The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire III. [antikvár]

THEHISTORY OF THE DECLINE AND FALLof theROMAN EMPIRECHAPTER XLIX (726-1378 A.D.)Introduction, Worship, and Persecution of ImagesRevolt of Italy and Rome Temporal Dominion of the PopesConquest of Italy by the Franks Establishment of ImagesCharacter and Coronation of Charlemagne Restoration and Decay of the Roman Empire in the WestIndependence of ItalyConstitution of the Germanic BodyIn 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,^ 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 aiFected, 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.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.^ ' The learned Selden has given the history of transubstantiation in a comprehensive arid pithy sentence: "The opinion is only rhetoric turned into logic." (His Works, vol. iii. p. 2073, in his Table-Talk.)^ Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod si sentire simulacra et nioveri possent, [ultro] adoratura hominem fuissent a quo sunt expolita. (Divin. Institut. 1. 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.