Catechism of the Catholic Church: Article 1:The First Commandment
IV. "You Shall Not Make for Yourself a Graven Image..."
2129The divine injunction included the prohibition of every representation of God by the hand of man. Deuteronomy explains: "Since you saw no form on the day that the Lord spoke to you at Horeb out of the midst of the fire, beware lest you act corruptly by making a graven image for yourselves, in the form of any figure. . . . " It is the absolutely transcendent God who revealed himself to Israel. "He is the all," but at the same time "he is greater than all his works." He is "the author of beauty."
2130Nevertheless, already in the Old Testament, God ordained or permitted the making of images that pointed symbolically toward salvation by the incarnate Word: so it was with the bronze serpent, the ark of the covenant, and the cherubim.
2131Basing itself on the mystery of the incarnate Word, the seventh ecumenical council at Nicaea (787) justified against the iconoclasts the veneration of icons - of Christ, but also of the Mother of God, the angels, and all the saints. By becoming incarnate, the Son of God introduced a new "economy" of images.
2132The Christian veneration of images is not contrary to the first commandment which proscribes idols. Indeed, "the honor rendered to an image passes to its prototype," and "whoever venerates an image venerates the person portrayed in it." The honor paid to sacred images is a "respectful veneration," not the adoration due to God alone:
Religious worship is not directed to images in themselves, considered as mere things, but under their distinctive aspect as images leading us on to God incarnate. The movement toward the image does not terminate in it as image, but tends toward that whose image it is.
In Brief
2133"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul and with all your strength" (Deut 6:5).
2134The first commandment summons man to believe in God, to hope in him, and to love him above all else.
2135"You shall worship the Lord your God" (Mt 4:10). Adoring God, praying to him, offering him the worship that belongs to him, fulfilling the promises and vows made to him are acts of the virtue of religion which fall under obedience to the first commandment.
2136The duty to offer God authentic worship concerns man both as an individual and as a social being.
2137"Men of the present day want to profess their religion freely in private and in public" (DH 15).
2138Superstition is a departure from the worship that we give to the true God. It is manifested in idolatry, as well as in various forms of divination and magic.
2139Tempting God in words or deeds, sacrilege, and simony are sins of irreligion forbidden by the first commandment.
2140Since it rejects or denies the existence of God, atheism is a sin against the first commandment.
2141The veneration of sacred images is based on the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word of God. It is not contrary to the first commandment.
Notes
3 Ex 20:2-5; cf. Deut 5:6-9.
4 Mt 4:10.
5 Deut 6:13-14.
6 Cf. Ex 19:16-25; 24:15-18.
7 St. Justin, Dial. cum Tryphone Judaeo 11,1:PG 6,497.
9 Rom 1:5; 16:26.
10 Cf. Rom 1:18-32.
11 CIC, can. 751: emphasis added.
12 Cf. Deut 6:4-5.
13 Lk 4:8; Cf. Deut 6:13.
14 Cf. Lk 1:46-49.
15 Lk 18:1.
16 St. Augustine, De civ Dei 10,6:PL 41,283.
17 Ps 51:17.
18 Cf. Am 5:21-25; Isa 1:10-20.
19 Mt 9:13; 12:7; Cf. Hos 6:6.
20 Cf. Heb 9:13-14.
21 CIC, can. 1191 § 1.
22 Cf. Acts 18:18; 21:23-24.
23 Cf. CIC, can. 654.
24 LG 42 § 2.
25 Cf. CIC, cann. 692; 1196-1197.
26 DH 1 § 2.
27 DH 2 § 1.
28 NA 2 § 2.
29 DH 14 § 4.
30 DH 1 § 3.
31 AA 13 § 1.
32 Cf. DH 1.
33 Cf. AA 13; Leo XIII, Immortale Dei 3,17; Pius XI, Quas primas 8,20.
34 DH 2 § 1.
35 DH 2 § 2.
36 DH 6 § 3.
37 Cf. Leo XIII, Libertas praestantissimum 18; Pius XII AAS 1953,799.
38 Cf. DH 2.
39 Cf. Pius VI, Quod aliquantum (1791) 10; Pius IX, Quanta cura 3.
40 DH 7 § 3.
41 Cf. Mt 23:16-22.
42 Ps 115:4-5, 8; cf. Isa 44:9-20; Jer 10:1-16; Dan 14:1-30; Bar 6; Wis 13:1-15:19.
43 Josh 3:10; Ps 42:3; etc.
44 Mt 6:24.
45 Cf. Rev 13-14.
46 Cf. Gal 5:20; Eph 5:5.
47 Origen, Contra Celsum 2,40:PG 11,861.
48 Cf. Deut 18:10; Jer 29:8.
49 Cf. Lk 4:9.
50 Deut 6:16.
51 Cf. 1 Cor 10:9; Ex 17:2-7; Ps 95:9.
52 Cf. CIC, cann. 1367; 1376.
53 Cf. Acts 8:9-24.
54 Acts 8:20.
55 Mt 10:8; cf. already Isa 55:1.
56 CIC, can. 848.
57 Mt 10:10; cf. Lk 10:7; 2 Cor 9:5-18; 1 Tim 5:17-18.
58 GS 19 § 1.
59 GS 20 § 2.
60 GS 20 § 2.
61 Cf. Rom 1:18.
62 GS 19 § 3.
63 Cf. GS 20 § 1.
64 GS 21 § 3.
65 GS 21 § 7.
66 Deut 4:15-16.
67 Sir 43:27-28.
68 Wis 13:3.
69 Cf. Num 21:4-9; Wis 16:5-14; Jn 3:14-15; Ex 25:10-22; 1 Kings 6:23-28; 7:23-26.
70 St. Basil, De Spiritu Sancto 18,45:PG 32,149C; Council of Nicaea II: DS 601; cf. Council of Trent: DS 1821-1825; Vatican Council II: SC 126; LG 67.
71 St. Thomas Aquinas, STh II-II,81,3 ad 3.‸