On Idolatry 4
Summary: The law forbids making idols as well as worshipping them, and Enoch, Isaiah, and David all condemn those who make idols together with those who worship them.
Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.
Latin text · CSEL 20:33–34
Idolum tam fieri quam coli deus prohibet. quanto praecedit, ut fiat quod coli possit, tanto prius est, ne fiat, si coli non licet. propter hanc causam, ad eradicandam scilicet materiam idololatriae, lex diuina proclamat, ne feceris idolum, et coniungens, neque similitudinem eorum quae in caelo sunt et quae in terra et quae in mari, toto mundo eiusmodi artibus interdixit seruis dei. antecesserat Enoch praedicens omnia elementa, omnem mundi censum, quae caelo, quae mari, quae terra continentur, in idololatrian uersuros daemonas et spiritus desertorum angelorum, ut pro deo aduersus deum consecrarentur. omnia igitur colit humanus error praeter ipsum omnium conditorem. eorum imagines idola, imaginum consecratio idololatria. quicquid idololatria committit, in artificem quemcumque et cuiuscumque idoli deputetur necesse est. denique idem Enoch simul et cultores idoli et fabricatores in comminatione praedamnat. et rursus: iuro uobis peccatores, quod in diem sanguinis perditionis tristitia parata est. qui seruitis lapidibus et qui imagines facitis aureas et argenteas et ligneas et lapideas et fictiles et seruitis phantasmatibus et daemoniis et spiritibus infernis et omnibus erroribus non secundum scientiam, nullum ab iis inuenietis auxilium. Esaias uero, testes, ait, uos estis, si est deus absque me. et non erant tunc qui fingunt et exculpunt, omnes uani, qui faciunt libita sibi, quae illis non proderunt. et deinceps tota illa pronuntiatio quam artifices, quam cultores detestatur. cuius clausula est: cognoscite, quod cinis sit cor illorum et terra, et nemo animam suam liberare possit. † ubi aeque Dauid et factores. tales fiant, inquit, qui faciunt ea. et quid ego, modicae memoriae homo, ultra quid suggeram? quid recolam de scripturis? quasi aut non sufficiat uox spiritus sancti aut ultra deliberandum sit, an maledixerit atque damnauerit dominus ipsos prius artifices eorum, quorum cultores maledicit et damnat?
English · Claude translation
God forbids an idol to be made as much as to be worshipped. As much as the making of something that can be worshipped comes first, so much prior is the command that it not be made, if it is not lawful to worship it. For this reason, namely to root out the material of idolatry, the divine law proclaims, “You shall not make an idol,” and adding, “nor a likeness of the things that are in heaven and on earth and in the sea,” it has forbidden such arts to the servants of God throughout the whole world. Enoch had gone before, predicting that the demons and the spirits of the apostate angels would turn all the elements, the whole stock of the world, whatever is contained in heaven, in the sea, and on earth, into idolatry, so that they would be consecrated as God against God. So human error worships all things except the founder of all things himself. Their images are idols; the consecration of the images is idolatry. Whatever idolatry commits must be charged to every maker of any idol whatever. Indeed, the same Enoch condemns in advance, in his threat, both the worshippers and the makers of idols together. And again: “I swear to you, sinners, that for the day of blood and of destruction sorrow is prepared. You who serve stones, and you who make images of gold and silver and wood and stone and clay, and serve phantoms and demons and infernal spirits and all errors not according to knowledge, you will find no help from them.” And Isaiah says: “You are witnesses whether there is a God besides me. And those who fashion and carve were not then: all are vain, who make what pleases them, which will not profit them.” And then that whole utterance which curses the makers as much as the worshippers. Its close is: “Know that their heart is ash and earth, and no one can deliver his soul.” … there David likewise includes the makers: “Let those who make them become like them,” he says. And what more should I, a man of small memory, suggest? What more should I recall from the Scriptures? As if either the voice of the Holy Spirit were not enough, or there were still any question whether the Lord cursed and condemned the very makers of those things, first of all, whose worshippers he curses and condemns!
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The law is Exod 20:4. The Enoch passages correspond to 1 Enoch 19:1 (the angels leading men to sacrifice to demons) and 1 Enoch 99:6–7 (quoted). The Isaiah quotations are Isa 44:8–9 and 44:20, as Tertullian's Latin gives them. The David quotation is Ps 115:8 (113:16 Vulg.). The words before “there David” are marked as corrupt (†) in the edition.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (letter lost in the digital text; misread letter in the digital text): aduerlus → aduersus; cultores idoi → cultores idoli.
Cite this passage
Tertullian, Idol. 4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-idololatria/4/).
Plain text
Tertullian, Idol. 4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/tertullian-idololatria/4/).
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