of the senses. How difficult then is it, on
such evidence, to doubt the existence of a soul in a human representation
to which one speaks as to a person alive, and to which are tendered all
marks of respect and veneration, and before whom even the priests, those
masters of the people and depositaries of all true doctrine, kneel down
as would a son before his father, a subject before his sovereign, and a
culprit before his judge? Who would forbid this delusion to that simple
and ignorant mind, whose relations with the exterior world form the only
source of all his knowledge and all his feelings?

The Christian religion, purely spiritual in its dogmas and practices,
never would have admitted into them this profanation of their sublime
essence, if the Greek empire, by virtue of the great religious revolution
conducted by Constantine, had not been placed at the head of Christendom.
But the Greek Christians were descendants of those who had condemned
Socrates, and had not been purged, nor have they yet been purged, of
their sensual propensities, of their artistic tastes, and of their
attachment to whatever is pompous and ornamental. When the Emperor Leo
wished to uproot this abuse, and ordered the images venerated in the
temples to be destroyed, his orders were executed with so much imprudence
and cruelty, and the persecution raised against those who participated in
the common error was conducted in so sanguinary and implacable a manner,
that the general opinion rose against the new doctrine, and the name of
_iconoclast_ denoted in that day one of the most odious forms of heresy,
and one most severely condemned by the apostolical see. {107}

The Latin Church was long preserved from that contagion. When John, the
patriarch of Alexandria, consulted the great Pope Leo, whether it would
be right to adorn the Christian temples with pictures representing pious
objects, that eminent man answered him, that he could only be permitted
to have the representations of the historical facts related in the Bible,
in order that those believers who were unable to read might in this way
instruct themselves in sacred history, but that great care must be taken
that such a practice might not degenerate into idolatry.

We have already mentioned the fact that the Council of Granada prohibited
the worship of images; but when the thrones founded by the invading
nations of the north became settled, their monarchs--men profoundly
ignorant, and exc