of Leicester, in which see he succeeded about the year 737, and died about the year 764, according to the Fasti7; and was succeeded first by Edbertus, and after his death by Unwona. And one who compares the names of the following subscribers with the catalogues of the bishops of the province of Canterbury at the time of this council will find great reason to believe, that those who signed this Council signed it no otherwise than with the sign of the cross, that the addition of names is a work of a later date. Upon the whole matter one cannot forbear to think that, if ever there was such a council in due form, as that said to be held about this time at Calcuith, the world has not yet been obliged with a true copy of it; and that the remains we have thereof are rather the history or narrative of the proceedings of the legates, than true and genuine canons of an English council. 786. CHAPTER XIII. AB ANNO 792 AD ANNUM 795. 1. The controversy about image worship begins in England: the occasion thereof. The sense and practice of the first ages in this particular. 2. The time and occasion of introducing images into the church. 3. Worship thereof not allowed in the seventh century in the church of Rome. Council of Constantinople forbids the worship and use of images: imperial edicts on that subject: opposition made by the bishops and people of Italy: a schism and rebellion occasioned thereby. 4. Empress Irene declares for the worship of images; attempts to settle it by a council held at Constantinople; is opposed by the bishops and people, and forced to desist. 5. A council called to meet at Nice; declares in favour of images. Account of that council by the council of Frankfort: condemned thereby. 6. Disputes about the judgment of the council of Frankfort: the grounds thereof. Second council of Nice inexcusable. 7 [The Fasti Saviliani, ad calc. Rer. Anglic. Scriptor. post Bed. Præcip. The same dates of bishop Totta's accession and death are given by Simeon of Durham. His subscription, by the name of Torhthelm, is found to charters 87 and 99 of the years 742 and 749. In the list of the bishops of Selsey, given in Flor. Wigorn. Append., Monum. Hist. Brit. p. 618, the 792. 7. General opposition to the worship of images. English church resents the proceeding of the council of Nice; declares against the worshipping of images; engages Alcuinus to write against it. 8. Alcuinus' book against images lost. The sense of the council of Frankfort denied by some; allowed by Baronius and Labbe: Mezeray's and Du Pin's account of that council. Worship of images rejected by the English, French, and Germans. 9. Doctrine of relics established by the second council of Nice: ill effects thereof. Monks serve themselves by pretended relics. The reception this doctrine met with in England. 10. Body of St. Alban said to have been discovered to king Offa. A synod said to be called for taking up the relics of that saint. A monastery erected to his memory. Peter-pence said to be granted about this time. Grounds of that pretence. The inference of Polydore Vergil from hence. That falsely called a tribute. Baronius follows Polydore in his account of this affair. 11. No such grant at this time as a penny a house. True account of that affair. Ridiculous inferences made from thence. 12. Reason of relating the aforesaid story of Offa's pretended vision. His character. 13. The marks of falsehood in the story of the relics of St. Alban. Grounds of this charge. Privileges said to be granted to that monastery. 1. FROM the synod of Calcuith till this time we are in the dark; only we are told that there were several councils in this interval: of which one is said to be held at Wincenhale or Pyncanhale1, and another at Acclam2, in the north; and both said to be held in the year 788 by some, by others in the year 792: but, if there ever were such councils in England, at present there remains no more of them but the names3. But about this time the controversy about the worship of images, which for about sixty years past had occasioned a schism in the eastern church, broke in upon the churches of England. This was occasioned by a copy of the second Council of Nice sent to Offa king of the Mercians by Charles the Great of France. But because this has continued a long subject of controversy to the Christian church, and has produced a great deal of faction and mischief in states, as well [Supposed to be Finchale on the river Wear two or three miles below Durham. See Gough's Camden III, 121.] 2 [In the Saxon Chronicle this place is called Aclæ under an. 782, Aclea under an. 789. It is supposed to be Ackley, otherwise called Aicliffe or Aycliffe, on the river Skerne a few miles north of Darlington. See Gough's Camden III, 114.] 3 [Concil. Britan. Spelman I, 304, 305, Wilkins I, 153.] as division in the church, it may not be amiss to look backward, and observe the rise, the steps, and consequence of this controversy. It is manifest beyond dispute that the rule of gospel-worship, that God was to be worshipped "in spirit and in truth" 4, was understood by the apostles and first Christians not only to exclude the rites of the ceremonial law, but to be infinitely more inconsistent with the symbolical worship of the Gentiles by images and visible representations of the Being they adored: and therefore the apostles and first planters of the gospel, as they laboured to possess the Jews with the necessity of laying aside the ritual law, did with equal zeal labour to deliver the world from the low and mean conceptions of the Divine Being and the undue manner of worshipping him in use amongst the Gentiles. And it is as manifest they were successful in both: and upon this ground the use of images was not only universally laid aside wherever the Christian religion prevailed, but was esteemed a direct violation of the rule of worship which the gospel had prescribed. 2. In this manner things continued, till the inundations of the northern people in the fifth and sixth centuries did in a great measure restore paganism to the western nations. And this terrible judgment, which should have made the western Christians wise to holiness and devotion, had a very contrary effect, and put them on studying to be wise out of the ways of God and hence it came to pass, that in the conversion of those northern people they were permitted to bring some of their pagan rites into the Christian church. And it seems very probable that it was indulgence to this people, who had been accustomed to worship by images, that introduced them into churches. For, though there is reason to believe that the images and pictures of the emperors had some ages before been set up in churches', yet it is manifest these were prerogatives by which the honours paid to the emperors were distinguished, and that for the same reason, [John IV, 24.] [See on this subject Bingham's Orig. Eccles. VIII, viii, 6—11. Perhaps the earliest evidence is a fragment concerning the honour paid to the "icona" of Phocas and Leontia by Gregory the Great and 792. 792. and for the same ends, their statues were set up in senatehouses, markets, and other places of public concourse. And it seems not unlikely that this way of doing civil honour to their emperors might dispose the minds of some Christians to set up the statues of some of their great men, who had distinguished themselves by greater holiness or great sufferings for the sake of Christ. But this usage, if begun, never made any considerable progress, till the inundations of the Huns, Goths, and Vandals had overspread the empire. But these people having driven learning out of the empire, thrown down churches, and for the most part destroyed the clergy of the western nations, by the sad circumstances they were reduced to, the clergy of the sixth and seventh ages became partakers in the ignorance and barbarity thereof: and therefore, considering the time when these rude people were converted, and the clergy who had the conduct of their conversion, one cannot wonder they were permitted to bring the use of images with them into churches. Thus much appears by an epistle of Gregory the Great to Serenus bishop of Marseilles about the year 601, that some of these people newly converted separated themselves from that prelate, because he would not suffer them to set up any more images in their churches and pulled down those which had been set up before; and therefore Gregory advises that prelate, that he should be careful to teach his people that images are not to be worshipped, only to be used as books are, for history and instruction, but not to hinder them, if they desire it, to set up images in their churches. And the reason that Gregory gives, why Serenus should permit images to be set up in churches, was, lest by refusing it he should give offence to pagans and barbarous people, amongst whom he lived, and prejudice their minds against the Christian religion 2. 3. Nor am I singular in the aforesaid conjecture. For Mezeray in the account he gives of the French church in the seventh age, when this epistle of Gregory was written, saith that "notwithstanding all the care of the prelates, who by 2 Gregor. Epist. IX, 9, [XI, 13, ed. 1705. See before, ii, 10, especially note 1, where it is shown that Gre gory was not speaking of sculptured images but of paintings.] the authority of their kings pulled down the pagan temples, 792. there were yet a world of pagans, especially amongst the French [Franks], and those of the most principal. And for those that were converted, they had much ado to wean them from their ancient superstitions: they bore a reverence still to the places where the Gentiles had worshipped and adored; and still retained some remainders of their ceremonies, their festivals, auguries, and the witchcrafts of paganism, which they mingled with the exercises of the Christian religion"1. And long after this time, in an epistle of pope John the Ninth to the archbishop of Rheims, the pope takes notice of the like practice amongst the Normans, who had settled themselves in that part of France which was under the care of that archbishop, and had not long before the date of that epistle been baptized; yet, notwithstanding that, they continued to live in the pagan manner, offering sacrifices to their idols or images, and partaking of the Gentile sacrifices2. These passages so fully explain Gregory's epistle to Serenus, that there seems no ground to doubt that the use of images was introduced into the churches of the west upon the conversion of the northern people, and that the worship thereof had its beginning in the west from their superstition. But, if there can be ground to doubt the original of this usage, it is evident past contradiction from the aforesaid epistle of Gregory to Serenus, that the worship of images was not allowed of by the church of Rome in the beginning of the seventh century. However, images beginning about this time to be introduced, the superstition which first brought them in grew up so fast, that in the beginning of the eighth century a worship began to be paid to them. And this became so visible, that the Jews and the Saracens charged the eastern Christians with idolatry in the worship of images3. Leo Isaurus, advanced to the empire about the year 717, was so sensibly touched with this reproach, that by an edict about the year 726 he commanded that images should be taken down and 1 Mezeray, Hist. de France, 1. VII, Eglise du vi siècle. 2 Concil. Labbe IX, 483, [Mansi XVIII, 190. John IX was pope from July 898 to August 900.] |