No doubt to these, given in Palmer, who has made much use of Lannoy, others could be added; but they are enough to shew that the council was very little known, and that none of these writers had ever seen its acts.
Sir William is of opinion that by what precedes in his book he has "proved that for at least five centuries and a half the Council of Nice remained rejected in the Western Church." I venture to think that the most he has proved is that during that period of time he has been able to find fifteen individuals who for one reason or another wrote rejecting that council, that is to say three in a century, a number which does not seem quite sufficient to make the foundation of so considerable a generalization as "the Western Church." The further conclusion of Sir William, I think, every scholar will reject as simply preposterous, viz.: "In fact the doctrine of the adoration of images [by which he means the doctrine taught by the II. Council of Nice] was never received in the West, except where the influence of the Roman See was predominant" (p. 211).
Sir William is always, however, honest, and the following quotation which he himself makes from Cardinal Bellarmine may well go far toward explaining the erroneous or imperfect statements he has so learnedly and laboriously gathered together. "Bellarmine says: It is very credible that St. Thomas, Alexander of Hales, and other scholastic doctors had not seen the second synod of Nice, nor the eighth general synod;' he adds that they were long in obscurity, and were first published in our own age, as may be known from their not being extant in the older volumes of the councils; and St. Thomas and the other ancient schoolmen never make any mention of this Nicene Synod.' (Bell. De Imag. Sanct. Lib. II. cap. xxij.)"
2. What the Council decreed.
The council decreed that similar veneration and honour should be paid to the representations of the Lord and of the Saints as was accustomed to be paid to the "laurata" and tablets representing the Christian emperors, to wit, that they should be bowed to, and saluted with kisses, and attended with lights and the offering of incense. [513] But the Council was most explicit in declaring that this was merely a veneration of honour and affection, such as can be given to the creature, and that under no circumstances could the adoration of divine worship be given to them but to God alone.
The Greek language has in this respect a great advantage over the Hebrew, the Latin and the English; it has a word which is a general word and is properly used of the affectionate regard and veneration shown to any person or thing, whether to the divine Creator or to any of his creatures, this word is proskunesis; it has also another word which can properly be used to denote only the worship due to the most high, God, this word is latreia. When then the Council defined that the worship of "latria "was never to be given to any but God alone, it cut off all possibility for idolatry, mariolatry, iconolatry, or any other "latry" except "theo-latry." If therefore any of these other "latries" exist or ever have existed, they exist or have existed not in accordance with, but in defiance of, the decree of the Second Council of Nice.
But unfortunately, as I have said, we have neither in Hebrew, Latin, nor English any word with this restricted meaning, and therefore when it became necessary to translate the Greek acts and the decree, great difficulty was experienced, and by the use of "adoro" as the equivalent of proskuneo many were scandalized, thinking that it was divine adoration which they were to give to the sacred images, which they knew would be idolatry. The same trouble is found in rendering into English the acts and decrees; for while indeed properly speaking "worship" no more means necessarily divine worship in English than "adoratio" does in Latin (e.g. I. Chr. xxix. 20, "All the congregation bowed down their heads and worshipped the Lord and the King" [i.e. Solomon]; Luke xiv. 10, "Then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee"), yet to the popular mind "the worship of images" is the equivalent of idolatry. In the following translations I have uniformly translated as follows and the reader from the English will know what the word is in the original.
Proskuneo, to venerate; timao, to honour; latreuo, to adore; aspazomai, to salute; douleuo, to serve; eikon, an image.
The relative force of proskunesis and latreia cannot better be set forth than by Archbishop Trench's illustration of two circles having the same centre, the larger including the less (New Testament Synonyms, sub voce Latreuo).
To make this matter still clearer I must ask the reader's attention to the use of the words abadh and shachah in the Hebrew; the one abadh, which finds, when used with reference to God or to false gods its equivalent in latreuo; the other shachah, which is represented by proskuneo . Now in the Old Testament no distinction in the Hebrew is drawn between these words when applied to creator or creature. The one denotes service primarily for hire; the other bowing down and kissing the hand to any in salutation. Both words are constantly used and sometimes refer to the Creator and sometimes to the creature--e.g., we read that Jacob served (abadh) Laban (Gen. xxix. 20); and that Joshua commanded the people not to serve the gods of their fathers but to serve (abadh) the Lord (Josh. xxiv. 14). And for the use of shachah the following may suffice: "And all the congregation blessed the Lord God of their fathers and bowed down their heads and worshipped (Hebrew, shachah; Greek, proskuneo ; Latin, adoro) the Lord and the King" (I. Chr. xxix. 20). But while it is true of the Hebrew of the Old Testament that there is no word which refers alone to Divine Worship this is not true of the Septuagint Greek nor of the Greek of the New Testament, for in both proskuneo has always its general meaning, sometimes applying to the creature and sometimes to the Creator; but latreuo is used to denote divine worship alone, as St. Augustine pointed out long ago.
This distinction comes out very clearly in the inspired translation of the Hebrew found in Matthew iv. 10, "Thou shalt worship (proskuneseis) the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve (latreuseis )." "Worship" was due indeed to God above all but not exclusively to him, but latria is to be given to "him only." [514]
I think I have now said enough to let the reader understand the doctrine taught by the council and to prove that in its decree it simply adopted the technical use of words found in the Greek of the Septuagint and of the New Testament. I may then close this introduction with a few remarks upon outward acts of veneration in general.
Of course, the outward manifestation in bodily acts of reverence will vary with times and with the habits of peoples. To those accustomed to kiss the earth on which the Emperor had trodden, it would be natural to kiss the feet of the image of the King of Kings. The same is manifestly true of any outward acts whatever, such as bowing, kneeling, burning of lights, and offering of incense. All these when offered before an image are, according to the mind of the Council, but outward signs of the reverence due to that which the image represents and pass backward to the prototype, and thus it defined, citing the example of the serpent in the wilderness, of which we read, "For he that turned himself toward it was not saved by the thing that he saw, but by thee, that art the Saviour of all" (Wisdom xvi. 17). If anyone feels disposed to attribute to outward acts any necessary religious value he is falling back into Judaism, and it were well for him to remember that the nod which the Quakers adopted out of protest to the bow of Christians was once the expression of divine worship to the most sacred idols; that in the Eastern Church the priest only bows before the Lord believed to be present in the Holy Sacrament while he prostrates himself before the infidel Sultan; and that throughout the Latin communion the acolytes genuflect before the Bishop, as they pass him, with the same genuflection that they give to the Holy Sacrament upon the Altar. In this connexion I quote in closing the fine satire in the letter of this very council to the Emperor and Empress. St. Paul "says of Jacob (Heb. xi. 21), He worshipped the top of his staff,' and like to this is that said by Gregory, surnamed the theologian, Revere Bethlehem and worship the manger.' But who of those truly understanding the Divine Scriptures would suppose that here was intended the Divine worship of latria? Such an opinion could only be entertained by an idiot or one ignorant of Scriptural and Patristic knowledge. Would Jacob give divine worship to his staff? Or would Gregory, the theologian, give command to worship as God a manger!"
[507] Who was possibly at least not the president, vide Michaud, Sept. Conc. OEuméniques, p. 330.
[508] Worship is "relative" or "absolute," what Gibbon means by "direct" would be hard to say. How entirely false the whole statement is, Gibbon himself would have recognized had he read the acts.
[509] Dr. Neale complains that the acts display a painful lack of critical knowledge and that several spurious passages are attributed to the Fathers. But I confess this does not seem to me either surprising or disgraceful. The attributing of books, even in our critical days, to persons who were not their authors is not so uncommon as to make us wonder such a thing might have occurred in such stormy times, when learning of this sort must have suffered by the adversities of the Church and State, the Iconoclastic persecutions and the Moslem incursions.
[510] "It is certain," confesses Dr. Neale (History of the Holy Eastern Church, Vol. II., p. 113; in his attempt to overthrow the authority of this council) "that Politian approved (S. Theod. Stud. Ep. xviij.) although he was not present at the council of Nicæa; and the controversy, which had never much disturbed Africa, may henceforth be considered as terminated in the Diocese of Alexandria."
[511] As a sample of all that bigotry and dishonesty can do when writing on such a subject, the reader is referred to a little book by the Rev. F. Meyrick (a canon of the Church of England) published in Paris for the Anglo-Continental Society, 1877, entitled, Du Schisme d'Orient et de l'authorité du prétendu septième concile.
[512] The true date is 825.
[513] Vide Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, tom. vii., col. 59.
[514] Vide the Synod's Letter to the Emperor and Empress.
[515] The treatise of St. John Damascene on The Holy Images has very recently been published in an English translation by M. H. Allies. (London. Thos. Baker, 1898.)
The Divine [516] Sacra [517] Sent by the Emperors Constantine and Irene to the Most Holy and Most Blessed Hadrian, Pope of Old Rome.
(Found in Labbe and Cossart, Concilia, Tom. VII., col. 32.)
They who receive the dignity of the empire, or the honour of the principal priesthood from our Lord Jesus Christ, ought to provide and to care for those things which please him, and rule and govern the people committed to their care according to his will and good pleasure.
Therefore, O most holy Head (Caput), it is incumbent upon us and you, that irreprehensibly we know the things which be his, and that in these we exercise ourselves, since from him we have received the imperatorial dignity, and you the dignity of the chief priesthood.
But now to speak more to the point. Your paternal blessedness knows what hath been done in times past in this our royal city against the venerable images, how those who reigned immediately before us destroyed them and subjected them to disgrace and injury: (O may it not be imputed to them, for it had been better for them had they not laid their hands upon the Church!)--and how they seduced and brought over to their own opinion all the people who live in these parts--yea, even the whole of the East, in like manner, up to the time in which God hath exalted us to this kingdom, who seek his glory in truth, and hold that which has been handed down by his Apostles together with all other teachers. Whence now with pure heart and unfeigned religion we have, together with all our subjects and our most learned divines, had constant conferences respecting the things which relate to God, and by their advice have determined to summon a General Council. And we entreat your paternal blessedness, or rather the Lord God entreats, "who will have all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth," that you will give yourself to us and make no delay, but come up hither to aid us in the confirmation and establishment of the ancient tradition of venerable images. It is, indeed, incumbent on your holiness to do this, since you know how it is written--"Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, ye priests, saith the Lord," and "the lips of the priest shall keep knowledge, and the law shall go forth out of his mouth, for he is the angel of the Lord of Hosts." And again, the divine Apostle, the preacher of the truth, who, "from Jerusalem and round about unto Illyricum, preached the Gospel," hath thus commanded-- "Feed with discipline the flock of Christ which he purchased with his own blood." As then you are the veritable chief priest (primus sacerdos) who presides in the place and in the see of the holy and superlaudable Apostle Peter, let your paternal blessedness come to us, as we have said before, and add your presence to all those other priests who shall be assembled together here, that thus the will of the Lord may be accomplished. For as we are taught in the Gospels our Lord saith--"When two or three are met together in my name, there am I in the midst of them"--let your paternal and sacred blessedness be certified and confirmed by the great God and King of all, our Lord Jesus Christ, and by us his servants, that if you come up hither you shall be received with all honour and glory, and that everything necessary for you shall be granted. And again, when the definition (capitulum) shall be completed, which by the good pleasure of Christ our God we hope shall be done, we take upon us to provide for you every facility of returning with honour and distinction. If, however, your blessedness cannot attend upon us (which we can scarcely imagine, knowing what is your zeal about divine things), at least, pray select for us men of understanding, having with them letters from your holiness, that they may be present here in the person of your sacred and paternal blessedness. So, when they meet with the other priests who are here, the ancient tradition of our holy fathers may be synodically confirmed, and every evil plant of tares may be rooted out, and the words of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ may be fulfilled, that "the gates of hell shall not prevail against her." And after this, may there be no further schism and separation in the one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, of which Christ our true God is the Head.