The "god" of the religions invented by men over the centuries, product of the human need for knowledge and power, is inversely proportional to the measure of the knowledge and strength of men, and therefore serves to explain what they do not know and to bend what they they don't dominate. The smaller and more powerless man is, the greater the "god" who enlightens and protects him. No contempt, in this observation, for the "religious" spirit of ancient and primitive peoples who have hitherto been backward. Just one observation: the "god" of the so-called "natural" religions grows where science is lacking, and diminishes where it grows, is invoked and receives ritual offerings where technology is impotent and is neglected where it is an instrument of domination of the forces of nature or of growth of the culture of peoples... It was written with provocative force that "in religion science creates the desert", and for so-called natural religions this can actually be seen. But – and here the discussion becomes ours – this is not the Jewish-Christian faith. It, as revealed in Scripture, the First and New Testament, and as lived in the authentic Christian and Catholic faith, does not serve anything instrumental to the knowledge and dominion of nature, it does not free from errors of knowledge and from the experience of the human failure of faced with the emergencies of life, until death... The Jewish Christian faith is of no use for anything worldly, but it gives ultimate meaning to everything worldly, and opens the horizon to an otherworldly universe...
The God revealed, unique and new
Here is the new thing we have arrived at: the God who reveals himself to Abraham, and then to Moses, is a God who is not seen, but heard, and his alliance with the people of Moses is presented in the "Ten Words". We concluded the last "episode" - the term is a bit funny, but it is useful - reflecting on the first of those ten words: "I am the Lord your God, you will have no other God opposed to me!". it is the original affirmation, then probably unique in the history of humanity, of absolute monotheism. The God who reveals himself to Abraham and his descendants is unique, he is a God who is not seen, but who is heard, he is a God who is present, who "is" always there, and Whom we can totally trust, solid as rock and foundation (here is the term of faith, or of believing, as "basàh") and to Whom one can entrust oneself, with a surge of trust (here is the term of faith as "amàn").
“You will not make images”
Therefore the affirmation of the absolute uniqueness of God. It is the first of the ten "words". And then? Then obviously the second, which however is not, as our commandments in the Catechism sound, "do not take the name of God in vain", but "you shall not make yourself the image of God..."
Thus in both original biblical texts (Ex 20,4 and Dt 5,8). it is known that during the first centuries there were very lively conflicts for centuries on the question of "images", the famous dispute on "iconoclasm", that is, on the destruction of images, and for this very reason, to prevent the perpetuation of the conflicts, and of the true and fratricidal struggles, it was decided not to mention the ban on images, which misunderstanding would not only have further animated discord, but would in fact deny any sacred art for centuries. Here then - from the actual point of view - the ten words would have remained nine, and therefore in the current text, used in the Catechisms, steps have been taken to restore the number ten by doubling the last command, which in a single imperative prohibited " desire” both the woman and the property of others. “Do not desire other people's women”, and “do not desire other people's things”, therefore, and so the ten words become ten again…
In reality, however, that second command, which prohibits images, must be held firm, in its authentic meaning, and becomes central to understanding the meaning of all the ten commands themselves.
What does this prohibition of “images” of God mean, then?
A “spiritual” God? Yes, but that's not the point here
A first, instinctive response could be to remember that God is "spiritual", while every image is necessarily material. What to say? It is true that "God is Spirit" - an explicit word of Jesus to the Samaritan woman (Jn. 4, 24), but as regards the command of the prohibition of images in the First or Old Testament, the opposite generally seems true: it is evoked several times like a material presence of God: you can hear his steps approaching, in Eden, he runs on the tops of the trees, you can see the back of the Almighty running away etc...
A “transcendent” and celestial God?
Could one then think that the prohibition of images, in this second command, says that God is transcendent, far from the mundane reality in which man lives, sunk in the heights of Heaven unimaginable to the imagination of artists and also to the wise speculation of philosophers? Yes, but the surprise comes from the fact that the reminder not to make images is continually in the decidedly opposite context, that is, it is accompanied by the affirmation that God is close, is present, is with His people, confirms his fidelity to the pact, he speaks and wants to be heard.
A God who is not an idol, and does not ask for human sacrifices
So? So we're not there yet. Then we need to remember that all primitive religions had "images" of divinities, which biblical language calls "idols" - we have already said something about this - and that they could be seen, but they did not speak: idols are silent, you see them and you speak them, asking them to solve the problems of existence, offering them sacrifices, even human sacrifices that were customary in primitive cultures. The dramatic example of Genesis 22, the story of the prepared sacrifice of Isaac by Abraham, is the confirmation of the universal ancient idolatry: the firstfruits of the fruit of human life, the firstborn, is offered to the idol which will therefore reward it with his protection. A universal custom, or almost, in all primitive religions - it will be enough to remember Iphigenia, daughter of Agamemnon - and also among the tribe of Abraham... In that chapter, which scandalises us poorly understood, because it seems to affirm that God asks Abraham for the sacrifice of Isaac, instead marks the divine rejection - of the new God, of the true God, of the God who reveals himself to Abraham, and then to Moses, and then, and then - of human sacrifices. Indeed: that same God then, in the definitive revelation, will Himself offer his Son as a sacrifice on the mountain for the salvation of his People, the entire humanity called to salvation. I quote from memory a text by St. Augustine which goes something like this: what God did not ask of Abraham He himself did, offering his Son on the tree and on the mountain for the salvation of all humanity...
A God whose image is the living man
Again: so what? So the secret of the answer lies precisely in the term "image" that resonates in this second command. In the terminology of biblical faith, the term image, in Greek "eikòn" (icon) is very familiar from the story of creation. That “naasèh et Haadàm beçalmenu kidmutenu” (Gen. 1, 26: “Let us make man in our own image”) is immediately evoked. The true image of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Moses is there, very alive, in the life of the Chosen People, at the center of all biblical revelation, and it is man, the human creature, created male and female by the imagination creator of the Creator. God does not want images of Himself for two essential reasons, therefore. The first is that every image is silent, and He wants to speak, and the second is that in the world, by His creative will, there is already His living image, in which He - and this will be the whole path that awaits us - wants to be known and recognized: man, male and female in history, and then - and here is the new light and real novelty of the New Testament - "the Man" is presented to us ("Behold the Man!") Jesus , Son of God, who wanted to be identified with every "little one" in the light of the final Judgment (Mt. 25), which decides salvation or perdition...
This is the primary truth of the "second command", unfortunately neglected in our catechetical tradition, but central. In fact, the rest, from the third to the tenth command, will follow as concrete life in all its aspects, and will mark the absolute novelty of the Revelation, the one which we welcome in the Creed, and which we should bear witness to in concrete life...
Until next time.
