Historj' shows that the first tendency to image-wor- ship was the result of a slow but continued degeneracy. The same arguments now used by the Romish Church to defend image-worship were rejected hj the Chriftians of the first three centuries when used in the defence of idol-worship. The heathen said. We do not worship the images themselves, but those whom they represent. To this Lactantius answers {Inst. Div. lib. ii, c. 2), "You worship them ; for, if you beUeve them to be in heaven, why do you not raise your eyes up to heaven ? why do you look at the wood and stone, and not up, where you believe the originals to be?" The ancient Church re- jected the use of all images {Synod of Elvira, 805, c. 36: " Placuit, picturas in ecclesiis esse non debere, ne quod colitur aut adoratur, in parietibus depingatur"). The early Christians evidenth' feared that pictiures in their churches would eventually become objects of prayer. The admission of images into the church in the 4th and 5th centuries was justified on the theorj- that the ignorant people could learn the facts of Christianity from them better than from sermons or books. But the people soon lost sight of this use of the images, and made them the objects of adoration. This took place earlier in the East than in the West; but the abuse gain- ed ground in the latter region in a short time. Serenus, bishop of Jlarseilles, broke several images, and had them taken out of the church, because he found that the peo- ple prayed to them. Gregorj- the Great proclaims that he does not allow anj' praying to {adorari) the images, and adds to this that Paulinus of Nola and Nilus had already said that paintings were placed in the church only in order that the uneducated might read on the walls what they were unable to read in books (lib. ix, ep. 105). He also laid down, as a general principle, in his letter to Secundinus, that it was expedient to use the visible to represent the invisible (lib. ix, ep. 52). But he shows evidently that he is not speaking fif a mere objective representation of Deity, for he says tliat he prostrates himself (prosternimus) before the images, making the Avell-kno^vn Roman Catholic condition that
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he thus really prays to Christ. The second Council of Nicjea (A.D. 787) decreed the validity of image- worship, and anathematized all who opposed it. The Frankish Cliurcli, on the other hand, though it did not forbid the use of images m the church, formally declared against their being worshipped. Charlemagne opposed to the decrees of "the synod the so-called CaroUne books (q.v.), in which it is expressly said that images are allowed in the church, but not to be prayed to, only to excite tlie attention on tlie subjects they commemorate, and to adorn the walls. " For," as it says further on, " if some enlightened persons, who do not pray to the image it- self, but to him it represents, shoidd pray before the im- age, it woidd mislead the ignorant, who pray only to what they see before their eyes" (lib. iii, 16). The Sjm- od of Frankfort (summoned by Charlemagne, A.D. 794, and consisting of 300 bishops) and the Synod of Paris (825) solemnly condemned image-worship. The latter council even ventiu'ed to reject the pope's contrary opin- ion in very strong terms. During the whole of the 9th centmry the matter was thus at rest, Claudius of Tiu-in, Agobard, and other of the most important theologians of that period approving the action of the synods. Jonas of Orleans, an opponent of Claudius, expressl)^ says, in his De cultu imagirium, that images are placed in the church " solummodo ad instruendas nescientium men- tes." The Cotnicil of Trent, as cited above, recommends images as means of instructing the people, and to incite the faithful to imitate the saints; but in later times the Romish Cluu-ch has added to this what the Frank- ish Church of the 8th and 9th centuries had so wiselj- rej ected.— Herzog, Real-EiicyUop. ii, 233-235. The fluc- tuations of opinion and variations of discipline in the Eomisli Church on the subject of image-worship are well exhibited by Faber {Difficulties of Romanism, p. 10 et sq.). See White, i?aw^^07» Lectures, n. 8 ; Coleman, Aiicient Christ ianiti/, chap, xiii, § 14; Spanheim, Hist. Imaginum, Opera, tom. ii ; Bingham, Orig. Eccles., book viii, ch. viii; Tenison, On Idolatry, p. 269 sq. ; Winer, Comp. Darstellung, iii, 1. See also articles Iconoclasts ; IcoxociUAi'iiY ; Greek Church ; RojfAN Church.
Imagination (Lat. imaginatio). " The meaning of this word enters into many relationships, and is thereby rendered difficult to define. The principal meaning is doubtless what connects it with poetrj' and line art, from which the other significations branch off. The simplest mode of explaining this complicated relationship will be to state in separation the different constituents of the power in question. We shall then see whj' and whera it touches upon other faculties, which still require to be distinguished from it.
" 1. Imagination has for its objects the concrete, the real, or the individual, as opposed to abstractions and generalities, which are the matter of science. The fidl coloring of reality is implied in oiur imagination of any scene of nature. In tliis respect, there is something common to imagination and memory. If we endeavor to imagine a volcano, according as we succeed, we have before the mind everything that a spectator would ob- serve on the spot; Thus, sensation, memorj', and imag- ination alike deal with the fulness of the actual world, as o]iposed to the abstractions of science and the reason- ing faeidties.