pilgrimage to his tomb-to bring home fragments of his bones, of his coffin, or of his clothes-and, above all, to build a church to his memory, were acts not only honourable and meritorious, but generally very lucrative. Few persons thought themselves safe, especially on a journey, or in times of danger, without some scrap of a relic in their possession. It was considered necessary to the security of every habitation and to the comfort of every family, and neither church nor monastery was duly consecratedtill it became the repository of the relics of some reputed saint; and, if his name was renowned, the church was crowded with suppliants for health, children, or property: his priests were loaded with presents, and his treasury stored with donations of money and land.

As a specimen of the conduct of the ecclesiastics of that age, and of the manner in which they fostered the superstitious notions of the laity, you may take the following instance, which I give on the authority of one of their own and one of their best historians. About the end of the sixth century, the empress of Constantinople made a pressing application to Gregory the Great, the then Roman pontiff, to let her have the body of the apostle Paul, to be placed in one of the churches of her own city, which had recently been erected in honour of that apostle. Gregory wrote, in reply, that she solicited what he durst not grant; for, said he, "the bodies of the apostles Paul and Peter are so terrible, by their miracles, that there is reason to apprehend danger, even in approaching to pray to them. My predecessor wanted to make some alteration in a silver ornament on the body of St. Peter, at the distance of fifteen feet, when an awful vision appeared to him, which was followed by his death. I myself wished to repair somewhat about the body of St. Paul, and, with a view to that, had occasion to dig a little near his sepulchre; when, in digging, the superior of the place, raising some bones apparently unconnected with the sacred tomb, had a dismal vision after it, and died suddenly. In like manner, the workmen and the monks, not knowing precisely the grave of St. Lawrence, accidentally opened it; and having seen the body, though they did not touch it, died in ten days. Wherefore, madam, the Romans, in granting relics do not touch the saints' bodies: they only put a little linen in a box, which they

IDOLATROUS WORSHIP PAID TO IMAGES.

511

place near them; after some time they withdraw it, and deposit the box and linen in the church which they mean to dedicate. This linen performs as many miracles as if they had transported the real body! In the time of Leo I., some Greeks doubting the virtue of such relics, he took a pair of scissars, as we are assured, and, cutting the linen, forthwith the blood flowed from it!" Such was the crafty priest's apology for not complying with the request of the empress. He, however, tells her that he should endeavour to send her a few grains of the chain which had been on the apostle's neck and hands, and which had been found peculiarly efficacious, provided they succeeded, which was not always the case, in filing them off."* Now, if this be not speaking lies in hypocrisy," I do not know in what that crime consists. Gregory, with all his superstition, was not so devoid of the principles of common sense as not to know that he was imposing upon the credulity of the empress by this lying story about the marvellous tales which he here recounts-it was 66 the working of Satan with power and signs and lying wonders, and the deceivableness of unrighteousness," which was to accompany the man of sin, according to 2 Thess. ii. 3-10.

There is yet another species of abominable superstition which I must mention in this place, and that is the introduction of images into places of worship, and the idolatrous practices to which it gave rise; an evil that dates its origin soon after the times of Constantine the Great; but, like many other superstitious practices, it made its way by slow and imperceptible degrees. The first Christians reprobated every kind of image worship in the most pointed terms; and some of them employed the force of ridicule very successfully in order to expose its absurdity. When the empress Constantia requested Eusebius to send her the image of Jesus Christ, he expostulated with her on the impropriety and absurdity of her requisition in the following manner: "What kind of image of the Saviour does your imperial majesty wish to have conveyed to you? Is it the image of his real and immutable nature or is it that which he assumed for our sakes, when he was veiled in the form of a servant? With respect to the former, I presume you are not to learn, that no man hath known

* Fleury's Eccles. Hist. tom viii. p. 91-3.

the Son but the Father, neither hath any man known the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.' But you ask for the image of Christ when he appeared in human form, clothed in a body like our own. Let me now inform you that the body is now blended with the glory of the Deity, and all that was mortal in it is absorbed in life."

In the early part of the fifth century, Paulinus, bishop of Nola, caused the walls of a place of worship to be decorated with paintings descriptive of subjects in the Old Testament history, supposing they would contribute to aid the understandings of the common people; but the effect was to lead them to neglect the written word for these miserable substitutes. But, during the pontificate of Gregory I., an event occurred which threw additional light on the subject of image worship. Serenus, bishop of Marseilles, in France, observing that some of his congregation were paying their adoration to the images that had been placed in the churches of that city, in his zeal commanded them to be destroyed, which gave so much disgust, that many of his flock forsook him, and complaints against him were transmitted to the bishop of Rome. In consequence of these complaints, Gregory addressed a letter to him, in which he says, "I have been lately informed that, on your observing that some of your people worshipped images, you gave orders for the church pictures to be broken and cast away. Now, though I commend you for your zeal against the worship of any thing made with hands, yet, in my opinion, those pictures should not have been destroyed; for the design of pictures in churches is to instruct the illiterate, that people may read that in paint which they have not sufficient education to do in the book. In my judgment, therefore, brother, you are obliged to find out a temper to let the pictures stand in the church, and likewise to forbid the congregation to worship them: that, by this provision, such as are not bred to letters may be acquainted with the scripture history; and the people, on the other hand, preserved from the criminal excess of worshipping images.'

This imprudent concession, sanctioned by the authority and influence of the Roman pontiff, was productive of the worst consequences that can be imagined, and tended to accelerate the

CONTEST RESPECTING THE WORSHIP OF IMAGES. 513

growing superstition with surprising rapidity throughout the countries subject to his pontificate, and in the seventh century seems to have attained its consummation. It did not, however, do this without a struggle, and as the contest issued in bringing about two important events, viz. the schism between the Greek and Roman churches, and the establishment of the Pope as a temporal monarch, I shall close the present Lecture with a brief sketch of the leading particulars of this article of ecclesiastical history.

About the beginning of the eighth century, Leo, the Greek emperor, who reigned at Constantinople, began openly to oppose the worship of images. One Besor, a Syrian, who appears to have been an officer of his court, and in great favour with the emperor, is said to have convinced him that the adoration of images was idolatrous, and in this he was ably seconded by Constantine, bishop of Nacolia, in Phrygia. Leo, anxious to preserve his subjects from idolatry, assembled the people, and, with all the frankness and sincerity which marked his character, publicly avowed his conviction of the idolatrous nature of the prevailing practice, and protested against the erection of images. Hitherto no councils had sanctioned the evil, and precedents of antiquity were against it. But the scriptures, which ought to have had infinitely more weight upon the minds of men than either councils or precedents, had expressly and pointedly condemned it; yet, such deep root had the error at this time taken; so pleasing was it with men to commute for the indulgence of their crimes by a routine of idolatrous ceremonies; and, above all, so little ear had they to bestow on what the word of God taught, that the subjects of Leo murmured against him as a tyrant and a persecutor. And in this they were encouraged by Germanus, the bishop of Constantinople, who, with equal zeal and ignorance, asserted that images had always been used in the church, and declared his determination to oppose the emperor which, the more effectually to do, he wrote to Gregory the second, then bishop of Rome, respecting the subject, who, by similar reasonings, warmly supported the same cause.

Two original epistles from Gregory to the emperor are still extant, and they merit attention on account of the portrait they exhibit of the founders of the papal monarchy. "During ten

pure and fortunate years," says Gregory, "we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the sacred pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers. How deplorable is the change! How tremendous the scandal! You now accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the accusation, you betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments: the first elements of holy letters are sufficient for and were your confusion; you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself the enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be provoked to cast their horn-books at your head." After this curious salutation, the pope explains to him the distinction between the idols of antiquity and the Christian images. The former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or dæmons, at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any visible likeness-the latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his mother, and his saints. To the impudent and inhuman Leo, more guilty than a heretic, he recommends peace, silence, and implicit obedience to his spiritual guides of Constantinople and Rome. "You assault us, O tyrant," thus he proceeds, "with a carnal and military hand; unarmed and naked we can only implore the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your body and the salvation of your soul. You declare, with foolish arrogance, 'I will dispatch my orders to Rome; I will break in pieces the images of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin, shall be transported in chains, and in exile to the foot of the imperial throne.' Would to God, that I might be permitted to tread in the footsteps of the holy Martin; but may the fate of Constans serve as a warning to the persecutors of the church. After his just condemnation by the bishops of Sicily, the tyrant was cut off, in the fulness of his sins, by a domestic servant; the saint is still adored by the nations of Scythia, among whom he ended his banishment and his life. But it is our duty to live for the edification and support of the faithful people, nor are we reduced to risk our safety on the event of a combat. Incapable as you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation of the city may perhaps expose it to your depre