“Segniús irritant animos demissa per aurem
Quam quæ sunt oculis subjecta fidelibus, et quæ
Ipsi sibi tradit spectator.”De Ar. Poe., 180.
Thus it is explained why men imagined for many centuries that the sky was a solid superficies, and that the earth was a superficial plane, bounded by the horizon; that the sun moved round the earth; that the existence of the antipodes was a chimera; that the dew fell in the same way as the rain from the upper regions of the atmosphere; and other popular errors which science has corrected, but which were in a certain way justified by the undeniable testimony of the senses. How difficult then is it, on such evidence, to doubt the existence of a soul in a human representation
to which one speaks as to a person alive, and to which are tendered all marks of respect and veneration, and before whom even the priests, those masters of the people and depositaries of all true doctrine, kneel down as would a son before his father, a subject before his sovereign, and a culprit before his judge? Who would forbid this delusion to that simple and ignorant mind, whose relations with the exterior world form the only source of all his knowledge and all his feelings?
The Christian religion, purely spiritual in its dogmas and practices, never would have admitted into them this profanation of their sublime essence, if the Greek empire, by virtue of the great religious revolution conducted by Constantine, had not been placed at the head of Christendom. But the Greek Christians were descendants of those who had condemned Socrates, and had not been purged, nor have they yet been purged, of their sensual propensities, of their artistic tastes, and of their attachment to whatever is pompous and ornamental. When the Emperor Leo wished to uproot this abuse, and ordered the images venerated in the temples to be destroyed, his orders were executed with so much imprudence and cruelty, and the persecution raised against those who participated in the common error was conducted in so sanguinary and implacable a manner, that the general opinion rose against the new doctrine, and the name of iconoclast denoted in that day one of the most odious forms of heresy, and one most severely condemned by the apostolical see. [107]
The Latin Church was long preserved from that contagion. When John, the patriarch of Alexandria, consulted the great Pope Leo, whether it would be right to adorn the Christian temples with pictures representing pious objects, that eminent man answered him, that he could only be permitted to have the representations of the historical facts related in the Bible, in order that those believers who were unable to read might in this way instruct themselves in sacred history, but that great care must be taken that such a practice might not degenerate into idolatry.
We have already mentioned the fact that the Council of Granada prohibited the worship of images; but when the thrones founded by the invading nations of the north became settled, their monarchs—men profoundly ignorant, and exclusively devoted to war and conquest—placed their consciences and the direction of public affairs in the hands of the clergy, who were then the monopolisers of learning and literature. The clergy spared no means of consolidating their power, and it was their interest to brutalise the people, in order to domineer over them with the greater facility; and nothing could contribute more certainly to carry out that view than the puerilities of a worship solely limited
to the adoration of the physical man. The pageantry of processions, the jewels, the splendid vestments and ornaments with which their images were covered, the miracles attributed to them, and the incense burned on their altars, were so many other soporiferous drugs administered to the understanding to lull its energy, and deprive it of every devoted thought and of all liberty of examination. There is, moreover, in the representation of a human being of the size and colour of life, a certain character of reality, which at first sight cannot do less than make a profound impression on the mind, leaving it for a time in a state of some perplexity between truth and fiction. That immovable attitude, those fixed eyes, those features which never alter the expression of the grief or the joy impressed upon them by the hand of the artist, have in themselves something of the awful and mysterious, which powerfully affects us, despite our reason and experience. How many persons are there who could look, without shuddering, on the statue of Fieschi, the celebrated French murderer, in the collection of Madame Tussaud? How many, on coming out from the chamber of horrors, in the same establishment, resolve and vow never to go into it again? How many, who would not, for any money, pass a night in the apartment in which these disagreeable objects are exhibited? And to what extreme may not that imperium extend, which these works of art exercise on the imagination, if, in addition to their resemblances to nature, superstition endows them with a supernatural power, and when reason persuades us that they hear what we say to them,—that
they receive our homage, and are able to favour us with their protection?
But the Roman Catholic clergy have had another motive for promoting a belief in such things, viz., the immense wealth which they draw from them in the name of oblations, alms, and legacies. To contribute money to the adornment of a saint, and to the celebration of rites which are consecrated to it, is a meritorious work, which ensures its protection to the contributor. By this fiction the people have been made to believe that every human complaint, every one of the misfortunes that can occur in life, depends on some particular saint who defends their respective devotees against it. Saint Ramon favours women in the season of parturition; Saint Demas preserves travellers on their journeys from robbers; Saint Apollonius cures the toothache; Saint Lucy heals diseases of the eyes; Saint Lazarus cures the leprosy; Saint Roque the plague; Saint Joseph protects carpenters; Saint Casianus and Saint Nicholas preserve children; Saint Luis Gonzaga, young people; Saint Hermenegild, soldiers; Saint Thomas Aquinas, students; Saint Gloi, silversmiths; and Saint Rita, superior to all the celestial court, obtains, by her mediation, the realization of impossibilities! [110]
And yet, after all, the most popular of all the saints which the power of the Vatican has placed on its altars