modes so opposed to justice and Scripture; again, he cites many texts while also considering the matter rationally.[1] On the other hand, his book against image-worship is made up of extracts from Augustine and other Church authorities. There was no call for originality here, when the subject seemed to have been so exhaustively and authoritatively treated.[2]
One cannot follow Agobard so comfortably in his rancorous tracts against the Jews. Doubtless this subject also presented itself to him as an exigency requiring handling, and he was just in his contention that heathen slaves belonging to Jews might be converted and baptized, and then should not be given back to their former masters, but a money equivalent be made instead. The question was important from its frequency. Yet one would be loath to approve his arguments, unoriginal as they are. He gives currency to the common slanders against the Jews, and then at great length cites passages from the Church Fathers, to show in what detestation they held that people. Then he sets forth the abominable opinions of the hated race, and ransacks Scripture to prove that the Jews are therein authoritatively and incontestably condemned.[3]
The years of Agobard's maturity belong to the troubled time which came with the accession of the incompetent Louis, in 814, to the throne of his father Charlemagne. In the contentions and wars that followed, Agobard proved himself an apt political partisan and writer. His political tracts, notwithstanding their constant citation of Scripture, are his own, and evince an originality evoked by the situation which they were written to influence.
- ↑ Liber contra Judicium Dei (Migne 104, col. 250-268). Here the powerful Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, is emphatically on the opposite side, and argues lengthily in support of the judicium aquae frigidae, in Epist. 26, Migne 126, col. 161. Hincmar (cir. 806-882) was a man of imposing eminence. He was a great ecclesiastical statesman. The compass and character of his writings is what might be expected from such an archiepiscopal man of affairs. They include edifying tracts for the use of the king, an authoritative Life of St. Remi, and writings theological, political, and controversial. As the writer was not a profound thinker, his works have mainly that originality which was impressed upon them by the nature of whatever exigency called them forth. They are contained in Migne 125, 126.
- ↑ Liber de imaginibus sanctorum (Migne 104, col. 199-226).
- ↑ These writings are also in vol. 104 of Migne.
