Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/275

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 253 and that those who should refuse to deHver the objects of their private superstition were guilty of disobedience to the authority of the church and of the emperor. In their loud and loyal acclamations, they celebrated the merits of their temporal redeemer ; and to his zeal and justice they entrusted the execution of their spiritual censures. At Constantinople, as in the former councils, the will of the prince was the rule of episcopal faith ; but, on this occasion, I am inclined to sus- pect that a large majority of the prelates sacrificed their secret conscience to the temptations of hope and fear. In the long ineir creed night of superstition, the Christians had wandered far away from the simplicity of the gospel ; nor was 'it easy for them to discern the clue, and tread back the mazes, of the labyrinth. The worship of images was inseparably blended, at least to a pious fancy, with the Cross, the Virgin, the saints, and their relics ; the holy ground was involved in a cloud of miracles and visions ; and the nerves of the mind, curiosity and scepti- cism, were benumbed by the habits of obedience and belief. Constantine himself is accused of indulging a royal licence to doubt, or deny, or deride the mysteries of the Catholics, ^'^ but they were deeply inscribed in the public and private creed of his bishops ; and the boldest Iconoclast might assault with a secret horror the monuments of popular devotion, which were consecrated to the honour of his celestial patrons. In the reformation of the sixteenth century, freedom and knowledge had expanded all the faculties of man, the thirst of innovation superseded the reverence of antiquity, and the vigour of Europe could disdain those phantoms which terrified the sickly and servile weakness of the Greeks. The scandal of an abstract heresy can be only proclaimed J]J.*j[iPj%-, to the people by the blast of the ecclesiastical trumpet ; but ^^™^ the most ignorant can perceive, the most torpid must feel, the ad. 726-775 profanation and downfall of their visible deities. The first hostilities of Leo were directed against a lofty Christ on the vestibule, and above the gate, of the palace. ^O" A ladder had been planted for the assault, but it was furiously shaken by a crowd of zealots and women ; they beheld, with pious transport, the ministers of sacrilege tumbling from on high and dashed 20 He is accused of proscribing the title of saint ; styling the Virgin, Mother of Christ; comparing her after her delivery to an empty purse; of Arianism, Nestorianism, &c. In his defence, Spanheim (c. iv. p. 207) is somewhat em- barrassed between the interest of a Protestant and the duty of an orthodox divine. 2a[Cp. Vit. Steph. Jun., ap. Migne, P.G. 100, p. 1085.]