Sacred Images

Abstract

What did the image mean in worship ? Quite obviously something different from our modern “image.” It is known that among the Ancient peoples, and also among modern peoples outside our civilization, a mysterious relation is assumed to exist between the image and the original; sometimes we should be inclined to say that the image replaces the original. In Egyptian tombs the dead man is depicted upon the walls, sitting before a sacrificial table. By means of the image he thus really has food and drink. This is identity, or in any case an irrational, mystical, or magical relation between the image and the original. Thus the temple is the image of the cosmic location at which and in which God reveals Himself; therefore the temple is sacred, just as the location itself is. The altar is the image of the high ground in which God reveals Himself. The image possesses the properties of the original and replaces it. All “sympathetic magic” is based on this conception of the image. One does the same things to the image that he wishes to do to the original; the effect is the same. The image of an enemy is injured or killed; the image of a god is fed and worshipped with ceremonial rites. Sacred history is often brought into an image; that is, it is played as a drama.