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stine was more probably that of some tempo- CHAP. ral saviour; the Gnostics and their profane monuments were reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian artists could only be guided by the clandestine imitation of some heathen model. In this distress, a bold and dexterous invention assured at once the likeness of the image and the innocence of the worship. A new super structure of fable was raised on the popular basis of a Syrian legend, on the correspondence of Christ and Abgarus, so famous in the days of Eusebius, so reluctantly deserted by our modern advocates. The bishop Cæsarea" records the epistle, but he most strangely forgets the picture of Christ;* the perfect impression of his

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

:

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

i The evidences of these epistles is stated and rejected by the candid Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, vol. i, p. 279-309). Among the herd of biggots who are forcibly driven from this convenient, but untenable, post, I am ashamed, with the Grabes, Caves, Tillemonts, &c. to discover Mr. Addison, an English gentleman, (his Works, vol. i, 528, Baskerville's edition); but her superficial tract on the Christian religiou owes its credit to his name, his style, and the interested applause of our clergy

From the silence of James of Sarug, (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. p.

289,

CHAP. face on a liuen, with which he gratified the faith of

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the royal stranger, who had invoked his healing power, and offered the strong city of Edessa to protect him against the malice of the Jews. The ignorance of the primitive church is ex plained by the long imprisonment of the image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after an oblivion of five hundred years, it was released by some prudent bishop, and seasonably presented to the devotion of the times. Its first and most glorious exploits was the deliverance of the city from the arms of Chosroes Nushirvan; and it was soon revered as a pledge of the divine promise, that Edessa should never be taken by a foreign enemy. It is true indeed, that the text of Procopius ascribes the double deliverance of Edessa to the wealth and valour of her citizens, who purchased the absence and repelled the assaults of the Persian monarch. He was ignorant, the profane historian, of the testimony which he is compelled to deliver in the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius, that the Palladium was exposed on the rampart; and that the water which had been sprinkled on the holy face, instead of quenching, added new fuel to the flames of the beseiged. After this important service, the image of Edessa was preserved with respect and gratitude; and if the 289, 318), and the testimony of Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. I. iv, c. 27), I conclude that this fable was invented between the years 521 and 594, most probably after the siege of Edessa in 540, (Asseman. tom. i, p. 416. Procopius, de Bell. Persic. I. ii). It is the sword and buckler of Gregory II, (in Epist. i, and Leon. Isaur. Council. tom. viii, p. 656, 657); of John Damascenus, (Opera, tom. i, p. 281, edit. Lequien), and of the second Nicene Council, (Actio, v, p. 1030). The most perfect edition may be found in Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 175-178).

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Armenians rejected the legend, the more credu- CHAP. lous Greeks adored the similitude, which was not the work of any mortal pencil, but the immediate creation of the divine original. The style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how far their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry. "How can we with mor"tal

66

tal eyes contemplate this image, whose celes"tial splendour the host of heaven presumes "not to behold? He who dwells in heaven con"descends this day to visit us by his venerable image; He who is seated on the cherubim, "visits us this day by a picture, which the Fa"ther has delineated with his immaculate hand, " which he has formed in an ineffable manner, "and which we sanctify by adoring it with fear " and love." Before the end of the sixth cen. tury, these images, made without hands, (in Greek it is a single word'), were propagated in the camps and cities of the eastern empire; they were the objects of worship, and the instruments of miracles; and in the hour of danger or tumult, Its copies their venerable presence could revive the hope, rekindle the courage, or repress the fury, of the Roman legions. Of these pictures, the far

1 Axeipomoints. See Ducauge, in Gloss. Græc. et Lat. The subject is treated with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit Grester, (Syntagma de Imaginibus non Manû factis, ad calcem Codini de Officiis, p. 289 330), the ass, or rather the fox, of Ingoldstat, (see the Scaligerana); with equal reason and wit by the protestant Beausobre in the ironical controversy which he has spread through many volumes of the Bibliotheque Germanique, (tom. xviii, p. 1-50; xx, p. 27-68; xxv, p. 1-46; xxvii, p. 85-11; xxviii, p. 1-33; xxxi, p. 111-148; xxxii, p. 75-107 ; xxxiv, p. 67-96).

m Theophylact Simocatta (1. ii, c. 3, p. 34; l. iii, c. 1, p. 63) celebrates the θεανδρικον είκασμα, which he styles αχειροποιητον; yet it war wo more than a copy, since he adds αρχετυπον το εκείνον οι Ρωμαιοι (of Edessa) Operxsuuri Ti ajjntov. See Pagi, tom. ii, A. D. 586, No. 11.

XLAX

CHAP. greater part, the transcripts of a human pencil, could only pretend to a secondary likeness and improper title; but there were some of higher descent, who derived their resemblance from an immediate contact with the original, endowed, for that purpose, with a miraculous and prolific virtue. The most ambitious aspired from a filial to a fraternal relation with the image of Edessa; and such is the veronica of Rome, or Spain, or Jerusalem, which Christ in his agony and bloody sweat applied to his face, and delivered to an holy matron. The fruitful precedent was speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and martyrs. In the church of Diospolis in Palestine the features of the mother of God were deeply inscribed in a marble column: the East and West have been decorated by the cil of St. Luke; and the evangelist, who was perhaps a physician, has been forced to exercise the occupation of a painter, so profane and odious in the eyes of the primitive Christians. The Olympian Jove, created by the muse of Homer, and the chissel of Phidias, might inspire a philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but these catholic images were faintly and flatly delineated by the monkish artists in the last degeneracy of taste and genius."

pen

The worship of images had stolen into the

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

"Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the canvass; they 66 are as bad as a group of statues!" It was thus that the ignorance and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the pictures of Titian, which he had ordered, and refused to accept.

P

XLIX.

to image

church by insensible degrees, and each petty CHAP. step was pleasing to the superstitious mind, as productive of comfort and innocent of sin. But Opposition in the beginning of the eighth century, in the worship. full magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened by an apprehension, that under the mask of Christianity, they had restored the religion of their fathers; they heard, with grief and impatience, the name of idolaters; the incessant charge of the Jews and Mahometans, who derived from the law and the koran an immortal hatred to graven images and all the relative worship. The servitude of the Jews might curb their zeal and depreciate their authority; but the triumphant Musselmans, who reigned at Damascus, and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of reproach the accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, had been fortified with the images of Christ, his mother, and his saints; and each city presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous defence. In a rapid conquest of ten years, the Arabs subdued those cities and these images; and, in their opinion, the Lord of hosts pronounced a decisive judgment between the adoration and contempt of these mute and inanimate idols. For a while Edessa had braved the Persian assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was involved in the common ruin; and his divine re

P By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses the origin of the Iconoclasts is imputed to the caliph Yezid and two Jews, who promised the empire to Lec; and the reproaches of these hostile sectaries are turned into an absurd conspiracy for restoring the purity of the Chris tian worship, (see Spanheim, Hist. Imag. c. 2).