however,
impossible, as Calvin has justly observed,(5) to preserve such objects
without honouring them in a certain manner, and this must soon degenerate
into adoration. This was the origin of the worship of relics, which went
on increasing in the same ratio as the purity of Christian doctrines was
giving way to the superstitions of Paganism.

The worship of images is intimately connected with that of the saints.
They were rejected by the primitive Christians; but St Irenaeus, who lived
in the second century, relates that there was a sect of heretics, the
Carpocratians, who worshipped, in the manner of Pagans, different images
representing Jesus Christ, St Paul, and others. The Gnostics had also
images; but the church rejected their use in a positive manner, and a
Christian writer of the third century, Minutius Felix, says that "the
Pagans reproached the Christians for having neither temples nor
simulachres;" and I could quote many other evidences that the primitive
Christians entertained a great horror against every kind of images,
considering them as the work of demons.

It appears, however, that the use of pictures was creeping into the church
already in the third century, because the council of Elvira in Spain, held
in 305, especially forbids to have any picture in the Christian churches.
These pictures were generally representations of some events, either of
the New or of the Old Testament, and their object was to instruct the
common and illiterate people in sacred history, whilst others were
emblems, representing some ideas connected with the doctrines of
Christianity. It was certainly a powerful means of producing an impression
upon the senses and the imagination of the vulgar, who believe without
reasoning, and admit without reflection; it was also the most easy way of
converting rude and ignorant nations, because, looking constantly on the
representations of some fact, people usually end by believing it. This
iconographic teaching was, therefore, recommended by the rulers of the
church, as being useful to the ignorant, who had only the understanding of
eyes, and could not read writings.(6) Such a practice was, however,
fraught with the greatest danger, as experience has but too much proved.
It was replacing intellect by sight.(7) Instead of elevating man towards
God, it was bringing down the Deity to the level of his finite intellect,
and it could not but powerfully contribute to the rapid spread of a pagan
a