the other hand, Hefele has demonstrated that this must be a mistake. For one thing, many of the pictures were frescoes that could not be moved. There is a letter from the pope protesting against the destruction of images which we must date earlier than the year 730; but that year is the date commonly assigned for a second edict which is taken to be the earliest order for the demolition of the pictures. The decree does not appear to have been widely operative. But one of the first actions, if not the very first, taken in execution of the emperor's orders led to serious trouble. It was a daring deed, for it was the destruction of the most conspicuous and in some respects the most sacred of all the pictures. This was a representation of Christ over the great brass gates at Constantinople, which was reputed to work miraculous cures. Officials mounted a ladder in spite of the screaming protests of a mob of women, and one of them rudely smashed his axe into the face. Thereupon the exasperated women seized the ladder, flung the sacrilegious officials to the ground, and murdered them on the spot. Other scenes of violence followed in various places.
Now the question is, What led Leo to take this step and so to come into conflict with his people's religion? The action was his own; if it was a reformation, it was an imperial, not a popular reformation. The author of the article on Leo iii. in Smith's Dictionary of Biography seems to sympathise with the old orthodox view of the case, according to which the emperor was a heretic denying the actual humanity of Christ, and therefore the possibility of representing our Lord by any picture. This was a charge frequently brought against the Iconoclasts by the defenders of images. It has been pointed out that Leo's old home in Isauria was a seat of Monophysitism. But we have no proof whatever of the existence of this subtle theological motive at the basis of Leo's policy, although it may be allowed that the atmosphere of the church of his youth would have predisposed him to turn with disgust from the materialism of the popular religion. We must look deeper
