Christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, of facts, and
of the primitive times, and secretly desired the reformation of
the church. As the worship of images had never been established
by any general or positive law, its progress in the Eastern
empire had been retarded, or accelerated, by the differences of
men and manners, the local degrees of refinement, and the
personal characters of the bishops. The splendid devotion was
fondly cherished by the levity of the capital, and the inventive
genius of the Byzantine clergy; while the rude and remote
districts of Asia were strangers to this innovation of sacred
luxury. Many large congregations of Gnostics and Arians
maintained, after their conversion, the simple worship which had
preceded their separation; and the Armenians, the most warlike
subjects of Rome, were not reconciled, in the twelfth century, to
the sight of images. ^17 These various denominations of men
afforded a fund of prejudice and aversion, of small account in
the villages of Anatolia or Thrace, but which, in the fortune of
a soldier, a prelate, or a eunuch, might be often connected with
the powers of the church and state.

[Footnote 15: By Cedrenus, Zonaras, Glycas, and Manasses, the
origin of the Aconoclcasts is imprinted to the caliph Yezid and
two Jews, who promised the empire to Leo; and the reproaches of
these hostile sectaries are turned into an absurd conspiracy for
restoring the purity of the Christian worship, (see Spanheim,
Hist. Imag. c. 2.)]

[Footnote *: Yezid, ninth caliph of the race of the Ommiadae,
caused all the images in Syria to be destroyed about the year
719; hence the orthodox reproaches the sectaries with following