Debunking lmaid's anti-Catholic claims part 1
In light of @/lmaid 's post of very inaccurate post about Catholicism, I'm going to through her claims in four series because I don't want a single post to super long and ya'll know that I can be too verbose sometimes. Let's rock & roll, buckaroos!
This is a creative one, I will give you that. I have never come across the claim that all art depicting Jesus post-Renaissance is the EVIL machinations of the Church trying to get people to worship Cesare Borgia.
First of all, seeing as Cesare Borgia wasn't all that liked during his life, and was given a really ignominious death, there is no reason for Catholics to make Jesus look like him in art going forward.
Second, most art from Europe depicting Jesus is going to portray Him as a somewhat generic-looking white dude with longish hair and a beard. That's typically what European men looked like. European Christians are going to depict Jesus and other bible figures like themselves (no matter how inaccurate it is) because that's how art tends to work. It depicts figures as the artists from a certain culture see themselves. Figures in Greek epics like the Iliad and Odysessy aren't depicted wearing Mycenaean armor, but anachronistic hoplite armor because that's how the Ancient Greeks wanted to see them. It's not the case that depictions of Jesus post-Renaissance are purposely made to look like Cesare Borgia. They're made to look like generic-looking white dudes with beards. Cesare Borgia just so happened to look (if art is to be trusted with accuracy of his portraits) like a generic-looking Italian man. Would you like to see the other generic-white Jesus paintings from before Cesare Borgia?
Do these pre-Renaissance depictions look like Cesare Borgia, hundreds of years before his birth, or do they depict Jesus more like a generic European man to appeal to the European sensibilities and taste?
Third, this is a little nitpicky and doesn't have anything to do with any real counterclaims or arguments, but Pope Alexander VI was not the 6th pope. He was the 214th. If you're going to spread anti-Catholic propaganda, at least fact check a little to make your claim slightly credible.
Fourth, random bible verses that are in no doubt taken out of context is also not proof and do very little to support your argument.
Wisdom 14: 8-22
Catholics, Protestants, and every sect of Christian will agree unamiously that creating a figure of any kind to worship is bad. Catholics, Orthodox, and certain high-church Anglicans/Episcopalians and Lutherans use sacred art to draw the heart closer to God, not to worship it as a god. No Catholic I have met sacrifices sheep to a statue of Mary or even a crucifix. Someone might leave flowers or a rosary, but there is the knowledge that the statue does not appreciate the gifts because it is not a living thing nor can it channel the presence of the Mother of God herself. It's more like leaving flowers beside a picture of a loved one or on the grave.
These verses against idolatry have nothing to do with European art or Cesare Borgia. European art depicting Jesus as a white man, and therefore like the illegitimate child of Pope Alexander VI and any other white European man, is coincidental, not on purpose. The verse also does not explain away hundreds years of Christian art depicting Jesus as more or less like a European. You can't tell me that all art depicting Jesus like a European is because some people really wanted to worship Cesare Borgia who died in the early 16th century.
Revelation 1: 14-15
This is a vision received by John of Patmos (who may or probably was John the Apostle). If you're going to tell me that an artist cannot depict Jesus unless they give him a white face, white hair, fiery eyes, and bronze feet, then we should just destroy all depictions of Jesus. That sounds a lot like iconoclasm to me.
This has nothing to do with Christian art, European depictions of Jesus, or Cesare Borgia. Once again, I repeat the point that art depicting Jesus is not based off of Cesare Borgia; Jesus is depicted as European dudes by European artists, and Cesare Borgia happened to be a European dude!
Canticles 1: 5 (Song of Songs)
"Let him kiss me with the kiss of his mouth: for thy breasts are better than wine."
What does this have to do with European art depicting Jesus and/or Cesare Borgia?
Hebrews 7:14
"For it is evident that our Lord sprung out of Juda: in which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests."
All this means is that Jesus was born in Juda and was the descendant of David line through Moses, not Levi. In my church, it means that Jesus set up a new priesthood in the order of Melchizedek, an eternal priesthood that is not reliant on who your family is from, as the next verses say:
"And it is yet far more evident: if according to similitude of Melchizedek there ariseth another priest,
Who is made not according to the law of a carnal commandment, but according to the power of an indissoluble life."
So, what does this have to do with Cesare Borgia? Nobody who is either a Catholic, a historian of European art, or historian of the Renaissance has put forward the idea that by virtue (ironic pun intended) of being the illegitimate son of the pope, Cesare was automatically a priest. There was definitely corruption throughout the centuries regarding nepotism in which a pope's relatives were given political and ecclesiastical appointments, but Cesare wasn't a priest because his dad was a pope. That's not how that works, not even by Catholic standards. He was openly and legally married to a woman and as far as I know was never a priest. He was a bishop, however, because you know, nepotism, and then resigned because he really wanted to be a soldier, however that was not his by right of birth and it is a black stain on the Church and priesthood, which is why we avoid doing that anymore!
John 8: 32
"And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
The whole context of this one verse is when Jesus is speaking to Pharisees about how belief in Him will free a person from slavery and that His whole mission is from God the Father. When you put it in context, the "truth" Jesus is speaking about it is not to mean to grab this verse when you want to portray something as true or honest, but the "truth" Jesus is speaking of is the Truth, that discipleship in Jesus leads to freedom from the slavery of sin.
