The Image-Worship of the Church of Rome Proved to Be Contrary to Holy Scripture, and the Faith and Discipline of the Primitive Church: and to Involve Contradictory and Irreconcilable Doctrines Within the Church of Rome Itself

The Image-Worship Of The Church Of Rome Proved To Be Contrary To Holy Scripture, And The Faith And Discipline Of The Primitive Church: And To Involve Contradictory And Irreconcilable Doctrines Within The Church Of Rome Itself by James Endell Tyler. This polemical treatise surveys the history, theology, and liturgy of image-worship in the Roman Church from antiquity to the modern era. Tyler argues that worship of religious images and the cross amounts to latria, equating it with divine worship, and traces such practice from the Second Nicene Council (A.D. 787) through the Council of Trent, to the present Roman liturgies. He contends that image-worship pervades Trent's decrees and the Roman Missal, Breviary, and Pontifical, and shows how the Church's Doctors—Aquinas, Bonaventure, Naclantus, Bellarmin—pushed a consistent, but internally inconsistent, doctrine: that images are aids to worship yet deserve the same adoration as the prototypes they represent. The work further surveys patristic writings by Augustine, Chrysostom, Basil, Athanasius, and others who warned against image-worship, concluding that the Church of England's practice preserves apostolic simplicity and opposes Rome’s “innovation.”