to send her the image of Jesus Christ, he thus faithfully expostulated with her on the impropriety and absurdity of her request: What kind of image of Christ does your imperial majesty wish to have conveyed to you? Is it the image of his real and immutable nature, or is it that which he assumed for our sakes, when he was veiled in the form of a servant? With respect to the former, I presume you are not to learn that no man hath known the Son, but the Father; neither hath any man known the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. But you ask for the image of Christ when he appeared in human form, clothed in a body similar to our own. Let me inform you, that the body is now blended with the glory of the Deity, and all that was mortal in it is absorbed in life."

The idolatrous veneration of images and relics was the offspring of the gross ignorance and superstition of the third and fourth centuries, when it was the custom to assimilate Christianity as much as possible with paganism. The pagans were every where accustomed to set up the images of their gods, and emperors, and others whom they had raised to the ranks of the gods, in their temples to these, as objects of religious worship, they burnt incense and offered sacrifices. Though the more enlightened pagans attempted to justify their image worship, by the same reason by which the church of Rome justifies hers-by pretending that

the worship they offered was only of a relative kind, and not intended to be offered to the image itself, but to the being it represented-it is clear that the great mass of the worshippers recognized no distinction of this kind, but terminated their devotions in the images they adored. How abhorrent this species of heathen worship was to the primitive Christians, may be gathered from the fact of the edicts and severe measures of the first Christian emperors for its suppression; as also from the fact, that under pagan emperors, numerous Christians, though they might have saved their lives by a single act of devotion to an image, chose rather to suffer the pains of martyrdom than be guilty of idolatry.

No fact is more evident than this-that the primitive Christians, with anxious zeal, confined their worship to the one most high God, through his Son Jesus Christ-to them the adoration of the images of Christ and his saints was unknown. The Roman Emperor Adrian, who showed the Christians some favour, testified it by ordering the erection of temples for their worship, but strictly commanded that there should be no images in them, well knowing their utter aversion to the setting up of images in their places of religious worship. The heathen opponents of Christianity, because of the total absence of images in the worship of the Christians, branded them as atheists, who worshipped no God at all. From this charge the Christian

apologists defended themselves, by contending that image worship was unlawful, and by condemning the pagans for the practice of it. These facts, and the opposition subsequently made to the introduction of pictures and images into Christian worship, are fatal to the antiquity alleged by the church of Rome, in favour of the idolatrous practice now under consideration.

The testimony of Mosheim to the progress of superstition, in the fourth century, will clearly show the pagan origin of this and other corruptions of Christian worship. "An enormous train," he remarks," of different superstitions were gradually substituted for true religion and genuine piety. This odious revolution proceeded from a variety of causes. A ridiculous precipitation, in receiving new opinions, a preposterous desire of imitating the pagan rites, and of blending them with the Christian worship, and that idle propensity which the generality of mankind have towards a gaudy and ostentatious religion, all contributed to establish the reign of superstition upon the ruins of Christianity. Accordingly, frequent pilgrimages were undertaken to Palestine, and to the tombs of the martyrs, as if there alone the sacred principles of virtue, and the certain hope of salvation, were to be acquired." "The public processions and supplications, by which the pagans endeavoured to appease their gods, were now adopted into the Christian worship, and celebrated in many places with great pomp

and magnificence. The virtues which had formerly been ascribed to the heathen temples, to their lustrations, to the statues of their gods and heroes, were now attributed to Christian churches, to water consecrated by certain forms of prayer, and to the images of holy men. And the same privileges that the former enjoyed, under the darkness of paganism, were conferred upon the latter under the light of the gospel, or, rather, under that cloud of superstition which was obscuring its glory. It is true, that, as yet images were not very common, nor were there any statues at all. But it is, at the same time, as undoubtedly certain, as it is extravagant and monstrous, that the worship of the martyrs was modelled, by degrees, according to the religious services that were paid to the gods before the coming of Christ."* The obvious reason for thus corrupting Christian worship, and assimilating it to the pagan rites, was to induce the pagans to regard with a more favourable eye, and to embrace more readily, Christianity. "Hence," Mosheim remarks," it happened, that in these times, the religion of the Greeks and Romans differed very little, in its external appearance, from that of the Christians. They had both a most pompous and splendid ritual; gorgeous robes, mitres, tiaras, wax tapers, crosiers, processions, lustrations, images, gold and silver vases, and many such circumstances

* Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, vol. i. p. 326, 327.

of pageantry, were equally to be seen in the heathen temples, and in the Christian churches."

The brevity prescribed to this work will render it inexpedient to pursue fully the history of the progress of the idolatrous veneration of images, the introduction of which into Christian worship was strenuously opposed by Epiphanius and others. Epiphanius in particular marked his holy zeal against such things. It is related of him, that going into a church, in the village of Anabletha, he found there a picture hanging up-whether it was the picture of Christ, or of some saint, we are not informed—which he instantly cut in pieces, as scandalous and contrary to the holy Scriptures; and desired John, bishop of Jerusalem, to take care for the future, that no such pictures were hung up in any church under his jurisdiction. It was not possible for the people to see the pictures and images of Christ and his saints in their churches long, without paying those marks of respect to them, which, in a short time, assumed the character

This practice widely

of worship and adoration. spread during the whole of the fifth century, though, as yet, it was unauthorized by any positive law of the church. It was condemned by the Council of Constantinople, convoked by Constantine Copronymus, A. D. 754, at which were present three hundred and thirty-eight bishops, from every part of the empire. "This synod, after a close examination of the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the six