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occasional protests, even in the 5th and 6thcenturies. Such protests from time to time werem&de; but unfortunately the history of themmust always be derived from opponents. Wepossess, however, indirect evidence of high valueon this point. Montanists, Novatians, Nesto-rians, Eutychians, all of whom broke with thechurch before 4-52, preserved in their consti-tution and doctrine clear proof that image-worship was not then an authoritative church-practice (Dior, of Ant. Vol. I. p. 820). [Nova-tianism.] To this day the Nestorians have noimages in their churches, and the Monophysiteshave, from the first, been opposed to the use of anyimages save that of the cross. Thus we find atthe end of the 5th century, or beginning of the6th, Xenaias, or Philoxenus, the Monophysitebishop of Hierapolis, taught that the angelswere incorporeal; he would not allow them tobe represented with human bodies; he held thatChrist was dishonoured by pictorial representa-tions of His body; that the only worshipacceptable to Him was purely spiritual, and thatit was a childish thing to represent the HolyGhost under the form of a dove. He thereforedestroyed the images of angels and hid those ofJesus Christ (Fleury, H. E. 1. xxx. s. 18). Alittle later (a.d. 518) the clergy of Antiochcomplained of their patriarch Severus, who wasalso a Monophysite, to the patriarch John ofConstantinople and his synod, charging him withheathen and magical practices, and also withmelting down the doves of silver and gold usuallysuspended over the altars and font*, saying thatthey ought not to represent the Holy Spirit insuch a manner (Fieury, H. E. 1. xxxi. s. 39; HuPin, on council of C. P., a.d. 536, in H. E. t. i.

р. 701, Dub. ed. 1723). In Mansi, t. xiii. p. 318,we have formal testimony to this opposition ofthe early Monophysites to image-worship fromEpiphanius, the authorised advocate of imagesat the second Nicene council. In the Westagain we find Serenus bishop of Marseillesdemolishing the images and casting them out ofthe churches in the beginning of the 7th century.The letters of Gregory the Great to Serenus, anaccurate analysis of which wilL be found inFleury (AT. E. lib. xxxvi. 9 and 35), Neander(v. 275), and the article on images in Dict. ofAntiq, shew clearly that the church-teachers inthe West held very moderate views on this ques-tion. Gregory praises Serenus for his zeal againstimage worship, bnt thinks pictures in churchesuseful for those who cannot read. From outsidethe church the Jews and Saracens kept up,during the 7th century, incessant reproachesagainst this practice. The Apology of Leontiusof Cyprus (a.d. 600), directed against the Jews,shews us the arguments by which image-worshipwas defended. It will, perhaps, save time toremark that this work of Leontius seems tohave been the storehouse whence all later advo-cates of images derived their weapons, as hisarguments are identical with those used byBede (a.d. 710) in his work De Tempi. Salom .

с. xix., in Opp. t. 8, p. 40, ed. Colon. 1688; byGregory II. in his letters to Leo the Isaurian; byJoan. Damasc. in his orations for images (730),and by the 2nd Nicene council. Leontius arguedthat the Mosaic law was not directed uncon-ditionally against all devotional use of images,biit only against the idolatrous use of them,

since the temple and tabernacle both had theirimages, as the cherubim, the brazen oxen, &c.He argues that in the Old Testament the cere-mony of prostration sometimes occurs as a markof respect even to men, and therefore could notby any means imply the notion of idolatry. Herefers to the cures said to have been wrought bymeans of images. Summing up all, he says,“ The images are not our gods, but they are theimages of Christ and His saints, which exist andare venerated in remembrance and in honour ofthese, and as ornaments of the churches.”

We have already noted some circumstanceswhich aided the progress of image-worship, butit might fairly be asked, Were these sufficient towork such a radical change ? We certainly thinknot, Christianity resisted the might of Romefor three centuries, and were there not somedeeper and subtler influences at work we do notbelieve that she would have changed her positionwhen the Caesars treated her with smiles insteadof frowns. In our view the seeds of this change,pregnant with such vast results, were sown inthe 3rd century by the philosophy of Origen andthe Alexandrian school. That philosophy was inits essential principles, whether taught by Philo,Ammonius Saccas, Clemens Alexandrinus, orOrigen, essentially the same. The limits of thisarticle necessarily forbid us to adduce the proofsof this position, which will, however, be found inabundance in Neander, H. E. i. 29-48, 68-84, asconcerning heathen and Jewish Neo-Platonism,and in a lengthened and able treatise on theChristian Alexandrian school (t. ii. 224—266).Its teachers, Christian and Pagan alike, wereall agreed in adopting the aristocratic prin-ciples of the Platonic philosophy, which distin-guishes between the position of the multitude,whose views of religion are gross and carnal, andthat of spiritual men who rise above the sen-suous and soar upwards to the supreme originalessence. With this view they all connected amethod of allegorising or of symbolical inter-pretation, whereby it was possible to spiritualiseand appropriate every part of existing religioussystems, teaching that they were useful for thegross multitude who could rise no higher, whilethe spiritual man used them as types and sym-bols of eternal realities. This philosophy, astaught by Origen, though its author lived anddied under suspicion, powerfully affected thewhole Christian world, and influenced, like allgreat spiritual movements, even those whowere most fiercely opposed to it. ThroughGregory Thaumaturgus in the 3rd century,through Pamphilus, Eusebius, Basil, Gregory ofNyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus in the 4th, theteaching of the Alexandrian school permeatedthe whole church; and as it had taught DioChrysostom under Trajan, Porphyry, Iiierocles,Theotecnus, Julian, Hypatia, and the test of theNeo-Platonic school to spiritualise the cultusof heathen idols, so it prepared the ground forthe same view of Christian art. The influence ofOrigen became at last triumphant in the 6th cen-tury through the pretended works of Dionysiusthe Areopagite, which, by their higher mysti-cism, intensified the movement towards imageworship. “ Precisely as, in earlier times, Platon-ism had attached itself to the pagan cultus, andto the hierarchical system of paganism, out ofwhich combination arose a Myslico-tliturgical