Catholic Encyclopedia (1913): Iconoclasm
For Part II
For Part I
IV. ICONOCLASM IN THE WEST
There was an echo of
these troubles in the Frankish kingdom, chiefly through misunderstanding of the
meaning of Greek expressions used by the Second Council of Nicaea. As early as
767, Constantine V had tried to secure the sympathy of the Frankish bishops for
his campaign against images this time without success. A synod at Gentilly sent
a declaration to Pope Paul I (757-67) which quite satisfied him. The trouble
began when Adrian I (772-95) sent a very imperfect translation of the Acts of
the Second Council of Nicaea to Charles the Great (Charlemagne, 768-8l4). The
errors of this Latin version are obvious from the quotations made from it by
the Frankish bishops. For instance, in the third session of the council
Constantine, Bishop of Constantia, in Cyprus had said: “I receive the holy and
venerable images; and I give worship which is according to real adoration [kata latreian] only to the consubstantial
and life-giving Trinity” (Mansi, XII, 1148). This phrase had been translated: “I
receive the holy and venerable images with the adoration which I give to the
consubstantial and life- giving Trinity” (“Libri Carolini”, III, 17, P. L.
XCVIII, 1148). There were other reasons why these Frankish bishops objected to
the decrees of the council. Their people had only just been converted from
idolatry, and so they were suspicious of anything that might seem like a return
to it. Germans knew nothing of Byzantine elaborate forms of respect;
prostrations, kisses, incense and such signs that Greeks used constantly
towards their emperors, even towards the emperor’s statues, and therefore
applied naturally to holy pictures, seemed to these Franks servile, degrading,
even idolatrous. The Franks say the word
proskynesis (which meant worship only
in the sense of reverence and veneration) translated to adoratio and understood it as meaning the homage due only to God.
Lastly, there was their indignation against the political conduct of the
Empress Irene, the state of friction that led to the coronation of Charlemagne
at Rome and the establishment of a rival empire. Suspicion of everything done
by the Greeks, dislike of all their customs, led to the rejection of the
council, but did not mean that the Frankish bishops and Charlemagne sided with
the Iconoclasts. If they refused to accept the Nicene Council, they equally
rejected the Iconoclast synod of 754. They had holy images and kept them: but
they thought that the Fathers of Nicaea had gone too far, had encouraged what
would be real idolatry.
The answer to the
decrees of the second Council of Nicaea sent in this faulty translation by
Adrian I was a refutation in eighty-five chapters brought to the pope in 790 by
a Frankish abbot, Angilbert. This refutation later expanded and fortified with
quotations from the fathers and other arguments became the famous “Libri
Carolini” or “Capitulare de Imaginibus” in which Charlemagne is represented as
declaring his convictions (first published at Paris by Jean du Tillet, Bishop
of St-Brieux, 1549, in P. L. XCVIII, 990-1248). The authenticity of this work,
sometime disputed, is now established. In it, the bishops reject the synods
both of 787 and of 754. They admit that pictures of saints should be kept as
ornaments in churches and as well as relics and the saints themselves should
receive a certain proper veneration (opportuna
veneratio); but they declare that God only can receive adoration (meaning adoratio, proskynesis); pictures are in themselves indifferent, have no
necessary connexion with the Faith, are in any case inferior to relics, the
Cross, and the Bible.
The pope, in 794,
answered these eighty-five chapters by a long exposition and defence of the
cult of images (Hadriani ep. ad Carol. Reg., P. L., XCVIII, 1247-92), in which
he mentions, among other points, that twelve Frankish bishops were present at,
and had agreed to, the Roman synod of 731. Before the letter arrived the
Frankish bishop; held the synod of Frankfort (794) in the presence of two papal
legates, Theophylactus and Stephen, who do not seem to have done anything to
clear up the misunderstanding. This Synod formally condemns the Second Council
of Nicaea, showing, at the same time, that it altogether misunderstands the
decision of Nicaea. The essence of the decree at Frankfort is its second canon:
“A question has been brought forward concerning the next synod of the Greeks
which they held at Constantinople [the Franks do not even know where the synod
they condemn was held] in connexion with the adoration of images, in which
synod it was written that those who do not give service and adoration to
pictures of saints just as much as to the Divine Trinity are to be
anathematized. But our most holy Fathers whose names are above, refusing this
adoration and serve despise and condemn that synod.” Charlemagne sent these
Acts to Rome and demanded the condemnation of Irene and Constantine VI. The
pope of course refused to do so, and matters remained for a time as they were,
the second Council of Nicaea being rejected in the Frankish Kingdom.
During the second
iconoclastic persecution, in 824, the Emperor Michael II wrote to Louis the
Pious the letter which, besides demanding that the Byzantine monks who had
escaped to the West should be handed over to him, entered into the whole
question of image-worship at length and contained vehement accusations against
its defenders. Part of the letter is quoted in Leclercq-Hefele, “Histoire des
conciles”, III, 1, p. 612. Louis begged the pope (Eugene II, 824-27) to receive
a document to be drawn up by the Frankish bishops in which texts of the Fathers
bearing on the subject should be collected. Eugene agreed, and the bishops met
in 825 at Paris. This meeting followed the example of the Synod of Frankfort exactly.
The bishops try to propose a middle way, but decidedly lean toward the
Iconoclasts. They produce some texts against these, many more against
image-worship. Pictures may be tolerated only as mere ornaments. Adrian I is
blamed for his assent to Nicaea II. Two bishops, Jeremias of Sens and Jonas of
Orléns, are sent to Rome with this document; they are especially warned to
treat the pope with every possible reverence and humility, and to efface any
passages that might offend him. Louis, also, wrote to the pope, protesting that
he only proposed to help him with some useful quotations in his discussions
with the Byzantine Court; that he had no idea of dictating to the Holy See
(Hefele, 1. c.). Nothing is known of Eugene’s answer or of the further
developments of this incident. The correspondence about images continued for
some time between the Holy See and the Frankish Church; gradually the decrees
of the second Council of Nicaea were accepted throughout the Western Empire.
Pope John VIII (872-82) sent a better translation of the Acts of the council,
which helped very much to remove misunderstanding.
There are a few more
isolated cases of Iconoclasm in the West. Claudius, Bishop of Turin (d. 840),
in 824 destroyed all pictures and crosses in his diocese forbade pilgrimages,
recourse to intercession of saints, veneration of relics, even lighted candles,
except for practical purposes. Many bishops of the empire and a Frankish abbot,
Theodomir, wrote against him (P. L. CV); he was condemned by a local synod.
Agobard of Lyons at the same time thought that no external signs of reverence
should be paid to images; but he had few followers. Walafrid Strabo (“De.
eccles. rerum exordiis et incrementis” in P. L., CXIV, 916-66) and Hincmar of
Reims (“Opusc. c. Hincmarum Lauden.”, xx, in P. L. CXXVI) defended the Catholic
practice and contributed to put an end to the exceptional principles of
Frankish bishops. But as late as the eleventh century Bishop Jocelin of
Bordeaux still had Iconoclast ideas for which he was severely reprimanded by
Pope Alexander II.
~ADRIAN FORTESCUE
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