Pope Gregory the 2nd, sat as Pope in Rome ruling from 715 - 731 A.D., had taken the lead in establishing image worship. Many Catholic’s take treads like this personally, but this tread was not written to insult, mock, or condemn anyone. What I have posted can be found in any History book or Encyclopedia.
The 2ed commandment: Exod.20:4-5, “Thou shalt not MAKE unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Ver.5. Thou shalt not bow (worship) down thyself to them, not serve them.”
Many in the Catholic Church plead, in vindication of image worship, as would any others who bow a knee to any idol, claiming they are devoted adherents and sincere worshippers of God, and only employ these intervening idols, paintings, or statues to help their devotions. In this, I will never question a person’s motives, only their awareness of Scripture.
Pope Gregory the 2ed, sat as Pope in Rome ruling from 715 – 731 A.D. he had been vehemently opposed by Leo who attempted to overturn idol worship. In maintain that the feet and toes of iron and potter’s clay, and of iron and miry clay represent the Roman Catholic Church and Islam and their empires in the past 1500 Years.
So on the most favorable supposition, idol worship is a direct violation of the second commandment, and will generally be found that there is an idea of sacred obligation connected with the painting, wood or stone carvings. It is unquestionably true, that the worship of images in the Catholic Church was used as a direct and full substitute for faith in the atoning blood of our Savior. I feel if the Catholic Church was sincere in their claim to not worship these images, they would have changed their Catechism to read exactly as the Bible does.
This Scriptural way of salvation was entirely set aside, and those who would pay their daily devotions to some image or statue of Christ or a canonized saint was viewed as an heir of life. It is a striking fact, that in the catechism of the Catholic Church, the second commandment is omitted; and to make the ten, the tenth is divided into two.
In the Catholic Catechism page 287, the 1st two commandments are written as such:
1. I, the Lord, am your God. You shall not have other gods besides me.
2. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain.”
Now compare to Douay Version of the 1909 a Catholic Bible, the K.J.B. and the N.I.V.
Ex.20: 1st two commandments.
1. I am the Lord thy God, — Thou shalt not have strange gods before me.
2. Thou shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or in the earth beneath, nor of those things that are in the waters under the earth.”
Phil Laspino www.seekfirstwisdom.com