1 John 1:21

Little children, keep yourselves from idols. Amen. S. John gives this last admonition, because in that age idolatry was a great danger, and it was most needful to warn against it. For at that time the whole world lay in the wicked one, i.e. in idolatry, and so Christians who were recently converted from it were obliged to be continually conversant with their Gentile and idolatrous relations and friends, to dine and feast with them, when meats offered to idols were set before them as sacred things to be eaten, concerning which I have spoken on 1 Cor. viii. Lest, therefore, by their examples and entreaties they should fall back into idolatry which they had lately forsaken, S. John in this last verse diligently warns them, so that he may fasten it deeply in their mind and their memory, that they should abstain from all commerce with idols, and from all meats offered to idols. So Didymus, Lyra, Cajetan, &c. Beza and the heretics falsely render the words, Little children, keep yourselves from images. For an image is the likeness of some thing true, or real: but a simulchrum or idol, of something false, as for instance of a false god. Thus Scripture and the Fathers distinguish those two words. And the Seventh Œcumenical Council pronounces an anathema against those who say that the images of Christ and the Saints are idols.

Now S. John says, Keep yourselves from, he does not say, Destroy idols, for this would excite the rage of the heathen against all Christians. Wherefore S. Augustine warns us that the idols in men's hearts ought first to be destroyed, afterwards those in the temples. He adds that those must not be accounted Martyrs who are killed for destroying idols. But this must be understood of those who did it rashly and imprudently so as to cause scandal. For those who did it advisedly out of greatness of soul, or by a Divine prompting, either to confound the heathen or to confirm the faithful, are reckoned among the Martyrs. Such were S. Theodoras, S. Barbara, S. Christina, and many others.

Keep yourselves from idols. This means, Do not carve, or paint, or polish them. Do not uncover the head or bend the knee to them, or pay them any honour. Do not swear by them. Do not eat meats offered to them. Do not hold any office connected with their worship or honour. Do not bear offerings, frankincense or wine, to them. Do not celebrate their fame either in prose or verse. With the greatest circumspection, therefore, were the faithful to keep themselves from idols, and to be on their guard against them, so as not to consent to, or take part in, and so be defiled in any manner with idolatrous rites and ceremonies. Lastly, S. John in these words rebukes the heresy of Elxai, which arose towards the close of his life. Amongst other things he taught that it was no sin if any one chanced to adore idols in a time of hot persecution, if only a man did not adore them in his conscience, and if belief in them were professed only with the lips and not in the heart. And this crafty deceiver was not ashamed to cite in confirmation of his doctrine a certain priest of the name of Phinees, a descendant of Aaron and of the ancient Phinees, who in the time of the Babylonish captivity worshipped Diana, and thus at Susa escaped destruction in the presence of King Darius. So S. Epiphanius (Hæres, 19).