e of equity,
Scripture, and tradition, and appeal to the evidence of the Latins, and
the lives and epistles of the popes themselves.

Chapter XLIX: Conquest Of Italy By The Franks.--Part II.

Two original epistles, from Gregory the Second to the emperor Leo, are
still extant; and if they cannot be praised as the most perfect models
of eloquence and logic, they exhibit the portrait, or at least the mask,
of the founder of the papal monarchy. "During ten pure and fortunate
years," says Gregory to the emperor, "we have tasted the annual comfort
of your royal letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the
sacred pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers.
How deplorable is the change! how tremendous the scandal! You now accuse
the Catholics of idolatry; and, by the accusation, you betray your own
impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are compelled to adapt the
grossness of our style and arguments: the first elements of holy
letters are sufficient for your confusion; and were you to enter a
grammar-school, and avow yourself the enemy of our worship, the simple
and pious children would be provoked to cast their horn-books at
your head." After this decent salutation, the pope attempts the usual
distinction between the idols of antiquity and the Christian images.
The former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or daemons, at
a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any visible
likeness. The latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his mother, and
his saints, who had approved, by a crowd of miracles, the innocence
and merit of this relative worship. He must indeed have trusted to the
ignorance of Leo, since he could assert the perpetual use of images,
from the apostolic age, and their venerable presence in the six synods
of the Catholic church. A more specious argument is drawn from present
possession and recent practice the harmony of the Christian world
supersedes the demand of a general council; and Gregory frankly
confesses, than such assemblies can only be useful under the reign of
an orthodox prince. To the impudent and inhuman Leo, more guilty than
a heretic, he recommends peace, silence, and implicit obedience to his
spiritual guides of Constantinople and Rome. The limits of civil and
ecclesiastical powers are defined by the pontiff. To the former he
appropriates the body; to the latter, the soul: the sword of justice
is in the hands of the magistrate