship). Thus we see that it had no name indicative of its nature, for the Biblical expressions are more a monotheistic qualification of divine worship than a def- inition of it; the last Hebrew expression, however, shows idolatry as not being of Jewish origin. The word tl()w\o\aTpeia in the N. T. is entirely due to the Septuagint, which, wherever any of the heathen deities are mentioned, even though designated in the sacred text only as D'^P'^PX {nothings), translates by hcuj\ov, an idol ; a practice generally followed by later versions. A special sort of idolatry, namely, the actual adoration of images {Idololutria) thus gave name to the whole species (1 Cor. x, 14; Gal. v, 20; 1 Pet. iv, 3). Subse- quently the more comprehensive word EiSoXarptia {idol- atria, instead oi idololatria) ^vas adopted, which included the adoration and worship of .other ^-isible symbols of the deity {tlcoi;) besides those due to the statuary art.— Herzog.
I. Origin of Idolatry. — In the primreval period man appears to have had not alone a revelation, but also an implanted natiu-al law. Adam and some of his descend- ants, as late as the time of the Flood, certainly lived under a revealed system, now usually spoken of as the patriarchal dispensation, and Paid tells us that the na- tions were under a natural law (Rom. ii, 14, 15). " Man in his natural state must always have had a knowledge of God siiflicient for the condition in which he had been placed. Although God 'in times past suffered all na- tions [or, rather, 'all the Gentiles,' TrdvTa tu tf j'>j] to walk in their own ways, nevertheless he left not him- self without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling oiu- hearts with food and gladness' (Acts xiv, 17). 'For the invis- ible things of him, from the creation of the world, are clearly seen, being understood by the things tliat are made, [even] his eternal power and godhead' (Rom. i, 20). But the people of whom we are speakuig ' changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping thmgs,' ' and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for- ever' (Rom. i, 21-25). Thus arose that strange super- stition which is known by the term Fetishism [or low nature-worship], consisting in the worship of animals, trees, rivers, hills, and stones" (Poole, Genesis of the Earth and of Man, 2d ed. p. 160, 161). Paul speaks of those who invented this idolatry as therefore forsaken of God and suffered to sink into the deepest moral cor- ruption (Rom. i, 28). It is remarkable that among highly-civiUzed nations the converse obtains; moral corruption being very frequently the cause of the aban- doning of true religion for infidelity. — Kitto. That theory of human progress which supposes man to have gradually worked his way up from barbaric ignorance of God to a so-called natiu-al religion is contradicted by the facts of Biblical historj-.
Nothing is distinctly stated in the Bible as to any antediluvian idolatry. It is, however, a rcasonaljle sup- position that in the general corruption before the Flood idolatry was practised. There is no imdoubted trace of heathen divinities in the names of the antediluvians; but there are dim indications of ancestral worship in the postdiluvian worshi|3 of some of the antediluvian patriarchs. It has been supposed that the set or st'x- EKH of the Egyptian Pantheon is the Hebrew Seth. The Cainite Enoch was possibly commemorated as An- nacuD or Naiuiacus at Iconium, though, this name being