nion, the mediators of peace, between the East
and West? The eyes of the nations are fixed on our humility; and they
revere, as a God upon earth, the apostle St. Peter, whose image you
threaten to destroy. [35] The remote and interior kingdoms of the West
present their homage to Christ and his vicegerent; and we now prepare to
visit one of their most powerful monarchs, who desires to receive from
our hands the sacrament of baptism. [36] The Barbarians have submitted
to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to the voice of the
shepherd. These pious Barbarians are kindled into rage: they thirst
to avenge the persecution of the East. Abandon your rash and fatal
enterprise; reflect, tremble, and repent. If you persist, we are
innocent of the blood that will be spilt in the contest; may it fall on
your own head!"

[Footnote 33: The two epistles of Gregory II. have been preserved in the
Acta of the Nicene Council, (tom. viii. p. 651-674.) They are without a
date, which is variously fixed, by Baronius in the year 726, by Muratori
(Annali d'Italia, tom. vi. p. 120) in 729, and by Pagi in 730. Such is
the force of prejudice, that some papists have praised the good sense
and moderation of these letters.]

[Footnote 34: (Epist. i. p. 664.) This proximity of the Lombards is hard
of digestion. Camillo Pellegrini (Dissert. iv. de Ducatu Beneventi,
in the Script. Ital. tom. v. p. 172, 173) forcibly reckons the xxivth
stadia, not from Rome, but from the limits of the Roman duchy, to the
first fortress, perhaps Sora, of the Lombards. I rather believe that
Gregory, with the pedantry of the age, employs stadia for miles, without
much inquiry into the genuine measure.]

[Footnote 35: {Greek}]

[Footnote 36: (p. 665.) The pope appears to have imposed on the
ignorance of the Greeks: he lived and died in the Lateran; and in his
time all the kingdoms of the West had embraced Christianity. May not
this unknown Septetus have some reference to the chief of the Saxon
Heptarchy, to Ina king of Wessex, who, in the pontificate of Gregory the
Second, visited Rome for the purpose, not of baptism, but of pilgrimage!
(Pagi. A., 89, No. 2. A.D. 726, No. 15.)]

The first assault of Leo against the images of Constantinople had been
witnessed by a crowd of strangers from Italy and the West, who related
with grief and indignation the sacrilege of the emperor. But on the
reception of his proscriptive edict, they trembled for their domestic
dei