History of the Reformation of the Church of England (V. 1) - nouveau livre

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: the deutero-Nicene fathers. He caused a work, in four books, to be published in his name, hence called the Caroline books, for the purpose of shewing that the veneration of images is unauthorised, and likely to bring about intolerable evils. This work, being presented to the Roman bishop, drew from that prelate a reply; but his arguments went for nothing beyond the Alps. A council was holden at Francfort on the Maine, in 794, at which the honours paid to images were unanimously condemned'. The Roman bishops having firmly established themselves in the hearts of the people around them, by declaring that the veneration of images, though, from some unassigned cause, not encouraged by even the slightest hint in the New Testament, is undoubtedly of Apostolical institution; omitted nothing which appeared likely to secure them in their new position. Gregory II. had been fortified in his spirit of opposition to the Iconclast Leo, by his vicinity to Luitprand, king of the Lombards, a prince who ruled with ability all the north of Italy, who revered images, and who readily undertook to support their cause by marching his forces into the exarchate of Ra- .venna. The Lombard's object in this movement was not, however, the mere protection of the images and their admirers: he had also an eyetowards the transfer of the Romans and the other Italians subjected to the Greeks, to his own more orthodox government. But nothing was farther from the wishes of Gregory III. who had succeeded to the papal chair, than to exchange a master at a distance, for one enthroned in the heart of Italy. Accordingly, when he found that the zealous Lombard was equally determined to establish the images upon their pedestals, and himself in the sovereignty of Rome; Gregory's loyalty revived, and he pressed upon the pe...