REPRESENTATION. The Law of God forbids all Sorts of Representations of Men, Beasts, Stars, or other Things, made in order to pay them a superstitious Worship; whether it be in Relievo, embossed, by Painting or Sculpture, in Wood, Stone, Plaister, Copper, Gold or Silver; every thing that may lead to Idolatry. Thou shalt have no other Gods before me. Thou shalt not make to thy self any graven Image, nor the Likeness of any thing in Heaven above, in the Earth beneath, or in the Waters under the Earth. But the Exod. xx. 3, 4.best Interpreters take notice, that this general Prohibition must be limited agreeably to the express Words of Leviticus xxvi. 1. where the same Command is repeated with the Addition of Ut adoretis ea; you shall make none of these things to worship them. We know that Moses himself made Cherubims, and fixed them upon the Ark; that Solomon also made several Figures of Cherubims in the Sanctuary; that he had Brazen Bulls made to support the Brazen Sea. Therefore, where there was no fear of Idolatry, there God did not forbid the bare making of Images and Representations, when they were only made for Ornament.
70 .כל תמונה Πᾶν ὁμοίωμα. פסלSculptile. 70. Εἴδωλον, alias Γλυπτόν, Sculptile.The Hebrew Word Pesel, which the Vulgate has render’d by Sculptile, Exodus xx. 3, 4. that is to say, a graven Image, is by the Septuagint translated Idolum, a vain Representation: And in Onkelos, by Zelum, which signifies an Image, a Picture. Therefore by this Word we may understand all kind of Figures in Relief; and under the Word omnem similitudinem, which the Vulgate afterwards uses, all kinds of Representations, whether in Painting, Embroidery, Tapestry, Enamel, Engraving, &c.