y depend on
theology; and to this period, as I have elsewhere remarked, they
therefore refer the commencement of the Byzantine empire. Through one
hundred and twenty years, six emperors devoted themselves to this
reformation. But it was premature. They were overpowered by the populace
and the monks, by the bishops of Rome, and by a superstitious and wicked
woman.

[Sidenote: Inutility of miraculous images discovered in the Arab
invasions.]

[Sidenote: Destruction and sale of idols by the Arabs.]

It had been a favourite argument against the pagans how little their
gods could do for them when the hour of calamity came, when their
statues and images were insulted and destroyed, and hence how vain was
such worship, how imbecile such gods. When Africa and Asia, full of
relics and crosses, pictures and images, fell before the Mohammedans,
those conquerors retaliated the same logic with no little effect. There
was hardly one of the fallen towns that had not some idol for its
protector. Remembering the stern objurgations of the prophet against
this deadly sin, prohibited at once by the commandment of God and
repudiated by the reason of man, the Saracen khalifs had ordered all the
Syrian images to be destroyed. Amid the derision of the Arab soldiery
and the tears of the terror-stricken worshippers, these orders were
remorselessly carried into effect, except in some cases where the
temptation of an enormous ransom induced the avengers of the unity of
God to swerve from their duty. Thus the piece of linen cloth on which it
was feigned that our Saviour had impressed his countenance, and which
was the palladium of Edessa, was carried off by the victors at the
capture of that town, and subsequently sold to Constantinople at the
profitable price of twelve thousand pounds of silver. This picture, and
also some other celebrated ones, it was said, possessed the property of
multiplying themselves by contact with other surfaces, as in modern
times we multiply photographs. Such were the celebrated images "made
without hands."

[Sidenote: The Emperor prohibits image-worship.]

[Sidenote: The monks sustain it.]

It was currently asserted that the immediate origin of Iconoclasm was
due to the Khalif Yezed, who had completed the destruction of the Syrian
images, and to two Jews, who stimulated Leo the Isaurian to his task.
However that may be, Leo published an edict, A.D. 726, prohibiting the
worship of images. This was followed by ano