igher
descent, who derived their resemblance from an immediate contact with
the original, endowed, for that purpose, with a miraculous and prolific
virtue. The most ambitious aspired from a filial to a fraternal relation
with the image of Edessa; and such is the veronica of Rome, or Spain,
or Jerusalem, which Christ in his agony and bloody sweat applied to
his face, and delivered to a holy matron. The fruitful precedent was
speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the saints and martyrs. In
the church of Diospolis, in Palestine, the features of the Mother of God
[13] were deeply inscribed in a marble column; the East and West have
been decorated by the pencil of St. Luke; and the Evangelist, who was
perhaps a physician, has been forced to exercise the occupation of a
painter, so profane and odious in the eyes of the primitive Christians.
The Olympian Jove, created by the muse of Homer and the chisel of
Phidias, might inspire a philosophic mind with momentary devotion; but
these Catholic images were faintly and flatly delineated by monkish
artists in the last degeneracy of taste and genius. [14]

[Footnote 7: After removing some rubbish of miracle and inconsistency,
it may be allowed, that as late as the year 300, Paneas in Palestine was
decorated with a bronze statue, representing a grave personage wrapped
in a cloak, with a grateful or suppliant female kneeling before him,
and that an inscription was perhaps inscribed on the pedestal. By the
Christians, this group was foolishly explained of their founder and
the poor woman whom he had cured of the bloody flux, (Euseb. vii. 18,
Philostorg. vii. 3, &c.) M. de Beausobre more reasonably conjectures
the philosopher Apollonius, or the emperor Vespasian: in the latter
supposition, the female is a city, a province, or perhaps the queen
Berenice, (Bibliotheque Germanique, tom. xiii. p. 1-92.)]

[Footnote 8: Euseb. Hist. Eccles. l. i. c. 13. The learned Assemannus
has brought up the collateral aid of three Syrians, St. Ephrem, Josua
Stylites, and James bishop of Sarug; but I do not find any notice of the
Syriac original or the archives of Edessa, (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p.
318, 420, 554;) their vague belief is probably derived from the Greeks.]

[Footnote 9: The evidence for these epistles is stated and rejected by
the candid Lardner, (Heathen Testimonies, vol. i. p. 297-309.) Among
the herd of bigots who are forcibly driven from this convenient, but
untenable, post, I a