Catechetical Lesson on Demonic Exploitation of Idols to Sanctified Use of Images in Christ (Part 2)

IDOL versus IMAGE 

…do not let what you regard as good be spoken of as evil. Rom 14:16

The second commandment about not making graven images (idols: εἴδωλον) is a prohibition against idolatry. However, much nuance is lost by those who attempt to lump iconography and icon veneration into the same category.   

Let us consider Exodus 20:4-5 from where this prohibition is drawn. 

Exodus 20:4 - οὐ ποιήσεις σεαυτῷ εἴδωλον οὐδὲ παντὸς ὁμοίωμα ὅσα ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ ἄνω καὶ ὅσα ἐν τῇ γῇ κάτω καὶ ὅσα ἐν τοῖς ὕδασιν ὑποκάτω τῆς γῆς

“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.

Exo 20:5 οὐ προσκυνήσεις αὐτοῖς οὐδὲ μὴ λατρεύσῃς αὐτοῖς ἐγὼ γάρ εἰμι κύριος ὁ θεός σου θεὸς ζηλωτὴς ἀποδιδοὺς ἁμαρτίας πατέρων ἐπὶ τέκνα ἕως τρίτης καὶ τετάρτης γενεᾶς τοῖς μισοῦσίν με.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

Exodus LXX 20:4-5 is specifically talking about worship (προσκυνήσεις) and service (λατρευω ) which is not veneration of a god sanctioned image.   The understanding of what was prohibited in the Exodus injunction was abundantly clear to the receivers of the law since everyone was familiar with the mechanisms of the “gods of the nations, who are demons”

There is a marked difference between εἴδωλον which is an idol to be worshipped and served, versus and  εἰκών.

There exists a real material, semantic and theological distinction between εἴδωλον and εἰκών. 

 In the biblical and wider Greek usage, εἴδωλον denotes a “graven image” precisely as an idol: a manufactured representation that usurps the reverence due to the living God and functions as a false god. It is the standard New Testament term for pagan cult-objects—“idols” to which sacrifices are offered and around which worship and cultic λατρεία revolve (e.g., Acts 7:41; 1 Cor 8–10; 1 Thess 1:9).

The word can, in broader Greek, mean apparition, phantom, or shade, but in the biblical religious context it has a strongly negative, polemical sense: an εἴδωλον is by definition an illicit object of worship that embodies a counterfeit claim to divinity.

εἰκών, by contrast, is a more neutral and often positive term for “image,” “likeness,” or “representation.” 

In Greek literature and in the LXX it can refer to a visible likeness or representation without implying idolatry; Plato already distinguishes εἰκών as a likeness that genuinely corresponds to a model, in contrast to lower forms of image/appearance. Biblically, the most theologically charged use is Genesis 1:26 LXX (“let us make man κατ᾽ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν”), where εἰκών expresses humanity’s creation in the image of God; this becomes foundational for patristic theology of the imago Dei and for the later positive theology of icons. In the New Testament, εἰκών is used of Caesar’s portrait on the coin (Matt 22:20), of Christ as “the image (εἰκών) of the invisible God” (Col 1:15), and of believers being renewed “according to the image” (κατ᾽ εἰκόνα) of their Creator (Col 3:10; cf. Heb 10:1). 

So, while both words belong to the broad semantic field of “image,” εἴδωλον in the biblical context means an image as idol, an object of false worship, whereas εἰκών can denote a true, legitimate representation or likeness, including:

• the image of God in humanity,

• the visible image of Christ,

• the emperor’s image on a coin,  

without in itself implying idolatrous λατρεία. This lexical distinction underlies the patristic insistence that an icon (εἰκών) of Christ or the saints is not an idol (εἴδωλον): the former is a representation whose honor passes to the prototype and serves the true God, while the latter is a false god, a focus of worship that diverts προσκύνησις and λατρεία away from the Creator to demons.

How εἰκών appears in Genesis 1:26 LXX

In Genesis 1:26 LXX, εἰκών appears in the classic anthropological formula:

καὶ εἶπεν ὁ Θεός· ποιήσωμεν ἄνθρωπον κατ᾽ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν καὶ καθ᾽ ὁμοίωσιν…

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:

So the key phrase is κατ᾽ εἰκόνα ἡμετέραν – “according to our image.” The noun is εἰκών in the accusative singular (εἰκόνα) governed by κατά, and it renders Hebrew צֶלֶם (ṣelem). This same εἰκών terminology then becomes:

• The basis for Gen 1:27 and 5:1–3 in the LXX (creation and genealogy in God’s image).

• The background for NT uses like Col 1:15 (“[Christ] is the image [εἰκών] of the invisible God”) and Col 3:10 (“renewed according to the image [εἰκόνα] of the One who created him”).

So already in Gen 1:26 LXX, εἰκών denotes a positive God‑given likeness and representative status, not an idol (εἴδωλον), and that lexical choice undergirds later patristic and iconological usage.

Icons don’t / can’t receive service and worship because if they did, that would make them idols. The icon is not the SOURCE, but at best the intermediary of grace.

This is the classic Patristic definition of Idolatry: if an icon were made the source of grace and the object of λατρεία (adoring worship), it would indeed become an εἴδωλον, an idol. Icons, as εἰκόνες, are not sources but mediating signs—they are instruments through which God freely chooses to act, never independent fountains of divine power.

• No λατρεία to icons. The Church is explicit (especially at Nicaea II) that true adoration (ἀληθινὴ λατρεία) belongs to the Trinity alone; icons receive only honorary veneration (τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις), and that honor “passes to the prototype.” The moment someone treats an icon as an autonomous power, or sacrifices to it, or prays to it as if it were a self-standing deity, they have crossed into idolatry and violated the very distinction the Fathers drew.

• Icons as intermediaries, not sources. An icon is like the sign of the Cross, a relic, or even the Gospel book: it is a sacramental object, a visible point of contact where God, if he wills, communicates grace. But the cause of that grace is always God himself—Christ in the Holy Spirit—not the material substrate. The Fathers’ language about icons “working miracles” is always shorthand for God working through the icon, never the icon working by its own inherent power.

In other words:

• To give an icon latreia is to make it an εἴδωλον and fall under the biblical prohibition.

• To give an icon venerative proskynesis is to honor Christ and his saints through a sanctified material sign, in line with the Incarnation and the whole sacramental economy.