![]() ![]() ![]() Those who make them become like them so do all who trust in them. They have hands, but do not feel feet, but do not walk and they do not make a sound in their throat. They have mouths, but do not speak eyes, but do not see, They have ears, but do not hear noses, but do not smell. detect problems in defining idol, then ipso facto there are likely to be. Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. Though the theory is worked out in most detail in regard to idols, Christian images, too, work through the power of latency, and may seduce and trap unwary viewers by apparent inertia. Thanks are especially due to my two sons, Michael and Stephen who patiently. The idol is animated by the devotional pagan gaze, but exerts power by latency: at some times it will display liveliness to its worshippers, at others it will remain indifferent. Augustine drew together different strands of Old Testament denunciations of idolatry to argue that demons were attracted to the material images built by pagans. It is paradoxical, too, in contemporary theories of materiality the idol is a paradigm of the material thing invested with agency, but how then does it find space to develop the excess that makes it an agent, not a mere machine? This article argues that Christian narratives of the origin of idolatry explore this very question. The idol, in medieval Christian analysis, is a paradoxical object it may be conceived of either as mere dumb matter, or as the housing of a living demon. ![]()
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