Bible Dictionaries
Idolatry

　　So deep-rooted was the Jewish hatred of idolatry, and so general had been the condemnation of the practice, that our Lord found no reason for insistence upon the generally accepted commandments on the subject. But soon as the gospel message began to be preached outside the pale of Judaism, the matter became one of the pressing questions of the day. Protests against the popular practice had not been wanting from the older Greek thinkers; Heraclitus, Xenophanes, and Zeno had all raised their voices against image-worship. But the popular mind was not affected by their teaching, and many were the apologists who wrote in favour of the established custom. It is not surprising to read (Acts 17:16) that, when St. Paul visited Athens, ‘his spirit was provoked within him, as he beheld the city full of idols,’ even though the statement is not strictly accurate. His whole training rendered him antagonistic to anything approaching idolatry; and in his letters the same feeling is expressed. No Christian was to keep company with idolaters (1 Corinthians 5:10 f.), who could not inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9, Ephesians 5:5). He reminds the Thessalonians that they had abandoned the old idolatrous worship ‘to serve the living God’ (1 Thessalonians 1:9). Yet from the Christian point of view there is only one God, and the true Christian cannot but recognize that thus ‘no idol is anything in the world’ (1 Corinthians 8:4).

　　But there are two aspects of idolatry which caused the greatest anxiety in the primitive Church.

　　(a) The decision of the Jerusalem Council as to the duties incumbent upon heathen converts contains the significant phrase, ‘that they abstain from the pollutions of idols’ (Acts 15:20), ‘from meats offered to idols’ (Acts 15:29). The command is intended as a comprehensive one, meaning that idolatry in every form is to be avoided; ‘participation in the idolatrous feasts is especially emphasised, simply because this was the crassest form of idolatry’ (A. Harnack, The Acts of the Apostles, Eng. translation