A prominent issue within Christian denominations involves the use of incense and images as well as the practice of praying to saints. Some groups, such as the Amish, forbid these practices to the extent that they will not pose for pictures; while others, most notably the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church, view the practices as a central part of their worship. As theologians from both perspectives defend their positions based on logic, tradition, and Scripture passages, the issues can become confusing. However, in the first several hundred years of Christianity, there was little confusion. The early Christians were in complete agreement on each of these issues.

Incense

Universally, the early Christians rejected the use of incense in worship:

• “God has no need of streams of blood, libations, and incense.” – Justin Martyr (c. 160)
• “The Framer and Father of this universe does not need blood, nor the odor of burnt offerings, nor the fragrance of flowers and incense, for He is Himself perfect fragrance.” – Athenagoras (c. 175)
• “God, the Creator of the universe, has no need of odors or of blood. These things are the food of devils.” – Tertullian (c. 212)
• “God is not appeased by incense, victims, or costly offerings. For these things are all corruptible. Rather, he is appeased by a reform of the morals.” – Lactantius (c. 304-313)
• “We erect no temples to [the gods] and do not worship their images. . . . We do not slay victims in sacrifice and . . . we do not offer incense and offerings of wine.” – Arnobius (c. 305)

As Tertullian wrote, the burning of incense was a pagan practice:

• “Most persons regard idolatry as being limited to these practices alone: burning incense or immolating a victim.” – Tertullian (c. 200)
• “The [theater and the arena] resemble each other also in their ceremony, having the same procession to the scene of their display from temples and altars, and that mournful profusion of incense and blood. . . . You slay the same victims and burn the same odors for your dead as you do for your gods.” – Tertullian (c. 197)
• “Even now, for the most part, idolatry is perpetrated without the idol – merely by the burning of aromas. The frankincense seller is more serviceable to demons, for idolatry is more easily carried on without the idol than without the goods of the frankincense seller.” – Tertullian (c. 200)
• “[As a Christian], you worship – not with the spirit of some worthless perfume – but with your own.” – Tertullian (c. 200)

According to the early Christians, true incense rises to God when believers pray and follow Jesus’ teachings from the heart:

• “‘In every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice’ [Mal. 1:11]. As John declares in the Apocalypse, ‘The incense is the prayers of the saints’ [Rev. 5:8].” – Irenaeus (c. 180)
• “How, then, will I crown myself, anoint with ointment, or offer incense to the Lord? It is said, ‘An odor of a sweet fragrance is the heart that glorifies Him who made it’ [Ps. 51:17]. These are the crowns and sacrifices, aromatic odors, and flowers of God.” – Clement of Alexandria (c. 195)
• “The sacrifice of the church is the word breathing as incense from holy souls. Both the sacrifice and the whole mind are unveiled to God at the same time. . . . And will they not believe us when we say that the righteous soul is the truly sacred altar and that the incense arising from it is holy prayer?” – Clement of Alexandria (c. 195)
• “I offer to Him at His own requirement that costly and noble sacrifice of prayer dispatched from the chaste body, an unstained soul, a sanctified spirit. I do not offer the few grains of incense that a small coin buys.” – Tertullian (c. 197)

Images

In Exodus 20:4-5, God prohibited the formation or worship of images: “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” The early Christians believed that this prohibition, as one of the Ten Commandments, still applied to them, and they were careful to observe it.

• “Ages before, Moses expressly commanded that neither a carved, nor molten, nor molded, nor painted likeness should be made. This was so that we would not cling to things of sense, but pass to spiritual objects. For familiarity with the sense of sight disparages the reverence of what is divine.” – Clement of Alexandria (c. 195)
• “Neither painter nor image-maker existed in the nation of Israel, for the Law expelled all such persons from it. In that way, there was no pretext for the construction of images. For image-making is an art that attracts the attention of foolish men. It drags the eyes of the soul down from God to earth. Accordingly, there was among them a Law to the following effect: ‘Do not transgress the Law and make to yourselves a carved image, or any likeness of male or female’ [Deut. 4:16].” – Origen (c. 248)
• “How could [Peter] have known Moses and Elijah except in the Spirit? People could not have had their images, statues, or likenesses. For the Law forbade that.” – Tertullian (c. 207)
• “We are not to draw the faces of idols, for we are prohibited to cling to them.” – Clement of Alexandria (c. 195)
• “We know that the names of the dead are nothing, as are their images. But when images are set up, we know well enough, too, who carry on their wicked work under these names. . . . Demons have their abode in the images of the dead. . . . ‘Not that an idol is anything’ [1 Cor. 10:19], as the apostle says, but that the homage they render to it is to demons. These are the real occupants of these consecrated images – whether of dead men or (as they think) of gods.” – Tertullian (c. 197)
• “It is with a different kind of spell that art deludes you. . . . It leads you to pay religious honor and worship to images and pictures.” – Clement of Alexandria (c. 195)
• “In a word, if we refuse our homage to statues and frigid images, . . . does it not merit praise instead of penalty that we have rejected what we have come to see is error?” – Tertullian (c. 197)
• “The religious ceremonies of the gods are in vain [because] those images that are worshipped are representations of men who are dead. And it is a wrong and inconsistent thing that the image of a man should be worshipped by the image of God. For he who worships is naturally lower and weaker than that which is worshipped. Furthermore, it is an unforgivable crime to desert the living in order to serve memorials for the dead. For the dead can give neither life nor light to anyone, for they are themselves without it.” – Lactantius (c. 304-313)
• “It is not possible at the same time to know God and to address prayers to images.” – Origen (c. 248)
• “Without a doubt, there is no religion wherever there is an image. For religion consists of divine things, and there is nothing divine except in heavenly things. So it follows that images are without religion, for there can be nothing heavenly in something that is made from the earth.” – Lactantius (c. 304-313)

Once again, the use of icons or images originated with the pagans, who claimed that they were not worshipping the image but rather showing devotion to the person or god that it represented:

• “[The pagan gods] were once kings. But on account of their royal memory, they subsequently began to be adored by their people even in death. Afterwards, . . . images were sculptured to retain the faces of the deceased by the likeness. Later, men sacrificed victims and celebrated festal days to give them honor. Finally, those rites became sacred to posterity, even though they had originally been adopted as a consolation” – Cyprian (c. 250)
• “It is asserted by some pagans that, although these are only images, yet there exist gods in honor of whom they are made. They say that the prayers and sacrifices presented to the images are to be referred to the gods, and are in fact made to the gods.” – Athenagoras (c. 175)
• “[The pagans] are not ashamed to address inanimate objects, to ask for health from those who have no strength, to ask the dead for life, and to entreat the helpless for assistance. Some may say that these objects are not gods – but only representations and symbols of real divinities. Nevertheless, these very individuals, in imagining that the hands of lowly artisans can frame representations of divinity, are ‘uneducated, servile, and ignorant’ [quoting Celsus, a pagan critic].” – Origen (c. 248)
• “What madness is it, then, either to form those objects that they themselves may afterwards fear, or to fear the things that they have formed? However, they say, ‘We do not fear the images themselves, but those beings after whose likeness they were formed, and to whose names they are dedicated.’ No doubt you fear them for this reason: because you think that they are in heaven. . . . So why, then, do you not raise your eyes to heaven? . . . How much better, therefore, is it, to leave vain and insensible objects and instead to turn our eyes in that direction where is the seat and dwelling place of the true God?” – Lactantius (c. 304-313)

While the early Christians forbade the use of images in the church, a prominent group of people disagreed. These were the Gnostics – the heretical group universally condemned by Jesus, the apostles, and the early Christians:

• “They call themselves Gnostics. They also possess images, some of them painted, and others formed from different kinds of material. They maintain that a likeness of Christ was made by Pilate at that time when Jesus lived among them. They crown these images, and set them up along with the images of the philosophers of the world. That is to say, they place them with the images of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, and the rest. They have also other modes of honoring these images, after the same manner of the Gentiles.” – Irenaeus (c. 180)
• “[The Gnostic disciples of Carpocrates] make counterfeit images of Christ, alleging that these were in existence at the time . . . and were fashioned by Pilate.” – Hippolytus (c. 225)

In the fourth century, around the time of Constantine, images began to make their way from paganism into the churches. Although this practice was fought at both religious and political levels, in 787 the Second Council of Nicaea mandated the construction and display of religious icons:

• “As the sacred and life-giving cross is everywhere set up as a symbol, so also should the images of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, the holy angels, as well as those of the saints and other pious and holy men be embodied in the manufacture of sacred vessels, tapestries, vestments, etc., and exhibited on the walls of churches, in the homes, and in all conspicuous places, by the roadside and everywhere, to be revered by all who might see them. For the more they are contemplated, the more they move to fervent memory of their prototypes. Therefore, it is proper to accord to them a fervent and reverent veneration, not, however, the veritable adoration which, according to our faith, belongs to the Divine Being alone – for the honor accorded to the image passes over to its prototype, and whoever venerate the image venerate in it the reality of what is there represented.” – Second Council of Nicaea (787)

However, even as images were being introduced in places of worship, some Christians recognized that “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7) and remained true to the teachings of the apostles and early believers. One such person was Epiphanius, a fourth-century historian most famous for writing the Panarion, a 7-volume work refuting 80 heresies since the time of Adam. In a letter dated 394 to the bishop of the church at Jerusalem, Epiphanius recounts the following story:

• “I came to a villa called Anablatha and, as I was passing, saw a lamp burning there. Asking what place it was, and learning it to be a church, I went in to pray, and found there a curtain hanging on the doors of the said church, dyed and embroidered. It bore an image either of Christ or of one of the saints; I do not rightly remember whose the image was.
• “Seeing this, and being loath that an image of a man should be hung up in Christ’s church contrary to the teaching of the Scripture, I tore it asunder. . . . [The custodians], however, murmured and said that if I made up my mind to tear it, it was only fair that I should give them another curtain in its place. As soon as I heard this, I promised that I would give one, and said that I would send it at once.
• “Since then there has been some little delay, due to the fact that I have been seeking a curtain of the best quality to give to them instead of the former one, and thought it right to send to Cyprus for one. I have now sent the best that I could find, and I beg that you will order the presbyter of the place to take the curtain which I have sent from the hands of the Reader, and that you will afterwards give directions that curtains of the other sort – opposed as they are to our religion – shall not be hung up in any church of Christ.” – Epiphanius (c. 315-403)

Prayers to saints (or intercession of saints)

Because Jesus taught His disciples to pray to the Father (Matthew 6:9), the early Christians universally opposed prayers of any kind to anyone other than God.

• “Christians . . . pray to God alone through Jesus.” – Origen (c. 248)
• “Every prayer, supplication, intercession, and thanksgiving is to be sent up to the Supreme God through the High Priest – the living Word and God, who is above all the angels. . . . To invoke angels, without having obtained a greater knowledge of their nature than is possessed by men, would be contrary to reason. But . . . even if we had this knowledge, . . . it would not permit us to pray with confidence to anyone other than to the Supreme God, who is sufficient for all things, through our Savior, the Son of God.” – Origen (c. 225)
• “In the Apocalypse, the angel resists John, who wishes to worship him, and says, ‘See that you do not do this. For I am your fellow-servant and your brother. Worship Jesus the Lord’ [Rev. 19:10].” – Cyprian (c. 250)
• “You go so far as to lavish this power [of forgiveness of sins] on martyrs as well! . . . Let it suffice the martyr to have purged his own sins. . . . Who can redeem another’s death by his own, except the Son of God alone?” – Tertullian (c. 212)
• “We judge it improper to pray to those beings who themselves offer up prayers. For even they themselves would prefer that we should send up our requests to the God to whom they pray, rather than to send them downwards to themselves, or to apportion our power of prayer between God and them.” – Origen (c. 248)
• “We speak of Paradise, the place of divine bliss appointed to receive the spirits of the saints. There, the saints are cut off from the knowledge of this world by that fiery zone, as by a sort of enclosure.” – Tertullian (c. 197)
• “It is clear that those who make prayers to the dead . . . do not act as becomes men. They will suffer punishment for their impiety and guilt. Rebelling against God, the Father of the human race, they have undertaken unforgivable rites. They have violated every sacred law.” – Lactantius (c. 304-313)

Conclusion

The early Christians universally rejected the practices of burning incense, making or worshipping images, and praying to anyone other than God. Lactantius wrote, “Whoever strives to hold the right course of life should not look to the earth, but to the heavens.” Let us, like these early believers, turn our eyes to heaven to worship Him who alone is worthy of all honor and praise.