sed with an unconquerable repugnance
to the use and abuse of images; and this aversion may be ascribed to
their descent from the Jews, and their enmity to the Greeks. The Mosaic
law had severely proscribed all representations of the Deity; and that
precept was firmly established in the principles and practice of the
chosen people. The wit of the Christian apologists was pointed against
the foolish idolaters, who bowed before the workmanship of their own
hands; the images of brass and marble, which, had _they_ been endowed
with sense and motion, should have started rather from the pedestal
to adore the creative powers of the artist. Perhaps some recent and
imperfect converts of the Gnostic tribe might crown the statues of
Christ and St. Paul with the profane honors which they paid to those of
Aristotle and Pythagoras; but the public religion of the Catholics
was uniformly simple and spiritual; and the first notice of the use of
pictures is in the censure of the council of Illiberis, three hundred
years after the Christian aera. Under the successors of Constantine, in
the peace and luxury of the triumphant church, the more prudent bishops
condescended to indulge a visible superstition, for the benefit of
the multitude; and, after the ruin of Paganism, they were no longer
restrained by the apprehension of an odious parallel. The first
introduction of a symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross,
and of relics. The saints and martyrs, whose intercession was implored,
were seated on the right hand if God; but the gracious and often
supernatural favors, which, in the popular belief, were showered round
their tomb, conveyed an unquestionable sanction of the devout pilgrims,
who visited, and touched, and kissed these lifeless remains, the
memorials of their merits and sufferings. But a memorial, more
interesting than the skull or the sandals of a departed worthy, is the
faithful copy of his person and features, delineated by the arts of
painting or sculpture. In every age, such copies, so congenial to human
feelings, have been cherished by the zeal of private friendship, or
public esteem: the images of the Roman emperors were adored with civil,
and almost religious, honors; a reverence less ostentatious, but more
sincere, was applied to the statues of sages and patriots; and these
profane virtues, these splendid sins, disappeared in the presence of the
holy men, who had died for their celestial and everlasting country.