6. Fetichism.
Closely related to the foregoing worship is fetichism, the worship of idols and images. This is popularly supposed to be the religion only of savages and barbarians; but it also prevails to some extent among people who are considered civilized and enlightened.
While it was opposed by some of the kings, priests, and prophets, idolatry flourished among the Jews from the earliest ages down almost to the Christian era. Abraham’s father, Terah, was an idolater (Josh. xxv, 2). Jacob’s wives were daughters of an idolater. Rachel stole and hid her father’s images (Gen. xxxi, 30–34). Jacob’s family were, for a time at least, idolaters. “Then Jacob said unto his household, and all that were with him, Put away the strange gods that are among you.... And they gave unto Jacob all the strange gods that were in their hands, ... and Jacob hid them under the oak which was by Shechem” (Gen. xxxv, 2–4). The kingdoms of Israel and Judah were steeped in idolatry. Israel “set them up images” and “served idols” (2 Kings xvii, 10, 11), and “did offer sweet savor to their idols” (Ezek. vi, 13). Judah was “full of idols” (Is. ii, 8).
The fetichism of Christ’s ancestors reappeared in the image worship of his devotees. The Christians of the middle ages, Dr. Draper says, “were immersed in fetichism.” “The worship of images, of fragments of the cross, or bones, nails and other relics, a true fetich worship, was cultivated” (Conflict, p. 49). “A chip of the true cross, some iron filings from the chain of St. Peter, a tooth or bone of a martyr, were held in adoration; the world was full of the stupendous miracles which these relics had performed. But especially were painted or graven images of holy personages supposed to be endowed with such powers. They had become objects of actual worship” (Intellectual Development of Europe, vol. i, p. 414).
Concerning the fetichism of the church, “Chambers’s Encyclopedia” says: “It was usual not only to keep lights and burn incense before the images, to kiss them reverently; and to kneel down and pray before them, but some went so far as to make the images serve as godfathers and godmothers in baptism, and even to mingle the dust of the coloring matter scraped from the images with the Eucharist elements in the Holy Communion.... In many foreign churches, especially in Italy, in southern Germany, and in France [at the present time], are to be found images which are popularly reputed as especially sacred, and to which, or to prayers offered before which, miraculous effects are ascribed.”
Bishop Newton, of England, admits and deplores the existence of Christian fetichism. He says: “The consecrating and bowing down to images; the attributing of miraculous powers and virtues to idols; the setting up of little oratories, altars and statues in the streets and highways and on the tops of mountains; the carrying of images and relics in pompous procession, ... all these are equally parts of pagan and popish superstition.”
Greek, Lutheran, and Anglican churches are not free from fetichism, and even the Evangelical churches of this country make a fetich of a book.