© GEORGE FINLAY
HISTORY OF
First Edition February 1906
SECTION IV
REIGNS OF LEO IV., (THE KHAZAR,) CONSTANTINE VI., AND IRENE
A.D. 775-802
No person could be selected from among the dignitaries
of the church, who
had been generally appointed by Iconoclast emperors. The choice of Irene
fell on a civilian. Tarasios, the chief secretary of the imperial cabinet
– a man of noble birth, considerable popularity, and a high reputation for
learning and probity – was suddenly elevated to be the head of the Greek church,
and allowed to be not unworthy of the high rank. The orthodox would probably
have raised a question concerning the
legality of nominating a layman, had it not been evident that the objection
would favour the interests of their opponents. The empress and her advisers
were not bold enough to venture on an irretrievable
declaration in favour of image-worship, until they had obtained a public assurance
of popular support. An assembly of the inhabitants of the capital was convoked
in the palace of Magnaura, in order to secure a majority pledged to the cause
of Tarasios. The fact that such an assembly was considered necessary, is a
strong proof that the strength of the rival parties was very nearly balanced,
and that this manifestation of public opinion was required in order to relieve
the empress from personal responsibility. Irene proposed to the assembly that
Taraisos, however, refused the dignity, declaring that he would not accept
the Patriarchate unless a general council should be convoked for restoring
unity to the church. The convocation of a council was adopted, and the nomination
of Tarasios ratified. Though great care had been taken to fill this assembly
with image-worshippers, nevertheless several dissentient voices made themselves
heard, protesting against the proceedings as an attack on the existing legislation
of the empire.
The Iconoclasts were still
strong in the capital, and the opposition of the soldiery was excited by the
determination of Tarasios to re-establish image-worship. They openly declared
that they would not allow a council of the church to be held, nor permit the
ecclesiastics of their party to be unjustly treated by the court. More than one
tumult warned the empress that no council could be held at Constantinople. It
was found necessary to disperse the Iconoclastic soldiery in distant provinces,
and form new cohorts of guards devoted to the court, before any steps could be
publicly taken to change the laws of the church. The experience of Tarasios as
a minister of state was more useful to Irene during the first period of his
patriarchate than his theological learning. It required nearly three years to
smooth the way for the meeting of the council, which was at length held at
Nicaea, in September, 787. Three
hundred and sixty-seven members attended, of whom, however, not a few
were abbots and monks, who assumed the title of confessors from having been
ejected from their monasteries by the decrees of the Iconoclast sovereigns.
Some of the persons present deserve to be particularly mentioned, for they have
individually conferred greater benefits on mankind by their learned labours,
than they rendered to Christianity by their zealous advocacy of image-worship
in this council. The secretary of the two commissioners who represented the
imperial authority was Nicephorus the historian, subsequently Patriarch of
Constantinople. His sketch of the history of the empire, from the year 602 to
770, is a valuable work, and indicates that he was a man of judgement,
whenever his perceptions were not
obscured by theological and ecclesiastical prejudices. Two other eminent
Byzantine writers were also present, George, called Syncellus, from the office
he held under the Patriarch Tarasios. He has left us a chronological work,
which has preserved the knowledge of many important facts recorded by no other ancient authority.
George Syncellus died in 800.
His chronography extends from Adam to Diocletian.
Theophanes, the friend and
companion of the Syncellus, has continued this work; and his chronography of
Roman and Byzantine history, with all its faults, forms the best picture of the
condition of the empire that we possess for a long period. Theophanes enjoyed the honour of becoming, at a later
day, a confessor in the cause of image-worship; he was exiled from a monastery
which he had founded, and died in the island of Samothrace, A.D. 817.
The second council of Nicaea
had no better title than the Iconoclast council of Constantinople to be
regarded as a general council of the church. The Pope Hadrian, indeed, sent
deputies from the Latin church; but the churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and
Antioch, whose patriarchs were groaning under the government of the caliphs,
did not dare to communicate with foreign authorities. An attempt was
nevertheless made to deceive the world into a belief that they were
represented, by allowing two monks from Palestine to present themselves as the
syncelli of these patriarchs, without scrutinizing the validity of their
credentials. Pope Hadrian, though he sent deputies, wrote at the same time to
Tarasios, making several demands tending to establish the ecclesiastical
supremacy of the papal See, and complaining in strong terms that the Patriarch
of Constantinople had no right to assume the title of ecumenic. The hope of
recovering the estates of the patrimony of St. Peter in the Byzantine
provinces, which had been sequestrated by Leo III., and of re-establishing the
supremacy of the See of Rome, made Hadrian overlook much that was offensive to
papal pride.
The second council of Nicaea
authorised the worship of images as an orthodox practice. Forged passages,
pretending to be extracts from the earlier fathers, and genuine from the more
modern, were quoted in favour of the practice. Simony was already a prevailing
evil in the Greek church. Many of the bishops had purchased their sees, and
most of these naturally preferred doing violence to their opinions rather than
lose their revenues. From this cause, unanimity was easily obtained by court
influence. The council decided that not only was the cross an object of
reverence, but also that the images of Christ, and the pictures of the Virgin
Mary – of angels, saints and holy men, whether painted in colours, or worked in
embroidery in sacred ornaments, or formed in mosaic in the walls of churches –
were all lawful objects of worship. At the same time, in order to guard against
the accusation of idolatry, it was declared that the worship of an image, which
is merely a sign of reverence, must not be confounded with the adoration due
only to God. The council of Constantinople held in 754 was declared heretical,
and all who maintained its doctrines, and condemned the use of images, were
anathematised. The patriarchs Anastasios, Constantinos, and Niketas were
especially doomed to eternal condemnation.
The Pope adopted the decrees
of this council, but he refused to confirm them officially, because the empress delayed restoring the estates of St. Peter’s
patrimony. In the countries of western Europe which had formed parts of the
Western Empire, the superstitions of the image-worshippers were viewed with as
much satisfaction as the fanaticism of the Iconoclasts; and the council of
Nicaea was as much condemned as that of Constantinople by a large body of
enlightened ecclesiastics. The public mind in the West was almost as much
divided as in the East; and if a general council of the Latin church had been
assembled, its unbiased decisions would probably have been at variance with
those supported by the Pope and the council of Nicaea.
Charlemagne published a
refutation of the doctrines of this council on the subject of image-worship.
His work, called the Caroline Books, consists of four parts, and was certainly
composed under his immediate personal superintendence, though he was doubtless
incapable of writing it himself. At all events, it was published as his
composition. This work condemns the superstitious bigotry of the Greek
image-worshippers in a decided manner, while at the same time it only blames
the misguided zeal of the Iconoclasts. Altogether it is a very remarkable
production, and gives a more correct idea of the extent to which Roman
civilisation still survived in Western society, and counterbalanced
ecclesiastical influence, than any other contemporary document. In 794
Charlemagne assembled a council of three hundred bishops at Frankfort; and, in
the presence of the papal legates, this council maintained that pictures ought
to be placed in churches, but that they should not be worshipped, but only
regarded with respect, as recalling more vividly to the mind the subjects
represented. The similarity existing at this time in the opinions of enlightened
men throughout the whole Christian world must be noted as a proof that general
communications and commercial intercourse still pervaded society with common
sentiments. The dark night of medieval ignorance and local prejudices had not
yet settled on the West; nor had feudal anarchy confined the ideas and wants of
society to the narrow sphere of provincial interests. The aspect of public
opinion alarmed Pope Hadrian, whose interests required that the relations of
the West and East should not become friendly. His position, however, rendered
him more suspicious of Constantine and Irene, in spite of their orthodoxy, than
of Charlemagne, with all his heterodox ideas. The Frank monarch, though he
differed in ecclesiastical opinions,
was sure to be a political protector. The Pope consequently laboured to foment
the jealousy that reigned between the Frank and Byzantine governments
concerning Italy, where the commercial relations of the Greeks still
counterbalanced the military influence of the Franks. When writing to
Charlemagne, he accused the Greeks and their Italian partisans of every crime
likely to arouse the hostility of the Franks. They were reproached, and not unjustly, with carrying
on an extensive trade in slaves, who were purchased in western Europe, and sold to the Saracens. The Pope knew well
that this commerce was carried on in all the trading cities of the West, both
by Greeks ad Latins; for slaves then constituted the principal article of
European export to Africa, Syria, and Egypt, in payment of the produce of the
East, which was brought from those territories. The Pope seized and burned some
Greek vessels at Centumcelle (Civita-Vecchia), because the crews were accused
of kidnapping the people of the neighbourhood. The violent expressions of
Hadrian, in speaking of the Greeks, could not fail to produce a great effect in
western Europe, where the letters of the Popes formed the literary productions
most generally read and studied by all ranks. His calumnies must have sunk deep
into the public mind, and tended to impress on Western nations the aversion to
the Greeks, which was subsequently increased by mercantile jealousy and
religious strife.
TO BE CONTINUED