in his stead, and the docrees of the Seventh Ecumenical Council were contirmed. The list of heretics who had been anathematized at that Council was augmented by the names of the prominent iconoclastic leaders who had since troubled the Church, but the name of the Emperor Theophilus was omitted. We can easily divine that to spare his memory was the most delicate and dillicult part of the whole business. Metholius himself was in temper a man of the same cast as the l'atriarchs Tarasius and Nicephorus; he understood the necessities of compromiso, he ippreciated the value of "economy," and he was rendy to fall in with the wishes of Theodorn. We mny suspect that it was largely through his management that the members of the Council agreed, apparently without dissent, to exclude the late Emperor from the black list; and it is evident that their promises to acquiesco in this course must have been secured before the Council met. According to a story which has little claim to credit, Theodora addressed the assembly and pleaded for her husband on the ground that he had repented of his errors on his death-bed, and that she herself had held an icon to his lips before he breathed his last.' But it is not improbable that the suggestion of a death-bed repentance was circulated unofficially for the purpose of influencing the monks who execrated the memory of the himself in described. See also Acta was to shift tho responsibility to the Duridis, 218 (whero the instrument is evil counsels of the Patriarch Johın; a knile used for paring nails). In the sco e.g. Nicetus, l'il. lyn. 222 and contemporary De cx. S. Niceph. of 216. According to the Acta Daviilis Theophanes, another motive is alleged: Theodora had a private interview with the revolution threw John into such Methodius, Simcon the Stylito saint despondency that he almost laid violent of Lesbos, and his brother Coorgo, and hands on himself. It is impossible to intimated that somo nioncy (evlogia, extract the truth from these state. a donecur) had bcon left to them by ments; but Schlosser and Finlay may the Emperor, if they would receive him bu riglit in supposing that John was as orthodox. Simcon cricu, “ To per. really woundedly soldiers, and that dition with him and his money," but his enemies invented the fiction of finally yielded (214-216). This work self-intlicted wounds. In any case, so characteristically represents Simeon far as I can read through the tradition, as playing a prominent role in the there is no good ground for Uspenski's whole business, as disputing with conclusion (op. cit. 39) that “the pro- John in the presence of Thcodora and cess against John was prior to the Michael, and as influential in the Council." This view (based on Cont. election of Methodius. It is also T'n.), also held by Hergenrüther (i. stated that ho was appointed Synkellos 291) and Finlay (ii. 163), is opposed to of the Patriarch (νεύματι της Αυγούστης, the other older sources (besiiles those 250). On the other linnd the biu. cited above): l'ile Meth. (1253) und grapher of Michael, nyukellos of l'ita Iyutii (221); op. Hirsch, 211. Jerusalem, claims that he was made Itoint. Th. 152.153. One way of Synkellos (l'il. Mich. Sync. 260).

I mitigating the guilt of Theophilus

last imperial iconoclast. It seems significant that the monks of Studion took no prominent part in the orthodox reforın, though they afterwards sought to gain credit for having indirectly promoted it by instiguting Manuel the Magister.' We shall hardly do them wrong if we venture to read between the lines, and assume that, while they refrained from open opposition, they disapproved of the methods by which the welcome change was manquuvred.

But the flagrant fact that the guilty iconoclust, who had destroyed icons and persecuted their votaries, was excepted from condemnation by the synod which abolished his heresy, stirnulated the mythopoeic funcy of monks, who invented divers vain tales to account for this inexplicable leniency. The story of Thcodora's personal assurances to the synod belongs to this class of invention. It was also related that she dreamed that her husband was led in chains before a great man who sut on a throne in front of an icon of Christ, and that this judge, when she fell weeping and praying at his feet, ordered Theophilus to be unbound by the angels who guarded him, for the sake of her faith. According to another myth, the divine pardon of the culprit was confirmed by a miracle. Methodius wrote down the names of all the Imperial heretics, including Theophilus, in a book which he deposited on an altar. Waking up from a dream in which an angel announced to him that pardon had been granted, he took the book from the holy table, and discovered that where the name of Theophilus had stood, there was a blank space.'

Of one thing we may be certain : the Emperor did not repent. The suggestion of a death-bed repentance was a falsification of fact, probably circulated deliberately in order to silve his memory, and readily believed because it was edifying. It helped to smooth the way in a difficult situation, by justifying in popular opinion the course of expediency or

cconomy," which the Church adopted at the dictation of Theodora.

After the Council had completed its work, the triumph of

orthodoxy was celebrated by a solemn festival service in St. Sophia, on the first Sunday in Lent (March 11, A.D. 843). The monks from all the surrounding monasteries, and perhaps even hermits from the cells of Athos, flocked into the city,' and we may be sure that sacred icons were hastily hung in the places from which others had been torn in all the churches of the capital. A nocturnal thanksgiving was held in the church of the Virgin in Blachernae, and on Sunday morning the Empress, with the child Einperor, the Patriarch and clergy, and all the ministers and senators, bearing crosses and icons and candles in their hands, devoutly proceeded to St. Sophia.”

! Gen. 82 mentions Olympus, Ida, (Georgo Acrop:i. 27-28. od. Iloisonborg) Athos, and oven od kard" Kuuvây which corresponds to Balikesrin Ovu tranpwua, monks from Mt. Kyminas Mysia, according to Ramsay, Asia in Mysia. This passage is important Minor, 154, and Tomaschek, Zur his. as a chronological indication for the torischen l'opographie von Kleinasien bezinnings of the religious settlements im Mittelaller, 98. But the evidenco on Mount Athos, which are described of tho Vila Michaclis Jaleini (ed. in k. Lakc's The Furly Days of Petit, 1903) and the Vita Mariuc iun. Moruisticism on Mount Athos, 1909. (cited by Petit, p. 61) seem to make it lle seems to have overlooked this probable that Mount Kyminas of the passage. As he points out, there were monks was in eastern Bithynia near ihrco stages in the development (1) Prusius ad Hypion (Uskub; cp. the hiermit period ; (2) the loose organ. Anderson, Map), and Petit identities izations of the hermits in lauras ; (3) it with the Dikmen Dagh. the strict organization in monasteries. 2 Now icons soon adorned the halls In A, 1). 813 wo are in the first period, of the Palace. The icon of Christ and the first hiermit of whom we know above the throne in the Chrysotriklinos is Peter, whose life by a younger coll; was restorci. Fucing this, abovo tho temporary, Nicolans, has been printed entrance, the Virgin was represented, by Lake, Peter had been in soldier in and on either xillo of her Michael III. tho Scholae, and was carried captivo and Mothodius; Around apostlos, to Samurra (therefore after A.1), 830, martyrs, etc. Sec Anthol. Pal, i. 106 see below, p. 238) by the Saracens, (cp. 107), II. 14, 15: possibly in Mutasin's expedition of A. 1. 8:38 ; having escaped, he went to

όθεν καλούμεν χριστοτρίκλινον νέον

τον πρίν λαχόντα κλήσεως χρυσωνύμου. Rome to be tonsured, and then to Athos, where he lived fifty years as a a pbe Spos, 1. 10, is the latriarch as hermit. The first laura of which wo Ebersolt has seen (le Granul Palais, know seems to have been founded at 82). Coins of Michael and Theodora the very end of the reign of Michael were issued, with the head of Christ on III. (sce Lake, p. 44), by Euthymius the reverse. This had been introduced of Thessalonica, whose life has been by Justinian II., and did not reappear edited from an Athos MS. by L. Petit till now. The type is evidently copied (l'ie et oplice de Suinl-Euthyme le Jeune, from coins of Justinian. Wroth, xliv. 1901). Tho earliest monastery in the 3 Narr. de Theoph. absol. 38. Au vicinity was the Kolobu, founded by oflicial description of the ceremony, John Kolobos in the reign of Basil I. ; it evidently drawn up in the course of was not on Mount Athos, but to the Michael's reign (with later additions at north, probably near Erissos (Lake, the end), is presorved in Constantine, 60 sqq.), and there were 110 monasteries Cer. i. 28. The Patriarch and tho on the mountain itself till the coming clergy kept vigil in the church at of Athanasius, the friend of tho Blachernac, and proceeded in the Emperor Nicephorus II.-There was morning to St. Sophia, dià Toll Onuoo lou a Mount Kyminas close to Akhyraoséußólov (from the church of the

It was enacted that henceforward the restoration of icons should be commernorated on the same day, and the first Sunday of Lent is still the feast of Orthodoxy in the Greek Church,

All our evidence for this ecclesiastical revolution comes from the records of those who rejoiced in it; we are not informed of the tactics of the iconoclastic party, nor is it hinted that thoy made auy serious effort to fight for a doomed Cause. We can hardly believe that the Patriarch John was quiescent during the year preceding the Council, and silently awaited the event. But the only tradition of any countermovement is the anecdote of a scundulous attempt to discredit Methodius after his elevation to the Patriarchute. The iconoclasts, it was suid, bribed a young woman to allege publicly that the Patriarch had seduced her. An official inquiry was held, and Methoilius proved his innocence, to the satisfaction of a curious and crowded ussembly, by u cynical ocular demonstration that he was physically incapable of the offence with which he wils charged. He explained that many years ago, during his sojourn at Rome, he had been tormented by the stings of carnal desire, and that in answer to his prayer St. Peter's miraculous touch had withered his body and freed him for over from the issuults of passion.

The woman Wild compelled to confess that she had been suborned, and the heretics who had invented the lio received the inila punishment of being coinpelled every year, at the feast of orthodoxy, to join the procession from Blachernae to St. Sophia with torches in their hands, and hear with their own cars anathema pronounced upon them. There was some Apostlus to tho Augusteon, the street mother of Metrophanes, afterwards had porticoes ; wo know nothing about bishop of Smyrna, who was prominent the road from Blachernae to the in the struggle between Photius and Apostles). The Emperor went to St. Ignatius. There must have been Sophia from the Palace.

some link of connexion between her The story is told by Gen. 83-85, and Methodius. A second motif and repeated, with the usual elabora probably was tho impotence of tho tion, in Con. Th. 158-160. It was Patriarch. The story had the merit unknown to the author of the l'ita of insulting the ropentant iconoclastic Methodii, and his silenco is a strong clergy, who, as a condition of retaining external argument for rejecting it their posts, wero obliged to take part entirely. But that there was a motif in tho anniversary procession. We behind, which we are not in a position cannot put much moro faith in the to discover, is proved, as Hirsch has anecdoto that the ox-Patriarch John, pointed out (164), by the fact that who was compelled to retire to a Genesios identifies the woman monastery at Kleidion on the Bos.

3

kernel of truth in this edifying fiction, but it is impossible to disentangle it.

It would seem that the great majority of the iconoclastic bishops and clergy professed repentance of their error and were allowed to retain their ecclesiastical dignities. Here Methodius, who was a man of moderation and compromise, followed the precedent set by Tarasius at the time of the first restoration of image-worship.' But the iconoclastic heresy was by no means immediately extinguished, though it never again caused more than administrative trouble. Some of those who repented lapsed into error, and new names were added, twenty-five years later, to the list of the heretics who were held up to public ignominy on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, and stigmatized as Jews or pagans.

The final installation of icons among the sanctities of the Christian faith, the authoritative addition of icon-worship to the superstitions of the Church, was a triumph for the religious spirit of the Greeks over the doctrine of Eastern heretics whose Christianity had a more Semitic flavour. The struggle had lasted for about a hundred and twenty years, and in its latest stage had been virtually confined to Constantinople. Here the populace seems to have oscillated between the two extreme views,' and many of the educated inhabitants probably belonged to that moderate party which approved of images in Churches, but was opposed to their worship. Of the influence of the iconoclastic movement on Byzantine art something will be said in another chapter, but it must be noticed here that in one point it won an abiding victory. In the doctrine laid down by the Council no distinction was drawn between sculptured and painted representations; all icons were legitiInized. But whereas, before the controversy began, religious art had expressed itself in both forms, after the Council of phorus (Sinicon, Coni. Gcorg. 811), Ortakeui, on the European side of the ordered a servant to poke out the eyes Bosphorus. of an icon in the church of that cloister, · For the policy of Methodius and and for this offence received 200 stripes the disapproval which it aroused, sce by the command of the Empress (Gen. below, p. 182. 82). Cont. Th. 151 says that he was ? Condemned by the Council of A.D. banislied to his suburban house called 869 (Mansi, xvi. 389). Tá Hoxá (there was another place of 8 εαυτούς τη των Ιουδαίων και Ελλήνων this name near the Forum of Constan. μερίδι καθυποβαλλομένοις, Usvenski, tine, Cont. Th. 420). Probably lsicha op. cit. 98. "EXAny is liere used for was at Kleidion, which is the mollern