Scriptures:
2 Chronicles 29:11 – My sons, don’t be negligent now; for Yahweh has chosen you to stand before him, to minister (liturgeo) to him, and that you should be his ministers, and burn incense.”
Baruch 1:10 – And they said, Behold, we have sent you money to buy you burnt offerings, and sin offerings, and incense, and prepare ye manna, and offer upon the altar of the Lord our God.
2 Chronicles 26:16 – But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up, so that he did corruptly, and he trespassed against Yahweh his God; for he went into the temple of Yahweh to burn incense on the altar of incense.
2 Chronicles 26:18 – And they resisted Uzziah the king, and said to him, “It isn’t for you, Uzziah, to burn incense to Yahweh, but for the priests the sons of Aaron, who are consecrated to burn incense. Go out of the sanctuary; for you have trespassed; neither shall it be for your honor from Yahweh God.”
2 Kings 18:4 – He removed the high places and smashed the memorial stones to pieces, and cut down the Asherah. He also crushed to pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made, for until those days the sons of Israel had been burning incense to it; and it was called Nehushtan.
2 Kings 22:17 – “Because they have forsaken me, and have burned incense to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands, therefore my wrath shall be kindled against this place, and it shall not be quenched.”
Hosea 11:2 – “They were sacrificing to the Baals, and used to burn incense to the graven images.”
Ezekiel 6:13 – “Then shall ye know that I [am] the LORD, when their slain [men] shall be among their idols round about their altars, upon every high hill, in all the tops of the mountains, and under every green tree, and under every thick oak, the place where they did offer sweet savour to all their idols.”
Jeremiah 44:18 – “But since we left off burning incense to the queen of heaven, and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have lacked all things, and have been consumed by the sword and by the famine.”
Jeremiah 44:25 – Thus says Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, saying, “You and your wives have both spoken with your mouths, and with your hands have fulfilled it, saying, ‘We will surely perform our vows that we have vowed, to burn incense to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings to her: establish then your vows, and perform your vows.'”
Psalm 141:2 – Let my prayer be set before You as incense, The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Revelation 5:8 – And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
Church Fathers:
Justin Martyr (160)
“God has no need of streams of blood, libations, and incense.” (1.166)
Athenagoras (175)
“The Framer and Father of this universe does not need blood, nor the odor of burnt-offerings, nor the fragrance of flowers and incense, for He is Himself perfect fragrance.” (2.134, 135)
Irenaeus (180)
“‘In every place incense is offered to my name, and a pure sacrifice’ [Mal. 1:11–14]. As John declares in the Apocalypse: ‘The incense is the prayers of the saints.’” (1.574)
Clement of Alexandria (195)
“How, then, will I crown myself, anoint with ointment, or offer incense to the Lord? It is said, ‘An odor of a sweet fragrance is the heart that glorifies Him who made it’ [Ps. 51:17]. These are the crowns and sacrifices, aromatic odors, and flowers of God.” (2.293)
“The sacrifice of the church is the word breathing as incense from holy souls. Both the sacrifice and the whole mind are unveiled to God at the same time. . . . And will they not believe us when we say that the righteous soul is the truly sacred altar and that the incense arising from it is holy prayer?” (2.531)
“That blended incense that is mentioned in the Law is that which consists of many tongues and voices in prayer.” (2.532)
Tertullian (197-211)
But let the universal names of crimes withdraw to the specialities of their own works; let idolatry remain in that which it is itself. Sufficient to itself is a name so inimical to God, a substance of crime so copious, which reaches forth so many branches, diffuses so many veins, that from this name, for the greatest part, is drawn the material of all the modes in which the expansiveness of idolatry has to be foreguarded against by us, since in manifold wise it subverts the servants of God; and this not only when unperceived, but also when cloaked over. Most men simply regard idolatry as to be interpreted in these senses alone: if one burn incense, or immolate a victim, or give a sacrificial banquet, or be bound to some sacred functions or priesthoods; just as if one were to regard adultery as to be accounted in kisses, and in embraces, and in actual fleshly contact; or murder as to be reckoned only in the shedding forth of blood, and in the actual taking away of life. – On Idolatry, CHAPTER 2
“I offer to Him at His own requirement that costly and noble sacrifice of prayer dispatched from the chaste body, an unstained soul, a sanctified spirit. I do not offer the few grains of incense that a small coin buys (incense being the tears of an Arabian tree). Nor do I offer a few drops of wine, or the blood of some worthless ox.” (3.42)
“We certainly buy no frankincense.” (3.49)
“The [theater and the arena] resemble each other also in their ceremony, having the same procession to the scene of their display from temples and altars, and that mournful profusion of incense and blood.” (3.84)
“You slay the same victims and burn the same odors for your dead as you do for your gods.” (3.119)
“Most persons regard idolatry as being limited to these practices alone: burning incense or immolating a victim.” (3.62)
“[As a Christian], you worship—not with the spirit of some worthless perfume—but with your own.” (3.64)
“But, however, that science has been allowed until the Gospel, in order that after Christ’s birth no one should thence forward interpret any one’s nativity by the heaven. For they therefore offered to the then infant Lord that frankincense and myrrh and gold, to be, as it were, the close of worldly sacrifice and glory, which Christ was about to do away. What, then? The dream — sent, doubtless, of the will of God— suggested to the same Magi, namely, that they should go home, but by another way, not that by which they came. It means this: that they should not walk in their ancient path. Not that Herod should not pursue them, who in fact did not pursue them; unwitting even that they had departed by another way, since he was withal unwitting by what way they came. Just so we ought to understand by it the right Way and Discipline. And so the precept was rather, that thence forward they should walk otherwise.” – Tertullian, On Idolatry, Chapter 9
“Even now, for the most part, idolatry is perpetrated without the idol—merely by the burning of aromas. The frankincense seller is more serviceable to demons. For idolatry is more easily carried on without the idol than without the goods of the frankincense seller.” (3.67)
“The handmaid of God dwells amid alien labors [if she is married to an unbelieving husband]. And among these, she will be agitated by the odor of incense on all the memorial days of demons, at all solemnities of kings, at the beginning of the year, and at the beginning of the month.” (4.47)
“If the smell of some place or other offends me, I burn the Arabian product myself—but not with the same ceremony, nor in the same dress, nor with the same ceremony, with which it is done to idols.” (3.99)
“God, the Creator of the universe, has no need of odors or of blood. These things are the food of devils.” (3.106)
Lactantius (304–313)
“God is not appeased by incense, victims, or costly offerings. For these things are all corruptible. Rather, he is appeased by a reform of the morals.” (7.277)
Arnobius (305)
“You say that we erect no temples to [the gods] and do not worship their images. You say that we do not slay victims in sacrifice and that we do not offer incense and offerings of wine. Well, what greater honor or dignity could we ascribe to them than that we put them in the same position as the Head and Lord of the universe! . . . Do we honor him with shrines and by building temples? Do we slay victims to Him? Do we give Him those other things?” (6.507)
“With respect to that very incense that you [pagans] use, we ask this of you: from where or at what time did you become acquainted with it? . . . For if without incense the performance of a religious service is imperfect, and if a quantity of it is necessary to make the gods gentle and propitious to men, the ancients fell into sin, . . . for they carelessly neglected to offer it. . . . However, if in ancient times neither men nor gods sought for this incense, it is proved that today it is also offered uselessly and in vain.” (6.528)
Eusebius:
We have understood that Simon was the author of all heresy. From his time down to the present those who have followed his heresy have feigned the sober philosophy of the Christians, which is celebrated among all on account of its purity of life. But they nevertheless have embraced again the superstitions of idols, which they seemed to have renounced; and they fall down before pictures and images of Simon himself and of the above-mentioned Helena who was with him; and they venture to worship them with incense and sacrifices and libations. – Church History, book 2, chapter 13, paragraph 6