t at first a representation, but merely a theological symbol set up
in the orthodox churches, and adopted by the orthodox Christians.

It is just after the Council of Ephesus that history first makes
mention of a supposed authentic portrait of the Virgin Mary. The
Empress Eudocia, when travelling in the Holy Land, sent home such
a picture of the Virgin holding the Child to her sister-in-law
Pulcheria, who placed it in a church at Constantinople. It was at that
time regarded, as of very high antiquity, and supposed to have been
painted from the life. It is certain that a picture, traditionally
said to be the same which Eudocia had sent to Pulcheria, did exist
at Constantinople, and was so much venerated by the people as to be
regarded as a sort of palladium, and borne in a superb litter or car
in the midst of the imperial host, when the emperor led the army in
person. The fate of this relic is not certainly known. It is said to
have been taken by the Turks in 1453, and dragged through the mire;
but others deny this as utterly derogatory to the majesty of the Queen
of Heaven, who never would have suffered such an indignity to have
been put on her sacred image. According to the Venetian legend, it was
this identical effigy which was taken by the blind old Dandolo, when
he besieged and took Constantinople in 1204, and brought in triumph
to Venice, where it has ever since been preserved in the church of St.
Mark, and held in _somma venerazione_. No mention is made of St. Luke
in the earliest account of this picture, though like all the antique
effigies of uncertain origin, it was in after times attributed to him.

The history of the next three hundred years testifies to the triumph
of orthodoxy, the extension and popularity of the worship of the
Virgin, and the consequent multiplication of her image in every form
and material, through the whole of Christendom.

Then followed the schism of the Iconoclasts, which distracted
the Church for more than one hundred years, under Leo III., the
Isaurian, and his immediate successors. Such were the extravagances
of superstition to which the image-worship had led the excitable
Orientals, that, if Leo had been a wise and temperate reformer, he
might have done much good in checking its excesses; but he was himself
an ignorant, merciless barbarian. The persecution by which he sought
to exterminate the sacred pictures of the Madonna, and the cruelties
exercised on her unhappy votaries, pr