GHDI logo

Iconoclasm – Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt Argues against Images (1522)

page 10 of 12    print version    return to list previous document      next document


But all images, whether male, as St Sebald, or female, as Sts Ursula or Otilia or their kind are forbidden and should not be admitted without exception [into the church], as is written in Deuteronomy 4[:16], for Scripture calls such venerators of images whores and adulterous women and such deceitful images men. From this which we learn how highly regarded such idols are in the hearts of those who venerate and worship them.

That is also the reason God said in the first commandment: I am a jealous God (Exodus 20[:5]). He wants to be our only dear friend and that we should ask only him for help and pray to him alone. Thus do Hosea 2 [:24] and other prophets teach (Isaiah 1[:29], 44[:1ff.]).

God knows very well how dangerous and harmful images are and how we can be violated by them in an instant. Therefore, through Moses, he forbade them many times and often caused his prophets to condemn them.

No excuse or pretext can help you, even if you speak a thousand times. You say, I do not venerate the images of saints for their own sake but for the sake of what they represent. Ah, you impious whore, do you think God does not know your heart more profoundly and better than you? If God did not know that someone could so easily make an idol for which he feels nothing, then God would have allowed us to venerate images in names other than his own. Help yourself, cover yourself, and crawl into every hiding place and explain away your deed as you will and can; you will not, after all, slip away from the divine judgement and justice of God which absolutely forbids images and condemns all who carve or praise images or keep and venerate them (Deut. 27[:15]).

Now I want and shall say to all pious Christians that all those who stand in awe before pictures have idols in their hearts. And I want to confess my secret thoughts to the whole world with sighs and admit that I am faint-hearted and know that I ought not to stand in awe of any image and am certain that God expects of his people that they should not stand in awe of images, as it is written: You should not fear other gods, not worship, not venerate, and should not make offerings to them, but only to God (Judges 6[:10], 2 Kings 17[:35]). And I know that God dwelling in me is as small as my fear of idols is great. For God wants to fill our whole heart and will in no way tolerate that I should have a picture before my eyes. And again, when I put my trust in God with my whole heart, I need not ever fear his enemies.

Therefore God or his Spirit in sacred Scripture says: You shall not fear other gods. You shall not pray to them. You shall not venerate them. And he teaches us that it is the same thing to venerate images or to be in awe of them. For this reason I should not fear any image, just as I should not venerate any. But (I lament to God) from my youth onward my heart has been trained and grown up in the veneration and worship of pictures. And a harmful fear has been bred into me from which I would gladly deliver myself and cannot. As a consequence, I stand in fear that I might not be able to burn idols. I would fear that some devil’s block of wood [i.e. an idol] would do me injury. Although, on the one hand, I have Scripture and know that images have no power and also have no life, no blood, no spirit, yet, on the other hand, fear holds me and makes me stand in awe of the image of a devil, a shadow, the noise of a small leaf falling, and makes me flee that which I should confront in a manly way. Thus I might say, if one pulls a man’s hair, one finds out how firmly it is rooted. Had I not heard the spirit of God cry out against the idols and read his word, I would have thought: I do not love any image; I do not stand in awe before any image. But now I know how I, in this case, stand toward God and images, and how strongly and deeply images are rooted in my heart.

May God confer his grace upon me so that I no longer venerate the Devil’s heads (so one commonly calls the images of saints in the church) more than stone and wood. And God grant that I not venerate stone and wood with the appearances and names of saints. Amen. See here Jeremiah 10[:2–5].

From the texts quoted above it follows that Christians should strictly observe God’s divine will, counsel, and command, and no longer tolerate images. And this notwithstanding the old evil custom and the pestilential teaching of priests that images are the books of the laity. For God has prohibited the making and keeping of images.

first page < previous   |   next > last page