I'm not prejudiced against R.C.s BUT...

Correct me if I am wrong, but Calvin himself did not oppose images because he felt that they were intrinsically bad. He opposed them because of the superstitious attitudes that many people of his era had towards them. I believe he would be fine with stuff like stained glass in today's church.

 

lol do you have any proof of this?

 

It was controversial in Charlemagne’s court, in part because they had a faulty translation of the Acts of the Council. That was eventually rectified, which paved the way for their eventual acceptance in the West.

Part of this was political: Charlemagne and the Byzantine Basileus (king) each claimed to be the Roman Emperor, so any claimed differences between the Churches in their respective realms would have been perceived as potentially politically useful to either side, and were in fact exploited as such by both sides. (It was during this same period, for example, that the filioque became an issue between the Frankish and Greek Churches.)

 

I posted the evidence in this thread, https://forums.anglican.net/threads...ns-rejected-by-the-western-latin-church.4145/

But will repost the argument here, for ease of reference.

"A Treatise on the Church of Christ" by William Palmer, from the bottom of the page:
https://books.google.com/books?id=24wOAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA189#v=onepage&q&f=false​

"The Pseudo-Synod of Nicea.​

Let us now turn to the west. It is a matter of certainty that (with the exception of the Roman see which always supported and approved it,) the churches of the west generally condemned and rejected the synod of Nice as illegitimate... But what is still more remarkable is, that even the Roman pontiffs themselves, though they always received and strenuously defended the synod of Nice, did not for a long time include it in the number of oecumenical synods. In 859, Pope Nicholas I in his reply to a letter of Ado, bishop of Vienne, asking the pallium, requires his assent only to six general councils — omitting that of Nice: and, lest it should be alleged that this arose merely from that Pope's toleration of the error of the Franks who rejected that council, in the year 863 or 866, he held a synod at Rome, and in the decree against Photius there unanimously made, six general councils only are again acknowledged; excluding as before, the synod of Nice. In this case there can be no conceivable reason for such an omission, except that the church of Rome did not at this period reckon it among the general synods. Even in 871, Pope Hadrian, in a letter to the Emperor Charles the Bald, still only speaks of six general councils, though before this time the eighth, (as it has since been styled by the Romans,) had been approved and confirmed by that Pope. At length, however, the church of Rome held the synod of Nice to be the seventh ecumenical synod, as appears from Cardinal Humbert's excommunication of Cerularius, A. D. 1054. The several chronicles of France and Germany during the ninth and following centuries, uniformly speak of it as a “PSEUDO-SYNOD.”​

The Annales Francorum, written A. D. 808, say, that at the synod of Frankfort, “the PSEUDO-SYNOD OF THE GREEKS, which they falsely called the seventh, and which they had made in order to sanction the adoration of images, was rejected by the bishops.” It is also termed “pseudo-synod” in the Annales Francorum, continued to 814, and in the anonymous life of Charlemagne written after 814; and is condemned in the annals written after 819. Eginhard, in his Annales Francorum, written in 829, says that at Frankfort, “the synod which had been called by the Greeks not only the seventh, but universal, was entirely annulled by all, as of no force; that it might neither be held nor spoken of as universal.” In 824, the Gallican bishops again condemned it at Paris. Hincmar, archbishop of Rheims, about 870, speaks of the “pseudo-synod” of Nice as entirely destroyed and annulled by a general synod in France. Ado, bishop of Vienne, who died 875, in his chronicle speaks of the “pseudo-synod,” which the Greeks call the seventh. Anastasius, librarian of the Roman church, translated the synod of Nice into Latin, when he was at the (so called) “eighth general synod,” A. D. 870; and, in his preface to it, observes that the French did not approve the worship of images. The chronicles of the monastery of S. Bertinus, written after 884, speak of the synod of Constantinople 870, in which that of Nice was approved, and the worship of images authorized, as “ordaining things concerning the adoration of images contrary to the definitions of the orthodox doctors,” &c. The Annales Francorum, written in the abbey of Fulda after the year 900, speak of the synod of Nice as “a pseudo-synod of the Greeks, falsely called the seventh.”​

Etc.

Further on down, he describes how it was surreptitiously snuck in by Papal clerks into the manuscript lists of official councils, in the 11th and 12th centuries; and after that time (until the 16th century) it became a fait accomplit.

​

I have heard this claim many times, but Palmer says nothing about a faulty translation. It seems to be little more than a meme spread by some modern ecumenists, to drive a certain agenda (not that you're doing that). If you have evidence that Palmer is wrong, then I'd really appreciate if you posted that in my thread above.

 

(I suppose I’ll jump back in for a while) Hey! I like St. Chrysostom. Leave him alone.
But I actually happened to look up his homilies on matthew last night, specifically the ‘tu es petrus’ chunk. He didn’t mention the bishop of Rome. He seemed far more concerned that Christ was demonstrating his divinity by handing St. Peter the keys on his own, without some mediation of the Father.

 

I’d have to hunt down the sources - which I will try to do - but for now I’m going on a 15-year-old memory of what I read at the time.

For a decent secondary source account of Charlemagne’s rejection of Nicea II, the old Catholic Encyclopedia’s entry for the Council of Frankfurt (794) is as good as any:
https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06236a.htm

 

It’s interesting as a bit of trivia that when Chrysostom is commemorated in the Eastern Orthodox Liturgy that bears his name, he is consistently referred to as the “archbishop” of Constantinople, not as the “patriarch”.

 

Therein lies the problem, right? The very people that fabricated gratuitous forgery upon forgery for thousands of years, are then writing how "there were no forgeries" and "if there were, didn't really matter, nothing to see here".

I wouldn't trust an RCC source on this even for a minute. Palmer writes:

Which seems to suggest that there wasn't some "one faulty edition" of the Acts. But rather that the Latins had in circulation multiple translations, which they themselves performed over the courses of decades and centuries. It even suggests that they had access to the original documents, and the Latin translations were done mostly for convenience. It's not a picture of the Latin churches being at the mercy of one single translation, out of a language they were helpless themselves to understand.

The simple record Palmer presents is a record of centuries, where the Latin histories, councils, even Papal edicts, conscientiously excluded Nicea II from all records, and openly stated that it is "a pseudo-synod", whose teachings are in direct violation of catholicity and orthodoxy.

 

Let’s back this up a bit for a moment. @BedtimePrayers asked if there were any sources for the Western rejection of Nicea II. My citing an accepted Catholic secondary source that acknowledges that a Frankish council in 794 called by Charlemagne did indeed reject Nicea II should answer her question satisfactorily or at least confirm for her that we aren’t just making it up. That, in turn, at least gets us to the point where we’re dealing with a common set of facts. Otherwise we’re just talking past each other. Baby steps, my friend.

 

This is kind of a tangent, and maybe should not be in this thread, but just for my own edification, I did look up how they translated the Septuagint from the hebrew. Here's Exodus 20:5 :
5 οὐ προσκυνήσεις αὐτοῖς, οὐδὲ μὴ λατρεύσεις αὐτοῖς· ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι Κύριος ὁ Θεός σου

Thou shalt not proskyneo to them, or latreuo them.

So, if that helps anybody, now you know.

EDIT: Of course, if you're a Byzantine you'll probably say that it shouldn't apply to icons of Christ, for christological reasons, but I digress.

 

That’s extraordinarily helpful. That reminds me…In one of the pro-images polemical works of the time - and I’m pretty sure it was St. John Damascene’s On the Divine Images - one of his arguments was from a passage in the Book of Ezra where it says the people prostrated themselves (proskynesis) toward where the Ark of Covenant had been, and then tries to use this to justify bowing to the ground before images of human beings. The argument is weak to the point of lameness - and indefensible if one relies on the Hebrew original - and as an Orthodox Christian (at that time), I recall being very dissatisfied with it.

 

God commanded Moses to make a bronze serpent so the Israelites could look upon it and be healed.
God did this knowing the Israelites were prone to idolatry.
They lived in a time where people thought constructed idols contained a deity. Yet God didn’t think it was wrong to ask them to do this.
It’s because the serpent wasn’t an idol.

Exodus says:

“Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;”

this is obviously talking about idolatry.
Idolatry starts in the heart. Do you really think God says it’s idolatry when someone *venerates* an icon they KNOW is not God or divine at all?


It also says not to make any likeness of anything on earth or heaven. Why don’t you follow that commandment?
I’m sure because you interpret it with some nuance.

 

I'm not good with the Hebrew, but here's the Latin for you:

Then the Greek again:

Might I submit that the bronze serpent is instituted as a prophecy of the Messiah by God Himself, rather than an individual worshipper using an image which they themself have made? God is free to tell you to look at the serpent, but you are not free to set up your own serpent.

 

Re writing history? That sounds like a conspiracy theory to be honest. Palmer is an Anglican and the book obviously has an axe to grind. Do you have any proof from a non biased source?
What invictus said is what I’ve read from most reputable scholars.

 

Yes the Greek says not to make eidolon, the English says not to make graven images. All the translations mean the same: don’t make idols, don’t worship them.
pretty straight forward

 

Do you not see the subject with the reflexive pronouns in each language?

 

Also do you have any proof the church fathers didn’t believe in transubstantiation?
No one is saying even the East believed in the Aristotelian terms but they did believe a *change* occurred in the Eucharist. It’s pretty obvious..

 

I think this is exactly what the reformers were worried about, because some people did take it to idolatry. Why enforce something that people will use sinfully? Maybe we should cut off the hand or cut out the eye.

Actually, the Anglicans believe in real spiritual presence. Just not the Aristotelian one.

 

Wisdom of Solomon 16.7-12
7 For the one who turned towards it was saved, not by the thing that was beheld,
but by you, the Saviour of all.
8 And by this also you convinced our enemies
that it is you who deliver from every evil.
9 For they were killed by the bites of locusts and flies,
and no healing was found for them,
because they deserved to be punished by such things.
10 But your children were not conquered even by the fangs of venomous serpents,
for your mercy came to their help and healed them.
11 To remind them of your oracles they were bitten,
and then were quickly delivered,
so that they would not fall into deep forgetfulness
and become unresponsive* to your kindness.
12 For neither herb nor poultice cured them,
but it was your word, O Lord, that heals all people.​

 

Problem: the people were not told to “venerate” it, or direct prayers toward it. The Mishnah even takes the phrase “look at it” symbolically, as an exhortation to (paraphrased) “look toward heaven, to the God who heals, not toward the snake that kills” (cf. Rashi). The reason this passage isn’t a problem is because it belongs in a wholly different category than what Nicea II was condoning. Later in Israelite history, when the bronze snake did become such an object, it was destroyed. Your example proves the opposite of what you’re contending.