Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/267

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 245 the foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own hands : the images of brass and marble, which, had thet/ been endowed with sense and motion, should have started rather from the pedestal to adore the creative powers of the artist.^ Perhaps some recent and imperfect converts of the Gnostic tribe might crown the statues of Christ and St. Paul with the profane honours which they paid to those of Aristotle and Pythagoras ; ^ but the public religion of the Catholics was uniforinly simple and spiritual ; and the first notice of the use of pictures is in the censure of the council of Illiberis, three [Eivira] hundi'ed years after the Christian a?ra.*' Under the successors of Constantine, in the peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent bishops condescended to indulge a visible superstition for the benefit of the multitude ; and, after the ruin of Paganism, they were no longer restrained by the apprehension of an odious parallel. The first introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross and of relics. The saints and martyrs, whose intercession was im- plored, were seated on the right hand of God ; but the gracious and often supernatural favours, which, in the popular belief, were showered round their tomb, conveyed an unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims, who visited, and touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the memorials of their merits and sufferings.'^ But a memorial, more interesting than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is a faithful copy of his person and features, delineated by the arts of painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so congenial to human feelings, have been cherished by the zeal of private friendship or public esteem ; the images of the Roman emperors were adored with civil and almost religious honours ; a reverence less ostentatious, but more sincere, was applied to the statues of sages and patriots ; and these profane virtues, these splendid sins, disappeared in the presence of the holy men who had died for their celestial and everlasting country. At first, the experi- Their worship ment was made with caution and scruple ; and the venerable ^ Nee intelligunt homines ineptissimi, quod, si sentire simulacra et moveri pos- sent [ultro], adoratura hominem fuissent a quo sunt expolita (Divin. Institut. 1. ii. c. 2). Lactantius is the last, as well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists. Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object, but the form and matter. ■■See Irenseus, Epiphanius, and Augustin (Basnage, Hist, des EgHses Ri^formtes, torn. ii. p. 1313). This Gnostic practice has a singular affinity with the private worship of Alexander Severus (Lampridius, c. 29 ; Lardner, Heathen Testimonies, vol. iii. p. 34).
 * » [Canon 36, Mansi, Cone. 12, 264.]
 * See this History, vol. ii. p. 209, p. 455; vol. iii. p. 208-215.