And changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beasts, and creeping things.
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Ambrosiaster
AD 400
So blinded were their hearts that they altered the majesty of the invisible God, which they knew from the things which he had made, not into men but, what is worse and is an inexcusable offense, into the image of men, so that the form of a corruptible man was called a god by them, i.e., a depiction of a man. Moreover, they did not dare honor living people with this name but elevated the images of dead men to the glory of God! What great idiocy, what great stupidity, in that they knew they were calling them to their damnation, among whom an image was more powerful than the truth, and the dead were mightier than the living! Turning away from the living God they preferred dead men, among whose number they found themselves. They so diminished the majesty and glory of God that they gave the title of “god” to the images of things which were small and tiny. For the Babylonians were the first to deify a notion of Bel, who was portrayed as a dead man, who supposedly had once been one of their kings. They also worshiped the dragon serpent, which Daniel the man of God killed and of which they had an image. The Egyptians also worshiped a quadruped which they called Apis and which was in the form of a bull. Jeroboam copied this evil by setting up calves in Samaria, to which the Jews were expected to offer sacrifices. … By doing this, those who knew the invisible God did not honor him. They were unable to be wise in the things which are visible. For one who has problems with the big things will not be wise in the little things either. Commentary on Paul’s Epistles.
