freedom and dominion, the
images, the first cause of their revolt, were restored in the Eastern
empire. [77] Under the reign of Constantine the Fifth, the union
of civil and ecclesiastical power had overthrown the tree, without
extirpating the root, of superstition. The idols (for such they were
now held) were secretly cherished by the order and the sex most prone
to devotion; and the fond alliance of the monks and females obtained
a final victory over the reason and authority of man. Leo the Fourth
maintained with less rigor the religion of his father and grandfather;
but his wife, the fair and ambitious Irene, had imbibed the zeal of the
Athenians, the heirs of the Idolatry, rather than the philosophy, of
their ancestors. During the life of her husband, these sentiments
were inflamed by danger and dissimulation, and she could only labor
to protect and promote some favorite monks whom she drew from their
caverns, and seated on the metropolitan thrones of the East. But as soon
as she reigned in her own name and that of her son, Irene more seriously
undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts; and the first step of her future
persecution was a general edict for liberty of conscience.

In the restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed to the
public veneration; a thousand legends were inverted of their sufferings
and miracles. By the opportunities of death or removal, the episcopal
seats were judiciously filled the most eager competitors for earthly
or celestial favor anticipated and flattered the judgment of their
sovereign; and the promotion of her secretary Tarasius gave Irene the
patriarch of Constantinople, and the command of the Oriental church.
But the decrees of a general council could only be repealed by a
similar assembly: [78] the Iconoclasts whom she convened were bold in
possession, and averse to debate; and the feeble voice of the bishops
was reechoed by the more formidable clamor of the soldiers and people of
Constantinople. The delay and intrigues of a year, the separation of the
disaffected troops, and the choice of Nice for a second orthodox synod,
removed these obstacles; and the episcopal conscience was again, after
the Greek fashion, in the hands of the prince. No more than eighteen
days were allowed for the consummation of this important work: the
Iconoclasts appeared, not as judges, but as criminals or penitents:
the scene was decorated by the legates of Pope Adrian and the Eastern
patriarch