Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/732

712 712 IMAGE WORSHIP also well known that the emperor Alexander Severus round a place for several Scripture characters and even for Christ in las lararium (Lamprid., Vit. Alex. Sev., c. 29). But there is no evidence that such a use of images extended itself at that early period to orthodox Christian circles ; and the presumption is all the other way. The first unmistakable indication of the actual public use of the painter s art for directly religious ends does not occur indeed until the year 306 A.D., when the synod of Elvira, Spain, decreed (can. 36) that &quot; pictures ought not to be in a church, lest that which is worshipped and adored be painted on walls.&quot; 1 The scope of this prohibition has beeu very diflerently viewed by interpreters, some thinking that all that is forbidden is any attempt at delineating the divine ; others considering that the synod contemplated frescos only and not pictures, which could be more readily hidden from profanation in times of persecution ; others taking the canon in the broadest sense as directed against the exhibition in churches of pictures of sacred subjects. In any case, and particularly if the last theory be adopted, it is evident that the use of sacred pictures in public worship was not at the beginning of the 4th century a thing wholly unknown within the orthodox church in Spain ; and the presumption is that in other places, about the same period, the custom was looked upon with a more tolerant eye. Indications of the existence of allied forms of sacred Christian art prior to this period are not wholly wanting. It seems possible to trace some of the older and ruder frescos in the catacombs back to a very early century ; and it is certain that Bible manuscripts were often copiously illuminated and illustrated even before the middle of the 4th century. An often-quoted passage from Tertullian (De Pudic., c. 10, cf. c. 7) shows that in his day the com munion cup was wont to bear a representation of the Good Shepherd. Clement of Alexandria (Pceday., iii. 11) men tions the dove, fish, ship, lyre, anchor, as suitable devices for Christian signet rings. During the 4th and following centuries the tendency to enlist the fine arts in the service of religion and the church may be said to have steadily advanced ; not, however, so far as appears, with the formal sanction of any regular ecclesiastical authority, and certainly not without strong protests raised by more than one powerful voice. From a passage in the writings of Gregory of Nyssa (Orat. de Laudibus T/ieodori Martyris, c. 2) it is easy to see how the stories of recent martyrs would offer themselves as tempting subjects for the painter, and at the same time be eonsidered to have received from him their best and most permanent expression ; that this feeling was very wide spread is shown in many places by Paulinus of Nola (ob. 431), from whom we gather that not only martyrdoms, and Bible histories, but also symbols of the Trinity were in his day freely represented pictorially. Augustine (De Cons. Ev., i. 10) speaks less approvingly of those who look for Christ and His apostles &quot;on painted walls&quot; rather than in His written word. How far the Christian feeling of the 4th and 5th centuries was from being thoroughly settled in favour of the employment of the fine arts is instructively shown by such a case as that of Eusebius of Caesarea, who in reply to a request of Constaritia, sister of Constantine, for a picture of Christ, wrote that it was unlawful to possess images pretending to represent the Saviour either in His divine or in His human nature, and added that to avoid the reproach of idolatry he had actually taken away from a lady friend the pictures of Paul and of Christ which she had. 2 Similarly Epiphanius in a letter to John, bishop 1 Placuit picturas in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus depingatur. See Hefele, Conci^ngesch., i. 170. 2 The letter, which is most probably, though not certainly, genuine, appears in the Ada of the second council of Nice. of Jerusalem, tells how in a church at Anablatha near Bethel he ha.l found a curtain painted with the image of Christ or of some other saint,&quot; which he had torn down and ordered to be used for the burial of some pauper. The passage, however, reveals, not only what Epiphanius thought on the subject, but also the fact that such pictures must have been becoming frequent. Nilus, the disciple and defender of Chrysostom, permitted the symbol of the cross in churches and also pictorial delineations of Old and New Testament history, but deprecated other symbols, pictures of martyrs, and most of all the representation of Christ. In the time of Gregory the Great the Western Church at last obtained something like an authoritative declaration on the vexed question about images, tut in a sense not quite the same as that of the synod of Elvira; Serenus of Marseilles, on account of what he considered to be flagrant abuses, had ordered the removal and destruction of all sacred images within his diocese ; this vigorous action called forth several letters from Pope Gregory (viii. 2, 111 ; ix. 4, 11), in which he utterly disapproved of that violent course, and, for the first time clearly drawing the distinction which has ever since been authoritative for the Roman Church, pointed out that &quot; it is one thing to worship a picture and another to learn from the language of a picture what that is which ought to be worshipped. What those who can read learn by means of writing, that do the uneducated learn by looking at a picture. . . . That, therefore, ought not to have been destroyed which had been placed in the churches, not for worship, but solely for instructing the minds of the ignorant.&quot; Here it may be mentioned with regard to the symbol of the cross, that its public use dates from the time of Constantine, though, according to many Christian archaeologists it had, prior to that date, a very important place in the so-called &quot; dis- ciplina arcani.&quot; The introduction of the crucifix was decidedly later, and originally the favourite combination was that of the figure of a lamb lying at the foot of the cross ; the Trullan council in 692 by its 82d canon enjoined that this symbol should be discontinued, and that where Christ was shown in connexion with His cross He should be represented in His human nature. It was not until the 8th century that the religious and theological questions which seem naturally to connect themselves with image worship were at last distinctly raised in the Eastern Church in their entirety, and argued in what from some points of view might fairly be called an exhaus tive manner. The controversy began with the edict by which Leo the Isaurian, in the tenth year of his reign (726), sought to deliver the church from what he called &quot;the idolatry of image worship.&quot; The text of that edict is not extant, but it seems to have been directed exclusively against such &quot;idolatrous&quot; homage as appeared to be involved in the established custom of prostration before them. The use of the strong word &quot; idolatrous &quot; at once led to a keen controversy, in which it was urged by the theologians that a &quot; relative worship&quot; (TTPOO-KW^CTO crxeTtKry) might, without idolatry, be given to the image of Christ. Among those who took this ground was the famous John of Damascus, who retorted upon the ieinoolastic emperor with charges of Judaizing and even of Manichcean leanings. Leo, unconvinced, but finding thit his first edict had been wholly ineffectual, four years later (730) issued a second decree, of a more sweeping character than the first, inasmuch as all the holy images were ordered to be removed, and all recalcitrant bishops summarily ejected from their posts. This proceeding called forth further arguments from the theologian of Damascus, through whose influence the iconoclasts were anathematized in such churches as were not too directly and entirely under the political influence of Constantinople. At the same time (730) Pope Gregory