of deposition and excommunication, but (inconsistently) ordered at the same time that no one should deface or meddle with sacred vessels or vestments ornamented with figures, and formally declared its agreement with the six oecumenical councils, and the lawfulness of invoking the blessed Virgin and saints. It denounced all religious representations by painter or sculptor as presumptuous, pagan and idolatrous. Those who make pictures of the Saviour, who is God as well as man in one inseparable person, either limit the incomprehensible Godhead to the bounds of created flesh, or confound his two natures, like Eutyches, or separate them, like Nestorius, or deny his Godhead, like Arius; and those who worship such a picture are guilty of the same heresy and blasphemy. The eucharist alone is the proper image of Christ. A three-fold anathema was pronounced on the advocates of image-worship, even the great John of Damascus under the name of Mansur, who is called a traitor of Christ, an enemy of the empire, a teacher of impiety, and a perverter of the Scriptures. The acts of the Synod were destroyed except the decision (opo) and a brief introduction, which are embodied and condemned in the acts of the second Nicene Council,1

The emperor carried out the decree with great rigor as far as his power extended. The sacred images were ruthlessly destroyed and replaced by white-wash or pictures of trees, birds, and animals. The bishops and clergy submitted; but the monks who manufactured the pictures, denounced the emperor as a second Mohammed and heresiarch, and all the iconoclasts as heretics, atheists and blasphemers, and were subjected to imprisonment, flagellation, mutilation, and all sorts of indignities, even death. The principal martyrs of images during this reign (from 761-775) are Petrus Kalabites (i. e. the inhabitant of a hut, zalóßr), Johannes, Abbot of Monagria, and Stephanus, Abbot of Auxentius, opposite Constantinople (called "the new Stephanus," to distinguish him from the proto-martyr). The emperor made even an attempt to abolish the convents.2

1 Mansi, XIII. 205-363; Gieseler, II. 16; Hefele, III. 410-418. On those persecutions see, besides Theophanes, the Acta Sanct. of the

§ 102. The Restoration of Image-Worship by the Seventh Ecumenical Council, 787.

Leo IV., called Chazarus (775–780), kept up the laws against images, though with more moderation. But his wife Irene of Athens, distinguished for beauty, talent, ambition and intrigue, was at heart devoted to image-worship, and after his death and during the minority of her son Constantine VI. Porphyrogenitus, labored with shrewdness and perseverance for its restoration (780–802). At first she proclaimed toleration to both parties, which she afterwards denied to the iconoclasts. She raised the persecuted monks to the highest dignities, and her secretary, Tarasius, to the patriarchal throne of Constantinople, with the consent of Pope Hadrian, who was willing to overlook the irregularity of the sudden election of a layman in prospect of his services to orthodoxy. She removed the iconoclastic imperial guard, and replaced it by one friendly to her views.

But the crowning measure was an oecumenical council, which alone could set aside the authority of the iconoclastic council of 754. Her first attempt to hold such a council at Constantinople in 786 completely failed. The second attempt, owing to more careful preparations, succeeded.

Irene convened the seventh œcumenical council in the year 787, at Nicæa, which was less liable to iconoclastic disturbances than Constantinople, yet within easy reach of the court, and famous as the seat of the first and weightiest oecumenical council. It was attended by about three hundred and fifty bishops,' under the presidency of Tarasius, and held only eight sessions from September 24 to October 23, the last in the imperial palace of Constantinople. Pope Hadrian I. sent two priests, both called

Bolland. for Oct., Tom. VIII. 124 sqq. (publ. Brussels, 1853), and Hefele, III. 421-428.

1 The accounts vary between 330 and 367. The Acts are signed by 308 bishops and episcopal representatives. Nicephorus, the almost contemporaneous patriarch of Constantinople, in a letter to Leo III., mentions only 150. See Hefele, III. 460.

Peter, whose names stand first in the Acts. The three Eastern patriarchs, who were subject to the despotic rule of the Saracens, could not safely leave their homes; but two Eastern monks, John, and Thomas, who professed to be syncelli of two of these patriarchs and to have an accurate knowledge of the prevailing orthodoxy of Egypt and Syria, were allowed to sit and vote in the place of those dignitaries, although they had no authority from them, and were sent simply by a number of their fellowmonks.1

The Nicene Council nullified the decrees of the iconoclastic Synod of Constantinople, and solemnly sanctioned a limited worship (proskynesis) of images.❜

Under images were understood the sign of the cross, and pictures of Christ, of the Virgin Mary, of angels and saints. They may be drawn in color or composed of Mosaic or formed of other suitable materials, and placed in churches, in houses, and in the street, or made on walls and tables, sacred vessels and vestments. Homage may be paid to them by kissing, bowing, strewing of incense, burning of lights, saying prayers before them; such honor to be intended for the living objects in heaven which the images represented. The Gospel book and the relics of martyrs were also mentioned among the objects of veneration.

The decree was fortified by a few Scripture passages about the Cherubim (Ex. 25: 17-22; Ezek. 41: 1, 15, 19; Heb. 9: 1-5), and a large number of patristic testimonies, genuine and

1 Theodore of the Studium, himself a zealous advocate of image-worship, exposes this trick, and intimates that the council was not strictly œcumenical, although he sometimes gives it that name. The question connected with these two irresponsible monks is discussed with his usual minuteness and prolixity by Walch, X. 551-558. See also Neander, III. 228, and Hefele, III. 459.

2 The definition (όρος) sanctions the ἀσπασμὸς καὶ τιμητικὴ προσκύνησις, osculum (or salutatio) et honoraria adoratio, but not ἀληθινὴ λατρεία ἡ πρέπει μόνῃ τῇ θείᾳ pvoɛi, vera latria, quæ solam divinam naturam decet. Mansi, XIII. 378 sq. The term ȧorаcubs embraces salutation and kiss, the πpookívŋois, bowing the knee and other demonstrations of reverence, see p. 450.

forged, and alleged miracles performed by images. A presbyter testified that he was cured from a severe sickness by a picture of Christ. Bishop after bishop, even those who had been members of the Synod of 754, renounced his iconoclastic opinions, and large numbers exclaimed together: "We all have sinned, we all have erred, we all beg forgiveness." Some professed conscientious scruples, but were quieted when the Synod resolved that the violation. of an oath which was contrary to the law of God, was no perjury. At the request of one of the Roman delegates, an image was brought into the assembly, and reverently kissed by all. At the conclusion, the assembled bishops exclaimed unanimously: "Thus we believe. This is the doctrine of the apostles. Anathema upon all who do not adhere to it, who do not salute the images, who call them idols, and who charge the Christians with idolatry. Long life to the emperors! Eternal memory to the new Constantine and the new Helena! God protect their reign! Anathema upon all heretics! Anathema especially upon Theodosius, the false bishop of Ephesus, as also upon Sisinnius and Basilius! The Holy Trinity has rejected their doctrines." Then follows an anathema upon other distinguished iconoclasts, and all who do not confess that Christ's humanity has a circumscribed form, who do not greet the images, who reject the ecclesiastical traditions, written or unwritten; while eternal memory is given to the chief champions of image-worship, Germanus of Constantinople, John of Damascus, and George of Cyprus, the heralds of truth.2

1 Walch (X. 572) says of these proofs from tradition: "Die untergeschobenen Schriften, die in der Hauptsache nichts entscheidenden Stellen und die mit grosser Unwissenheit verdrehten Aussprüche sind so häufig, dass man sich beides über die Unwissenheit und Unverschämtheit nicht genug verwundern kann, welche in diesen Sammlungen sichtbar sind." Even moderate Roman Catholic historians, as Alexander Natalis and Fleury, admit quietly the errors in some patristic quotations.

2 See the acts of the council in the twelfth and thirteenth vols. of Mansi, and a summary in Hefele, III. 460-482. On the different texts and defective Latin versions, see Walch, X. 420-422, and Hefele, III. 486. Gibbon calls

The decrees of the Synod were publicly proclaimed in an eighth session at Constantinople in the presence of Irene and her son, and signed by them; whereupon the bishops, with the people and soldiers, shouted in the usual form: "Long live the orthodox queen-regent." The empress sent the bishops home with rich presents.

The second Council of Nicæa stands far below the first in moral dignity and doctrinal importance, and occupies the lowest grade among the seven oecumenical synods; but it determined the character of worship in the oriental church for all time to come, and herein lies its significance. Its decision is binding also upon the Roman church, which took part in it by two papal legates, and defended it by a letter of Pope Hadrian to Charlemagne in answer to the Libri Carolini. Protestant churches disregard the council because they condemn image-worship as a refined form of idolatry and as a fruitful source of superstition; and this theory is supported by the plain sense of the second commandment, the views of the primitive Christians, and, negatively, by the superstitions which have accompanied the history of image-worship down to the miracle-working Madonnas of the nineteenth century. At the same time it may be readily conceded that the decree of Nicea has furnished aid and comfort to a low and crude order of piety which needs visible supports, and has stimulated the development of Christian art. Iconoclasm would have killed it. It is, however, a remarkable fact that the Catholic Raphael and Michael Angelo, and the Protestant Lucas Kranach and Albrecht Dürer, were contemporaries of the Reformers, and that the art of painting reached its highest perfection at the period when image-worship for a great part of

the acts "a curious monument of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood and folly." This is too severe, but not without some foundation. The personal character of Irene casts a deep shadow over the Council, and would have been condemned even by the Byzantine historians, if her devotion to images had not so blinded them and Roman historians, like Baronius and Maimbourg, that they excuse her darkest crimes and overwhelm her with praise.