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sgecial_Jionour (n^u^s e/i^ao-is), but it is not lawful to
adore them nor by any means to give them prayers of
adoration (irpotrciJIaaSai) " (Schwarzlose, op. cit., 24).
(4) Enemies of Image-woeship before Icono-
CLASM. — Long before the outbrealc in the eighth cen-
tury there were isolated cases of persons who feared
the ever-growing cult of images and saw in it danger of
a return to the old idolatry. We need hardly quote in
this connection the invectives of the Apostolic Fathers
against idols (Athenagoras, "Legatio pro Christ.",
xv-xvii; Theophilus, "Ad Autolycum", II; Minu-
cius Felix, "Octavius", xxvii; Arnobius, "Disp.
adv. Gentes"; TertuUian, "De Idololatria ", I; Cy-
prian, "De idolorum vanitate"), in which they de-
nounce not only the worship but even the manufac-
ture and possession of such images. These texts all
regard idols, that is, images made to be adored. But
canon xxxvi of the .Synod of Elvira is important.
This was a general synod of the Church of Spain held,
apparently about the year 300, in a city near Granada
(Hefele-Leclercq, "Hist, des Cone", I, 212-64). It
made many severe laws against Christians who re-
lap.sed into idolatry, heresy, or sins against the Sixth
Commandment. The canon reads: "It is ordained
(Placuit) that pictures are not to be in churches, so
that that which is worshipped and adored shall not
be painted on walls " (iliid., p. 240). The meaning of
the canon has been much discussed. De Rossi and
Hefele thought it was only a precaution against possi-
ble profanation by pagans who might go into a church
(ibid). Dom Leclercq ("Manuel d'arch<5oIogie", II,
140) and J. Turmel ("Rev. du clerg6 frang.", 1906,
XLV, 508) see in it a law against pictures on principle.
In any case the canon can have produced but a sHght
effect even in Spain, where there were holy pictures in
the fourth century as in other countries. But it is in-
teresting to see that just at the end of the first period
there were some bishops who disapproved of the grow-
ing cult of images. Eusebius of Caesarea (d. 340), the
Father of Church History, must be counted among the
enemies of icons. In several places in his history he
shows his dislike of them. They are a "heathen cus-
tom" (idviKT] avv-liBua, Hist, eccl., VII, 18); he wrote
many arguments to persuade Constantine's sister Con-
stantia not to keep a statue of our Lord (see Mansi,
XIII, 169). A contemporary bishop, Asterius of
Amasia, also tried to oppose the spreading tendency.
In a sermon on the parable of the rich man and Lazarus
he says: "Do not paint pictures of Christ; he humbled
himself enough by becoming man " (quoted by
Schwarzlose, op. cit., 7, from Combefis, "Auctar. nov.",
I, " Horn, iv in Div. et Laz."). Epiphanius of Salamis
(d. 403) tore down a curtain in a church in Palestine
because it had a picture of Christ or a saint (Schwarz-
lose, ibid., 7-8). The Arian Philostorgius (fifth cen-
tury) too was a forerunner of the Iconoclasts (Hist.
Eccl., II, 12; VII, 3), as also the Bishop of Marseilles
(Screnus), to whom St. Gregory the Great wrote his
defence of pictures (see above). Lastly we may men-
tion that in at least one province of the Church (Cen-
tral Syria) Christian art developed to great perfection
while it systematically rejected all representation of
the human figure (L. BriShier, " La querelle des im-
ages", p. 8-9; Hefele-Leclercq, III, 613-4). These
exceptions are few compared with the steadily increas-
ing influence of images and their worship all over
Cln-istendom, l)ut they serve to show that the holy
icons did not win their place entirely without opposi-
tion, and they represent a thin stream of opposition
as the antecedent of the virulent Iconoclasm of the
eighth century.
(.5) I.MAGES AFTER IcoNOCLASM. — Coronatinn of Images. — After the storm of the eighth and ninth cen- turies (see Iconoclasm), the Church throughout the world settled down again in secure possession of lier images. Since their triumphant return on the Feast of Orthodoxy in 842, their position has not again been
questioned by any of the old Churches. Only now the
situation has become more clearly defined. The Sev-
enth General Council (Nicsea II, 787) had laid down
the principles, established the theological ba.sis, re-
strained the abuses of image- worship. That council
was accepted by the great Church of the five patri-
archates as equal to the other six. Without accepting
its decrees no one could be a member of that church,
no one can to-day be Catholic or Orthodox. Images
and their cult had become an integral part of the Faith ;
Iconoclasm was now definitely a heresy condemned by
the Church as much as Arianism or Nestorianism.
The situation was not changed by the Great Schism of
the ninth and eleventh centuries. Both sides still
maintain the same principles in this matter; both
equally revere as an oecumenical synod the last council
in which they met in unison before the final calamity.
The Orthodox agree to all that Catholics say (see next
paragraph) as to the principle of venerating images.
So do the old Eastern schismatieal Churches. Al-
though they broke away long before Iconoclasm and
Nicsea II they took with them then the principles
we maintain — sufficient evidence that those principles
were not new in 787. Nestorians, Armenians, Jaco-
bites, Copts, and Abyssinians fill their churches with
holy icons, bow to them, incense them, kiss them, just
as do the Orthodox.
But there is a difference not of principle but of practice between East and West, to which we have already alluded. Especially since Iconoclasm, the East dislikes solid statues. Perhaps they are too reminiscent of the old Greek gods. At all events, the Eastern icon (whether Orthodox, Nestorian or Mono- physite) is always flat — a painting, mosaic, bas-relief. Some of the less inteUigent Easterns even seem to see a question of principle in this and explain the difference between a holy icon, such as a Christian man should venerate, and a detestable idol, in the simplest and crudest way: icons are flat, idols are solid. However, that is a view that has never been suggested by their Church officially; she has never made this a ground of complaint against Latins, but admits it to be (as of course it is) simply a difference of fashion or habit, and she recognizes that we are justified by the Second Council of Nicaea in the honour we pay to our statues, just as she is in the far more elaborate reverence she pays to her flat icons.
In the West the exuberant use of statues and pic- tures during the Middle Ages is well known and may he seen in any cathedral in which Protestant zeal has not destroyed the carving. A discussion of early medieval use in England will be found in Daniel Rock, "Church of our Fathers", chapters viii and ix (ed. G. W. Hart and W. H. Frere, London, 1905, vol. III). In the East it is enough to go into any Orthodox Church to see the crowd of holy icons that cover the walls, that gleam right across the church from the iconostasis. And the churches of the Eastern sects that have no iconostasis show as many pictures in other places. As specimens of exceedingly beautiful and curious icons painted after the Iconoclast troubles at Constanti- nople, we may mention the mosaics of the Kahrie-J ami (the old "Monastery in the Country ", Moi/r; t^s x'^P"-^) near the Adrianople gate. The Turks by some acci- dent have spared these mosaics in turning the church into a mosque. They were put up Ijy order of An- dronicus II (1282-1328) ; they cover the whole church within, representing complete cycles of the events of our Lord's life, images of Him, His mother, and vari- ous saints; and still .show in the desecrated liuilding an example of the splendid pomp with which the later Byzantine Church carried out the principles of the Second Nicsean Council (see Ch. Diehl, "Les Mo- saiques de Kahrie-Djami" in his "Etudes byzan- tines", Paris, 1905, pp. 392-431).
In both East and West the reverence we pay to images has crystaUized into formal ritual. In the
