OCL
623
ICONOCLASM
^oi).
5^e':^^^!^-°'VI
A deputation
Hvj^ lets of the synod ; a
°fl4'ta,jple acquainted them
orjf
rf'"'"W« 7J"« o/- j*/:" </ie ^^^-tH^nons were drawn up^
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th,
. /o/'rv,^^^/'.'i"o^s i and ii confirm
t'<^^ o'l^po'-nZyj'-
^^ar]y ^"'Z V af ^"^honT^ of cclesiastical
"are :"?Ps
councils; canon lu
persons by
'?<^e//ov'JA)c/!f, ^S-a4 *.'"a., elect other bishops; can-
'Ithr^.J ^nalf,, •il Sirn_ ,' SV/nonv: cniinn vi insists nn
■•th
houf ^^hy ^ *yoo(7..*'"^°"y: canon vi insists on
'■'s/jes '^^^'Cs- „ '^Ppos/f'- '^•^"O'l V" forbids bishops,
""'^an 1^' f flout °n ^-'f'°n i to consecrate churches
"' ^^^ a// j^ tie/r /.'■^J'f% priests to change their
I'M.- esn Jis/jf.n,p's consent; canon xiii
l?e.,*WjV.;;"'^secraj
J-Jie'5st«'-^ \r'^egL,lnf^ '^ refcnasteries to be restored; canonsil i'j'fi' (^I'liiiij-iejerabuses in monasteries (see these canonbVn'.tsiisi, XII, 417-40). An eighth and last session was held on 23 October at Constantinople, in the presence of Irene and her son. After a discour.se by Tarasius the Acts were read out and signed by all, including the empress and the emperor. The sjTiod was closed with the usual Polychronia or formal ac- clamation (see the full text of the Acts in Ilardouin, IV, pp. 27-.502; Mansi, XII, pp. 992; XIII, p. 440; also Hefele, op. cit.. Ill, pp. 441 sq.), and Epiphanius, a deacon of Catania in Sicily, preached a sermon to the assembled fathers (Mansi, XII, 441-58).
Tarasius sent to Pope Adrian an account of all that had happened (" Ep. ad Adrianum ", Mansi, 1. c, 458), and Adrian approved the Acts (letter to Charles the Great, Hardouin, IV, 773-820) and had them trans- lated into Latin. But the question of the property of the Holy See in Southern Italy and the friendship of the pope toward-s the Franks still caused bad feeling between East and West; moreover an Iconoclast party still existed at Constantinople, especially in the army.
III. The Second Iconocl.\st Persecution. — Twenty-seven years after the Synod of Nica^a Icono- clasm broke out again, .\gain the holy pictures were destroyed, and their defenders fiercely persecuted. For twenty-eight years the former story was repeated with wonderful exactness. The places of Leo III, Con- stantine V, and Leo IV are taken by a new line of Iconoclast emperors — Leo V, Michael II, Theophilus. Pope Paschal I acts just as did Gregory II, the faithful Patriarch Nicephorus stands for Germanus I, St. John Damascene lives again in St. Theodore the Studite. Again one synod rejects icons, and another, following it, defends them. Again an empress, regent for her young son, puts an end to the storm and restores the old custom — this time finally.
The origin of this second outbreak is not far to seek. There had remained, especially in the army, a consid- erable Iconoclast party. Constantine V, their hero, had been a valiant and successful general against the Moslems, Michael I (811-13), who kept the Faith of the Second Council of Nicaea, was singularly unfortu- nate in his attempt to defend the empire. The Icono- clasts looked back regretfully to the glorious cam- paigns of his predecessor, they evolved the amazing conception of Constantine as a saint, they went in pilgrimage to his grave and cried out to him: "Arise, come back and save the perishing empire!" When Michael I, in June, 813, was utterly defeated by the Bulgars and fled to his capital, the soldiers forced him to resign his crown and set up one of the generals, Leo the .Armenian (Leo V, 813-20) in his place. An officer (Theodotus Cassiteras) and a monk (the Abbot John Grammaticus) persuaded the new emperor that all the misfortunes of the empire were a judgment of Gofl on the idolatry of image- worship. Leo, once persuaded, used all his power to put down the icons, and so all the trouble began again.
In 814 the Iconoclasts assembled at the palace and prepared an elaborate attack against images, repeat- ing almost exactly the arguments of the synod of 754. The Patriarch of Constantinople was Nicephorus I
(806-15), who became one of the chief defenders of
images in this second persecution. The emperor in-
vited him to a discussion of the question with the
Iconoclasts; he refused, since it had been already set-
tled by the Seventh General Council. The work of
demolishing images began again. The picture of
Christ, restored by Irene over the iron door of the pal-
ace, was again removed. In 815 the patriarch was
summoned to the emperor's presence. He came sur-
rounded by bishops, abbots, and monks, and held a
long discussion with Leo and his Iconoclast followers.
In the same year the emperor summoned a synod of
bishops, who, obeying his orders, deposed the patri-
arch and elected Theodotus Cassiteras (Theodotus I,
81.5-21) to succeed him. Nicephorus was banished
across the Bosporus. Till his death, in 829, he de-
fended the cause of the images by controversial
writings (the "Lesser Apology", " Antirrhetikoi ",
"Greater .\poIogy", etc., in P. G., C, 201-850; Pitra,
"Spicileg. Solesm.", I, 302-503; IV, 233, .380), wrotea
history of his own time ('IcrTopia ffurTo/io!, P. G., C,
87(5-994) and a general chronography from Adam
(xpovoypaipiKiv <jirroy.ov, in P. G., C, 995-1060). See
the "Vita Nicephori jiatriarchir auctore Ignatio dia-
cono" (ed.de Door, Leipzig. ISSO); and Krumbacher,
" Byzantinische Litteratur" (Munich, lSi)7), 71-73,
349-352. Among the monks who accompanied Nice-
phorus to the emperor's presence in 815 was Theodore,
.Vbbot of the Stutlium monastery at Constantinople
(d. 826). Throughout this second Iconoclast persecu-
tion St. Theodore (Thcodorus Studita) was the leader
of the faithful monks, the chief defender of the icons.
He comfortetl and encouraged Nicephorus in his re-
sistance to the emperor, was three times banished by
the Government, wrote a great number of treatises,
controversial letters, and apologies in various forms
for the images. His chief point is that Iconoclasts are
Christological heretics, since they deny an essentia!
element of Christ's human nature, namely, that it can
be represented graphically. This amounts to a denial
of its reality and material quality, whereby Icono-
clasts revive the old Monophysite heresy. Ehrhard
judges St. Theodore to be "perhaps the most ingen-
ious [der scharfxinnigste] of the defenders of the cult of
images" (in Krumbacher's " Byz. Lift.", p. 150). In
any case his position can be rivalled only by that of
St. John Damascene. (See his works in P. G., XCIX;
for an account of them see Krumbacher, op. cit., 147-
151, 712-715; his life by a contemporary monk, P. G.,
XCIX, 9 sq. ; Alice Gardner, " Theodore of Studium ",
London, 1905. His feast is on 11 Nov. in the Byzan-
tine Rite, 12 Nov. in the Roman Martyrology. See
Nilles, " Kal. Man.", I, 321-327.)
The first thing the new patriarch Theodotus did was to hold a synod which condemned the council of 787 (the Second Nicene) and declared its adherence to that of 754. Bishops, abbots, clergy, and even officers of the Government, who would not accept its decree, were deposed, banished, tortured. Theodore of Stu- dium refused communion with the Iconoclast patri- arch, and went into exile. A number of persons of all ranks were put to death at this time (Nilles, "Kal. Man.", II, 515-18, and his references); pictures of all kinds were destroyed everj^where. Theodore appealed to the pope (Paschal I, 817-824) in the name of the persecuted Eastern image-worshippers. At the same time Theodotus, the Iconoclast patriarch, sent legates to Rome, who were, however, not admitted by the pope, since Theodotus was a schismatical intruder in the see of which Nicephorus was still lawful bishop. But Paschal received the monks sent by Theodore, and gave up the monastery of St. Praxedes to them and others who had fled from the persecution in the East. In SIS the pope sent legates to the emperor with a letter defending the icons and once more refut- ing the Iconoclast accusation of idolatry. In this let- ter he insists chiefly on our need of exterior signs for
