May images of Christ and the saints be made, and should they be honoured?
Earliest statement of each found so far: Images not to be used in worship, Tertullian, c. 220.
What the early Church said, in their own words →
- Church of the East: Not placed. Its canons and liturgy prescribe icons, but 'they have fallen out of use for many centuries, and have only remained in some Gospel lectionaries' (Diocese of California).
- Oriental Orthodox placements rest mainly on Coptic and Ethiopian church texts. The Armenian texts checked so far are brief, and Syriac and Indian Orthodox texts are not yet checked.
a passage teaches it a passage rejects it authorship uncertain defined after this timeline ends
Images veneratedCatholicOrthodoxOriental Orthodox3 reject it · Defined 787 →
Images allowed as adornment, not veneratedLutheran3 reject it · Confession 1531 →
Images not to be used in worshipReformedBaptist3 teach it · Confession 1563 →
The positions
Images venerated CatholicOrthodoxOriental Orthodox
What it holds: Images of Christ, Mary and the saints should be set up and honoured with outward signs (kissing, bowing, lights, incense); the honour passes to the person shown and differs from the worship due to God.
the honour paid to an image traverses it, reaching the model, and he who venerates the image, venerates the person represented in that image.Second Council of Nicaea, Definition (787)
the honor paid to the Icon is not at all divided or at all different from [the honor paid to the one who] is portrayedConfession of Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem), Question 4 (1672)
venerating icons, kissing them, lighting candles in front of them and kneeling before them. We will try to reply to all these points, showing the spiritual benefits of icons and why the Church keeps them.Pope Shenouda III (Coptic Orthodox), Comparative Theology (1988)
Formally defined: Second Council of Nicaea (787)
No early passage in the works searched so far states it yet.
Images allowed as adornment, not venerated Lutheran
What it holds: Images may be kept in churches as adornment or for teaching, but no honour is to be paid to them.
Candles, golden vessels [tapers, altar-cloths, images), and similar adornments are becoming, but they are not the adornment that properly belongs to the Church.Apology of the Augsburg Confession, XXIV.51 (1531)
Formally defined: Apology of the Augsburg Confession (1531)
No early passage in the works searched so far states it yet.
Images not to be used in worship ReformedBaptist
What it holds: Images have no place in churches or in worship; God is to be taught by the preached Word, not by pictures.
But may not images be permitted in churches in place of books for the unlearned? A. No, we should not try to be wiser than God.Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 98 (1563)
under any visible representation, or any other way not prescribed in the Holy ScriptureWestminster Confession of Faith, 21.1 (1646)
Formally defined: Heidelberg Catechism (1563); Westminster Confession (1646)
Earliest statement: Tertullian, c. 220
Common ground
These are affirmed by more than one position, so a passage saying only this counts for none of them.
- God the Father, in his divine nature, cannot be pictured
- Worship (latria) belongs to God alone
- Idols of pagan gods are forbidden
- The Incarnation made God visible in Christ (shared doctrine; not by itself an argument for icons)
Every deciding passage, earliest first
Tertullian, c. 220
But, someone says, "Let your works shine" (Matthew 5:16). At present, it is our shops and doors that shine. You can now find more pagan doors without lamps and laurels than Christian ones. What should we think of this practice too? If it is honor of an idol, then without doubt honor of an idol is idolatry. If it is done for a person's sake, let us remember that all idolatry is done for a person's sake. Let us remember that all idolatry is worship offered to human beings, since even their own records show that the gods of the pagans were once human. So it makes no difference whether this supers…
- Rejects: Images venerated
Translation in progress
Tertullian, c. 220
God forbids an idol as much to be made as to be worshiped. Since the making comes first, so that what can be worshiped may exist, the prohibition of making comes first too, if worshiping is not allowed. For this reason—namely for eradicating the material of idolatry—the divine law proclaims: You shall not make an idol, and it adds, nor any likeness of the things that are in heaven, on earth, or in the sea (Exodus 20:4). By this it forbade the servants of God such arts throughout the whole world. Enoch had gone before, predicting that all the elements, all the wealth of the world—whatever is co…
- Rejects: Images venerated
- Rejects: Images allowed as adornment, not venerated
- Teaches: Images not to be used in worship
Translation in progress
Tertullian, c. 220
Suppose no law of God had forbidden us to make idols, and no voice of the Holy Spirit had threatened idol-makers no less than idol-worshippers. Even then, we could draw the conclusion from our very sacred commitment that arts of this kind are opposed to our faith. How have we renounced the devil and his angels if we make them? What divorce have we declared from them? I do not mean from those with whom we live, but from those by whom we live. What discord have we taken up against them, when for the sake of our display you acknowledge them? Do you destroy by word what you build by deed? Do you p…
- Rejects: Images venerated
- Rejects: Images allowed as adornment, not venerated
- Teaches: Images not to be used in worship
Translation in progress
Tertullian, c. 220
But when the devil introduced into the world the craftsmen of statues and images and every kind of likeness, that rough business of human calamity took its name from idols and grew. From then on, every art that produces an idol in any way has become the head of idolatry.
- Rejects: Images venerated
- Rejects: Images allowed as adornment, not venerated
- Teaches: Images not to be used in worship
Translation in progress
Lactantius, c. 310
What madness is it either to fashion those things which they themselves afterward fear, or to fear what they have fashioned? "We do not fear them," they say, "but Him whose image they are, and who is in heaven." Therefore you do not fear what you see, but what you do not see; and while images are before your eyes, fear is turned elsewhere. But what need is there of images if God is to be worshiped? Are the gods so far from you that they are not known except through images? But if they are present, why do you not worship them present? If absent, why through images as if present? For if they can…
- Rejects: Images venerated
- Rejects: Images allowed as adornment, not venerated
- Teaches: Images not to be used in worship
Translation in progress
Epiphanius of Salamis, c. 403
Doubtful authorship: Known only through iconoclast quotation; Nicephorus denied Epiphanius wrote it, and scholars still debate it.
John says, "We know that when he appears, we shall be like him" (1 John 3:2), and Paul proclaimed that the saints are "conformed to the Son of God" (Romans 8:29). So how can you wish to see the saints, who are destined to shine in glory, in inglorious, dead, and voiceless matter, when the Lord says of them, "They will be like the angels of God" (Matthew 22:30)? And how can you paint angels, who are spirits and always alive, painting them in dead things and worship them, when the prophet says, "He who makes his angels spirits and his ministers a flaming fire" (Psalm 103:4 LXX, 104:4 Hebrew)? I …
- Rejects: Images venerated
- Rejects: Images allowed as adornment, not venerated
Epiphanius of Salamis, c. 403
Doubtful authorship: Known only through iconoclast quotation; Nicephorus denied Epiphanius wrote it, and scholars still debate it.
Pay attention to yourselves, and hold fast the traditions you received. Do not turn aside to the right or to the left. And in this, beloved children, keep the memory of not bringing images into churches or into the cemeteries of the saints, but always keep God in your hearts through memory.
- Rejects: Images venerated
- Rejects: Images allowed as adornment, not venerated
- Teaches: Images not to be used in worship
Epiphanius of Salamis, c. 403
Doubtful authorship: Known only through iconoclast quotation; Nicephorus denied Epiphanius wrote it, and scholars still debate it.
Which of the ancient bishops dishonored Christ by painting him? Which of them made a public example of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of Moses and the prophets, of Peter or Andrew or James or John or the rest of the apostles, and paraded them in triumph in this way? At the same time they are lying, fashioning forms of the saints from their own thought in different ways—sometimes making the same ones old men, sometimes younger—entering into things they have never seen. They paint the Savior with long hair based on conjecture, because he is called a Nazarene, since Nazirites have long hair. But thos…
- Rejects: Images venerated
- Rejects: Images allowed as adornment, not venerated
- Teaches: Images not to be used in worship
Epiphanius of Salamis, c. 403
Doubtful authorship: Known only through iconoclast quotation; Nicephorus denied Epiphanius wrote it, and scholars still debate it.
The devil contrived idolatry in the world by his own evil art, sowed it in the world and established it, and turned human beings away from God. Now again, after the heresies and the idols, he has dragged the faithful down into the ancient idolatry and deceived them. Epiphanius brings himself forward in the letter as having followed the faith of the fathers at Nicaea from his youth, and as having parents who were born in that faith and held the same confession. For your piety will understand whether it is fitting for us to have a painted God made with colors. I have heard that some even promise…
- Rejects: Images venerated
Epiphanius of Salamis, c. 403
Doubtful authorship: Known only through iconoclast quotation; Nicephorus denied Epiphanius wrote it, and scholars still debate it.
They present a testament to the citizens, a binding testament, in which he urges them not to bring images into churches or into the cemeteries. "Watch yourselves and hold fast to the traditions you received. Do not turn aside to the right or to the left. And in this matter, beloved children, keep this in memory: do not bring images into churches or into the cemeteries of the saints. Instead, always keep God in memory in your hearts. But not even in a common house is this permitted, for a Christian must not be distracted through the eyes and the wanderings of the mind. Let what pertains to God …
- Rejects: Images venerated
- Rejects: Images allowed as adornment, not venerated
- Teaches: Images not to be used in worship
Epiphanius of Salamis, c. 403
Doubtful authorship: Known only through iconoclast quotation; Nicephorus denied Epiphanius wrote it, and scholars still debate it.
They put forward, then, a testament directed to the citizens, in which it urges that images not be brought into churches or into the cemeteries.
- Rejects: Images venerated
- Rejects: Images allowed as adornment, not venerated
- Teaches: Images not to be used in worship
How this was made
Every whole work in the library on 21 October 2026 was searched for this question. Works added since then are not searched yet. The short excerpts on the topic pages (many from Tertullian, Justin, Irenaeus and Ignatius) join the search once their English has been checked against the Greek or Latin original: 94% of them (1,814 of 1,925) have passed that check, and the rest are still held out, so an early witness may occasionally be missing from these lanes. Two AI models from different labs judged each passage against all the positions at once, seeing them only as letters, without names or churches. A third model settled disagreements, and Claude reviewers then checked every deciding verdict against the passage and, for the earliest dates, against the Greek or Latin. A writer's silence is never counted.
The evidence is only as deep as the works searched: 1st century: 5 writers, 2nd century: 23 writers, 3rd century: 22 writers, 4th century: 18 writers, 5th century: 11 writers, 6th century: 5 writers, 8th century: 1 writer. The lanes are redrawn when the search is run again.