the acclamations and subscriptions of 350 bishops. They mianimously pronounced that the worship of images is agreeable to Scripture and reason, to the fathers and councils of the Church ; but they hesitate whether that
worship be relative or direct; whether the godhead and the figure of Christ be entitled to the same mode of ado- ration. Of this second Nicene Council the acts are still extant ; a curious monument of superstition and igno- rance, of falsehood and folly" (Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Emjjire, v, 37 sq.). Meanwhile, however, the young emperor was attaining the maturity of man- hood ; " the maternal yoke became more grievous ; and he listened to the favorites of his own age, who shared his pleasures, and were ambitious of sharing his power." But Irene was by no means ready to concede to her son the power which she preferred to hold in her own hand, and, ever vigilant, she soon penetrated the designs of her son. As a consequence, there arose at court two factions. The young and the vigorous gathered around the heir presumptive, and in 790 he actually succeeded in assuming himself the government of affairs. As Con- stantine \\ he became the lawful emperor of the Ro- mans, and Irene was dismissed to a life of solitude and repose. " But her haughty spirit condescended to the arts of dissimulation : she flattered the bishops and eu- nuchs, revived the filial tenderness of the prince, re-
I gained his confidence, and betrayed his credulity. The character of Constantine was not destitute of sense or s])irit; but his education had been studiously neglected; and the ambitious mother now exposed to the public censure the vices which she herself had nourished, and the actions which she herself had secretly advised." Meanwhile a powerful conspiracy was also concocted against Constantine, and only reached his ears when he knew it to be impossible for him to successfully re- sist. In haste he fltd from the capital. But his own
I guards even had been bought in the interests of Irene,
j and the emperor was seized by them on the Asiatic shore, and transported back to Constantinople to the porphyry apartment of the palace where he had first seen the light. " In the mind of Irene ambition had stifled everj' sentiment of humanity and nature;" and
I it was decreed, in a bloody council which she had assembled, that Constantine must by some means be
j forever rendered incapable of assuming the govern- ment himself. AVhile asleep in his bed, the hirelings of Irene entered the room of the prince and stabbed their daggers with violence and precipitation into his eyes, depriving him not only of his eyesight, but rendering his life even critical. As if this crime were in itself not sufficiently great, the youth was even deprived of his liberty when it was found that he had survived the fa- tal stroke, and confined in a dungeon, Avhere he was left to pine away. Thus the unnatural mother, guilty of a crime unparalleled in the history of crimes, secured for herself the reins of government. But still Irene was not free from anxieties. Though the punishment which her crime deserved did not immediately follow the bloody deed, it yet came surelj\ Her tw^o favorites, Staiiracius and ^tius, whom she had raised, enriched, and intrusted with the first dignities of the empire, were constantly embroiled with each other, and their jealousies only ceased with the death of the former, A.D. 800. In or- der to secure her possession of the throne, she sought a marriage with Charlemagne ; but the Frank emperor had evidently no relish for a woman who had commit- ted so many crimes, and the scheme proved abortive. Two years later, her treasurer, Nicephorus, rebellfd against her, and, suddenly seizing her person, banished her to the isle of Lesbos, where she was forced to spin for a livelihood. Here she died of grief, A.D. 803. See ICOXOC I.AS.M. (,T. II.W.)
Irenical Theology is a term (from ilpy)vr), peace) used to designate the art or science of conciliating any differences which arise in religion and in the Church from one-sided theories or misapprehension. Jlaking peace implies a previous warfare, hence irenical theology
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