In Judaism and Christianity the second of the Ten Commandments adjures us, “You shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heavens above or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.” I am aware that the ostensible purpose of this commandment was to protect the Jewish people from idol worship in those idol-strewn times. But the commandment also expresses the timeless fear that every society harbors of its artists, poets, and saints. For they are the ones who threaten the status quo, which each society is devoted to protecting.
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