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The Octavius of Minucius Felix recounts a debate between the Christian-Octavius and the non-Christian-Caecilius. Moderator-Minucius Felix, tells us that the debate began as he, Octavius, and Caecilius were walking together along a seashore. As they passed an image along the way:
"Caecilius, observing an image of Serapis, raised his hand to his mouth, as is the custom of the superstitious common people, and pressed a kiss on it with his lips. Then Octavius said: 'It is not the part of a good man, my brother Marcus [Minucius Felix], so to desert a man who abides by your side at home and abroad, in this blindness of vulgar ignorance, as that you should suffer him in such broad daylight as this to give himself up to stones, however they may be carved into images, anointed and crowned; since you know that the disgrace of this his error redounds in no less degree to your discredit than to his own.'" (The Octavius of Minucius Felix, 2-3)
Caecilius, offended by Octavius' rebuke, challenges him to a debate, which is to be moderated by Minucius Felix. Notice that Octavius, a Christian, objects to blowing a kiss at an image. He refers to Caecilius "giving himself up to stones, however they may be carved into images". He doesn't seem to be objecting to the identity of the image Caecilius is venerating. Rather, he's objecting to venerating *any* image.
As the debate proceeds, Caecilius issues the following criticism against Christians:
"Why have they no altars, no temples, no acknowledged images?" (10)
Octavius, in his response, tries to explain why Christians reject images:
"In like manner with respect to the gods too, our ancestors believed carelessly, credulously, with untrained simplicity; while worshipping their kings religiously, desiring to look upon them when dead in outward forms, anxious to preserve their memories in statues, those things became sacred which had been taken up merely as consolations." (20)
Eastern and western catholics sometimes argue that the early fathers weren't objecting to images in general, but only to *some* images, such as images of people or gods who didn't exist. But Octavius goes on to comment:
"What is your Jupiter himself? Now he is represented in a statue as beardless, now he is set up as bearded" (21)
In other words, one of his objections to images is that we don't know what the people being portrayed in the image look like. One image is inconsistent with another image. The same criticism would apply to EO and RC images. We find different portrayals of Mary, for example, in images in different parts of the world.
Elsewhere, Octavius issues another criticism that would apply to Orthodox/Catholic images just as much as any other image:
"How much more truly do dumb animals naturally judge concerning your gods? Mice, swallows, kites, know that they have no feeling: they gnaw them, they trample on them, they sit upon them; and unless you drive them off, they build their nests in the very mouth of your god. Spiders, indeed, weave their webs over his face, and suspend their threads from his very head. You wipe, cleanse, scrape, and you protect and fear those whom you make; while not one of you thinks that he ought to know God before he worships Him; desiring without consideration to obey their ancestors, choosing rather to become an addition to the error of others, than to trust themselves; in that they know nothing of what they fear. Thus avarice has been consecrated in gold and silver; thus the form of empty statues has been established; thus has arisen Roman superstition." (24)
How likely is it that somebody who supported the veneration of images, as long as the correct figures are being venerated, would refer to animals building nests on images? Animals can build nests on the allegedly sacred images of Orthodoxism and Catholicism just as easily as they build nests on other allegedly sacred images.
Octavius goes on to say that demons are "consecrated under statues and images" (27). Any doubt that Octavius is objecting to images in general, not just non-Christian images, is removed when he explains why Christians have no images of God:
"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?...But certainly the God whom we worship we neither show nor see. Verily for this reason we believe Him to be God, that we can be conscious of Him, but cannot see Him; for in His works, and in all the movements of the world, we behold His power ever present when He thunders, lightens, darts His bolts, or when He makes all bright again. Nor should you wonder if you do not see God....Do you wish to see God with your carnal eyes, when you are neither able to behold nor to grasp your own soul itself, by which you are enlivened and speak?" (32)
"Caecilius, observing an image of Serapis, raised his hand to his mouth, as is the custom of the superstitious common people, and pressed a kiss on it with his lips. Then Octavius said: 'It is not the part of a good man, my brother Marcus [Minucius Felix], so to desert a man who abides by your side at home and abroad, in this blindness of vulgar ignorance, as that you should suffer him in such broad daylight as this to give himself up to stones, however they may be carved into images, anointed and crowned; since you know that the disgrace of this his error redounds in no less degree to your discredit than to his own.'" (The Octavius of Minucius Felix, 2-3)
Caecilius, offended by Octavius' rebuke, challenges him to a debate, which is to be moderated by Minucius Felix. Notice that Octavius, a Christian, objects to blowing a kiss at an image. He refers to Caecilius "giving himself up to stones, however they may be carved into images". He doesn't seem to be objecting to the identity of the image Caecilius is venerating. Rather, he's objecting to venerating *any* image.
As the debate proceeds, Caecilius issues the following criticism against Christians:
"Why have they no altars, no temples, no acknowledged images?" (10)
Octavius, in his response, tries to explain why Christians reject images:
"In like manner with respect to the gods too, our ancestors believed carelessly, credulously, with untrained simplicity; while worshipping their kings religiously, desiring to look upon them when dead in outward forms, anxious to preserve their memories in statues, those things became sacred which had been taken up merely as consolations." (20)
Eastern and western catholics sometimes argue that the early fathers weren't objecting to images in general, but only to *some* images, such as images of people or gods who didn't exist. But Octavius goes on to comment:
"What is your Jupiter himself? Now he is represented in a statue as beardless, now he is set up as bearded" (21)
In other words, one of his objections to images is that we don't know what the people being portrayed in the image look like. One image is inconsistent with another image. The same criticism would apply to EO and RC images. We find different portrayals of Mary, for example, in images in different parts of the world.
Elsewhere, Octavius issues another criticism that would apply to Orthodox/Catholic images just as much as any other image:
"How much more truly do dumb animals naturally judge concerning your gods? Mice, swallows, kites, know that they have no feeling: they gnaw them, they trample on them, they sit upon them; and unless you drive them off, they build their nests in the very mouth of your god. Spiders, indeed, weave their webs over his face, and suspend their threads from his very head. You wipe, cleanse, scrape, and you protect and fear those whom you make; while not one of you thinks that he ought to know God before he worships Him; desiring without consideration to obey their ancestors, choosing rather to become an addition to the error of others, than to trust themselves; in that they know nothing of what they fear. Thus avarice has been consecrated in gold and silver; thus the form of empty statues has been established; thus has arisen Roman superstition." (24)
How likely is it that somebody who supported the veneration of images, as long as the correct figures are being venerated, would refer to animals building nests on images? Animals can build nests on the allegedly sacred images of Orthodoxism and Catholicism just as easily as they build nests on other allegedly sacred images.
Octavius goes on to say that demons are "consecrated under statues and images" (27). Any doubt that Octavius is objecting to images in general, not just non-Christian images, is removed when he explains why Christians have no images of God:
"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?...But certainly the God whom we worship we neither show nor see. Verily for this reason we believe Him to be God, that we can be conscious of Him, but cannot see Him; for in His works, and in all the movements of the world, we behold His power ever present when He thunders, lightens, darts His bolts, or when He makes all bright again. Nor should you wonder if you do not see God....Do you wish to see God with your carnal eyes, when you are neither able to behold nor to grasp your own soul itself, by which you are enlivened and speak?" (32)
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