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IMAGE WORSHIP CONDEMNED AT CONSTANTINOPLE. 515

dation; but we can remove to the distance of four and twenty stadia, to the first fortress of the Lombards, and then---you may pursue the winds. Are you ignorant that the popes are the bond of union between the east and the west? The eyes of the nations are fixed on our humility; and they revere as a God upon earth the apostle Saint Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy. The remote and interior kingdoms of the west present their homage to Christ and his vicegerent, and we now prepare to visit one of the most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive from our hands the sacrament of baptism. The Barbarians have submitted to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to the voice of the shepherd. These pious Barbarians are kindled into rage'; they thirst to avenge the persecution of the east. Abandon your rash and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and repent. If you persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be spilt in the contest; may it fall on your own head !”*

The character of LEO has been so blackened, by the writers of the Catholic party, that it is difficult to form a just estimate of it; but when we consider that he not only condemned the worshipping of images, but also rejected relics, and protested against the intercession of saints, we cannot doubt of his possessing considerable strength of mind, while it may help us to account for much of the obloquy that was cast upon him.

In the year 730 he issued an edict against images, and having in vain laboured to bring over Germanus, the bishop of Constantinople, to his views, he deposed him from his see, and put in his place Anastasius, who took part with the emperor. There was, in the palace of Constantinople, a porch, which contained an image of the Saviour on the cross. Leo, perceiving that it was made an instrument of idolatry, sent an officer to remove it. Some females, who were then present, entreated that it might remain, but without effect. The officer mounted a ladder, and with an axe struck three blows on the face of the figure, when the women threw him down, by pulling away the ladder, and murdered him on the spot. The image, however, was removed, and burnt, and a plain cross set up in its room. The women then proceeded to insult Anastasius for encouraging the profanation of holy things. An insurrection ensued—and, in order

Acts of the Nicene Council, tom. viii.

to quell it, the emperor was obliged to put several persons to death.

The news of this flew rapidly to Rome, where the same rage for idolatry prevailed; and such was the indignation excited by it, that the emperor's statues were immediately pulled down, and trodden under foot. All Italy was thrown into confusion; attempts were made to elect another emperor, in the room of Leo, and the pope encouraged these attempts. The Greek writers affirm that he prohibited the Italians from paying tribute any longer to Leo; but, in the midst of these broils, while defending idolatry and exciting rebellion with all his might, Gregory was stopped short in his wicked career. "He was extremely insolent," says an impartial writer, " though he died with the character of a saint."*

He was succeeded in his office, A. D. 731, by Gregory III., who entered with great spirit and energy into the measures of his predecessors. The reader cannot but be amused with the following letter which he addressed to the emperor, immediately on his elevation :

"Because you are unlearned and ignorant, we are obliged to write to you rude discourses, but full of sense and the word of God. We conjure you to quit your pride, and hear us with humility. You say that we adore stones, walls, and boards. It is not so, my lord; but these symbols make us recollect the persons whose names they bear, and exalt our groveling minds. We do not look upon them as Gods; but, if it be the image of Jesus, we say, "Lord help us." If it be the image of his mother, we say, "Pray to your Son to save us." If it be of a martyr, we say, "St. Stephen, pray for us." We might, as having the power of Saint Peter, pronounce punishments against you; but, as you have pronounced the curse upon yourself, let it stick to you. You write to us to assemble a general council, of which there is no need. Do you cease to persecute images, and all will be quiet; we fear not your threats."

Few readers will think the style of this letter much calculated to conciliate the emperor; and, though it certainly does not equal the arrogance and blasphemy which are to be found among the

*Walch's Compend. Hist. of the Popes, p. 101.

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pretensions of this wretched race of mortals in the subsequent period of their history, it may strike some as exhibiting a tolerable advance towards them. It seems to have shut the door against all further intercourse between the parties; for, in 732, Gregory, in a council, excommunicated all who should remove or speak contemptuously of images; and, Italy being now in a state of rebellion, Leo fitted out a fleet with the view of quashing the refractory conduct of his subjects, but it was wrecked in the Adriatic, and the object of the expedition frustrated.

The Roman pontiff now acted in all respects like a temporal prince. He intrigued with the court of France, offering to withdraw his obedience from the emperor, and give the consulship of Rome to Charles Martel, the prime minister of that court (or mayor of the palace, as he is generally called) if he would take him under his protection. But the war in which France had lately been engaged with the Saracens rendered it inconvenient at the moment to comply with the request; and, in the year 741, the emperor, the pope, and the French minister were all removed from the stage of life, leaving to their successors the management of their respective views and contentions.

Leo left behind him a son, Constantine Copronymus, who inherited all his father's zeal against images. Pope Gregory the III. was succeeded by Zachary, an aspiring politician, who, by fomenting discord among the Lombards, contrived to wrest from their king, Luitprand, an addition to the patrimony of the church. And Charles Martel was succeeded by his son Pepin, who sent a case of conscience to be resolved by the pope, viz. whether it would be just in him to depose his own sovereign, Childeric, and to reign in his stead. The pope answered in the affirmative, in consequence of which, Pepin threw his master into a monastery, and assumed the title of King. Zachary, the pope, died soon after, namely, in the year 752, and was succeeded by Stephen the III.,who in his zeal for images was not inferior to any of his predecessors.

Voltaire has remarked that there prevailed at that time a strange mixture of policy and simplicity, of awkwardness and cunning, which strongly characterized the general decay of the age. Stephen, the new pope, who had quarrelled with the king of the Lombards, forged a letter purporting to be the production

of the apostle Peter, addressed to Pepin and his sons, which is too remarkable to be here omitted. "Peter, called an apostle by Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, &c. As through me the whole Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman church, the mother of all other churches, is founded on a rock-and to the end that Stephen, bishop of the beloved church of Rome, and that virtue and power may be granted by our Lord to rescue the church of God out of the hands of its persecutors: To you most excellent princes, Pepin, Charles, and Carloman, and to all the holy bishops and abbotts, priests and monks, as also to dukes, counts, and people, I, Peter, the Apostle, &c., I conjure you, and the Virgin Mary, who will be obliged to you, gives you notice, and commands you, as do also the thrones, dominations, &c. If you will not fight for me, I declare to you by the Holy Trinity, and by my apostleship, that you shall have no share in heaven.”

This letter had its desired effect: Pepin passed the Alps with an army to assist the pope against the Lombards. Intimidated by the presence of the king of the Franks, Astolphus, the Lombard king, immediately relinquished the whole Exarchate of Ravenna to the pope, including that and twenty-one other cities, and, by this means, he became proprietor of the Exarchate and its dependencies; and, by adding rapacity to his rebellion, was established as a temporal monarch! Thus was the sceptre added to the keys; the sovereignty to the priesthood; and thus were the popes enriched with the spoils of the Lombard kings and of the Roman emperors! The Pope afterwards took a journey into France, where he anointed with oil the king of the Franks; and, by the authority of St. Peter, forbade the French lords, on pain of excommunication, to choose a king of another race. Thus did these two ambitious men support one another in their schemes of rapacity and injustice. The criminality of the pope was, indeed, greatly aggravated by the pretence of religion. "It is you," says he, addressing Pepin, "whom God hath chosen from all eternity. For whom he did predestinate, them he also called, and whom he called them he also justified.

The question concerning images was still far from being put to rest either at Rome or Constantinople, but continued to agitate the Catholic church for a length of time, and gave occasion to

*Socrates' Eccles. Hist. b. vii. ch. 29.

IMAGE WORSHIP ESTABLISHED AT ROME.

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the assembling of council after council, one council annulling what the former had decreed. During the reign of the emperor Constantine Copronymus, a synod was held at Constantinople to determine the controversy. The bishops being met, to the number of three hundred and thirty, after considering the doctrine of scripture and the opinions of the fathers, decreed, "That every image, of whatsoever materials made and formed by the artist, should be cast out of the christian churches as a strange and abominable thing," adding an "anathema upon all who should make images or pictures, or representations of God, or of Christ, or of the Virgin Mary, or of any of the saints," con demning it as "a vain and diabolical invention”-deposing all bishops, and subjecting the monks and laity who should set up any of them, in public or private, to all the penalties of the imperial constitution.* Paul I., who was at this time pope of Rome, sent his legate to Constantinople, to admonish the emperor to restore the sacred images and statues to the churches, threatening him with excommunication in case of refusal. But Copronymus treated his message with the contempt it deserved.

On the decease of Paul I., A. D. 768, the papal chair was filled for one year by a person of the name of Constantine, who condemned the worship of images, for which he was tumultuously deposed, and Stephen IV., a furious defender of them, substituted in his room. He immediately assembled a council in the Lateran church, where the renowned fathers abrogated all Constantine's decrees, deposed all the bishops that had been ordained by him, annulled all his baptisms and chrisms, and, as some historians relate, after having beat and used him with great indignity, made a fire in the church and burnt him to death. After this, they annulled all the decrees of the synod of Constantinople, ordered the restoration of statues and images, and anathematized that execrable and pernicious synod, giving this curious reason for the use of images—“That if it was lawful for emperors, and those who had deserved well of their country, to have their images erected, but not lawful to set up those of God, the condition of the immortal God would be worse than that of man.' ."+

* Platina's Lives of the Popes-Life of Paul I. + Platina-Life of Stephen.

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