Project BookRead - FREE Online Book: The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Volume 5 by Edward Gibbon, Esq.

The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire, Volume 5
Edward Gibbon, Esq.

The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Volume 5
Edward Gibbon, Esq.

With notes by the Rev. H. H. Milman

Vol. 5

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.

Part I.

Introduction, Worship, And Persecution Of Images. - Revolt
Of Italy And Rome. - Temporal Dominion Of The Popes. - Conquest
Of Italy By The Franks. - Establishment Of Images. - Character
And Coronation Of Charlemagne. - Restoration And Decay Of The
Roman Empire In The West. - Independence Of Italy. - Constitution
Of The Germanic Body.

In the connection of the church and state, I have considered
the former as subservient only, and relative, to the latter; a
salutary maxim, if in fact, as well as in narrative, it had ever
been held sacred. The Oriental philosophy of the Gnostics, the
dark abyss of predestination and grace, and the strange
transformation of the Eucharist from the sign to the substance of
Christ's body, ^1 I have purposely abandoned to the curiosity of
speculative divines. But I have reviewed, with diligence and
pleasure, the objects of ecclesiastical history, by which the
decline and fall of the Roman empire were materially affected,
the propagation of Christianity, the constitution of the Catholic
church, the ruin of Paganism, and the sects that arose from the
mysterious controversies concerning the Trinity and incarnation.
At the head of this class, we may justly rank the worship of
images, so fiercely disputed in the eighth and ninth centuries;
since a question of popular superstition produced the revolt of
Italy, the temporal power of the popes, and the restoration of
the Roman empire in the West.

[Footnote 1: The learned Selden has given the history of
transubstantiation in a comprehensive and pithy sentence: "This
opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic," (his Works, vol.
iii. p. 2037, in his Table-Talk.)]
The primitive Christians were possessed with an
unconquerable repugnance to the use and abuse of images; and this
aversion may be ascribed to their descent from the Jews, and
their enmity to the Greeks. The Mosaic law had severely
proscribed all representations of the Deity; and that precept was
firmly established in the principles and practice of the chosen
people. The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against
the foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their
own hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had they been
endowed with sense and motion, should have started rather from
the pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist. ^2
Perhaps some recent and imperfect converts of the Gnostic tribe
might crown the statues of Christ and St. Paul with the profane
honors which they paid to those of Aristotle and Pythagoras; ^3
but the public religion of the Catholics was uniformly simple and
spiritual; and the first notice of the use of pictures is in the
censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred years after
the Christian aera. Under the successors of Constantine, in the
peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent
bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition, for the
benefit of the multitude; and, after the ruin of Paganism, they
were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious
parallel. The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in
the veneration of the cross, and of relics. The saints and
martyrs, whose intercession was implored, were seated on the
right hand if God; but the gracious and often supernatural
favors, which, in the popular belief, were showered round their
tomb, conveyed an unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims,
who visited, and touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the
memorials of their merits and sufferings. ^4 But a memorial, more
interesting than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy,
is the faithful copy of his person and features, delineated by
the arts of painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so
congenial to human feelings, have been cherished by the zeal of
private friendship, or public esteem: the images of the Roman
emperors were adored with civil, and almost religious, honors; a
reverence less ostentatious, but more sincere, was applied to the
statues of sages and patriots; and these profane virtues, these
splendid sins, disappeared in the presence of the holy men, who
had died for their celestial and everlasting country. At first,
the experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the
venerable pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the
ignorant, to awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of
the heathen proselytes. By a slow though inevitable progression,
the honors of the original were transferred to the copy: the
devout Christian prayed before the image of a saint; and the
Pagan rites of genuflection, luminaries, and incense, again stole
into the Catholic church. The scruples of reason, or piety, were
silenced by the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the
pictures which speak, and move, and bleed, must be endowed with a
divine energy, and may be considered as the proper objects of
religious adoration. The most audacious pencil might tremble in
the rash attempt of defining, by forms and colors, the infinite
Spirit, the eternal Father, who pervades and sustains the
universe. ^5 But the superstitious mind was more easily
reconciled to paint and to worship the angels, and, above all,
the Son of God, under the human shape, which, on earth, they have
condescended to assume. The second person of the Trinity had
been clothed with a real and mortal body; but that body had
ascended into heaven: and, had not some similitude been presented
to the eyes of his disciples, the spiritual worship of Christ
might have been obliterated by the visible relics and
representations of the saints. A similar indulgence was
requisite and propitious for the Virgin Mary: the place of her
burial was unknown; and the assumption of her soul and body into
heaven was adopted by the credulity of the Greeks and Latins.
The use, and even the worship, of images was firmly established
before the end of the sixth century: they were fondly cherished
by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics: the Pantheon
and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of a new superstition;
but this semblance of idolatry was more coldly entertained by the
rude Barbarians and the Arian clergy of the West. The bolder
forms of sculpture, in brass or marble, which peopled the temples
of antiquity, were offensive to the fancy or conscience of the
Christian Greeks: and a smooth surface of colors has ever been
esteemed a more decent and harmless mode of imitation. ^6
[Footnote 2: Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod si sentire
simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent a quo
sunt expolita. (Divin. Institut. l. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the
last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists.
Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but the form
and matter.]

[Footnote 3: See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage,
Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic
practice has a singular affinity with the private worship of
Alexander Severus, (Lampridius, c. 29. Lardner, Heathen
Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)]

[Footnote 4: See this History, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. ii. p. 434;
vol. iii. p. 158 - 163.]

[Footnote 5: (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect. Labb. tom. viii.
p. 1025, edit. Venet.) Il seroit peut-etre a-propos de ne point
souffrir d'images de la Trinite ou de la Divinite; les defenseurs
les plus zeles des images ayant condamne celles-ci, et le concile
de Trente ne parlant que des images de Jesus Christ et des
Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles. tom. vi. p. 154.)]
[Footnote 6: This general history of images is drawn from the
xxiid book of the Hist. des Eglises Reformees of Basnage, tom.
ii. p. 1310 - 1337. He was a Protestant, but of a manly spirit;
and on this head the Protestants are so notoriously in the right,
that they can venture to be impartial. See the perplexity of poor
Friar Pagi, Critica, tom. i. p. 42.]

The merit and effect of a copy depends on its resemblance
with the original; but the primitive Christians were ignorant of
the genuine features of the Son of God, his mother, and his
apostles: the statue of Christ at Paneas in Palestine ^7 was more
probably that of some temporal savior; the Gnostics and their
profane monuments were reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian
artists could only be guided by the clandestine imitation of some
heathen model. In this distress, a bold and dexterous invention
assured at once the likeness of the image and the innocence of
the worship. A new super structure of fable was raised on the
popular basis of a Syrian legend, on the correspondence of Christ
and Abgarus, so famous in the days of Eusebius, so reluctantly
deserted by our modern advocates. The bishop of Caesarea ^8
records the epistle, ^9 but he most strangely forgets the picture
of Christ; ^10 the perfect impression of his face on a linen,
with which he gratified the faith of the royal stranger who had
invoked his healing power, and offered the strong city of Edessa
to protect him against the malice of the Jews. The ignorance of
the primitive church is explained by the long imprisonment of the
image in a niche of the wall, from whence, after an oblivion of
five hundred years, it was released by some prudent bishop, and
seasonably presented to the devotion of the times. Its first and
most glorious exploit was the deliverance of the city from the
arms of Chosroes Nushirvan; and it was soon revered as a pledge
of the divine promise, that Edessa should never be taken by a
foreign enemy. It is true, indeed, that the text of Procopius
ascribes the double deliverance of Edessa to the wealth and valor
of her citizens, who purchased the absence and repelled the
assaults of the Persian monarch. He was ignorant, the profane
historian, of the testimony which he is compelled to deliver in
the ecclesiastical page of Evagrius, that the Palladium was
exposed on the rampart, and that the water which had been
sprinkled on the holy face, instead of quenching, added new fuel
to the flames of the besieged. After this important service, the
image of Edessa was preserved with respect and gratitude; and if
the Armenians rejected the legend, the more credulous Greeks
adored the similitude, which was not the work of any mortal
pencil, but the immediate creation of the divine original. The
style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how far
their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry. "How can
we with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose celestial
splendor the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who
dwells in heaven, condescends this day to visit us by his
venerable image; He who is seated on the cherubim, visits us this
day by a picture, which the Father has delineated with his
immaculate hand, which he has formed in an ineffable manner, and
which we sanctify by adoring it with fear and love." Before the
end of the sixth century, these images, made without hands, (in
Greek it is a single word, ^11) were propagated in the camps and
cities of the Eastern empire: ^12 they were the objects of

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