How come the symbols and statues we have today are no where found in the early church?

Question

where are the recorded statues and such by Paul? Where are the does Paul even remotely where anything that shows he was a christian? It's no where to be found.

So who thought to add statues and stuff to Christianity?

Answer 1

um..........one word again

apostasy

Answer 2

I would only add "where does Paul describe what he looks like" any where in his letters?  Was he fat, skinny?  Bald, hairy? Did he have a mustache and beard, or was he clean-shaven?  Did he have a special robe he liked to wear on Sabbath?  Paul doesn't really work that way...he's dealing with problems....since Paul doesn't mention anything like artwork, and since we know we have some artifacts from the 1st century that are clearly Christian in origin, might we have to conclude that Paul didn't see them as a "problem"?  Look over the Pauline epistles very carefully, Lion...how often does Paul do the sort of patting on the back/"good job" stuff you think he should be doing?  Paper was not that easy to come by in the 1st century...he spent his time addressing problems, not what he thought they were doing right.  Also, remember the story when they go to Athens, and they come across the shrine that says "to an unknown God"...Paul says it is a shrine to Jesus, does he not?  Odd thing for a man to say if he disapproves of what you are claiming he disapproves of, isn't it?

We'd all like to be able to jump in a time-machine and see what the early church was like, Lion, but all we have is the texts.  The texts tell us that the very earliest communities held everything in common - would you like to live in a commune today?  I don't think so, my guess is you like having possessions that are yours and yours alone...so therefore there had to be a guiding hand that walked us out of that commune sociey and into the world you see today...we believe the same guiding hand that was there 2000 years ago is the same one with us today...it is the universal church Christ founded through the primacy of St Peter.

It's okay if you disagree, but you should at least see better now where we are coming from...

Answer 3

There are no statues or images in our church, I can assure you.

Answer 4

pagans were the first to run into this new church created by consentine

the leader of the roman empire, after all romes main religion was pagan!

did you ever read the second commandment  or in yours eyes what man has to say superceeds gods law,,you really should look things up before you put your beliefs in them !  which jesus do you worship?  the real one in the bible or one of the man- made up fakes?

Answer 5

The symbols and statues are man's invention and are idol worshipping. The Anabaptist church has no symbols or statues or paintings or stained glass windows to distract.The money that would normally go to that sort of stuff is instead spent on the poor and needy.

Answer 6

The earliest Christian churches still have the pagan statues and symbols that they had when Christianity was still cannibalizing them.

Answer 7

Christian symbols and artwork date back to the first century AD.

The fish (IXOYC) was one of the earliest christian symbols.

Symbols were widely used by the Jews in the decoration of the Temple and synagogues, and Hellenized Jews and converted pagans were familiar with statues. They found their way into the Church in the earliest times.

Church buildings, air conditioning, sound systems, praise bands, King James Bibles, Vacation Bible Schools, and the like are not mentioned by Paul either, so your point is moot.

Answer 8

Just because something is not mentioned does not mean that it did not exist.  Paul never made any mention of horses, yet we know that the Romans brought horses when they conquered Jerusalem.

Answer 9

The use of statues is found in the Old Testament. "And you shall make two cherubim of gold [i.e., two gold statues of angels]; of hammered work shall you make them, on the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub on the one end, and one cherub on the other end; of one piece of the mercy seat shall you make the cherubim on its two ends. The cherubim shall spread out their wings above, overshadowing the mercy seat with their wings, their faces one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubim be" (Ex. 25:18–20). David gave Solomon the plan "for the altar of incense made of refined gold, and its weight; also his plan for the golden chariot of the cherubim that spread their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of the Lord. All this he made clear by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all, all the work to be done according to the plan" (1 Chr. 28:18–19). David’s plan for the temple, which the biblical author tells us was "by the writing of the hand of the Lord concerning it all," included statues of angels.  The use of statues continued in the early Church for teaching purposes as many people were illiterate.  Just because Paul we do not have any writings of Paul in the bible that do not mention statues that does not mean that a statue is wrong.  It is only wrong if it is worshiped as a God.  Statues call to mind people from the bible.  I have seen Protestant churches that use nativity scenes during Christmas.  I certainly would not accuse them of idolatry however.

Answer 10

Early as in where exactly? Have you been to Rome or Greece? Maybe Italy? There's buildings thousands of years old there. You realize that America is only a few hundred years old.

Answer 11

Most of the first Christians were Jewish converts. Judaism prohibited statues and graven images of any kind. Statues become prevelant with the advent of the Roman Catholic Church, predominantly after the Great Schizm.

Answer 12

The early church was illegal so it was an underground religion therefore they had no statues to advertise who they were.

Answer 13

God forbid it. He knew it would lead to idolatry, or was in itself a form of idolatry. God is a very jealous God, easily angered.

The RCs are the ones responsible for bringing in this baggage.

Answer 14

LOL-------- Love this ?  !!!!!!!! Could you see John as a Pastor today looking like a caveman?  Or Peter a fisherman? And how about the rest of them including Christ?

Answer 15

Christians from the very beginning adorned their catacombs with paintings of Christ, of the saints, of scenes from the Bible.

The catacombs are the cradle of all Christian art. Since their discovery in the sixteenth century -- on 31 May, 1578, an accident revealed part of the catacomb in the Via Salaria -- and the investigation of their contents that has gone on steadily ever since, we are able to reconstruct an exact idea of the paintings that adorned them. That the first Christians had any sort of prejudice against images, pictures, or statues is a myth that has been abundantly dispelled by all students of Christian archaeology. The idea that they must have feared the danger of idolatry among their new converts is disproved in the simplest way by the pictures even statues, that remain from the first centuries.

From the second half of the first century to the time of Constantine they buried their dead and celebrated their rites in these underground chambers.

The Christian sarcophagi were ornamented with indifferent or symbolic designs -- palms, peacocks, vines, with the chi-rho monogram (long before Constantine), with bas-reliefs of Christ as the Good Shepherd, or seated between figures of saints, and sometimes, as in the famous one of Julius Bassus with elaborate scenes from the New Testament. And the catacombs were covered with paintings.

And there are especially pictures of Christ as the Good Shepherd, as lawgiver, as a child in His mother's arms, of His head alone in a circle, of our Lady alone, of St. Peter and St. Paul -- pictures that are not scenes of historic events, but, like the statues in our modern churches, just memorials of Christ and His saints. In the catacombs there is little that can be described as sculpture; there are few statues for a very simple reason. Statues are much more difficult to make, and cost much more than wall-paintings. But there was no principle against them.

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