Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/223

Rh never hope to give effect to that policy, he resigned his office.

Gregory was now pope at Rome. He had sent to Leo for the emperor's confirmation of his election, and he had not been consecrated till it had arrived. This was the last occasion on which a pope solicited approval of his appointment from Constantinople. Now Leo's action in the iconoclastic crusade greatly angered Gregory, who assembled a council at Rome which excommunicated the Iconoclasts. The emperor replied by confiscating all the pope's estates in the Eastern provinces, and by separating the ecclesiastical government of south Italy, Sicily, and other parts farther east from the jurisdiction of Rome, and transferring it to the patriarch of Constantinople. Gregory wrote to Germanus saying that if anybody misuses the words of the Old Testament, which were only directed against idolatry, "we can only hold him to a barking dog." This was before the Silentium. After that council had been followed by the resignation of Germanus, the pope wrote to the emperor explaining his views and justifying the use of images. He urged that this did not involve idolatry. The Israelites were commanded to make images of cherubim. Leo had compared himself to Uzziah—he meant Hezekiah, who destroyed the brazen serpent. "Yes," says Gregory, "Uzziah was your brother, and like you he did violence to the priests."

Leo died in the year 741 and was succeeded by his son Constantine, nicknamed "Copronymus," after an infantile misdemeanour which occurred when the patriarch was plunging him into the baptismal font. The name clung to him in later years and was used as an encouragement for the foulest calumnies concerning his conduct. No emperor was ever bespattered with more disgusting accusations, but seeing that these were flung at him by bitter enemies in the fury of the iconoclastic contest no historical value can be attached to them. The devastating plague