qualitative distinctions between the nature and the degree of sanctity of the different elements of religion. The image by itself does not teach the faithful that one should adore God and only venerate the saints. Its psychological function is limited to creating a deep conviction of reality and a lively feeling of respect. It therefore became the task of the Church to warn incessantly against want of discrimination in this respect, and to preserve the purity of doctrine by explaining precisely what the image stood for. In no other sphere was the danger of luxuriance of religious thought caused by a vivid imagination more obvious.
Now, the Church did not fail to teach that all honours rendered to the saints, to relics, to holy places, should have God for their object. Although the prohibition of images in the second commandment of the Decalogue was abrogated by the new law, or limited to God the Father alone, the Church purposed, nevertheless, to maintain intact the principle of non adorabis ea neque coles: Images were only meant to show simple-minded people what to believe. They are the books of the illiterate, says Clemanges; a thought which Villon has expressed in the touching lines which he pute into his mother’s mouth:
“Femme je suis pourette et ancienne,
Qui riens ne sçai; oncques lettre ne leurs;
Au moustier voy dont suis paroissienne
Paradis paint, où sont harpes et luz,
Et ung enfer où dampnez sont boulluz:
L’ung me fait paour, l’autre joye et liesse…”[1]
The medieval Church was, however, rather heedless of the danger of a deterioration of the faith caused by the popular imagination roaming unchecked in the sphere of hagiology. An abundance of pictorial fancy, after all, furnished to the simple mind quite as much matter for deviating from pure doctrine as any personal interpretation of Holy Scripture. It is remarkable that the Church, so scrupulous in dogmatic matters, should have been so confiding and indulgent towards those who, sinning out of ignorance, rendered more homage
- ↑ I am a poor old woman who knows nothing; I never could read. In my parish church I see Paradise painted, where are harps and lutes, And a hell, where the damned are boiled. The one frightens me, the other brings joy and mirth.
