m ashamed, with the Grabes, Caves, Tillemonts, &c.,
to discover Mr. Addison, an English gentleman, (his Works, vol. i. p.
528, Baskerville's edition;) but his superficial tract on the Christian
religion owes its credit to his name, his style, and the interested
applause of our clergy.]

[Footnote 10: From the silence of James of Sarug, (Asseman. Bibliot.
Orient. p. 289, 318,) and the testimony of Evagrius, (Hist. Eccles. l.
iv. c. 27,) I conclude that this fable was invented between the years
521 and 594, most probably after the siege of Edessa in 540, (Asseman.
tom. i. p. 416. Procopius, de Bell. Persic. l. ii.) It is the sword and
buckler of, Gregory II., (in Epist. i. ad. Leon. Isaur. Concil. tom.
viii. p. 656, 657,) of John Damascenus, (Opera, tom. i. p. 281, edit.
Lequien,) and of the second Nicene Council, (Actio v. p. 1030.) The most
perfect edition may be found in Cedrenus, (Compend. p. 175-178.)]

[Footnote 11: See Ducange, in Gloss. Graec. et Lat. The subject is
treated with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit Gretser, (Syntagma
de Imaginibus non Manu factis, ad calcem Codini de Officiis, p.
289-330,) the ass, or rather the fox, of Ingoldstadt, (see the
Scaligerana;) with equal reason and wit by the Protestant Beausobre, in
the ironical controversy which he has spread through many volumes of the
Bibliotheque Germanique, (tom. xviii. p. 1-50, xx. p. 27-68, xxv. p.
1-36, xxvii. p. 85-118, xxviii. p. 1-33, xxxi. p. 111-148, xxxii. p.
75-107, xxxiv. p. 67-96.)]

[Footnote 12: Theophylact Simocatta (l. ii. c. 3, p. 34, l. iii. c. 1,
p. 63) celebrates it; yet it was no more than a copy, since he adds (of
Edessa). See Pagi, tom. ii. A.D. 588 No. 11.]

[Footnote 13: See, in the genuine or supposed works of John Damascenus,
two passages on the Virgin and St. Luke, which have not been noticed by
Gretser, nor consequently by Beausobre, (Opera Joh. Damascen. tom. i. p.
618, 631.)]

[Footnote 14: "Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the canvass:
they are as bad as a group of statues!" It was thus that the ignorance
and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the pictures of Titian, which he
had ordered, and refused to accept.]

The worship of images had stolen into the church by insensible
degrees, and each petty step was pleasing to the superstitious mind, as
productive of comfort, and innocent of sin. But in the beginning of the
eighth century, in the full magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous
Greeks