under Constantine Copronymus, and the other
to worship them, as was decided by the second Council of Nice under Irene.
He censures much more severely this latter extreme than the former,
because those who destroyed images had merely acted with levity and
ignorance, whilst it was a wicked and profane action to worship them. He
compared the first to such as mix water with wine, and the others to those
who infuse a deadly poison into it; in short, there could be no comparison
between the two cases. He marks, with great precision, the different kinds
of worship offered to the images, rejecting all of them. The second
Council of Nice decided that this worship should consist of kisses and
genuflexions, as well as of burning incense and wax candles before them.
All these practices are condemned by Charlemagne, as so many acts of
worship offered to a created being. He addresses the defenders of the
worship of images in the following manner:--

"You who establish the purity of your faith upon images, go, if you like,
_and fall upon your knees and burn incense before them_; but with regard
to ourselves we shall seek the precepts of God in his Holy Writ. _Light
luminaries before your pictures_, whilst we shall read the Scriptures.
_Venerate, if you like, colours_; but we shall worship divine mysteries.
_Enjoy the agreeable sight of your pictures_; but we shall find our
delight in the Word of God. _Seek after figures which cannot either see,
or hear, or __ taste_; but we shall diligently seek after the law of God,
which is irreprehensible." He further says:--"I see images which have such
inscriptions, as for instance St Paul, and I ask, therefore, those who are
involved in this great error, why they do call images _holy (sanctus)_,
and why they do not say, conformably to the tradition of the fathers, that
these are images of the _saints_? Let them say in what consists the
sanctity of the images? Is it in the wood which had been brought from a
forest in order to make them? Is it in the colours with which they are
painted, and which are often composed of impure substances? Is it in the
wax, which gets dirty?" He taunts the worshippers of images, pointing out
an abuse which even now is as inevitable as it was then. "If," says he,
"two pictures perfectly alike, but of which one is meant for the Virgin
and the other for Venus, are presented to you, you will inquire which of
them is the image of the Virgin and which is that of Venus, becau