2: Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod si sentire
simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura hominem fuissent a quo sunt
expolita. (Divin. Institut. l. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the last, as
well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists. Their raillery of
idols attacks not only the object, but the form and matter.]

[Footnote 3: See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin, (Basnage, Hist.
des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. p. 1313.) This Gnostic practice has
a singular affinity with the private worship of Alexander Severus,
(Lampridius, c. 29. Lardner, Heathen Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34.)]

[Footnote 4: See this History, vol. ii. p. 261; vol. ii. p. 434; vol.
iii. p. 158-163.]

[Footnote 5: (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect. Labb. tom. viii. p.
1025, edit. Venet.) Il seroit peut-etre a-propos de ne point souffrir
d'images de la Trinite ou de la Divinite; les defenseurs les plus zeles
des images ayant condamne celles-ci, et le concile de Trente ne parlant
que des images de Jesus Christ et des Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot. Eccles.
tom. vi. p. 154.)]

[Footnote 6: This general history of images is drawn from the xxiid book
of the Hist. des Eglises Reformees of Basnage, tom. ii. p. 1310-1337.
He was a Protestant, but of a manly spirit; and on this head the
Protestants are so notoriously in the right, that they can venture to
be impartial. See the perplexity of poor Friar Pagi, Critica, tom. i. p.
42.]

The merit and effect of a copy depends on its resemblance with the
original; but the primitive Christians were ignorant of the genuine
features of the Son of God, his mother, and his apostles: the statue
of Christ at Paneas in Palestine [7] was more probably that of
some temporal savior; the Gnostics and their profane monuments were
reprobated; and the fancy of the Christian artists could only be guided
by the clandestine imitation of some heathen model. In this distress, a
bold and dexterous invention assured at once the likeness of the image
and the innocence of the worship. A new super structure of fable was
raised on the popular basis of a Syrian legend, on the correspondence
of Christ and Abgarus, so famous in the days of Eusebius, so reluctantly
deserted by our modern advocates. The bishop of Caesarea [8] records the
epistle, [9] but he most strangely forgets the picture of Christ; [10]
the perfect impression of his face on a linen, with which he gratified
the faith of the royal stranger who had invoked his healing pow