he
gloom of superstition.

[Footnote 77: The remaining history of images, from Irene to Theodora,
is collected, for the Catholics, by Baronius and Pagi, (A.D. 780-840.)
Natalis Alexander, (Hist. N. T. seculum viii. Panoplia adversus
Haereticos p. 118-178,) and Dupin, (Bibliot. Eccles. tom. vi. p.
136-154;) for the Protestants, by Spanheim, (Hist. Imag. p. 305-639.)
Basnage, (Hist. de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 556-572, tom. ii. p. 1362-1385,)
and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. secul. viii. et ix.) The
Protestants, except Mosheim, are soured with controversy; but the
Catholics, except Dupin, are inflamed by the fury and superstition of
the monks; and even Le Beau, (Hist. du Bas Empire,) a gentleman and a
scholar, is infected by the odious contagion.]

[Footnote 78: See the Acts, in Greek and Latin, of the second Council
of Nice, with a number of relative pieces, in the viiith volume of the
Councils, p. 645-1600. A faithful version, with some critical notes,
would provoke, in different readers, a sigh or a smile.]

[Footnote 79: The pope's legates were casual messengers, two priests
without any special commission, and who were disavowed on their return.
Some vagabond monks were persuaded by the Catholics to represent the
Oriental patriarchs. This curious anecdote is revealed by Theodore
Studites, (epist. i. 38, in Sirmond. Opp. tom. v. p. 1319,) one of the
warmest Iconoclasts of the age.]

[Footnote 80: These visits could not be innocent since the daemon of
fornication, &c. Actio iv. p. 901, Actio v. p. 1081]

[Footnote 81: See an account of this controversy in the Alexius of Anna
Compena, (l. v. p. 129,) and Mosheim, (Institut. Hist. Eccles. p. 371,
372.)]

[Footnote 82: The Libri Carolini, (Spanheim, p. 443-529,) composed in
the palace or winter quarters of Charlemagne, at Worms, A.D. 790, and
sent by Engebert to Pope Hadrian I., who answered them by a grandis et
verbosa epistola, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 1553.) The Carolines propose
120 objections against the Nicene synod and such words as these are the
flowers of their rhetoric--Dementiam.... priscae Gentilitatis obsoletum
errorem .... argumenta insanissima et absurdissima.... derisione dignas
naenias, &c., &c.]

[Footnote 83: The assemblies of Charlemagne were political, as well as
ecclesiastical; and the three hundred members, (Nat. Alexander, sec.
viii. p. 53,) who sat and voted at Frankfort, must include not only the
bishops, but the abbots, and even the princi