154 CHAPTER III. IMAGE WORSHIP.-FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT CONTROVERSY ON THIS SUBJECT, TO THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR LEO, and of POPE GREGORY III., BOTH IN THe same year, a. D. 741. E § 27. We have already seen (page 98 above), that in the fourth century, the worship of images was abominated by the Christian church, and that even their admission into places of worship, for whatever object, was regarded by the most eminent bishops with abhorrence. "IN OPPOSITION TO THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE, THERE WAS A HUMAN IMAGE IN THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST," were the words of Epiphanius, already quoted. "It is an injury to God," says Justin Martyr, " to make an image of him in base wood or stone."* Augustine says that "God ought to be worshipped without an image; images serving only to bring the Deity into contempt."† The same bishop elsewhere asserts that "it would be impious in a Christian to set up a corporeal image of God in a church; and that he would be thereby guilty of the sacrilege condemned by St. Paul, of turning the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man."‡ "We Christians," says Origen, when writing against his infidel antagonist, "have nothing to do with images, on account of the second commandment; the first thing we teach those who come to us is, to despise idols and all images; it being the peculiar character of the Christian religion to raise our minds above images, agreeably to the law which God himself has given to mankind." It would be easy to multiply such quotations as these, but it is unnecessary. The testimony of these fathers is merely cited as historical evidence, as to the state of opinion on this subject in their day, not as matter of authority, because were their testimony in favor of the practice of this popish idolatry, as it is of some other popish corruptions, still their authority would weigh nothing with genuine protestants, in favor of a practice so plainly opposed to the letter and the spirit of the Bible. § 28. Some of the fathers, as Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Origen, carried their opposition to all sorts of images to such an extent, as to teach that the Scriptures forbid altogether the arts of statuary and painting. Now, while it is admitted that they were mistaken in this construction of the second commandment, for we * Justin's Apology, ii., page 44. † Augustine de Civit. Dei., 1. vii., c. 5. Augustine, de fide, et symb., c. vii. Origen against Celsus, 1. v., 7. See Bower's History of the Popes, vol. iii., page 214, where several extracts. are given from Tertullian, Clemens, and Origen, on this point. Gibbon's account of the gradual introduction of image-worship into the Christian church. are only forbidden to make graven images for the purpose of bowing down to them and serving them (Exodus xx., 5), yet the fact itself, of their expressing such an opinion, is the most conclusive proof possible, that they knew nothing whatever of the popish idolatry which sprung up a few centuries later, and which continues to characterize the church of Rome down to the present time. "The primitive Christians," remarks Mr. Gibbon (who is more to be depended on in his facts, than his reasonings), "were possessed with an unconquerable repugnance to the use and abuse of images, and this aversion may be ascribed to their descent from the Jews, and their enmity to the Greeks. The Mosaic law had severely proscribed all representations of the Deity, and that precept was firmly established in the principles and practice of the chosen people. The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against the foolish idolators, who had bowed before the workmanship of their own hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had they been endowed with sense and motion, should have started rather from the pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist. The public religion of the Christians was uniformly simple and spiritual; and the first notice of the use of pictures is in the censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years after the Christian era. Under the successors of Constantine, in the peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition, for the benefit of the multitude, and, after the ruin of Paganism, they were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious parallel. The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints and martyrs, whose intercession was implored, were seated on the right hand of God; but the gracious, and often supernatural favors, which, in the popular belief, were showered round their tombs, conveyed an unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims, who visited, and touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the memorials of their merits and sufferings. But a memorial, more interesting than the skull or the scandals of a departed worthy, is a faithful copy of his person and features, delineated by the arts of painting or sculpture. At first the experiment was made with caution and scruple, and the venerable pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen proselytes. By a slow, though inevitable progression, the honors of the original were transferred to the copy, the devout Christian prayed before the image of a saint, and the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminaries, and incense, again stole into the Catholic church."* § 29.-About the beginning of the fifth century, the practice of ornamenting the churches with pictures had become very general, and thus the door was opened for that torrent of idolatry which flooded the churches, and in three or four centuries carried away * Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xlix. Paulinus of Nola adorns a church with pictures, &c. The permission of Gregory a dangerous precedent almost every vestige of spiritual Christian worship. Among others, Paulinus, a bishop of Nola, in Italy, about the year 431, erected in that city a magnificent church in honor of St. Felix, and as he himself informs us, adorned it with pictures of martyrs, and various Scripture histories painted on the walls. This example, at that time rare, was imitated in various places, though not without considerable opposition, till in the sixth century, the dangerous practice of using not only paintings but images, became very general, both in the East and the West. § 30. Still it was the general opinion, even to the time of Gregory, that if used at all, they were to be used only as helps to the memory, or as books to instruct those who could not read, and that no sort of worship was to be paid them. That this was his opinion we have already seen from his epistle to Serenus, bishop of Marseilles. Thus it is evident that so late as the beginning of the seventh century, images were altogether forbidden to be worshipped in any way. Of course the distinction invented by modern popish idolators, between sovereign or subordinate, absolute or relative, proper or improper worship-the worship of latria, dulia, or hyperdulia-of course, I say, these scholastic distinctions were not then invented, and were therefore unknown to Gregory. They never would have been thought of, but for the necessity which papists found of inventing some way of warding off the charge of idolatry, so frequently and so justly alleged against them. The words of Gregory were, "adorari vero imagines omnibus modis devita," which the Roman Catholic historian, Dupin, has translated, "that he must not allow images to be worshipped in any manner whatever."+ The permission given by Gregory for the use of images in churches was a dangerous precedent. He might have anticipated that if suffered at all they would not long continue to be regarded merely as books for the ignorant; especially when, as soon after happened in this dark age, the most ridiculous stories began to be circulated relative to the marvellous prodigies and miraculous cures effected by the presence or the contact of these wondrous blocks of wood and of stone. The result that might naturally have been anticipated, came to pass. These images became idols; the ignorant multitude reverently kissed them, and "bowed themselves down" before them, and, by the commencement of the eighth century, a system of idol worship had sprung up almost all over the nominally Christian world, scarcely less debasing than that which prevails at the present day in Italy and other popish countries of Europe. In the year 713, pope Constantine issued an edict, in which ne pronounced those accursed who "deny that veneration to the holy images, which is appointed by the church"-Sanctis imaginibus venerationem constitutam ab ecclesia, qui negarent illam ipsam. § 31. In the year 726, commenced that famous controversy be * See above, page 131. † Dupin, vol. v., p. 122. 787. 66 The emperor Leo, in 726, issues his first decree against image-worship. tween the Emperor and the Pope upon the worship of images which for more than half a century arrayed against each other, Leo and Gregory, and their successors in the empire and the popedom, and which was only quelled by the full establishment of this idolatrous worship, by the decree of the second council of Nice, in In the beginning of the eighth century," says Gibbon, "the 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 idolators; 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." (Vol. iii., p. 273.) Leo, the emperor, observing from his palace in Constantinople the extensive prevalence of this idolatry, resolved to put a stop to the growing superstition, and make an attempt to restore the Christian worship to its primitive purity. With this view he issued an edict forbidding in future any worship to be paid to images, but without ordering them to be demolished or removed. The date of this edict was A. D. 726, a year, as Bower has well remarked, "ever memorable in the ecclesiastical annals, for the dispute to which it gave occasion, and the unheard of disturbances which that dispute raised, both in the Church and the State.*" Anxious to preserve his subjects from idolatry, the Emperor, with all that frankness and sincerity which marked his character, publicly avowed his conviction of the idolatrous nature of the prevailing practice, and protested against the erection of images. Hitherto no councils had sanctioned the evil, and precedents of antiquity were against it. But the scriptures, which ought to have had infinitely more weight upon the minds of men than either councils or precedents, had expressly and pointedly condemned it; yet, such deep root had the error at this time taken; so pleasing was it with men to commute for the indulgence of their crimes by a routine of idolatrous ceremonies; and, above all, so little ear had they to bestow on what the word of God taught, that the subjects of Leo murmured against him as a tyrant and a persecutor. And in this they were encouraged by Germanus, the bishop of Constantinople, who, with equal zeal and ignorance, asserted that images had always been used in the church, and declared his determination to oppose the Emperor: which, the more effectually to do, he wrote to Gregory II., then bishop of Rome, respecting the subject, who, by similar reasonings, warmly supported the same cause. §32. The first steps of the emperor Leo in the reformation, were moderate and cautious; he assembled a great council of senators and bishops, and enacted, with their consent, that all the images should be removed from the sanctuary and altar to a proper height in the churches, where they might be visible to the eyes, and inaccessible to the superstition of the people. But it was im * History of the Popes, v. iii., p. 199. Tumult and murder by the women of Constantinople at the removal of an image. possible on either side to check the rapid though adverse impulse of veneration and abhorrence: in their lofty position, the sacred images still edified their votaries and reproached the tyrant. He was himself provoked by resistance and invective; and his own party accused him of an imperfect discharge of his duty, and urged, for his imitation, the example of the Jewish king, who had broken without scruple the brazen serpent of the temple. In the year 730, he issued an edict, enjoining the removal or destruction of images, and having in vain labored to bring over Germanus, the bishop of Constantinople, to his views, he deposed him from his See, and put in his place Anastasius, who took part with the Emperor. There was, in the palace of Constantinople, a porch, which contained an image of the Saviour on the cross. Leo sent an officer to remove it. Some females, who were then present, entreated that it might remain, but without effect. The officer mounted a ladder, and with an axe struck three blows on the face of the figure, when the women threw him down, by pulling away the ladder, and murdered him on the spot. The image, however, was removed, and burnt, and a plain cross set up in its room. The women then proceeded to insult Anastasius for encouraging the profanation of holy things. An insurrection ensued-and, in order to quell it, the Emperor was obliged to put several persons to death. § 33.-Pope Gregory, as soon as he heard of the appointment of Anastasius, an avowed enemy to the worship of images, as bishop of Constantinople, immediately declared him deposed from his dignity, unless he should at once renounce his heresy, and favor images as his predecessor, Germanus, had done. Both the letter and the edict of the Pope were, however, treated with silent contempt, and the new patriarch continued to exercise his office, and, by the direction of his master, Leo, to employ all his zeal in rooting out the idolatry. The imperious pontiff was no more civil to the emperor Leo than to the patriarch. The Emperor had written him a letter, entreating him not to oppose so commendable a work as the extirpation of idolatry, and threatening him with the fate of pope Martin, who died in banishment, if he should continue obstinate and rebellious. The reply of Gregory is worthy of record as an illustration of the spirit of the man, and of the spirit of the times. "During ten pure and fortunate years," says he," we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the sacred pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers. How deplorable is the change! How tremendous the scandal! You now accuse the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the accusation, you betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments: the first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion; and were you to enter a grammar-school, and * Fleury's Eccles. Hist., book xlii., 7. |