Sunday, May 17, 2009

Protestant Proof Texting



What movies, mosaics, and Bibles have in common.


By transferring passages, and dressing them up anew, and making one thing out of another, they succeed in deluding many through their wicked art in adapting the oracles of the Lord to their opinions. Their manner of acting is just as if one, when a beautiful image of a king has been constructed by some skilful artist out of precious jewels, should then take this likeness of the man all to pieces, should rearrange the gems, and so fit them together as to make them into the form of a dog or of a fox, and even that but poorly executed; and should then maintain and declare that this was the beautiful image of the king which the skilful artist constructed, pointing to the jewels which had been admirably fitted together by the first artist to form the image of the king, but have been with bad effect transferred by the latter one to the shape of a dog, and by thus exhibiting the jewels, should deceive the ignorant who had no conception what a king’s form was like, and persuade them that that miserable likeness of the fox was, in fact, the beautiful image of the king.



(St. Iraeneus, Against Heresies, First Book, Eighth Chapter).

4 comments:

Odysseus said...

Idolater!

Odysseus said...

:-)

Rhology said...

Irenaeus said:
Their manner of acting is just as if one...

How in the world does this lend support to the view that Irenaeus thought worshiping pieces of paper was OK?

The Blogger Formerly Known As Lvka said...

Because it's based on the assumption that having [correct] images of the King is a good thing.

The same as the proegraphe of Galatians 3:1.