Iconoclast

“ In the age of the iconoclasts, modelling—the coarse Roman modelling—begins to bulge and curl luxuriously at Constantinople. The eighth century in the East is a portent of the sixteenth in the West. It is the restoration of materialism with its paramour, obsequious art. The art of the iconoclasts tells us the story of their days ”

“ The Iconoclasts left an indelible impress on the Christian art of the Greek Church, in so far as they put an end to the use of graven images; for the Eastern icon is a flat picture, less easily regarded than would be a statue as a nidus within which a spirit can lurk. Half the realm of creative art, that of statuary, was thus suppressed at a blow; and the other half, painting, forfeited all the grace and freedom, all the capacity of new themes, forms and colours, all the development which we see in the Latin Church. ”

“ Although the iconoclastic movement sprang from the enlightened policy of two dynasties of strong emperors, while the practice of image worship was maintained by the ignorant populace and the fanatical monks, it must not be supposed that the latter lacked capable and high-minded defenders. On the contrary, the ablest theologian in each of the two periods of Iconoclasm was a champion of image worship. To the first period belongs John of Damascus, and to the second Theodore of Studium, the only churchmen of permanent fame who appeared in the Eastern Church during the eighth and ninth centuries. ”

“ Exhaustion may prove a point; as, for instance, the Iconoclasts in Greece or Reformers and Puritans in England were the only destroyers of images and pictures, or Akhenaten was the only man who erased the name of Amen. Such destructions therefore are evidence of the age and the man. ”

“ A number of cities manifested a forward zeal in a voluntary destruction of their temples and idols, but it is more than likely that the municipal distinctions and popular donations which were held out as a reward for such conduct, rather than belief in the Christian faith are what inspired the iconoclasts. ”

“ As I cannot enter into detail, I only observe that the contents of Octavian are a great deal more complicated and copious than those of Isumbras, which is simple in its plot and style, and shows the nearest resemblance to the old Eustache legend, whilst Octavian is a refined and adorned version of the legendary tale with considerable change in the plan. Isumbras, of course, bears a strict resemblance to Eustache, but not to the Emperor Octavian, who has but little of the character of a suffering saint, as he does not become an outlaw himself, nor is to lose his earthly goods. ”

“ Let us drive apart the best of all the oxen of the Sun, and sacrifice them to the immortal ones, who dwell in the broad heaven. And if we come to Ithaca, our country, we will there build to the Sun, whose path is o’er our heads, a sumptuous temple, and endow its shrine with many gifts and rare. But if it be his will, approved by all the other gods, to sink our bark in anger, for the sake of these high-horned [159] oxen, I should choose sooner to gasp my life away amid the billows of the deep, than pine to death by famine in this melancholy isle. ”

“ Such were the excuses they gave, and Padre Ignatius, simple-hearted soul, believed them, never dreaming that they had been assisting in the worship of the Chalchuih Tlatonac in the hidden temple of Huitzilopochtli.
The belief in the devil stone was universal throughout Cholacaca. Not only did the immediate flock of Padre Ignatius revere it as a symbol of the war-god, but every person in the Republic who had Indian blood in his or her veins firmly believed that the shining precious stone exercised a power over the lives and fortunes of all. ”

“ The moment that the banquet ended, Octavia, still in her splendid apparel, hurried wildly to the chamber. It was a chamber of death. Already the incense was burning, already the cypress had been placed before the Propylæa of the Palatine. The boy lay there, silent, noble, beautiful, pale as a statue carved in alabaster; and Octavia disburdened the long-pent agony of repression in such a storm of weeping that her attendants tried to lead her away. But she tore off her jewels, and flung her arms round the corpse of her brother, and laid her head upon his breast, and sobbed aloud. ”

“ It is very obvious that the Incas destroyed a grand and spacious temple here, which legend tells us was heavily adorned with silver and gold, to make way for one of their own dedicated to the worship of the sun. Who this race were and whence they came, with so considerable a system of civilization, is a theme which has long absorbed the speculative antiquarian. It is easy enough to construct theories which may meet the case, but it is difficult to support them when they are subjected to the cold arguments of reason and the test of known history. ”

“ Ictinus and his fellow artists must come from Athens worthily to incarnate their desires. So a generation earlier they had been obliged to persuade Onatas, the master of the Æginetan school of sculpture, to carve for them a statue of Demeter. Nor were the Phigalians less skilled than other Arcadians. Scopas had to come from Paros to build the temple to Athena at Tegea. And it was foreign poets who turned the legends of Cyllenian Hermes and Pan into literature, and later enshrined in pastoral verse the tossing mountain forests and the cool rivers of Arcady. ”

“ The "fair young god," Iacchos, or Dionysos, or Bacchus, was the son of Jupiter and Ceres, and accompanied the goddess in her search for Persephone. He also carried a torch, hence his statue has always a torch in the hand. This statue, together with other sacred objects, were taken from the Iacchion, the sanctuary of Iacchos in Athens, mounted on a heavy rustic four-wheeled chariot drawn by bulls, and, accompanied by the Iacchogogue and other magistrates nominated for the occasion, conveyed from the Kerameikos, or Potter's Quarter, to Eleusis by the Sacred Way in solemn procession. ”

“ Isokrates, Panathen. s. 61. Σπαρτιᾶται μὲν γὰρ ἔτη δέκα μόλις ἐπεστάτησαν αὐτῶν, ἡμεῖς δὲ πέντε καὶ ἑξήκοντα συνεχῶς κατέσχομεν τὴν ἀρχήν. I do not hold myself bound to make out the exactness of the chronology of Isokrates. But here we may remark that his “hardly ten years” is a term, though less than the truth by some months, if we may take the battle of Ægospotami as the beginning, is very near the truth if we take the surrender of Athens as the beginning, down to the battle of Knidus. ”

“ Ictinus used, since his clients were poor mountaineers, the local limestone for the building, but the roof and sculptures were of imported marble. He had also to modify the normal Doric plan in accordance with local religious conventions of sun-worship. In the cella of the temple the interior Ionic columns are joined to the wall by short stone partitions, thus forming a row of five chapels on each side. A door was made in the east side to shed the light of the rising sun full on the statue of the sun-god; for the main building is unique among Greek temples in running north and south. ”

“ The whole population of Constantinople surged into the church, shouting for Italus. Probably he would have been thrown down from the top into the middle of the church, had he not escaped to the roof of the sacred edifice and hidden himself in some hole he found. But as the wrong doctrines he had promulgated were much discussed by some of the courtiers, and not a few nobles had been corrupted by those pernicious dogmas, the Emperor's soul was vexed; and the heretical doctrines taught by Italus were summarized in eleven chapters and dispatched to the Emperor. ”

“ Inscriptions are placed above the paintings in order that the letter may explain what the hand has depicted.” [349]
The feeblest intelligence might rise through the material [Pg 222] to the conception of spiritual truth. [350] But this ecclesiastical employment of art speedily became the source of religious corruption and the object of superstitious worship. At length it provoked the stern iconoclasm of the Isaurian Leo and his successors, and was formally prohibited by the general Council of Constantinople in the eighth century. ”

“ All the citizens had contributed, and the women had sacrificed their jewels. No change was made in the form of the goddess' statue; a form anciently borrowed from the Egyptians, and which was found, also, in the temples of several other Greek cities. The goddess bore on her head a tower; two iron rods supported her hands; and the body terminated in a sheath, encircled with symbols and the figures of animals.
Thirty-six of the columns were carved by Scopas, of the school of Praxiteles [237] , and it was in this [Pg 306] temple that the Ionic order in architecture was first employed ”

“ Anicetus, who had been made the vile instrument of Octavia’s destruction, received the guerdon of his infamy, and was dismissed into nominal exile in Sardinia. To such a man—a slave by birth and a villain by nature—the exile was nothing. He had never regarded life as anything but a feeding-trough, and as long as he had wealth to spend on his own indulgences Sardinia served him as well as Rome. It happened that the ship which was to carry him to Caralis, the Sardinian capital, sailed from Ostia on the day that Octavia was to be conveyed to Pandataria. ”

“ It is necessary, however, to refer in passing to one custom, that in connection with which the thigh-skin of the female [177] victim was stripped off and carried to the temple of Cinteotl, where it was made into a mask which the priest of the god placed over his face.16 He also wore a jacket and hood of feathers, resembling the naualli or bird-disguise of the god—the coxcoxtli, which seems to have represented both Cinteotl and Xochipilli, and to have formed a kind of bond between them. ”

“ Entering this place of worship, they spoke with such effect, that a great number both of Greeks and Jews were thoroughly convinced of the truth of the Christian doctrine, and professed their faith in Jesus. But, as usual, there was in Iconium a great residue of bigoted adherents to the Mosaic faith, who could appreciate neither the true scope of the ancient dispensation, nor the perfection of gospel truth; and a set of these fellows undertook to make trouble for the apostles, in the same way that it had been done at the Pisidian Antioch. ”

“ Modern decency would not permit all the details of the insults to Thecla, so these are shortened in the story here. She was exposed not only in the arena of Iconium but in the arena of Antioch for repulsing the lewd advances of the city magistrate, who in one of the fêtes represented the god Roma and proceeded to claim her as a vestal virgin. All these details have been omitted or shortened in the story, and her experiences have been centered at Iconium.
For the rest, the story conforms to the facts of the age. The Greeks were the rich trader class despised by the soldierly Romans. ”

“ The Romans who sent for Aesculapius from Epidaurus, when their city was troubled with the plague, say, that the serpent that was worshipped there for him followed the ambassadors of its own accord to the ship that transported it to Rome, where it was placed in a temple built in the isle called Tiberina. In this temple the sick people were wont to lie, and when they found themselves no better, they reviled Aesculapius: so impatiently ungrateful and peevish were often the afflicted, that they made no scruple to reproach the very god who administered to their maladies. ”

“ Octavia rejoiced that the instinct which had prompted her to make this appeal had not misled her, but assured her that behind the veil of coldness, pride, and levity which this woman wore there was a heart aching for sympathy and help and love. Mrs. Snowdon felt her worser self slip from her, leaving all that was true and noble to make her worthy of the test applied. Art she could meet with equal art, but nature conquered her. ”

“ He shall renew your flesh as a little child’s and keep in your heart an eternal youth, long as you drink of the Living Waters of Life! Never repine! Never envy! Go forth rejoicing always! Rejoice, rejoice, child, again I say rejoice! For our suffering is but as idle passing dream, and we shall awaken to Eternal Day.”
All Iconium was agog. As far as it is possible to set down definite dates in this era, it was about 46 A.D.
First, an impostor, who followed the Christus of the Jews, had been whipped from the city at day dawn for contempt towards the gods of Rome and Greece. ”

“ The chiefs of the crusade now directed their march towards Antioch, suffering not a little from the desolate state of the country, which, devastated on every side by the Turks, afforded no means of supplying the immense multitude that followed the standard of the Cross. After passing Iconium and Heraclea, their fatigues were destined to increase rather than diminish. Their road now lay through uninhabited wilds, which Robert the Monk describes in language at once picturesque and terrific. ”

“ Ixmal stated coldly, withdrawing his receptors. He probed Psychband, somewhat disturbed to learn that Zale-3 would regard his pronouncement as a challenge.
"Destroy him," Psychband urged. "Remember the ancient weapons?"
"Yes, he must be destroyed." Ixmal ceased every activity to concentrate on the other's destruction. First he would have to locate his lair, study his habits, assess his weaknesses. And, yes, his strengths, for the alien was no harmless bit of protoplasm like Man. He must, in fact, be a creature somewhat like himself. Another god. ”