with learning, passion, and credulity. The Protestant labors
of Frederick Spanheim (Historia Imaginum restituta) and James Basnage
(Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. l. xxiiii. p. 1339-1385) are
cast into the Iconoclast scale. With this mutual aid, and opposite
tendency, it is easy for us to poise the balance with philosophic
indifference. * Note: Compare Schlosser, Geschichte der
Bilder-sturmender Kaiser, Frankfurt am-Main 1812 a book of research and
impartiality--M.]

[Footnote 19: Some flowers of rhetoric. By Damascenus is styled (Opera,
tom. i. p. 623.) Spanheim's Apology for the Synod of Constantinople (p.
171, &c.) is worked up with truth and ingenuity, from such materials
as he could find in the Nicene Acts, (p. 1046, &c.) The witty John of
Damascus converts it into slaves of their belly, &c. Opera, tom. i. p.
806]

[Footnote 20: He is accused of proscribing the title of saint; styling
the Virgin, Mother of Christ; comparing her after her delivery to an
empty purse of Arianism, Nestorianism, &c. In his defence, Spanheim (c.
iv. p. 207) is somewhat embarrassed between the interest of a Protestant
and the duty of an orthodox divine.]

The scandal of an abstract heresy can be only proclaimed to the people
by the blast of the ecclesiastical trumpet; but the most ignorant can
perceive, the most torpid must feel, the profanation and downfall
of their visible deities. The first hostilities of Leo were directed
against a lofty Christ on the vestibule, and above the gate, of the
palace. A ladder had been planted for the assault, but it was furiously
shaken by a crowd of zealots and women: they beheld, with pious
transport, the ministers of sacrilege tumbling from on high and dashed
against the pavement: and the honors of the ancient martyrs were
prostituted to these criminals, who justly suffered for murder and
rebellion. [21] The execution of the Imperial edicts was resisted by
frequent tumults in Constantinople and the provinces: the person of Leo
was endangered, his officers were massacred, and the popular enthusiasm
was quelled by the strongest efforts of the civil and military power.
Of the Archipelago, or Holy Sea, the numerous islands were filled with
images and monks: their votaries abjured, without scruple, the enemy
of Christ, his mother, and the saints; they armed a fleet of boats and
galleys, displayed their consecrated banners, and boldly steered for the
harbor of Constantinople, to place on the throne