Two incidental results of the iconoclastic movement must be noticed, the one of less, the other of more importance. The lesser one was the flight of Greek iconolatrous monks from Asia Minor and the Levant to Sicily and Calabria, where they established convents which for centuries were the western homes of Greek learning, and in which were written not a few of the oldest Greek MSS. found in our libraries. The greater event was the scission between East and West. The fury of the West against the iconoclastic emperors was such that the whole of Italy clamoured for war. It is true that Pope Stephen II. applied in 753 to Constantine V., one of the worst destroyers of images, for aid against the Lombards, for the emperor of Byzantium was still regarded as the natural champion of the church. But Constantine refused aid, and the pope turned to the Frankish King Pippin. The die was cast. Henceforth Rome was linked with the Carolingian house in an alliance which culminated in the coronation of Charlemagne by the pope on the 25th of December 800.
In the crusading epoch the Cathars and Paulicians carried all over Europe the old iconoclastic spirit, and perhaps helped to transmit it to Wycliffe and Hus. Not the least racy clause in the document compiled about 1389 by the Wycliffites in defence of their defunct teacher is the following: “Hit semes that this offrynge ymages is a sotile cast of Antichriste and his clerkis for to drawe almes fro pore men ... certis, these ymages of hemselfe may do nouther gode nor yvel to mennis soules, but thai myghtten warme a man’s body in colde, if thai were sette upon a fire.”
At the period of the Reformation it was unanimously felt by the reforming party that, with the invocation of saints and the practice of reverencing their relics, the adoration of images ought also to cease. The leaders of the movement were not, however, perfectly agreed on the question as to whether these might not in some circumstances be retained in churches. Luther had no sympathy with the iconoclastic outbreaks which then occurred; he classed images in themselves as among the “adiaphora,” and condemned only their cultus; so also the “Confessio Tetrapolitana” leaves Christians free to have them or not, if only due regard be had to what is expedient and edifying. The “Heidelberg Catechism,” however, emphatically declares that images are not to be tolerated at all in churches.
Sources.—“Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council held in Nicaea, 787,” in Mansi’s Concilia, vols. xii. and xiii.; “Acts of the Iconoclast Council of 815,” in a treatise of Nicephorus discovered by M. Serruys and printed in the Séances Acad. des Inscript. (May 1903); Theophanes, Chronographia, edit. de Boor (Leipzig, 1883-1885); and Patr. Gr. vol. 108. Also his “Continuators” in Patr. Gr. vol. 109; Nicephorus, Chronicon, edit. de Boor (Leipzig, 1880), and Patr. Gr. vol. 100; Georgius Monachus, Chronicon, edit. Muralt (Petersburg, 1859), and Patr. Gr. 110; anonymous “Life of Leo the Armenian” in Patr. Gr. 108; The Book of the Kings, by Joseph Genesios, Patr. Gr. 109; “Life of S. Stephanus, Junior,” Patr. Gr. 100; “St John of Damascus,” three “Sermones” against the iconoclasts, Patr. Gr. 95; Nicephorus Patriarch, “Antirrhetici,” Patr. Gr. 100; Theodore Studita, “Antirrhetici,” Patr. Gr. 99. For bibliography of contemporary hymns, letters, &c., bearing on the controversy see K. Krumbacher’s History of Byzantine Literature, 2nd ed. p. 674. Literature: Louis Brehier, La Querelle des images, and Les Origines du crucifix (Paris, 1904); Librairie Blond, in French, each volume 60 centimes (brief but admirable); Karl Schwartzlose, Der Bilderstreit (Gotha, 1890); Karl Schenk, “The Emperor Leo III.,” in Byzant. Zeitschrift (1896, German); Tel. Uspenskij, Skizzen zur Geschichte der byzantinischen Kultur (St Petersburg, 1892, Russian); Lombard, Études d’histoire byzantine; Constantine V.( Paris, 1902, Biblioth. de l’université de Paris, xvi.); A. Tougard, La Persécution iconoclaste (Paris, 1897); and Rev. des questions historiques (1891); Marin, Les Moines de Constantinople (Paris, 1897, bk. iv. Les Moines et les empereurs iconoclastes); Alice Gardner, Theodore of Studium (London, 1905); Louis Maimbourg, Histoire de l’hérésie des iconoclastes (Paris, 1679-1683); J. Daillé (Dallaeus), De imaginibus (Leiden, 1642, and in French, Geneva, 1641); Spanheim, Historia imaginum (Leiden, 1686). See also the account of this epoch in the Histories of Neander, Gibbon and Milman; Aug. Fr. Gfrörer, “Der Bildersturm” in Byzantinische Geschichte 2 (1873); C. J. von Hefele, Conciliengeschichte 3 (1877), 366 ff. (also in English translation; Karl Krumbacher. Byzant. Literaturgeschichte (2nd ed. p. 1090).
(F. C. C.)
[1] “Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus depingatur.” See Hefele, Conciliengesch. i. 170.
[2] The letter, which is most probably, though not certainly, genuine, appears in the Acta of the second council of Nice.
ICONOSTASIS, the screen in a Greek church which divides the altar and sanctuary from the rest of the church. It is generally attached to the first eastern pier or column and rises to the level of the springing of the vault. The iconostasis or image-bearer has generally three doors, one on each side of the central door, beyond which is the principal altar. The screen is subdivided into four or five tiers, each tier decorated with a series of panels containing representations of the saints: of these only the heads, hands and feet are painted, the bodies being covered with embossed metal work, richly gilded. There is a fine example in the Russo-Greek chapel, Welbeck Street, London, which was rebuilt in 1864-1865.