Temples, Images, and Early Church History

The early Church fathers,  in the Ante-Nicene period,  are very different from Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy today. Prior to Constantine, early Christian’s seem to have been against use of temples, altars and images. In fact the Early Church considered these things to be either shadows or pagan. We are not condemning Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic Christians. We believe they are our brothers and sisters in Christ. Nor are we condemning Church buildings or images. However, we are showing how the idea that these objects and places are holy themselves, should be adorned and venerated, are NOT Christian in practice.

In the writings of Marcus Minucius Felix (197 A.D) we read of a dialogue with the pagan Caecilius Natalis When speaking of the Christians the pagan ask this question:

Why have they no altars, no temples, no acknowledged images?

The pagan asserts that the Christians conceal what they worship because they do not have these items that are so common among the pagans. An answer is given as to why Christians do not conceal what they worship for they can not contain what they worship within a building image or altar:

…But do you think that we conceal what we worship, if we have not temples and altars? And yet what image of God shall I make, since, if you think rightly, man himself is the image of God? What temple shall I build to Him, when this whole world fashioned by His work cannot receive Him? And when I, a man, dwell far and wide, shall I shut up the might of so great majesty within one little building? Were it not better that He should be dedicated in our mind, consecrated in our inmost heart? Shall I offer victims and sacrifices to the Lord, such as He has
produced for my use, that I should throw back to Him His own gift? It is ungrateful when the victim fit for sacrifice is a good disposition, and a pure mind, and a sincere judgment. Therefore he who cultivates innocence supplicates God; he who cultivates justice makes offerings to God; he
who abstains from fraudulent practices propitiates God; he who snatches man from danger slaughters the most acceptable victim. These are our sacrifices, these are our rites of God’s worship; thus, among us, he who is most just is he who is most religious. But certainly the God whom we worship we neither show nor see. ~ Octavius (Minucius Felix)

Some within the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches assert that Christians in the Early Church could not worship publicly therefore they did not create temples and such due to persecution. However, the writings above of Minucius Felix prove this to be incorrect. In fact the early Christians were not afraid to be martyred. They believed that dying a martyrs death was respectable. Had they wanted images, temples, altars and such, they would have used them without fear. Arnobius further describes why Christians did not use these
items in their worship of the true God:

Having shown briefly how impious and infamous are the opinions which you have formed about your gods, we have now to speak of their temples, their images also, and sacrifices, and of the other things which are nailed and closely related to them. For you are here in the habit of fastening upon us a very serious charge of impiety because we do not rear temples for the ceremonies of
worship, do not set up statues and images of any god, do not build altars, do not offer the blood of creatures slain in sacrifices, incense, nor sacrificial meal, and finally, do not bring wine flowing in libations from sacred bowls ~ Arnobius, Against the Heathen, Book VI , c. 284- 305 A.D.

Arnobius lived just before the reign of the Emperor Constantine. Had temples and other “holy” items been foreseen by God as part of Christian worship surely Arnobius, writing in such close proximity to the reign of Constantine who we will soon see is where temples, altars and images originated from, would not have felt so harshly towards their use in Christian Worship. However, as we can see above, the Holy Spirit did not give Arnobius any inclination that these things were appropriate for Christian Worship.

Next we read in the writings of Origen a great deal against the pagan practices of temples, images and other
“mysteries”:

….although they were condemned to death or held up to ridicule by those who, in ignorance of what true religion is, give that name to what deserves to be called anything rather than religion. God doubtless saw the pride and arrogance of those who, with contempt for all others, boast of their knowledge of God, and of their profound acquaintance with divine things obtained from philosophy,
but who still, not less even than the most ignorant, run after their images, and temples, and famous mysteries; and seeing this, He has chosen the foolish things of this world — the simplest of Christians, who lead, however, a life of greater moderation and purity than many philosophers— to
confound the wise, who are not ashamed to address inanimate things as gods or images of the gods. For what reasonable man can refrain from smiling when he sees that one who has learned from philosophy such profound and noble sentiments about God or the gods, turns straightway to images and offers to them his prayers, or imagines that by gazing upon these material things he can ascend from the visible symbol to that which is spiritual and immaterial. But a Christian, even of the common people, is assured that every place forms
part of the universe, and that the whole universe is God’s temple. – Origen, Contra Celsus, Book VI, Chapter XLIV

And let not Celsus be angry if we describe as lame and mutilated in soul those who run to the temples as to places having a real sacredness and who cannot see that no mere mechanical work of man can be truly sacred – Origen, Contra Celsus, Book VI, Chapter LII

But Christians and Jews have regard to this command, You shall fear the Lord your God, and serve Him alone; and this other, You shall have no other gods before Me: you shall not make unto you any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: you shall not bow down yourself to them, nor serve
them; and again, You shall worship the Lord your God, and Him only shall you serve. It is in consideration of these and many other such commands, that they not only avoid temples, altars, and images, but are ready to suffer death when it is necessary, rather than debase by any such impiety the conception which they have of the Most High God. – Origen, Contra Celsus, Book VI, Chapter LXIV

Origen is considered a heretic by the Eastern Orthodox Church. However, Origen was not labeled as such until over two centuries after his death. Could Origen have been falsely labeled as a heretic because he was in such opposition to the practices of the later Church?

In the writings of Hippolytus we read of the use of images in the rites of Simon Magus:

The disciples, then, of this (Magus), celebrate magical rites, and resort to incantations. And (they profess to) transmit both love-spells and charms….. But they also employ those denominated Paredroi. “And they have an image of Simon (fashioned) into the figure of Jupiter, and (an image) of Helen in the form of Minerva; and they pay adoration to these.” But they call the one
Lord and the other Lady. And if any one amongst them, on seeing the images of either Simon or Helen, would call them by name, he is cast off, as being ignorant of the mysteries. -Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies, Book VI, Chapters XIV-XV

Philip Schaff wrote on the history of the veneration of Martyrs or Saints in the Early Church and how this was changed after Constantine:

In the first three centuries the veneration of the martyrs in general restricted itself to the thankful remembrance of their virtues and the celebration of the day of their death as the day of their heavenly birth. This celebration usually took place at their graves. So the church of Smyrna annually commemorated its bishop Polycarp, and valued his bones more than gold and gems, though with the express distinction: ‘Christ we worship as the Son of God; the martyrs we love and honor as disciples and successors of the Lord, on account of their insurpassable love to their King and Master, as also, we wish to be their companions and fellow disciples.’

Here we find this veneration as yet in its innocent simplicity. But in the Nicene age it advanced to a formal invocation of the saints as our patrons (patroni) and intercessors (intercessores, mediatores) before the throne of grace, and degenerated into a form of refined polytheism and idolatry. The saints came into the place of the demigods, Penates and Lares, the patrons of the domestic hearth and of the country. As once temples and altars to the heroes, so now churches and chapels came to be built over the graves of the martyrs, and consecrated to their names (or more precisely to God through them). People laid in them, as they used to do in the temple of Aesculapius, the sick that they might be healed, and hung in them, as in the temples of the gods, sacred gifts of silver and gold. Their graves were, as Chrysostom says, move splendidly adorned and more frequently visited than the palaces of kings.

Banquets were held there in their honor, which recall the heathen sacrificial feasts for the welfare of the manes. Their relics were preserved with scrupulous care, and believed to possess miraculous virtue. Earlier, it was the custom to pray for the martyrs (as if they were not yet perfect) and to thank God for their fellowship and their pious example. Now such intercessions for them were considered unbecoming, and their intercession was invoked for the living. This invocation of the dead was accompanied with the presumption that they take the deepest interest in all the fortunes of the kingdom of God on earth, and express it in prayers and intercessions

But in spite of all these distinctions and cautions, which must be expected from a man like Augustine, and acknowledged to be a wholesome restraint against excesses, we cannot but see in the martyr-worship, as it was actually practised, a new form of the hero-worship of the pagans.

Nor can we wonder in the least. For the great mass of the Christian people came, in fact, fresh from polytheism, without thorough conversion, and could not divest themselves of their old notions and customs at a stroke. The despotic form of government, the servile subjection of the people, the idolatrous homage which was paid to the Byzantine emperors and their statues, the predicates divina, sacra, coelestia, which were applied to the utterances of their will, favored the worship of saints.

The heathen emperor Julian sarcastically reproached the Christians with reintroducing polytheism into monotheism, but, on account of the difference of the objects, revolted from the Christian worship of martyrs and relics, as from the “stench of graves and dead men’s bones.”

The Manichaean taunt we have already mentioned. The Spanish presbyter Vigilantius, in the fifth century, called the worshippers of martyrs and relics, ashes-worshippers and idolaters, and taught that, according to the Scriptures, the living only should pray with and for each other.

Even some orthodox church teachers admitted the affinity of the saint-worship with heathenism, though with the view of showing that all that is good in the heathen worship reappears far better in the Christian. Eusebius cites a passage from Plato on the worship of heroes, demi-gods, and their graves, and then applies it to the veneration of friends of God and champions of true religion; so that the Christians did well to visit their graves, to honor their memory there, and to offer their prayers.

The Greeks, Theodoret thinks, have the least reason to be offended at what takes place at the graves of the martyrs; for the libations and expiations, the demi-gods and deified men, originated with themselves. Hercules, Aesculapius, Bacchus, the Dioscuri, and the like, are deified men; consequently it cannot be a reproach to the Christians that they—not deify, but—honor their martyrs as witnesses and servants of God.

The ancients saw nothing censurable in such worship of the dead. The saints, our helpers and patrons, are far more worthy of such honor. The temples of the gods are destroyed, the philosophers, orators, and emperors are forgotten, but the martyrs are universally known. The feasts of the gods are now replaced by the festivals of Peter, Paul, Marcellus, Leontius, Antonins, Mauricius, and other martyrs, not with pagan pomp and sensual pleasures, but with Christian soberness and decency.

In connection with the new hero-worship a new mythology also arose, which filled up the gaps of the history of the saints, and sometimes even transformed the pagan myths of gods and heroes into Christian legends. The superstitious imagination, visions, and dreams, and pious fraud famished abundant contributions to the Christian legendary poesy.

The worship of the saints found eloquent vindication and encouragement not only, in poets like Prudentius (about 405) and Paulinus of Nola (died 431), to whom greater freedom is allowed, but even in all the prominent theologians and preachers of the Nicene and post-Nicene age. It was as popular as monkery, and was as enthusiastically commended by the leaders of the church in the East and West.

The two institutions, moreover, are closely connected and favor each other. The monks were most zealous friends of saint-worship in their own cause. The church of the fifth century already went almost as far in it as the Middle Age, at all events quite as far as the council of Trent; for this council does not prescribe the invocation of the saints, but confines itself to approving it as “good and useful” (not as necessary) on the ground of their reigning with Christ in heaven and their intercession for us, and expressly remarks that Christ is our only, Redeemer and Saviour.

This moderate and prudent statement of the doctrine, however, has not yet removed the excesses which the Roman Catholic people still practise in the worship of the saints, their images, and their relics. The Greek church goes even further in theory than the Roman; for the confession of Peter Mogilas (which was subscribed by the four Greek patriarchs in 1643, and again sanctioned by the council of Jerusalem in 1672), declares it duty and propriety (χρέος) to implore the intercession (μεσιτεία) of Mary and the saints with God for us. -Philip Schaff

Beginning with the conversion of Constantine a great change occurred in this understanding of the Church building and its significance….The Church building was gradually freed from subordination to its eccelsiological meaning, aquired its own independent significance, and the center of attention was shifted from the Church assembled and realized within the building itself, as in fact a sanctified building or sanctuary… This was a church-sanctuary, a place for the habitation and residence of the sacred, therefore capable of sanctiying and communicating the sacred to whoever entered it… On the one hand there was the Christian reception of the heroon or temple memorial raised over the tomb of a martyr or saint, or at the place of his theopany. On the other
and there was the basillica, the place for public assembly or state cult. Both forms gradually merged, but characteristically their merger took on the form of the hero’s temple or sanctuary… ~Alexander Schmemann’s Introduction to Liturgical Theology,