Commentaria in Deuteronomium
The Jews here establish and complete the first precept of the Decalogue in such a way that the second is: “Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing”; and the last two, namely: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife” and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods,” are one, namely the tenth precept. So Josephus, Philo in his book On the Decalogue, the Commentaries written under the names of Ambrose and Jerome on the epistle to the Ephesians, chapter vi, Athanasius in his Synopsis; Calvin follows these most eagerly, that he may thence hurl a stronger dart against images. On the contrary, that “Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing” is not the second precept but belongs to the first, is taught by Clement of Alexandria, Stromata book VI; St. Augustine, Question LXXI on Exodus, and epistle 119, chapter xi; St. Jerome on Psalm xxxi, and the Scholastics commonly in III, dist. 37. And this is far truer and fitter. First, because these two, namely “Thou shalt not have strange gods” and “Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing,” regard the same, namely that they command one God alone to be worshipped. This will be plainer from what follows.
Secondly, because otherwise there will be not ten but eleven precepts of the Decalogue; for the last two, which the Jews join together, must be separated. For “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife” and “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s goods” differ as much as “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not steal.” For these forbid the external act, but those the internal act, namely the concupiscence of adultery and of theft. But these two are distinguished, as is plain; therefore those also. For one and the same is the object in both, from which the species and distinction of acts and of precepts is to be taken. Whence in the Hebrew also “thou shalt not covet” is repeated in both places, both in Exodus xx, 17 and here at verse 21, where they are placed in the right order, as also in Exodus xx, 16 in the Septuagint; although there in the Hebrew and in our version their order is mixed and confused; for the coveting of the house is put before the coveting of the wife.
You will say: In Romans vii, 7, these two precepts are cited as one, namely: “Thou shalt not covet.”
I answer that the Apostle did not care to describe them distinctly, because he only intends to prove that not only the external work but also the inward desire is forbidden by the law of God, as is plain from what goes before and follows.
8. THOU SHALT NOT MAKE TO THYSELF A GRAVEN THING.—In the verse above he forbade other gods in general; here he forbids in particular the images of gods; for chiefly by these did the nations worship their gods, nay, they held those very images as gods: which although Calvin denies, yet Isaias expressly teaches, chapter xliv, 17, Baruch the whole of chapter vi, Jeremias, chapter x, Wisdom, chapter xiii, 10. God therefore here forbids the images of gods both to be made and to be worshipped: for both are wicked.
Note first: the Hebrew pesel signifies a graven thing, from the root pasal, that is, to carve, to hew. For most images used to be carved or hewn into statues: yet under graven thing understand also the molten, cast, turned, etc.
Note secondly: for “graven thing” the Septuagint, Exodus xx, 4, translate “idol”; for everywhere in Scripture idols are understood by graven things. Moreover, although Origen and Theodoretus take “idol” here more strictly, as the effigy of a thing not existing, as the Gentiles fashioned sphinxes, Tritons, Centaurs and other chimeras, while the “likeness,” which is forbidden next, is the expression of a thing existing, for example the image of the sun, the moon, men, beasts, creeping things; yet better, according to its common signification, we shall take “idol” as the image of a false and feigned god, whether that god be some true and existing thing or not. Whence:
Note thirdly: an idol among the Greeks was any empty and false image, as for example vain phantoms, spectres and shades of the dead, as is plain from Plato in the Theætetus, Lucian in the Dialogue of the Dead, Homer, Odyssey XI; whence they are called by Virgil Thin lives without body, And: Forms under a hollow image.
For eidolon is a diminutive of eidos, as if you should say: a little form, a figurine, a shadowy appearance. Hence Holy Scripture and ecclesiastical writers narrowed the name of idol to the image of a god who is held to be God and in truth is not, whether the God represented by the image, or the image itself held to be God. This is plain from 1 Corinthians viii, 4: “We know that an idol is nothing in the world,” as if to say: the god who is represented by the idol is not God, and therefore the idol is nothing; and Esther xiv, 11: “Deliver not up thy sceptre to them that are not,” that is, to idols. Hence the Hebrew Scripture everywhere calls idols tohu, that is, emptiness; elilim, that is, vanities, or little gods; sheker, that is, a lie; lo yoilu, that is, those which shall not profit: see St. Jerome on Osee vii. Wherefore Henry Stephens and John Scapula are deceived, and deceive, in their lexicons, when they assert that among ecclesiastical writers every image representing some deity, which we deem worthy of honour and worship, is called an idol. For not every image, or likeness of any deity, is an idol, but only the image of a false deity, as St. Cyprian teaches from Tertullian in the Exhortation to Martyrdom, chapter iii, and Athanasius, oration Against the Idols, near the end.
From what has been said appears the ignorance of our heretics, when they assert that all images whatever are here forbidden by the law of nature. Hence Calvin, seeing how absurdly this is said, although he tacitly carps at all images, yet asserts that not all images, but only the image of God, is here forbidden: in which matter Abulensis agrees with him among Catholics, who holds that by the law of nature every image of God is here forbidden. Durandus asserts the same, in III, dist. 9, Question II; but he thinks it is here forbidden not by the law of nature but by divine positive law, of which I shall speak in the next paragraph.
Refutation. But this is refuted in like manner: for first, the image of the true God is not an idol.
Secondly, here only the worship of other gods is forbidden, as is plain from what goes before and follows; for there went before: “Thou shalt not have strange gods”; there follows: “Thou shalt not adore them, nor serve them”; therefore the graven thing which is here forbidden to be made is a graven thing or image of strange gods; otherwise there would have to be set down here not one precept but two, nay three, different. Hence Moses, explaining the graven thing, verse 23 [Exodus xx, 23], says: “You shall not make gods of silver, nor gods of gold.” So also Leviticus xix, 4, he calls idols “molten gods,” as also often elsewhere. But the image of God is not another God than he, nor is the worship of the image the worship of another God. For the worship of an image, according to the common axiom of St. Basil and Damascene, is referred to the prototype.
Thirdly, it is certain that God did not forbid every graven thing, or the sculptor’s art, inasmuch as he himself adorned Ooliab and Beseleel with it, and commanded it to be used for fashioning the Cherubim, and willed Moses to use the same in forming the brazen serpent, Numbers xxi, 8. If therefore he forbade only some determinate kind of graven thing, whence is that determination to be taken better than from the words immediately preceding? so that we take it thus: “Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing,” that is, graven strange gods.
Fourthly, God set before the eyes of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Isaias, Ezechiel, Moses and many others a bodily and sensible image of himself, when he appeared to them: therefore he did not forbid it as unlawful by the law of nature. Nor say that God dispensed with himself in this image of himself, forbidden by the law of nature: for if by the very same law and precept of nature by which other gods are forbidden the image of the true God is also forbidden, then as God cannot dispense in the one, neither can he in the other.
Calvin answers that that was only a temporary symbol of God, which ought not to be drawn into a perpetual law. But this is an empty evasion: for the law of the Decalogue is eternal and perennial, and the graven thing which is here forbidden is to be taken as every one, as well temporary as perpetual: otherwise, if at any time an image of God be given which is not evil nor forbidden, certainly every image ought not to be said to be forbidden by its nature, or by the law of nature. For the Decalogue contains precepts of constant nature: therefore as God cannot give for a single moment the faculty of worshipping idols, so neither can he exhibit an image of himself, if that is equally repugnant of itself to nature, that is, to God and the worship of God.
Calvin objects that by this precept all superstition is forbidden at least concomitantly, and whatever is in any way injurious to God. But such is to wish to lead God, who is a purest spirit, down to bodily spectres.
I answer, and thence I form a fifth argument: the image of God is not an injury, nor dishonourable to God; therefore it is not forbidden by the law of nature. The antecedent I prove. First, because no injury is done to angels, though they be purest spirits, if they be painted; therefore none is done to God if he be painted; and the reason is that bodily men cannot conceive God and the angels except by bodily signs.