m XLIX. her deceased husband; the sentence of Icono- CHAP. clast patriarch was commuted from the loss of... his eyes to a whipping of two hundred lashes: the bishops trembled, the monks shouted, and the festival of orthodoxy preserves the annual memory of the triumph of the images. A single question yet remained, whether they are endowed with any proper and inherent sanctity: it was agitated by the Greeks of the eleventh century; and as this opinion has the strongest recommendation of absurdity, I am surprised that it was not more explicitly decided in the affirmative. In the West, Pope Adrian I accepted and announced the decrees of the Nicene assembly, which is now revered by the catholics as the seventh in rank of the general councils. Rome and Italy were docile to the voice of their father; but the greatest part of the Latin Christians were far behind in the race of superstition. The churches of France, Ger- Reluct many, England, and Spain, steered a middle the Franks course between the adoration and the destruc- and of tion of images, which they admitted in their magne, temples, not as objects of worship, but as lively &c. and useful memorials of faith and history. An angry book of controversy was composed and published in the name of Charlemagne;" under m See an account of this controversy in the Alexius of Anna Comnena (1. v, p. 129) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 371, 372). "The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, p. 443 429), composod in the palace or winter-quarters of Charlemagne, at Worms, A. D. 790; and sent by Engebert to Pope Hadrian I, who answered them by a gradis at verbosa epistola, (Concil. tom. viii, p. 1553). The Carolines propose 120 objections against the Nicene synod, and such words as these are the flowers of their rhetoric-dementiam priscæ Gentillitatis obsoletum argumenta insanissima et absurdissina . . . . derisione errorem dignas nauias, &c. &c. ance of Charle A. D. 794, XLIX. CHAP. his authority a synod of three hundred bishops was assembled at Frankfort; they blamed the fury of the Iconoclasts, but they pronounced a more severe censure against the superstition of the Greeks, and the decrees of their pretended council, which was long despised by the barbarians of the West. Among them the worship of images advanced with silent and insensible progress; but a large atonement is made for their hesitation and delay, by the gross idolatry of the ages which precede the reformation, and of the countries, both in Europe and America, which are still immersed in the gloom of superstition. Final se The popes eastern A. D. 774800. It was after the Nicene synod, and under the paration of reign of the pious Irene, that the popes consumFrom the mated the separation of Rome and Italy, by the empire. translation of the empire to the less orthodox Charlemagne. They were compelled to choose between the rival nations; religion was not the sole motive of their choice; and while they dissembled the failings of their friends, they beheld, with reluctance and suspicion, the catholic virtues of their foes. The difference of language and manners had perpetuated the enmity of the two capitals; and they were alienated The assemblies of Charlemagne were political as well as ecclesiastical; and the three hundred members (Nat. Alexander, sec. viii, p. 53) who sat and voted at Frankfort, must include not only the bishops, but the abbots, aud even the principal laymen. P Qui supra sanctissima patres nostri (episcopi et sacerdotes) omnimodis servitium et adorationem imaginum renuentes contempserunt, atque consentientes condemnaverunt, (Concil. tom. ix, p. 101; Canon ii, Franckfurd). A polemic must be hard-hearted indeed, who does not pity the efforts of Baronius, Pagi, Alexander, Maimburg, &c. to elude this unlucky sentence. XLIX. from each other by the hostile opposition of se- CHAP. venty years. In that schism the Romans had tasted of freedom, and the popes of sovereignty; their submission would have exposed them to the revenge of a jealous tyrant; and the revolution of Italy had betrayed the importance, as well as the tyranny, of the Byzantine court. The Greek emperors had restored the images, but they had not restored the Calabrian estates1 and the Illyrian diocess,' which the Iconoclasts had torn away from the successors of St. Peter; and Pope Adrian threatens them with a sentence of excommunication unless they speedily abjure this practical heresy. The Greeks were now orthodox, but their religion might be tainted by the breath of the reigning monarch: the Franks were contumacious; but a discerning eye might discern their approaching conversion Theophanes (p. 344) specifies those of Sicily and Calabria, which yielded an annual rent of three talents and a half of gold, (perhaps 7,0001. sterling). Liutprand more pompously enumerates the patrimonies of the Roman church in Greece, Judea, Persia, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, Egypt, aud Lybia, which were detained by the injustice of the Greek emperor, (Legat. ad Nicephorum, in Script. Rerum Italicarum, tom. ii, pars i, p. 481). The great diocese of the eastern Illyricum, with Apulia, Calabria, and Sicily, (Thomassin, Discipline de l'Eglise, tom. i, p. 146); by the confession of the Greeks, the patriarch of Constantinople had detached from Rome to the metroplitans of Thessalonica, Athens, Corinth, Nicopolis, and Fatræ, (Luc. Holsten. Geograph Sacra, p. 22); and his spiritual conquests extended to Naples and Amalphi, (Giannone, Isturka Civile di Napoli, tom. i, p. 517-524. Pagi, A. D. 730, No. 11). Ih hoc otenditur, quia ex uno capitulo ab errore reversis, in aliis doubus, in eodem (was it the same?) permaneant errore . . . . de diocesi S. R. E. seu de patrimoniis iterum increpantes commonemus, ut si ea restituere noluerit hereticum eum pro hujusmodi errroe persevantia decernemus, (Epist. Hadrian. Papæ ad Carolum Magnum, in Concil. tom. viii, p. 1598); to which he adds a reason, most directly opposite to his conduct, that he preferred the salvation of souls and rule of faith to the goods of this transitory world XLIX. CHAP. from the use, to the adoration, of images. The name of Charlemagne was stained by the polemic acrimony of his scribes: but the conqueror himself conformed, with the temper of a statesman, to the various practice of France and Italy. In his four pilgrimages or visits to the Vatican, he embraced the popes in the communion of friendship and piety; knelt before the tomb, and consequently before the image, of the apostle; and joined, without scruple, in all the prayers and processions of the Roman liturgy. Would prudence or gratitude allow the pontiffs to renounce their benefactor? Had they a right to alienate his gift of the exarchate? Had they power to abolish his government of Rome? The title of patrician was below the merit and greatness of Charlemagne; and it was only by reviving the western empire that they could pay their obligations or secure their establishment. By this decisive measure they would finally eradicate the claims of the Greeks from the debasement of a provincial town: the majesty of Rome would be restored: the Latin Christians would be united under a supreme head, in their ancient metropolis; and the conquerors of the West would receive their crown from the successors of St. Peter. The Roman church would acquire a zealous and respectable advocate; and, under the shadow of the Carlovingian power, the bishop might exercise, with honour and safety, the government of the city.' Fontanini considers the emperors as no more than the advocates of the church, (advocates et defensor S. R. E. See Ducange, Gloss. Lat. tom. i, p. 297). His antagonist Muratori reduces the popes to be no more XLIX. tion of mague as of Rome A. D. 800, Before the ruin of paganism in Rome, the CHAP. competition for a wealthy bishopric had often been productive of tumult and bloodshed. The Coronapeople was less numerous, but the times were Charlemore savage, the prize more important, and the emperor chair of St. Peter was fiercely disputed by the and of the leading ecclesiastics who aspired to the rank West, of sovereign. The reign of Adrian I," sur- Dec 25. passes the measure of past or succeeding ages;* the walls of Rome, the sacred patrimony, the ruin of the Lombards, and the friendship of Charlemagne, were the trophies of his fame: he secretly edified the throne of his successors, and displayed in a narrow space the virtues of a great prince. His memory was revered; but in the next election, a priest of the Lateran, Leo III, was preferred to the nephew and the favourite of Adrian, whom he had promoted to the first dignities of the church. The acquiescence or repentance disguised, above four years, the blackest intention of revenge, till the day of a procession, when a furious band of more than the exarchs of the emperor. In the more equitable view of Mosheim, (Institut, Eccles. p. 264, 265), they held Rome under the empire as the most honourable species of fief or benefice-premuntur nocte caliginosâ! His merits and hopes are summed up in an epitaph of thirty-eight verses, of which Charlemagne declares himself the author, (Concil. tom. viii, p. 520.) Post patrem lacrymans Carolus hæc carmina scipsi. Tu mihi dulcis amor, te modo plango pater... The poetry might be supplied by Alcuin; but the tears, the most * Every new pope is admonished-" Sancte Pater, non videbis an"nos Petri," twenty-five years. On the whole series the average is about eight years-a short hope for an ambitiou cardinal. |