At first, the experiment was made with caution and scruple; and the
venerable pictures were discreetly allowed to instruct the ignorant,
to awaken the cold, and to gratify the prejudices of the heathen
proselytes. By a slow though inevitable progression, the honors of
the original were transferred to the copy: the devout Christian prayed
before the image of a saint; and the Pagan rites of genuflection,
luminaries, and incense, again stole into the Catholic church. The
scruples of reason, or piety, were silenced by the strong evidence of
visions and miracles; and the pictures which speak, and move, and bleed,
must be endowed with a divine energy, and may be considered as the
proper objects of religious adoration. The most audacious pencil might
tremble in the rash attempt of defining, by forms and colors, the
infinite Spirit, the eternal Father, who pervades and sustains the
universe. But the superstitious mind was more easily reconciled to paint
and to worship the angels, and, above all, the Son of God, under the
human shape, which, on earth, they have condescended to assume. The
second person of the Trinity had been clothed with a real and mortal
body; but that body had ascended into heaven: and, had not some
similitude been presented to the eyes of his disciples, the spiritual
worship of Christ might have been obliterated by the visible relics and
representations of the saints. A similar indulgence was requisite and
propitious for the Virgin Mary: the place of her burial was unknown;
and the assumption of her soul and body into heaven was adopted by the
credulity of the Greeks and Latins. The use, and even the worship, of
images was firmly established before the end of the sixth century:
they were fondly cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and
Asiatics: the Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of
a new superstition; but this semblance of idolatry was more coldly
entertained by the rude Barbarians and the Arian clergy of the West. The
bolder forms of sculpture, in brass or marble, which peopled the temples
of antiquity, were offensive to the fancy or conscience of the Christian
Greeks: and a smooth surface of colors has ever been esteemed a more
decent and harmless mode of imitation.

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
Chris