ople was denounced as a synod of fools and atheists,
the worship of images was pronounced agreeable to Scripture and reason,
and in conformity to the usages and traditions of the Church.

Irene, saluted as the second Helena, and set forth by the monks as an
exemplar of piety, thus accomplished the restoration of image-worship.
In a few years this ambitious woman, refusing to surrender his rightful
dignity to her son, caused him to be seized, and, in the porphyry
chamber in which she had borne him, put out his eyes. Constantinople,
long familiar with horrible crimes, was appalled at such an unnatural
deed.

[Sidenote: Resumption of Iconoclasm by the succeeding emperors.]

[Sidenote: Their Saracenic tastes.]

During the succeeding reigns to that of Leo the Armenian, matters
remained without change; but that emperor resumed the policy of Leo the
Isaurian. By an edict he prohibited image-worship, and banished the
Patriarch of Constantinople, who had admonished him that the apostles
had made images of the Saviour and the Virgin, and that there was at
Rome a picture of the Transfiguration, painted by order of St. Peter.
After the murder of Leo, his successor, Michael the Stammerer, showed no
encouragement to either party. It was affirmed that he was given to
profane jesting, was incredulous as to the resurrection of the dead,
disbelieved the existence of the devil, was indifferent whether images
were worshipped or not, and recommended the patriarch to bury the
decrees of Constantinople and Nicea equally in oblivion. His successor
and son, however, observed no such impartiality. To Saracenic tastes,
shown by his building a palace like that of the khalif; to a devotion
for poetry, exemplified by branding some of his own stanzas on his
image-worshipping enemies; to the composition of music and its singing
by himself as an amateur in the choir; to mechanical knowledge,
displayed by hydraulic contrivances, musical instruments, organs,
automatic singing-birds sitting in golden trees, he added an
abomination of monks and a determined iconoclasm. Instead of merely
whitewashing the walls of the churches, he adorned them with pictures of
beasts and birds. Iconoclasm had now become a struggle between the
emperors and the monks.

[Sidenote: Final restoration of image-worship by the Empress Theodora.]

Again, on the death of Theophilus, image-worship triumphed, and
triumphed in the same manner as before. His widow, Theodora, alarmed