oran an immortal hatred to graven images and all relative worship.
The servitude of the Jews might curb their zeal, and depreciate their
authority; but the triumphant Mussulmans, who reigned at Damascus,
and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of reproach the
accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities of Syria, Palestine,
and Egypt had been fortified with the images of Christ, his mother, and
his saints; and each city presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous
defence. In a rapid conquest of ten years, the Arabs subdued those
cities and these images; and, in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts
pronounced a decisive judgment between the adoration and contempt of
these mute and inanimate idols. For a while Edessa had braved the
Persian assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was
involved in the common ruin; and his divine resemblance became the slave
and trophy of the infidels. After a servitude of three hundred years,
the Palladium was yielded to the devotion of Constantinople, for a
ransom of twelve thousand pounds of silver, the redemption of two
hundred Mussulmans, and a perpetual truce for the territory of Edessa.
In this season of distress and dismay, the eloquence of the monks was
exercised in the defence of images; and they attempted to prove, that
the sin and schism of the greatest part of the Orientals had forfeited
the favor, and annihilated the virtue, of these precious symbols.
But they were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or rational
Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of facts, and of the
primitive times, and secretly desired the reformation of the church.
As the worship of images had never been established by any general or
positive law, its progress in the Eastern empire had been retarded, or
accelerated, by the differences of men and manners, the local degrees
of refinement, and the personal characters of the bishops. The splendid
devotion was fondly cherished by the levity of the capital, and the
inventive genius of the Byzantine clergy; while the rude and remote
districts of Asia were strangers to this innovation of sacred luxury.
Many large congregations of Gnostics and Arians maintained, after their
conversion, the simple worship which had preceded their separation; and
the Armenians, the most warlike subjects of Rome, were not reconciled,
in the twelfth century, to the sight of images. These various
denominations of men afforded a fund of preju