Controv. XIII: May sacred images in churches be religiously used — even as necessary from the first ages?
Controv. XIII. On certain rites among the Lutherans that are not plainly indifferent.
First: may sacred images stand in churches not only as a civil or political decoration for temple splendor and ornament, but as a sacred and religious use — for historical remembrance through pictures of Christ, the saints, and the martyrs, for the less learned; for moral instruction (what they call image-teaching, and books for the unlettered); and at last for greater reverence of the place, and to mark Christian temples off from Jewish and Muslim ones?
Is that use only lawful and permitted, as something indifferent in itself, nowhere forbidden under the New Testament once the old ground of the ban has ceased among Christians — the danger of idolatry that once hung over the Jewish nation (Exodus 20:4)?
Or is it even primeval, already from the first ages of the Christian church — say from Tertullian's day — and usefully, even necessarily, to be kept?
Some Lutherans affirm both; the Reformed deny.
Latin
XIII. De Ritibus quibusdam inter Lutheranos, non plane Adiaphoris. I. An Usus Imaginum Sacrarum in Templis, quatenus is censetur non mere Civilis aut Politicus ad Templorum splendorem & ornatum, sed etiam sacer & religiosus, faciens videlicet ad commemorationem historicam, per picturas historicas Christi, Sanctorum, Martyrum, pro rudioribus; tum ad Instructionem moralem, εἰκονοπαιδείαν vocant, & Libros τῶν ἀγραμμάτων; tandem ad majorem reverentiam loci, & ad distinctionem Templorum Christianorum, à Judaicis ac Mahumedanis; An talis usus, non sit licitus modo & permissus, ut res in se ἀδιάφορος, nusquam prohibitus sub Novo T. cessante scil. inter Christianos causâ prohibitionis, qualis fuit Idololatriae olim periculum, in Gente Judaica, Exod. XX.4. Verum etiam sit primevus, jam à primis Christianae Ecclesiae Seculis, puta, ab aevo Tertulliani, idemque utiliter ac necessariè retinendus? Affirm. utrumque Luther. quidam, Contra Reform.