Nathaniel Spencer

“15For a father consumed with untimely grief When his child was soon taken from him Made an image of the once-dead human being And honored him now as a god, And handed down to those under him secret mysteries and initiations. 16Then the ungodly custom, strengthened by time, was kept as a law, And at the command of tyrants carved images were worshiped. 17When men could not honor a tyrant before his face Because he lived far away, They imagined his face from a distance And made a visible image of the honored king, That by their zeal they might flatter the one absent as though present. 18Then the ambition of the craftsman encouraged Even those who did not know the king to increase their worship. 19For wishing perhaps to please the one who ruled over him, He skillfully forced the likeness into a more beautiful form, 20And the multitude, attracted by the popularity of his work, Now considered him as an object of worship Whom a short time before they honored as a man. 21But this became a trap for their life, Because men, in bondage either to calamity or to kingly power, Conferred on stones and wood a name not shared with another.”
― Anonymous, The Orthodox Study Bible: Ancient Christianity Speaks to Today's World