Jerome, Priest of Jerusalem, On The Holy Trinity.
As the Scripture nowhere enjoins you to worship the Cross, what makes you adore it? Tell us, Jews and heathens, and all inquiring people.
Answer.-On this account, O slow and foolish of heart, God allowed the people, who revered Him, to worship what was on earth, the handiwork of man, so that they should not be able to reproach Christians concerning the Cross and the worship of images. Now just as the Jew adored the ark of the covenant, and the two carved cherubim of gold, and the two tablets of Moses, although there is nowhere an order from God to worship or revere them, so is it with Christians. We do not revere the Cross as God; we show through it what we truly feel about the Crucified One.
Simeon of Mount Thaumastus on Images.
Possibly a contentious unbeliever will maintain that we worshipping images in our churches are convicted of praying to lifeless idols. Far be it from us to do this. Faith* makes Christians, and God, who cannot deceive, works miracles. We do not rest contented with mere colouring. With the material picture before our eyes we see the invisible God through the visible representation, and glorify Him as if present, not as a God without reality, but as God who is the essence of being. Nor are the saints whom we glorify fictitious. They are in being, and are living with God; and their spirits being holy, they help, by the power of God, those who deserve and need their assistance.
Athanasius, Archbishop of Antioch, to Simeon, Bishop of the Bostri, on the Sabbath.
Just as in the king’s absence his image is worshipped, so in his presence it is extravagant to leave the original to pay homage to the image. It is disregarded, because the original on whose account it is honoured is present, but that is no reason for dishonouring it. It is much the same, I think, with the shadow or letter of the law.
The apostle calls it a figure. In so far as grace anticipated the reign of truth, the saints were types, contemplating the truth as in a glass. When the promises were fulfilled, it was no longer desirable to live according to types, nor to follow them. In the presence of the realisation the type vanishes into insignificance. Still they did not dishonour nor deride types; they honoured them, and judged those who treated them with contumely impious, and deserving of death and severe chastisement.
The same–3rd Homily.
A man worships the king’s image for the honour due to the king, the image itself being mere wax and paint.
Read More about Taste of Balkan Tour
