churches and to perpetuate and popularize the memory of the persons and events which they
represent. Yet even this is not necessary; for a Christian should be able without sensual means to
rise to the contemplation of the virtues of the saints and to ascend to the fountain of eternal light.
Man is made in the image of God, and hence capable of receiving Christ into his soul. God should
ever be present and adored in our hearts. O unfortunate memory, which can realize the presence
of Christ only by means of a picture drawn in sensuous colors. The Council of Nicaea committed
a great wrong in condemning those who do not worship images.
The author of the Caroline books, however, falls into the same inconsistency as the Eastern
iconoclasts, by making an exception in favor of the sign of the cross and the relics of saints. The
cross is called a banner which puts the enemy to flight, and the honoring of the relics is declared
to be a great means of promoting piety, since the saints reign with Christ in heaven, and their bones
will be raised to glory; while images are made by men’s hands and return to dust.
A Synod in Frankfort, a.d. 794, the most important held during the reign of Charlemagne,
and representing the churches of France and Germany, in the presence of two papal legates
(Theophylactus and Stephanus), endorsed the doctrine of the Libri Carolini, unanimously condemned
the worship of images in any form, and rejected the seventh oecumenical council.^557 According to
an old tradition, the English church agreed with this decision.^558
Charlemagne sent a copy of his book, or more probably an extract from it (85 Capitula or
Capitulare de Imaginibus) through Angilbert, his son-in-law, to his friend Pope Hadrian, who in a
long answer tried to defend the Eastern orthodoxy of Nicaea with due respect for his Western
protector, but failed to satisfy the Frankish church, and died soon afterwards (Dec. 25, 795).^559
A Synod of Paris, held under the reign of Charlemagne’s son and successor, Louis the Pious,
in the year 825, renewed the protest of the Frankfort Synod against image-worship and the authority
of the second council of Nicaea, in reply to an embassy of the Emperor Michael Balbus, and added
a slight rebuke to the pope.^560
(^557) The Synod is often called universalis, and condemned Adoptionism (see Hefele, III. 678 sqq. ). The decision against
images see in Mansi, xiii. 909. The chief passage is: "Sanctissimi Patres nostri omnimodis et adorationem et servitutem eis [sc.
imaginibus Sanctorum] renuentes contemserunt atque, consentientes condemnaverunt." Einhard made the following entry in
his Annals ada.d.794 (in Pertz, Monum. I. 181, and Gieseler II. 67): "Synodus etiam, quae ante paucos annos in Constantinopoli
[where the Nicene Synod was closed] sub Herena [Irene,]et Constantino filio ejus congregata, et ab ipsis non solum septima,
verum etiam universalis est appellata, ut nec septima nec universalis haberetur dicereturve, quasi supervacua in totum ab
omnibus [the bishops assembled at Frankfort] abdicata est." Baronius, Bellarmin, and even Hefele (III. 689), charge this Synod
with misrepresenting the Council of Nicaea, which sanctioned the worship (in a wider sense), but not the adoration, of images.
But the Latin version, which the pope sent to Charlemagne, renderedπροσκύνησιςuniformly by adoratio, and Anastasius, the
papal librarian, did the same in his improved translation, thus giving double sanction to the confusion.
(^558) This rests partly on the probable share which the Anglo-Saxon Alcuin had in the composition of the Caroline Books,
partly on the testimony of Simeon of Durham (about 1100). See Twysden’s Hist. Angl. Scriptores decem I, III; Mon. Hist. Brit.,
p. 667; Wilkin’s Conc. Magn. Brit., I. 73; Gieseler, II. 67, note 6, and Hardwick’s Church Hist. of the Middle Age, p. 78, note
3.
(^559) There is a difference of opinion whether Charlemagne sent to the pope his whole book, or only an abridgement, and
whether he sent Angilbert before or after the Frankfort synod to Rome. Hefele (III. 713) decides that the Capitula (85) were an
extract of the Libri Carolini (121 chs.), and that Angilbert was twice in Rome,a.d.792 and 794. Hadrian’s answer must have
been written at all events before Dec. 25, 795. It is printed in Mansi, XIII. 759-810, and Migne, Opera Car. M. II. fol. 1247-1292.
It is full of glaring blunders. Bishop Hefele (p. 716) divides the responsibility between the (fallible) pope, the emperor, and the
copyists.
(^560) Mansi, XIV. 415 sqq.; Walch, XI. 95 sqq.; Gieseler, II. 68; Hefele, IV. 41 sqq. (second ed. 1879). Walch says (p. 98)
that the Roman church played comedy with the acts of this Synod. Mansi was the first to publish them, but he did it with an