IMAGE, in a religious sense, is an artificial representation or similitude of some person or thing, used either by way of decoration and ornament, or as an object of religious worship and adoration. In the last sense it is used indifferently with the word idol.

• The noble Romans preserved with great care the images [7:12:253]of their ancestors, which were commonly made of Wax or wood, though sometimes of marble or brass, and had them carried in procession at their funerals and triumphs. They placed these images in the vestibules of their houses, where they remained, even if the houses happened to be sold, it being accounted impious to displace them. It was not, however, permitted to all who had the images of their ancestors in their houses, to have them carried at their funerals. This was a distinction granted to such alone as had honourably discharged their offices; for those who failed in this respect forfeited their privilege, and in case they had been guilty of any great crime, their images were broken in pieces.

The Jews absolutely condemned all images, and did not suffer any statues or figures to be placed in their houses, much less in their synagogues or places of worship.

The use and adoration of images are subjects which have long been controverted in the world. It appears, from the practice of the primitive church, recorded by the earlier fathers, that Christians, during the first three centuries after Christ, and the greater part of the fourth, neither worshipped images nor used them in worship. However, the greater part of the Roman Catholic divines maintain that the use and worship of images are as ancient as the Christian religion itself; and to prove this, they allege a decree, said to have been made in a council held by the apostles at Antioch, commanding the faithful, that they might not err about the object of their worship, to make images of Christ, and worship them. (Baron, ad Ann. 102.) But no notice is taken of this decree till seven hundred years after the apostolic times, when the dispute about images had commenced. The first instance which occurs in any credible author, of images amongst Christians, is that recorded by Tertullian (De Pudicitia, c. 10), of certain cups or chalices, as Bellarmine pretends, on which was represented the parable of the good shepherd carrying the lost sheep on his shoulders. But this instance only proves that the church at that time did not think emblematical figures unlawful ornaments of cups or chalices. Another instance is taken from Eusebius (Hist. Eccl, lib. vii. cap. 18), who says, that in his time there were to be seen two brass statues in the city of Paneas or Caesarea Philippi; the one of a woman on her knees, with her arms stretched out; the other of a man over against her, with his hand extended to receive her. These statues were said to be the images of our Saviour and of the woman whom he cured of an issue of blood. From the foot of the statue representing our Saviour, says the historian, sprung up an exotic plant, which, as soon as it grew to touch the border of his garment, was said to cure all sorts of distempers. Eusebius, however, vouches for none of these things; nay, he supposes that the woman who erected this statue of our Saviour was a pagan, and ascribes it to a pagan custom. The primitive Christians abstained from the worship of images, not, as the Romanists pretend, from tenderness to heathen idolaters, but because they thought it unlawful in itself to make any images of the Deity. (Justin Mart. Apol. ii. p. 44; Clem. Alex. Strom. 5, Strom. 1, and Protr. p. 46; Aug. de Civit. Dei, lib. vii. c. 5, and lib. iv. c. 32; Id. de Fide et Syrnb. c. 7; Lactant, lib. ii. c. 3; Tertull. Apol. c. 12; Arnob. lib. vi. p. 202.) Some of the fathers, as Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Origen, were of opinion that, by the second commandment, the arts of painting and engraving were rendered unlawful to a Christian. The custom of admitting pictures of saints and martyrs into the churches was rare in the latter end of the fourth century; but it became common in the fifth, and in the following century the custom of thus adorning churches became almost universal, both in the east and the west.

The Lutherans censure the Calvinists for breaking the images in the churches of the Catholics, looking on it as a kind of sacrilege; and yet they condemn the Romanists as idolaters.

The Mahommedans have a perfect aversion to images, which has led them to destroy most of the beautiful monuments of antiquity, both sacred and profane, at Constantinople.

Image, in Rhetoric, signifies a lively representation of any thing in discourse. Images, in discourse, are, according to Longinus, any thoughts proper to produce expressions, which present a kind of picture to the mind. But, in the more limited sense, images are such expressions as fall from us when, by a kind of enthusiasm, or an extraordinary emotion of the soul, we seem to see the things of which we speak, and present them before the eyes of those who hear us.