BOOK 18.

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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