The most eloquent of all the apologists of images, John of Damascus, gave this explanation:
I am too poor to buy books and I have no leisure for reading. I enter the church choked with the cares of the world. The glowing colours attract my attention and delight my eyes like a flowering meadow; and the glory of God steals imperceptibly into my soul. I gaze on the fortitude of the martyr and the crown with which he is rewarded, and the holy fire of emulation kindles within me and I receive salvation.[274:3]
It must be remembered that, however clearly the
teachers of the Church might see the difference between the right use of images to instruct the unlettered and to excite a spiritual feeling, on the one hand, and a superstitious worship of images, on the other, the ignorant masses did not make the distinction in either thought or practice, and therein lay the great abuse.
From the death of Gregory the Great in 604 until the outbreak of the Iconoclastic Controversy in 716, twenty-five Popes ruled in Rome. With several exceptions they were ecclesiastics of no historical importance. To say that they lost nothing of the ground gained by Gregory the Great is to say much for them. But in addition they made some progress in the evolution of the mediæval Church. On this question of the use of images in worship they uniformly continued the policy of Gregory the Great.
Opposition began as early as the use of images. Irenæus in the second century (167) denounced the practice.[275:1] Tertullian (192), quoting the second of the Ten Commandments, severely denounced all use of images as sinful.[275:2] Clement of Alexandria (192) took the same view.[275:3] Origen also based his opposition to the practice upon the Jewish interpretation.[275:4] Minucius Felix (220) argued that man was the image of God, hence there was no need of any artificial representations.[275:5] Lactantius (303) held that since the spirit of God could be seen everywhere, His image "must always be superfluous."[275:6] Arnobius (303) took the same view.[275:7]
Christians were told to carry God and His Son in their hearts and not to attempt to procure their images. The Spanish Synod of Elvira (306) excluded images from the churches.[276:1] The early Fathers, taken altogether, looked with but little favour upon the misuse of images in worship. Eusebius, in replying to the request from Constantia for an image of Christ, wrote a famous letter in opposition to the practice which virtually became the platform of the Iconoclastic party.[276:2] St. Augustine (393) declared that "It is unlawful to set up such an image to God in a Christian temple."[276:3] Epiphanius (d. 402) with his own hands tore down a curtain which had an image on it in a little village church in Palestine. This seems to be the first act of Iconoclasm.[276:4] Asterius (d. 410), Bishop in Pontus, opposed wearing Bible pictures on clothing and told his people to wear the image of Christ in their hearts.[276:5] Xenius (end of sixth century), the Monophistic Bishop of Hierapolis, destroyed the images of the angels in his church and hid those of Jesus.[276:6] In 518, the clergy of Antioch complained to the Patriarch of Constantinople that their Patriarch had melted down the images of gold and silver hung over the font and the altar.[276:7] Serenus, Bishop of Marseilles, early in the seventh century, threw the images out of his churches. Pope Gregory the Great praised him for his zeal, but still justified the use of images.[276:8] The Jews and the
Mohammedans in the seventh century fiercely assailed the Christian veneration of images as idolatry. This crystallised the Iconoclastic elements of opposition into a party. Finally, in the eighth century, the secular head, Leo III., the Isaurian (716-741), championed the Iconoclastic cause. His son, Constantine V. (741-775), carried it forward. The Synod of Constantinople in 754 officially condemned the use of images,[277:1] and this marks the climax of the movement.
It was not long now before there appeared in Christendom two distinct parties: (1) The Iconolatræ, or image worshippers, who were composed of the leading churchmen like Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, and John of Damascus in the East; the monks, the common clergy, and the masses of the common people in the East, and Pope Gregory II. and the powerful Church of the West. (2) The Iconoclasti, or image breakers, who included the Emperor and his civil officers; his army, made up mostly of barbarians and Asiatic heretics[277:2]; a few churchmen like Anastasius, who succeeded the deposed Germanus, actuated by political motives; and the Carolingian rulers in the West.
The conflict was begun by Leo III., the Isaurian, a soldier of fortune, who through ability as a warrior had won the imperial crown,—a powerful ruler in falling Greece,—active, sincere, illiterate, honest, despotic, and unwise. Ambition to convert the Jews, Mohammedans, and Montanists made him feel keenly the sting of their sarcastic attacks on images.[277:3] One