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INTRODUCTION, WORSHIP, AND PERSECUTION OF IMAGES.REVOLT OF ITALY AND ROME.-TEMPORAL DOMINION OF THE POPES.-CONQUEST OF ITALY BY THE FRANKS.-ES TABLISHMENT OF IMAGES.-CHARACTER AND CORONATION OF CHARLEMAGNE.-RESTORATION AND DECAY OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE IN THE WEST.-INDEPENDENCE OF ITALY.CONSTITUTION OF THE GERMANIC BODY.

In the connection of the church and state, I have considered the former as subservient only, and relative, to the latter; a salutary maxim, if in fact, as well as in narrative, it had ever been held sacred. The Oriental philosophy of the Gnostics, the dark abyss of predestination and grace, and the strange transformation of the Eucharist from the sign to the substance of Christ's body,' I have purposely abandoned to the curiosity of speculative divines. But I have reviewed, with diligence and pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical history, by which

'The learned Selden has given the history of transubstantiation in s comprehensive and pithy sentence: "This opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic," (his Works, vol. iii. p. 2073, in his Table-Talk.)

the decline and fall of the Roman empire were materially affected, the propagation of Christianity, the constitution of the Catholic church, the ruin Paganism, and the sects that arose from the mysterious controversies concerning the Trinity and incarnation. At the head of this class, we may justly rank the worship of images, so fiercely disputed in the eighth and ninth centuries; since a question of popular superstition pro duced the revolt of Italy, the temporal power of the popes, and the restoration of the Roman empire in the West.

The primitive Christians were possessed with an unco querable repugnance to the use and abuse of images; and this aversion may be ascribed to their descent from the Jews, and their enmity to the Greeks. The Mosaic law had severely proscribed all representations of the Deity; and that precept was firmly established in the principles and practice of the chosen people. The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against the foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had they been endowed with sense and motion, should have started rather from the pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist. Perhaps some recent and imper fect converts of the Gnostic tribe might crown the statues of Christ and St. Paul with the profane honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and Pythagoras; but the public religion of the Catholics was uniformly simple and spiritual; and the first notice of the use of pictures is in the censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years after the Christian æra. Under the successors of Constantine, in the peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition, for the benefit of the multitude; and, after the ruin of Paganism, they were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious parallel. The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints and martyrs, whose inter

Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quôd si sentire simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent à quo sunt expolita. (Divin. Institut. 1. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists. Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but the form and matter.

See Irenæus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage, Hist. des Egli ses Réformées, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic practice has a singula affinity with the private worship of Alexander Severus, (Lampridius . 29. Lardner, Heathen Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)

cession was implored, were seated on the right hand if God; but the gracious and often supernatural favors, which, in the popular belief, were showered round their tomb, conveyed an unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims, who visited, and touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the memorials cf their merits and sufferings. But a memorial, more interesting than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is the faithful copy of his person and features, delineated by the arts of painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so congenial to human feelings, have been cherished by the zeal of private friendship, or public esteem: the images of the Roman emperors were adored with civil, and almost religious, honors; a reverence less ostentatious, but more sincere, was applied to the statues of sages and patriots; and these profane virtues, these splendid sins, disappeared in the presence of the holy men, who had died for their celestial and everlasting country. At first, the experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the venerable pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant, to awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen proselytes. By a slow though inevitable progression, the honors of the original were transferred to the copy the devout Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the Pagan rites of genuflection, luminaries, and incense, again stole into the Catholic church. The scruples of reason, or piety, were silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the pictures which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a divine energy, and may be considered as the proper objects of religious adoration. The most audacious pencil might tremble in the rash attempt of defining, by forms and colors, the infinite Spirit, the eter nal Father, who pervades and sustains the universe. But the superstitious mind was more easily reconciled to paint and to worship the angels, and, above all, the Son of God, under the human shape, which, on earth, they have condescended to

See this History, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. ii. p. 434; vol. iii. p. 158-168. * Οὐ γὰρ τὸ θεῖον ἁπλοῦν ὕπαρχον καὶ ἄληπτον μορφαῖς τισι καὶ σχήμασι ἐπεικάζομεν, ουτε κηρῷ καὶ ξύλοις τὴν ὑπερούσιον καὶ προάναρχον οὐσίαν τιμᾷν SpELS SIEуvokaμEV. (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect. Labb. tom. viii. p 1025. edit Venet.) Il seroit peut-être à-propos de ne point souffri d'images de la Trinité ou de la Divinité; les defenseurs les plus zelés des images ayant condamné celles-ci, et le concile de Trente ne parlant que des images de Jesus Christ et des Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot. Ecclés tom. vi. p. 154.)

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