The Controversy About Images And The Seventh Oecumentical Synod.

CHAPTER 1. History Of The Controversy About Images Up To The Convocation Of The Seventh Oecumentical Synod.

SEC. 332. ORIGIN OF THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT IMAGES. THE Old Testament forbade images ( Exodus 20:4), because through the weakness of the Jewish people, and their strong inclination to imitate the idolatrous worships of the neighboring peoples, they had brought the spiritual and Monotheistic worship of God into danger. This prohibition was, like all ritual ordinances, no longer binding, in itself, in the New Testament. On the contrary, it was the business of Christianity to lay hold of and ennoble the whole man in all his higher powers; and thus not only all the other noble arts e.g. music and poetry, but also to draw painting and sculpture :into the service of the most holy. It was, however, natural that believers who came out of Judaism, who hitherto had cherished so wellfounded a dislike for images, should bring over with them into the new dispensation the same, and that they should maintain this feeling so long — and properly — as they saw themselves surrounded and threatened by heathens who worshipped images. But the teacher’s consideration for the newly converted heathen forbade also the carly Church to set up religious pictures, in order to remove possible temptations to fail back into paganism. Moreover, the old Church, for the sake of its own honor, had to refrain from pictures, especially from representations of our Lord, so that it might not be regarded by those who were without as only a new kind of heathenism; and, besides, the old believers found, in their opinion of the bodily form of Christ, no inducement to the making of images of Christ.

The oppressed Church represented to herself her Master only in the form of a servant, despised and having no comeliness, as Isaiah ( 53:2, 3) describes the Servant of God. FB43 But the natural impulse to fix and support the memory of the Lord, and the thankful remembrance of the salvation procured by Him by means of pictorial forms, called out substitutes and symbols instead of actual pictures, especially as those were partially allowed in the Old Testament. Thus arose the use of the symbolical pictures of the Dove, the Fish, the Lyre, the Anchor [the Lamb]; specially frequent and favorite was the Cross, on account of which Christians were often called cross-worshippers (religiosi crucis, Tertull. Apolog. c. 16). A decided step forwards to greater liberty is shown in the human symbolical figure of the Good Shepherd, which, according to Tertullian (De Pudicit. 100. 7), was often found in the second century upon the chalices. Such representations, however, were mostly found in private use, and their use in ecclesiastical places was greatly disapproved and forbidden. With the ortho dox, pictures as objects of veneration FB44 were not found so early as with heretics, particularly with the Carpocratians and with eclectic heathens, like the Emperor Alexander Severus The celebrated Synod of Elvira, A.D. 306, spoke out strongly and severely against the use of pictures in the churches.

FB45 But held at the entrance of the time of Constantine, it stands at the boundary of two periods. In the new time we find, as in other things, so also an important change in regard to Christian art. Jewish Christianity had come: to an end, and its speciality and narrowness were extinguished. On the other side, even with heathens, any \great relapse was no longer seriously to be feared; and thus the two principal reasons, which previously spoke against pictures, no longer existed. Thus there could no longer arise an evil report against the Church if she made use of pictures for the embellishment of her worship, for her Monotheistic character and her spiritual worship were now placed beyond all doubt. Thus it happened that in the victorious Church there came naturally another representation of the bodily form of the Lord than that which was found in the oppressed Church. Christ was from this time regarded as the ideal of human beauty, e.g., by Chrysostom (Opp . t. 5. p. 162, ed. Montf.) and Jerome (Opp . t. 2. p. 684, ed. BB.), and this representation attached itself to Psalm 44. 3 [45. 2]. From this time very numerous representations of Christ, and also of the apostles and martyrs, in the form of pictures, mosaics, and statues, were fashioned, and, partly by Constantine himself, were put up in churches and in public places.

Where the ancient Fathers speak of the aim of these pictures, they find it in the instruction and edification of the faithful, and in the appropriate decoration of churches. Thus writes Pope Gregory the Great to Bishop Serenus of Marseilles, who, in imprudent zeal, cast the pictures out of the Church: “You ought not to have broken what was put up in the churches, not for adoration, but merely for the promotion of reverence. It is one thing to worship an image, and another to learn from the history represented in the image what we ought to worship. For that which the Scripture is for those who can read, that a picture is for those who are incapable of reading; for in this also the uneducated see in what way they have to walk. In it they read who are not acquainted with the Scriptures” (lib. 9. Ep. 9). Still earlier, S. Basil, in his eulogy of the martyr Barlaam, called, in oratorical strains, upon the Christian painters to represent the glory of this great saint, as they could show this better in colors than be could in words. He would rejoice if he were surpassed by them, and if painting here triumphed over eloquence. FB46 The customary use of pictures, since Constantine the Great, in the whole Church, with the Greeks even more than with the Latins, Leo the Isaurian, in the eighth century, determined again to root out. His early history and his career are very differently related by the ancients. According to some, he was a poor workman from Isauria in Lesser Asia, who carried his few wares with him on an ass, and subsequently entered the imperial army as a common soldier, and rose in it, on account of his bodily strength and dexterity, from step to step. According to Theophanes, FB47 on the other hand, he sprang from Germanicia, on the border of Isauria, was forced, in the reign of Justinian II., to remove to Mesembria in Thrace (why, is not known), once made this Emperor a present of 500 sheep, when he and his army were fit some need, and was for that reason made imperial Spatharius; FB48 and afterwards, under Anastasius II., became general of the army in Asia Minor. When the latter Emperor, in consequence of a mutiny, A.D. 716, resigned and retired into a convent, in order to give place to the kindly but; weak Theodosius, whom the insurgents had proclaimed Emperor, Leo refused obedience to the latter, beat him, and compelled him also to retire into a convent, and now ascended the throne as the founder of a new dynasty. FB49 Absolutely without education, rough in manner, a military upstart, he found in himself no understanding of art, and no aesthetic feeling that could have restrained him from Vandalism.

Undoubtedly he was in all seriousness of the opinion that the veneration of images was a relapse into heathenism, and that the Old Testament prohibition of them was still in full force. How he came to this view, however, whether it arose in himself or was infused into him from without, must remain undecided, on account of the partly incomplete, partly improbable statements of the authorities. It is quite certain, however, that the forcible carrying through of his plans, even in religious matters, without regard to the liberty of conscience, lay quite as much in the character of Leo as in the practice of the Byzantine Emperors. This he showed as early as the sixth-year of his reign, when he compelled the Jews and Montanists to receive baptism. The former submitted in appearance, but the Montanists themselves set fire to the house in which they were assembled, and rather died in the flames than comply with the command. Thus relates the chronographer Theophanes (†818), who from here forms one of our chief sources, and, in the later phase of iconoclasm, was a confessor and almost a martyr for images. FB50 All the others who have left us information respecting the controversy about images drew from Theophanes: Cedrenus (cent. 11.), Zonares (cent. 12.), Constantine Manasses (cent. 12.), and Michael Glyeas (cent. 15.); FB51 also the Latins. Anastasius (cent. 9.), in his Historia Ecclesiastica, and the unknown author of the Historia Miscella commonly ascribed to Paul the deacon, for the most part only translated faithfully the words of Theophanes. FB52 On the other hand, Paul the deacon, in his treatise, De Gestis Lombardorum, and Anastasius, in his biographies of the ropes, FB53 have given some important information of their own. To authorities of the first rank John Damascene would belong, who at the very beginning undertook the defense of the veneration of images against the assailants; but his writings unfortunately contain extremely little that is historical. Somewhat more of this we find in the biography of the Abbot, S. Stephen, of the ninth century, who was martyred under Leo’s son, Constantine Copronymus, on account of the images, FB54 as well as the Patriarch Nicephorus, who, like his contemporary Theophanes, in the second half of the storm about images, was compelled to go into exile in consequence of his resisting the storm.

FB55 Some other less important authorities we shall mention as occasion offers; but it is superfluous to mention that the letters of Popes and other authorities which belong to this period, and the Acts of the various Synods, are of highest importance for the history of the controversy about images.

The later literature on the subject is uncommonly drawn out, and from the confessional point of view a good deal coloured. The relationship of the reformers to the old iconoclasts lay so near as to change the historical theme into a polemical one, and to lead to attacks against the Catholic Church. The subject has been handled, among Protestants, especially by Goldart, in his collection of Imperialia decreta de cultu imaginum, 1608; Dallaeus [Daille], De imaginibus, 1612; Friedrich Spanheim junior, in his Restituta Historia imaginum, 1686; Bower, in History of the Popes, 1757, vol. 4.; Walch, in his Ketzerhistorie, 1782, Bd. 10.; and Friedrich Christoph Schlosser (of Heidelberg), in his history of iconoclastic Emperors, Frankfort 1812. FB56 On the Catholic side we name, besides Baronius, Pagi, Natalis Alexander, specially Maimbourg, S. J., Histoire de l'heresie des iconoclastes, Paris 1683, 2 vols. (not quite trustworthy); Assemani, Historia Italic-orum Scriptorum, t. 3.; and Marr, Der Bilderstreit der byzantinischen Kaiser, Trier 1839. Almost every one of the scholars named has formed a theory of his own on the chronology of the first lustrum of the controversies on images. This was occasioned by the uncertainty and indefiniteness in the information given by the authorities. A fresh examination of these led us to several new results, which we will communicate in the proper place.

As the attack of the Emperor Leo on the images was preceded by one quite similar, which the Caliph Jezid II., only three years before, attempted to make in the Christian provinces ruled by him, it was quite natural that the Emperor’s contemporaries should charge him with having imitated the Mahometan, and accuse him of Saracen leanings. So particularly, Theophanes (l.c. pp. 618, 623), who mentions the renegade Beser and Bishop Constantine of Nacolia (in Phrygia) as the principal assistants of the Emperor in this affair. FB57 This Constantine, in particular, he calls an ignorant man, full of all uncleanness; of Beser, however, he relates that he, from birth a Christian, had denied Christ among the Arabs, FB58 and had come into great favor with the Emperor Leo. He had probably returned to Christianity.

Further information respecting Constantine of Nacolia we receive from two letters of Germanus, then patriarch of Constantinople. FB59 One of them is addressed to Bishop Constantine himself, the other to his metropolitan, John of Synnada. From the latter it appears that Constantine had personally come to Constantinople, and this gave occasion for his metropolitan himself to write to the patriarch, and to make him acquainted with his views in opposition to images. In consequence of this, Germanus had a conversation with Bishop Constantine on the subject. The latter appealed to the Old Testament, which forbade the images; but the patriarch explained the true state of the matter, and Constantine at last fell in with his view, with the assurance that henceforth he would confess the like, and give offense to no one. We learn this distinctly from the letter already mentioned of the patriarch to the archbishop of Synnada, FB60 which he put into the hands of Bishop Constantine to take care of, when he returned to his home. Constantine, however, disappointed this confidence, detained the letter, and kept at a distance from his metropolitan, pretending fear of being persecuted by him. The patriarch therefore issued a powerful letter to Constantine himself, and pronounced him excommunicated until he should deliver that letter. FB61 We do not doubt that the presence of Constantine in Constantinople belongs to the preliminary history of the image trouble. Bishop Constantine had, as we learn from these letters, first begun, in his own country, the battle against the images, and was thereupon driven into opposition on the part of the metropolitan and the comprovincial bishops. He went then to Constantinople, and sought the protection of his higher ecclesiastical superior, the patriarch, whilst in appearance he agreed with the explanation which he had given. That he was not serious in this we may infer from his subsequent behavior. The Patriarch Germanus, however, does not in the least indicate that the Emperor had then already taken steps against the pictures, whether it was that nothing had yet actually taken place on the part of the Emperor in this direction, or that the patriarch ignored it from prudence. I should prefer the previous supposition; for the ignoring of it could have been possible, only if at least so far nothing that was important or that excited notice had been undertaken by the Emperor.

Besides Beser and Constantine of Nacolia, Bishop Thomas of Claudiopolis FB62 and Archbishop Theodosius of Ephesus, the son of the former Emperor Apsimar or Tiberius II, also belonged to those who shared the opinion of the Emperor. We hear of the first of these from the letter of the Patriarch Germanus, who explained to him at great length the Church view in regard to the veneration of images, and complained that he had been compelled to hear much that was so unfavorable, or even incredible, of Bishop Thomas. FB63 The archbishop of Ephesus named, however, is pointed out by Pope Gregory II. as the secret counselor of Leo. FB64 Another ancient witness places Bishop Constantine of Nacolia in relation with the Caliph Jezid. This is the monk John, representative of the Oriental patriarchate, who read, in the fifth session of the seventh Oecumenical Council, a short essay, in which he states: “After Omar’s death, Ezid, a frivolous and stupid man, became chief of the Arabs. There lived at Tiberias a leader of the Jews, a magician, a soothsayer, and a servant of demons, named Tessaracontapechys (= 40 ells long; according to other MSS., his name was Sarantatechos), who gained the favor of Ezid, and told him: You will live long, and reign for thirty years more ¼ if you immediately destroy all the images, pictures, and mosaics, all the pictures on walls, vessels, and cloths, which are found in the Christian churches of your kingdom; and so also all other pictures, even those which are not religious, which here and there in the towns are put up for ornament. The latter he mentioned in order to remove the suspicion that he was speaking only out of hatred against the Christians. The tyrant lent him a hearing, destroyed the pictures, and robbed the Church of all ornament, even before this evil came into our neighborhood. As the Christians fled, and would not themselves destroy the holy images, the emirs who were charged with the business made use of the Jews and common Arabs for the purpose. The venerable pictures were burnt, the walls of the churches smeared or scratched. When the pseudo-bishop of Nacolia and his friends heard this, they imitated the wickedness of the Jews and Arabs, and caused great disfigurement of the churches. Ezid, however, died after 2½ years, and the images were restored again in his kingdom. His successor, Ulid (Walid), even ordered the Jewish leader to be executed, because he had brought about the death of his father (as a judgment of God).” FB65 According to this, the bishop of Nacolia, who moreover did not stand alone, but must have had associates (perhaps also in the episcopate), appears as intermediary between Jezid and the Emperor Leo, as the man who induced the Emperor to become successor of the Caliph in the assault on the images. Another intermediary, however, has been introduced by the later Greek historians, and, according to their statement, the same Jews who misled Jezid won over the Emperor to their side. Fleeing, after the Caliph’s death, they came to the borders of Isauria, and lighted upon a young man of distinguished form who lived by merchandise. They seated themselves by him, prophesied to him the imperial throne, and took an oath of him that, in case of his elevation, he would everywhere remove the pictures of Christ and Mary. FB66 Leo promised it; some time afterwards entered the army, became under Justinian II. Spatharius, and finally even Emperor. Then came the Jews, reminded him of his promise, and in the tenth year of his reign Leo attacked the images.

Thus elated, with several variations in detail, but in fundamental agreement, Cedrenus, Zonaras, Michael Glycas, Constantine Manasses, and two anonymous writers, the authors of the Oratio adv. Constantinum Cabalinum, and of the Epistola ad Theophilum. The time of the two latter cannot now be determined, probably they lived some centuries after Leo the Isaurian, FB67 and the whole narrative bears so clearly the character of a later story, that it would be superfluous, with Bower (Hist. of the Popes, vol. 4.) and Walch (l.c. S. 205 ff.), to collect all kinds of grounds of suspicion against it. To mention only one, the Jews would have bargained with Leo for something more useful to themselves than the destruction of images; and how little the Emperor was grateful or well-disposed to the Jews, is shown by the circumstance that, as we have already seen (p. 264), he forcibly compelled them to receive baptism. Perhaps, however, the experience which he gained later on may have brought him to the reflection, that the converse.on of the Jews, which he so greatly desired, would be made much easier by the removal of the images. Many suppose that, in this way, he endeavored to make his Saracen neighbors more favorable, and to pave their way into the Church. FB68 If we add to these political grounds the narrow view of Leo already noticed, that all veneration of images was idolatrous, and also the insinuations of Beser, Constantine of Nacolia, and others, the reasons for the rising against images lie before our eyes. — That this was connected with the Monothelite controversies, and dated from the fact that the Emperor Philip Bardanes caused to be removed a picture of the sixth Oecumenical Synod (see p. 257), is a mere capricious assertion of some older Protestants, particularly Daille and Spanheim.

According to Theophanes (l.c. p. 621), whom Anastasius (Hist. Eccles.) and Paul the deacon (Hist. Miscell. lib. 21.) followed, Leo began in the ninth year of his reign (A.D. 725) lo>gou poiei~sqai of the taking away of the sacred pictures, i.e. not merely in general to speak, to publish an ordinance, a command; for a few lines lower down Theophanes says: The Pope wrote on this subject to the Emperor, mh< dei~n basile>a peri< pi>stewv lo>gon poiei~sqai. Pope Gregory II., on the contrary (Epist. ad Leonem), as well as Cedrenus and Zonaras, remove the beginning of the controversy about images into the Emperor’s tenth year; and this has also the greatest probability. So it comes that in this year, 726, that convulsion of nature took place which, according to the unanimous testimony of the ancients, brought the plan of the Emperor to maturity. Between the islands of the Cyclades group, Theta and Therasia (north-east from Crete), a volcano arose suddenly under the sea, which for several days vomited fire and stones with such violence, that the coasts of Asia Minor, and even those of Lesbos, Abydos, and Macedonia, were covered with it. There immediately arose a new island which united with the island of Hiera. The Emperor and his associate Beser professed to see in this a judgment of God on account of the veneration of images, and now set to work. FB69 That the Emperor at his first steps against the images either did not consult Germanus, the patriarch of Constantinople, at all, or did not follow his counsel, is clear from the first letter of Gregory II. to Leo, in which he reproaches him that Sapientes non percontatus es . FB70 In opposition to this, the biography of Abbot Stephen, martyred under Constantine Copronymus on account of the images, speaks of an assembly which the Emperor held, and in which he declared: “As the making of images is an idolatrous art, so may they not be venerated (proskunei~sqai ).” The old Latin translation departs from the Greek original in the rendering of this: “Accita et coacta senatorum classe absurdum illud et impium evomuit (Leo): imaginum picturas formam quamdam idolorum retinere, neque iis culture esse adhibendum.” FB71 In accordance with this, Schlosser (l.c. p. 166) has assumed that the Emperor Leo now held a consultative assembly on account of the images, but I fear mistakenly, for Pope Gregory II. knows nothing of any such assembly in the year 726, nor Theophanes or the Patriarch Nicephorus, nor the oldest authorities generally; and the biographer of Stephen had, in his expressions, nothing else in view but that Silentium (assembly of clergy and secular grandees) which first took place on the subject of the images in the year 730, as Theophanes and others testify.

Cedrenus, Zonaras, Constantine Manasses, and Glycas relate that the Emperor summoned the twelve professors who were appointed over the great library (of 36,000 volumes) in the neighborhood of the Church of S.

Sophia, with their director, and endeavored to gain them over to his views.

As this did not succeed, he caused the library to be burnt, together with the thirteen scholars named shut up within it. As this is not mentioned either by Gregory II. or by Theophanes or Nicephorus, or indeed any of the ancients, who yet fully describe Leo’s cruelty, this story must be removed into the realm of fable. Schlosser thinks (S. 163 f .) so much is clear, that the Emperor spoke with those scholars, but did not gain them over; and then that the burning of the library, which took place six years later, was connected with this. But the fact of this burning is by no means sufficiently attested, and indeed rests on a confusion with the subsequent burning of that library which took place A.D. 780, under the Emperor Zeno. In particular, the celebrated copy of the Iliad and Odyssey, written upon a dragon’s skin, according to the testimony of Suidas, was burnt under Zeno, and not, as Constantine Manasses asserts, under Leo. Occasion for the fable of the burning, however, was perhaps given by the circumstance that Theophanes (l.c.) tells us that Leo specially persecuted the learned, so that the schools had been destroyed.

That the Emperor Leo published an ordinance, an edict against images (A.D. 726), is perfectly clear from the words of Theophanes quoted above (p. 271), and is by no one denied. But it is more difficult to arrive at the contents of this first edict. We shall discover hereafter that several of its principal passages are preserved in the letter of Gregory II. to Leo; but it was just here that they were not sought, because this letter was assigned to a later time. People founded rather upon the old Latin translation of the biography of Abbot Stephen, according to which the Emperor, in order to please the people, declared: “He would not destroy the pictures, but only hang them higher, so that people might no longer touch them with their mouths”; FB72 and they inferred from this, that the first edict merely forbade the kissing and veneration of images, and that it was the second, in 730, which first ordered their destruction. FB73 But, apart from the fact that this Latin translation has very little authority, this assembly, in accordance with what has already been said (p. 272), in which the Emperor made this declaration, belongs to the year 730. It appears, too, that a number, perhaps the most of the old pictures in the churches, were wall pictures or wall mosaics, which could not easily be disturbed, and, besides, were mostly fixed at a considerable height. Moreover, the incidents now to be narrated would be quite inexplicable if the Emperor had only required the pictures to be hung higher. Theophanes relates, at the year 718 of his reckoning, i.e . the tenth year of Leo, or A.D. 716: “The inhabitants of Constantinople were much disturbed by the new doctrines (the prohibition of images), and provoked to insurrection. When some servants of the Emperor destroyed the figure of the Lord over the great brass gate, they were killed by the populace, whereupon the Emperor punished many for their piety (adhesion to the images) with mutilation, blows, and exile.” On the same occurrence Pope Gregory II.,in his first letter to the Emperor Leo, says: “When you sent the Spatharocandidatus (i.e. Spatharius and Candidatus at once; see Du Cange) Jovinus to Chalcoprateia (a division of Constantinople where metal wares were sold), in order to destroy the figure of Christ which is called Antiphonetes, FB74 some pious women who stood there besought the workman not to do so. He, however, paying no attention to this, climbed a ladder and struck with an axe three times the face of the figure of Christ. (It was not, then, merely that he wanted the figure to be hung higher: it hung already so high that he required a ladder.)

The women, profoundly indignant, overturned the ladder, and struck him dead; but you sent ;your servants and caused I know not how many of the women to be executed.” The like is related by Cedrenus and others, and small variations in the particular accounts are of no great moment.

The biographer of S. Stephen transfers this incident to the time after the deposition of the Patriarch Germanus, and adds: These women, after they had upset the ladder of the image-breaker, drew off in front of the residence of the new patriarch, Anastasius, in order to stone him, and shouted, “You shameful enemy of the truth, have you been made patriarch for this purpose, that you might destroy the sanctuaries?” Resting upon this, Pagi removed this incident to the year 730, and regards it as a consequence of the second edict FB75 Almost all the later scholars agreed with him; but Theophanes and Cedrenus — not to mention Anastasius and Paul the deacon — place this occurrence expressly in the tenth year of Leo (= 726), and Pope Gregory II. clearly refers it to the beginning of the controversy about images. The first intelligence, he says, of the iconoclasm of the Emperor came to the West through those who had been witnesses of the incident at Chalcoprateia; and before an imperial edict against the images had stirred up a ferment in the West, the news of that occurrence had caused incursions of the Lombards into the imperial provinces of Italy. FB76 Thence it further appears that between the destruction of that figure of Christ and the composition of the papal letter a considerable interval must have elapsed. We could not, however, account for this if we removed that event to the year 730, for Pope Gregory died on February 11, 731, and we cannot assign the letter in question to his last days, as he received an answer to it from the Emperor, and even addressed a second letter to him.

The assumption that the brutal destruction of the celebrated figure of Christ gave occasion, so early as the year 726, to violent outbreaks in the West, need not be a matter of doubt, since, in the same year, elsewhere disturbances and even insurrections arose for the same reason. Theophanes (p. 623)and Nicephorus (p. 65) and others relate that the inhabitants of Greece and of the Cyclades did not receive the impious error, revolted against the Emperor, fitted out a fleet, and proclaimed a certain Cosmas as rival Emperor. Under the guidance of two officers, Agallianus and Stephanus, they sailed to Constantinople, and arrived there on April 18 of the 10th Indiction (727). But their ships were destroyed by Greek-fire, Agallianus flung himself in complete armor into the sea, Cosmas and Stephanus were executed, and the Emperor proceeded so much the more decidedly in his iconoclasm. Soon afterwards, about the time of the summer solstice of the 10th Indiction (June 21, 727), the Arabs besieged the city of Nicaea, which was defended by an imperial army. A soldier of the latter, named Constantine, at this time threw a stone at a picture of the blessed Virgin (qeo>tokov ), which had been set up in the city, and shattered its feet; but next day he himself was killed by a stone in an assault by the Arabs. Moreover, as Theophanes (p. 625) says, Nicaea was saved “by the intercession of Mary and other saints, whose images were venerated there, for the wholesome instruction of the Emperor. But instead of repenting, Leo now also cast off the intercession of the saints and the veneration of relics. From this time (i.e. since the controversy about images began), he hated the Patriarch Germanus, and declared (practically) that all previous emperors, bishops, and Christians were idolaters.”

We mentioned above the letter which the Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople addressed to Bishop Thomas of Claudiopolis, blaming him for his attacks on the images. As Germanus, among other things, says here:

On account of this affair whole cities and peoples were in no slight tumult, FB77 we may assume that the letter of Germanus falls in this time, and that some bishops, as Thomas, Constantine of Nacolia, and others, reformed in the sense of the Emperor. They naturally also cast the images out of their churches. In other cities, on the contrary, whose bishops held with Germanus, the attack on the images ordered by the Emperor seems hitherto to have touched the interior of the churches less than the images set up in public places. Of this kind was that over the brazen gate at Constantinople, and that destroyed by the soldier at Nicaea, whilst the latter city, according to the testimony adduced of Theophanes, was at that time rich in sacred pictures. If the crusade against the images was to make powerful progress, and the interior of the churches was also to be cleared, it was necessary finally to gain over the Patriarch Germanus, or to remove him. Theophanes (p. 625 sqq.)relates that, in the year 721 (according to his reckoning = the thirteenth regnal year of Leo, beginning March 25, 729), the Emperor summoned the patriarch to him, and gave him first very friendly words. Germanus replied: “An ancient prophecy says that certainly an assault on images will be made, but not in your reign.” “Under what reign, then ?” asked the Emperor. “Under Conon.” “I myself,” said the Emperor, “in baptism received the name of Conon.” Thereupon the patriarch: “Far be it from you, my lord, that under your government this evil should come to pass. For he who does this is a forerunner of antichrist.” The tyrant, embittered by this, sought in the words of the patriarch material for a charge of lese-majesty, in order that he might depose him the more decently. A helper in this he found in Anastasius, the pupil and companion of the Patriarch, who wished to thrust him from his see. Germanus remarking this, exhorted the new Judas gently, in the spirit of Christ; but as he would not listen to him, and once, when the patriarch was visiting the Emperor, followed in the train” He prophesied to hint in those words the destiny which happened to him, after fifteen years, under the next Emperor (he was set upon an ass and carried round in the circus).

Hereupon the Emperor, on Tuesday, January 7, of the 13th Indiction (730), held a Silentium or consultative assembly FB78 in the hall of the nineteen accubiti or cushions, FB79 and again endeavored at this to bring the patriarch, who had been sum moned to it, to fall in with his scheme. When he had boldly resisted, and had set forth [his views of] the truth in a powerful and lengthy speech, but saw no result, he laid down his episcopal dignity, and took off his pallium, with the words: “If I am Jonah, cast me into the sea; without the authority of an Oecumenical Council, O Emperor, nothing may be altered in the faith.” Thereupon he withdrew into his private residence, where he spent his remaining days (he was already over ninety years of age) in perfect peace. Anastasius was consecrated as his successor on January 7 (or, as other MSS. give it, January 2:2). — Thus relates Theophanes (l.c.), FB80 and the Patriarch Nicephorus agrees with him. Only, he speaks with his accustomed brevity merely of the Silentium which the Emperor held (Nicephorus calls it an assembly of the people), without mentioning the preceding negotiations with Germanus; but adds very well that Leo wanted to induce him to put forth a document in favor of the destruction of the images. We see from this that the patriarch would have had to publish an edict against the images, corresponding with that of the Emperor, or else to join in subscribing a new imperial edict.

Theophanes (l.c. p. 629) says quite precisely that this Silentium was held on Tuesday, January 7 (z ). But in the year 730, January 7 fell on a Saturday, and therefore we must here assume a slip of the pen. Petavius, in his notes to Nicephorus (I.c. p. 128), proposed either to put January instead of 7, or instead of hJme>ra| g> (Tuesday) to put z ( = Saturday). But more probable is perhaps the suggestion, instead of January 7 (z ) to read 17 (iz ). The different statements will then agree, that the new patriarch, Anastasius, had been ordained on January 22, for this was a Sunday, and indeed the next Sunday after Tuesday, January 17, — and it is on Sundays that the consecrations of bishops did and do ordinarily take place.

As we saw above, there was a considerable interval between the interview spoken of between the Emperor and Germanus and the holding of the Silentium. To this interval belong the attempts to entangle the patriarch into a trial for lese-majesty, and also the warnings given by Germanus to the faithless Anastasius, and his visit to the Emperor connected with the prophesying. Moreover, so at least we suppose, Germanus now wrote also to Pope Gregory II., in order to make him acquainted with the demand of the Emperor and his own refusal. This letter is lost, but we still know it from the answer of the Pope, which is preserved among the Acts of the seventh Oecumenical Council. Gregory in this letter greets the patriarch as his brother and champion of the Church, whose deeds he is bound to praise. “Moreover,’ he proceeds, “we might fitly declare that these deeds will be still more proclaimed by that precursor of impiety, who to thee, O fortunate man (felicitati tuae), has returned evil for good. He thought that he could revolt against Him who came from above (Christ), and triumph over godliness. But he is now hindered from above, and robbed of his hopes, and has heard from the Church what Pharaoh was forced to hear from Moses, that he was an enemy of God. But he heard also the word of the prophet: God will destroy thee. So is he hindered in his undertakings, deprived of power by the God-given strength of your opposition, and his pride has been wounded almost to annihilation. The strong, as Holy Scripture says, has been overcome by the weak. Have you not fought on the side of God, and as God has directed you, since HE ordained that in the camp of the kingdom of Christ the labarum of the cross should stand first, and then the sacred picture of His Mother! The honor shown to the picture goes over to the prototype (that which is represented in the picture), as the great Basil says; and the use of pictures is full of piety, as Chrysostom expresses himself ¼ And the Church does not err when she asserts that God permits the veneration of images, and this is not an imitation of heathenism. When the woman with the issue of blood (S.

Matthew 9.20) set up a statue of Christ at Paneas in remembrance of the miracle wrought on her, she was not for that rejected (by God); on the contrary, a quite unknown medical plant grew up, FB81 by the grace of God, at the foot of that statue. This is for us a proof that we may place before the eyes of all the human form of Him who took away our sins, so that we may thereby know the greatness of the self-humiliation of the divine Logos, and call to remembrance His life on earth and His sufferings. The words of the Old Testament are no hindrance to this; for if God had not become man, we should not represent Him in human form ¼ Only the images of things which do not exist are called idols, as, e.g., the images of nonexistent deities feigned by the Hellenic mythology. The Church of Christ has no fellowship with idols, for we worship no calf, etc., never sacrificed our children to demons, etc. Did Ezekiel see (8. 14, 16) that we bewailed Adonis, and brought a burnt-offering to the sun? If, however, anyone, in Jewish fashion, misusing the words of the Old Testament which were formerly directed against idolatry, accuses our Church of idolatry, we can only hold him for a barking dog, and as a Jew of later times he shall hear that it so happened that Israel brought worship to God by means of visible things which were prescribed to him, and commemorated the Creator by means of types! He would have asked for more at the holy altar than at the calves of Samaria, more at the rod of Aaron than of Astarte! Yea, Israel would have seen more at the rod of Moses, at the golden pot, and the ark of the covenant, and the throne of grace (cover of the ark), and the ephod, and the table, and the tabernacle, and the cherubim, which are merely works of men’s hands, and yet are called the most holy. If Israel had thought of these things, it would not have fallen into idolatry. For every image which is made in the name of God is worthy of veneration and sacred ¼ The mistress of Christendom fought with you, the Mother of God, FB82 and those who have long rebelled against her have experienced an opposition as strong (from her) as a contradiction (from you).” FB83 The contents of this letter, as we believe, by themselves point to the time immediately after the powerful opposition which Germanus maintained against the Emperor (A.D. 729), and before the Silentium, when, despairing of the result of his effort, he laid aside the episcopal mantle. The words of the Pope, so far the echo of those of the patriarch, show that the latter had written in the consciousness of a spiritual victory over the Emperor, and at that time had not the intention of resigning. On the contrary, he was hoping, by his opposition, to put an end to the controversy about images. After that Silentium, on the contrary, and after the elevation of Anastasius, it was natural that the latter should draw up the (suggrafh> ) against the images desired by the Emperor, as Nicephorus (p. 65) tells us, or as Theophanes will have it (p. 929), subscribed the edict published by the Emperor. Whether this was different from that of the year 726, as Walch (S. 225) and others assume, or whether that which was new in it consisted only in the subscription of the patriarch, may remain doubtful. The original authorities do not, require us to assume an entirely new edict. The assault on the images, however, had now, in any case, obtained an ecclesiastical sanction, and with the well-known servility of the Greek bishops, after the opposition of the prima sedes had been broken, the Emperor henceforth made sure of important advances.

It was otherwise in the West. It is indeed unfortunately most difficult to reconcile the accounts of what happened there with one another, and with facts otherwise known. Theophanes informs us that, in the ninth year of the Emperor, “after Pope Gregory of Rome had learnt this (the lo>gov of the Emperor on the removal of the images), he wrote to Leo a doctrinal letter, to the effect that the Emperor should issue no ordinance in regard to the faith, and should alter nothing in the ancient dogmas; that, in consequence, he prevented Italy and Rome from paying taxes (fo>rouv ).”

Theophanes speaks of the same affair for the second time (p. 628 f., at the year 729-730) in the words: “The Patriarch Germanus withstood the Emperor Leo at Constantinople, like the apostolic man Gregory at Rome, who separated Rome and Italy and the whole of the West from political and ecclesiastical obedience to Leo and from his Empire ¼ and censured him in his universally known letters.” The third passage (p 630) runs: “Gregory, however, the holy bishop of Rome, rejected (the new patriarch) Anastasius with his letters (the litterae inthronisticae, which he had sent to Rome), reprimanded the Emperor Leo, in a letter, for his impiety, and made Rome and the whole of Italy separate from his Empire.”

The Latins were naturally better informed on this subject than Theophanes.

Anastasius relates, in his biography of Gregory II., in Mansi, t. 12. p. sqq.:” The Longo-bardi made an incursion into the imperial domain of Italy (before the imperial decree against the images arrived in Italy), took Narnia (in the Duchy of Spoleto) and Ravenna, and secured large booty. After some days, the Dux Basil, the Chartular Jordanes, and the sub-deacon John Luxion, conspired to put the Pope to death, and the imperial Spatharius, Maximus, who then administered the Duchy of Rome, agreed with them; but they found no occasion suitable for this. Subsequently, when the Patriarch Paul came to Italy as exarch, they again formed their scheme, but the affair was discovered, and the Romans killed Luxion and Jordanes, whilst Basil took refuge in a monastery. On the other hand, the exarch Paul, at the command of the Emperor, now endeavored to kill the Pope, “eo quod censum in provincia ponere praepediebat, et cogitaret suis opibus ecclesias denudare, sicut in caeteris actum est locis, atque allure in ejus ordinare loco,” i.e. because the Pope prevented him from oppressing the province with an (unjust) tax, and because the Emperor had the intention to strip the churches of their property, as it had happened elsewhere, and to put another Pope in Gregory’s place. Thereupon the Emperor sent another Spatharius with the command to remove the Pope from his see, and Paul sent for the execution of this outrage as many people (soldiers) from Ravenna and the camps to Rome as he could get for the purpose. But the Romans and Lombards rose up to defend the Pope, took possession of the bridge Salario in Spoleto, surrounded the boundaries of Rome, and prevented the accomplishment of the attempt.

In a decree which was afterwards sent, the Emperor had ordered that no one should make the image of any saint or martyr or angel; these things were all accursed. If the Pope should agree with this, the favor of the Emperor would be granted to him; if, however, he opposed, he should lose his office. The pious man, however, rejected the heresy, armed himself against the Emperor as against an enemy, and wrote in all directions to warn Christians to be on their guard against the new impiety. Upon this all the inhabitants of Pentapolis and the Venetian army offered opposition to the imperial command, declaring that they would never agree to the murder of the Pope, but, on the contrary, would boldly fight in his defense. They now anathematised the exarch Paul, and him who had given him the commission, as well as all his associates; and discharging themselves from obedience to him, the Italians generally chose their own leaders, and on learning of the Emperor’s wickedness, the whole of Italy decided to choose a new Emperor, and conduct him to Constantinople. But the Pope quieted them, and induced them to give up this design, hoping that the Emperor would still amend. In the meantime, the Dux (imperial viceroy) Exhilaratus of Naples and his son Hadrian had led away the inhabitants of Campania to obey the Emperor and to make an attempt on the life of the Pope. The Romans, however, followed him up, and put him and his son to death.

They also drove out the Dux Peter (from Rome), because he was suspected of having written to the Court against the Pope. In Ravenna, however, because one party was on the Emperor’s side and the other with the Pope and the faithful, controversies broke out, and the Patriarch Paul (the exarch)thus lost his life. The Lombards about this time took the cities of Castra Aemilia, Ferorianus, Montebelli, Verablum, with Buxum and Persicetum, also Pentapolis FB84 and Auximanum. FB85 After some time, the Emperor sent the patrician Eutychius, the eunuch, who had formerly been exarch, to Naples, to carry through the plan against the Pope which had previously miscarried; but it was soon evident that he would violate the churches, and ruin and plunder all. When he sent one of his subordinates to Rome with the command to kill the Pope and the nobles of the city, the Romans endeavored to kill the envoy, but the Pope prevented them. They now anathematised Eutychius, and pledged themselves by oath to the protection of the Pope. Eutychius now promised to the King and the dukes of the Lombards great presents if they would desist from protecting the Pope; but the Lombards united with the Romans, and declared themselves ready to lay down their lives for the Pope. ,The latter thanked the people for such attachment, but sought his chief protection in God by abundant prayers and fasting and rich almsgiving. At the same time he exhorted them all ne desisterent ab amore vel fide Romani imperii. About the same time, in the 11th Indiction (from September 1, 727-728), the Lombards got possession, by stratagem, of the castle of Sutri (in the neighborhood of Rome, to the north), and held it for 140 days, until the Pope, by entreaties and gifts, received it back as an offering for the Apostles Peter and Paul.

Soon afterwards, in the January of the 12th Indiction (729), a comet appeared in heaven. Now also Eutychius and Luitprand, King of the Lombards, entered into the shameful league, to unite their armies and subject to Luitprand the Lombard vassal dukes of Spoleto and Benevento (who perhaps were endeavoring to make themselves independent), and to seize the city of Rome for the Emperor, and to deal with the Pope according to his instructions. Luitprand in fact compelled the two dukes to subjection, and then drew towards Rome. But the Pope met him and spoke so earnestly to him that the King cast himself at his feet. Only, he petitioned that the Pope would again receive Eutychius in peace. This was done, and the reconciliation took place.

Whilst the exarch was residing in Rome, a deceiver, Tiberius Petasius, set himself up in Italy as rival Emperor, and received homage from several cities. FB86 The exarch was greatly troubled about this, but the Pope comforted him and supported him so powerfully, that the insurrection was speedily suppressed, and they were able to send the head of Tiberius to Constantinople. Notwithstanding this, the Emperor remained unfavorable to the Romans. Moreover, his evil disposition became ever clearer, so that he compelled all the inhabitants of Constantinople everywhere to take away the pictures of the Redeemer, of His holy Mother, and of all the saints, to burn them in the middle of the city, and to smear the painted walls with whitewash. As a good many of the inhabitants resisted, several were executed and others mutilated. The Patriarch Germanus was deposed by the Emperor, who made over the see to Anastasius. The latter sent a Synodica to Rome, but Gregory found that he assented to the heresy, and threatened him with excommunication if he did not return to the Catholic faith. And to the Emperor he gave wholesome counsels in letters. FB87 From all this we learn (1) that even before the imperial edict against images was published in Italy, a violent division between Pope Gregory II. and the Emperor had taken place. How and why it arose, Anastasius does not relate, he only says: The Pope prevented the exarch from imposing a tax on the (Roman) province. By this tax we have to think of an unusual and unjust import, probably similar to the poll-tax which the Emperor Leo, somewhat later, imposed on Calabria and Sicily. FB88 Anastasius indicates that it had been directed chiefly to the plundering of the churches, and perhaps it is here that we are to find the ground of the papal resistance. As to the manner in which this was exercised, its legal character can no longer be ascertained, on account of the quite defective account of Anastasius (and Theophanes). It is only clear from the subsequent behavior of the Pope (which we learn from Anastasius), that he endeavored to preserve carefully his loyalty to the Emperor and to discharge his duties as a subject. It was an opposition to unrighteous demands from authority, and within the bounds of right and duty. But that the Pope did not hinder the payment of legal dues and taxes, nor was guilty even of great disloyalty towards the Emperor, is quite sufficiently clear (a) from the principles which he himself set forth on the relation of the priesthood and the imperial power in his letters to the Emperor Leo.

We shall shortly ascertain their contents more exactly (pp. 293 and 297). FB89 Witnesses for us are also (b) the zealous efforts of Gregory to prevent any kind of rebellion against the Emperor, and all acts of violence against his officials. This is clear from the details which Anastasius gives, and from the letter of the Pope to Duke Ursus in Venice (p. 287). But moreover (c), Paul the deacon is a powerful witness on the same side, since he writes (De rebus gestis Longobard. 6. 49): “Omnis quoque Ravennae exercitus et Venetiarum talibus jussis (for the destruction of the images) uno animo restiterunt, et nisi cos prohibuisset Pontifex, imperatorem super se constituere fuissent aggressi.” When, therefore, the Greeks, who were often badly instructed in Western affairs, assert that the Pope had occasioned the revolt not merely of Italy, but the whole of the West (!) from the Emperor, such an assertion cannot weigh in the balance against the words of Gregory himself, and against the testimony of Anastasius and Paul the deacon. When, however, Zonaras says, “The Pope and his Synod had anathematised the Emperor,” seeing that no other of the ancients mentions it, this must be only a misunderstanding arising out of an expression in the second letter of Gregory to the Emperor Leo (see p. 296 f.), when the Pope, applying the words of S. Paul (1 Corinthians. 5. 5), wishes the Emperor a demon for the destruction of his flesh that his soul may be safe. FB90 On another misunderstanding rests the assertion of the same Zonaras, that Pope Gregory II. had endeavored to form a union with the Franks against the Emperor. That the Pope did make efforts for such a union is quite correct, and Anastasius in his Vita Stephani II. (III.) speaks of it; FB91 but it was directed against the Lombards, not against the Emperor. (2) We remember that Theophanes represents the hindering of the imposition of that tax as a consequence of the controversy about images of the year 726. Anastasius, on the other hand, brings these two events into no connection with one another. (3) He says expressly, the imperial officers had, with the previous knowledge of the Emperor, repeatedly made attempts on the life of the Pope. Some explain this to mean that the Emperor Leo had only given orders that the Pope should be taken and conveyed to Constantinople, of which Gregory himself speaks in his first letter to Leo (see p. 293 f.), and that report had exaggerated the matter, and made the order to imprison a command to murder. FB92 (4) Anastasius speaks of two principal incursions of the Lombards into the imperial domain. The one, in which they seized the city of Narnia, and even Ravenna, the capital of the exarchate, with the harbour of Classis, and carried off much booty, FB93 he places before the arrival of the edict against the images; the other incursion, in which Castra Aemilia, etc., were plundered, later. To the same effect, Paul the deacon (De gestis Longobard. 6. 48, 49) tells of the pillaging of Narnia and Ravenna, before he mentions the prohibition of the images; but speaks of Castra Aemilia, etc., falling into the hands of the Lombards after the appearance of the imperial edict. For full light on this subject, however, we are indebted to the first letter of Gregory II. to the Emperor Leo, in which it is said that many Westerns had been present at the time of the destruction of the figure of Christ in Chalcoprateia in Constantinople, and by telling of this outrage, and of the cruelties connected with it, they had filled the whole of the West with anger against the Emperor, so that the Lombards invaded Decapolis, FB94 and even seized Ravenna. FB95 We see that the Lombards made use of the disagreement of the Italians with the Emperor which had been occasioned by those relations, and invaded his domain, which had long been desired by them. The capture of Ravenna etc., certainly was connected with the prohibition of images, and was a consequence of it; and yet Anastasius and Paul the deacon were right when they put this incident before the publication of the imperial edict in Italy. Undoubtedly those witnesses of the destruction of the figure of Christ in Chalcoprateia brought the first certain intelligence of the attack on the images to Italy. (5) Among the letters of Gregory II. there is one to Ursus, the Dux of Venice. FB96 Gregory says in it: The city of Ravenna was taken a non dicenda genre Longobardorum, and, as he hears, the exarch fled to Venice. The Dux should remain faithful to him, and co-operate with him, so that Ravenna may again be restored to the Emperor. FB97 That this was actually realized we learn from Paul the deacon (De gestis Longobard. 6. 54), who says: In his many wars against the imperialists, the King of the Lombards, Luitprand, was only twice unfortunate — once at Ariminum; the second time, when his nephew Hildebrand, whom he placed over Ravenna, was surprised by a sudden attack of the Venetians, and taken.

That Pope Gregory used the expression of horror, A non dicenda gentre, in reference to the Lombards, is clearly shown by the fact that this letter was written before the Lombards had come nearer to him, and made themselves serviceable to him. Indeed, the recovery of Ravenna must have taken place before, for the exarch Paul was able soon again to send out from Ravenna an army against Rome and the Pope, as Anastasius and Paul the deacon concur in relating. This was that army which was opposed by the united Romans and Lombards at the Pons Salarius (p. 281 f.). (6) Pagi, Walch, and others assume that the imperial edict against the images, of the publication of which in Italy Anastasius speaks, was that of the year 730; FB98 but Anastasius gives us quite another chronological turning-point. After describing the disturbances which this edict caused in Italy, and the indestructible fidelity of the much illused Pope to the Emperor, he thus proceeds: “About the same time (i.e. some time after the publication of the imperial edict), the Lombards, in the 11th Indiction (September 1, 727, 728), got possession of the castle of Sutri, and in January 729 a comet appeared.” According to this, the publication of the imperial decree must have happened some time before the year 728, so that the first decree of the year 726 must here be meant. (7) Theophanes, FB99 immediately after the mention of the first edict against the images, adds that the Pope sent a letter against it to Leo, setting forth “that it was not the Emperor’s business to issue an ordinance on the faith, or to alter anything in the old dogmas.” In two other places also Theophanes speaks (see above, p. 281 f.) of letters of Gregory to the Emperor, and Anastasius also refers to them. But it was not until the sixteenth century that these letters were discovered by the learned Jesuit Fronton le Duc in the library of the Cardinal of Lorraine, and translated from the Greek into Latin. From him Baronius received them, and had them printed for the first time ad ann. 726. Pope Gregory bears in the superscription of these letters, by confusion with Gregory the Great, the surname of .Dialogus, the latter on account of his famous work of that name being often so entitled. These letters soon found their way into the Collections of Councils, and were placed before the Acts of the seventh Oecumenical Council. That they were not, like other similar documents e.g. the letter of the same Pope to the Patriarch Germanus, presented and read at the seventh Oecumenical Council, is certainly remarkable, as Rosler observes; FB100 but is explained by the fact that the Emperor Leo had probably caused the copy which came to Constantinople to be destroyed, and thus the Synod had none in hand. Labbe was mistaken in thinking that these two letters should not be ascribed to Gregory II., but to his successor Gregory III., FB101 and the doubts which Semler and Rosler have raised as to their genuineness are of no importance. As to the time of the composition of these letters, we can form a judgment only after we have communicated their contents.

The first runs: “Your letter, God-protected Emperor and brother, we received through the imperial Spatharocandidatus, when you were reigning in the 14th Indiction. We have preserved safe in the church your letter of this 14th Indiction, and those of the 15th, and of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th. 7th, 8th, and 9th, at the foot of the grave of Peter, where those of your predecessors are also kept. In ten letters you have, as is becoming in a Christian emperor, promised faithfully to observe the doctrines of the Fathers. And above all, the most important is, that they are your own, furnished with the imperial seal, and none interpolated. You write in these:

If anyone removes the ordinances of the Fathers, let him be anathema After receipt of these letters we offered hymns of thanksgiving to God that He had given you the empire. And as you did run well, who has rung the falsehood into your ears and perverted your heart? Ten years by God’s grace you have walked aright, and not mentioned the sacred images; but now you assert that they take the place of idols, and that those who reverence them are idolaters, and want them to be entirely set aside and destroyed. You do not fear the judgment of God, and that offense will be given not merely to the faithful, but also to the unbelieving. Christ forbids our offending even the least, and you have offended the whole world, as if you had not also to die and to give an account. You wrote: 'We may not, according to the command of God ( Exodus 20:4), worship anything made by the hand of man, nor any likeness of that which is in the heaven or in the earth.’ Only prove to me, who has taught us to worship (se>besqai kai< proskunei~n anything made by man’s hands, and I will then agree that it is the will of God. But why have not you, O Emperor and head of the Christians, questioned wise men on this subject before disturbing and perplexing poor people? You could have learnt from them concerning what kind of images made with hands (ceiropoi>hta ) God said that. But you have rejected our Fathers and doctors, although you gave the assurance by your own subscription that you would follow them. The holy Fathers and doctors are our scripture, our light, and our salvation, and the six Synods have taught us (that); but you do not receive their testimony. I am forced to write to you without delicacy or learning, as you also are not delicate or learned; but my letter yet contains the divine truth ¼ God gave that command because of the idolaters who had the land of promise in possession, and worshipped golden animals, etc., saying: These are our gods, and there is no other God. On account of these diabolical ceiropoi>hta , God has forbidden us to worship them. As, however, there are also ceiropoi>hta for the service and honor of God, ¼ God chose and blessed two men from the people of Israel, that they might prepare ceiropoi>hta , but for the honor and service of God, namely, Bezaleel and Aholiab ( Exodus 35:30,34). God Himself wrote the Ten Commandments on two tables of stone, and said: Make cherubim and seraphim, and a table, and overlay it with gold within and without; and make an ark of shittim wood, and in the ark place the testimonies for the remembrance of your tribes, namely, the tables of the Law, and the pot, and the rod, and the manna ( Exodus 25:10-24). Are those objects and figures made by man’s hand or not? But for the honor and the service of God. Moses wished to see the Lord, but He showed Himself to him only from behind. To us, on the contrary, the Lord showed Himself perfectly, since the Son of God has been made man ¼ From all parts men now came to Jerusalem to see Him, and then depicted and represented Him to others.

In the same way they have depicted and represented James, Stephen, and the martyrs; and men, leaving the worship of the devil, have venerated these images, but not absolutely (with latria) but relatively (tau>tav prosejkunhsen ouj latreutikw~v ajlla< scetikw~v ). What think you now, O Emperor, that these images are venerable or those of the diabolical illusion? Christ Himself sent His portrait to Abgar, an ajceiropoi>hton .

FB102 Look on this: many peoples of the East assemble at this, in order to pray there. And also other images made by men’s hands are venerated by pious pilgrims till today Why, then, do we make no representation of God the Father? The divine nature cannot be represented. If we had seen Him, as we have the Son, we could also make an image of Him. We adjure you, as a brother in Christ, turn back again to the truth, and raise up again by a new edict those whom you have made to stumble. Christ knows that so often as we go into the Church of S. Peter, and see the picture of this saint, we are moved and tears flow from us. Christ has made the blind to see: you have made the seeing blind ¼ You say: We worship stones and walls and boards. But it is not so, O Emperor; but they serve us for remembrance and encouragement, lifting our slow spirits upwards by those (persons) whose names the pictures bear, and whose representations they are. And we worship them not as God, as you maintain; God forbid! For we set not our hope on them; and if a picture of the Lord is there, we say: Lord Jesus Christ, help and save us. At a picture of His holy Mother we say: Holy God-bearer, pray for us with thy Son, and so with a martyr. And this is not correct which you say, that we call the martyrs gods. I adjure you, leave off the evil thoughts, and save your soul from the wrath and execration with which the whole world visits you. The children mock at you. Go now into the schools of the children, and say: I am the enemy of images, and they will immediately throw their tables at you. You wrote: As the Jewish King Uzziah (it should be Hezekiah) after 800 years cast the brazen serpent out of the temple ( 2 Kings 18:4), so I after 800 years cast the images out of the churches. Yes, Uzziah was your brother; and, like you, did violence to the priests ( 2 Chronicles 26:16 ff.). That brazen serpent David brought with the Ark of the Covenant into the temple, and it was an image of brass, sanctified by God for the use of those who had been bitten by the serpent ( Numbers 21:9 ff.). We might punish you in accordance with the power which has come down to us from Peter; but you have pronounced a curse upon yourself, FB103 and may now have it with your counselors. What a great edification of the faithful you have destroyed!

Christ knows that, as often as we went into the church, and saw the representation of the miracles of Christ, or the picture of His Mother, the divine Suckling in her arms, and the angels standing round in a circle and acclaiming the Trisagion, we did not go out again without emotion ¼ It would have been better for you to have been a heretic than a destroyer of images. The dogmatisers fall easily into error, when they are lacking in humility, partly from ignorance, partly because of the darkness of the subject; and their guilt is not so great as yours, for .you have persecuted that which is open and clear as light, and stripped the Church of God. The holy Fathers clothed and adorned them; you have stripped them and laid them bare, although you have (e]cwn ) so excellent a high-priest, our brother Germanus. Him you ought to have taken into your counsels as father and teacher, for he has great experience, is now ninety-five years old, and has served many patriarchs and Emperors. But, leaving him aside, you have listened to the impious fool from Ephesus, the son of Apsimar (Archbishop Theodosius, see p. 266), and people like him. The Emperor Constantine (Pogonatus) behaved quite differently when he wrote to Rome about the holding of the sixth Oecumenical Synod. You see that the dogmas of the Church are not a matter for the Emperor, but for the bishops. As these may not intrude into civil affairs, so should not the Emperors into the ecclesiastical. You wrote that an Oecumenical Synod should be called. This seems to me superfluous; for if you are peaceful, all is peaceful. Think: if I had responded to your wish, and the bishops of the whole world had been assembled, where is the God-fearing Emperor who, in accordance with custom, should assist at these assemblies, since you destroy the peace of the Church and imitate the barbarians (Jezid)? ¼ While the churches of God had deep peace, you have occasioned conflicts, controversies, and troubles. Cease and be peaceful, and there is need of no Synod. Write to all the countries which you have disquieted, that Germanus of Constantinople and Pope Gregory of Rome had erred in regard to the images, and we who have the power of binding and loosing will pardon your false step. FB104 God is witness that I communicated all your letters to the, Kings of the West, and made them your friends, commending and praising you. Therefore they accepted and honored your laureata (likenesses) before they heard of your evil undertaking against the images. When, however, they learnt that you sent the Spatharocandidatus Jovinus to Chalcoprateia, to destroy the miraculous figure of Christ, which is called Antiphonetes, pious women, followers of those who anointed the Lord, cried to the Spatharocandidatus: Do it not; and when he paid no regard to them, but mounted a ladder and struck with an axe three times on the face of the figure, the women enraged upset the ladder and killed him; but you sent soldiers and caused I know not how many women to be killed in the presence of many distinguished men from Rome, France, from the Vandals, Goths, and from Mauritania, almost from the whole of the West.

When these returned back, and every one told in his home your childish acts, then they destroyed your laureata, and the Lombards, Sarmatians, and others who dwell in the North, made incursions into the unhappy Decapolis and took the metropolis Ravenna, FB105 deposed your rulers, put their own in their palace, and wanted to do the same with the imperial cities in our neighborhood, and even with Rome itself, unless you can protect us. There you have the fruit of your folly. But you will alarm me and say: I will send to Rome and destroy the picture of S. Peter, and carry off Pope Gregory a prisoner, as Constantine ( Constans II.) did with Martin. You must know that the bishops of Rome, for the sake of peace, sit as middle walls between the East and West, and are promoters of peace.

If you wish to lay snares for me, as you say, I have no need to contend with you. The Roman bishop will merely remove twenty-four stadia to Campania; and then come you and persecute the winds. FB106 The Emperor Constantine (Constans II.) ill-treated and banished our predecessor, Martin I. But the Emperor was murdered in his sins, whilst Martin is honored as a saint. Willingly would I bear the same fate as Martin; but for the benefit of the people I am willing to remain in life; for the whole West turns its eyes on me, although unworthy, and hopes in me and in S. Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy. If you venture upon that, the Westerns are ready to take vengeance upon you for the Easterns whom you have wronged.

But I adjure you by the Lord to leave off from such foolish things. You know that your throne cannot defend Rome, FB107 the city alone, not to think of that which is outside; and if the Pope, as we said, removes himself twenty-four stadia, he has no more to fear from you ¼ If the picture of S.

Peter is really destroyed, I call God to witness that I am innocent of the blood that will then be shed. Let it fall on your head. A prince from the interior of the West, named Septetus, FB108 has prayed me to come to him and administer baptism to him, and I shall do so. May the Lord again place in your heart the fear of God, and bring you back to the truth! Would that I might soon receive from you letters with the news of your conversion.”

FB109 We saw that Pope Gregory, in this letter, repeated quite or almost verbally several passages from the edict which the Emperor had sent on the subject of .the images to Italy. We have quoted those passages above in italics, and since, as we have shown, this edict was not published in Italy in the year 730, but before 728, our desire to be acquainted with the tenor of the first edict, at least in outline, is satisfied. At the same time, we see how Walch and others have gone astray, who regarded the first edict as mild, and would ascribe to it only the prohibition against the kissing of the pictures.

The passages extracted from the edict itself prove its already fully iconoclastic character.

That the Emperor answered the Pope, we learn from the second letter of Gregory: “I have,” says the Pope here, “your letter, God-protected Emperor and brother in Christ, by your messenger Rufinus, and it has quite overshadowed my life, because you have not altered your disposition, but persevere in evil, and refuse to follow the holy Fathers. And yet I make my appeal not to strangers, but to Greek Fathers. You write: I am Emperor and priest at the same time. Yes; your predecessors were so in fact, Constantine the Great, Theodosius the Great, Valentinian the Great, and Constantine (Pogonatus). They reigned as Emperors religiously, and held Synods in union with the bishops, and built and adorned churches. They showed by their works that they were Emperors and priests at the same time; but you have ¼ not observed the decisions of the Fathers, but have plundered and stripped the churches of their ornament ¼ Men and women instruct their children, and the new converts from heathenism, pointing with their fingers to the histories which are painted in the churches, they edify them therewith, and give thereby to their hearts the tendency to go upwards. But you have taken this from the people, and left them nothing but foolish discourses, fables, and musical farces, FB110 Hear me, the lowly one, O Emperor; leave off and follow the holy Church, as you have known it as handed down to you. Doctrines are not matters for the Emperor, but for the bishops, because we have the mind (nou~n ) of Christ ¼ There is a difference between the palace and the Church, between Emperors and bishops. Recognise this, and save yourself ! If you were to be deprived of the imperial robes, the purple, the diadem, etc., you would seem before men to be treated with disrespect. In the like condition you have placed the churches, in robbing them of their adornment. As the bishop has no right to mix himself with the business of the palace, and to give away the offices, so it does not belong to the Emperor to mix in the inner affairs of the Church, to choose the clergy, to administer the sacraments, etc. Let each one remain in the place to which God has called him. Do you know, O Emperor, the difference between Emperor and bishop? When anyone fails in his duty towards you, O Emperor, you take from him his house and property, perhaps also his life, or you banish him. Not so the bishops. If anyone sins, and he confesses, instead of a rope, they lay upon his neck the gospel and the cross, and instead of casting him into prison, they bring him into the Diaconia or Catechumena of the Church, FB111 and impose upon him fasting, etc. If he has repented, they administer to him the body and blood of the Lord ¼ You persecute and tyrannise over us with military and physical force; but we, without weapons or earthly army, invoke the Leader of the armies of the whole creation, Jesus Christ, that He may send you a demon, according to the words of the apostle ( 1 Corinthians 5:5): (‘I will) deliver him to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.’ Behold, O Emperor, into such misery you plunge yourself. How unhappy are we compared with our forefathers, who, on account of their good influence on the Emperors, will obtain praise in the day of judgment, while we shall be forced to blush because we cannot present our Emperor before God glorious and rich in renown. Behold, even now we exhort you: repent and return to the truth, and honor the holy Fathers. You wrote: How comes it that in the six Councils nothing is said of images? But there is nothing said there, O Emperor, of bread and water, whether it shall be eaten and drunk, or not, because here the custom stood fast. So also the custom of the pictures; and the bishops themselves brought pictures with them to the Councils, as no pious man traveled without pictures. We exhort you to be at once bishop and Emperor, as you wrote. If you are ashamed, as Emperor, to ascribe the guilt of your mistake to yourself (aijtiologh~sai eJauto>n ), then write into all the places which you have troubled, that Pope Gregory of Rome and Germanus of Constantinople made a mistake in regard to the images, and we forgive you your false step, by virtue of our power to bind and loose ¼ As we must give account to Christ, we have exhorted you; but you have not listened to our lowliness, nor to Germanus, nor to the holy Fathers, but have followed the perverters and falsifiers of the true doctrine.

As we have written, we shall travel into the interior of the West, in order to administer holy baptism. I have already sent bishops and clergy thither, but the leaders of these countries are not yet baptized, and prefer to be baptized by me. God grant to you insight and a change of mind.” FB112 When we compare the expressions of Theophanes, adduced above (p. 281), in the letters of Gregory to the Emperor Leo, with the contents of the two now quoted, there can be no doubt that Theophanes had these very letters, and no others, in his eye. That which he presents as the chief contents of the papal letters, “It does not belong to the Emperor to issue ordinances in regard to the faith, or to alter anything in the old doctrines,” we find not only verbally in our two letters, but it is even a leading argument there. If, notwithstanding, it is attempted to distinguish the latter from those which Theophanes mentions, and to declare them considerably later, this rests upon a false assumption which proceeded from Pagi, which has perforce made its way through almost all later books, and with this we come to the examination into the time of the composition of the two papal letters.

Baronius had placed them at the beginning of the controversy, thus in the year 726, and had regarded them with Theophanes as an answer to the imperial edict. This was contested by Pagi (ad ann. 726, 3-6; 730, 7).

Supporting himself upon the life of the Abbot S. Stephen (p. 273), Pagi removes the breaking of the figure of Christ over the calkh~ pu>lh , or in Chalcoprateia, into the time after the deposition of Germanus, and after the consecration of Anastasius, thus into the year 730. Of this event, so Pagi further argues, Pope Gregory speaks in his first letter, consequently this must be placed deeper into the year 730, and accordingly the second at the end of the year 730 or the beginning of 731, for Gregory II. died February 11, 731.

As already remarked, we contest the foundation of this whole argument, since, with Theophanes and others, we refer the incident at the calkh~ to the year 726; and the first letter of Gregory himself confirms us in this, since he informs us that the first information of the Emperor’s attack on the images (thus before the arrival of his edict) was given by witnesses of that act of violence who had come into the West. But that the first edict was published in Italy before the year 728 we learnt from Anastasius (p. 288).

Pagi appeals a second time to the fact that Pope Gregory, in his first letter to Leo, speaks of Germanus as former patriarch, in the words: “Tametsi talem habebas pontificem” (Pagi, ad ann. 726, 3). But this Latin translation is well known to be only a work of Fronton le Duc, and the Greek text has e]cwn (p. 292), and in neither letter of Gregory is there any indication that Germanus had then been deposed. Pagi, in the third place, refers to the short chronological indications which are found at the beginning of the first papal letter to the Emperor Leo. Gregory says in it that he has received the letter of the Emperor of the 14th Indiction. As Leo became Emperor on March 25 of the 15th Indiction, as Theophanes says, the 14th Indiction would go from the 1st of September 730 to the 1st of September 731, and accordingly the answer of the Pope must be referred to the year 730 (Pagi, ad ann. 730, 7). But this argument, which Pagi brings forward with such confidence, we must turn against himself. If the Emperor, in the 14th Indiction, thus after September 1, 730, wrote to the Popes and that the Emperor did write in the 14th Indiction, not that the Pope answered in this Indiction, the words of Gregory declare expressly — if the Emperor wrote so late, after September 1, 730, then a good many weeks would elapse before this letter arrived in Rome, and weeks again before the Pope despatched his answer, which would not only be well considered, but undoubtedly discussed in council with his clergy. The year 730 must now have come to an end. But the papal answer is now sent to Constantinople, and again weeks were necessary for this. The Emperor answers it, sends the answer to Rome, and the Pope writes to him the second time, and all this must have taken place in the year 730 or in January 731 (Pagi, ad ann . 730, 10). Such despatch in official and diplomatic intercourse would be a rare thing even in the times of railways and telegraphs. I think, then, we may venture to maintain: If Gregory II. died on February 11, 731, and Pagi throws no doubt upon this, then the facts so often mentioned above — the letter of the Emperor, its conveyance to Rome, the answer of the Pope, its conveyance to Constantinople, the reply of the Emperor, its conveyance to Rome, and the second letter of the Pope following upon this — could not be pressed into the brief time between September 1,730, and the death of the Pope.

Pope Gregory places the letters which he received from the Emperor in the following order: — That of the 14th, that of the 15th, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th Indiction. Pagi thinks here that the letter placed primo loco of the 14th Indiction was the latest of the year 730, the one following the earliest of the year 717, and so the series would go on; only, there is a gap between the 9th Indiction and the 14th, i.e. from 725 to 730, as the Emperor, in these five years, apparently had not written to the Pope.

FB113 To me it seems more natural that Pope Gregory referred to all the letters which he received from the Emperor in chronological order, beginning with the earliest and ending with the latest. This latest would then be that of the 9th Indiction, or of the year 726, and this we regard as the one which contained the offensive remarks on the images. This agrees perfectly with the date of the beginnings of the controversy on the images, and with the expression of Gregory, that Leo had begun his follies in the tenth year of his government. This tenth regnal year bears the Indiction number 9. Gregory adds: Ten letters of the Emperor had been quite right, and this number of ten we obtain, even if we take away from the series given above the last letter of the 9th Indiction. Moreover, we shall be constrained, by what has been said, to the same inference as Baronius.

Thus, if the first or earliest letter of the Emperor Leo to Pope Gregory belongs to the 14th In-diction, then the beginning of his reign must be placed in the year 716, and not, with Theophanes, in 717. FB114 And we are not afraid to do this, in spite of the express statement of Theophanes, for the latter reckons the regnal years of Leo from the day of his solemn entrance into Constantinople, and therefore ascribes to the Emperor Leo a government of 24 years 2 months and 25 days. Nicephorus, on the contrary, gives in his Chronicon, 25 years 3 months and 14: days, reckoning from the moment at which Leo rose against the weak Theodosius, and was proclaimed Emperor in the camp. FB115 It :is not, therefore, improbable that the Emperor Leo, at the very beginning of his elevation, and so still in the 14th Indiction, i.e. in the year 716, sought also to win for himself, in the West, so powerful a Pope, and assured him, by letter, of his orthodoxy, knowing well that the Italian provinces of the Empire would recognize him much more readily if the Pope spoke for him.

Thus do we believe that we have placed the occurrences of the first Lustrum of the controversy about images in their true light, and, at the same time, in the correct chronological order.

SEC. 333. THE FIRST SYNODS ON THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT IMAGES.

We assumed before, in the discussion of the chronological question, that Pope Gregory II., after the arrival of the imperial edict against the images, did not immediately return an answer, but only after mature reflection and consultation. This supposition finds itself confirmed, not only by the statements of Cedrenus and of the Libellus Synodicus, which speak of a Synod which Gregory now held at Rome, but also Pope Hadrian I. refers to such an assembly in his letter to Charles the Great. FB116 He says that Pope Gregory II. gave an address on the permissibility of the veneration of images, and he produces several of the arguments used, e.g ., in regard to the ark of the covenant, the cherubim, to Bezaleel and Aholiab, which have so great a similarity with some passages of the two letters of Gregory to the Emperor, that we may suppose that Gregory had also delivered in the Synod the principal part of that which he wrote to the Emperor. Naturally, this Roman Synod was contemporaneous with the first letter of Gregory to the Emperor Leo, and may therefore properly be, placed in the year 727.

FB117 In immediate connection with this Roman Synod, the Libellus Synodicus places a Council at Jerusalem under the Patriarch Theodore, which anathematised the new heresy of the “burners of the sanctuary.” As, however, Theodore demonstrably had possession of the see of Jerusalem after the middle of the eighth century, and despatched a Synodica to Pope Paul I. (757-767) in favor of the images, FB118 our Synod cannot be earlier than 760.

In Rome, after the death of Gregory II., the excellent priest Gregory III., by birth a Syrian, was raised to the papal throne, March 18, 731. The whole people, says Anastasius, FB119 at the funeral procession, as he was following the bier, called him with one consent to be Pope, and constrained him to receive this dignity. Soon he too endeavored to turn the Emperor away from his iconoclasm; but the priest George, whom he had sent with a letter to Constantinople, had not the courage to deliver it, and returned back with the business undone. The Pope wanted to depose him, but the Synod which he had convoked at Rome on this account, A.D. 731, FB120 interceded for him, so that he was merely subjected to penance, and then was sent anew with the same letter to Constantinople. When he came on his journey to Sicily, Sergius, the viceroy there, at the Emperor’s command, had him seized, and kept him a whole year long in prison. The Pope, however, full of indignation at this, immediately celebrated a new Synod at the grave of S. Peter, at which ninety-three Western bishops were present, among them the Archbishops Anthony of Grado and John of Ravenna, FB121 with the priests, deacons, and clerics of the Roman Church, and many distinguished laymen. It was decreed: “If anyone, for the future, shall take away, destroy, dishonor, or revile the pictures of the Lord or of His Mother, he shall be excluded from the body and blood of the Lord and the communion of the Church.” They all solemnly subscribed this. That this Synod was summoned on November 1, 731 (Indict. 15.), we see from the letter of invitation which Pope Gregory III. addressed to Archbishop Anthony of Grado and his suffragans. FB122 The Pope then sent again a letter in favor of the pictures through the Defensor (sc. pauperum , an office among the Roman clergy) Constantine to the Emperor. But he was also imprisoned in Sicily, and the letter taken from him. The same happened to the deputies of the Italian cities, who had to bring similar letters to Constantinople. On the result of a fourth attempt which the Pope made to send letters, by the Defensor Peter, to the Patriarch Anastasius and the two Emperors, Leo and Constantine (Copronymus, the son of Leo), our authorities are, silent. FB123 In order to punish the Pope, Rome, and Italy for their opposition to iconoclasm, the Emperor Leo sent out a powerful fleet against them. It suffered shipwreck in the Adriatic Sea, and Leo now raised the taxes in Sicily and Calabria, and confiscated the patrimonies of the two apostle princes, i.e. the 3½ talents of gold coming annually to their churches (at Rome) for the exchequer FB124 Besides, Leo now separated, besides Calabria and Sicily, also the Illyrian provinces which hitherto belonged to the patriarchate of Rome, namely, Old and New Epirus, Illyricum, Macedonia, Thessaly, Achaia, Dacia Ripensis and Mediterranea, Moesia, Dardania, and Praevalis (with its metropolis Scodra), and subjected them to the patriarchate of Constantinople, an act of violence which in great measure became the cause of the later unhappy schism. FB125 SEC. 334. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.

Besides and along with Pope Gregory II. and Gregory II. and the Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople, John of Damascus belonged to the first and most powerful defenders of images. Theophanes (l.c . p. 629) says of him: “Then (729) lived at Damascus, John Chrysorrhoas, the son of Mansur, priest and monk, distinguished for holiness and knowledge ¼ In union with the bishops of the whole East, he pronounced anathema on the Emperor Leo.” This account is very summary, for, at the outbreak of the controversy on images, John was not yet either priest or monk, but he occupied then one of the highest offices of State with the Caliph who ruled over Syria. At the news of the transactions in Constantinople, he prepared three discourses in defense of the images (lo>goi ajpologhtikoi> ), the first at the very beginning of the controversy, when it might still be hoped that the Emperor would be brought by reason to a change in his conduct; the other two after the deposition of the Patriarch Germanus. FB126 His ancient biography relates that the Emperor Leo, in order to revenge himself on John, got up and caused to be sent to the Caliph a false letter, in which John invited him to surprise the city of Damascus. Not suspecting the deception, the Caliph caused the right hand of the supposed traitor to be hewn off; but, at the intercession of Mary, the piece which had been cut off grew on again during the night, and the Caliph, astonished at this, asked forgiveness of the saint, and wished to appoint him again to his high office.

But John preferred to become a monk, and withdrew to Palestine, into the Laura of S. Sabas. FB127 That he did the latter is beyond doubt.

SEC. 335 THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE COPRONYMUS.

What the Emperor Leo the Isaurian did in the last years of his reign (June 18, 741) in regard to the images is unknown; but it is certain that the conflict was carried on by his son Constantine Copronymus. FB128 The widespread disaffection towards the new Emperor, whom his contemporaries depict in the darkest colors, encouraged his brother-in-law Artabasdus, who had married the Princess Anna, and at that time commanded in Armenia against the Arabs, to make an attempt upon the crown for himself. FB129 Constantine pretended to take no notice, and invited his brother-in-law and his sons to him, to consult about plans for war, but in truth to seize him. But Artabasdus saw through the trick, took to arms, struck and killed the renegade Beser, who first opposed him, and marched to Constantinople, where he had himself solemnly proclaimed Emperor. The governor Theophanes, to whom Constantine had entrusted the capital, did his best for Artabasdus, especially by circulating the false report that Constantine was dead, and that his brother-in-law was recognised as Emperor in the whole of the East. Partly from his own inclination, partly to gain the people over more to himself, Artabasdus soon restored the veneration of images, and the Patriarch Anastasius of Constantinople, the same who had been the tool of the departed Emperor in his attack on the images, and had so basely supplanted Germanus, now took the side of the images and for Artabasdus, and solemnly and publicly declared the Emperor Constantine to be a detestable heretic, who had even impudently denied the Godhead of Christ.

There were now two Emperors, since Artabasdus ruled in Europe, Constantine in Asia; but each intended, as far as possible, soon to supplant the other. Schlosser, in his history of the iconoclastic Emperors (S. 205), writes: “The Pope (Zacharias), however, acknowledged the protector of the images (Artabasdus), and entered into friendly intercourse with him.”

This is incorrect, for in truth Zacharias, soon after coming to the see, sent legates to Constantinople with a letter to the Emperor Constantine, and with the commission to deliver the customary papal letter of enthronisation, which was addressed to the Church at Constantinople, but not to the excommunicated patriarch. When the papal legates arrived in Constantinople, as we are told by the Roman Vitae Pontificum, they found the invasor and rebellis Artabasdus in possession of the imperial power, then waited until Constantine had regained the Empire, and were now by him quite friendly received, and sent back to Rome with presents. In particular, the Emperor confirmed to the Roman Church the perpetual possession of the two properties of Nymphae and Normice, FB130 all which would certainly not have been done if the Pope had taken part with the usurper. The fact that in Rome, after Artabasdus was practically master of Constantinople, the documents were dated according to the years of his reign, in noways proves that his side was taken. More correct than the judgment of Schlosser was that of Walch (l.c. Bd. 10. S. 359, A. 3).

With the restoration of Constantine came the following events. After the great attack which Artabasdus, in union with his son Nicetas, made upon Constantine, in order to assail him from two sides, from the east and from the west, and to crush him, had entirely failed through the delay of Nicetas, Constantine marched across the Bosporus, blockaded Constantinople, and, on the 2nd of November 743, captured the city, weakened by terrible famine, and took a horrible revenge on his opponents, particularly on his brother-in-law, his adherents and friends. FB131 The Patriarch Anastasius also was blinded, and led through the streets seated backwards upon an ass. Nevertheless Constantine replaced him, probably because he could find no more servile tool, and immediately with his assistance removed again the images which had been restored under Artabasdus. His contemporaries regarded the terrible plague which then raged, specially in Constantinople (A.D. 746), as a punishment of this outrage. FB132 Whether special acts of violence now took place against the friends of the images is unknown. In any case they were afterwards frightfully persecuted.

SEC. 336. THE MOCK-SYNOD AT CONSTANTINOPLE, A.D. 754.

The Emperor Constantine Pogonatus now formed the plan of having the veneration of images forbidden also ecclesiastically by means of a great Oecumenical Synod, and a preparation for this was made by several Silentia (assemblies for consultation), which he caused to be held (A.D. 752) in several cities, principally in order to mislead the people and gain them over to his impiety, as Theophanes says (p. 659). About this time the Lombards under King Astolph rent off and took possession of one piece after another of the still Byzantine provinces of Italy, and very seriously threatened Rome itself. In vain Pope Stephen III. entreated that the Emperor, in accordance with his oft-given promise, would send a distinguished commander to Italy, as the need had become very great; but Copronymus, without disturbing himself, gave an evasive answer, and preferred to fight the images rather than the Lombards. Thus shamefully abandoned by their own master and protector, Pope Stephen had recourse to Pipin, King of the Franks, FB133 and, whilst with this purpose he remained in France, and anointed Pipin with his sons as Kings, the Emperor, after the death of the Patriarch Anastasius (A.D. 753), summoned the bishops of his Empire to a great Synod in the palace Hieria, which lay opposite to Constantinople on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus, between Chrysopolis and Chalcedon, a little to the north of the latter. The vacancy of the patriarchate facilitated his plans, since the hope of succeeding to this see kept down, in the most ambitions and aspiring of the bishops, any possible thought of opposition. The number of those present amounted to 338 bishops, and the place of president was occupied by Arch-bishop Theodosius of Ephesus, already known to us as son of a former Emperor Apsimar, from the beginning an assistant in the iconoclastic movement (see above, sec. 332). Nicephorus (l.c. p. 7 4) names him alone as president of the Synod; Theophanes, on the contrary (l.c. p. 659), mentions Bishop Pastillas of Perge as second president, and adds, “The patriarchates of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem were not represented (the last three were then in the hands of the Saracens), the transactions began on February 10, and lasted until August (in Hieria); on the latter date, however, the Synod assembled in S. Mary’s Church in Blachernae, the northern suburb of Constantinople, and the Emperor now solemnly nominated Bishop Constantine of Sylaeum, a monk, as patriarch of Constantinople. On August 27, the heretical decree (of the Synod) was published.”

We see from this that the last session or sessions of this Conciliabulum were held no longer in Hieria, but in the Blachernae of Constantinople. We have no complete Acts of this assembly, but its very verbose o[rov (decree), together with a short introduction, is preserved among the Acts of the seventh Oecumenical Council. In its sixth section a document in six tomi was read, bearing the title, “Refutation of the patched-up, falsely so - called decree of the heap of accusers of the Christians,” FB134 which contained both the words of the Conciliabulum itself and their complete refutation, by an anonymous writer. Bishop Gregory of Neo-Caesarea read the o[rov to the Synod, and the deacon John its refutation. FB135 In the superscription of these Acts, the Conciliabulum entitles itself “the seventh great and Oecumenical Synod,” and says: “By the grace and command of the Emperors Constantine and (his four-year-old son) Leo, FB136 the Council assembled in the imperial residence city, in the temple of the holy and inviolate Mother of God and Virgin Mary, surnamed, in Blachernae, have decreed the following.” Then follows their o[rov which, in its leading points, runs thus: — “Satan misguided men, so that they worshipped the creature instead of the Creator. The Mosiac law and the prophets co-operated to undo this ruin; but in order to save mankind thoroughly, God sent His own Son, who turned us away from error and the worshipping of idols, and taught us the worshipping of God in spirit and in truth. As messengers of His saving doctrine, He left us His apostles and disciples, and these adorned the Church, His Bride, with His glorious doctrines. This ornament of the Church the holy Father and the six Oecumenical Councils have preserved inviolate. But Satan could not endure the sight of this adornment, and gradually brought back idolatry under the appearance of Christianity. As then Christ armed His apostles against the ancient idolatry with the power of the Holy Spirit, and sent them out into all the world, so has He awakened against the new idolatry His servants our faithful Emperors, and endowed them with the same wisdom of the Holy Spirit. Impelled by the Holy Spirit, they could no longer be witnesses of the Church being laid waste by the deception of demons, and summoned the sanctified assembly of the God-beloved bishops, that they might institute at a Synod a scriptural examination into the deceitful colouring of pictures, which draws down the spirit of man from the lofty worship of God to the low and material worship of the creature, and that they, under divine guidance, might express their view on the subject.

Our holy Synod therefore assembled, and we, its 338 members, follow the older synodal decrees, and accept and proclaim joyfully the dogmas handed down, principally those of the six holy Oecumenical Synods at Nicaea, etc.

After we had carefully examined their decrees under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we found that the sinful art of painting blasphemed the fundamental doctrine of our salvation, namely, the Incarnation of Christ, and contradicted the six holy Synods. These condemned Nestorius because he divided Christ into two sons, and on the other side, Arius, Dioscurus, Eutyches, and Severus, because they maintained a mingling of the two natures of the one Christ. It is the unanimous doctrine of all the holy Fathers and of the six Oecumenical Synods, that no one may imagine any kind of separation or mingling in opposition to the unsearchable, unspeakable, and incomprehensible union of the two natures in the one hypostasis or person. What avails, then, the folly of the painter, who from sinful love of gain depicts that which should not be depicted, that is, with his polluted hands he tries to fashion that which should only be believed in the heart and confessed with the mouth? He makes an image and calls it Christ. The name Christ signifies God and man. Consequently it is an image of God and man, and consequently he has in his foolish mind, in his representation of the created flesh, depicted the Godhead which cannot be represented, and thus mingled what should not be mingled. Thus he is guilty of a double blasphemy, the one in making an image of the Godhead and the other by mingling the Godhead and manhood. Those fall into the same blasphemy who venerate the image, and the same woe rests upon both, because they err as did Arius, Dioscurus, and Eutyches. When, however, they are blamed for undertaking to depict the divine nature of Christ, which should not be depicted, they take refuge in the excuse: We represent only the flesh of Christ which we saw and handled. But that is a Nestorian error. For it should be considered that that flesh was also flesh of God the Logos, without any separation, perfectly assumed by the divine nature and made wholly divine. How could it now be separated and represented apart? So is it with the human soul of Christ which mediates between the Godhead of the Son and the human flesh. As the human flesh is at the same time flesh of God the Logos, so is the human soul also soul of God the Logos, both together, since the soul is made divine, and the divinity of both, of body and soul, cannot be separated. Just as the soul of Christ separated from His body by His voluntary death, so the Godhead remained as well with the soul as with the body of Christ. How, then, do the fools venture to separate the flesh from the Godhead, and represent it by itself as the image of a mere man? They fall into the abyss of impiety, since they separate the flesh from the Godhead, ascribe to it a subsistence of its own, a personality of its own, which they depict, and thus introduce a fourth person into the Trinity. Moreover, they represent, as not being made divine, that which has been made divine by being assumed by the Godhead.

Whoever, then, makes an image of Christ, either depicts the Godhead which cannot be depicted, and mingles it with the manhood (like the Monophysites), or he represents the body of Christ as not made divine and separate and as a person apart, like the Nestorians. The only admissible figure of the humanity of Christ, however, is bread and wine in the holy Supper. This and no other form, this and no other type, has He chosen to represent His humanity. Bread He ordered to be brought, but not a representation of the human form, so that idolatry might not arise. And as the body of Christ is made divine, so also this figure of the body of Christ, the bread, is made divine by the descent of the Holy Spirit; it becomes the divine body of Christ by the service of the priest.

The evil custom of assigning false names to the images (e.g., to say: That is Christ) does not come down from Christ and the apostles and the holy Fathers; nor have these left behind them any prayer by which an image should be hallowed or made anything else than ordinary matter. If, however, some say, we might be right in regard to the images of Christ, on account of the mysterious union of the two natures, but it is not right for us to forbid also the images of Mary, of the prophets, apostles, and martyrs, who were mere men and did not consist of two natures; we may reply, first of all: If those fall away, there is no longer need of these. But we will also consider what may be said against these in particular. Christianity has rejected the whole of heathenism, and so not merely heathen sacrifices, but also the heathen worship of images. The saints live on eternally with God, although they have died. If anyone thinks to call them back again to life by a dead art, discovered by the heathen, he makes himself guilty of blasphemy. Who dares attempt with heathenish art to paint the Mother of God, who is exalted above all heavens and the saints? It is not permitted to Christians, who have the hope of the resurrection, to imitate the customs of demon-worshippers, and to insult the saints, who shine in so great glory, by common dead matter.

Moreover, we can prove our view from Holy Scripture and the Fathers. In the former it is said: “God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth” (S. John 4:24); and: “Thou shalt not make thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath” ( Deuteronomy 5:8); on which account God spoke to the Israelites on the Mount, from the midst of the fire, but showed them no image ( Deuteronomy 5:4). Further: “They changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, ¼ and served the creature more than the Creator” ( Romans 1:23,25). (Several other passages are even less to the point.)

The same is taught also by the holy Fathers. (The Synod appeals to a spurious passage from Epiphanius, and to one inserted into the writings of Theodotus of Ancyra, a friend of S. Cyril, to utterances in no way striking — of Gregory of Nazianzus, of SS. Chrysostom, Basil, Athanasius, of Amphilochius and Eusebius Pamphili, from his letter to the Empress Constantia, who had asked him for a picture of Christ.) Supported by the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers, we declare unanimously, in the name of the Holy Trinity, that there shall be rejected and removed and cursed out of the Christian Church every likeness which is made out of any material whatever by the evil art of painters. Whoever in future dares to make such a thing, or to venerate it, or set it up in a church or in a private house, or possesses it in secret, shall, if bishop, priest, or deacon, be deposed, if monk or layman, anathematised and become liable to be tried by the secular laws as an adversary of God and an enemy of the doctrines handed down by the Fathers. At the same time we ordain that no incumbent of a church shall venture, under pretext of destroying the error in regard to images, to lay his hands on the holy vessels in order to have them altered, because they are adorned with figures. FB137 The same is provided in regard to the vestments of churches, cloths, and all that is dedicated to divine service. If, however, the incumbent of a church wishes to have such church vessels and vestments altered, he must do this only with the assent of the holy Oecumenical patriarch (of Constantinople) and of our pious Emperors. So also no prince or secular official shall rob the churches, as some have done in former times, under the pretext of destroying images.

All this we ordain, believing that we speak apostolically, and that we “have the Holy Spirit” ( 1 Corinthians 7:40).

To this o[rov they added immediately a series of anathematisms, in the first of which the orthodox doctrine of the six Oecumenical Councils is briefly and accurately set forth. Then, passing on to their own subject, they declare: “ (1) If anyone ventures to represent the divine image (carakth>r, Hebrews 1:3) of the Logos after the Incarnation with material colors, let him be anathema! (2) If anyone ventures to represent in human figures, by means of material colors, by reason of the Incarnation, the substance or person (ousia or hypostasis) of the Word, which cannot be depicted, and does not rather confess that even after the Incarnation He (the Logos) cannot be depicted, let him be anathema! (3) If anyone ventures to represent the hypostatic union of the two natures in a picture, and calls it Christ, and thus falsely represents a union of the two natures, etc.! (4) If anyone separates the flesh united with the person of the Logos from it, and endeavors to represent it separately in a picture, etc.! (5) If anyone separates the one Christ into two persons, and endeavors to represent Him who was born of the Virgin separately, and thus accepts only a relative (scetikh> ) union of the natures, etc.! (6) If anyone represents the flesh made divine by its union with the Logos in a picture, and thus separates it from the Godhead, etc.! (7) If anyone endeavors to represent, by material colors, God the Logos as a mere man, who, although bearing the form of God, yet has assumed the form of a servant in His own person, and thus endeavors to separate Him from His inseparable Godhead, so that he thereby introduces a quaternity into the Holy Trinity, etc.! (8) If anyone shall endeavor to represent the forms of the saints in lifeless pictures with material colors which are of no value, — for this notion is erroneous and introduced by the devil, — and does not rather represent their virtues as living images in himself, etc.!”

After they had added some orthodox sentences on the veneration and invocation of the saints, etc., they conclude thus: “If anyone does not accept this our Holy and Oecumenical seventh Synod, let him be anathema from the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and all the seven Oecumenical Synods! Let no one set forth another faith! ¼ Thus we all believe; this we voluntarily subscribe; this is the faith of the apostles. Many years to the Emperors! They are the lights of orthodoxy! Many years to the orthodox Empress! God preserve your Empire! You have now more firmly proclaimed the inseparability of the two natures of Christ! You have banished all idolatry! You have destroyed the heresies of Germanus (of Constantinople). George, FB138 and Mansur (mansou>r , John Damascene).

Anathema to Germanus, the double-minded, FB139 and worshipper of wood!

Anathema to George, his associate, to the falsifier of the doctrine of the Fathers! Anathema to Mansur, who has an evil name and Saracen opinions!

To the betrayer of Christ and the enemy of the Empire, to the teacher of impiety, the perverter of Scripture, Mansur, anathema! The Trinity has deposed these three!”

The Libellus Synodicus states that the Emperor Constantine at this Synod also denied the intercessions of the saints and burnt the relics. FB140 Similarly, it is said in the history of the life of the Abbot S. Stephen, that the Synod uttered blasphemies against the saints and the immaculate Mother of God, as if they could not help us after their death; FB141 but, as we saw above, everyone was expressly anathematised by the Synod, who rejected the invocation of Mary and denied her intercession. On the other hand, it seems true that the Emperor, in his own person, subsequently did that which those two documents ascribe to the Conciliabulum, and that their statement rests only upon an interchange of names.

SEC. 337. CARRYING OUT OF THE SYNODAL DECREES.

ABBOT STEPHEN.

The immediate consequence of this Synod was that the images were everywhere removed from the churches, many were burnt, the wallpictures and mosaics smeared over with chalk. In a special manner the Vita S. Stephani complains of the devastation of the splendid Church of S. Mary in Blaehernae, on the walls of which were represented the Incarnation of Christ and His miracles and acts, until His ascension into heaven and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. In order not to leave the walls bare, they were now decorated with landscapes, with pictures of trees and birds, or, as the Vita Stephani s ays, turned into a bird-cage and fruit magazine. The same took place in all the public buildings and palaces, e.g. that of the patriarch. FB142 The sacred pictures were destroyed, but “satanic representations of ridings, hunts, plays, horse-races, and the like, were held in honor and beautified.” FB143 At the same time, the Emperor demanded of all the bishops and of the most distinguished monks a written assent to the decree of his Synod. We do not learn that one single man among the bishops and secular clergy of the whole [Byzantine] kingdom refused; but so much the more earnestly was opposition made by many monks. FB144 That the bishops of the East, who were no longer under Byzantium, in no way assented, we shall see later on (sec. 340). Alarmed by the demand of the Emperor, the monks of the neighborhood of Constantinople and from Bithynia gradually betook themselves to the celebrated Abbot S. Stephen, on the mountain of S.

Auxentius, in order to take counsel with him. Born in the year 715, Stephen was, while still quite young, brought by his parents to the anchorite John on the mountain of S. Aurelius over against Constantinople.

After he had spent a long time in this monastery, and had already obtained a great fame for holiness, he obtained, as a recluse, a cave on the top of this mountain, above the monastery, and hither came now the monks from the neighborhood of Constantinople. Stephen counselled them to give way before the violence of the Emperor, and to go into neighborhoods which had not yet been infected by heresy, namely, into the mountains on the Pontus Euxinus, which were the boundary of Scythia, the neighborhoods of the Bosporus, Cherson, Nicopsis, those on the Parthenic sea (east end of the Mediterranean), to Reggio, Naples, Italy, etc. Abbot Stephen added: Of Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch he will not make mention, as the bishops of these cities have declared themselves in writing as opposed to the Emperor, and have called him an apostate and heresiarch (see below, sec. 340). So also S. John of Damascus has not ceased to oppose him as a second Mahomet, burner of images, and enemy of the saints. FB145 The monks followed the counsel of S. Stephen, and in great numbers forsook the residence and its neighborhood. Those left behind concealed themselves. Many came to Rome, and the new Pope, Paul I (since 758), for this reason ordered that in Rome the Psalms should also be sung in Greek, i.e. that the Greeks who had come there might say their office in their own manner. FB146 SEC. 338. THE STATES OF THE CHURCH THREATENED FROM THE BEGINNING BY THE GREEKS.

The greater acts of violence on the part of the Emperor, in destroying the images and persecuting those who venerated them, meet us generally for the first time from the years 761 and 763. Apparently the two unlucky wars against the Bulgarians in the years 756 and 760, FB147 and the anxieties respecting Italy, had from prudential reasons made a temporary pause in the iconoclastic fury. In Italy, in the year 755, this great change had taken place, that the King of the Franks, Pipin the Short, took away from the Lombard Astolph the exarchate of Ravenna and Pentapolis, and had made of these provinces, formerly subject to the Byzantines, a present to S.

Peter, i.e. to the Roman Church. The attempt of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, by means of two ambassadors whom he sent to Pipin, to get back those lands, miscarried; since Pipin, as is well known, declared: “The Franks had not shed their blood for the Greeks, but for S. Peter and the salvation of their souls, and he would not, for all the gold in the world, take back his promise made to the Roman Church.” Whether the Pope at this time came into the secular possession of the city and the Duchy of Rome is a contested point, the decision of which we are not required to settle. It is certain, on the contrary, that the Byzantine Emperor, in the years 757 and 758, sent ambassadors both to Pipin and to Desiderius, the new King of the Lombards, and presented the former with an organ, the first that came into the West, in order, by the help of these two princes, to come again into possession of the exarchate and of Pentapolis. With the same object, his emissaries cultivated the people of Ravenna and the neighborhood, and a fleet, which he fitted out either at this time or somewhat later (A.D. 764), was intended to give effect by force to his demands. FB148 Pope Paul I, who then occupied the holy see, took every pains to work in opposition to the Byzantines, and to obtain as a perpetual adherent King Pipin, who, with the title of Patrician, had undertaken the duty of protection over the Roman Church. His position was in this respect so much the more difficult, as his own legate in France, the Cardinal Priest Marinus, had then concluded a serious friendship with the Byzantine ambassador. FB149 In one of the letters which Pope Paul now addressed to Pipin, he assured him that it was the affair of the images that was the principal cause of the great anger of the Greeks against Rome. FB150 SEC. 339. THE CRUELTIES OF THE EMPEROR CONSTANTINE COPRONYMUS.

From the year 761 the venerators of images were persecuted with a cruelty which recalls the times of Diocletian, and there goes through all our historical sources a cry of horror on account of it. Some new light was brought into the history of these persecutions, particularly a later chronological arrangement, by the new volume of the Bollandists, which appeared, A.D. 1853, in the treatise de S. Andrea Cretensi, dicto in Crisi, by which several errors, which from early times had passed into all the books, were corrected. FB151 The Bollandists discovered two hitherto unprinted and mutually independent martyrologies of S. Andrew, whilst hitherto only a Latin translation of the second of them (in Surius) had been known. FB152 From these two martyrologies and several ancient Greek Synaxaria (= festal kalendars), compared with the Vita S. Stephani, it results that Theophanes confounded two of the most distinguished martyrs of the time of Copronymus, Andrew and Peter; or, more exactly, not themselves, but only their names, for everything else which he tells respecting them is perfectly right, if only we exchange the names.

As earliest martyr he mentions, in the twenty-first year of the Emperor, 6253 of the world, “the venerable monk, Andrew Kalybites,” whom “Constantine caused to be put to death by scourging in the Blachernae, in the circus of S. Mamas, reproaching him with impiety. His corpse was cast into the water; but his sisters brought him up and buried him in the market of the Emporium. FB153 Instead of Andrew Kalybites, we should here read Peter Kalybites (i.e. inhabitant of a kalu>bh or hut), FB154 of whom it is said in the Vita S. Stephani (l.c. p. 507): “I make mention of that holy monk Peter, who dwelt as a recluse at Blachernae, and was frightfully beaten with the tendons of oxen, and killed in the presence of the Emperor, because he had spoken of him as a Dacian (Julian) and a sacrilegious man.”

To the same effect say the Synaxaria: “Peter, who dwelt in the Blachernae, dies, beaten with the tendons of oxen.” FB155 That this martyrdom is to be placed at the 16th of May 761, and not in the year 762, as might be inferred from Theophanes, is shown by the new Bollandists (l.c. p. 129), by reference to the eclipse of the sun mentioned by Theophanes himself (p. 665), which preceded final martyrdom about a year, and, according to the astronomical tables, took place, not in August 761, as Theophanes states, but in the year 760.

The Bollandists might have found another proof on their side on the same page of Theophanes, since Easter fell on the 6th of April, not in the year of the world 6252 (= 761), but in the year before, and the execution of the Kalybites belongs to the year immediately following. The day of the month of his martyrdom the Bollandists found in the old Synaxaria.

Soon after Peter Kalybites, probably on the 7th of June 761, John, the superior of the monastery of Monagria, was fastened into a sack and cast into the sea, because he would not tread under foot a picture of the Mother of God. This is also related by the Synaxaria and the biography of S.

Stephen. FB156 The most famous martyr of the time of Copronymus was the Abbot S.

Stephen (see sec. 337), generally designated as oJ ne>ov , with reference to the protomartyr Stephen. His ancient biographer (in the Analecta, l.c . p. 546 ff.) says: Soon after the end of the Conciliabulum held by Constantine (in fact, not until the year 763), the Emperor sent the patrician Callistus, a man of ability, but one who was zealously devoted to the new heresy (iconoclasm), to the mount of S. Auxentius, in order to induce Stephen to subscribe the synodal decree. Callistus accomplished his commission; but Stephen declared: The Synod having brought forward a heretical doctrine, it was impossible that he should assent to it, and he was ready to shed his blood in defense of the veneration of the images. He was then, at the command of the Emperor, dragged away from his cave by a party of soldiers, and carried to a monastery which lay lower down under the mountain (as, being quite enfeebled through fasting, he was unable to walk); and here he remained imprisoned along with the other monks for six days without food. As, however, the Emperor made an expedition against the Bulgarians, June 17, 763, FB157 the action against Stephen was interrupted, and he was taken back again into his cell. During the absence of the Emperor, Callistus managed, by money and promises, that two accusers should appear against Stephen. His own disciple Sergius declared that he had pronounced anathema on the Emperor as a heretic; and a female slave testified that her own mistress, the distinguished widow Anna, who was a spiritual daughter of Stephen, and dwelt as an ascetic in the monastery below on the mountain of S. Auxentius, had lived in sinful intercourse with the saint.

The news of this was conveyed to the Emperor by express messengers, and he immediately ordered the arrest of Anna. After the end of the Bulgarian war by the successful battle on June 30, 763, Anna was examined and even scourged, although no accusation against Stephen could be forced from her. Another means for his overthrow was, however, found. The Emperor, from hatred towards the monks, as being his principal opponents, had forbidden the reception of novices; but, with the Emperor’s foreknowledge, says the Vita Stephani (p. 468 sq.), a young man holding a situation at the Court, George Syneletus, talked over S. Stephen by false representations, so that he received him into the number of his monks. FB158 Scarcely had this been done when the Emperor openly complained, in an assembly of the people, that the accused ones, whose names must not be pronounced (so he ordinarily designated the monks), had again decoyed away from him one of his best and most beloved young men, and thereby so goaded the people that they uttered violent maledictions against the monks. A few days later, George escaped from the monastery and hastened to the Emperor. He was, at a second assembly of the people, solemnly girded again with a sword by the Emperor, and received anew into favor, whilst the people tore up the monastic habit which had been taken off him, and bellowed murder and death against the monks. Taking advantage of this state of mind, the Emperor sent a strong detachment of soldiers to the mountain of S. Auxentius. The disciples of Stephen were driven away, the monastery and church were burnt down, the saint dragged from his cave, beaten and tortured in every way, ¼ and at last banished to the island of Proconnesus in the Propontis, because he refused utterly to subscribe the decrees of the false Synod, and even censured it by remarking: The Synod called itself holy, but the most holy Virgin and the apostles would withhold that predicate from it.

Here in Proconnesus the scattered monks assembled themselves around him; they lived together monastically, and commended to the people the veneration of images. Stephen was therefore, after a lapse of two years, bound hand and foot, and brought back to Constantinople. Here, in the great prison of the Praetorium, he met with 342 monks from different lands. FB159 Many had their ears or nose cut off, other their eyes put out or their hands chopped off; many still bore the scars of previous scourgings, others had their beard smeared with pitch and set on fire. FB160 Stephen soon turned the prison into a kind of monastery, since day and night he sang psalms and hymns with his fellow-prisoners, and exhorted the people, who assembled from the neighborhood, to the veneration of images in order to their edification. He was consequently brought to trial and condemned to death. About the same time the Emperor commanded that everyone who had a relation among the monks, and concealed him, FB161 or wore a black coat (i.e. was himself suspected of monasticism), should be banished, which caused great excitement in the city (Vita Stephani, p. 512).

Stephen was already led forth by the executioner; but the Emperor resolved to make one more attempt to gain him over to his view, for if Stephen came in, then would the victory of the opponents of images be fully assured. He was therefore brought back to prison, and two servants of the Emperor sent to him, instructed either to talk him over, or, if he were obstinate, to give him such a flogging that he should soon afterwards die.

The two servants were, however, deeply moved by the appearance of S.

Stephen, and were won by him for the orthodox faith. They left him covered with cushions, and told the Emperor that they had beaten him so that he could hardly live another day. In the following night the Emperor learnt through a demon how the matter had fallen out, and, at his bitter complaint that he was not obeyed, and that Stephen was really Emperor, a great number of his bodyguards dashed at the prison of the Praetorium, dragged the saint on to the street, and killed him with innumerable blows and stones on November 28, 767. So it is related in the biography composed forty-two years afterwards (I.c. p. 521), which, along with a good deal of evidently legendary ornament, contains undoubted historical truth. FB162 While Stephen still sat in the prison of the Praetorium, he conversed with the other monks respecting the men who, before him, had died as martyrs on behalf of the veneration of images. Two of these, Peter at Blachernae and John of Monagria, we have already mentioned (p. 320). Besides, we learn here that the monk Paul of Crete (not Cyprus) preferred to be tortured to death (March 17, 767) rather than tread under foot an image of Christ, as the prefect had required of him. FB163 The priest and monk Theosterictus, however, of the monastery of Peleceta, on the Hellespont, who had his nose cut off and his beard burnt by the iconoclasts, relates that the prefect of Asia, named Lachanodracon, FB164 on the evening of the previous Thursday in the week of the Passion of Christ, while the mysteries were being celebrated, had, by command of the Emperor, penetrated with soldiers into the monastery, and had chained thirty-eight monks, carried them off to Ephesus, and then killed them, ill-treated all the rest, burnt some of them, cut off the noses of the rest, as of Theosterictus himself, and set fire to the whole monastery, together with the church. FB165 About a month before Stephen (October 20, 767), Andrew in Crisi also obtained the crown of martyrdom; but the monks in the prison of the Praetorium seem to have heard nothing of this, since they did not refer to him in their conversations. This is the man whom Theophanes (p. 683 sq.) erroneously designated as Peter (instead of Andrew) Stylites FB166 (cf. p. 319), adding that the Emperor, on account of Andrew’s resisting his doctrine, had him bound by the feet, dragged through the streets of Constantinople, and cast into a kind of skinning house called Pelagia. The same is related by the two Martyria of S. Andrew, recently published by the Bollandists, in which it is further told that some pious believers had afterwards buried his body in a holy place called Crisis. FB167 That he came originally from Crete, and traveled to Constantinople expressly to make voluntary representations to the Emperor on account of his cruelty towards the friends of the images, we learn from the same source and the ancient Synaxaria; and if Baronius had followed them (ad ann. 762, 1), he would not have confounded this Andrew with the somewhat earlier Bishop Andrew of Crete, as Pagi (ad ann. 761, 2) erroneously did, and all followed him. In his annotations to the Martyrology (ad 17 Octobr.), Baronius expressly distinguishes the two, as the Bollandists have remarked, and gives proofs of his view. FB168 Another monk, who had formerly been an officer, Paulus Novus, was executed A.D. 771; FB169 and also many laymen, even of the highest civil and military offices, suffered banishment or death, partly on account of their inclination for the images, partly because they had become politically suspected. FB170 The Emperor and his deputies contended together in bloody zeal; and with peculiar prominence, Michael Lachanodracon, already well known to us, who, after having ill-treated many monks and nuns, blinding and killing them, sold all the monasteries in his province (Thrace), together with the sacred vessels, books, and all the church furniture, and sent the proceeds to the Emperor. If he found anyone using relics as amulets, the relics were burnt, the person using them punished, and if a monk, put to death. FB171 As the Emperor was resolved entirely to root out monasticism, he turned many monasteries into taverns and the like, caused others to be entirely destroyed, required that the monks should wear secular attire and marry, gave places and offices to the obedient, and caused the steadfast to be led round the circus in great numbers with nuns (some say, harlots) on their arm, to the great sport of the populace. FB172 That under such persecutions and oppressions some monks overstepped the bounds of righteous opposition, we will not deny; indeed, it would rather be wonderful if it were not so. It is, however, quite wrong, on the part of Walch (l.c. S. f.), to try to make out that the fault of the monks was very great and that of the Emperor as small as possible. Of the latter, he goes so far as to say (S. 301): “He must have been a chaste prince, for no one attributes to him sensual excesses.” Walch, besides many other allusions in the original documents, must have known the decisive passage in Theophanes (l.c. p. 685), where the Paederastia of the Emperor is spoken of. But he thought good to omit this passage and (at S. 325)to translate only the remaining portion of this section.

In the course of the contest over the images, the Emperor came to the idea of requiring of all his subjects an oath on this matter. He therefore assembled first the inhabitants of Constantinople, “had the life-giving body and blood of Christ, and also the holy cross, publicly set forth, and all swore on the holy Gospels that henceforth they would reverence no image, and regard every such thing as an idol, have no fellowship with a monk, but rather would persecute every such worthless black-coat with insult and with stones.” This oath was first taken, as an example to all the people, by the Patriarch Constantine in the Ambo, the holy cross in his hand; and although he had once been a monk, from that time he began a quite secular kind of life. FB173 The time at which this oath was required and taken is doubtful. Theophanes places it in the 4th Indiction, i.e. between September 1, 765-766; on the one hand, he himself, as well as Nicephorus, places this occurrence after the martyrdom of S. Stephen, and this gave occasion to Pagi (ad ann. 765, 1), holding by this latter statement, to ascribe the taking of the oath to the year 767, whilst the new Bollandists (I.c. pp. 127, 12 and 131, 26), taking no notice of this, hold firmly to the 4th Indiction, and thus to 766.

From the images the Emperor extended his persecution to the relics of the saints, which he caused everywhere to be removed. In particular, Theophanes mentions (l.c. p. 679) that the body of the highly venerated S.

Euphemia was torn out of her splendid church at Chalcedon, in which the fourth Oecumenical Council had been held, and with the coffin cast into the sea. Moreover, of the church the Emperor made an arsenal. But the waves bore the venerable coffin to the coast of Lemnos, where pious believers concealed it, until, later on, the Empress had it brought back to the restored Church at Chalcedon. Even prayers to the saints were forbidden, and ejaculations, as, for example, “Mother of God, help us,” were followed by severe punishments. FB174 The Emperor is even said to have fallen into the Nestorian heresy, and to have asked the Patriarch Constantine whether it would not be well, instead of ‘God-bearer,” in future to make use of the expression ‘Christ-bearer.” But the patriarch had adjured him to keep away from this, and had promised the Emperor silence. FB175 Whether it was, as Cedrenus states, that he broke this promise, or that he fell under suspicion of other kinds of disloyalty, especially political, he was, in the year 766, deposed and banished, and subsequently shamefully ill-treated and beheaded; and Nicetas, a eunuch and a man of Slavonian or servile origin, raised to be his successor, who manifested his zeal immediately by effacing the pictures in the patriarchal residence, and elsewhere, FB176 and crowned Eudoxia, the third wife of the Emperor, as well as his two younger sons, Christopher and Nicephorus. FB177 SEC. 340. THREE PATRIARCHS IN THE EAST ARE IN FAVOR OF THE IMAGES.

During these occurrences in the Byzantine kingdom, the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem declared themselves with all decision for the ecclesiastical veneration of images. As their cities were in the hands of the Saracens, and they were no longer politically dependent upon the Byzantine Emperor, they could express themselves more freely than the Greek bishops (cf. p. 316). One of them, Theodore of Antioch, had been exiled in the year 757 by the Caliph Selim, because he became suspected of having conducted a correspondence, dangerous to the State, with Constantine Copronymus; FB178 but his restoration must have speedily followed, for in the year 764 we meet him again in Antioch. Theophanes (l.c p. 669) relates: Bishop Cosmas, named Comanites, from Epiphania in Apamea in Syria, had been accused by his diocesans, before the Patriarch Theodore of Antioch, of having taken the sacred vessels from the church.

In order that he might net be compelled to replace them, he had gone over to the doctrine of the Byzantine Emperor, but the Patriarchs Theodore: of Antioch, Theodore of Jerusalem, and Cosmas of Alexandria had, in agreement with their suffragans, pronounced against him a sentence of deposition and anathema.

The Libellus Synodicus and the biography of the Gothic Bishop John, published by the Bollandists, speak of a Synod held about that time by the Patriarch Theodore of Jerusalem, at which he anathematised iconoclasm.

This Synod is said to have sent to the above-named Bishop John, who had formerly taken part in the false Council of the year 754, but had amended, a biblical and patristic proof in behalf of the veneration of images. FB179 That the Libellus Synodicus places this Synod of Jerusalem before the false Council of the year 754 is not of significance, for it is clear from the biography of the Gothic Bishop John that it must have taken place a good deal later, and we conclude from the words of Theophanes that every one of the three patriarchs, with the bishops under him, held such a Synod on the question of the images and on account of Cosmas of Epiphania. It is therefore very probable that the Synodica of the Patriarch Theodore of Antioch, which is found among the Acts of the seventh Oecumenical Council (Act 3.), had been drawn up on this occasion. FB180 But this document bears quite evidently the character of an enthronisation letter (also called Synodica), and therefore contains (a) a copious confession of the orthodox faith generally, united with a very complete assent to the decrees of the six Oecumenical Synods, whilst, at the close, only a relatively quite small space is dedicated to the defense of the images. (b) With the idea of an enthronisation letter the last words also agree: “May the two colleges of Alexandria and Antioch receive this Synodica in a friendly manner, and if anything in it is to be corrected, kindly make him acquainted with it.” (c) On the other hand, there is no word in it relating to Cosmas of Epiphania, and the initiative in an investigation in regard to him did not belong to the patriarch of Jerusalem, but to him of Antioch. I cannot, therefore, agree with those who would bring this Synodica into connection with the matter of Cosmas, but, on the contrary, regard it as older, and believe that we should recognize it as the letter of enthronisation which the Patriarch Theodore of Jerusalem sent out on taking possession of his see.

Thus the doubts of Walch (Ketzerhist. Bd. 10. S. 379 f.) drop away of themselves, as to why the patriarch of Jerusalem had taken the chief part in the affair against Cosmas. This hesitation rests merely on a confusion of that Inthronistica [epistola] with the sentence of the three Oriental patriarchs against Cosmas. On the other hand, our Inthronistica is perhaps identical with that Synodica which Theodore of Jerusalem, after receiving the decision of his two colleagues of Alexandria and Antioch, sent to Pope Paul, in which he set forth his orthodoxy in general, and his agreement with the Roman Church in regard to the images. This Synodica arrived in Rome in August 767, when Paul was already dead, and the intruding Antipope Constantine sat on the throne. He sent this document immediately to King Pipin, “that they might see in Gaul what zeal for the images prevailed in the East”; FB181 and even Pope Hadrian I. afterwards appealed repeatedly to this Synodica, and certainly describes it in a manner which does not quite harmonise FB182 with the copy which has come down to us, and must therefore raise a doubt as to the identity of the two documents. In particular, the Synodica which Hadrian had before him appears to have contained patristic proof for the images, which is wanting in the other. But it may be that the Synodica sent to Rome is nothing else than an elaboration and expansion of this Inthronistica of Jerusalem drawn up in consequence of the counsel of the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria.

SEC. 341. THE FRANKS AND THE SYNOD OF GENTILLY, A.D. 767.

In the meantime, Constantine Copronymus did not abandon the hope of attaining, with the Franks, by diplomatic arts, two important results which were for him of the highest importance, namely, their assent to the rejection of the images and the restoration of the former Byzantine provinces of Italy. Several embassies were interchanged between the two Courts in reference to this matter, and one such in particular is referred to in that letter of Pope Paul I. to Pipin which is given as No. 26 in the Codex Carolinus. We learn from this that ambassadors of the Byzantine Emperor had come to the Frankish Court, and had, by fine words (suasionis fabulatio) and all kinds of promises (inanes promissiones), obtained from King Pipin a favorable answer to their wishes. The latter explained to them, however, his wish, first of all, to take counsel, on so important a matter, with the bishops and nobles of his kingdom in an assembly (concilium mixtum), and at the same time made the Pope acquainted with this, with the assurance of his unaltered adhesion to the Roman Church and the orthodox faith. Pope Paul replied, he was sure that Pipin’s answer to the Greeks tended only to the exaltation of the Roman Church, which was the head of all the Churches and of the orthodox faith, that he would never draw back what he had offered to S. Peter for the salvation of his soul, and that the suasionis fabulatio of the Greeks would be of no avail with him, since the Word of God and the doctrine of the apostles was deeply fixed in his heart. FB183 The assembly of the Frankish bishops and nobles here referred to is, in our judgment, no other than the Synod of Gentilly (in Gentiliaco), a spot in the immediate neighborhood of Paris which King Pipin held in the year 767, when he celebrated Easter there. The Acts of this assembly have not been preserved, and the many ancient Frankish chroniclers who refer to them, e.g. Einhard, remark quite briefly that they discussed the questions of the disputes about the images and of the Trinity, whether the Holy Spirit proceeded also from the Son. FB184 Pagi supposes (l.c.) that, as the Latins reproached the Greeks with heresy on account of the destruction of the images, these, in return, had accused the Latins of adding the filioque.

Schlosser, on the contrary (S. 239), holds it for proved, but without the slightest support from the original authorities, that the papal legates who were present at the Synod brought up the discussion on the doctrine of the Trinity in order to excite dislike for the Greeks.

Further information respecting the Synod of Gentilly is found in the twentieth section of the Codex Carolinus, if we may assume that this letter of Pope Paul to Pipin was written a little later. FB185 The Pope says, in this letter, that Pipin had never given audience to the Byzantine ambassadors except in the presence of the papal legates, that no suspicion might arise; moreover, that these legates had disputed concerning the faith with the Byzantine ambassadors in the presence of Pipin, and that the letter of the Byzantines to Pipin, as well as the answer of the latter, had been communicated to the Pope. The Pope here praises the zeal of Pipin for the exaltation of the Church and the defense of orthodoxy, and we see from this that the Synod of Gentilly had also made a declaration in regard to the veneration of images which was agreeable to the Pope.

SEC. 342. CONTESTS FOR THE HOLY SEC.

Soon after the holding of the Synod of Gentilly, Pope Paul I. died, June 25, 767. Even during his illness, Duke Toto of Nepi (a city somewhat to the north of Rome) wanted to kill him. But Christopher, the Pimicerius of the notaries, prevented it by his watchfulness, and brought it about that the Duke, in union with the other men of influence, took an oath that the future Pope should be elected only by common agreement. As soon, however, as the Pope died, Toto violated his oath, penetrated into the city with armed peasants, took possession of the Lateran, and had his brother Constantine, who was still a layman, receive, in a few days, ordination and the papal consecration FB186 at the hands of the three intimidated cardinal bishops of Palestrina, Albano, and Portus. That this Antipope Constantine wrote to King Pipin, and sent him a Synodica of the Oriental bishops, we have already seen. In a still earlier letter to Pipin, he attempted to gain him over and to excuse the irregularities of his election, as he had, against his will, been chosen by the enthusiasm of the Romans. FB187 But after a year’s respite he was overthrown. The discontented, who had gone abroad with the Primicerius and papal counselor Christopher and his son Sergius (treasurer of the Roman Church) at their head, FB188 slipped into the neighborhood of the city by night, on July 28, 768, and, supported by a company of Lombard volunteers, got possession of the Salarian bridge, and on the following morning forced their way through the gate of S.

Pancratius, which was opened to them by a relation inside the city. Duke Toto, who hastened up to force them back, fell, and his brother the Pope was taken prisoner. Whilst they were preparing for his deposition, the Lombard party, who had been assisting, under the guidance of the Lombard priest Waldipert, by their own authority caused a pious monk, Philip, to be proclaimed Pope; but Christopher and his friends did not give assent, and, hearing of this, Philip resigned immediately, in order not to give occasion for further contests. Thereupon, on August 5, 768, in a great assembly of the Roman clergy and laity, Constantine was declared an intruder and an antipope, and on the following day Stephen IV., hitherto priest in the Church of S. Cecilia, a learned and virtuous man, who besides had enjoyed in a high degree the confidence of Pope Paul, was unanimously elected. Constantine and his adherents, however, were treated by the embittered people with frightful acts of violence, having their eyes put out and the like. The new Pope seems to have been powerless in this confusion FB189 and immediately wrote to King Pipin and asked for his assistance, in order to the holding of a great Synod at Rome, so as to restore order. When his ambassadors arrived in Paris, Pipin was already dead (September 24, 768); but his two sons and heirs, Charles the Great and Carlmann, responded to the petition of the Pope, and sent twelve Frankish bishops to the proposed Synod. FB190 SEC. 343. THE LATERAN, SYNOD, A.D. 769.

The new Synod was held in April 769, in the Basilica of S. Salvator in the Lateran palace, under the presidency of the Pope, and besides the Frankish bishops, there were also present bishops :from Tuscany, Campania, and the other parts of Italy, — altogether fifty-two bishops or representatives of bishops, together with several priests, monks, secular grandees, officers, citizens, and many of the laity. A short history of what they did is given in the Vita Stephani III. (IV.): see Mansi, t. 12. p. 685 sq. Besides this, there were formerly only a few small fragments of the minutes of the Synod; but in A.D. 1735, Cajetan Cenni edited, from an ancient codex of the chapter library at Verona, a larger fragment containing the beginning of the minutes of the first session, so that we now possess at least one or another fragment of four sessions. At the same time, he elucidated the publication by a Praefatio and an extensive ecclesiastico-geographical dissertation.

The whole bears the title: Concilium Lateranense Stephani III. (IV.) ann.

DCCLXIX. nunc primum in lucem editum ex antiquissimo codice Veronensi MS. Rom. 1735, and is reprinted at length in Mansi’s first supplementary volume to Coleti’s edition of the Councils. In his own larger collection of the Councils, however, Mansi has omitted the dissertation on ecclesiastical geography, because he intended to publish it along with several other dissertations in a separate supplementary volume which never appeared. FB191 The fragment edited by Cenni shows that the first session took place on April 12, 769, that at that time, however, they no longer dated at Rome by the years of the Byzantine Emperors, and thus apparently no longer recognised their sovereignty. It was through this fragment that we first received a list of all the bishops and clergy present. The names of the twelve Frankish bishops had previously been discovered by J. Sirmond in Schedis Onuphrii, but neither completely nor correctly. We now learn that, first after the Pope, the representative of the archbishop of Ravenna (as the first metropolitan in the West) had his seat, and after him Wilichar, archbishop of Sens. He was followed by the Cardinal-bishop George of Ostia; but immediately after him, and before all the other Italians, came the eleven remaining Frankish bishops: Wulfram of Meaux, Lullus of Mainz, Gabienus of Tours, Ado of Lyons, Herminard of Bourges, Daniel of Narbonne, Hermenbert of Joahione (according to Cenni = Juvavia, Salzburg), FB192 Verabulp of Burtevulgi (= Burdegala, Bordeaux), Erlulf of Langres (the founder of the monastery of Ellwangen), Tilpin of Reims, Giselbert of Noyon. Bishop Joseph, whom Sirmond reckons among the Frankish bishops (whilst he omits the bishop of Meaux), was, according to Cenni, of Dertona in Italy.

It must naturally strike us that of these Frankish bishops, only Wilichar of Sens is designated archbishop, whilst the bishops of Mainz, Tours, Lyons, Bourges, Narbonne, Bordeaux, and Reims (genuine metropolitan sees) were present. But Cenni shows that in the eighth century the metropolitan constitution had almost entirely become extinct, and was not again restored until the time of Pope Hadrianland Charles the Great. Thus, e.g., Lullus had occupied the see of Mainz for a long time before he received from Pope Hadrian the pallium, and therewith the archiepiscopal dignity. Thus, in the opinion of Cenni, at that time only Wilichar of Sens, among the Franks present, possessed the pallium and the title of archbishop.

The Italian bishops were: Joseph of Dertona, Lanfried of Castrum (subsequently united with Aquapendente), Aurinand of Tuscana (subsequently united with Viterbo), NN. of Balneum-regis (Bagnarea), Peter of Populonium (subsequently united with Massa), Felerad of Luna (removed to Sarzana), Theodore of Pavia, Peter of Crete (Cervetri, no longer a diocese), Maurinus of Polimartium (subsequently united with Bagnarea), Leo of Castellum (Citta di Castello), Sergius of Ferentino, Jordanes of Segni, Ado of Orti, Ansualdus of Narni, Nigrotius of Anagni, Agatho of Sutri, NN. of Centumcellae (now united with Viterbo), Theodosius of Tibur, Pinius of Tres Tabernae (united with Viterbo), Boniface of Piperno (decayed), NN. of Alatri, Valeran of Trevi (decayed), Bonus of Manturanum (decayed), Gregory of Silva Candida or S. Rufina (united by Calixtus II. with Portus), Eustratius of Albano, Pothus of Repi, Cidonatus of Portus, Antoninus of Caesena, John of Faenza, Stabilinus of Pesaro, Maurus of Fano, Juvian of Gallese (subsequently united with Castellum), George of Sinigaglia, Sergius of Ficoclae (Cervia), Tiberius of Rimini, Florence of Eugubium (Gubbio), Temaurinus of Urbino, Cidonatus of Velletri (subsequently united with Ostia). FB193 Pope Stephen opened the Synod with the declaration that its aim was to take counsel respecting the usurpation of the papal see by Constantine, and to determine the canonical punishment for this according to his deserts.

Thereupon Christopher, the Primicerius of the notaries, informed them of what had happened at the appointment of that antipope, how he had himself gone in danger of his life, but had fled with his sons into the Church of S. Peter, and finally had obtained permission to go into a monastery.

So far goes the fragment of Cenni. From Anastasius, however, we learn further that at the same first session the deposed and blinded Antipope Constantine was brought forward, and asked how he had dared, as a layman, to aspire to the papal chair, a thing hitherto unheard of in the Church. He replied that he had been constrained by the people, and brought against his will into the Lateran, because they had hoped from him the abolition of the evils which had been complained of under Pope Paul.

Thereupon he cast himself on the ground, with outstretched hands, and acknowledged himself as guilty. He said his sins were more in number than the sand of the sea, but he trusted that the Synod would have compassion upon him. They raised him up from the ground, and on this day came to no resolution concerning him. In the second session he was brought forward again, and once more asked how he had ventured to do anything so new and unheard of. He replied: “I did nothing new, for Archbishop Sergius of Ravenna (who was represented by a deacon at this Synod) and Bishop Stephen of Naples were also elected when laymen.” The further course of his speech embittered those present so far that they caused him to be beaten and taken out of the church. FB194 Then the Acts of a Conciliabulum which the antipope had held were burnt in the presbytery of the Church of the Lateran. FB195 Pope Stephen, moreover, and all the Roman clergy and laity present, cast themselves on the ground, intoning the Kyrie Eleison, and confessed themselves sinners, because they had received the communion at the hands of the antipope. They all had penance imposed upon them (by whom?); and finally, after careful consideration of the ancient canons, the elevation of a layman to the papal see was forbidden, under pain of anathema. FB196 In the third session it was positively ordained that in future only a cardinaldeacon or cardinal-priest was to be elected Pope, FB197 and all participation in the election was forbidden to laymen. A certis sacerdotibus atque proceribus ecclesiae et cuncto clero ipsa pontiificalis electio proveniat.

Before, however, the elect, should be conducted into the patriarchal abode (Patriarcheion), all the officers and the whole army, as well as the citizens of distinction and the assembled people, should greet him as Lord of all. In the same manner, the elections of bishops for other churches should take place. From the armies stationed in Tuscany and Campania, no one was to come to Rome at the time of an election, and neither the servants of the clergy nor military persons, who were present at the election, were to bring weapons or sticks with them. FB198 In the same third session it was also decided what was to be done with those ordained by the antipope. If a priest or deacon has been consecrated bishop by him, he is to become priest or deacon again; but he may be elected bishop anew by the laity and clergy, and be consecrated by Pope Stephen. The like holds of those whom Constantine ordained as priests and deacons. They are to be put back to the degree which they had before, but Pope Stephen may ordain them again as priests or deacons. But they are not to be further advanced. If, however, a layman has been ordained priest or deacon by the antipope, he must do penance throughout his whole life. Finally, all sacraments which have been administered by the antipope must be repeated, except baptism and confirmation (chrisma).

The fourth session was occupied with the question of the veneration of images. Patristic testimonies for this were presented, the Council of Constantinople of the year 754 was anathematised, and that veneration recognised for the images which had been shown to them until this time by all Popes and reverend Fathers. In this session, too, that Synodica of the Patriarch Theodore of Jerusalem, with which we made acquaintance above (see p. 329), was read and approved. At the same time, Pope Stephen appealed to the picture of Agbarus (see above, p. 291), since by that Christ Himself had confirmed the veneration of images.

After the session was ended, all present betook themselves barefooted from the Lateran to the Church of S. Peter. The decrees adopted were solemnly read, and every departure from them threatened with anathema. FB199 SEC. 344. THE EMPEROR LEO IV.

The Emperor Constantine Copronymus, who, by unheard of cruelties towards those who venerated the images, had stained his government, which in political and military respects was not without glory, FB200 died on September 14, 775, in a ship near Selymbria (in Thrace, lying on the Propontis), in consequence of a very violent and painful inflammation of the feet, and is said to have understood his error before his death, and to have ordered hymns of praise to be sung to the holy Virgin and Mother of God. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Leo IV, surnamed the Khazar, because his mother, Irene, the first wife of his departed father, was a Khazar princess. But Leo’s own wife also bore the name of Irene. She was born an Athenian, distinguished for beauty and intelligence, but also for cunning and ambition. At her marriage she had been compelled to swear to her father-in-law, Copronymus, henceforth to abandon the veneration of images, which she had hitherto practiced in Athens, and was afterwards crowned Empress on December 17, and on January 14, 771, bore her only son, Constantine. Four years afterwards, her husband Leo, by the death of his father, became actual governor, and soon gained great popularity by the liberality with which he distributed the large savings of his father and lightened the burdens of the people.

They therefore asked permission to proclaim his five-year-old son as coemperor (and successor); but the Emperor Leo was afraid that, in case of his too early death, this title might lead to the murder of his only son, whilst, without this title, he might be permitted to live in a private condition, and only gave his assent to the wish of the people after they had sworn that they would preserve the crown to his family. Thereupon the young Constantine VI was crowned at the Easter festival in 776 by the Patriarch Nicetas. The Emperor Leo IV. saw without doubt that his father had gone too far in the matter of the images, and therefore at first leaned decidedly to tolerance. The monks were allowed to return, many of them were even raised to episcopal sees, and the hard old laws against the veneration of images seemed, if not formally abolished, yet to be forgotten. We do not know whether this or something else was the reason why a discontented party, so early as May 776, particularly among the officers, attempted to overthrow the Emperor and to set his younger brother, Nicephorus, on the throne. The matter was, however, discovered, and the people loudly demanded the heads of the criminals. But the Emperor Leo only had the guilty shorn and banished. He does not seem even to have punished his brother Nicephorus.

When the Patriarch Nicetas died, February 6,780, the Lector Paul was designated as his successor by the Emperor. He hesitated at first to accept the position, because the Emperor required of him a promise on oath that he would not restore the veneration of images. But at last he took the oath, and was invested on the second Sunday in Lent 780. By the middle of the Lenten season, six of the most distinguished Court officials, the Protospathar James, Papias, Strategius, and the chamberlains Theophanes, Leo, and Thomas, were denounced and imprisoned as actual venerators of images. At the same time they found two sacred images in the bed of the young Empress, Irene. According to Cedrenus, the courtiers just mentioned had hidden them in the notion that no search would be made there; but undoubtedly this was betrayed, and was made use of by the iconoclasts in order to the overthrow of the Empress. Although Irene protested that she had not known the least of the hidden images, yet Leo made the bitterest reproaches against her, that she had broken the oath which she made to his father, and sent her into exile.

Those Court officials, however, were publicly shorn and flogged, then led in disgrace through the city, and east into the prison of the Praetorium, where one of them died. All the others became monks, when, after Leo’s death, they again obtained liberty. And this happened soon, for the Emperor Leo IV died on September 8 of the same year, 780. Theophanes, and those who follow him, relate that the Emperor, from his great fondness for precious stones, had taken a crown belonging to the principal church which the Emperor Maurice had founded, and set it on his own head and retained it for himself. He says that this crown was set with beautiful carbuncles, and that now, as a punishment, he had got similar red ulcers on his head, and had died of them. Some recent historians have, without any original authority, wanted to accuse the “friend of the images,” Irene, of poisoning her own husband, but even Walch (S. 501) and Schlosser (S. 259) declare themselves against the accusation.

CHAPTER 2. The Seventh OEcumenical Synod At Nicaea, A.D. 787.

SEC. 345. THE EMPRESS IRENE MAKES PREPARATIONS FOR THE CONVOCATION OF AN (ECUMENICAL SYNOD.

IRENE was recognized as guardian of her son, the new Emperor, Constantine VI Porphyrogenitus, who was only ten years old, and at the same time regent of the Empire. After only fourteen days, however, a party of senators and high officials resolved to proclaim Prince Nicephorus (brother of Leo IV) as Emperor. Irene discovered the conspiracy in good time, took the ringleaders, and, after having them shorn and scourged, banished them to several islands. Nicephorus, however, and his brothers were required to take holy orders, and on the following Christmas (780) to publicly administer the sacraments, that all the people might learn what had taken place. On the same festival, Irene restored to the great church the precious crown which her husband had taken away. So also the body of S. Euphemia was solemnly brought back to Chalcedon from its place of concealment at Lemnos (see p. 326 ); and from this time, says Theophanes (p. 704 ), the pious were allowed without hindrance to worship God and to renounce heresy, and also the monasteries revived, that is to say, each one was allowed, if his inclination and conscience urged him thereto, again to venerate the images, and in particular this was the case with restored monks, among whom Abbot Plato, uncle of Theodore Studites, was peculiarly distinguished. Abbot Plato distinguished himself also later on, at the preparatory Synod of the year 786, by defending the images, as his ancient biographer relates. But Baronius (ad ann . 780, 7), using the inaccurate translation of this Vita Platonis by Sirlet, has imagined a Conciliabulum of the enemies of images at Constantinople, A.D. 780, an error corrected already by Pagi (ad ann. 780, 3, 4).

There is no doubt that Irene already thought of the complete restoration of the veneration of images, and at the same time of the resumption of Church communion with the rest of Christendom. That Pope Hadrian I. exhorted her continually to this, he says himself (see below, p. 351 ); but that Irene expected from this favorable results in regard to the possible winning back of Italy, is the supposition of later scholars. But the carrying out of this plan had to be put off so much the more on account of the wars with the Arabs and Slavonians, since with the military, among the officers who had been brought up under Copronymus, iconoclasm still counted its most numerous adherents. But after a peace, which was certainly inglorious, had been concluded with the Arabs, whilst, on the other hand, the Slavonians were gloriously overcome and made tributary, then it was possible to consider the ecclesiastical question more steadily. At the same time, Irene had brought about a betrothal between her son, the young Emperor, and Notrude, the daughter of Charles the Great, who was from seven to eight years of age, and therefore had to regard the restoration of ecclesiastical union with the West as requisite, or at least as desirable. The two men who specially assisted the Empress in this were Paul, until now patriarch, and his successor Tarasius; the former by the way and manner of his resignation, the other by the condition which he laid down on his assumption of the see. It is very probable that the Empress had come to an agreement with Tarasius as to the course to be taken; whilst it is less probable that any previous settlement had been made with the Patriarch Paul. When the latter fell ill in August 784, he experienced such violent pains of conscience on account of his behavior in the matter of the images, particularly on account of the oath at his entrance upon office, that he actually laid down his office, left the patriarchal palace, betook himself to the monastery of S. Florus, and put on the monastic habit, August 31, 784. Theophanes says (p. 708 ) that he did this without any previous knowledge on the part of the Empress, and that as soon as she obtained intelligence of it she went immediately with her son into the monastery of S. Florus, in order to interrogate the patriarch, with complaints and reproaches, as to the reason of his withdrawal. He answered with tears: “Oh, that I had never occupied the see of Constantinople, since this church is tyrannized over, and is separated from the rest of Christendom.”

Thereupon Irene, returning, sent several senators and patricians to Paul, that they might hear the same from him, and through his confessions might become inclined to the restoration of the images. He declared to them: “Unless they call an (Ecumenical Synod and root out the prevailing error, you cannot be saved.” To their reproach, “But why then did you promise, in writing, at your consecration never to consent to the veneration of images?” he replied, “That is the very cause of my tears, and this has driven me to do penance and to pray God for His forgiveness.” Amid such conversations Paul died, deeply lamented by the Empress and the people, for he had been pious and very beneficent. From that time many spoke openly in defense of the images. Soon afterwards the Empress held a great assemblage of the people in the palace Magnaura, and said: “You know what the Patriarch Paul has done.

Although he took the monastic habit, we should nevertheless have refused to accept his resignation if he had not died. Now it is necessary to give him a worthy successor.” All exclaimed that there was none more worthy than the imperial secretary, Tarasius, who was still a layman. The Empress replied: “We have also selected him as patriarch, but he does not consent.

He is now himself to enter and speak to the people.” Tarasins then addressed the meeting in a detailed speech, speaking of the care of the Emperors (namely, Irene and her son) for religion, declared his own unworthiness and the like. But particularly, he proceeded, would he guard against this, that the Byzantine kingdom should be separated in religion from the West and also from the East, and should from all sides receive anathema. He therefore prayed the Emperors — and all the people should support his prayer — to summon an Ecumenical Synod for the restoration of ecclesiastical unity.

This speech is found in all completeness both in Theophanes (l.c. pp. 710- 713 ) and in the preliminary Acts of the seventh OEcumenical Council, only with this difference, that Theophanes maintains: All present shouted approval to Tarasius, and with him demanded the summoning of an Ecumenical Synod; whilst it is added in the synodal Acts: “Some who lacked intelligence opposed.” This statement, confirmed by the fact that, at the beginning, the military dispersed the Council which was subsequently called, is also in agreement with the biographer of Tarasius (Ignatius), who adds that, however, the right prevailed. Tarasius was consecrated patriarch at Christmas, 784. Almost everywhere we read the statement, referred to Theophanes, that he immediately sent a Synodica and declaration of faith to Rome and to the other patriarchs; but even Pagi remarked (ad ann. 784, 2) that the word confestim occurred indeed in the Latin translation of the chronography of Theophanes (l.c.p. 713), but was not justified by the original Greek text. It is, however, most probable that Tarasius, soon after ascending the throne, renewed intercourse with the other patriarchs. His letter, addressed “to the archpresbyters and presbyters of Antioch, Alexandria, and the holy city” (Jerusalem), an Inthronistica (without date), is preserved among the Acts of the third session of Nicaea, and relates at the beginning, how he, although still a layman, had been constrained to accept the sacred office by the bishops and clergy. The other bishops were therefore requested to support him as fathers and brethren, for a spiritual conflict lay before him. But, in possession of unconquerable truth, and supported by his brethren, he would overcome the babblers. As, however, it was an ancient, even an essentially apostolic tradition, that a newly appointed bishop should set forth his confession of faith, he would also now confess what he had learnt from his youth. After a not very full confession of faith, in which anathema is pronounced upon Pope Honorius, he passes over to the question of the images with the words: “This sixth Synod I accept with all the dogmas pronounced by it, and all the canons promulgated by it, among them that which runs: In some representations of the sacred images there is found the figure of the Lamb; but we decide that Christ shall be represented in human form.” He cites here canon of the Quinisext (see p. 234 ), and ascribes its canons to the sixth Ecumenical Synod, which, as is well known, promulgated no canons. He then proceeds: “What was afterwards superfluously chattered and babbled (i.e. the decrees of the false Synod of the year 754), I reject, as you also have done; and as the pious and faithful Emperors have granted the request for the holding of an Ecumenical Synod, you will not refuse your cooperation in order to restore again the unity of the Church. Each of you (patriarchs) will therefore please to send two representatives, with a letter, and communicate his view on this matter as it has been given him by God. I have also petitioned the bishop of Old Rome for the same,” etc. The letter addressed to the Pope, to which Tarasius here refers, and of which Theophanes also speaks (I.e.p. 713 ), we no longer possess, but we know it from the answer of Hadrian I and from the remark of the papal legates at the seventh Council, “that the Pope had also received such a letter, toiau~ta gra>mmata“ (thus in its principal contents corresponding with the letter of Tarasius to the Oriental patriarchs). The conveyance of this letter to Rome was committed by Tarasius to his priest and representative (apocrisiar) Leo; but the Court also sent a Divalis Sacra to the Pope. In the superscription, Irene placed, as in all the documents of this period (she altered it afterwards), the name of her son before her own.

In this letter she starts with the statement that the secular and spiritual powers both proceeded from God, and therefore were bound in common to rule the peoples entrusted to them in accordance with the divine will; and then proceeds: “Your Holiness knows what has been undertaken here in Constantinople by previous governors against the venerable images. May it not be reckoned to them by God! They have led astray all the people here in Constantinople, and also the East (as far as it was under Byzantium), until God called us to the government, — us who seek in truth the honor of God, and desire to hold that fast which has been handed down by the apostles and the holy doctors. We therefore, after consultation with our subjects and the most learned priests, resolved upon the summoning of an Ecumenical Synod, and we pray — yea, God Himself, who wills to lead all men to the truth, prays — that your fatherly Holiness will yourself appear at this Synod, and come hither to Constantinople, for the confirmation of the ancient tradition in regard to the venerable images. We will receive your Holiness with all honors, provide you with all that is necessary, and provide for your worthy return after the work is accomplished. In case, however, your Holiness should be unable personally to come hither, be pleased to send venerable and learned representatives, that, by a Synod, the tradition of the holy Fathers may be confirmed and the tares rooted out, and that henceforth there may be no more division in the Church. Moreover, we have called here to us Bishop Constantine of Leontium (in Sicily), who is also known to your fatherly Holiness, have conversed with him by word of mouth, and have sent him to you with this edict (venerabilis jussio). When he has come to you, be pleased to give him your answer soon, that he may return to us and inform us on what day you will depart from Rome. He will also bring hither with him the bishop of Naples. We have commanded our representative in Sicily to take care to provide for your peace and dignity. This letter, which we now possess only in the Latin translation by Anastasius Bibliothecarius, is dated 4. Kal. Sept. Indict. 7, i.e. August 29, 784. As, however, we saw above that Tarasius was made patriarch on December 25, 784, according to this the imperial Sacra would have been dispatched four months before his elevation. This is contradicted alike by Theophanes (1.e. p 713) and by the answer of Pope Hadrian. Quite arbitrary and improbable, however, is the supposition of Christian Lupus, that the Court of Byzantium sent two letters, one after the other, to the Pope, the one just noticed and a later one, and that Pope Hadrian sent two answers, and that only his second answer is extant. Pagi (ad ann. 785, 3) opposed this hypothesis, and drew attention to the fact that the seventh Ecumenical Synod and the ancient collectors of its Acts knew of only one imperial letter to the Pope, and of only one answer from Hadrian. At the same time, that assumption was only a desperate way of escape, in order to get out of the chronological difficulty which lies in the date given above.

But this is easily got rid of, if with Pagi we read Indict. 8, according to which the imperial Sacra was written in August 785, a date which suits quite well. That such a correction has to be made, Walch (S. 532) had also seen from Pagi; but he went wrong about a full year, because he made the Indictio 7:to begin with September 1, 782, and the 8th with September 1, 783. Moreover, 4. Kal. Sept. is not August 27, as he supposes, but August 29.

Objections to the genuineness of this imperial letter to the Pope were raised by the Gallican Edmond Richer and the Protestants Spanheim junior, and Basnage, but even Walch (S. 532) found them untenable.

When the envoy of Tarasius, his priest and apocrisiar Leo, arrived in Sicily, the regent of that place, at the imperial command, gave him, as companions, Bishop Theodore of Catanea and the deacon Epiphanius (afterwards deputy of the archbishop of Sardinia at the Council of Nicaea), in order to convey to Rome, in common with him, the imperial jussio (two jussiones, indeed, the one regarding the Synod and the other on the recognition of Tarasius). We learn this from the minutes of the second session of Nicaea. Bishop Constantine of Leontium, on the contrary, who had been sent by Irene, no longer appears, and even Hadrian makes no reference to him in the letter which he sent in reply to the Court. We may perhaps assume that Bishop Constantine fell sick on the journey from Constantinople to Sicily, and that after the regent had communicated information of this to the Court, Bishop Theodore and the deacon Epiphanius were named imperial envoys in the place of Constantine.

Pope Hadrian, on October 27, 785, answered the two rulers in a very extensive Latin letter. A Greek translation of this was read in the second session of the Nicene Council, and is still extant. But in this reading, as Anastasius testifies, with the consent of the legate, they cut off nearly the last quarter, because in it, as we shall see, Tarasius was blamed by the Pope, and this might have been abused by his opponents and those of the Council so as to do an injury to the good cause itself. When Anastasius, on undertaking the translation of the Acts of Nicaea, remarked this, he inserted in his collection the Latin original of the letter of Hadrian, which he naturally found in Rome, and we see from this; that, in other places also, the Greek translation contains arbitrary alterations. In the collections of the Councils, it is found side by side with the original Latin text communicated by Anastasius; in the same way as elsewhere, there the translation of Anastasius is given along with the original Greek text.

Pope Hadrian, in this letter, first of all expresses his joy at the return of the two rulers to orthodoxy and at their resolution to restore the veneration of images. If they carried this through, they would be a new Constantine and a second Helena, especially if, like them, they honored the successor of Peter and the Roman Church. The Prince of the apostles, to whom God had committed the power of binding and loosing, would therefore protect them, and subject all the barbarous nations to them. The sacred authority (Holy Scripture) declared the height of his dignity, and what reverence should be given by all Christians to the Summa sedes of Peter. God had placed this Claviger of the kingdom of heaven as princeps over all; and Peter had left his primacy, by divine command, to his successors, and the tradition of these testified for the veneration of the images of Christ, His Mother, the apostles, and all saints. Pope Silvester, in particular, testifies that from the time when the Christian Church began to enjoy rest and peace, the churches had been adorned with pictures. An old writing related: “When Constantine decided to adopt the faith, there appeared to him by night Peter and Paul, and said to him: Because thou hast put an end to thy misdeeds, we are sent by Christ the Lord to counsel thee how thou canst regain thy health. In order to escape from thy persecutions, Bishop Silvester of Rome has hidden himself with his clergy on Mount Soracte.

Call him to thee, and he will show thee a pool, and when he has dipped thee in it for the third time, thy leprosy will immediately depart. In gratitude for this,thou must honor the true God, and order that in the whole Empire then the churches should be restored. Immediately after awaking, Constantine sent to Silvester, who, with his clergy, was employed in reading and prayer on a property on Soracte. When he saw the soldiers, he thought he was about to be led to martyrdom, but Constantine received him in a very friendly manner, and told him of the vision of the night, adding: Who, then, are these gods Peter and Paul? Silvester corrected this error, and, at the wish of the Emperor, had a picture of the two apostles brought up, on which Constantine cried aloud: Yes, these he had seen, and the vision therefore came from the Holy Spirit.” This proved the ancient use of images in the Church, and many heathens had already been converted by seeing them. The Emperor Leo the Isaurian had been the first who had been misled and had proclaimed war on the images in Greece, and had caused great vexation. In vain had Gregory II and III exhorted him, and Pope Zacharias, Stephen II, Paul, and Stephen III, the Emperors succeeding him, to restore the images. He himself also, Hadrian, had continually put forward the same request to the present rulers, and renewed it with all his might, so that, as the rulers had already done it, their subjects might also return to orthodoxy, and become “one flock and one :fold,” since then the images would be venerated again by all the faithful in the whole world.

The Pope further defends the veneration of images, which had been falsely given out as a deification of them. From the very beginning of human history, he said, God had not rejected what men themselves had contrived in order to testify their reverence for Him, thus the sacrifice of Abel, the altar of Noah, the memorial stone of Jacob ( Genesis 28). Thus Jacob, of his own impulse, kissed the top of the staff of his own son Joseph ( Hebrews 11:21, according to the Vulgate [adoravit fastigium virgae ejus]); but not in order to do honor to the staff, but to testify his love and reverence for the bearer of the staff. In the same manner, love and reverence were paid by Christians, not to images and colors, but to those in whose; honor they were set up. Thus Moses had cherubim prepared for the honor of God, and set up a brazen serpent as a sign (type of Christ). The prophets, too, spoke of the adornment of the house of God and of the reverence and representation of the countenance of God (Psalm 25 [26] 8, 26 [27] 8, 44:[65] 13, 4:[5] 7); and Augustine said: Quid est imago Dei, nisi vultus Dei? Then follow beautiful passages from Gregory of Nyssa, Basil, Chrysostom, Cyril, Athanasius, Ambrose, Epiphanius, Stephen of Bostra, and Jerome. Supporting himself upon these patristic and biblical passages, he cast himself at the feet of the rulers, and prayed them that they would restore the images again in Constantinople and in the whole of Greece, and follow the tradition of the holy Roman Church, in order to be received into the arms of this holy, catholic, apostolic, and blameless Church.

So far the papal letter was read aloud at Nicaea; but Anastasius communicated, along with his translation of the Nicene Acts, a further portion of the letter, which is as follows: “If, however, the restoration of the images cannot take place without an Ecumenical Synod, the Pope will send envoys, and in their presence, before everything else, must that false assembly (of the year 754)be anathematised, because it was held without the apostolic see, and had drawn up wicked decrees against the images. In like. manner must the Emperor, the Empress his mother, the patriarch, and the senate, in accordance with ancient custom, transmit to the Pope a pia sacra (document), in which they promise by oath (at the Synod to be held) to be impartial, and to do no violence to the papal legate or any priest, but, on the contrary, in every way to honor and uphold them, and if no union could be attained, to provide in the most friendly manner for their return.

Moreover, if the rulers would really return to the orthodox faith of the holy catholic Roman Church, then they must also again restore completely the patrimonia Petri (withdrawn by the previous Emperors) and the rights of consecration, which belonged to the Roman Church over the archbishops and bishops of its whole diocese (patriarchate) according to ancient right (cf. p. 304). The Roman see had the primacy over all the churches of the world, and to that belonged the confirmation of Synods. Hadrian, however, had greatly wondered that, in the imperial letter which had requested the confirmation of Tarasius, the latter was named universalis patriarcha. He did not know whether this had been written per imperitiam, ant schisma vel haeresim iniquorum; but the Emperors should no longer use this expression, for it was in opposition to the traditions of the Fathers, and if it should be meant by this, that this universalis stood even above the Roman Church, then would he be a rebel against the sacred Synods and an evident heretic. If he were universalis, then he must necessarily also possess the primacy which was left by Christ to Peter, and by him to the Roman Church. If any one should call Tarasius an universalis patriarcha in this sense, which, however, he did not believe, he would be a heretic and a rebel against the Roman Church. Tarsius had, in accordance with ancient custom, sent a Synodica to the Pope, and he rejoiced at the confession of the orthodox faith which was contained in it in regard also to the holy images, but it had grieved him that Tarasius had, from a layman and a booted soldier (apocaligus), been suddenly made patriarch. This was in contradiction to the sacred canons, and the Pope would not have been able to assent to his consecration had he not been a faithful helper in the restoration of the sacred images. The whole of Christendom would rejoice over the restoration of the images, and the Emperors, under the protection of S. Peter, would then triumph over all barbarous peoples, just as Charles, the King of the Franks and Lombards, and patrician of Rome (the Pope’s filius et spiritualis compater), who, following in all things the admonitions of the Pope, subjected to himself the barbarous nations of the West, presented to the Church of S. Peter many estates, provinces, and cities, and had given back that which had been seized by the faithless Lombards. He had also offered to the Church much money and silver pro luminariorum concinnatione, and free alms to the poor, so that his royal remembrance was secured for all the future. Finally, the Emperors were requested to give a friendly reception to the bearers of this letter, the Roman Archpresbyter Peter, and the priest and abbot Peter of S. Sabas, and to let them return uninjured with the joyful intelligence that the Emperors were persevering in the orthodox faith, as they had begun.”

The Pope undoubtedly, at the same time, addressed his (undated) letter to the Patriarch Tarasius, which was read at the second session at Nicaea in a Greek translation. Anastasius says that the Greeks had also omitted much in this document, but that the original text was in the Roman archives. Yet in this case the Latin agrees with the Greek in all the principal points, for the latter also contains the fault-finding, that Tarasius, being a layman, had immediately become patriarch, and a strong assertor of the Roman primacy. Indeed, the papal letter begins with fault-finding on that account.

As, on the one hand, he was troubled by this uncanonical promotion, so, on the other side, was the Pope rejoiced by the assurance of the orthodoxy of Tarasius. Without this he could not have accepted his Synodica. He praises him, and exhorts him to persevere, and remarks that he had with pleasure resolved to send legates to the contemplated Synod. But Tarasius must take measures that the false assembly against the images, which had been held in an irregular manner without the apostolic see, should be anathematised in the presence of the papal representatives, so that all the tares should be rooted out, and the word of Christ should be fulfilled, who had left the primacy to the Roman Church. If Tarasius would adhere to this see, he must take care that the Emperors should have the images restored in the capital city and everywhere; for if this was not done, he could not recognize his consecration. Finally, he should give a friendly reception to the papal legates. It was probably a little later that an answer to the Synodica of Tarasius arrived from the three Oriental patriarchates. Evidently this did not come from those patriarchs themselves, but from Oriental monks, because, as the latter openly assert, the messengers of Tarasius could not reach the patriarchs on account of the enmity of the Arabs. The contents are as follows: “When the letter of Tarasius, inspired by God, arrived, we, the last among the inhabitants of the wilderness (i.e. the monks in the deserts), were seized with horror and joy at the same time: with horror, from fear of those impious ones whom we were forced to serve for our sins; but with joy, because in that letter the truth of the orthodox faith shines like the rays of the sun. A light from on high, as Zacharias says (S. Luke 1:78), has visited us, to lighten us who sit in the shadow of death (that is, Arabian impiety), and to guide our feet into the way of peace. It has raised for us a horn of salvation, which you (Tarasius) are, and the God-loving rulers who occupy the second place in the Church. A wise and holy Emperor said: The greatest gift which God has bestowed upon men is the Sacerdotium and the Imperium. The former orders and guides the heavenly, the latter governs the earthly with righteous laws. Now, happily, the Sacerdotium and the Imperiam are united, and we, who were a reproach to our neighbors (on account of the ecclesiastical division between the East and Byzantium), may again joyfully look up to heaven. “The messengers whom you sent to the Oriental patriarchs, under God’s guidance met with our brethren (other monks), disclosed to them the aim of their mission, and were by them concealed, out of fear of the enemies of the Cross. But those monks did not trust in their own discernment, but rather sought counsel, and came to us without the knowledge of those whom they had concealed. After we had sworn to them to observe silence, they imparted the matter to us; and we prayed God for enlightenment, and then declared to them:

As we know the enmity of the rejected nation (the Saracens), those envoys should be kept back, and not allowed to travel to the patriarchs; on the contrary, they should be brought to us and earnestly exhorted to make no noise, as this would bring ruin on the now peaceable churches and the subject Christian peoples. Those envoys, however, after receiving our explanation, were indignant with us. They said they had been sent to give up their lives for the Church, and perfectly to fulfill the commission of the patriarch and the Emperors. We replied to them, that there was here no question merely as to their lives only, but as to the existence of the whole Church in the East; and when they hesitated to return with their commissions not executed, we besought our brothers John and Thomas, the syncelli of the two great patriarchs (of Alexandria and Antioch), to travel with your envoys to Constantinople, to undertake their defense, and to deliver by word of mouth that which would require too much detail in writing. As the patriarch of the see of S. James (Jerusalem) had been exiled, on account of a trivial accusation, to a distance of 2000 stones (so that no special vicar could be appointed for him), John and Thomas were appointed to bear testimony to the apostolic tradition of Egypt and Syria in Constantinople, and to do what was required of them there. (The messengers of Tarasius had already explained the aim of the Synod which was to be held, and therefore a commission might be given to the two monks referred to, which through its indefiniteness might be offensive.)

They excused themselves from defect of learning, but followed our wish, and departed with your envoys. Receive them kindly, and present them to the Emperors. They know the tradition of the three apostolic sees, who receive six Ecumenical Synods, but utterly reject the so-called seventh, summoned for the destruction of images;. If, however, you celebrate a Synod, you must not be restrained from holding it by the absence of the three patriarchs and the bishops subject to them, for they are not voluntarily wanting, but in consequence of the threats and injuries of the Saracens. In the same way, they were absent from the sixth Synod for the same reason; and yet this in no way diminished the importance of that Council, particularly as the Pope of Rome gave his assent, and was present by his deputy. For the confirmation of our letter, and in order to convince you perfectly (of the orthodoxy of the East), we present the Synodica which the Patriarch Theodore of Jerusalem of blessed memory sent to Cosmas of Alexandria and Theodore of Antioch, and in return for which he received, during his lifetime, Synodiocae from them.” This Synodica of the departed patriarch of Jerusalem was probably intended to supply the lack of a special deputy from this diocese. It begins with a very lengthy orthodox confession of faith, then recognizes the six Ecumenical Synods, and regards any other as superfluous, as those six had completely exhausted the tradition of the Fathers, and nothing was to be added or could improve it. After several anathemas on the heretics, from their head, Simon Magus, down to the tail, the veneration of the saints (tima~n kai< proskunei~n tououv kai< ajspa>zesqai ) is declared to be an apostolic tradition, a healing power is ascribed to their relics, and an inference is drawn from the Incarnation of Christ, justifying the representation of Him in images and the veneration of those images. There is added to this a defense of the images of Mary and the apostles, etc., by reference to the cherubim which Moses caused to be made. SEC. 346. THE FIRST ATTEMPT THE HOLDING OF ANECUMENICAL SYNOD MISCARRIES.

After the Roman and Oriental envoys had arrived in Constantinople, the rulers summoned also the bishops of their kingdom. As, however, the Synod could not be opened at once on account of the absence of the Court in Thrace, this was made use of by the still considerable number of enemies of the images among the bishops, in union with many laymen, to hinder the meeting of the Synod and to maintain the prohibition of the Synod. At the same time, they intrigued against the Patriarch Tarasius, and held several assemblies. But he forbade this on canonical grounds, under penalty of deposition, whereupon they withdrew. Soon afterwards the rulers returned from Thrace, and fixed the 17th of August for the opening of the Synod, in the Church of the Apostles at Constantinople. On the previous day many military men assembled in the louth, stood)of the Church of the Apostles, and protested with great noise and tumult against the holding of the new Synod. Nevertheless it was opened on the following day. The Patriarch Tarasius assumed the presidency, and the rulers looked on from the place of the catechumens. The passages of Holy Scripture referring to the images were considered, and the arguments for and against the veneration of images examined. The Abbot Plato particularly distinguished himself by delivering from the ambo a discourse in defense of the images, at the request of Tarasius. Naturally, the new Synod decided to declare the earlier one of the year 754 invalid, and to this end caused the older canons to be read, according to which an Ecumenical Synod could not be held without the participation of the other patriarchs. But in agreement with the few bishops who were hostile to the images, and incited by their officers, the soldiers of the imperial bodyguard, posted before the church doors, who had served under Copronymus, pushed with a great noise into the interior of the church, marched with naked weapons up to the bishops, and threatened to kill them all, along with the patriarch and the monks. The Emperors immediately sent some high Court officials to rebuke them and bid them be at peace, but they answered with insults, and refused obedience. Upon this, Tarasius withdrew with the bishops from the nave of the church into the sanctuary (which with the Greeks, as is well known, is shut off by a wall), and the rulers declared the Synod dissolved. The enemies of the images among the bishops then cried out joyfully, “ We have conquered,” and with their friends commended the socalled seventh Synod. Many bishops now departed, among them the papal legates.

SEC. 347. CONVOCATION OF THE SYNOD OF NICAEA.

When the legates arrived in Sicily, they were called back to Constantinople, for Irene had not given up the project of a Synod, and had got rid of her mutinous bodyguard by a stratagem. She pretended an expedition against the Arabs, and the whole Court removed, in September 786, with the bodyguard, to Malagina in Thrace. Other troops, under trustworthy leaders, had therefore to be brought into Constantinople; another bodyguard was formed, those insubordinate ones were disarmed and sent back to their native provinces. After this was done, Irene sent messengers through the whole Empire, in May 787, to summon the bishops to a new Synod at Nicaea in Bithynia. That the Pope gave his assent to this is clear from what has been said, from his letters to the Court and to Tarasius, and from the sending of his legates. Moreover, he afterwards said expressly in his letter to Charles the Great: Et sic synodum istam secundum nostram ordinationem fecerunt. The reasons for choosing Nicaea are evident. Constantinople itself necessarily seemed unsuitable after what had happened the year before, and because, perhaps, many enemies of the images lived there. Nicaea, on the other hand, was not very far removed from the capital city, so that a connection between the Synod and the Court could be effected without much difficulty, and had, besides, the memory of the first most highly esteemed OEcumenical Council, under Constantine the Great, in its favor; and moreover, the fourth Ecumenical Synod (of Chalcedon) was first summoned to Nicaea, and was only removed to Chalcedon because of intervening circumstances (see vol. 3). Moreover, similar circumstances brought it about, in the case of the present Synod, that the eighth and last session was celebrated on October 23, 787, in the imperial palace at Constantinople. The Empress and her son were not personally present at the sessions of Nicaea, but were represented by two high officers of State, the patricius and ex-consul Petronus, and the imperial ostiarius (chamberlain) and logothetes (chancellor of the military chancery) John.

Nicephorus, subsequently patriarch, was appointed secretary. Among the spiritual members, the two Roman legates, the Archpresbyter Peter and the Abbot Peter (p. 353) are regularly placed first in the Acts, and first after them the Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople, and then the two Oriental monks and priests John and Thomas, as representatives of the patriarchates of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. From the transactions themselves, we learn that Tarasius essentially conducted the business, as also the Sicilian bishops nominated him, at the first session, tomenon . The question has often been brought up, with what right did those two monks, John and Thomas, act at Nicaea as representatives of the Oriental patriarchs, since, as we saw, information of the summoning of the Synod had never been brought to those patriarchs? Here was undeniable deception and falsehood. But the letter of the Oriental monks, which gives the whole history of the matter in a thoroughly unadorned and circumstantial manner, was read at the second session of Nicaea, so that not one person could believe that John and Thomas had been sent directly by the Oriental patriarchs. The ajrcierei~v, by whom they were deputed, and who are named in the superscription, as we remarked above, were not patriarchs, but monk-priests of higher rank, who acted sedibus impeditis instead of the inaccessible patriarchs. The necessity of the case would justify this. John and Thomas, however, subscribed at Nicaea not as vicars of the patriarchs (qua persons), but of the apostolic sees (qro>noi = churches) of the East, and they might properly be so designated materially, for, in union with the two letters which they brought with them, they represented, in fact, the faith of the three Oriental patriarchates in regard to the images and the veneration of them. Apart from them and the Roman legates, all present were subjects of the Byzantine kingdom. The number of the members, partly bishops, partly representatives of bishops, is given by the ancients as between 330 and 367; and when the almost contemporaneous patriarch Nicephorus speaks only of 150, this is evidently incorrect, since the still extant minutes of the Synod give not fewer than 308 bishops and representatives of bishops as subscribers of the decrees of Nicaea. Besides, as the Acts here and there indicate, there were also present a good many monks and clerics not entitled to vote. The Patriarch Tarasius also, speaks of archimandrites and hegumeni and a plhqu. Several imperial secretaries and clerics of Constantinople also acted as officials of the Synod.

SEC. 348. THE FIRST SESSION OF NICAEA.

After the bishops had arrived in Nicaea, during the summer of 787, the first session was held there, September 24, 787, in the Church of S. Sophia. As was usual, here also the books of the holy Gospels were solemnly placed upon a throne. In front of the ambo sat the two imperial commissaries and the archimandrites etc., who had no right to vote. At the wish of the Sicilian bishops, the Patriarch Tarasius opened the transactions with a short speech, as follows: “At the beginning of August in the previous year, it had been wished to hold a Synod under his presidency, in the Church of the Apostles at Constantinople; but through the fault of some bishops, who could easily be numbered, but whom he would not name, as every one knew them, they had been hindered by force. The gracious rulers had therefore summoned a new Synod to Nicaea, and Christ would reward them for this. This Helper the bishops should also invoke, and in all uprightness, without discursiveness, deliver a righteous judgment.” 48 This warning against discursiveness was very much in place because of the loquacity of the Greeks, but it does not seem to have profited much, for the Acts of our Synod are full of examples of unnecessary logomachy.

After Tarasius had ended his speech, three bishops, Basil of Ancyra, Theodore of Myra, and Theodosius of Amorium, — who had hitherto been enemies of the images, were introduced and placed before the Synod.

Before they were permitted to answer for themselves, another imperial Sacra was read, the publication of which, as we know, had been required by Pope Hadrian. It contained, in accordance with ancient usage, the assurance that every member of the Synod was allowed to speak quite freely and without hindrance, according to his conviction; then gives information of the resignation of the Patriarch Paul and of the election of Tarasius, together with the desire of both for reunion with the rest of the Church, and after the holding of an Ecumenical Synod; and mentions, finally, the letters of the Pope and of the Oriental archpriests, which were soon to be read aloud in the Synod. Upon this, the three bishops who had hitherto been hostile to the images begged forgiveness, and read a formula of faith and recantation, whereupon they were received into fellowship, and assigned their place in the Synod. Seven other bishops then entered, who, a year before, had contributed to frustrate the intended Synod, and had held separate assemblies — namely, Hypatius of Nicaea, Leo of Rhodes, Gregory of Pessinus, Leo of Iconium, George of Pisidia, Nicolas of Hierapolis, and Leo of the island of Carpathus. They had erred, they said, only from ignorance, and were ready to confess and confirm the faith handed down from the apostles and Fathers. The Synod was doubtful whether they should be admitted to communion, and therefore they had many older ecclesiastical maxims read, particularly canons of the apostles and of different Councils, also judgments of the Fathers of the Church, respecting the receiving back of heretics. On this occasion, John, one of the vicars of the Oriental patriarchates, declared that the veneration of images was the worst of all heresies, “because it detracted from the Economy (Incarnation) of the Redeemer.” Tarasius, however, drew from the passages read the conclusion, that the seven bishops should be received, if no other fault attached to them. Many members of the Synod called out together: “We have all erred; we all pray for forgiveness.” The question was then proposed, whether those who held obtained ordination from heretics should be received again; but before the books necessary for this subject arrived, they proceeded with the presentation of proofs of the first kind on the reception of heretics generally. Finally the wished- for books arrived, and they read from the Church histories of Rufinus, Socrates, and Theodore the lector, from the Acts of Chalcedon, from the Vita S. Sabae, etc., proofs that, in earlier times, those who had been ordained by heretics had been received again. The actual admission of the seven bishops, however, was deferred until a later session. SEC. 349. THE SECOND SESSION.

When the second session began, September 26, at the command of the Court an imperial official presented to the Synod Bishop Gregory of Neo- Caesarea, who had also formerly been hostile to the images, but now wished to return to orthodoxy. Tarasius, however, treated him with some harshness, and seemed to doubt his sincerity. But when Gregory gave the best assurances and lamented his former errors, he was required to appear again at the next session and to present a written statement. After this the letter of Pope Hadrian, of October 27, 785, to the Emperors, already known to us, was read aloud (p. 349), although not in its entirety; and the Roman legates, at the request of Tarasius, testified that they had received this letter from the hand of the apostolic Father himself. This testimony was confirmed by Bishop Theodore of Catanea and deacon Epiphanius, who had conveyed the imperial Jussio to Rome, and had been present at the delivery of the papal answer.

In the same way, the letter of Hadrian to Tarasius was read, and at the request of the Roman legates the latter declared that he was in agreement with the doctrine contained in the letter, and accepted the veneration of the images. “We reverence them,” he says, “with relative regard (tau>tav scetikw~| po>qw| proskunou~men ), since they are made in the name of Christ and of His inviolate Mother, of the holy angels and all saints: Our latrei>a and pi>stiv , however, we evidently dedicate to God alone.” When all exclaimed: “Thus believes the whole Synod,” the Roman legates demanded a special vote on the recognition of the two papal letters which had been read, and this followed in 263 votes, partly representative and partly personal, of the bishops and representatives of bishops (with exception of the legates themselves and Tarasius, who had declared himself already). Finally, Tarasius asked the monks present to give their assent individually, which was then done. Thus ended the second session. SEC. 350. THE THIRD SESSION.

In the third session, according to the Greek Acts on the 28th, according to Anastasius on the 29th, of September, Gregory of Neo-Caesarea handed in and read the declaration of faith in writing which had been required of him.

It was nothing else but a repetition of that which Basil of Ancyra and his colleagues had presented at the first session. Before, however, Gregory was received into favor, Tarasius remarked that he had heard that some bishops in earlier times (under Copronymus) had persecuted and ill-treated some pious venerators of images. He would not believe this without proof (probably he had Bishop Gregory in such suspicion), but he must remark that the apostolic canons punished such an offense with deposition. Several members of the Synod agreed with him, and it was resolved that, if anyone should bring forward such complaints, he was to present himself immediately to Tarasius or the Synod. As, however, Gregory of Neo- Caesarea gave the assurance that in this respect he was quite blameless, the Synod declared itself ready to receive him, although several monks intimated that he had been one of the heads of the false Council of the year 754. Mildness prevailed, and along with Gregory, at the same time, the bishops of Rhodes, Iconium, Hierapolis, Pessinus, and Carpathus were received, and assigned to their seats. The Synodica addressed by Tarasius to the patriarchs of the East was then read, together with the answer of the Oriental ajrcierei~v and the Synodica of the departed patriarch, Theodore of Jerusalem (see p. 354); and the Roman legates declared, with the concurrence of the whole assembly, that these Oriental letters were completely in harmony with the doctrine of Pope Hadrian and of the Patriarch Tarsius. The words employed at this voting by Bishop Constantine of Constantia, free from deception as they were, gave occasion, subsequently, at Cyprus, to the most violent reproaches against the Nicene Synod. He said: “I assent to these declarations now read, I receive and greet with all reverence the sacred images; the prosku>nhsiv kata< latrei>an, i.e. the adoration, I offer to the Holy Trinity alone.” By false translation and misunderstanding the Frankish bishops subsequently, at the Synod of Frankfort, A.D. 794, and also in the Carolingian books (3:17), understood this to mean that a demand had been made at Nicaea that the same devotion should be offered to the images as to the Most Holy Trinity.

SEC. 351. THE FOURTH SESSION.

The fourth session, on October 1, was intended to prove the legitimacy of the veneration of images from the Holy Scriptures and the Fathers. On the proposal of Tarasius, there was read by the secretaries and officials of the Synod a great series of biblical and patristic passages bearing on this subject, which partly had been collected beforehand and partly were now presented by individual members of the Synod. The biblical passages were: (1) Exodus 25:17-22, and Numbers 7:88-89, in regard to the ark of the covenant, the mercy-seat, and the cherubims which were over it. (2) Ezekiel 41:1-18-19, on the cherubim with faces, and the palms, etc., which Ezekiel beheld in the new temple of God. (3) Hebrews 9:1-5, where Paul speaks of the tabernacle, and of the objects contained in it: the golden pot with the manna, Aaron’s rod, the tables of the law, and the cherubim.

Tarasius then remarked: “Even the Old Testament had its divine symbols, the cherubim; and from this they went on to the New Testament. And if the Old Testament had cherubim which overshadowed the mercy-seat, we might also have images of Christ and of the saints to overshadow our mercy-seat.” Further, he pointed out, as did Bishop Constantine of Constantia, in Cyprus, that even the cherubim of the Old Testament had a human countenance; and the angels, as often as they appeared to men, according to the testimony of Holy Scripture, appeared in human form.

Moses, indeed, had so formed the cherubim ( Exodus 25), as they were shown to him in the mount. The prohibition of images had first been published by God when the Israelites showed themselves inclined to idolatry. John, one of the vicars from the East, remarked that God Himself had appeared to Jacob in human form, and had wrestled with him ( Genesis 32:24).

The series of patristic proofs is opened by a passage from the panegyric of Chrysostom on Meletius, in which it is said that the faithful had made representations of this saint upon their rings, cups, shells, on the walls and everywhere. A second passage from another discourse of Chrysostom alludes to the picture of an angel who drove out the barbarians. There was also read from Gregory of Nyssa, how, at the sight of a picture of the offering of Isaac, he had been forced to weep; and Bishop Basil of Ancyra at this justly remarked, that this father had often read this history in the Bible without weeping, whilst the representation of it in a picture had moved him to tears. “If this happened to a learned man,” added the monk John, “how much more must it be useful to the unlearned, that they may be touched!” “ Yes,” exclaimed Bishop Theodore of Catanea; “and how much more must men be touched by a picture of the sufferings of Christ!”

Representations of the offering of Isaac are treated in a passage of S. Cyril of Alexandria; a poem of Gregory of Nazianzus speaks of a picture of S.

Polemon, by looking at which an immodest woman was converted; a discourse of Antipater of Bostra refers to the statue which the woman who was healed by Christ of the issue of blood caused to be erected. A great fragment of Bishop Asterius of Areasia gives a full description of a picture representing the martyrdom of S. Euphemia. Next came two passages from the martyrdom and the miracles of the Persian martyr Anastasius (627), which speak of the custom of setting up images in the churches, as well as testify to the veneration of relics, and moreover, of the divine punishment which smote a despiser of relics at Caesarea. A pretended discourse of Athanasius describes the miracle at Berytus, where the Jews pierced a picture of Christ with a lance, on which blood and water ran out. They collected this, and, as all the sick who were touched with this became well, the whole city received the Christian faith. A passage was read from the letter of S. Nilus to Heliodore, relating that the holy martyr Plato had appeared to a young monk in a vision just as he had seen him in pictures; upon which Bishop Theodore of Myra remarked that the same had happened to his pious archdeacon in regard to S.

Nicolas. As, however, the enemies of the images also appealed to Nilus, the passage used by them from his letter to Olympiodorus was also read.

Nilus certainly in this letter blames some kinds of images in churches and monasteries, namely, representations of hares, goats, beasts of every kind, from hunting and fishing, and recommends instead the simple figure of the cross; but he also commends the historical representations, from the Old and New Testaments, on the walls of the churches for the instruction of the unlearned; and this very clause was omitted by the enemies of the images when they brought forward the passage (A.D 754), as several bishops now maintained. Another passage from the transactions between the Abbot Maximus and the Monothelite deputies sent to him, Theodorius of Caesarea, etc., showed that both the latter and also that learned abbot had reverenced the Gospels and the images of Christ, and the Oriental deputy John remarked that the images must be necessary, or they would not have been venerated by those men.

Naturally, an appeal was made to the eighty-two Trullan canons on the images. They were ascribed to the sixth Ecumenical Synod, whilst Tarasius maintained that the same Fathers who constituted this Synod had again assembled, four or five years later (i.e. 685 or 686), and had drawn up canons. That this was a mistake we have already shown (p. 221). As, however, they shared in this mistake at Rome (see p. 241), we can understand why the papal legates did not protest against the identification of the Quinisexta with the sixth Ecumenical Synod.

After the reading of a series of further patristic proofs in favor of the veneration of images, among them the letters, already mentioned, of Pope Gregory II and of the Patriarch Germanus of Constantinople to John of Synnada, etc., and after anathemas had been pronounced upon the enemies of images, Euthymius of Sardes presented the synodal Decree of the Faith. The Synod there calls itself holy and oecumenical, again assembled at Nicaea by the will of God and at the command of the two rulers, the new Helena and the new Constantine, then declares its agreement with the six previous Ecumenical Synods, then adds a short Symbolum, and passes on to its special theme with the words: “Christ has delivered us from idolatry by His incarnation, His death, and His resurrection.” It goes on: “It is not a Synod, it is not an Emperor, as the Jewish sanhedrim (the false Synod of A.D. 754) maintained, which has freed us from the error of idolatry; but it is Christ the Lord Himself who has done this. To Him, therefore, belongs the glory and honor, and not to men. We are taught by the Lord, the apostles, and the prophets, that we ought to honor and praise before all the holy God-bearer, who is exalted above all heavenly powers; further, the holy angels, the apostles, prophets, and martyrs, the holy doctors, and all saints, that we may avail ourselves of their intercession, which can make us acceptable to God if we walk virtuously. Moreover, we venerate also the image of the sacred and lifegiving cross and the relics of the saints, and accept the sacred and venerable images:, and greet and embrace them, according to the ancient tradition of the holy catholic Church of God, namely, of our holy fathers, who received these images, and ordered them to be set up in all churches everywhere. These are the representations of our Incarnate Savior Jesus Christ, then of our inviolate Lady and quite holy God-bearer, and of the unembodied angels, who have appeared to the righteous in human form; also the pictures of the holy apostles, prophets, martyrs, etc., that we may be reminded by the representation of the original, and. may be led to a certain participation in his holiness.” This decree was subscribed by all present, even the priors of monasteries and some monks. The two papal legates added to their subscription the remark, that they received all who had been converted from the impious heresy of the enemies of images. SEC. 352. THE FIFTH SESSION.

On the opening of the fifth session, October 4, Tarasius remarked that the accusers of the Christians (see p. 358)had, in their destruction of images, imitated the Jews, Saracens, Samaritans, Manichaeans, and Phantasiasti or Theopaschites. Further patristic passages were then read, and even those which seemed to speak against the veneration of images. (1) The series was opened by a passage from the second Catethesis of Cyril of Jerusalem, which blames the removal of the cherubim from the Jewish temple by Nebuchadnezzar. (2) A letter from Simeon Stylites the younger (592) to the Emperor Justin II, asks him to punish the Samaritans because they had dishonored the holy images. (3) Two dialogues, between a heathen and a Christian, and between a Jew and a Christian, defend the images. (4) Two passages from the pseudo-epigraphic book peri>odoi tw~n aJgi>wn ajposto>lwn speak against the images, and were used by the iconoclasts at their Synod, A.D. 754, because therein John the Evangelist blames a disciple who, from attachment to him, had caused his portrait to be painted. The Synod attributed no value to these passages, because they had been taken from an apocryphal and heretical book. (5) As the enemies of images appealed to a letter from the Church historian Eusebius to Constantia, the consort of Licinius, in which her wish to possess a portrait of Christ is blamed, the Synod now shows the heterodoxy of Eusebius from his own utterances, and from one of Antipater of Bostra. In the same way (6) Xenaias and Severus, who rejected the images, were represented as heretics (Monophysites, see vol. 3. pp. 456-459). (7) Among the proofs in favor of the images, the writings of the deacon and chartophylax Constantine of Constantinople were adduced; and it was remarked that the enemies of the images had burned many manuscripts, in the patriarchal archives at Constantinople and elsewhere, which spoke against them, and also had torn out some leaves from a writing of Constantine in which the images are discussed.

On the other hand, they had left the silver boards with which the book was bound, and these boards were adorned with pictures of saints.

A passage was then read from the writing of that Constantine on the martyrs, in which he shows how the martyrs had, in opposition to the heathen, shown the difference between the Christian veneration of images and idolatry, and had based the former upon the incarnation of Christ.

Probably this was the passage which had been torn out in the copy at Constantinople. In the same way, it was found, with several other manuscripts adduced, that leaves had been cut out of them. As the originators of these outrages, they designated the former patriarchs, Anastasius, Constantine, and Nicetas of Constantinople.

The presentation and reading of fifteen further passages from the Fathers, which were in readiness, the Synod held to be unnecessary, as the ancient tradition of the Church in regard to the images was clear from what had been read. On the other side, the monk John, representative of the East, asked leave to clear up the real origin of the attack on the images, and related that story of the Caliph Jezid and the Jews which we have given above (p. 268). It was then decreed by the Synod that the images should every where be restored, and at them prayers should be offered. In the same way, they approved the proposal of the papal legates, that henceforth, and indeed on the next day, a sacred image should be set up in their own locality, and that the writings composed against the images should be burnt. The session closed with acclamations and anathemas against the enemies of images, and with praises of the Emperors. SEC. 353. THE SIXTH SESSION.

The sixth session was held, according to the Greek text of the Acts on the 6th, according to the translation of Anastasius on the 5th, of October, and immediately on its being opened, the Secretary Leontius informed them that there lay today before them the o[rov (decree) of the false Council of A.D. 754, as well as an excellent refutation of it. The Synod ordered the reading of both, and Bishop Gregory of Neo-Caesarea was required to read the words of the o[rov and the deacons John and Epiphanius of Constantinople to read the much more comprehensive document in opposition to it. The composer we do not know.

It is divided (with the o[rov which is included in it) into six tomi, and in Mansi comprehends no less than 160 folio pages, and in Hardouin, 120. The principal contents of the o[rov have already been given in connection with the account of the iconoclastic false Synod of the year 754 (see p. 307). The other document opposes the o[rov from sentence to sentence, and in this way contains much that is certainly superfluous, and is of unnecessary extent. But it contains also many excellent and acute observations, which thoroughly deserve the commendation which Leontius gave to the whole. The assumptions of that false Synod are therein powerfully met, and its sophistries exposed (e.g., that no picture of Christ could be painted without falling into heresy). That the originators of the o[rov were often harshly treated, is not to be wondered at, and, considering the dishonesty with which they went to work, perfectly justifiable. In proof that the use of images went back to apostolic times, the refutation appeals (tom. 4)to the statue of Christ which the woman healed by Him of the issue of blood had caused to be set up in gratitude (see p. 367), and to the universal tradition of the Fathers; and then shows fully that the iconoclasts were mistaken in appealing to certain passages of Holy Scripture and of the Fathers (tom. 5). It was then shown, particularly, that the patristic passages quoted by them were partly quite spurious, partly garbled by them, distorted, and falsely interpreted. If they brought forward the letter of Eusebius to Constantine (see p. 371), this was without importance, because the writer had been maloe famae in reference to his orthodoxy. In conclusion, in tom. V5, the particular sentence of the false Synod, together with its anathematisms, is subjected to a criticism which is often pungent.

SEC. 354. THE SEVENTH SESSION.

Of special importance was the seventh session, on October 13, when the o[rov (decree) of our Synod was read by Bishop Theodore of Taurianum. Who was the author of it is unknown; but we may naturally think of Tarasius, and at the same time assume that the solemn publication of this decree was preceded by a careful exhortation and discussion from the same hand, although the minutes are silent on the subject. The Synod declares in this o[rov that they intended to take nothing away from the ecclesiastical tradition, and to add nothing to it, but to preserve all that was catholic unaltered, and follow the six OEcumenical Councils. The Synod then repeats the symbol of Nicaea and that of Constantinople without filioque; pronounces anathema on Arius, Macedonius, and their adherents; then, with the Synod of Ephesus, confesses that Mary is truly the God-bearer; believes, with the Synod of Chalcedon, in two natures in Christ; anathematises, with the fifth Council, the false doctrines of Origen, Evagrius, and Didymus (there is no word of the Three Chapters); with the sixth Synod, which had condemned Sergius, Honorius, etc., preaches two wills in Christ, and professes faithfully to preserve all written and unwritten traditions, among them also the tradition in respect to the images. It concludes, therefore, “that as the figure of the sacred cross, so also sacred figures — whether of color or of stone or of any other material — may be depicted on vessels, on clothes and walls, on tables, in houses and on roads, namely, the figures of Jesus Christ, of our immaculate Lady, of the venerable angels, and of all holy men. The oftener one looked on these representations, the more would the looker be stirred to the remembrance of the originals, and to the imitation of them, and to offer his greeting and his reverence to them (ajspasmonhsin ), not the actual latrei>a (than ) which belonged to the Godhead alone, but that he should offer, as to the figure of the sacred cross, as to the holy Gospels (books), and to other sacred things, incense and lights in their honor, as this had been a sacred custom with the ancients; for the honor which is shown to the figure passes over to the original, and whoever does reverence (proskunei~) to an image does reverence to the person represented by it. “Whoever shall teach otherwise, and reject that which is dedicated to the Church, whether it be the book of the Gospels, or the figure of the cross or any other figure, or the relics of: a martyr, or whoever shall imagine anything for the destruction of the tradition of the Catholic Church, or shall turn the sacred vessels or the venerable monasteries to a profane use, if he is a bishop or cleric, shall be deposed; if a monk or layman, excommunicated.” This decree was subscribed by those present, and all exclaimed: “Thus we believe: this is the doctrine of the apostles. Anathema to all who do not adhere to it, who do not greet the images, who call them idols, and for this reason reproach the Christians with idolatry. Many years to the Emperor! eternal remembrance to the new Constantine and the new Helena: God preserve their government! Anathema to all heretics!

Anathema in particular to Theodosius, the false bishop of Ephesus (p. 267), and in like manner to Sisinnius, surnamed Pastillas, and to Basil with the evil surname of Tricaccabus! The Holy Trinity has rejected their doctrines. Anathema to Anastasius, Constantine, and Nicetas, who, one after the other, occupied the throne of Constantinople! They are: Arius II, Nestorius II, and Dioscurus II Anathema to John of Nicomedia and Constantine of Nacolia, those heresiarchs! If anyone defends a member of the heresy which slanders the Christians, let him be anathema! If anyone does not confess that Christ, in His manhood, has a circumscribed form, let him be anathema! If anyone does not allow the explanation of the Gospels by figures, let him be anathema! If anyone does not greet these things which are made in the name of the Lord and the saints, let him be anathema! If anyone rejects the tradition of the Church, written or unwritten, let him be anathema! Eternal remembrance to Germanus (of Constantinople), to John (of Damascus), and to George (of Cyprus, see p. 314), these heralds of the truth! At the same time, a letter addressed by Tarasius and the Synod to the rulers, Constantine and Irene, reported what had taken place, explained the expression proskunei~n, that the Bible and the Fathers employed this word to signify the reverence accorded to men, whilst latrei>a was reserved for God alone. A deputation of bishops, hegumeni, and clerics was also appointed, to present to the rulers a selection from the patristic passages in proof used by the Synod. A second letter was addressed by the Synod to the priests and clerics of the principal and other churches of Constantinople, in order to make them acquainted with the decrees which had been drawn up. SEC. 355. THE EIGHTH SESSION.

The rulers then gave orders, in a decree addressed to Tarasius, that he, along with the rest of the bishops, etc., should now come to Constantinople. This took place. The Empress received them in the most friendly manner, and decided that, on the 23rd of October, a new session, the eighth and last, should be held in the presence of the two rulers, in the palace Magnaura. After Tarasius, by command of the Emperor, had opened this session with a suitable discourse, the two rulers themselves made a friendly address to the Synod, amid the liveliest acclamations from the members, ordered the o[rov which had been drawn up at the previous session to be read again, and made the proposal, “that the holy and Ecumenical Synod should declare whether this o[rov had been accepted with universal assent.” All the members exclaimed: “Thus we believe, thus think we all: we have all agreed and subscribed. This is the faith of the apostles, the faith of the Fathers, the faith of the orthodox.... Anathema to those who do not adhere to this faith!” etc. (almost the very same words as after the reading of the o[rov at the seventh session; see p. 374 f.).

At the prayer of the Synod, the two rulers now also subscribed the o[rov , Irene first, and for this they were again greeted with the most friendly acclamations. At the close the rulers caused to be read again the patristic testimonies in favor of the veneration of images, from Chrysostom and others, which had been used at the fourth session; and, after this was done, all the bishops and the uncommonly numerous multitude of people and military present stood up, and expressed with acclamations the universal assent, and gave thanks to God for what had been done. Finally, the bishops were allowed to return to their homes, with rich presents from the Emperor. SEC. 356. THE CANONS OF THE SEVENTH ECUMENICAL SYNOD.

Among the Acts of our Synod there are 22 canons, which Anastasius places in the preface to his translation of the seventh Council, but which the later collection of Councils assigned to the eighth. The latter followed the tenor of the 10th canon, in which Constantinople (not Nicaea) is mentioned as the place at which it was held; but even the apparent contradiction of Anastasius is removed, when we consider that he considers the solemn closing transaction at Constantinople as one actio with the seventh and last session at Nicaea. In the same manner, most among the ancients, Greeks and Latins, generally reckoned only seven sessions. The principal contents of these canons are as follows: — 1. “The clergy must observe the holy canons, and we recognize as such those of the apostles and of the six OEcumenical Councils; further, those which have been sent from particular Synods for publication (e]kdosiv ) at the other Synods, and also the canons of our holy Fathers. Whomsoever these canons anathematise, we also anathematise; whom they depose, we also depose; whom they expel, we also expel; whom they punish, we visit with the same punishment.”

Like the Greeks generally, so our Synod also recognized not merely, like the West, fifty, but eighty-five so-called apostolic canons (see vol. 1 ad fin.). Moreover, they speak of the canons of the first six OEcumenical Councils, whilst it is well known that the fifth and sixth Ecumenical Synods published no canons. But also here our Synod acts in accordance with the custom of the Greeks, in regarding the 102 canons of the Quinisext as Ecumenical, and especially in ascribing them to the sixth Ecumenical Synod. With regard to this, Anastasius remarked, in the preface to his Latin translation of the synodal Acts, that the Council brought forward canons of the apostles and of the six Ecumenical Synods which Rome did not recognize, but the present; Pope (John VIII) had made an excellent distinction among them. We have already given this above. 2. “If anyone wishes to be ordained bishop, he must know the psalter perfectly (by heart), that he may therefrom suitably exhort the clergy who are subject to him; and the metropolitan must make inquiry as to whether he has striven to read also the sacred canons, the Holy Gospel, further, the Apostolos (the apostolic epistles), and the whole of the sacred Scriptures, not merely cursorily, but also thoroughly, and whether he walks according to the divine commands, and so teaches the people. For the essence (oujsi>a) of our hierarchy are the divinely-delivered maxims, namely, the true understanding of the sacred Scriptures, as the great Dionysius (the Areopagite) says.”

This canon is, in the translation of Anastasius, taken into the Corpus jur. can. c. 6, Dist. 38. 3. “Every election of a bishop, priest, or deacon, proceeding from a secular prince, is invalid, in accordance with the ancient rule (Can..Apostol. n. 31), and a bishop must only be elected by bishops, according to can. 4 of Nicaea.”

That by this the right of patronage belonging to secular rulers, and the many indults granted to Kings to designate bishops, are not taken away or forbidden, but that the opinion that the granting of ecclesiastical positions belongs to princes jureDOMINATIONIS is condemned, is shown by VanEspen, l.c. p. 460. In the Corpus jur. can. our canon occurs as c. 7, Dist. 63. 4. “No bishop may demand money or the like from other bishops or clerics, or from the monks subject to him. If, however, a bishop deprives one of the clergy subject to him of his office, or shuts up his church from covetousness or from any passion, so that divine service can no longer be held in it, he shall himself be liable to the same fate (deposition), and the evil which he wished to hold over another shall fall back upon his own head.” In the Corpus jut. can. c. 64, Causa 16:q. 1. 5. “Those who boast of having obtained a position in the Church by the expenditure of money, and who depreciate others who have been chosen because of their virtuous life and by the Holy Ghost without money, these shall, in the first place, be put back to the lowest grade of their order, and if then also they still persist (in their pride), they shall be punished by the bishop. But if anyone has given money in order to obtain ordination, the 30th apostolic canon and the 2nd canon of Chalcedon apply to him (vol. 1; vol. 3.). He and his ordainer are to be deposed and excommunicated.”

Zonaras and Balsamon in earlier times, and later, Christian Lupus and VanEspen, remarked that the second part of our canon treated of simony, but not the first. This has in view rather those who, on account of their large expenditure on churches and the poor, have been raised (without simony) to the clerical state as a reward and recognition of their beneficence; and, being proud of this, now depreciate other clergy who were unable or unwilling to make such foundations and the like. 6. “According to canon 8 of the sixth OEcumenical Council (i.e. the Quinisext), a provincial Synod should be held every year. A prince who hinders this is excommunicated, a metropolitan who is negligent in it is subject to the canonical punishments. The bishops assembled should take care that the life-giving commands of God are followed. The metropolitan, however, must demand nothing from the bishops. If he does so, he is to be punished fourfold.”

Anastasius remarks on this, that this ordinance (whether the whole canon or only its last passage must remain undecided) was not accepted by the Latins. That this canon did not forbid the so-called Synodicum, which the metropolitans had lawfully to receive from the bishops, and the bishops from the priests, is remarked by VanEspen, l.c. p. 464. Gratian received our canon at c. 7, Dist. 18. 7. “As every sin has again other sins as its consequence, so the heresies of the slanderers of Christians (iconoclasts) drew other impieties after them.

They not merely took away the sacred images, but also abandoned other ecclesiastical customs, which must now be renewed. We therefore ordain that, in all temples which were consecrated without having relics, these must be placed with the customary prayers. If, in future, a bishop consecrates a church without relics, he shall be deposed.” “Jews who have become Christians only in appearance, and who continue secretly to observe the Sabbath and other Jewish usages, must be admitted neither to communion nor to prayer, nor may even be allowed to visit the churches. Their children are not to be baptized, and they may not purchase or possess any (Christian) slave. If, however, a Jew sincerely repents, he is to be received and baptized, and in like manner his children. “The Greek commentators Balsamon and Zonaras understood the words mh>te touzein to mean, “these seeming Christians may not baptize their own children,” because they only seem to be Christians. But parents were never allowed to baptize their own children, and the true sense of the words in question comes out clearly from the second half of the canon. 9. “All writings against the venerable images are to be delivered up into the episcopal residence at Constantinople, and then put aside (shut up)along with the other heretical books. If anyone conceals them, he must, if bishop, priest, or deacon, be deposed; if monk or layman, anathematised.” 10. “As some clerics, despising the canonical ordinance, leave their parish (=diocese) and pass over into other dioceses, particularly betake themselves to powerful lords in this metropolitan city preserved by God, and perform divine service in their oratories (eujkthri>oiv ), henceforth no one shall receive them into his house or his church without the previous knowledge of their own bishop and the bishop of Constantinople. If anyone does so, and persists in it, he shall be deposed. But those who do so with the previous knowledge of those bishops (i.e. become domestic chaplains with persons of distinction), may not at the same time undertake secular business (of these lords), since the canons forbid this. If, however, one has undertaken the business of the so-called Majores (meizoteroi>, majores domus, stewards of the estates of high personages), he must lay this down or be deposed. He ought rather to instruct the children and the servants, and read the Holy Scriptures to them, for to this end he has received the sacred ordination.”

On the office of the meizo>eteroi>, the Greek commentators Zonaras and Balsamon (l.c. p. 301) give us more exact information. We have given the substance of it in the parenthesis. 11. “In accordance with the ancient ordinance (c. 26 of Chalcedon, see vol. 3. p. 409), an oeconomus should be appointed in every church. If a metropolitan does not attend to this, then the patriarch of Constantinople is to appoint an oeconomus for his church. Metropolitans have the same right in regard to their bishops. This prescription applies to monasteries.”

The Synod of Chalcedon required the appointment of special oeconomi only for all bishops’ churches; but our Synod extended this prescription also to monasteries. Gratian received this canon as c 3, Causa 9:q. 3. 12. “If a bishop or abbot gives away anything from the property of the bishopric or the monastery to a prince or anyone else, this is invalid according to the 39th apostolic canon; even if it is done under the pretext that the property in question is of no value. In such a case the property is to be given away, not to secular lords, but to clerics or colonists. If, however, after this has been done, the secular lord buys the property in question of the cleric or colonist, and thus goes cunningly to work, then such a purchase is invalid; and if a bishop or abbot used such cunning (i.e. got rid of church property in such a roundabout way), he must be deposed.” In Corpus jur. canon. our canon is c. 19, Causa 12. q. 2. 13. “In the unhappy times which have just gone by (iconoclastic), many ecclesiastical buildings, bishops’ residences, and monasteries have been transformed into profane dwellings, and have been acquired by private persons. If now the present possessors restore them voluntarily, that is good and right. If they do not, if clerics, they are to be deposed; if monks or laymen, excommunicated.” In Gratian, c. 5, Causa 19 q. 3. 14. “We remark that some have received the clerical tonsure in early youth without any order, and then at the Synaxis (holy communion) they read in the ambos [the Epistle or Gospel]. This may no longer be done. The same is the case with the monks. On his own monks the hegumenus (superior of the monastery)may confer the order of lector, if he has himself been ordained to the office of hegumenus by the bishop and is undoubtedly a priest. So also may the country bishops, in accordance with ancient custom, ordain lectors by commission from the bishop.”

Van Espen (l.c . p. 469 sqq. and jus canon. t. i pt. 1 tit. 31, c. 6) professes to show (a) that at that time there was no special benediction of abbots (different from their ordination as priests), and that therefore the words, “if he (the superior of the monastery) himself is consecrated by the bishop to the office of hegumenus,” and “evidently is a priest,” mean the same; (b) that at the time of our Synod every superior of a monastery, a prior as well as an abbot, had the power of conferring upon the monks of his monastery the order of lector; but (c) that the way in which Anastasius translated the canon (si dumtaxat ABBATI manus impositio facta noscatur ab episcopo SECUNDUM MOREM PRAEFICIENDORUM ABBATUM), and the reception of this translation into the Corpus juris canonici c. 1, Dist.69., gave occasion to concede the right in question, of ordaining lectors, only to the solemnly consecrated (and insulated) abbots. 15. “Henceforth no cleric may be appointed to more than two churches at the same time, and each one must remain at the church to which he was called. In order, however, to provide for the necessities of life, there are several kinds of employment, and the cleric may (if his income does not suffice) provide by means of these the necessary sustenance, as also the Apostle Paul did ( Acts 20:34; 1 Thessalonians 3:9). The provision mentioned has reference to this capital city. In village communities, however, on account of the small number of the inhabitants, allowance may be made” (i.e., as the communities are here too small, a cleric may serve several congregations).

Gratian received this canon as c. 1, Causa 21. q. 1, but in practice the so often lamented and forbidden plurality of benefices did not give way — a matter bewailed by the commentators Zonaras and Balsamon as a great injury to the Greek Church. What should be said in regard to the Latin Church? thinks VanEspen (Commentar., etc. l.c. p. 471). 16. “The bishops and clergy may not adorn themselves with showy apparel.

If they do so, they are to be punished. The like applies to those who anoint them. As, however, the accusers of the Christians (iconoclasts) not merely rejected the sacred images, but also persecuted with hatred those who passed ascetic lives, every one is to be punished who mocks men who are poorly and reverently clad, for in ancient times every cleric wore a poor and reverent garment, and no one made use of gay silken apparel or of a colored decoration at the border of his mantle.” In Gratian, c. 1, 21. q. 4. 17 . “As some monks leave their monastery, and, in order to rule themselves, begin to build houses of prayer (small monasteries) without having the means necessary for completing them, the bishops should in future forbid this. But whoever has sufficient property must complete what he has begun. The same holds of laity and clergy.” 18. “No women are allowed to dwell in bishops’ houses or monasteries.

Every bishop or hegumenus (superior of a monastery) who has in his dwelling a female slave or freed-woman for service, is to be blamed, and if he does not send her away, he is to be deposed. If, however, women find themselves on the estates of a bishopric or monastery, so long as the bishop or abbot remains on the estate, these women are to follow no business there, but must live elsewhere.” 19. “Some superiors of churches and monasteries, men and women, allow themselves to be so blinded by covetousness, that they demand money from those who are in the clerical state, or who wish to enter a monastery.

If a bishop or hegumenus or cleric has done this, he is no longer to commit the same, or, in accordance with canon 2 of Chalcedon, he will be deposed.

If an abbess (hegumena) does it, she shall be removed from her convent and transferred into another as a subordinate. So with the hegumenus who is not a priest. In regard, however, to that which parents have given to the monastery with their children as dower, or that which these have brought of their own property with the declaration that it was consecrated to God — this must remain to the monastery, whether they continue there or go out again, if its superior is free from fault” (in regard to the departure of the person in question). 20. “Double monasteries are henceforth forbidden. If a whole family wishes to renounce the world together, the men must go into convents for men, the female members of the family into convents for women. The double monasteries already existing may continue, according to the rule of S.

Basil, but must, in accordance with his prescription, observe the following ordinance: Monks and nuns (mona>striai ) may not reside in one building, for living together gives occasion for incontinence. No monk may enter the women’s quarter, and no nun converse apart with a monk. No monk may sleep in the women’s quarter (which frequently happened, in order to provide for the night or early morning service), or eat apart with a nun.

And if food is brought from the men’s quarter to the canonesses (prowords, and speedily depart.” In Gratian, c. 21, Causa 18, q. 2. 21. “No monk and no nun may leave their own convent in order to go over to another.” 22. “In the case of the laity, it is allowed that both sexes may eat together, only they must give thanks to the Giver of all food, and refrain from all mimicry and satanic songs, etc. If they do not, they must amend, or the canons of the ancients will apply to them. Those, however, who live peacefully and alone, and have praised God that they bear the lonely yoke (of monasticism), and sit and are silent; those also who have chosen the spiritual life, may by no means eat apart with a woman, but only in the presence of several God-fearing men and women. This must hold also with relations. If, however, a monk or cleric, on a journey, does not carry food with him, and from necessity wishes to enter a public hostelry or a private house, he may do so, since need compels.”

SEC. 357. THE REST OF THE SYNODAL ACTS.

After these canons the synodal Acts contain another panegyric pronounced by the Sicilian deacon Epiphanius (representative of Archbishop Thomas of Sardinia), of which the Latin translation of Anastasius was given in the older collection of canons, whilst the Greek text was first given by Mansi from a manuscript in the library of S. Mark at Venice. This wordy intercourse is without further significance for the history of the Synod, and its chief contents consist first in the disavowal of the reproach of idolatry, since Christ had appeared on earth in human form in order to free mankind from idolatry. The Church had ever preserved the doctrine of Christ unfalsified (and therefore had not recently fallen into idolatry), and, in fact, none of the follies of idolatry — of which several are adduced as examples, e.g. the mysteries of Ceres, the cultus of Venus, etc. — are to be found in the Church; even the splendid heathen temples had been destroyed by the Christian Emperors. To this was added the request, above all things to thank God for the destruction of idolatry, but also to congratulate the present holy Synod. After several encomia on this, the Patriarch Tarasius is specially commended as “the exarch of the present assembly,” in a manner as though he were the head of the Church. Further, they said, the city of Nicaea should rejoice, as it had now seen, for the second time, an Ecumenical Synod, with 350 bishops and innumerable venerable monks.

The foundation of the faith, which had been shaken by Satan, had in this Synod again been confirmed. Yes, the whole Church should rejoice because it was again united. She had no longer to fear the derision of her enemies, the contempt of the Jews and Hagarenes (Saracens), and no longer the reproach of the heretics,, as if she no longer held fast the apostolic doctrine, and had forsaken the one God on account of the honor which she paid to the friends of God. She should rejoice, for she would no longer be mistaken for the temples of idols, and the holy images of the God-bearer, the apostles, prophets, confessors, patriarchs, and other holy Fathers and martyrs were suitable for her.

We possess, further, two other letters referring to our Synod, from the Patriarch Tarasius of Constantinople to his “most holy brother and fellowservant, the Lord Hadrian, Pope of Old Rome.” In the former he refers to the progress and the accomplishment of the Synod, and says in it: “Your high-priestly, fraternal Holiness has made haste, in union with the Emperors, to root out the tares by the sword of the Spirit, and, in accordance with our prayer, sent two envoys of the same name with Peter, the Prince of the apostles. Our Emperors have received them in a friendly manner, and sent them to us. We discussed with them what was necessary, and took counsel also with the learned and venerable priests John and Thomas, who came from the East. After all the bishops of this diocese (patriarchate) had assembled, a session of the Synod began. But some mischievous persons drove us out, and we had to remain inactive for a whole year. Hereupon the rulers summoned all the bishops to Nicaea in Bithynia, and I also traveled thither in company with your representatives, and with those who had arrived from the East. “After we had sat down, we took Christ for our head or president (kefalhmeqa Cristo>n ), for the Holy Gospel was laid upon the sacred throne. First, the letters of your Holiness were read, and we nourished ourselves in common with the spiritual food which Christ prepared for us through your writings. Then the letters of those who came from the East were also read, and the proof from the Fathers for the true doctrine brought forward. Thereupon we all gave our assent to the confession of the true faith, which you had sent to me, and through me to the rulers. The heresiarchs and their adherents were deposed; those of them who were present, however, acknowledged in writing the right faith. The Church did not remain divided. On the contrary, the new heretics, the slanderers of the Christians or enemies of the images, were, like the old, smitten with the sword of the Spirit .... The Emperors ordered the venerable images to be replaced everywhere, both in the churches and in their palaces.” In his second letter to the Pope, Tarasius explains how wrong it is to buy or to sell ordination for money, and gives the assurance that, in his diocese, he never ceases to remind them of this, and that he is himself entirely free from the sin of simony. He then collects several biblical and patristic passages against simony, and finally prays the Pope that he will be pleased to raise his voice in this direction and against all simony, “for we follow the words of thy mouth.” Further light on this point, and on the reason for this letter, we receive through another letter of Tarasius to the priest and hegumenus John, and through his famous contemporary, Theodore Studites. After the conclusion of the Synod of Nicaea, many monks complained that the majority of the (Greek) bishops had purchased the sacred office for money. This complaint was naturally brought to Tarasius, and his action against the simonists became an object of violent controversy. A part of the monks, particularly Sabas and also Theodore Studites, accused the patriarch of having imposed upon the simonists penance for only one year, and, in opposition to the laws of the Church, had promised that, after the expiration of this penance, he would reinstate them in their offices. Tarasius rebutted this accusation, and, in the letter referred to, to the priest and monk John, he declares that in this matter he has a perfectly good conscience, and is conscious of no simony, nor of tolerating any simonist in office. He certainly granted them penance, and then afterwards received them back into the Church, as he did with all penitent sinners, for he rejected the severity of Novatian; but they were no longer allowed to take charge of clerical offices. As, however, he had been slandered in this matter, he had submitted to the highly venerated priest and hegumenus John, whom he honored as a father, his principal reasons for his conduct, with the request that he would make the other monks and ascetics acquainted with them, and to pray for him that he might be delivered from the evils which assailed him from all sides. To the same time probably belongs his letter to the Pope, for it must have been of importance to him, in connection with the slanders, to explain his true view to the holy see. That he had sent a letter to Rome on this subject, his opponents also heard; they thought, however, and even Theodore Studites thought, that he had endeavored to gain the Pope for his alleged lax practice in regard to the simonists, and had been rebuffed. The assertion of Tarasius, that he had never granted to the simonists reinstatement, they declared to be an untrue statement devised in his difficulty, and the report went abroad that, in the course of a year, Tarasius had, at the command of the Emperors, offered the sacrifice in common with the simonists, i.e. had again recognized them as clergy. Upon this Sabas and others completely separated themselves from Church communion with Tarasius; but Theodore Studites did not go so far, and acknowledged subsequently that the alleged weakness of the patriarch was in noways proved, and that Tarasius, as he heard, had not in fact restored the simonists. The close of the collection of Acts of Nicaea is formed by an explanation, proceeding from an anonymous hand to the Emperor, as to how the passages of Scripture which seem to oppose the veneration of images must be understood. One other document is given by Montfaucon from the Coeslinian Library with the title: “Letter of the holy, great, and Ecumenical Synod at Nicaea to the Church at Alexandria.” But even Montfaucon remarked that only the first half could be Nicene, and this is less a letter than a discourse on a Church festival, containing a commendatory exhortation for the restoration of the images. The second half, however, which contains laudations of the friends of the images and anathemas against their enemies, is evidently of the eleventh century, as is shown by the names brought forward in it of patriarchs (e.g . Ignatius, Photius) and Emperors (particularly the Empress Zoe). This second half begins with ejpi~ tou>toiv in Mansi, 1.c. p. 816.

The copious letter of Pope Hadrian I to Charles the Great is usually appended to the Nicene synodal Acts; and in it the Pope defended our Council against the so-called Libri Carolini. Of this, however, we can best speak when we have considered the part taken by the West in the controversy about the images.

The Greek text of the Nicene synodal Acts was taken from two MSS., first into the Roman collection of Councils, and then into all the others. One of these MSS. must be the original which the papal envoys brought back to Rome from Nicaea. Pope Hadrian I had a Latin translation made immediately of these Acts, fragments of which were copied into the Caroline books. This translation, however, is so defective, in the way of omission and mistranslation, that the learned Roman librarian Anastasius, in the ninth century, says: Nobody could read it, and he had therefore prepared a new translation. This is now placed alongside the Greek text in the collections of Councils. It lacks, however, the minutes of the eighth session, except the canons. A third translation was made by Gisbert Longolius from a Greek MS. which came into his hands. He published it at Cologne in the year 1540. This is also found in the collections, and has the same defect in regard to the eighth session as the version of Anastasius.

Consequently, in the Greek text of the eighth session, a Latin translation by Binius is added from the beginning of the seventeenth century.

SEC. 358. SKETCH OF THE OCCURRENCES IN THE EAST UNTIL THE BEGINNING OF THE REIGN OF LEO THE ARMENIAN.

The energetic character of the Empress Irene, in connection with the pliableness of the Byzantine clergy, leaves us no reason for doubting that, so long as she remained in possession of power, that is, until the year 802, the decrees of the seventh OEcumenical Council of Nicaea were retained in full force, even although no particular information as to their enforcement has come to us. It appears as if Theophanes and all his contemporaries, amid the frightful occurrences within the imperial family itself, had forgotten to give any account of many other things.

A few months after the end of the Nicene Synod, Irene constrained her son, the Emperor Constantine, to break the engagement which, through her own influence (p. 343), he had entered into with (Notrude) the daughter of Charles the Great, and against his will to marry Mary, an Armenian, whom she had selected for him. Why she did so is not known; but this we know, that her quarrel both with her own son and with the great King of the Franks dated from that time. Wicked people, says Theophanes (1.c. p. 719), failed not to widen the division between mother and son, so that she excluded him completely from all part in the government, whilst the eunuch Stauracius, patrician and logothetes, had all power in his hands. Enraged at this, Constantine, with some of his relations, formed the plan of imprisoning his mother and banishing her to Sicily; but Stauracius discovered the plot, and Irene, informed and urged on by him, imposed heavy punishments on the conspirators, so that she had her own son, the eighteen-year-old Emperor (born January 14, 771), flogged and imprisoned; and even made the army swear never to recognize another regent whilst she lived. From this time in all decrees she placed her own name before that of the Emperor. fct95 But shortly the troops of the different themas fct96 rose in favor of the son, and in October, 790, proclaimed him sole regent,. Irene was now forced to set him free, and to see Stauracius and others of her confidants sent, with shorn heads, into banishment. At the same time she was herself deprived of all power, and the palace of Eleutheria assigned to her as a residence. Yet on the 15th of January, 792, the Emperor declared his mother again co-regent, at her request and that of others, so that her name was placed upon all documents along with and after his own. Soon afterwards a very unsuccessful expedition against the Bulgarians gave occasion for an insurrection in a portion of the army, who proclaimed Nicephorus, one of the two uncles of Constantine, Emperor; but the rising was suppressed, and, at the advice of his mother and of Stauracius (again restored to favor), the Emperor took vengeance on his two uncles, Nicephorus and Christopher, and on all their friends. The first were blinded, the others had their tongues cut out. A rising which, on this account, broke out in Armenia, A.D. 793, was suppressed. At the beginning of the year 795 the Emperor Constantine put away his Armenian wife, and compelled her to enter a convent as a nun. Theophanes says (p. 727) that he had been tired of her, and that Irene had advised him to put her away and to marry another, foreseeing that this would make him to be greatly hated, and would facilitate her recovery of power. He married, in August of the same year, Theodota, who had been previously a lady of the Court. Cedrenus adds: When the Patriarch Tarasius tried to oppose this uncanonical marriage, the Emperor threatened to set up again the idol-temples. What he meant by this is doubtful. Walch supposes, as the iconoclasts had nicknamed all the sacred images, idols, so the orthodox had in like manner, in return, called the temples empty of images idol-temples, and that the Emperor had thus threatened the destruction of the images. It is certain that Tarasius shortly gave in, and that the celebrated Abbot Plato and other monks, for this reason, renounced Church communion with him, on which account they were punished with imprisonment by the Emperor. Not long afterwards, Irene got up a new conspiracy against her son. It was intended to seize him at a horse-race, but he escaped on a ship, and the people took his side. Irene thought herself already lost, when the Emperor was, by the false friends who were round him, given up to his mother, and she had his eyes put out, of which he soon afterwards died. From this time onwards Irene was again in sole possession of power, and to this time belongs the plan of Charles the Great to marry her and thus to unite the two parts of the Empire. Irene, according to Theophanes (p. 737), would have consented, had not AEtius, who after the death of Stauracius (799) possessed the greatest influence, dissuaded her, with the view, after her childless death, of raising his own brother Leo to the throne.

In the following year, 802, by the rebellion of the patrician and logothetes Nicephorus, Irene was dethroned, deprived of her treasures, and imprisoned on the island of Lesbos, where she died, A.D. 803. No change in ecclesiastical affairs took place in consequence, for the new Emperor, the usurper Nicephorus, was also friend of the images (although he did not persecute the enemies of images), and of the same opinions was the patriarch whom he raised to the throne in the year 806, after the death of Tarasius, who, like the Emperor himself, bore the name of Nicephorus.

The controversy respecting images was at rest, and also under the succeeding Emperor Michael Rangabe (811-813, son-in-law of his predecessor) the enemies of the images only once ventured to rise. The blinded sons of Constantine Copronymus furnished a lever for an insurrection, and at the same time they diffused the story that Constantine Copronymus had risen from his grave in order to assist the falling State.

The attempt miscarried, and some enemies of images were severely punished. But the imperial general in the East, Leo the Armenian, availed himself of the bad luck of the Emperor in a battle against the Bulgarians, in order to make him hateful and contemptible to the army. A military outbreak now gave the crown to Leo the Armenian. Michael Rangabe voluntarily retired into a monastery in the year 813, and the times of iconoclasm were renewed.

POSTSCRIPT ON THE ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY.

IN one sense the second Council of Nicaea put an end to the controversy respecting the veneration of images. This Council was intended to be Ecumenical, and was generally received as such; but the controversy by no means came to an end with the promulgation of its decrees, and it seems proper that some information should here be given respecting the subsequent history of the controversy, and that something should also be said on the earlier history of the conflict beyond what Bishop Hefele has given in this volume.

As a rule, the editor has abstained from criticising or annotating the statements of this history further than by an occasional suggestion, especially as the author is almost always scrupulously accurate in his statement of facts. It can hardly be said to be otherwise in his account of the battle between the iconoclasts and the iconolators; and yet there are few, outside the boundaries of the Greek and Latin Churches, who will read this portion of the history with complete satisfaction, or who will not feel that it has received a certain coloring from the views of the writer which diminishes its value as mere history. On this point it may suffice to recommend to the reader the article on “Images,” by the late Mr.

Scudamore, in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, in which the whole subject is handled with equal objective accuracy, but from a different point of view.

The controversy respecting images naturally points back to the Second Commandment, with its prohibition of the making of graven images or other likenesses for the purpose of worship. The question has been raised as to whether the commandment did not prohibit the making of likenesses for any purpose whatever. But the later Jewish beliefs on this subject — that all painting and sculpture of every kind were forbidden — are opposed to the simple facts of Hebrew history and institutions. It may be admitted, Kalisch remarks, that the prohibition has “exercised a retarding influence upon the progress and development of the plastic arts among the Hebrews; for plastic art, in its beginnings, generally stands in the service of religion, and advances by the stimulus it affords. But it is an incomprehensible mistake, if it is believed that the plastic arts in general, sculpture and painting, are forbidden in our text .... Such a barbarous and irrational law could not possibly emanate from a legislator who commanded and erected a holy tent furnished with all the adornments of art and beauty, who even ordered two cherubims to be placed in the Holy of Holy ( Exodus 25:18-20; cf. Exodus 25:34, Exodus 26:32; Numbers 21:8,9). In the first temple, as well as in the second, was an abundance of plastic works, which nobody has found at variance with the spirit of Mosaism. We mention, further, the ‘serpent of brass’ which Moses erected ( Numbers 21:9); the golden figures which the Philistines offered for the holy tabernacle ( 1 Samuel 6:17) .... A limited and shortsighted interpretation of the letter of the holy text has, in other passages also, led to the most perverse and almost ridiculous results. For the purpose of religious worship, no images were to be made; more than this does our text not forbid” (Kalisch, Comm. on Exodus, in loc. p. 347; cf. also Speaker’s Commem. in loc. p. 331).

In later times the Second Commandment was understood by the Jews as forbidding not merely the worshipping of images, but even the making of them; and this feeling was certainly deepened by the doings of Antiochus Epiphanes, who set up “groves and chapels of idols” in the cities of Judah (1 Macc. 1:47). Later on, in the days of Herod the Great, when the trophies of victory which he displayed were supposed to cover the effigy of a man, the Jews declared that they would never “endure images of men in the city, for it was not their country’s custom” (Josephus, Antiq. 15:8-1-2).

And Origen (A.D. 230) declares of the Jews, that “there was no maker of images among their citizens; neither painter nor sculptor was in their State” (Contra Celsum . 4: 31).

It is quite intelligible, therefore, that there should be the strongest opposition to the veneration or making of images or likenesses in the early Church. First, there were the converts from Judaism, who brought with them the strongest repugnance to such objects. Next, there were the converts from heathenism, who had themselves to a large extent been idolaters, and who saw the danger, to themselves and others, of a relapse into their previous degrading customs. In later times, also, there were the Mahometans among them and around them, who cherished a fierce hatred against all making of images as being a violation of the law of the Prophet.

Bishop Hefele has given a fairly complete account of the origin of these controversies in the Church — of the introduction, in the first instance, of symbolical representations of sacred things, as the Lamb and the Dove, leading to such pictures as that of the Good Shepherd, and so advancing to representations standing for our Lord Himself and His saints. There are several ways of viewing these things. On the one hand, it; could hardly be denied that they might be, and actually were, vehicles for the instruction of the ignorant; as in later times, for example, Dr. Doddridge, when a child, was taught Scripture history by his mother from the Dutch tiles round the fireplace. This was the view of Gregory L, when a bishop of Marseilles of that period destroyed images which had been used for idolatrous purposes. “We praise you,” said Gregory, “for being zealous lest aught made by the hand should be worshipped; but we think that you ought not to have broken the said images. For painting is used in churches, that they who are ignorant of letters may at least read on the walls by seeing there what they cannot read in books” (Ep. 7:111).

The Pope acted on the well-known principle, “Abusus non tollit usum”; on the other hand, the iconoclasts might have quoted the example of Hezekiah, who broke in pieces the serpent of brass, although it had been fashioned by divine command, because it had been used to foster idolatry.

Both positions are quite intelligible, and even reasonable. And if zeal for a spiritual religion should pass into fanaticism, such as condemns the application of every kind of art (painting, sculpture, music, poetry) in the service of religion, we cannot altogether wonder, although there comes a point when we must disapprove and condemn, in the interests of civilization and religion alike. If, again, there should come a reaction against such fanaticism, and the defense of sacred art should lead to superstition, we might also be prepared for such results. These principles are abundantly illustrated in the iconoclastic controversy; and it is not necessary that they should be here further discussed. What remains for us is to give a brief sketch of the events connected with images which followed the second Council of Nicaea. — It may be here noted, in passing, that the “images” to which reference is so often made, were (almost certainly) not sculptures, but either mosaics or what is known in the Eastern Church as icons, which may be described as pictures with generally a kind of gold mount, sometimes adorned with jewels.

As we see in the history, it was not until after many controversies that the second Council of Nicaea decided (A.D. 787) in favor of the images; but this was far from ending the dispute. It is hardly too much to say that the Emperors of the East had always exercised a large influence on the decisions of the Councils and the subsequent reception of their decrees by the Church. Their intervention in the iconoclastic controversy did not come to an end with the Synod of Nicaea. Some subsequent Emperors were favorable to the Council, but a determined opponent was found in Leo V., the Armenian (A.D. 813-826), whose soldiers destroyed images in all directions. Michael II, who succeeded him, tolerated the worshipping of images (820-829). But his son Theophilus (820-842) not only did his utmost to root out image-worship during his lifetime, but, at his death, exacted an oath from his widow, Thedora, that she would not restore the icons or the worship of them. So far was Theodora from giving effect to her promise, that she did her utmost to bring back the cultus of the icons, and even procured the holding of a Council at Constantinople in the same year (842), at which the decrees of the second Council of Nicaea were reaffirmed. The day of the synodal decision (February 19) was appointed to be kept as a festival.

It has sometimes been said that from this time all opposition ceased; but this is not quite exact, since we find the Patriarch Photius (c . A.D. 860) proposing to Pope Nicholas that another Council should be held to complete the suppression of the “heresy of the Iconomachi.” The Council met (861) and pronounced the deposition of Ignatius, who had been supplanted by Photius, but there is no record of its decision in respect to the images. In 869 another Synod “denounced the iconoclasts, upheld pictures as useful in the instruction of the people, and declared that we ‘ought to worship them with the same honor as the book of the Holy Gospels.’ Here the history of the struggle closes in the East” (Dict. Antiq. s.v. “Images “).

Turning to the Western Church, we find that, on the occasion of an embassy of the Emperor Constantine Copronymus to Pipin the Short, a Synod was held (A.D. 767) at Gentiliacum (=Gentilly) on the subject of the images; but we have no record of the proceedings (cf. see. 341 in this volume of the History). In 790, Hadrian I. sent to Charles the Great the Acts of the second Synod of Nicaea. The Emperor, who did not appreciate the acceptance by the Western Church of the decrees of an Oriental Synod, and, moreover, disagreeing with the conclusions at which they had arrived, put forth a manifesto, written in his name, entitled Libri Carolini, directed against the practices sanctioned by the Council and the Pope. He censured the proceedings of the Synod in strong terms, refuted its Acts, denounced every form of image-worship as idolatry, without allowing the doings of the iconoclasts, — taking, in fact, the line adopted by Gregory the Great, that images were useful in quickening devotion, instructing the people, and providing suitable decoration for holy places. At the same time, veneration of saints, relics, and the cross is permitted.

This manifesto was sent to the Pope, and was answered by him without producing any effect on the Emperor.

Soon afterwards (792), by means of Alcuin, he took the opportunity of disseminating his views in Britain, and of procuring the presence of English bishops at the great Synod which he convoked, and which met at Frankfort, A.D. a Synod which “rejected with contempt, and unanimously condemned, the adoration and service” which, the Greeks said, should be rendered to images. And so the question remained under the great Emperor.

At a Synod held in Paris, under Lewis the Pious (825), the bishops, referring to a letter from Pope Hadrian I to Irene, declared that the Pope “justly reproved those who rashly presumed to break the images of the saints, but acted indiscreetly in commanding to give them superstitious worship.” Down to the tenth century no recognition was given in the Frankish kingdom to the second Synod of Nicaea, and official opposition to image-worship was continued. Among those who wrote strongly against the practice may be mentioned Agobard of Lyons (c . 840) and Claudius of Turin, soon after the Council of Paris. The latter was answered by Dungal, a monk of S. Denys of Paris, in a somewhat violent fashion, who charged Claudius to defend himself before the Emperor. The latter called upon Bishop Jonas of Orleans to reply, but his answer appeared after the death of Claudius. It would appear that Agobard’s Liber de Picturis et Imaginibus was the last clear testimony against the images. Hincmar, archbishop of Reims (A.D. 845), wrote a treatise to explain “in what manner the images of our Lord and His saints are to be venerated,” in which he speaks contemptuously of the Greek practice, and rejects the second Council of Nicaea. Perhaps it may be said that Jonas of Orleans most nearly expresses the result at which the Western Church arrived, in his De Cultu Imaginum, where he says that images are to be set up in churches solummodo ad instruendas nescientium mentes.