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his own sake. But there is no good reason to suppose that Leo thought of taking the Patriarch's life. By such a course he would have gained nothing, and increased his unpopularity among certain sections of his subjects. It was sufficient to remove Nicephorus from Constantinople, especially as he had been himself willing to resign his chair. On the Bosphorus, not far north of the Imperial city, he had built himself a retreat, known as the monastery of Agathos.' Thither he was first removed, but after a short time it was deemed expedient to increase the distance between the fallen Patriarch and the scene of his activity. For this purpose Bardas, a nephew of the Emperor, was sent to transport him to another but somewhat remoter monastery of his own building, that of the great Martyr Theodore, higher up the Bosphorus on the Asiatic side. The want of respect which the kinsman of the Emperor showed to his prisoner as they sailed to their destination made the pious shake their heads, and the tragic end of the young man four years later served as a welcome text for edifying sermons. Bardas as he sat on the deck summoned the Patriarch to his presence; the guards did not permit "the great hierarch" to seat himself; and their master irreverently maintained his sitting posture in the presence of grey hairs. Nicephorus, seeing the haughty and presumptuous heart of the young man, addressed him thus: "Fair Bardas, learn by the misfortunes of others to meet your own." The words were regarded as a prophecy of the misfortunes in store for Bardas.

3

On Easter day (April 1) Theodotos Kassiteras was tonsured and enthroned as l'atriarch of Constantinople. The tone of the Patriarchal Palace notably altered when Theodotos took the place of Nicephorus. He is described by an opponent as a good-natured man who had a reputation for virtue, but was lacking in personal piety. It has been already observed that he was a relative of Constantine V., and as soon as he was consecrated he scandalised stricter brethren in a way

Ignatius, Vit. Nic. 201. It is not certain on which side of the Strait Agathos lay, but it can be proved that St. Theodore was on the Asiatic (see Pargoire, Bordion, 476-477). The date of the deposition is given by Theoph. De exil. S. Nic. 166, as March 13, by

Michael, Vit. Theod. 285, as March 20. 3. γνῶθι ταῖς ἀλλοτρίαις συμφοραῖς τὰς ἑαυτοῦ καλῶς διατίθεσθαι.

3 See below, p. 72. The edifying anecdote may reasonably be suspected. Scr. Incert. 360.

A luncheon party'

which that monarch would have relished. was held in the Patriarcheion, and clerks and monks who had eaten no meat for years, were constrained by the kind compulsion of their host to partake unsparingly of the rich viands which were set before them. The dull solemnity of an archiepiscopal table was now enlivened by frivolous conversation, amusing stories, and ribald wit."

The first duty of Theodotos was to preside at the iconoclastic Council, for which all the preparations had been made. It met soon after his consecration, in St. Sophia, in the presence of the two Emperors. The decree of this Synod reflects a less violent spirit than that which had animated the Council assembled by Constantine V. With some abbreviations and omissions it ran as follows:

“The Emperors Constantine (V.) and Leo (IV.) considering the public safety to depend on orthodoxy, gathered a numerous synod of spiritual fathers and bishops, and condemned the unprofitable practice, unwarranted by tradition, of making and adoring icons, preferring worship in spirit and in truth.

"On this account, the Church of God remained tranquil for not a few years, and the subjects enjoyed peace, till the government passed from men to a woman, and the Church was distressed by female simplicity. She followed the counsel of very ignorant bishops, she convoked an injudicious assembly, and laid down the doctrine of painting in a material medium the Son and Logos of God, and of representing the Mother of God and the Saints by dead figures, and enacted that these representations should be adored, heedlessly defying the proper doctrine of the Church. So she sullied our latreutic adoration, and declared that what is due only to God should be offered to lifeless icons; she foolishly said that they were full of divine grace, and admitted the lighting of candles and the burning of incense before them. Thus she caused the simple to err.

"Hence we ostracize from the Catholic Church the unauthorised manufacture of pseudonymous icons; we reject the adoration defined by Tarasius; we annul the decrees of his synod, on the ground that they

Ser. Incert. 330 ἀριστόδειπνα, déjeuner.

* Ib. γέλοια και παιγνίδια καὶ παλαίσματα καὶ αἰσχρολογίας.

The proceedings of this Council were destroyed when images were restored; but the text of the decree has been extracted literally from the anti-iconoclastic work of the Patriarch Nicephorus entitled "Ελεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τοῦ ἀθέσμου κτλ ὅρου (preserved in cod. Paris, 1250) by D.

Serruys (see Bibliography; Acta con-
cilii, A.D. 815). In the first part of
this treatise (unpublished, but see
Fabricius, Bibl. Gr. ed. Harles, vii.
610 sq.) Nicephorus reproduced and
commented on the principal decrees of
the iconoclastic councils. The other
sources for the synod of 815 are:
Theodore Stud. Epp. ii. 1; Michael
II. Ep. ad Lud.; Ser. Incert. 360-361;
Theosteriktos, Vit. Nicet. xxx.
Mansi, xiv. 135 sqq. 417.

Cp.

granted undue honour to pictures; and we condemn the lighting of candles and offering of incense.

"But gladly accepting the holy Synod, which met at Blachernae in the temple of the unspotted Virgin in the reign of Constantine and Leo as firmly based on the doctrine of the Fathers, we decree that the manufacture of icons--we abstain from calling them idols, for there are degrees of evil-is neither worshipful nor serviceable." 1

The theological theory of image-worship must be left to divines. In its immediate aspect, the question might seem to have no reference to the abstract problems of metaphysical theology which had divided the Church in previous ages. But it was recognised by the theological champions of both parties2 that the adoration of images had a close theoretical connexion with the questions of Christology which the Church professed to have settled at the Council of Chalcedon. The gravest charge which the leading exponents of image-worship brought against the iconoclastic doctrine was that it compromised or implicitly denied the Incarnation. It is to be observed that this inner and dogmatic import of the controversy, although it appears in the early stages, is far more conspicuous in the disputations which marked the later period of iconoclasm. To the two most prominent defenders of pictures, the Patriarch Nicephorus and the abbot of Studion, this is the crucial point. They both regard the iconoclasts as heretics who have lapsed into the errors of Arianism or Monophysitism. The other aspects of the veneration of sacred pictures are treated as of secondary importance in the writings of Theodore of Studion; the particular question of pictures of Christ absorbs his

· ἀπροσκύνητος καὶ ἄχρηστος.

2 In the Acts of the Syrod of A.D. 753 (751), the iconoclasts attempted to show that image-worship involved either Monophysitism or Nestorianism (Mansi, xiii. 247-257). Cp. Schwarzlose, Der Bilderstreit, 92 sqq.

3 John of Damascus (Or. i. 4, 16, etc.) bases the legitimacy of pictures on the Incarnation.

See the First Antirrhesis of Nicephorus, who observes that Constantine V. made war κατὰ τῆς τοῦ Μονογενοῦς oikovouías (217). Cp. also ib. 221, 244, and 248-249. The works of Theodore on this question are subtler than those of Nicephorus. His Third Antir

3

rhetikos would probably be considered by theologians specially important. It turns largely on the notion of περιγραφή, expounding the doctrine that Christ was περίγραπτος (as well as άreplyрarros), circumscript and capable of being delineated. Theodore constructed a philosophical theory of iconology, which is somewhat mystical and seems to have been influenced by Neo-Platonism. It is based on the principle that not only does the copy (elkwv) imply the prototype, but the prototype implies the copy; they are identical καθ' ὁμοίωσιν, though not κατ ̓ οὐσίαν. See passages quoted by Schwarzlose, 180 sqq.; Schneider, 105

sq.

interest, as the great point at issue, believing, as he did, that iconoclasm was an insidious attack on the orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation.

We must now glance at the acts of oppression and persecution of which Leo is said to have been guilty against those who refused to join his party and accept the guidance of the new Patriarch. Most eminent among the sufferers was Theodore, the abbot of Studion, who seemed fated to incur the displeasure of his sovrans. He had been persecuted in the reign of Constantine VI.; he had been persecuted in the reign. of Nicephorus; he was now to be persecuted more sorely still by Leo the Armenian. He had probably spoken bolder words than any of his party, when the orthodox bishops and abbots appeared before the Emperor. He is reported to have said to Leo's face that it was useless and harmful to talk with a heretic; and if this be an exaggeration of his admiring biographer, he certainly told him that Church matters were outside an Emperor's province. When the edict went forth, through the mouth of the Prefect of the City, forbidding the iconodules to utter their opinions in public or to hold any communications one with another, Theodore said that silence was a crime. At this juncture he encouraged the Patriarch in his firmness, and when the Patriarch was dethroned, addressed to him a congratulatory letter, and on Palm Sunday (March 25), caused the monks of Studion to carry their holy icons round the monastery in solemn procession, singing hymns as they went. And when the second "pseudo-synod (held after Easter) was approaching, he supplied his monks with a formula of refusal, in case they should be summoned to take part in it. By all these acts, which, coming from a man of his influence were doubly significant, he made himself so obnoxious to the author of the iconoclastic policy, that at length he was thrown into prison. His correspondence then became known to the Emperor, and among his recent letters, one to Pope Paschal, describing the divisions of the Church, was conspicuous. Theodore was accompanied into exile by Nicolas, one of the Studite brethren. They were first sent to a fort named Metopa situated on the Mysian Lake of

Theodore, Epp. ii. 2; Michael, Vit. Theod. 284.

2 Michael, Vit. Theod. 285.
3 Vit. Nicolai Stud. 881.

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Artynia. The second prison was Bonita, and there the sufferings of the abbot of Studion are said to have been terrible. His biographer delights in describing the stripes which were inflicted on the saint and dwells on the sufferings which he underwent from the extremes of heat and cold as the seasons changed. The visitations of fleas and lice in the ill-kept prison are not omitted. In reading such accounts we must make a large allowance for the exaggeration of a bigoted partisan, and we must remember that in all ages the hardships of imprisonment endured for political and religious causes are seldom or never fairly stated by those who sympathize with the "martyrs." In the present instance, the harsh treatment is intelligible. If Theodore had only consented to hold his peace, without surrendering his opinions, he would have been allowed to live quietly in some monastic retreat at a distance from Constantinople. If he had behaved with the dignity of Nicephorus, whose example he might well have imitated, he would have avoided the pains of scourgings and the unpleasant experiences of an oriental prison-house. From Bonita he was

transferred to the city of Smyrna, and thrown into a dungeon, where he languished until at the accession of Michael II. he was released from prison. In Smyrna he came into contact with a kinsman of Leo, named Bardas, who resided there as Strategos of the Thrakesian Theme. There can be little doubt. that this Bardas was the same young man who showed scant courtesy to the fallen Patriarch Nicephorus, on his way to the monastery of St. Theodore. At Smyrna Bardas fell sick, and someone, who believed in the divine powers of the famous abbot of Studion, advised him to consult the prisoner. Theodore exhorted the nephew of Leo to abjure his uncle's

1 Called at this time the Lake of Apollonia (Vit. Nic. Stud.), after the important town at its eastern corner. Cp. Pargoire, Saint Théophane, 70. Theodore remained for a year at Metopa, April 15, 815-816 spring, ib. 71.

2 Our data for the location of Bonita are it was 100 miles from the Lycian coast (Theodore, Ep. 75, p. 61, ed. Cozza-Luzi), near a salt lake (ib.), în the Anatolic Theme (ib. Ep. 10, p. 10); and Chonae lay on the road from it to Smyrna. Hence Pargoire, op. cit. 70-71, places it close to Aji-TuzGol, "the lake of bitter waters,” i.e.,

For

Lake Anava, east of Chonae.
this lake see Ramsay, Phrygia, i. 230.
(Cp. also Pargoire, in Echos d'Orient,
vi. 207-212; 1903.)

3 In the Vit. Nic. Stud. it is stated that Theodore and Nicolas received a hundred strokes each, for writing certain letters. Afterwards they were beaten with fresh withies called rhecae. Moreover, their hands were bound with ropes which were drawn very tight. Their imprisonment at Smyrna lasted 20 months, so that they left Bonita in May-June 819 (Pargoire, Saint Théophane, ib.).

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