Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.—Part I

Introduction, Worship, And Persecution Of Images.—Revolt Of Italy
And Rome.—Temporal Dominion Of The Popes.—Conquest Of Italy By The
Franks.—Establishment Of Images.—Character And Coronation Of
Charlemagne.—Restoration And Decay Of The Roman Empire In The
West.—Independence Of Italy.— Constitution Of The Germanic Body.

In the connection of the church and state, I have considered the
former as subservient only, and relative, to the latter; a
salutary maxim, if in fact, as well as in narrative, it had ever
been held sacred. The Oriental philosophy of the Gnostics, the
dark abyss of predestination and grace, and the strange
transformation of the Eucharist from the sign to the substance of
Christ’s body, 1 I have purposely abandoned to the curiosity of
speculative divines. But I have reviewed, with diligence and
pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical history, by which the
decline and fall of the Roman empire were materially affected,
the propagation of Christianity, the constitution of the Catholic
church, the ruin of Paganism, and the sects that arose from the
mysterious controversies concerning the Trinity and incarnation.
At the head of this class, we may justly rank the worship of
images, so fiercely disputed in the eighth and ninth centuries;
since a question of popular superstition produced the revolt of
Italy, the temporal power of the popes, and the restoration of
the Roman empire in the West.

1 (return) [ The learned Selden has given the history of
transubstantiation in a comprehensive and pithy sentence: “This
opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic,” (his Works, vol.
iii. p. 2037, in his Table-Talk.)]

The primitive Christians were possessed with an unconquerable
repugnance to the use and abuse of images; and this aversion may
be ascribed to their descent from the Jews, and their enmity to
the Greeks. The Mosaic law had severely proscribed all
representations of the Deity; and that precept was firmly
established in the principles and practice of the chosen people.
The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against the
foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own
hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had they been
endowed with sense and motion, should have started rather from
the pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist. 2
Perhaps some recent and imperfect converts of the Gnostic tribe
might crown the statues of Christ and St. Paul with the profane
honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and Pythagoras; 3
but the public religion of the Catholics was uniformly simple and
spiritual; and the first notice of the use of pictures is in the
censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years after
the Christian aera. Under the successors of Constantine, in the
peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent
bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition, for the
benefit of the multitude; and, after the ruin of Paganism, they
were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious
parallel. The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the
veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints and martyrs,
whose intercession was implored, were seated on the right hand of
God; but the gracious and often supernatural favors, which, in
the popular belief, were showered round their tomb, conveyed an
unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims, who visited, and
touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the memorials of
their merits and sufferings. 4 But a memorial, more interesting
than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is the
faithful copy of his person and features, delineated by the arts
of painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so congenial
to human feelings, have been cherished by the zeal of private
friendship, or public esteem: the images of the Roman emperors
were adored with civil, and almost religious, honors; a reverence
less ostentatious, but more sincere, was applied to the statues
of sages and patriots; and these profane virtues, these splendid
sins, disappeared in the presence of the holy men, who had died
for their celestial and everlasting country. At first, the
experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the venerable
pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to
awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen
proselytes. By a slow though inevitable progression, the honors
of the original were transferred to the copy: the devout
Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the Pagan rites
of genuflection, luminaries, and incense, again stole into the
Catholic church. The scruples of reason, or piety, were silenced
by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures
which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine
energy, and may be considered as the proper objects of religious
adoration. The most audacious pencil might tremble in the rash
attempt of defining, by forms and colors, the infinite Spirit,
the eternal Father, who pervades and sustains the universe. 5 But
the superstitious mind was more easily reconciled to paint and to
worship the angels, and, above all, the Son of God, under the
human shape, which, on earth, they have condescended to assume.
The second person of the Trinity had been clothed with a real and
mortal body; but that body had ascended into heaven: and, had not
some similitude been presented to the eyes of his disciples, the
spiritual worship of Christ might have been obliterated by the
visible relics and representations of the saints. A similar
indulgence was requisite and propitious for the Virgin Mary: the
place of her burial was unknown; and the assumption of her soul
and body into heaven was adopted by the credulity of the Greeks
and Latins. The use, and even the worship, of images was firmly
established before the end of the sixth century: they were fondly
cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics: the
Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a new
superstition; but this semblance of idolatry was more coldly
entertained by the rude Barbarians and the Arian clergy of the
West. The bolder forms of sculpture, in brass or marble, which
peopled the temples of antiquity, were offensive to the fancy or
conscience of the Christian Greeks: and a smooth surface of
colors has ever been esteemed a more decent and harmless mode of
imitation. 6

2 (return) [ Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod si sentire
simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent a quo
sunt expolita. (Divin. Institut. l. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the
last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists.
Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but the form
and matter.]

3 (return) [ See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage,
Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic
practice has a singular affinity with the private worship of
Alexander Severus, (Lampridius, c. 29. Lardner, Heathen
Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)]

4 (return) [ See this History, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. ii. p. 434;
vol. iii. p. 158-163.]

5 (return) [ (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect. Labb. tom. viii.
p. 1025, edit. Venet.) Il seroit peut-etre a-propos de ne point
souffrir d’images de la Trinite ou de la Divinite; les defenseurs
les plus zeles des images ayant condamne celles-ci, et le concile
de Trente ne parlant que des images de Jesus Christ et des
Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 154.)]

6 (return) [ This general history of images is drawn from the
xxiid book of the Hist. des Eglises Reformees of Basnage, tom.
ii. p. 1310-1337. He was a Protestant, but of a manly spirit; and
on this head the Protestants are so notoriously in the right,
that they can venture to be impartial. See the perplexity of poor
Friar Pagi, Critica, tom. i. p. 42.]

The merit and effect of a copy depends on its resemblance with
the original; but the primitive Christians were ignorant of the
genuine features of the Son of God, his mother, and his apostles:
the statue of Christ at Paneas in Palestine 7 was more probably
that of some temporal savior; the Gnostics and their profane
monuments were reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian artists
could only be guided by the clandestine imitation of some heathen
model. In this distress, a bold and dexterous invention assured
at once the likeness of the image and the innocence of the
worship. A new super structure of fable was raised on the popular
basis of a Syrian legend, on the correspondence of Christ and
Abgarus, so famous in the days of Eusebius, so reluctantly
deserted by our modern advocates. The bishop of Caesarea 8
records the epistle, 9 but he most strangely forgets the picture
of Christ; 10 the perfect impression of his face on a linen, with
which he gratified the faith of the royal stranger who had
invoked his healing power, and offered the strong city of Edessa
to protect him against the malice of the Jews. The ignorance of
the primitive church is explained by the long imprisonment of the
image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after an oblivion of
five hundred years, it was released by some prudent bishop, and
seasonably presented to the devotion of the times. Its first and
most glorious exploit was the deliverance of the city from the
arms of Chosroes Nushirvan; and it was soon revered as a pledge
of the divine promise, that Edessa should never be taken by a
foreign enemy. It is true, indeed, that the text of Procopius
ascribes the double deliverance of Edessa to the wealth and valor
of her citizens, who purchased the absence and repelled the
assaults of the Persian monarch. He was ignorant, the profane
historian, of the testimony which he is compelled to deliver in
the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius, that the Palladium was
exposed on the rampart, and that the water which had been
sprinkled on the holy face, instead of quenching, added new fuel
to the flames of the besieged. After this important service, the
image of Edessa was preserved with respect and gratitude; and if
the Armenians rejected the legend, the more credulous Greeks
adored the similitude, which was not the work of any mortal
pencil, but the immediate creation of the divine original. The
style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how far
their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry. “How can we
with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose celestial splendor
the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who dwells in
heaven, condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image;
He who is seated on the cherubim, visits us this day by a
picture, which the Father has delineated with his immaculate
hand, which he has formed in an ineffable manner, and which we
sanctify by adoring it with fear and love.” Before the end of the
sixth century, these images, made without hands, (in Greek it is
a single word, 11 were propagated in the camps and cities of the
Eastern empire: 12 they were the objects of worship, and the
instruments of miracles; and in the hour of danger or tumult,
their venerable presence could revive the hope, rekindle the
courage, or repress the fury, of the Roman legions. Of these
pictures, the far greater part, the transcripts of a human
pencil, could only pretend to a secondary likeness and improper
title: but there were some of higher descent, who derived their
resemblance from an immediate contact with the original, endowed,
for that purpose, with a miraculous and prolific virtue. The most
ambitious aspired from a filial to a fraternal relation with the
image of Edessa; and such is the veronica of Rome, or Spain, or
Jerusalem, which Christ in his agony and bloody sweat applied to
his face, and delivered to a holy matron. The fruitful precedent
was speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and
martyrs. In the church of Diospolis, in Palestine, the features
of the Mother of God 13 were deeply inscribed in a marble column;
the East and West have been decorated by the pencil of St. Luke;
and the Evangelist, who was perhaps a physician, has been forced
to exercise the occupation of a painter, so profane and odious in
the eyes of the primitive Christians. The Olympian Jove, created
by the muse of Homer and the chisel of Phidias, might inspire a
philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but these Catholic
images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in
the last degeneracy of taste and genius. 14

7 (return) [ After removing some rubbish of miracle and
inconsistency, it may be allowed, that as late as the year 300,
Paneas in Palestine was decorated with a bronze statue,
representing a grave personage wrapped in a cloak, with a
grateful or suppliant female kneeling before him, and that an
inscription was perhaps inscribed on the pedestal. By the
Christians, this group was foolishly explained of their founder
and the poor woman whom he had cured of the bloody flux, (Euseb.
vii. 18, Philostorg. vii. 3, &c.) M. de Beausobre more reasonably
conjectures the philosopher Apollonius, or the emperor Vespasian:
in the latter supposition, the female is a city, a province, or
perhaps the queen Berenice, (Bibliotheque Germanique, tom. xiii.
p. 1-92.)]

8 (return) [ Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 13. The learned
Assemannus has brought up the collateral aid of three Syrians,
St. Ephrem, Josua Stylites, and James bishop of Sarug; but I do
not find any notice of the Syriac original or the archives of
Edessa, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 318, 420, 554;) their vague
belief is probably derived from the Greeks.]

9 (return) [ The evidence for these epistles is stated and
rejected by the candid Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. p.
297-309.) Among the herd of bigots who are forcibly driven from
this convenient, but untenable, post, I am ashamed, with the
Grabes, Caves, Tillemonts, &c., to discover Mr. Addison, an
English gentleman, (his Works, vol. i. p. 528, Baskerville’s
edition;) but his superficial tract on the Christian religion
owes its credit to his name, his style, and the interested
applause of our clergy.]

10 (return) [ From the silence of James of Sarug, (Asseman.
Bibliot. Orient. p. 289, 318,) and the testimony of Evagrius,
(Hist. Eccles. l. iv. c. 27,) I conclude that this fable was
invented between the years 521 and 594, most probably after the
siege of Edessa in 540, (Asseman. tom. i. p. 416. Procopius, de
Bell. Persic. l. ii.) It is the sword and buckler of, Gregory
II., (in Epist. i. ad. Leon. Isaur. Concil. tom. viii. p. 656,
657,) of John Damascenus, (Opera, tom. i. p. 281, edit. Lequien,)
and of the second Nicene Council, (Actio v. p. 1030.) The most
perfect edition may be found in Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 175-178.)]

11 (return) [ See Ducange, in Gloss. Graec. et Lat. The subject
is treated with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit Gretser,
(Syntagma de Imaginibus non Manu factis, ad calcem Codini de
Officiis, p. 289-330,) the ass, or rather the fox, of
Ingoldstadt, (see the Scaligerana;) with equal reason and wit by
the Protestant Beausobre, in the ironical controversy which he
has spread through many volumes of the Bibliotheque Germanique,
(tom. xviii. p. 1-50, xx. p. 27-68, xxv. p. 1-36, xxvii. p.
85-118, xxviii. p. 1-33, xxxi. p. 111-148, xxxii. p. 75-107,
xxxiv. p. 67-96.)]

12 (return) [ Theophylact Simocatta (l. ii. c. 3, p. 34, l. iii.
c. 1, p. 63) celebrates it; yet it was no more than a copy, since
he adds (of Edessa). See Pagi, tom. ii. A.D. 588 No. 11.]

13 (return) [ See, in the genuine or supposed works of John
Damascenus, two passages on the Virgin and St. Luke, which have
not been noticed by Gretser, nor consequently by Beausobre,
(Opera Joh. Damascen. tom. i. p. 618, 631.)]

14 (return) [ “Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the
canvass: they are as bad as a group of statues!” It was thus that
the ignorance and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the
pictures of Titian, which he had ordered, and refused to accept.]

The worship of images had stolen into the church by insensible
degrees, and each petty step was pleasing to the superstitious
mind, as productive of comfort, and innocent of sin. But in the
beginning of the eighth century, in the full magnitude of the
abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened by an apprehension,
that under the mask of Christianity, they had restored the
religion of their fathers: they heard, with grief and impatience,
the name of idolaters; the incessant charge of the Jews and
Mahometans, 15 who derived from the Law and the Koran an immortal
hatred to graven images and all relative worship. The servitude
of the Jews might curb their zeal, and depreciate their
authority; but the triumphant Mussulmans, who reigned at
Damascus, and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of
reproach the accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities
of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had been fortified with the images
of Christ, his mother, and his saints; and each city presumed on
the hope or promise of miraculous defence. In a rapid conquest of
ten years, the Arabs subdued those cities and these images; and,
in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts pronounced a decisive
judgment between the adoration and contempt of these mute and
inanimate idols. 1511 For a while Edessa had braved the Persian
assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was involved
in the common ruin; and his divine resemblance became the slave
and trophy of the infidels. After a servitude of three hundred
years, the Palladium was yielded to the devotion of
Constantinople, for a ransom of twelve thousand pounds of silver,
the redemption of two hundred Mussulmans, and a perpetual truce
for the territory of Edessa. 16 In this season of distress and
dismay, the eloquence of the monks was exercised in the defence
of images; and they attempted to prove, that the sin and schism
of the greatest part of the Orientals had forfeited the favor,
and annihilated the virtue, of these precious symbols. But they
were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or rational
Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of facts, and
of the primitive times, and secretly desired the reformation of
the church. As the worship of images had never been established
by any general or positive law, its progress in the Eastern
empire had been retarded, or accelerated, by the differences of
men and manners, the local degrees of refinement, and the
personal characters of the bishops. The splendid devotion was
fondly cherished by the levity of the capital, and the inventive
genius of the Byzantine clergy; while the rude and remote
districts of Asia were strangers to this innovation of sacred
luxury. Many large congregations of Gnostics and Arians
maintained, after their conversion, the simple worship which had
preceded their separation; and the Armenians, the most warlike
subjects of Rome, were not reconciled, in the twelfth century, to
the sight of images. 17 These various denominations of men
afforded a fund of prejudice and aversion, of small account in
the villages of Anatolia or Thrace, but which, in the fortune of
a soldier, a prelate, or a eunuch, might be often connected with
the powers of the church and state.

15 (return) [ By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses, the
origin of the Aconoclcasts is imprinted to the caliph Yezid and
two Jews, who promised the empire to Leo; and the reproaches of
these hostile sectaries are turned into an absurd conspiracy for
restoring the purity of the Christian worship, (see Spanheim,
Hist. Imag. c. 2.)]

1511 (return) [ Yezid, ninth caliph of the race of the Ommiadae,
caused all the images in Syria to be destroyed about the year
719; hence the orthodox reproaches the sectaries with following
the example of the Saracens and the Jews Fragm. Mon. Johan.
Jerosylym. Script. Byzant. vol. xvi. p. 235. Hist. des Repub.
Ital. par M. Sismondi, vol. i. p. 126.—G.]

16 (return) [ See Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 267,)
Abulpharagius, (Dynast. p. 201,) and Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p.
264,), and the criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iii. A.D. 944.) The
prudent Franciscan refuses to determine whether the image of
Edessa now reposes at Rome or Genoa; but its repose is
inglorious, and this ancient object of worship is no longer
famous or fashionable.]

17 (return) [ (Nicetas, l. ii. p. 258.) The Armenian churches are
still content with the Cross, (Missions du Levant, tom. iii. p.
148;) but surely the superstitious Greek is unjust to the
superstition of the Germans of the xiith century.]

Of such adventurers, the most fortunate was the emperor Leo the
Third, 18 who, from the mountains of Isauria, ascended the throne
of the East. He was ignorant of sacred and profane letters; but
his education, his reason, perhaps his intercourse with the Jews
and Arabs, had inspired the martial peasant with a hatred of
images; and it was held to be the duty of a prince to impose on
his subjects the dictates of his own conscience. But in the
outset of an unsettled reign, during ten years of toil and
danger, Leo submitted to the meanness of hypocrisy, bowed before
the idols which he despised, and satisfied the Roman pontiff with
the annual professions of his orthodoxy and zeal. In the
reformation of religion, his first steps were moderate and
cautious: he assembled a great council of senators and bishops,
and enacted, with their consent, that all the images should be
removed from the sanctuary and altar to a proper height in the
churches where they might be visible to the eyes, and
inaccessible to the superstition, of the people. But it was
impossible on either side to check the rapid through adverse
impulse of veneration and abhorrence: in their lofty position,
the sacred images still edified their votaries, and reproached
the tyrant. He was himself provoked by resistance and invective;
and his own party accused him of an imperfect discharge of his
duty, and urged for his imitation the example of the Jewish king,
who had broken without scruple the brazen serpent of the temple.
By a second edict, he proscribed the existence as well as the use
of religious pictures; the churches of Constantinople and the
provinces were cleansed from idolatry; the images of Christ, the
Virgin, and the saints, were demolished, or a smooth surface of
plaster was spread over the walls of the edifice. The sect of the
Iconoclasts was supported by the zeal and despotism of six
emperors, and the East and West were involved in a noisy conflict
of one hundred and twenty years. It was the design of Leo the
Isaurian to pronounce the condemnation of images as an article of
faith, and by the authority of a general council: but the
convocation of such an assembly was reserved for his son
Constantine; 19 and though it is stigmatized by triumphant
bigotry as a meeting of fools and atheists, their own partial and
mutilated acts betray many symptoms of reason and piety. The
debates and decrees of many provincial synods introduced the
summons of the general council which met in the suburbs of
Constantinople, and was composed of the respectable number of
three hundred and thirty-eight bishops of Europe and Anatolia;
for the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria were the slaves of
the caliph, and the Roman pontiff had withdrawn the churches of
Italy and the West from the communion of the Greeks. This
Byzantine synod assumed the rank and powers of the seventh
general council; yet even this title was a recognition of the six
preceding assemblies, which had laboriously built the structure
of the Catholic faith. After a serious deliberation of six
months, the three hundred and thirty-eight bishops pronounced and
subscribed a unanimous decree, that all visible symbols of
Christ, except in the Eucharist, were either blasphemous or
heretical; that image-worship was a corruption of Christianity
and a renewal of Paganism; that all such monuments of idolatry
should be broken or erased; and that those who should refuse to
deliver the objects of their private superstition, were guilty of
disobedience to the authority of the church and of the emperor.
In their loud and loyal acclamations, they celebrated the merits
of their temporal redeemer; and to his zeal and justice they
intrusted the execution of their spiritual censures. At
Constantinople, as in the former councils, the will of the prince
was the rule of episcopal faith; but on this occasion, I am
inclined to suspect that a large majority of the prelates
sacrificed their secret conscience to the temptations of hope and
fear. In the long night of superstition, the Christians had
wandered far away from the simplicity of the gospel: nor was it
easy for them to discern the clew, and tread back the mazes, of
the labyrinth. The worship of images was inseparably blended, at
least to a pious fancy, with the Cross, the Virgin, the Saints
and their relics; the holy ground was involved in a cloud of
miracles and visions; and the nerves of the mind, curiosity and
scepticism, were benumbed by the habits of obedience and belief.
Constantine himself is accused of indulging a royal license to
doubt, or deny, or deride the mysteries of the Catholics, 20 but
they were deeply inscribed in the public and private creed of his
bishops; and the boldest Iconoclast might assault with a secret
horror the monuments of popular devotion, which were consecrated
to the honor of his celestial patrons. In the reformation of the
sixteenth century, freedom and knowledge had expanded all the
faculties of man: the thirst of innovation superseded the
reverence of antiquity; and the vigor of Europe could disdain
those phantoms which terrified the sickly and servile weakness of
the Greeks.

18 (return) [ Our original, but not impartial, monuments of the
Iconoclasts must be drawn from the Acts of the Councils, tom.
viii. and ix. Collect. Labbe, edit. Venet. and the historical
writings of Theophanes, Nicephorus, Manasses, Cedrenus, Zonoras,
&c. Of the modern Catholics, Baronius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander,
(Hist. Eccles. Seculum viii. and ix.,) and Maimbourg, (Hist. des
Iconoclasts,) have treated the subject with learning, passion,
and credulity. The Protestant labors of Frederick Spanheim
(Historia Imaginum restituta) and James Basnage (Hist. des
Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. l. xxiiii. p. 1339-1385) are cast
into the Iconoclast scale. With this mutual aid, and opposite
tendency, it is easy for us to poise the balance with philosophic
indifference. * Note: Compare Schlosser, Geschichte der
Bilder-sturmender Kaiser, Frankfurt am-Main 1812 a book of
research and impartiality—M.]

19 (return) [ Some flowers of rhetoric. By Damascenus is styled
(Opera, tom. i. p. 623.) Spanheim’s Apology for the Synod of
Constantinople (p. 171, &c.) is worked up with truth and
ingenuity, from such materials as he could find in the Nicene
Acts, (p. 1046, &c.) The witty John of Damascus converts it into
slaves of their belly, &c. Opera, tom. i. p. 806]

20 (return) [ He is accused of proscribing the title of saint;
styling the Virgin, Mother of Christ; comparing her after her
delivery to an empty purse of Arianism, Nestorianism, &c. In his
defence, Spanheim (c. iv. p. 207) is somewhat embarrassed between
the interest of a Protestant and the duty of an orthodox divine.]

The scandal of an abstract heresy can be only proclaimed to the
people by the blast of the ecclesiastical trumpet; but the most
ignorant can perceive, the most torpid must feel, the profanation
and downfall of their visible deities. The first hostilities of
Leo were directed against a lofty Christ on the vestibule, and
above the gate, of the palace. A ladder had been planted for the
assault, but it was furiously shaken by a crowd of zealots and
women: they beheld, with pious transport, the ministers of
sacrilege tumbling from on high and dashed against the pavement:
and the honors of the ancient martyrs were prostituted to these
criminals, who justly suffered for murder and rebellion. 21 The
execution of the Imperial edicts was resisted by frequent tumults
in Constantinople and the provinces: the person of Leo was
endangered, his officers were massacred, and the popular
enthusiasm was quelled by the strongest efforts of the civil and
military power. Of the Archipelago, or Holy Sea, the numerous
islands were filled with images and monks: their votaries
abjured, without scruple, the enemy of Christ, his mother, and
the saints; they armed a fleet of boats and galleys, displayed
their consecrated banners, and boldly steered for the harbor of
Constantinople, to place on the throne a new favorite of God and
the people. They depended on the succor of a miracle: but their
miracles were inefficient against the Greek fire; and, after the
defeat and conflagration of the fleet, the naked islands were
abandoned to the clemency or justice of the conqueror. The son of
Leo, in the first year of his reign, had undertaken an expedition
against the Saracens: during his absence, the capital, the
palace, and the purple, were occupied by his kinsman Artavasdes,
the ambitious champion of the orthodox faith. The worship of
images was triumphantly restored: the patriarch renounced his
dissimulation, or dissembled his sentiments and the righteous
claims of the usurper was acknowledged, both in the new, and in
ancient, Rome. Constantine flew for refuge to his paternal
mountains; but he descended at the head of the bold and
affectionate Isaurians; and his final victory confounded the arms
and predictions of the fanatics. His long reign was distracted
with clamor, sedition, conspiracy, and mutual hatred, and
sanguinary revenge; the persecution of images was the motive or
pretence, of his adversaries; and, if they missed a temporal
diadem, they were rewarded by the Greeks with the crown of
martyrdom. In every act of open and clandestine treason, the
emperor felt the unforgiving enmity of the monks, the faithful
slaves of the superstition to which they owed their riches and
influence. They prayed, they preached, they absolved, they
inflamed, they conspired; the solitude of Palestine poured forth
a torrent of invective; and the pen of St. John Damascenus, 22
the last of the Greek fathers, devoted the tyrant’s head, both in
this world and the next. 23 2311 I am not at leisure to examine
how far the monks provoked, nor how much they have exaggerated,
their real and pretended sufferings, nor how many lost their
lives or limbs, their eyes or their beards, by the cruelty of the
emperor. 2312 From the chastisement of individuals, he proceeded
to the abolition of the order; and, as it was wealthy and
useless, his resentment might be stimulated by avarice, and
justified by patriotism. The formidable name and mission of the
Dragon, 24 his visitor-general, excited the terror and abhorrence
of the black nation: the religious communities were dissolved,
the buildings were converted into magazines, or barracks; the
lands, movables, and cattle were confiscated; and our modern
precedents will support the charge, that much wanton or malicious
havoc was exercised against the relics, and even the books of the
monasteries. With the habit and profession of monks, the public
and private worship of images was rigorously proscribed; and it
should seem, that a solemn abjuration of idolatry was exacted
from the subjects, or at least from the clergy, of the Eastern
empire. 25

21 (return) [ The holy confessor Theophanes approves the
principle of their rebellion, (p. 339.) Gregory II. (in Epist. i.
ad Imp. Leon. Concil. tom. viii. p. 661, 664) applauds the zeal
of the Byzantine women who killed the Imperial officers.]

22 (return) [ John, or Mansur, was a noble Christian of Damascus,
who held a considerable office in the service of the caliph. His
zeal in the cause of images exposed him to the resentment and
treachery of the Greek emperor; and on the suspicion of a
treasonable correspondence, he was deprived of his right hand,
which was miraculously restored by the Virgin. After this
deliverance, he resigned his office, distributed his wealth, and
buried himself in the monastery of St. Sabas, between Jerusalem
and the Dead Sea. The legend is famous; but his learned editor,
Father Lequien, has a unluckily proved that St. John Damascenus
was already a monk before the Iconoclast dispute, (Opera, tom. i.
Vit. St. Joan. Damascen. p. 10-13, et Notas ad loc.)]

23 (return) [ After sending Leo to the devil, he introduces his
heir, (Opera, Damascen. tom. i. p. 625.) If the authenticity of
this piece be suspicious, we are sure that in other works, no
longer extant, Damascenus bestowed on Constantine the titles.
(tom. i. p. 306.)]

2311 (return) [ The patriarch Anastasius, an Iconoclast under
Leo, an image worshipper under Artavasdes, was scourged, led
through the streets on an ass, with his face to the tail; and,
reinvested in his dignity, became again the obsequious minister
of Constantine in his Iconoclastic persecutions. See Schlosser p.
211.—M.]

2312 (return) [ Compare Schlosser, p. 228-234.—M.]

24 (return) [ In the narrative of this persecution from
Theophanes and Cedreves, Spanheim (p. 235-238) is happy to
compare the Draco of Leo with the dragoons (Dracones) of Louis
XIV.; and highly solaces himself with the controversial pun.]

25 (return) [ (Damascen. Op. tom. i. p. 625.) This oath and
subscription I do not remember to have seen in any modern
compilation]

The patient East abjured, with reluctance, her sacred images;
they were fondly cherished, and vigorously defended, by the
independent zeal of the Italians. In ecclesiastical rank and
jurisdiction, the patriarch of Constantinople and the pope of
Rome were nearly equal. But the Greek prelate was a domestic
slave under the eye of his master, at whose nod he alternately
passed from the convent to the throne, and from the throne to the
convent. A distant and dangerous station, amidst the Barbarians
of the West, excited the spirit and freedom of the Latin bishops.

Their popular election endeared them to the Romans: the public
and private indigence was relieved by their ample revenue; and
the weakness or neglect of the emperors compelled them to
consult, both in peace and war, the temporal safety of the city.
In the school of adversity the priest insensibly imbibed the
virtues and the ambition of a prince; the same character was
assumed, the same policy was adopted, by the Italian, the Greek,
or the Syrian, who ascended the chair of St. Peter; and, after
the loss of her legions and provinces, the genius and fortune of
the popes again restored the supremacy of Rome. It is agreed,
that in the eighth century, their dominion was founded on
rebellion, and that the rebellion was produced, and justified, by
the heresy of the Iconoclasts; but the conduct of the second and
third Gregory, in this memorable contest, is variously
interpreted by the wishes of their friends and enemies. The
Byzantine writers unanimously declare, that, after a fruitless
admonition, they pronounced the separation of the East and West,
and deprived the sacrilegious tyrant of the revenue and
sovereignty of Italy. Their excommunication is still more clearly
expressed by the Greeks, who beheld the accomplishment of the
papal triumphs; and as they are more strongly attached to their
religion than to their country, they praise, instead of blaming,
the zeal and orthodoxy of these apostolical men. 26 The modern
champions of Rome are eager to accept the praise and the
precedent: this great and glorious example of the deposition of
royal heretics is celebrated by the cardinals Baronius and
Bellarmine; 27 and if they are asked, why the same thunders were
not hurled against the Neros and Julians of antiquity, they
reply, that the weakness of the primitive church was the sole
cause of her patient loyalty. 28 On this occasion the effects of
love and hatred are the same; and the zealous Protestants, who
seek to kindle the indignation, and to alarm the fears, of
princes and magistrates, expatiate on the insolence and treason
of the two Gregories against their lawful sovereign. 29 They are
defended only by the moderate Catholics, for the most part, of
the Gallican church, 30 who respect the saint, without approving
the sin. These common advocates of the crown and the mitre
circumscribe the truth of facts by the rule of equity, Scripture,
and tradition, and appeal to the evidence of the Latins, 31 and
the lives 32 and epistles of the popes; themselves.

26 (return) [ Theophanes. (Chronograph. p. 343.) For this Gregory
is styled by Cedrenus. (p. 450.) Zonaras specifies the thunder,
(tom. ii. l. xv. p. 104, 105.) It may be observed, that the
Greeks are apt to confound the times and actions of two
Gregories.]

27 (return) [ See Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 730, No. 4, 5;
dignum exemplum! Bellarmin. de Romano Pontifice, l. v. c. 8:
mulctavit eum parte imperii. Sigonius, de Regno Italiae, l. iii.
Opera, tom. ii. p. 169. Yet such is the change of Italy, that
Sigonius is corrected by the editor of Milan, Philipus Argelatus,
a Bolognese, and subject of the pope.]

28 (return) [ Quod si Christiani olim non deposuerunt Neronem aut
Julianum, id fuit quia deerant vires temporales Christianis,
(honest Bellarmine, de Rom. Pont. l. v. c. 7.) Cardinal Perron
adds a distinction more honorable to the first Christians, but
not more satisfactory to modern princes—the treason of heretics
and apostates, who break their oath, belie their coin, and
renounce their allegiance to Christ and his vicar, (Perroniana,
p. 89.)]

29 (return) [ Take, as a specimen, the cautious Basnage (Hist.
d’Eglise, p. 1350, 1351) and the vehement Spanheim, (Hist.
Imaginum,) who, with a hundred more, tread in the footsteps of
the centuriators of Magdeburgh.]

30 (return) [ See Launoy, (Opera, tom. v. pars ii. epist. vii. 7,
p. 456-474,) Natalis Alexander, (Hist. Nov. Testamenti, secul.
viii. dissert. i. p. 92-98,) Pagi, (Critica, tom. iii. p. 215,
216,) and Giannone, (Istoria Civile Napoli, tom. i. p. 317-320,)
a disciple of the Gallican school In the field of controversy I
always pity the moderate party, who stand on the open middle
ground exposed to the fire of both sides.]

31 (return) [ They appeal to Paul Warnefrid, or Diaconus, (de
Gestis Langobard. l. vi. c. 49, p. 506, 507, in Script. Ital.
Muratori, tom. i. pars i.,) and the nominal Anastasius, (de Vit.
Pont. in Muratori, tom. iii. pars i. Gregorius II. p. 154.
Gregorius III. p. 158. Zacharias, p. 161. Stephanus III. p. 165.;
Paulus, p. 172. Stephanus IV. p. 174. Hadrianus, p. 179. Leo III.
p. 195.) Yet I may remark, that the true Anastasius (Hist.
Eccles. p. 134, edit. Reg.) and the Historia Miscella, (l. xxi.
p. 151, in tom. i. Script. Ital.,) both of the ixth century,
translate and approve the Greek text of Theophanes.]

32 (return) [ With some minute difference, the most learned
critics, Lucas Holstenius, Schelestrate, Ciampini, Bianchini,
Muratori, (Prolegomena ad tom. iii. pars i.,) are agreed that the
Liber Pontificalis was composed and continued by the apostolic
librarians and notaries of the viiith and ixth centuries; and
that the last and smallest part is the work of Anastasius, whose
name it bears. The style is barbarous, the narrative partial, the
details are trifling—yet it must be read as a curious and
authentic record of the times. The epistles of the popes are
dispersed in the volumes of Councils.]