Francof., 1608 (67 sqq.), and in the first vol. of his Collection of Constitutiones imperiales,
with the addition of the last ch. (lib. IV., c. 29), which was omitted by Tilius; best ed. by Ch.
A. Heumann, Hanover, 1731, under the title: Augusta Concilii Nicaeni II. Censura, h. e., Caroli
Magni de impio imaginum cultu libri IV., with prolegomena and notes. The ed. of Abbé Migne,
in his "Patrol. Lat.," Tom. 98, f. 990–1248 (in vol. II. of Opera Caroli M.), is a reprint of the
ed. of Tilius, and inferior to Heumann’s ed. ("Es ist zu bedauern," says Hefele, III. 696, "dass
Migne, statt Besseres, entschieden Geringeres geboten hat, als man bisher schon besass".)
II. Walch devotes the greater part of the eleventh vol. to the history of image-worship in the Frankish
Church from Pepin to Louis the Pious. Neander, III. 233–243; Gieseler, II. 66–73; Hefele, III
694–716; Hergenröther, I. 553–557. Floss: De suspecta librorum Carolinorum fide. Bonn, 1860.
Reifferscheid: Narratio de Vaticano librorum Carolinorum Codice. Breslau, 1873.
The church of Rome, under the lead of the popes, accepted and supported the seventh
oecumenical council, and ultimately even went further than the Eastern church in allowing the
worship of graven as well as painted images. But the church in the empire of Charlemagne, who
was not on good terms with the Empress Irene, took a position between image-worship and
iconoclasm.
The question of images was first discussed in France under Pepin in a synod at Gentilly
near Paris, 767, but we do not know with what result.^554 Pope Hadrian sent to Charlemagne a Latin
version of the acts of the Nicene Council; but it was so incorrect and unintelligible that a few
decades later the Roman librarian Anastasius charged the translator with ignorance of both Greek
and Latin, and superseded it by a better one.
Charlemagne, with the aid of his chaplains, especially Alcuin, prepared and published, three
years after the Nicene Council, an important work on image-worship under the title Quatuor Libri
Carolini (790).^555 He dissents both from the iconoclastic synod of 754 and the anti-iconoclastic
synod of 787, but more from the latter, which he treats very disrespectfully.^556 He decidedly rejects
image-worship, but allows the use of images for ornament and devotion, and supports his view
with Scripture passages and patristic quotations. The spirit and aim of the book is almost Protestant.
The chief thoughts are these: God alone is the object of worship and adoration (colondus et
adorandus). Saints are only to be revered (venerandi). Images can in no sense be worshipped. To
bow or kneel before them, to salute or kiss them, to strew incense and to light candles before them,
is idolatrous and superstitious. It is far better to search the Scriptures, which know nothing of such
practices. The tales of miracles wrought by images are inventions of the imagination, or deceptions
of the evil spirit. On the other hand, the iconoclasts, in their honest zeal against idolatry, went too
far in rejecting the images altogether. The legitimate and proper use of images is to adorn the
(^554) See Walch, XI. 7-36; Hefele, III. 461-463. The sources are silent. Walch carefully gives the different conjectures of
Baronius, Pagi, Daillé, Natalis, Alexander, Maimburg, Fleury, Sirmond, Spanheim, Basnage, Semler. Nothing new has been
added since. But the preceding iconoclastic zeal of Bishop Serenus of Marseilles, and the succeeding position of Charlemagne
and the Frankish church, rather favor the inference of Sirmond and Spanheim, that the synod rejected the worship of images.
(^555) Alcuin’s share in the composition appears from the similarity of thoughts in his Commentary on John, and the old
English tradition that he wrote a book against the Council of Nicaea. See Walch, XI. 65 sqq.; Hefele, III. 697.
(^556) He calls it posterior tempore, non tamen posterior crimine, eloquentia, sensuque carens, synodus ineptissima, etc.
He distrusted a Council in which the Church of his dominions was not represented. He also objected to a woman assuming the
office of teacher in the church, as being contrary to the lex divina and lex naturae (III. 13, ed. Migne, fol. 1136). He had reason
to be angry with Irene for dissolving the betrothal of her son with his daughter.