The Council of Nicæa admits the perfect unanimity of the Council of Constantinople. These 348 bishops concurred in pronouncing their anathema against all who should represent the incarnate Word by material form or colours, who should not restrict themselves to the pure spiritual conception of the Christ, as he is seated, superior in brightness to the sun, on the right hand of the Father; against all who should confound the two natures of Christ in one human image, or who should separate the manhood from the Godhead in the second person of the indivisible Trinity; against all who should not implore the intercession of the Virgin in pure faith, as above all visible and invisible things; against all who should set up the deaf and lifeless images of saints, and who do not rather paint the living likenesses of their virtues in their own hearts. All images, whether statues or paintings, were to be forcibly removed from the churches; everyone who henceforth should set up an image, if a bishop or priest, was to be degraded; if a layman, excommunicated. They proceed to curse by name the principal asserters of image-worship. “Anathema against the double-minded Germanus, the worshipper of wood! Anathema against George (of Cyprus), the falsifier of the traditions of the fathers! Anathema against Mansar (they called by this unchristian-sounding name the famous John of Damascus), the Saracen in heart, the traitor to the empire—Mansar the teacher of impiety, the false interpreter of Holy Scripture!”
Thus was image-worship proscribed by a council, in numbers at least of weight, in the severest and most comprehensive terms. The work of demolition was committed to the imperial officers; only with strict injunctions, not perhaps always obeyed, to respect the vessels, the priestly vestments, and other furniture of the churches, and the cross, the naked cross without any image. The crucifix was of a later period.
THE WAR ON MONASTERIES
[766-775 A.D.]
But if the emperor had overawed, or bought, or compelled the seemingly willing assent of so large a body of the eastern clergy, the formidable monks were still in obstinate implacable opposition to his will. It was now fanaticism encountering fanaticism. Everywhere the monks preached resistance to the imperial decree, and enough has been seen of their turbulent and intractable conduct to make us conclude that their language at least would keep no bounds. Stephen, the great martyr of this controversy, had lived as a hermit in a cave near Sinope for thirty years.
The emperor sent the patriarch to persuade him to subscribe the decrees of the Council of Constantinople. The patriarch’s eloquence was vain. The emperor either allowed or compelled the aged monk to retire to the wild rock of Proconnesus, where, to consummate his sanctity, he took his stand upon a pillar. His followers assembled in crowds about him, and built their cells around the pillar of the saint. But the zeal of Stephen would not be confined within that narrow sphere. He returned to the city, and in bold defiance of the imperial orders denounced the iconoclasts. He was seized, cast into prison, and there treated with unusual harshness. But even there the zeal of his followers found access. Constantine exclaimed, in a paroxysm of careless anger, “Am I or this monk the emperor of the world?” The word of the emperor was enough for some of his obsequious courtiers; they rushed, broke open the prison, dragged out the old man along the streets with every wanton cruelty, and cast his body at last into the common grave of the public malefactors.
The emperor took now a sterner and more desperate resolution. He determined to root out monkery itself. The monks were driven from their cloisters, which were given up to profane and secular uses. Consecrated virgins were forced to marry; monks were compelled, each holding the hand of a woman, doubtless not of the purest character, to walk round the Hippodrome among the jeers and insults of the populace. Throughout the whole empire they were exposed to the lawless persecutions of the imperial officers. Their zeal or their obstinacy was chastised by scourgings, imprisonments, mutilations, and even death. The monasteries were plundered, and by no scrupulous or reverent hands; churches are said to have been despoiled of all their sacred treasures, the holy books burned, feasts and revels profaned the most hallowed sanctuaries.
Multitudes fled to the neighbouring kingdoms of the less merciless barbarians; many found refuge in the West, especially in Rome. The prefect of Thrace was the most obsequious agent of his master’s tyranny. The patriarch himself was accused of having used disrespectful language towards the emperor. Already he had been required to acquit himself of imputing Nestorianism to his master; now his accusers swore on the cross that they had heard him hold conference with one of the conspirators. Constantine ordered the imperial seal to be affixed on the palace of the patriarch, and sent him into banishment.
For some new offence, real or supposed, the exiled patriarch was brought back to the capital, scourged so cruelly that he could not walk, and then carried in a litter, and exposed in the great church before all the people assembled to hear the public recital of the charges made against him, and to behold his degradation. At each charge the secretary of his successor smote him on the face. He was then set up in the pulpit, and while Nicetas read the sentence of excommunication, another bishop stripped him of his metropolitan pall, and calling him by the opprobrious name Scotiopsis, “face of darkness,” led him backwards out of the church. The next day his head, beard, eyebrows were shaved; and as we have already said, he was put upon an ass, and paraded through the circus (his own nephew, a hideous, deformed youth, leading the ass), while the populace jeered, shouted, spat upon him. He was then thrown down, trodden on, and in that state lay till the games were over. Some days after the emperor sent to demand a formal declaration of the orthodoxy of his own faith and of the authority of the council. The poor wretch acknowledged both in the amplest manner; as a reward he was beheaded, while still in a state of excommunication, and his remains treated with the utmost ignominy.
This odious scene, blackened it may be by the sectarian hatred of the later annalists, all of whom abhorred iconoclasm, has been related at length, in order to contrast more fully the position of the bishop of Rome. This was the second patriarch of Constantinople who had been thus barbarously treated, and seemingly without the sympathy of the people; and now, in violation of all canonical discipline, the imperial will had raised a eunuch to the patriarchate. What wonder that pontiffs like Gregory II and Gregory III should think themselves justified in throwing off the yoke of such a government, and look with hope to the sovereignty of the less barbarous barbarians of the north—barbarians who, at least, had more reverence for the dignity of the sacerdotal character.