§ 101. The Iconoclastic War, and the Synod of 754.
The history of the image-controversy embraces three periods : 1) The war upon images and the abolition of image- worship by the Council of Constantinople, A. D. 726-754. 2) The reaction in favor of image- worship, and its solemn sanction by the second Council of Nicsea, A. D. 754-787. 3) The renewed con-
2 101. THE ICONOCLASTIC WAR 455
flict of the two parties and the final triumph of image-worship,
A. D. 842.
Image-worship had spread with the worship of saints, and become a general habit among the people in the Eastern church to such an extent that the Christian apologists had great diffi culty to maintain their ground against the charge of idolatry constantly raised against them, not only by the Jews, but also by the followers of Islam, who could point to their rapid suc cesses in support of their abhorrence of every species of idolatry. Churches and church-books, palaces and private houses, dresses and articles of furniture were adorned with religious pictures. They took among the artistic Greeks the place of the relics among the rude Western nations. Images were made to do ser vice as sponsors in the name of the saints whom they repre sented. Fabulous stories of their wonder-working power were circulated and readily believed. Such excesses naturally called forth a reaction.
Leo III., called the Isaurian (716-741), a sober and energetic, but illiterate and despotic emperor, who by his military talents and successes had risen from the condition of a peasant in the mountains of Isauria to the throne of the Caesars, and delivered his subjects from the fear of the Arabs by the new invention of the " Greek fire," felt himself called, as a second -Tosiah, to use his authority for the destruction of idolatry. The Byzan tine emperors did not scruple to interfere with the internal affairs of the church, and to use their despotic power for the purpose. Leo was influenced by a certain bishop Constantinus i of Xakolia in Phrygia, and by a desire to break the force of the Mohammedan charge against the Christians. In the sixth year of his reign he ordered the forcible baptism of Jews and Montanists (or Manichreans) ; the former submitted hypocriti-
1 Not Theophilus, as Baronins and Schlosser erroneously call him. See Hefele, III. 372. Theophanes mentions also a renegade Be^er, who had be come a Mohammedan, and then probably returned to Christianity and stood in high honor at the court of Leo.
456 FOUKTH PEEIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
cally and mocked at the ceremony ; the latter preferred to set fire to their meeting-houses and to perish in the flames. Then, in the tenth year (726),1 he began his war upon the images. At first he only prohibited their worship, and declared in the face of the rising opposition that he intended to protect the images against profanation by removing them beyond the reach of touch and kiss. But in a second edict (730), he commanded the removal or destruction of all the images. The pictured walls were to be whitewashed. He replaced the magnificent picture of Christ over the gate of the imperial palace by a plain cross. He re moved the aged German us, patriarch of Constantinople, and put the iconoclastic Anastasius in his place.
These edicts roused the violent opposition of the clergy, the monks, and the people, who saw in it an attack upon religion itself. The servants who took down the picture from the palace gate were killed by the mob. John of Damascus and Germanus, already known to us as hymnists, were the chief opponents. The former was beyond the reach of Leo, and wrote three elo quent orations, one before, two after the forced resignation of Germanus, in defence of image-worship, and exhausted the argument.2 The islanders of the Archipelago under the control of monks rose in open rebellion, and set up a pretender to the throne; but they were defeated, and their leaders put to death. Leo enforced obedience within the limits of the Eastern empire, but had no power among the Christian subjects of the Saracens, nor in Rome and Ravenna, where his authority was openly set at defiance. Pope Gregory II. told him, in an insulting letter (about T29), that the children of the grammar-school would throw their tablets at his head if he avowed himself a destroyer of images, and the unwise would teach him what he refused to learn from the wise.3 Seventy years afterwards the West set
1 There is considerable confusion about the beginning of the conflict and the precise order of events. See Hefele, III. 376 sqq.
See summaries of his %6-yoi (nroXoynrtKoi in Schroeckh and Neander.
3 According to older historians (Baronius), the pope even excommunicated the emperor, withdrew his Italian subjects from their allegiance, and forbade