sin. But in the beginning of the eighth century, in the full
magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened by
an apprehension, that under the mask of Christianity, they had
restored the religion of their fathers: they heard, with grief
and impatience, the name of idolaters; the incessant charge of
the Jews and Mahometans, ^15 who derived from the Law and the
Koran an immortal hatred to graven images and all relative
worship. The servitude of the Jews might curb their zeal, and
depreciate their authority; but the triumphant Mussulmans, who
reigned at Damascus, and threatened Constantinople, cast into the
scale of reproach the accumulated weight of truth and victory.
The cities of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had been fortified with
the images of Christ, his mother, and his saints; and each city
presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous defence. In a rapid
conquest of ten years, the Arabs subdued those cities and these
images; and, in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts pronounced a
decisive judgment between the adoration and contempt of these
mute and inanimate idols. ^* For a while Edessa had braved the
Persian assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was
involved in the common ruin; and his divine resemblance became
the slave and trophy of the infidels. After a servitude of three
hundred years, the Palladium was yielded to the devotion of
Constantinople, for a ransom of twelve thousand pounds of silver,
the redemption of two hundred Mussulmans, and a perpetual truce
for the territory of Edessa. ^16 In this season of distress and
dismay, the eloquence of the monks was exercised in the defence
of images; and they attempted to prove, that the sin and schism
of the greatest part of the Orientals had forfeited the favor,
and annihilated the virtue, of these precious symbols. But they
were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or rational