But it was devoted themselves to this reformation. premature. They were overpowered by the populace and the monks, by the bishops of Rome, and by a superstitious and wicked woman. covered in the sions. It had been a favourite argument against the pagans how little their gods could do for them when the hour of calamity came, when their statues and images were insulted and destroyed, and hence how vain was such Inutility of worship, how imbecile such gods. When Africa miraculous and Asia, full of relics and crosses, pictures and images disimages, fell before the Mohammedans, those Arab invaconquerors retaliated the same logic with no little effect. There was hardly one of the fallen towns that had not some idol for its protector. Remembering the stern objurgations of the prophet against this deadly sin, prohibited at once by the commandment of God and repudiated by the reason of man, the Saracen khalifs had ordered all the Syrian images to be destroyed. Destruction Amid the derision of the Arab soldiery and the and sale of tears of the terror-stricken worshippers, these idols by the orders were remorselessly carried into effect, except in some cases where the temptation of an enormous ransom induced the avengers of the unity of God to swerve from their duty. Thus the piece of linen cloth on which it was feigned that our Saviour had impressed his countenance, and which was the palladium of Edessa, was carried off by the victors at the capture of that town, and subsequently sold to Constantinople at the profitable price of twelve thousand pounds of silver. This picture, and also some other celebrated ones, it was said, possessed the property of multiplying themselves by contact with other surfaces, as in modern times we multiply photographs. Such were the celebrated images "made without hands." Arabs. It was currently asserted that the immediate origin of Iconoclasm was due to the Khalif Yezed, who had completed the destruction of the Syrian images, and to two Jews, who stimulated Leo the Isaurian to his task. However that may be, Leo published an edict, A.d. 726, prohibiting the worship of images. This prohibits imwas followed by another directing their de-age-worship. struction, and the whitewashing of the walls of churches The emperor ornamented with them. Hereupon the clergy and the monks rebelled; the emperor was denounced as a Mohammedan and a Jew. He ordered that a statue of the Saviour in that part of the city called Chalcopratia should be removed, and a riot was the consequence. One of his officers mounted a ladder and struck the idol with an axe upon its face; it was an incident like that enacted centuries before in the temple of Serapis at Alexandria. The sacred image, which had often arrested the course of Nature and worked many miracles, was now found to be unable to protect or to avenge its own honour. A rabble of women interfered in its behalf; they threw down the ladder and killed the officer; nor was the riot ended until the troops were called in and a great massacre perpetrated. The monks spread the sedition in all parts of the empire; they even attempted to proclaim a new emperor. Leo was everywhere denounced as a Mohammedan infidel, an enemy of the Mother of God; but with inflexible resolution he persisted in his determination as long as he lived. The monks sustain it. They accuse of atheism. His son and successor, Constantine, pursued the same íconoclastic policy. From the circumstance of his accidently defiling the font at which he was being baptized, he had received the suggestive name of Copronymus. His subsequent career was asserted by the monks to have been foreshadowed by his sacrilegious beginnings. It was publicly asserted that he was an atheist. In the emperor truth, his biography, in many respects, proves that the higher classes in Constantinople were largely infected with infidelity. The patriarch deposed upon oath that Copronymus had made the most irreligious confessions to him, as that our Saviour, far from being the Son of God, was, in his opinion, a mere man, born of his mother in the common way. The truth of these accusations was perhaps, in a measure, sustained by the revenge that the emperor took on the patriarch for his indiscreet revelations. He seized him, put out his eyes, caused him to be led through the city mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail, and then, as if to show his unutterable contempt for all religion, with an exquisite malice, appointed him to his office again. nople pro If such was the religious condition of the emperor, the higher clergy were but little better. A council was summoned by Constantine, A.D. 754, at Constantinople, which was attended by 388 bishops. It asserted Council of for itself the position of the seventh general Constanticouncil. It unanimously decreed that all visible hibits imagesymbols of Christ, except in the Eucharist, are worship. blasphemous or heretical; that image-worship is a corruption of Christianity and a renewed form of paganism: it directed all statues and paintings to be removed from the churches and destroyed, it degraded every ecclesiastic and excommunicated every layman who should be concerned in setting them up again. It concluded its labours with prayers for the emperor who had extirpated idolatry and given peace to the Church monks. But this decision was by no means quietly received. The monks rose in an uproar; some raised a Uproar clamour in their caves, some from the tops of their among the pillars; one, in the church of St. Mammas, insulted the emperor to his face, denouncing him as a second apostate Julian. Nor could he deliver himself from them by the scourging, strangling, and drowning of individuals. In his wrath, Copronymus, plainly discerning that it was the monks on one side and the government on the other, determined to strike at the root of the evil, and to destroy monasticism itself. He drove the The emperor holy men out of their cells and cloisters; made retaliates. the consecrated virgins marry; gave up the buildings for civil uses; burnt pictures, idols, and all kinds of relics; degraded the patriarch from his office, scourged him, shaved off his eyebrows, set him for public derision in the circus in a sleeveless shirt, and then beheaded him. Already he had consecrated a eunuch in his stead. Doubtless these atrocities strengthened the bishops of Rome in their resolve to seek a protector from such a master among the barbarian kings of the West. Constantine Copronymus was succeeded by his son, Lea the Chazar, who, during a short reign of five Re-establish. years, continued the iconoclastic policy. On his ment of imdeath his wife Irene seized the government, by Irene the ostensibly in behalf of her son. This woman, age-worship murderess ornamented with them. Hereupon the clergy and the monks rebelled; the emperor was denounced as a Mohammedan and a Jew. He ordered that a statue of the Saviour in that part of the city called Chalcopratia should be removed, and a riot was the consequence. One of his officers mounted a ladder and struck the idol with an axe upon its face; it was an incident like that enacted centuries before in the temple of Serapis at Alexandria. The sacred image, which had often arrested the course of Nature and worked many miracles, was now found to be unable to protect or to avenge its own honour. A rabble of women interfered in its behalf; they threw down the ladder and killed the officer; nor was the riot ended until the troops were called in and a great massacre perpetrated. The monks spread the sedition in all parts of the empire; they even attempted to proclaim a new emperor. Leo was everywhere denounced as a Mohammedan infidel, an enemy of the Mother of God; but with inflexible resolution he persisted in his determination as long as he lived. The monks sustain it. They accuse of atheism. His son and successor, Constantine, pursued the same íconoclastic policy. From the circumstance of his accidently defiling the font at which he was being baptized, he had received the suggestive name of Copronymus. His subsequent career was asserted by the monks to have been foreshadowed by his sacrilegious beginnings. It was publicly asserted that he was an atheist. In the emperor truth, his biography, in many respects, proves that the higher classes in Constantinople were largely infected with infidelity. The patriarch deposed upon oath that Copronymus had made the most irreligious confessions to him, as that our Saviour, far from being the Son of God, was, in his opinion, a mere man, born of his mother in the common way. The truth of these accusations was perhaps, in a measure, sustained by the revenge that the emperor took on the patriarch for his indiscreet revelations. He seized him, put out his eyes, caused him to be led through the city mounted on an ass, with his face to the tail, and then, as if to show his unutterable contempt for all religion, with an exquisite malice, appointed him to his office again. nople pro If such was the religious condition of the emperor, the higher clergy were but little better. A council was summoned by Constantine, A.D. 754, at Constantinople, which was attended by 388 bishops. It asserted Council of for itself the position of the seventh general Constanticouncil. It unanimously decreed that all visible hibits imagesymbols of Christ, except in the Eucharist, are worship. blasphemous or heretical; that image-worship is a corruption of Christianity and a renewed form of paganism: it directed all statues and paintings to be removed from the churches and destroyed, it degraded every ecclesiastic and excommunicated every layman who should be concerned in setting them up again. It concluded its labours with prayers for the emperor who had extirpated idolatry and given peace to the Church monks. But this decision was by no means quietly received. The monks rose in an uproar; some raised a Uproar clamour in their caves, some from the tops of their among the pillars; one, in the church of St. Mammas, insulted the emperor to his face, denouncing him as a second apostate Julian. Nor could he deliver himself from them by the scourging, strangling, and drowning of individuals. In his wrath, Copronymus, plainly discerning that it was the monks on one side and the government on the other, determined to strike at the root of the evil, and to destroy monasticism itself. He drove the The emperor holy men out of their cells and cloisters; made retaliates. the consecrated virgins marry; gave up the buildings for civil uses; burnt pictures, idols, and all kinds of relics; degraded the patriarch from his office, scourged him, shaved off his eyebrows, set him for public derision in the circus in a sleeveless shirt, and then beheaded him. Already he had consecrated a eunuch in his stead. Doubtless these atrocities strengthened the bishops of Rome in their resolve to seek a protector from such a master among the barbarian kings of the West. Constantine Copronymus was succeeded by his son, Lea the Chazar, who, during a short reign of five Re-establish. years, continued the iconoclastic policy. On his ment of imdeath his wife Irene seized the government, by Irene the ostensibly in behalf of her son. This woman, murderess age-worship |