A Source Book for Ancient Church History

by Joseph Cullen Ayer

And the subscription of the laity.

I, (name), in the name of God, consul, have with full consent subscribed to this document which we have made concerning (name), most holy archdeacon, our bishop-elect.

(d) Paulus Diaconus, Hist. Langobardorum, IV, 44. (MSL, 95:581.)

Agilulf may have been a convert to the Catholic faith, v. supra, [§ 99]. His successors were not. In fact, not until 653, when Aribert, the nephew of Theodelinda, ascended the throne, were the Lombards permanently under Catholic rulers.

44. After Ariwald (626-636) had reigned twelve years over the Lombards he departed this life, and Rothari of the family of Arodus took the kingdom of the Lombards. He was a strong, brave man, and walked in the paths of justice; in Christian faith, however, he did not hold to the right way, but was polluted by the unbelief of the Arian heresy. The Arians say, to their confusion, that the Son is inferior to the Father and, in the same way, the Holy Ghost is inferior to the Father and the Son; we, Catholic Christians, on the contrary, confess that the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are one true God in three persons, equal in power and glory. In the times of Rothari there were in nearly all the cities of his kingdom two bishops, a Catholic and an Arian.

To this very day there is shown in the city of Ticinus [Pavia] the place where the Arian bishop resided, at the church of St. Eusebius, and held the baptistery while the Catholic bishop was at the head of another church. The Arian bishop, however, who was in this city, whose name was Anastasius, accepted the Catholic faith and afterward ruled the Church of Christ. This king Rothari caused the laws of the Lombards to be reduced to writing and named the book The Edict; the law of the Lombards up to that time had been retained merely in memory and by their use in the courts. This took place, as the king in the preface to his law-book says, in the seventy-seventh year[313] after the Lombards came into Italy.

§ 109. Rome, Constantinople, and the Lombards in the Period of the First Iconoclastic Controversy; the Seventh General Council, Nicæa, A. D. 787

By the eight century the veneration of pictures or icons had become wide-spread throughout the Eastern Church. Apart from their due place in the cultus, grave abuses and superstitions had arisen in many parts of the Church in connection with the icons. To Leo III the Isaurian (717-741), and to the army, the veneration of the icons, as practised by the populace, and especially by the monks, seemed but little removed from the grossest idolatry. Accordingly, in an edict issued in 726, Leo attempted to put an end to the abuses by preventing all veneration of the icons. Meeting with opposition, his measures passed from moderate to severe. In Italy, although the use of icons was not developed to the same extent as in the East, sympathy was entirely against the Iconoclasts. Gregory II (715-731) and Gregory III (731-741) bitterly reproached and denounced the action of the Emperor. Nearly all the exarchate willingly passed under the power of the Lombards. Other parts of northern Italy also broke with the Emperor. Leo retaliated by annexing [pg 685] Illyricum to the see of Constantinople and confiscating the papal revenues in southern Italy. From that time the connection between the Pope and the Emperor was very slight. The Emperor Constantine V Copronymus (741-775) was more severe than his father, and in many respects even fiercely brutal in his treatment of the monks. A synod was assembled at Constantinople, 754, attended by three hundred and thirty-eight bishops, who, as was customary in Eastern synods, supported the Emperor. His son, Leo IV Chazarus (775-780) was less energetic and disposed to tolerate the use of icons in private. But his widow, Irene, the guardian of her infant son, Constantine VI, was determined to restore the images or icons. A synod held at Constantinople in 786 was broken up by the soldiery of the capital. In 787 at Nicæa, a council was called at a safe distance and Iconoclasm was condemned.

Additional source material: St. John Damascene on Holy Images, Eng. trans. by Mary H. Allies, 1898; St. John of Damascus, Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, PNF, ser. II, vol. IX; Percival, Seven Ecumenical Councils (PNF).