Heretical translation against sacred IMAGES

1 I BESEECH you what is the next and readiest and most proper English of Idolum, idololatra, ¹ idoloratria? is it not Idol, idolater, idolatry? are not these plain English words, and well known in our language? Why sought you further for other terms and words, if you had meant faithfully? What needed that circumstance of three words for one, worshipper of images, ² and, worshipping of images? whether (I pray you) is the more natural & convenient speech, either in our English tongue, or for the truth of the thing, to say as the holy Scripture does, Covetousness is idolatry, and consequently, The covetous man is an idolater: or as you translate, Covetousness is worshipping of images, and The covetous man is a worshipper of images?

³2 We say commonly in English, Such a rich man makes his money his God: and the Apostle says in like manner of some, Whose belly is their God. Phil. 3. & generally every creature is our idol, when we esteem it so exceedingly that we make it our God. But who ever heard in English, that our money, or belly, were our images, and that by esteeming of them too much, we become worshippers of images? Among yourselves are there not some even of your Superintendents, of whom the Apostle speaks, that make an idol of their money and belly, by covetousness & belly cheer [gluttonous feasting]? Yet can we not call you therefore in any true sense, worshippers of images, neither would you abide it. You see then that there is a great difference betwixt idol and image, idolatry and worshipping of images: and even so great difference is there betwixt S. Paul’s words and your translation.

3 Will you see more yet to this purpose? In the English Bible printed the year 1562 you read thus:⁴ How agrees the Temple of God with images? Can we be ignorant of Satan’s cogitations herein, that it was translated on purpose to delude the simple [unlearned] people and to make them believe that the Apostle speaks against sacred images in the churches, which were then in plucking down in England, when this your translation was first published in print? Whereas in very truth you know, that the Apostle here partly interprets himself to speak of men,⁵ as of God’s temples wherein he dwells, partly alludes to Solomon’s Temple, which did very well agree with images (for it had the Cherubins, which were the representations of Angels, and the figures of oxen to bear up the lavatory [washing-basin]) but with idols it could not agree: and therefore the Apostles words are these,⁶ How agrees the Temple of God with idols?

4 When Moses by God’s appointment erected a brazen serpent, and commanded the people that were stung with serpents, to behold it, & thereby they were healed: this was an image only, and as an image was it erected and kept and used by God’s commandment.⁷ but when it grew to be an idol (says S. Augustine) that is,⁸ when the people began to adore it as God, then king Hezekiah brake it in pieces to the great commendation of his piety and godly zeal.⁹ So when the children of Israel in the absence of Moses made a calf,¹⁰ and said, These are thy Gods O Israel that brought thee out of Egypt, ¹¹ was it but an image which they made? Was that so heinous a matter that God would so have punished them as he did? No they made it an idol also, saying, These are thy gods O Israel. And therefore the Apostle says to the Corinthians,¹² Be not idolaters, as some of them. Which also you translate most falsely, Be not worshippers of images, as some of them.

5 We see then that the Jews had images without sin, but not idols. Again for having idols they were accounted like unto the Gentiles, as the Psalm says, They learned their works, and served their graven idols. ¹³ but they were not accounted like unto the Gentiles for having images, which they had in Solomon’s Temple, and in the brazen serpent.¹⁴ S. Jerome writes of the Ammonites and Moabites (who were Gentiles and Idolaters) that coming into the temple of Jerusalem, and seeing the Angelical images of the Cherubins covering the Propitiatory [mercy-seat], they said, Lo, even as the Gentiles, so Judah also has idols of their religion. These men did put no difference between their own idols, and the Jews lawful images. And are not you ashamed to be like to these? They accused Solomon’s Temple of Idols, because they saw there lawful images: you accuse the Churches of God of idolatry, because you see there the sacred images of Christ and his Saints.

6 But tell us yet I pray you, do the holy Scriptures of either Testament speak of all manner of images,¹⁵ or rather of the idols of the Gentiles? Your conscience knows that they speak directly against the idols & the idolatry that was among the Pagans and Infidels: from which as the Jews in the Old Testament, so the first Christians in the New Testament were to be prohibited. But will you have a demonstration that your own conscience condemns you herein, & that you apply all translation to your heresy? What caused you being otherwise in all places so ready to translate, images: yet Esa. 31 and Zachar. 13 to translate, idols, in all your Bibles with full consent? Why in these places specially and so advisedly? No doubt because God says there, speaking of this time of the New Testament: In that day every man shall cast out his idols of silver and idols of gold. And, I will destroy the names of the idols out of the earth, so that they shall no more be had in remembrance. In which places if you had translated, images, you had made the prophecy false, because images have not been destroyed out of the world, but are, and have been in Christian countries with honour & reverence, even since Christ’s time. Mary in the idols of the Gentiles we see it verified, which are destroyed in all the world so far as Gentility is converted to Christ.

7 And what were the Pagans idols or their idolatry? S. Paul tells us, saying:¹⁶ They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the similitude of the image of a corruptible man, ¹⁷ and of birds and beasts and creeping things: and they served (or worshipped) the creature more than the creator. Does he charge them for making the image of man or beast? Yourselves have hangings and clothes full of such paintings and embroiderings of imagery. Where with then are they charged? With giving the glory of God to such creatures, which was to make them idols, and themselves idolaters.

8 The case being thus,¹⁸ why do you make it two distinct things in S. Paul, calling the Pagans, idolaters: and the Christians doing the same, worshippers of images: and that in one sentence, whereas the Apostle uses but one and the self same Greek word in speaking both of Pagans and Christians? It is a marvelous and wilful corruption, and well to be marked, and therefore I will put down the whole sentence, as it is in your English translation. I wrote to you that you should not company with fornicators: and I meant not at all of the fornicators of this world, either of the covetous, or extortioners, either ¹⁹ the idolaters &c. But that ye company not together, if any that is called a brother, be a fornicator or covetous, or ²⁰ A WORSHIPPER or IMAGES, or an extortioner. In the first, speaking of Pagans, your translator names idolater according to the text, but in the later part speaking of Christians, you translate the very self same Greek word, worshipper of images. Why so? Forsooth to make the reader think that S. Paul speaks here, not only of Pagan idolaters, but also of Catholic Christians that reverently kneel in prayer before the Cross, the holy Rood, the images of our Saviour Christ and his Saints: as though the Apostle had commanded such to be avoided.

9 Where if you have yet the face to deny this your malicious and heretical intent, tell us, why all these other words are translated and repeated alike in both places, covetous, fornicators, extortioners, both Pagans and Christians: and only this word (idolaters) not so, but Pagans, idolaters: & Christians, worshippers of images. At the least you can not deny but it was on purpose done, to make both seem all one, yea and to signify that the Christians doing the foresaid reverence before sacred images (which you call worshipping of images) are more to be avoided than the Pagan idolaters.

Whereas the Apostle speaking of Pagans and Christians that committed one and the self same heinous sin whatsoever, commands the Christian in that case to be avoided for his amendment, leaving the Pagan to himself & to God, as having not to do to judge of him.

10 But to this the answer belike [probably] will be made,²¹ as one of them has already answered in the like case, that in the English Bible appointed to be read in their churches it is otherwise, and even as we would have it corrected: and therefore (says he) it had been good before we entered into such heinous accusations, to have examined our grounds that they had been true. As though we accuse them not truly of false translation, unless it be false in that one Bible which for the present is read in their churches: or as though it pertained not to them how their other English Bibles be translated: or as though the people read not all indifferently without prohibition, and may be abused by every one of them: or as though the Bible which now is read (as we think) in their churches,²² have not the like absurd translations, yea more absurd, even in this matter of images, as is before declared: or as though we must first learn what English translation is read in their church (which were hard to know, it changes so oft) before we may be bold to accuse them of false translation: or as though it were not the same Bible that Was for many years read in their churches, & is yet in every man’s hands, which has this absurd translation whereof we have last spoken.

11 Surely the Bible that we most accuse not only in this point,²³ but for sundry other most gross faults and heretical translations, spoken of in other places, is that Bible which was authorised by Cranmer their Archbishop of Canterbury, and read all king Edward’s time in their churches, & (as it seems by the late printing thereof again an. 1562) a great part of this Queen’s reign. And certain it is, that it was so long read in all their churches with this venomous & corrupt translation of images always instead of idols, that it made the deceived people of their sect, to despise, contemn, and abandon the very sign and image of their salvation, the cross of Christ, the holy rood [the Cross] or crucifix representing the manner of his bitter passion and death, the sacred images of the blessed Virgin Mary the mother of God, & of S. John Evangelist, representing their standing by the Cross at the very time of his Passion.²⁴ in so much that now by experience we see the foul inconvenience thereof, to wit, that all other images and pictures of infamous harlots and Heretics, of Heathen tyrants and persecutors, are lawful in England at this day, and their houses, parlours and chambers are garnished with them: only sacred images, and representations of the holy mystery of our redemption, are esteemed idolatrous, and have been openly defaced in most spiteful manner and burned, to the great dishonour of our Saviour Christ and his Saints.

12 And as concerning the bible that at this day is read in their churches, if it be that of the year 1577, it is worse sometime in this matter of images, than the other. For where the other reads,²⁵ Covetousness, which is worshipping of idols: there this later (whereunto they appeal) reads thus, Covetousness, which is worshipping of images. and Eph. 5. it reads as absurdly as the other,²⁶ A covetous man, which is a worshipper of images. Lo this is the English bible which they refer us unto, as better translated, and as correcting the fault of the former. But because it is evident by these places, that his also is partly worse, and partly as ill as the other, therefore this great confuter [refuter] of M. John Houlet flees once more,²⁷ to the Geneva English Bible, saying, Thus we read, and so we translate: to wit, A covetous person, which is an idolater. Where shall we have these good fellows, and how shall we be sure that they will stand to any of their translations? From the first read in their churches, they flee to that that is now read, & from this again, to the later Geneva English Bibles, neither read in their churches (as we suppose) nor of greatest authority among them: and we doubt not but they will as fast flee from this, to the former again, when this shall be proved in some places more false & absurd than the other.

13 But what matter is it how they read in their churches, or how they correct their former translations by the later: when the old corruption remains still, being set on purpose in the top of every door within their churches, in these words: Babes keep yourselves from images? ²⁸ Why remains that written so often and so conspicuously in the walls of their churches, which in their Bibles they correct as a fault? Their later bibles say, keep yourselves from idols: their church walls say, keep yourselves from images. S. John speaking to the lately converted Gentiles, bids them beware of the idols from whence they were converted: they speaking to the old instructed Christians, bid them beware of the sacred image of Christ our Saviour, of the holy Crucifix, of the cross, of every such representation and monument of Christ’s passion, and our redemption. And therefore in the very same place where these holy monuments were wont to stand in Catholic times, to wit, in the rood loft and partition of the Church and chancel: there now stand these words as confronting and condemning the foresaid holy monuments, Babes keep yourselves from images. Which words whosoever esteems as the words of Scripture, and the words of S. John, spoken against Christ’s image, is made a very babe indeed, and sottishly [stupidly] abused by their scribbled doors, and false translations, to count that idolatry, which is indeed to no other purpose than to the great honour of him whose image and picture it is.

14 But the gay [showy] confuter with whom I began, says for further answer:²⁹ Admit that in some of our translations it be, Children keep yourselves from images (for so he would have said if it were truly printed) What great crime of corruption is here committed? And when it is said again, this is the crime and fault thereof, that they mean by so translating to make the simple believe that idols and images are all one, which is absurd he replies that it is no more absurdity, than instead of a Greek word, to use a Latin of the same signification. And upon this position he grants that according to the property of the Greek word a man may say,³⁰ God made man according to his idol, and that generally, idolum may as truly be translated an image, as Tyrannus a king (which is very true, both being absurd) & here he cites many authors and dictionaries idly,³¹ to prove that idolum may signify the same that Image.

15 But I beseech you Sir, if the dictionaries tell you that εἴδωλον may by the original property of the word signify an image, (which no man denies) do they tell you also that you may commonly and ordinarily translate it so, as the common usual signification thereof? Or do they tell you that image and idol are so all one, that wheresoever you find this word image, you may truly call it, idol? For these are the points that you should defend in your answer. For an example, do they teach you to translate in these places thus,³² God has predestinated us to be made conformable to the idol of his son. And again, As we have borne the idol of the earthly (Adam:) so let us bear the idol of the heavenly (CHRIST). And again, We are transformed into the same idol, even as of our Lord’s spirit. ³³ And again, The Law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very idol of the things. And again, Christ who is the idol of the invisible God? ³⁴ Is this (I pray you) a true translation? Yea, say you, according to the property of the word: but because the name of idols, in the English tongue, for the great dishonour done to God in worshipping of images, is become odious, no Christian man would say so.

16 First note how foolishly and unadvisedly he speaks here, because he would confound images and idols, & make them falsely to signify one thing: when he says, the name of idol, is become odious in the English tongue because of worshipping of Images, He should have said, The dishonour done to God in worshipping Idols, made the name of Idols odious. As in his own example of Tyrant, and king: he meant to tell us that Tyrant sometime was an usual name for every king, and because certain such Tyrants abused their power, therefore the name of Tyrant became odious. For he will not say (I trow [suppose]) that for the fault of kings, the name of Tyrant became odious. Likewise the Romans took away the name of Manlius for the crime of one Manlius, not for the crime of John at Nokes, or of any other name. The name of Judas is so odious that men now commonly are not so called. Why so? Because he that betrayed Christ, was called Judas: not because he was also Iscariot. The very name of Ministers is odious and contemptible. Why? Because Ministers are so lewd [base, ignorant], wicked, & unlearned, not because some Priests be naught. Even so the name of idol grew to be odious, because of the idols of the Gentiles, not because of holy images. For if the reverence done by Christians to holy images were evil, as it is not, it should in this case have made the name of images odious: & not the name of Idols. But God be thanked, the name of Images is no odious name among Catholic Christians, but only among heretics & Imagebreakers, such as the second general Council of Nice has condemned therefore with the sentence of Anáthema. No more than the Cross is odious, which to all good Christians is honorable, because our Saviour Christ died on a Cross.

17 But to omit this man’s extraordinary and unadvised speeches which be too many and too tedious (as when he says in the same sentence, Howsoever the name idol is grown odious in the English tongue, as though it were not also odious in the Latin & Greek tongues, but that in Latin and Greek a man might say according to his fond opinion, Fecit hominem ad idolum suum, [He made man according to his idol] and so in the other places where is imago [image]) to omit these rash assertions I say, and to return to his other words where he says, that though the original property of the words has that signification, yet no Christian man would say that God made man according to his idol, no more than a good subject would call his lawful Prince a tyrant. does he not here tell us that, which we would have, to wit, that we may not speak or translate according to the original property of the word, but according to the common usual and accustomed signification thereof? As we may not translate, Phalaris tyrannus, Phalaris the king, as sometime tyrannus did signify, and in ancient authors does signify: but, Phalaris the tyrant, as now this word tyrannus is commonly taken & understood. Even so we may not now translate, My children keep yourselves from images, as the word may and does sometime signify according to the original property thereof,³⁵ but we must translate, keep yourselves from idols, according to the common use and signification of the word in vulgar speech, and in the holy Scriptures. Where the Greek word is so notoriously & usually peculiar to idols, and not unto images: that the holy fathers of the second Nicene Council (which knew right well the signification of the Greek word, themselves being Grecians) do pronounce Anáthema to all such as interpret those places of the holy Scripture that concern idols, of images or against sacred images, as now these Calvinists do, not only in their Commentaries upon the holy Scriptures, but even in their translations of the text.

18 This then being so, that words must be translated as their common use and signification requires,³⁶ if you ask your old question, what great crime of corruption is committed in translating, keep yourselves from images, the Greek being εἴδωλον? You have answered yourself, that in so translating, idol & image are made to signify one thing, which may not be done, no more than Tyrant and king can be made to signify all one. And how can you say then, that this is no more absurdity, than instead of a Greek word, to use a Latin of the same signification. Are you not here contrary to yourself? Are idol and image, tyrant and king, of one signification? Said you not that in the English tongue, idol is grown to another signification, than image, as tyrant is grown to another signification than king? Your false translations therefore that in so many places make idols and images all one, not only forcing the word in the holy Scriptures, but disgracing the sentence thereby (as Ephes. 5. & Col. 3) are they not in your own judgement very corrupt:³⁷ & as your own consciences must confess, of a malicious intent corrupted, to disgrace thereby the Churches holy images by pretense of the holy Scriptures that speak only of the Pagans idols.

19 But of the usual, and original signification of words (whereof you take occasion of manifold corruptions) we will speak more anon, if first we touch some other your falsifications against holy images: as, where you affectate [strain after, affect] to thrust the word image into the text, when there is no such thing in the Hebrew or Greek, as in that notorious example 2. Par. 36. (Bib. 1562.) Carved images that were laid to his charge. ³⁸ Again, Ro. 11. To the image of Baal. and Act. 19. The image that came down from Jupiter. Where you are not content to understand image rather than idol,³⁹ but also to thrust it into the text, being not in the Greek, as you know very well.

20 Of this kind of falsification is that which is crept as a leprosy throughout all your bibles, translating, Sculptile and conflatile, graven image, molten image, namely in the first commandment, where you know in the Greek it is idol, & in the Hebrew,⁴⁰ such a word as signifies only a graven thing, not including this word image: and you know that God commanded to make the images of Cherubins, and of oxen in the Temple, and of the brazen serpent in the desert, and therefore your wisdoms might have considered, that he forbade not all graven images,⁴¹ but such as the Gentiles made and worshipped as gods: and therefore Non facies tibi sculptile, [Thou shalt not make to thee a graven thing] concurs with those words that go before, Thou shalt have none other gods but me. For so to have an image as to make it a god, is to make it more than an image: and therefore, when it is an Idol, as were the Idols of the Gentiles, then it is forbid by this commandment. Otherwise, when the Cross stood many years upon the Table in the Queen’s Chapel,⁴² was it against this commandment? Or was it idolatry in the Quenes Majesty & her Counsellers, that appointed it there, being the supreme head of your church? Or do the Lutherans your pewfellows, at this day commit idolatry against this commandment, that have in their churches the crucifix, and the holy Images of the mother of God,⁴³ and of S. John the Evangelist? Or if the whole story of the Gospel concerning our Saviour Christ, were drawn in pictures and Images in your churches, as it is in many of ours, were it (trow you) against this commandment? Fie for shame, that you should thus with intolerable impudency and deceit abuse and bewitch the ignorant people, against your own knowledge and conscience. For, wot [know] you not, that God many times expressly forbade the Jews both marriages and other conversation with the Gentiles, lest they might fall to worship their idols, as Solomon did,⁴⁴ & as the Psalm reports of them? This then is the meaning of the commandment, neither to make the idols of the Gentiles, nor any other like unto them, and to that end, as did Jeroboam in Dan and Bethel.⁴⁵

21 This being a thing so plain as nothing more in all the holy Scriptures, yet your itching humour of deceit and falsehood, for the most part does translate still, images, images, when the Latin and Greek and Hebrew have divers other words, and very seldom that which answers to image. For when it is image in the Latin, or Greek or Hebrew texts, your translation is not reprehended: for we also translate sometimes, images, when the text of the holy Scripture requires it. And we are not ignorant that there were images, which the Pagans adored for their gods: & we know that some idols are images, but not all images, idols. But when the holy Scriptures call them by so many names, rather than images, because they were not only images, but made idols: why do your translations, like cuckoos birds, sound continually, images, images, more than idols, or other words equivalent to idols, which are there meant?

22 Two places only we will at this time ask you the reason of: first why you translate the Hebrew and Greek that answers to statua, image, so often as you do: Whereas this word in the said tongues, is taken also in the better part, as when Jacob set up a stone and erected it for a ⁴⁶ title [pillar], pouring oil upon it: and the prophet says, our Lord’s altar shall be in Egypt, and his ⁴⁷ title beside it. ⁴⁸ So that the word does signify generally a sign erected of good or evil, and therefore might very well (if it pleased you) have some other English than, image. Unless you will say that Jacob also set up an image: &, Our Lord’s image shall be in Egypt: which you will not say, though you might with more reason than in other places.

⁴⁹23 Secondly we demand, why your very last English Bible has (Esa. 30, 22:) For two Hebrew words,⁵⁰ which are in Latin Sculptilia and conflatilia, twice, images, images: neither word being Hebrew for an image: no more than if a man would ask, what is Latin for an image, & you would tell him sculptile. Whereupon he seeing a fair painted image in a table, might happily [perhaps] say, Ecce egregium sculptile. [Behold, a fine graven image!] Which every boy in the Grammar school would laugh at. Which therefore we tell you, because we perceive your translations endeavour and as it were affectate,⁵¹ to make Sculptile and image all one. Which is most evidently false and to your great confusion appears Abac. 2. v. 13. Where for these words, Quid prodest sculptile, quia sculpsit illud fictor suus conflatile & imagine falsam? [What profiteth the thing engraven, that the forger thereof hath graven it, a molten, and a false image?] Which is according to the Hebrew and Greek: your later English translation has, What profits the image? For the maker thereof has made it an image, and a teacher of lies.

24 I would every common Reader were able to discern your falsehood in this place. First, you make sculpere sculptile, no more than, to make an image: Which being absurd you know (because the painter or embroiderer making an image, can not be said sculpere sculptile) might teach you that the Hebrew has in it no signification of image, no more than sculpere can signify, to make an image: and therefore the Greek and the Latin precisely (for the most part) express neither more nor less, than a thing graven:⁵² but yet mean always by these words, a graven idol, to which signification they are appropriated by use of holy Scripture, as Simulacrum idolum, conflatile, and sometime imago. In which sense of signifying Idols, if you also did repeat images so often, although the translation were not precise, yet it were in some part tolerable, because the sense were so: but when you do it to bring all holy images into contempt, even the image of our Saviour Christ crucified, you may justly be controlled for false and heretical translators.

25 As in this very place (which is another falsehood like to the other) conflatile you translate image, ⁵³ as you did sculptile, and so here again in Habakkuk (as before in Isaiah is noted) for two distinct words, each signifying another divers thing from image, you translate, images, images. Thirdly, for imaginem falsam, a false image, you translate another thing, without any necessary pretense either of Hebrew or Greek, avoiding here the name of image, because this place tells you that the holy Scripture speaks against false images, or as the Greek has, false phantasies, ⁵⁴ or as you translate the Hebrew, such images as teach lies, representing false Gods which are not, as the Apostle says, Idolum nihil est, [An idol is nothing] ⁵⁵ And, Non sunt Dij qui manibus fiunt. [They are not gods which are made by hands] Which distinction of false and true images you will not have, because you condemn all images, even holy and sacred also, and therefore you make the holy Scriptures to speak herein according to your own fancy.

26 Wherein you proceed so far, that when Daniel said to the king,⁵⁶ I worship not idols made with hands ( εἴδωλα χειροποίητα ) you make him say thus, I worship not things that be made with hands. ⁵⁷ leaving out the word idols altogether as though he had said, nothing made with hand were to be adored, not the Ark, the propitiatory, no nor the holy Cross itself that our Saviour shed his blood upon. As before you added to the text, so here you diminish & take from it at your pleasure.

27 But concerning the word image, which you make to be the English of all the Latin, Hebrew, and Greek words, be they never so many and so distinct, I beseech you what reason had you to translate γλυπτά, images, Sap. 15. v. 13: does the Greek word so signify? Does not the sentence following tell you that it should have been translated, graven idols? for thus it says, They judged all the idols of the nations to be Gods. lo your images, or rather lo the true names of the Pagans gods, which it pleases you to call, images, images.

28 But (to conclude this point) you might, and it would have well become you, in translating or expounding the foresaid words, to have followed S. Jerome the great famous translator and interpreter of the holy Scriptures:⁵⁸ who tells you two senses of the foresaid words: the one literal, of the idols of the Gentiles: the other mystical, of Heresies and errors. Sculptile, says he, & conflatile: I take to be perverse opinions, which are adored of the authors that made them. See Arius, that graved to himself this idol, that Christ was only a creature, & adored that which he had graven. Behold Eunomius, how he molted and cast a false image, and bowed to that which he had molten. Suppose he had exemplified of the two condemned heretics Jovinian and Vigilantius also: had he not touched your idols, that is, the old condemned heresies which you at this day adore?

29 These only (I mean heresies & heretics) are the idols and idolaters (by the ancient Doctors judgement) which have been among Christians, since the idolatry of the Gentiles ceased according to the prophets.⁵⁹ Therefore S. Jerome says again, If thou see a man that will not yield to the truth, ⁶⁰ but when the falsehood of his opinions is once showed, perseveres still in that he began: thou mayst aptly say, Sperat in figmento suo, [He trusteth in his own forgery] ⁶¹ and he makes dumb or deaf idols. And again, All Heretics have their gods: & whatsoever they have forged, they adore the same as sculptile and conflatile: ⁶² that is, as a graven and molten idol. And again, He says well, I have found unto myself an idol: For, all the forgeries of heretics are as the idols of the Gentils: neither do they much differ in impiety, though in name they seem to differ. ⁶³ And again, Whatsoever according to the letter is spoken against the idolatry of the Jews, do thou refer all this unto them which under the name of Christ worship idols, and forging to themselves perverse opinions, carry the tabernacle of their king the Devil, and the image of their idols. For they worship not an idol, but for variety of their doctrine they adore diverse Gods. And he put in very well, which you made to yourselves: for they received them not of God, but forged them of their own mind. And of the idol of Samaria he says,⁶⁴ we always understand Samaria (& the idol of Samaria) in the person of Heretics, the same Prophet saying, WO BE TO THEM THAT DESPISE SION,⁶⁵ AND TRUST IN THE MOUNT OF SAMARIA. For Heretics despise the Church of God, and trust in the falsehood of their opinions, erecting themselves against the knowledge of God: and saying, when they have divided the people (by schism,) we have no part in David, nor inheritance in the son of Isay.

30 Thus the Reader may see that the holy Scriptures which the Adversaries falsely translate against the holy images of our Saviour Christ and his Saints, to make us idolaters, do indeed concern their idols, and condemn them as idolaters, which forge new opinions to themselves, such as the ancient fathers knew not, and adore them and their own sense and interpretation of Scriptures, so far & so vehemently, that they prefer it before the approved judgement of all the general councils and holy Doctors, and for maintenance of the same, corrupt the holy Scriptures at their pleasure, and make them speak according to there fancies, as we have partly showed, and now are to declare further.