g 102. THE RESTORATION OF IMAGE-WORSHIP. 4G1
forged, and alleged miracles performed by images.1 A presby ter testified that he was cured from a severe sickness by a pic ture of Christ. Bishop after bishop, even those who had been members of the Synod of 754, renounced his iconoclastic opin ions, and large numbers exclaimed together : " We all have sinned, we all have erred, we all beg forgiveness." Some pro fessed 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 Ro man 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 Ephcsus, 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 tradi tions, written or unwritten; while eternal memory is given to the chief champions of image-worship, Germanus of Constanti nople, John of Damascus, and George of Cyprus, the heralds of truth.2
1 Walch (X. 572) pays of these proofs from tradition : " Dw untergtschobenen Schriften, die in der Hauptxache nichts entscheidenden Stellen und die mil grosser Umvissenheit verdrehte.n Aussprii>-he sind so haitfig, dass man sick bcides ilber die Unwissenhe.it und Unverschcimtheit nichl genng venvundern kann, welche in diesen Sammlungen sichtbar sind." Even moderate Roman Catholic historians, aa Alexander Natalis and Fleury, admit quietly the errors in some patristic quo tations.
3 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
462 FOURTH PEKIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
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 Nicsea 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 Charle magne 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, nega tively, 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 Nicsea 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 Diirer, were contemporaries of the Reformers, and that the art of painting reached its highest per fection 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.