(2.) The term idolatry is figuratively used to desig- nate covetomness, which takes Mammon for its god (Matt, vi, 24 ; Luke xvi, 13). Col. iii, 5 : " Mortify, therefore, your members which are upon the earth ; for- nication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concu- piscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry/." Hence it is said (Ephes. v, 5), " For this ye know, that no whore- monger, nor imclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idol(Uer, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God." St. Paul further designates all evil concu- piscence in general by the name of idolatry; e.g. Phil, ili, 19 : " Whose end is destruction, whose god is tlieir belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things ;" comp. Rom. xvi, 18, " For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly ; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple." The same is said (2 Tim. iii, 4) of those who are " lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God." According to Rom. i, 21, idolatry takes its source in the impurity of the will, or in the heart, not in the mind; it is consequently a result of the abuse of human free agency. It is said, in the above-mentioned passage, " Because that when they knew God they glo- rified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in then* imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened." The not glorifying and the not praising
manifest the badness of the will or heart. In the Book of Wisdom (xiv, 14) it is said that idolatry came into the world through the " idle vanity of man." Idolatry and sin have consequently the same origin, namely, the mis- use of moral freedom. They therefore assist each other, yet, at the same time, present separately a difficult prob- lem for reason to understand. To some extent idolatry may be considered as the theoretical, and sin as the prac- tical effect of evil, which, in its complete manil'estation, embraces both the mind and the heart, but takes its source exclusively in the latter; for all evil results from the will, by its own free action, separating itseKfrom the divine will. — Krehl, llundwdrterbuch des N. T. p. 12.
3. In the later Christian Ckurch.^-The fathers gener- ally define idolatry, from Rom. i, 23, as a " taking away from God the glory which belongs to him" (Tertidl. Ue Idololatria, c. 11), or "divine honor given to another" (Cyprian ; Hilar. Diac.) ; sometimes, also, as a transfer- ring of prayer from the Creator to the creature (Gregor. Naz.). Christian writers in general had no doubt on the subject (sec Finnicus INIaternus, De errore proj'una- rum religionum, ed. MUnter, c. 1-5). When Clement of Alexandria regards astonishment at the light emitted by the heavenly bodies, thankfulness towards the in- ventor of agricidture, consciousness of sin, a personifica- tion of effects, etc., as the origin of myths, he does not mean to consider them as the original source of idolatry, but only of its contemporary forms. From the primi- tive worship of the heavens as the abode of the invisible God, according to the oldest traditions, the worship of the different nations, as they became disseminated over the globe, and divided geographically and otherwise, turned to other symbols. Again, nations preserving the remembrance, and, so to speak, living under the influence of their founders and heroes, as soon as they forgot the true God, made these the objects of their veneration and worship. Thus they came to worship their progenitors (as in China) and their heroes, wliich latter worship is by some (Boss, for instance) considered as the only source of mythology. How from thence they passed to the worship of symbolic animals, thence to anthropomor- phism, and finally to the adoration of statues as images of the deity, has been best explained by Creuzer in his Si/mholik u. Mythologie d. alien Volker (3d edit, i, 5 sq.). The fathers did not fail to perceive the influence which the original tradition of the true God had on the devel- opment of the symbolism and myths of the heathen re- ligious systems. Lactantius {De falsa ?•<?%. i, 11) con- siders the consensus r/entium in the belief in gods as a proof that they are touched by them. The early Prot- estant theologians had especially to contend against nat- uralism, which asserted that " the recognition of one su- preme God is innate in man," and denied our knowledge of the imity of God being due either to revelation or to tradition, since it is found at the foundation of the learn- ed polytheistic systems. They considered all further developments in these systems as resulting from inten- tional additions made in support of their hierarchy by an interested priesthood, or by riders from motives of policy (see Herbert of Cherbury, De relig. gentilivm, p. 6, 168 sq.). These views were ably opposed by Ger- hard Jo. Vossius {De theolofjia geniili et physiologiu Christiana, i, 3 sq.). Van Dale {De origine et progressu idololatria, i, 2, 3), Selden {De diis Syris [Lips. 1662], p. 25 sq.). They however meant, as did also Farmer {The general Prevalence of the Worship of Human Spirits in the Ancient Heathen Nations [Lond. 1783]). that the dajmons, whether evil spirits or departed human souls, had very early become the objects of veneration on the part of the heathen. The Jews came gradually to the idea that the heathen deities were not nonentities, as the prophets had stated them to be, but really existing evil spirits, a view which was continued by the fathers, es- pecially in relation to the so-called oracles. The earliest German theologians also admitted this doctrine of a wor- ship of dremons. This, however, was gradually discarded after the researches of S. J. Baurogarteu {Gesch. d. i?e-