the strong evidence of visions and miracles; and the
pictures which speak, and move, and bleed, must be
endowed with a divine energy, and may be considered
as the proper objects of religious adoration.
The most audacious pencil might tremble in the rash
attempt of defining, by forms and colors, the infinite
Spirit, the eternal Father, who pervades and sustains
the universe. ^5 But the superstitious mind was more
easily reconciled to paint and to worship the angels,
and, above all, the Son of God, under the human shape,
which, on earth, they have condescended to assume.
The second person of the Trinity had been clothed
with a real and mortal body; but that body had ascended
into heaven: and, had not some similitude been
presented to the eyes of his disciples, the spiritual
worship of Christ might have been obliterated by the
visible relics and representations of the saints.
A similar indulgence was requisite and propitious
for the Virgin Mary: the place of her burial
was unknown; and the assumption of her soul and body
into heaven was adopted by the credulity of the Greeks
and Latins. The use, and even the worship, of
images was firmly established before the end of the
sixth century: they were fondly cherished by
the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics:
the Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems
of a new superstition; but this semblance of idolatry
was more coldly entertained by the rude Barbarians
and the Arian clergy of the West. The bolder
forms of sculpture, in brass or marble, which peopled
the temples of antiquity, were offensive to the fancy
or conscience of the Christian Greeks: and a
smooth surface of colors has ever been esteemed a
more decent and harmless mode of imitation. ^6
[Footnote 2: Nec intelligunt homines ineptissimi,
quod si sentire simulacra et moveri possent, adoratura
hominem fuissent a quo sunt expolita. (Divin.
Institut. l. ii. c. 2.) Lactantius is the last, as
well as the most eloquent, of the Latin apologists.
Their raillery of idols attacks not only the object,
but the form and matter.]
[Footnote 3: See Irenaeus, Epiphanius, and Augustin,
(Basnage, Hist. des Eglises Reformees, tom. ii. p.
1313.) This Gnostic practice has a singular affinity
with the private worship of Alexander Severus, (Lampridius,
c. 29. Lardner, Heathen Testimonies, vol. iii.
p. 34.)]
[Footnote 4: See this History, vol. ii. p. 261;
vol. ii. p. 434; vol. iii. p. 158 — 163.]
[Footnote 5: (Concilium Nicenum, ii. in Collect.
Labb. tom. viii. p. 1025, edit. Venet.) Il seroit
peut-etre a-propos de ne point souffrir d’images
de la Trinite ou de la Divinite; les defenseurs les
plus zeles des images ayant condamne celles-ci, et
le concile de Trente ne parlant que des images de
Jesus Christ et des Saints, (Dupin, Bibliot.
Eccles. tom. vi. p. 154.)]
[Footnote 6: This general history of images is
drawn from the xxiid book of the Hist. des Eglises
Reformees of Basnage, tom. ii. p. 1310 — 1337.
He was a Protestant, but of a manly spirit; and on
this head the Protestants are so notoriously in the
right, that they can venture to be impartial.
See the perplexity of poor Friar Pagi, Critica, tom.
i. p. 42.]
