\ 101. THE CAEOLINE BOOKS. 467
Charlemagne, with the aid of his chaplains, especially Alcuin, prepared and published, three years after the Nicene Coun cil, an important work on image-worship under the title Quatuor Libri Carolini (790). l He dissents both from the iconoclastic synod of 754 and the anti-iconoclastic synod of 787, but more from the latter, which he treats very disrespectfully.2 He decid edly rejects image-worship, but allows the use of images for orna ment and devotion, and supports his view with Scripture passages and patristic quotations. The spirit and aim of the book is almost Protestant. The chief thoughts are these: God alone is the object of worship and adoration (colendus ct adorandus). Saints are only to be revered (verier andi). Images can in no sense be worshipped. To bow or kneel before them, to salute or kiss them, to strew incense and to light candles before them, is idolatrous and superstitious. It is far better to search the Scriptures, which know nothing of such practices. The tales of miracles wrought by images are inventions of the imagi nation, or deceptions of the evil spirit. On the other hand, the iconoclasts, in their honest zeal against idolatry, went too far in rejecting the images altogether. The legitimate and proper use of images is to adorn the churches and to perpetuate and popu larize the memory of the persons and events which they repre sent. Yet even this is not necessary ; for a Christian should be able without sensual means to rise to the contemplation of the virtues of the saints and to ascend to the fountain of eternal light. Man is made in the image of God, and hence capable of receiving Christ into his soul. God should ever be present and
1 Alcuin's share in the composition appears from the similarity of thoughts in his Commentary on John, and the old English tradition that he wrote a book against the Council of Nicaea. See Walch, XI. 65 sqq.; Hefele, III. G97.
2 lie calls it posterior tempore, non tamen posterior crimine, eloqucntia, sensuque carens, synodus ineptlssima, etc. lie distrusted a Council in which the Church of his dominions was not represented. He also objected to a woman assuming the office of teacher in the church, as being contrary to the lex dii^ina and lex naturce (III. 13, ed. Migne, fol. 1136). He had reason to be angry with Irene for dissolving the betrothal of her son with his daughter.
468 FOUETH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
adored in our hearts. O unfortunate memory, which can realize the presence of Christ only by means of a picture drawn in sen suous colors. The Council of Nicsea committed a great wrong in condemning those who do not worship images.
The author of the Caroline books, however, falls into the same inconsistency as the Eastern iconoclasts, by making an ex ception in favor of the sign of the cross and the relics of saints. The cross is called a banner which puts the enemy to flight, and the honoring of the relics is declared to be a great means of pro moting piety, since the saints reign with Christ in heaven, and their bones will be raised to glory; while images are made by men's hands and return to dust.
A Synod in Frankfort, A.D. 794, the most important held during the reign of Charlemagne, and representing the churches of France and Germany, in the presence of two papal legates (Theophylactus and Stephanus), endorsed the doctrine of the Libri Carolini, unanimously condemned the worship of images in any form, and rejected the seventh O3cumenical council.1 According to an old tradition, the English church agreed with this decision.2
1 The Synod is often called universalis, and condemned Adoptionism (see Hefele, III. 678 pqq.). The decision against images see in Mansi, XIII. 909. The chief passage is : " Sanct issimi Patres nostri omnimodis et adorationem et servitutem eis [sc. imaginibus Sanctorum'] renuentes contemserunt atque consentientes condemnaverunt." Einhard made the following entry in hi? Annals ad A.D. 794 (in Pertz, Monum. I. 181, and Gieseler II. 67): " Sy nodus etiam, quce, ante paucos anno* in Constantinopoli [where the Nicene Synod was closed] sub Herena [Irene] et Constantino filio ejus congregata, et ab ipsis non solum septima, verum etiam universalis est appellata, ut nee septima nee universalis haberetur dicereturve, quasi supervacua in totum ab omnibus [the bishops assembled at Frank fort] abdicata est." Baronius, Bellarmin, and even Hefele (III. 689), charge this Synod with misrepresenting the Council of Nica?a, which sanctioned the worship (in a wider sense), but not the adoration, of images. But the Latin version, which the pope sent to Charlemagne, rendered irpoaKvvrjaic uniformly by adoratio, and Anastasius, the papal librarian, did the same in his improved translation, thus giving double sanction to the confusion.
2 This rests partly on the probable share which the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin had in the composition of the Caroline Books, partly on the testimony of Simeon of Durham (about 1100). See Twysden's Hist. Angl Scriptores decem