It is sometimes said that what the early Christians were opposing was simply the cult images among pagans, and thus did not apply to the appropriate use of images in worship among Christians. But this simply doesn’t square with the evidence. The practice of honoring images is itself regarded as pagan; whenever it is referenced in the early church, it is condemned as such.44 The consistent contrast was not between pagan use of images versus Christian use of images, but pagan use of images versus Christian rejection of images.
