Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol 5 | Page 5

who reigned at Damascus,
and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of reproach the
accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities of Syria, Palestine,
and Egypt had been fortified with the images of Christ, his mother, and
his saints; and each city presumed on the hope or promise of
miraculous defence. In a rapid conquest of ten years, the Arabs subdued
those cities and these images; and, in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts
pronounced a decisive judgment between the adoration and contempt of
these mute and inanimate idols. ^* For a while Edessa had braved the
Persian assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was involved
in the common ruin; and his divine resemblance became the slave and
trophy of the infidels. After a servitude of three hundred years, the
Palladium was yielded to the devotion of Constantinople, for a ransom
of twelve thousand pounds of silver, the redemption of two hundred
Mussulmans, and a perpetual truce for the territory of Edessa. ^16 In
this season of distress and dismay, the eloquence of the monks was
exercised in the defence of images; and they attempted to prove, that
the sin and schism of the greatest part of the Orientals had forfeited the
favor, and annihilated the virtue, of these precious symbols. But they
were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or rational
Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of facts, and of the
primitive times, and secretly desired the reformation of the church. As
the worship of images had never been established by any general or
positive law, its progress in the Eastern empire had been retarded, or
accelerated, by the differences of men and manners, the local degrees
of refinement, and the personal characters of the bishops. The splendid
devotion was fondly cherished by the levity of the capital, and the
inventive genius of the Byzantine clergy; while the rude and remote
districts of Asia were strangers to this innovation of sacred luxury.
Many large congregations of Gnostics and Arians maintained, after
their conversion, the simple worship which had preceded their
separation; and the Armenians, the most warlike subjects of Rome,
were not reconciled, in the twelfth century, to the sight of images. ^17

These various denominations of men afforded a fund of prejudice and
aversion, of small account in the villages of Anatolia or Thrace, but
which, in the fortune of a soldier, a prelate, or a eunuch, might be often
connected with the powers of the church and state.
[Footnote 15: By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses, the origin
of the Aconoclcasts is imprinted to the caliph Yezid and two Jews, who
promised the empire to Leo; and the reproaches of these hostile
sectaries are turned into an absurd conspiracy for restoring the purity of
the Christian worship, (see Spanheim, Hist. Imag. c. 2.)]
[Footnote *: Yezid, ninth caliph of the race of the Ommiadae, caused
all the images in Syria to be destroyed about the year 719; hence the
orthodox reproaches the sectaries with following the example of the
Saracens and the Jews Fragm. Mon. Johan. Jerosylym. Script. Byzant.
vol. xvi. p. 235. Hist. des Repub. Ital. par M. Sismondi, vol. i. p. 126. -
G.]
[Footnote 16: See Elmacin, (Hist. Saracen. p. 267,) Abulpharagius,
(Dynast. p. 201,) and Abulfeda, (Annal. Moslem. p. 264,), and the
criticisms of Pagi, (tom. iii. A.D. 944.) The prudent Franciscan refuses
to determine whether the image of Edessa now reposes at Rome or
Genoa; but its repose is inglorious, and this ancient object of worship is
no longer famous or fashionable.]
[Footnote 17: (Nicetas, l. ii. p. 258.) The Armenian churches are still
content with the Cross, (Missions du Levant, tom. iii. p. 148;) but
surely the superstitious Greek is unjust to the superstition of the
Germans of the xiith century.]
Of such adventurers, the most fortunate was the emperor Leo the Third,
^18 who, from the mountains of Isauria, ascended the throne of the East.
He was ignorant of sacred and profane letters; but his education, his
reason, perhaps his intercourse with the Jews and Arabs, had inspired
the martial peasant with a hatred of images; and it was held to be the
duty of a prince to impose on his subjects the dictates of his own
conscience. But in the outset of an unsettled reign, during ten years of
toil and danger, Leo submitted to the meanness of hypocrisy, bowed

before the idols which he despised, and satisfied the Roman pontiff
with the annual professions of his orthodoxy and zeal. In the
reformation of religion, his first steps were moderate and cautious: he
assembled a great council of senators and bishops, and enacted, with
their consent, that all the images should be removed from the sanctuary
and altar to a proper height