XII. Constantine, to whom the furious tribe of the image-worshippers had given by way of derision the name of Copronymus,* succeeded his father Leo in the empire, in 741, and, animated with an equal zeal and ardour against the new idolatry, employed all his influence for the abolition of the worship of images, in opposition to the vigorous efforts of the Roman pontiffs and the superstitious monks. His manner of proceeding was attended with greater marks of equity and moderation, than had appeared in the measures pursued by Leo: for, knowing the respect which the Greeks had for the decisions of general councils, whose authority they considered as supreme and unlimited in religious matters, he assembled at Constantinople, in 754, a council composed of the eastern bishops, in order to have this important question examined with the utmost care, and decided with wisdom, seconded by a just and lawful authority. This assembly, which the Greeks regard as the seventh œcumenical council, gave judgment, as was the custom of those times, in favour of the opinion embraced by the emperor, and solemnly condemned the worship and also the use of

without hesitation, unworthy of the name and privileges of a Christian, and thus excluded him from the communion of the church; and no sooner was this formidable sentence made public, than the Romans, and other Italian communities, that were subject to the Grecian empire, violated their allegiance, and, rising in arms, either massacred or banished all the emperor's deputies and officers. Leo, exasperated by these insolent proceedings, resolved to chastise the Italian rebels, and to make the haughty pontiff feel in a particular manner the effects of his resentment; but he failed in the attempt. Doubly irritated by this disappointment, he vented his fury against images, and their worshippers, in 730, in a much more terrible manner than he had hitherto done; for, in a council assembled at Constantinople, he degraded from his office Germanus, the bishop of that imperial city, who was a patron of images, put Anastasius in his place, ordered all the images to be publicly burned, and inflicted a variety of severe punishments upon such as were attached to that idolatrous worship. These rigorous measures divided the Christian church into two violent factions, whose contests were carried on with an ungoverned rage, and pro-||images.† But this decision was not sufficient duced nothing but mutual invectives, crimes, to vanquish the blind obstinacy of superstition: and assassinations. Of these factions, one many adhered still to their idolatrous worship; adopted the adoration and worship of images, and none made a more turbulent resistance to and were on that account called Iconoduli or the wise decree of this council than the monks, Iconolatræ; while the other maintained that who still continued to excite commotions in such worship was unlawful, and that nothing the state, and to blow the flames of sedition was more worthy of the zeal of Christians, and rebellion among the people. Their mathan to demolish and destroy the statues and lignity was, however, chastised by Constanpictures that were the occasions and objects of tine, who, filled with a just indignation at this gross idolatry; and hence they were dis- their seditious practices, punished several of tinguished by the titles of Iconomachi and them in an exemplary manner, and by new Iconoclastæ. The furious zeal which Gregory || laws set bounds to the violence of monastic II. had shewn in defending the odious super- rage. Leo IV., who, after the death of Constition of image-worship, was not only imita- stantine, was declared emperor, in 775, adoptted, but even surpassed by his successor, who ed the sentiments of his father and grandfa was the third pontiff of that name; and though, ther, and pursued the measures which they at this distance of time, we are not acquainted had concerted for the extirpation of idolatry with all the criminal circumstances that at- out of the Christian church; for, having pertended the intemperate zeal of these insolent ceived that the worshippers of images could prelates, we know with certainty that it was not be engaged by mild and gentle proceedtheir extravagant attachment to image-wor-ings to abandon this superstitious practice, he ship that chiefly occasioned the separation of the Italian provinces from the Grecian empire."

had recourse to the coercive influence of penal

laws.

XIII. A cup of poison, administered by the The Greek writers tell us, that both the Gregories impious counsel of a perfidious wife, deprived carried their insolence so far as to excommunicate Leo Leo IV. of his life, in 780, and rendered the and his son Constantine, to dissolve the obligation of the idolatrous cause of images triumphant. The oath of allegiance, which the people of Italy had taken profligate Irene, after having thus dismissed to these princes, and to prohibit their paying tribute to them, or showing them any marks of submission and obe- her husband from the world, held the reins of dience. These facts are also acknowledged by many of empire during the minority of her son Conthe partisans of the Roman pontiffs, such as Baronius, Sigonius, and their numerous followers. On the other them as having given several marks of their submission hand, some learned writers, particularly among the and obedience to the imperial authority. Such are the French, alleviate considerably the crime of the Gregories, contrary accounts of the Greek and Latin writers; and and positively deny that they either excommunicated the the most prudent use we can make of them is, to suspend emperors above-mentioned, or called off the people from our judgment with respect to a matter, which the obscutheir duty and allegiance. See Launoius, Epist. lib. vii.rity that covers the history of this period renders it imEp. vii. p. 456. tom. v. op. par. ii.-Nat. Alexander, Se-possible to clear up. All that we can know with certainty lect. Histor. Ecclesiast. Capit. Sæc. viii. dissert. i. p. 456. is, that the zeal of the two pontiffs above-mentioned for De Marca, Concordia Sacerdotii et Imperii, lib. iii. cap. the worship of images, furnished to the people of Italy xi.-Bossuet, Defens. Declarationis Cleri Gallic. de Po- the occasion of falling from their allegiance to the Gretestate Eccles. par. i. lib. vi. cap. xii. p. 197.-Giannone, cian emperors. Historia di Napoli, vol. i. All these found their opinions, concerning the conduct of the Gregories, chiefly upon the authority of the Latin writers, such as Anastasius, Paul the Deacon, and others, who seem to have known nothing of that audacious insolence, with which these pontiffs are said to have opposed the emperors, and even represent

This nick-name was given to Constantine, from his having defiled the sacred font at his baptism.

The authority of this council is not acknowledg ed by the Roman catholics, who also disregard the obli gation of the second commandment, which they have pru dently struck out of the decalogue.

stantine; and, to establish her authority on assembled, at Frankfort on the Maine, a counmore solid foundations, entered into an alli-cil of three hundred bishops, in order to re-exance with Adrian, bishop of Rome, in 786, amine this important question; in which the and summoned a council at Nice in Bithynia, opinions contained in the four books were sowhich is known by the title of the second Ni- lemnly confirmed, and the worship of images cene council. In this assembly the imperial unanimously condemned.* Hence we may laws concerning the new idolatry were abro- conclude, that in this century the Latins deemgated, the decrees of the council of Constanti- ed it neither impious, nor unlawful, to dissent nople reversed, the worship of images and of from the opinion of the Roman pontiff, and the cross restored, and severe punishments de- even to charge that prelate with error. nounced against such as maintained that God was the only object of religious adoration. It is impossible to imagine any thing more ridiculous and trifling than the arguments upon which the bishops, assembled in this council, founded their decrees.* The Romans, however, held sacred the authority of these decrees; and the Greeks considered in the light of parricides and traitors all such as refused to submit to them. The other enormities of the flagitious Irene, and her deserved fate, cannot, with propriety, be treated of here.

XIV. In these violent contests, the greater part of the Latins, such as the Britons, Germans, and Gauls, seemed to steer a middle way between the opposite tenets of the contending parties. They were of opinion that images might be lawfully preserved, and even placed in the churches; but, at the same time, they looked upon all worship of them as highly injurious and offensive to the Supreme Being.† Such, particularly, were the sentiments of Charlemagne, who distinguished himself in this important controversy. By the advice of the French bishops, who were no friends to this second council of Nice, he ordered some learned and judicious divine to compose Four Books concerning Images, which he sent, in 790, to Adrian, the Roman pontiff, with a view of engaging him to withdraw his approbation of the decrees of that council. In this performance the reasons alleged by the Nicene bishops to justify the worship of images, are refuted with great accuracy and spirit. They were not, however, left without defence:Adrian, who was afraid of acknowledging even an emperor for his master, composed an answer to the four books mentioned above; but neither his arguments, nor his authority, were sufficient to support the superstition he endeavoured to maintain; for, in 794, Charlemagne

* Mart. Chemnitius, Examen Concilii Tridentini, par. iv. lib. ii. cap. v. p. 52.-L'Enfant, Preservatif contre la Reunion avec le Siege de Rome, par. iii. lettre xvii. p. 446.|| The aversion the Britons had to the worship of images, may be seen in Spelman, Concil, Magna Britanniæ, tom. i. p. 73.

The books of Charlemagne concerning Images, which deserve an attentive perusal, are yet extant; and, when they were extremely scarce, were republished at Hanover, in 1731, by the celebrated Christopher Aug. Heuman, who enriched this edition with a learned preface. These books are adorned with the venerable name of Charlemague; but it is easy to perceive that they are the productions of a scholastic divine, and not of an emperor. Several learned men have conjectured, that Charlemagne composed these books with the assistance of his preceptor Alcuin; see Heuman's Pref. p. 51; and Bunau's Historia Imperii German. tom. i. p. 490. This conjecture, though far from being contemptible, cannot be admitted without hesitation, since Alcuin was in England when these books were composed. We learn from the history of his life, that he went into England in 789, and did not thence return before 792.

XV. While the controversy concerning images was at its height, a new contest arose among the Latins and Greeks about the source whence the Holy Ghost proceeded. The Latins affirmed, that this divine Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son: the Greeks, on the contrary, asserted, that it proceeded from the Father only. The origin of this controversy is covered with perplexity and doubt. It is, however, certain, that it was agitated in the council of Gentilli, near Paris, in 767, in presence of the emperor's legates; and from this we may conclude, with a high degree of probability, that it arose in Greece at that time when the contest about images was carried on with the greatest vehemence. In this controversy the Latins alleged, in favour of their opinions, the creed of Constantinople, which the Spaniards and French had successively corrupted (upon what occasion is not well known,) by adding the words filio-que to that part of it which contained the doctrine concerning the Holy Ghost. The Greeks, on the other hand, made loud complaints of this criminal attempt of the Latins to corrupt by a manifest interpolation a creed, which served as a rule of doctrine for the church universal, and declared this attempt impudent and sacrilegious. Thus, the dispute changed at length its object, and was transferred from the matter to the interpolated words above mentioned. In the following century it was carried on with still greater vehemence, and added new fuel to the dissensions which already portended a

*This event is treated with a degree of candour, not more laudable than surprising, by Mabillon, in Præf. ad Sæculum iv. Actorum SS. Ord. Benedict. part v. See also Jo. Georg. Dorscheus, Collat. ad Concilium Franco

fordiense.

t

† See Le Cointe, Annales Eccles. Francorum, tom. v. P. 698.

# Learned men generally imagine that this controversy began about the words filio-que, which some of the Latins had added to the creed that had been drawn up by the council of Constantinople, and that from the words the dispute proceeded to the doctrine itself; see Mabillon (Act. Sanctor. Ord. Bened. Sæc. iv. part i. Præf. p. iv.) who is followed by many in this particular. But this opinion is certainly erroneous. The doctrine was the first subject of controversy, which afterwards extended to the words filio-que, considered by the Greeks as a manifest interpolation. Among other proofs of this, the council of Gentilli shows evidently, that the doctrine conceruing the Holy Spirit had been, for a considerable time, the subject of controversy when the dispute arose about the words now mentioned. Pagi, in his Critica in Baronium, tom. iii. p. 323, is of opinion, that this controversy had both its date and its occasion from the dispute concerning images; for, when the Latins treated the Greeks as heretics, on account of their opposition to image-worship, the Greeks in their turn charged the Latins also with heresy, on account of their maintaining that the Holy Ghost proceeded from the Father and the Son. The learned critic has, however, advanced this opinion without sufficient proof, and we must therefore consider it as no more than a probable conjecture.

schism between the eastern and western || in use at Rome, to be observed in all Christian churches.*

CHAPTER IV.

Concerning the Rites and Ceremonies used in the

Church during this Century.

churches. It was in conformity with his example, and in compliance with the repeated and importunate solicitation of the pontiff Adrian, that Charlemagne laboured to bring all the Latin churches to follow, as their model, the church of Rome, not only in the article now mentioned, but also in the whole form of their worship, in every circumstance of their religious service.*

Several churches, however, among which those of Milan and Corbetta distinguished themselves eminently, absolutely rejected this proposal, and could neither be brought, by persuasion or by violence, to change their usual method of worship.

CHAPTER V.

Concerning the Divisions and Heresies that trou

bled the Church during this Century.

I. THE religion of this century consisted almost entirely in a motley round of external rites and ceremonies. We are not, therefore, to wonder that more zeal and diligence were en.ployed in multiplying and regulating these outward marks of a superstitious devotion, than in correcting the vices and follies of men, in enlightening their understandings, and forming their hearts. The administration of the sacrament of the Lord's supper, which was deemed the most solemn and important branch of divine worship, was now every where embellished, or rather deformed, with a variety of senseless fopperies, which destroyed the I. THE Arians, Manicheans, and Marcionbeautiful simplicity of that affecting and salutary institution. We also find manifest traces, ites, though often depressed by the force of in this century, of that superstitious custom of penal laws and the power of the secular arm, celebrating what were called solitary masses, gathered strength in the east, amidst the tuthough it be difficult to decide whether they mults and divisions with which the Grecian were instituted by a public law, or introduced empire was perpetually agitated, and drew by the authority of private persons. Be that great numbers into the profession of their opinas it may, this single custom is sufficient to ions. The Monothelites, to whose cause the give us an idea of the superstition and dark- emperor Philippicus, and many others of the ness that sat brooding over the Christian first rank and dignity, were most zealous wellchurch in this ignorant age, and renders it un-wishers, regained their credit in various counnecessary to enter into a farther detail of the absurd rites with which a designing priesthood continued to disfigure the religion of Jesus. II. Charlemagne seemed disposed to stem this torrent of superstition, which gathered force from day to day; for, not to mention the zeal with which he opposed the worship of images, there are other circumstances that bear II. In the church which Boniface had newly testimony to his intentions in this matter, such as his preventing the multiplication of festi-erected in Germany, he himself tells us, that vals, by reducing them to a fixed and limited there were many perverse and erroneous repronumber, his prohibiting the ceremony of con- bates, who had no true notion of religion; and secrating the church bells by the rite of holy his friends and adherents confirm this assertion. aspersion, and his enactment of other ecclesi-But the testimony is undoubtedly partial, and astical laws, which redound to his honour. Several circumstances, however, concurred to render his designs abortive, and to blast the success of his worthy purposes; and none more than his excessive attachment to the Roman pontiffs, who were the patrons and protectors of those who exerted themselves in the cause of ceremonies. This vehement passion for the lordly pontiff was inherited by the great prince of whom we are now speaking, from his father Pepin, who had already commanded the manner of singing, and the kind of church-music

*See Pithæi Hist. Controv. de Processione Spiritus S. at the end of his Cod. Canon. Eccles. Roman. p. 355.Le Quien, Oriens Christian. tom. iii. p. 354.-Ger. J. Vossius, de Tribus Symbolis, Diss. iii. p. 65; and, above all, Jo. Georg, Walchius, Histor. Controv. de Processione Spiritus S. published at Jena in 1751.

tries. The condition also both of the Nestorians and Monophysites was easy and agreeable under the dominion of the Arabians; their power and influence were considerable; nor were they destitute of means of weakening the Greeks, their irreconcileable adversaries, of spreading their doctrines, and extensively multiplying the number of their adherents.

unworthy of credit, since it appears from the most evident proofs, that the persons here accused of errors and heresies were Irish and French divines, who refused that blind submission to the church of Rome, which Boniface was so zealous to propagate every where. Adalbert, a Gaul, and Clement, a native of Ireland, were the persons whose opposition gave the most trouble to the ambitious legate. The former procured himself to be consecrated bishop, without the consent of Boniface; excited seditions and tumults among the eastern Franks; and appears, indeed, to have been both flagitious in his conduct, and erroneous in his opinions. Among other irregularities, he was the forgert of a letter to the human race, which was said to have been written by Jesus

Solitary or private masses were such as were cele-Christ, and to have been brought from heaven brated by the priest alone in behalf of souls detained in by the arch-angel Michael.§ As to Clement, purgatory, as well as on some other particular occasions. These masses were prohibited by the laws of the church; but they were a rich source of profit to the clergy. They were condemned by the canons of a synod assembled at Mentz under Charlemagne, as criminal innovations, and as the fruits of avarice and sloth.

See the Treatise concerning Images, attributed to Charlemagne, p. 245; as also George Calixtus, de Missis

Solitari's. sect. 12.

* See the Treatise concerning Images, p. 52; and Eginhard, de Vita Caroli Magni, cap. 26.

In Europe also Arianism prevailed greatly among barbarous nations that embraced the Christian faith.

the

See the Histoire Literaire de la France, tom. iv. p. 82. There is an edition of this letter published by the learned Baluze in the Capitularia Regum Francorum, tom. ii. p. 1396.

THE NINTH CENTURY.

PART I.

THE EXTERNAL HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.

CHAPTER I.

Concerning the Prosperous Events which happen

ed to the Church in this Century.

quently among the Danes, Cimbrians, and Swedes, in order to promote the cause of Christ, to form new churches, and to confirm and establish those which he had already incorporated; in all which arduous enterprises he passed his life in the most imminent dan gers, until, in 865, he concluded his glorious course.*

I. THE reign of Charlemagne had been singularly auspicious to the Christian cause; the life of that great prince was principally employed in the most zealous efforts to propagate and establish the religion of Jesus among the III. About the middle of this century the Huns, Saxons, Friselanders, and other unen- Mosians,† Bulgarians, and Gazarians, and lightened nations; but his piety was mixed after them the Bohemians and Moravians, with violence, his spiritual conquests were ge- were converted to Christianity by Methodius nerally made by the force of arms, and this and Cyril, two Greek monks, whom the emimpure mixture tarnishes the lustre of his no- press Theodora had sent to dispel the darkness blest exploits. His son Louis, undeservedly of those idolatrous nations. The zeal of surnamed the Debonnaire, or the Meek, in- Charlemagne, and of his pious missionaries, herited the defects of his father without his had been formerly exerted in the same cause, virtues, and was his equal in violence and cru- and among the same people,§ but with so little elty, but greatly his inferior in all worthy and success, that any faint notions which they had valuable accomplishments. Under his reign a received of the Christian doctrine were entirely very favourable opportunity was offered of pro- effaced. The instructions of the Grecian docpagating the Gospel among the northern na- tors had a much better, and also a more pertions, and particularly among the inhabitants manent effect; but, as they recommended to of Sweden and Denmark. A petty king of their new disciples the forms of worship, and Jutland, named Harald Klack, being driven the various rites and ceremonies used among from his kingdom and country, in 826, by the Greeks, this was the occasion of much Regner Lodbrock, threw himself at the em- religious animosity and contention in afterperor's feet, and implored his succours against times, when the lordly pontiffs exerted all their the usurper. Louis granted his request, and vehemence, and employed all the means which promised the exiled prince his protection and they could devise, though with imperfect sucassistance, on condition, however, that he cess, for reducing these nations under the diswould embrace Christianity, and admit the cipline and jurisdiction of the Latin church. ministers of that religion to preach in his do- IV. Under the reign of Basilius, the Maceminions. Harald submitted to these condi-donian, who ascended the imperial throne of tions, was baptised with his brother at Mentz, the Greeks in 867, the Sclavonians, Arentani, in 826, and returned into his country attended and certain communities of Dalmatia, sent a by two eminent divines, Ansgar or Anschaire, solemn embassy to Constantinople to declare and Authbert; the former a monk of Corbey their resolution of submitting to the jurisdicin Westphalia, and the latter belonging to a tion of the Grecian empire, and of embracing, monastery of the same name in France. at the same time, the Christian religion. This These venerable missionaries preached the Gospel with remarkable success, during the course of two years, to the inhabitants of Cimbria and Jutland.

* The writers to whom we are indebted for accounts

of this pious and illustrious prelate, the founder of the Cimbrian, Danish, and Swedish churches, are mentioned II. After the death of his learned and pious p. 292, as also in his Lux Evangelii Orbi Terrarum exoby Fabricius in his Biblioth. Latin. medii Ævi, tom. i. companion Authbert, the zealous and indefati- riens, p. 425. Add to these the Benedictine monks, in gable Ansgar made a voyage into Sweden, in their Histoire Lit. de la France, tom. v. p. 277.—Acta 828, where his ministerial labours were also Sanctor. Mens. Februar. tom. i. p. 391.-Erici Pontoppidani Annales Eccles. Danica Diplomat. tom. i. p. 18.crowned with distinguished success. Return- Molleri Cimbria Literata, tom. iii. These writers give ing into Germany, in 831, he was loaded by us also circumstantial accounts of Ebbo, Withmar, RemLouis with ecclesiastical honours, being creat-bert, and others, who were either the fellow-labourers or ed archbishop of the new church at Hamburg, and also of the whole north, to which dignity, in 844, the superintendence of the church at Bremen was added. The profits attached to this high and honourable charge were very inconsiderable, while the perils and labours, in which it involved the pious prelate, were truly formidable. Accordingly he travelled fre

successors of Ansgar.

We have translated thus the term Mysi, which is an error in the original. Dr. Mosheim, like many others, has confounded the Mysians with the inhabitants of Moesia, by giving to the latter, who were Europeans, the title of the former, who dwelt in Asia.

Jo. George Stredowsky, Sacra Moravia Historia, lib.
ii. cap. ii. p. 94, compared with Pet. Kohlii Introduct. in
Historiam et Rem liter. Slavorum, p. 124.
Stredowsky, lib. i. cap. ix. p. 55.

L'Enfant, Histoire de la Guerre des Hussites, livr. i.