whom he blasphemously stiles "Judge in the place of God, and Vicegerent of the Most High." The church was again divided by the reciprocal claims of Boniface and Dioscorus; the premature death of the latter, however, terminated this clerical war. But the century did not close without a scene alike disgraceful. A prelate of the name of Vigilius, intrigued at court to procure the deposition of the reigning bishop Silverus. The latter was, in consequence, deprived of his dignities and banished. He appealed to the emperor Justinian, who interfered in his hehalf, and encouraged him to return to Rome, with the delusive expectation of regaining his rights; but the artifices of Vigilius prevailed-his antagonist was resigned to his power, and immediately confined by him in the islands of Pontus and Pandatara, where, in penury and affliction, he terminated his wretched existence.

The advantages attendant upon the acquisition of such enormous power, induced the bishops of Constantinople, who were scarcely less arrogant and ambitious than their brethren at Rome, to refuse acknowledging their pre-eminence, and prompted them to lay claim to similar authority. The arrogant pretensions of these rival sees involved them in continual dissentions; which were prodigiously encreased by the conduct of John, the faster, a prelate distinguished for his authority; who, in a council held at Constantinople in the year 588, assumed the title of Universal Bishop, which was confirmed to him by the council. This appellation, which implied a pre-eminence difficult to be endured by those who were as ambitious as himself, was opposed vehemently by Pelagius II. then bishop of Rome, who called it an execrable, profane, and diabolical procedure, but his invectives were disregarded, and he died soon after. In the year 590 he was succeeded by Gregory the great, as he is usually termed; he was a voluminous writer, and, though superstitious in the extreme, not altogether destitute of talents. His works are still extant, and in high reputation with the catholics. In one of his letters, alluding to the claim of the Patriarch of Constantinople to the title of Universal bishop, he uses this remarkable language-" But

I affirm it confidently that whoever calls himself Universal Bishop, or desires to be so called by others, demonstrates himself to be the forerunner of Antichrist. From this presumption of his, what can be inferred, but that the times of Antichrist are now at hand?”

But though Gregory artfully disclaimed for himself, and refused to his aspiring brother the title of Universal Bishop, he exercised an authority, says Bishop Hurd, that can only belong to that exalted character. Gregory died in the year 604, and was succeeded by Pope Boniface III. who had no scruples about adopting this proud title. He readily accepted, or rather importunately begged it from the emperor Phocas, with the privilege also of transmitting it to all his successors. The profligate emperor, to gratify the inordinate ambition of this court sychophant, deprived the bishop of Constantinople of the title which he had hitherto borne, and conferred it upon Boniface, at the same time declaring the church of Rome to be the head of all other churches,

SECTION IV.

THE SUBJECT CONTINUED

From the establishment of the dominion of the popes to the rise of the Waldenses. A. D. 606-800.

THE introduction of images into places of Christian worship, and the idolatrous practices to which, in process of time, it gave rise, is an evil which dates its origin very soon after the times of Constantine the great; but, like many other superstitious practices, it made its way by slow and imperceptible degrees. The earlier Christians reprobated every species of image worship in the strongest language; and some of them employed the force of ridicule to great advantage, in order to expose its absurdity. When the empress Constantia desired Eusebius to send her the image of Jesus Christ, he expostulated with her on the impropriety and absurdity of her requisition in the following very striking

words-"What kind of image of Christ does your imperial Majesty wish to have conveyed to you? Is it the image of his real and immutable nature; or is it that which he as-, sumed for our sakes, when he was veiled in the form of a servant? With respect to the former, I presume you are not to learn, that "no man hath known the Son but the Father, neither hath any man known the Father but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him." But you ask for the image of Christ when he appeared in human form, clothed in a body similar to our own. Let me inform you, that the body is now blended with the glory of the Deity, and all that was mortal in it is absorbed in life."* Pauliņus, who died bishop of Nola, in the year 481, caused the walls of a place of worship to be painted with stories taken out of the Old Testament, that the people might thence receive instruction; the consequence of which was, that the written word was neglected for these miserable substitutes. But about the commencement of the seventh century, during the pontificate of the first Gregory, a circumstance turned up which tends to throw still further light upon this subject. Serenus, bishop of Marseilles in France, observing some of his congregation paying worship to the images that had been placed in the churches of that city, in his zeal commanded them to be broken and destroyed, which gave so much disgust, that many withdrew from his communion, and complaints against him were made to the bishop of Rome. Gregory rebuked him for his conduct, and recommended it to him to conciliate the people, by allowing them to make use of images as pieces of history, to instruct their minds into the great facts of Christianity. He advises him to allow them, as books for the illiterate people, and at the same time to caution them seriously against paying any adoration to them. Hence it appears, that the worship of images was not a very general thing in Gregory's time, and that he disapproved of the practice.

But this imprudent concession, sanctioned by the authority and influence of Gregory, was productive of the worst.con.

* White's Bampton Lectures, Notes, p. 8.

+ Fleury's Ecclesiastical History, b. vii. p. 90. b. ix. p. 9.

sequences that can be imagined, and tended to accelerate the growing superstition with amazing velocity throughout the countries subject to his pontificate. For as the knowledge of God in his true character is only to be learned as exhibited in the gospel of Christ, in proportion as the hearts of men become fortified against that which alone dispels the clouds of ignorance and error from the human mind, their propensity to every kind of superstition and idolatry naturally succeeds. This evil, therefore, made a most rapid progress, during the seventh century, and arrived at its zenith in the next. It did not, however, succeed without a struggle; and as the conflict ultimately issued in bringing about two important events, viz. the schism between the Greek and Roman churches, and the establishment of the pope as a temporal potentate, I shall endeavour, as concisely as possible, to sketch the leading particulars of this article of ecclesiastical history.

About the beginning of the eighth century, LEO, the Greek emperor, who reigned at Constantinople, began openly to oppose the worship of images. One Besor, a Syrian, who appears to have been an officer of his court, and in great favour with the emperor, is said to have convinced him by his arguments that the adoration of images was idolatrous, and in this he was ably seconded by Constantine, bishop of Nacolia in Phrygia. Leo, anxious to propagate truth and preserve his subjects from idolatry, assembled the people, and with all the frankness and sincerity which mark his character, publicly avowed his conviction of the idolatrous nature of the prevailing practice, and protested against the erection of images. Hitherto no councils had sanctioned the evil, and precedents of antiquity were against it. But the scriptures, which ought to have had infinitely more weight upon the minds of men than either councils or precedents, had expressly and pointedly condemned it; yet, such deep root had the error at this time taken, so pleasing was it to men to commute for the indulgence of their crimes by a routine of idolatrous ceremonies, and, above all, so little ear had they to bestow on what the word of God, taught, that the subjects of Leo murmured against him as a tyrant

and a persecutor. And in this they were encouraged by Germanus, the bishop of Constantinople, who, with equal zeal and ignorance, asserted that images had always been used in the church, and declared his determination to oppose the emperor; which, the more effectually to do, he wrote to Gregory the second, then bishop of Rome, respecting the subject, who, by similar reasonings, warmly supported the

same cause.

Two original epistles from Gregory the second to the emperor Leo, are still extant, and they merit attention on account of the portrait they exhibit of the founder of the papal monarchy. "During ten pure and fortunate years, says Gregory to the emperor, "we have tasted the annual comfort of your royal letters, subscribed in purple ink, with your own hand, the sacred pledges of your attachment to the orthodox creed of our fathers. How deplorable is the change! How tremendous the scandal! You now accuse the catholics of idolatry; and by the accusation, you betray, your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments; the first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion, and were you to enter a grammar-school, and avow yourself the enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be provoked to cast their horn-books að your head." After this decent salutation, the pope explains to him the distinction between the idols of antiquity and the christian images. The former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or dæmons, at a time when the true God had not manifested his person in any visible likeness-the latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his mother and his saints. To the impudent and inhuman Leo, more guilty than a heretic, he recommends peace, silenee, and implicit obedience to his spiritual guides of Constantinople and Rome. "You assault us, O tyrant," thus he proceeds, "with a carnal and military hand; unarmed and naked we can only implore the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your body, and the salvation of your soul. You declare, with foolish arrogance, 'I will dispatch my orders to Rome; I will break in