See ALBION.
IBRAHIM,
Caliph, A. D. 744.
Ibrahim, Turkish Sultan, 1640-1649.
ICARIA, Attica.
One of the demes or ancient townships of Attica, where
Icarius, in a Greek legend, was taught the art of wine-making
by Dionysus.
ICARIA, in the Ægean.
An island near Samos and anciently belonging to the Samians,
who used it chiefly for their pasture land.
----------ICELAND: Start--------
ICELAND:
Supposed identity with the Ultima Thule of the ancients.
See THULE.
ICELAND: A. D. 860-1100.
Discovery and Settlement by the Northmen.
A Norse Commonwealth.
Development of the Saga Literature.
See NORMANS.—NORTHMEN: A. D. 860-1100.
ICELAND: A. D. 1800-1874.
Political relations with Denmark.
See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK-ICELAND): A. D. 1849-1874.
----------ICELAND: End--------
ICELANDIC "THING," The.
See THING.
ICENI, The.
See BRITAIN: CELTIC TRIBES; and A. D. 61.
ICONIUM, Sultans of.
See TURKS (THE SELJUKS): A. D. 1073-1092.
ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY, The.
"Of the controversies that disquieted this age [the eighth
century], the greatest and the most pernicious related to the
worship of sacred images. Originating in Greece, it thence
spread over the East, and the West, producing great harm both
to the state and to the church. The first sparks of it
appeared under Phillippicus Bardanes, who was emperor of the
Greeks near the beginning of this century. With the consent of
the patriarch John, in the year 712, he removed from the
portico of the church of St. Sophia a picture representing the
sixth general council, which condemned the Monothelites, whom
the emperor was disposed to favour; and he sent his mandate to
Rome, requiring all such pictures to be removed out of the
churches. But Constantine, the Roman pontiff, not only
protested against the emperor's edict, but … , having
assembled a council at Rome, he caused the emperor himself to
be condemned as an apostate from the true religion. These
first commotions, however, terminated the next year, when the
emperor was hurled from the throne. Under Leo the Isaurian, a
very heroic emperor, another conflict ensued; which was far
more terrific, severe, and lasting. Leo, unable to bear with
the extravagant superstition of the Greeks in worshipping
religious images, which rendered them a reproach both to the
Jews and the Saracens; in order to extirpate the evil
entirely, issued an edict in the year 726, commanding all
images of saints, with the exception of that of Christ on the
cross, to be removed out of the churches, and the worship of
them to be wholly discontinued and abrogated.
{1693}
… A civil war broke out; first in the islands of the
Archipelago and a part of Asia, and afterwards in Italy. For
the people, either spontaneously, or being so instructed by
the priests and monks, to whom the images were productive of
gain, considered the emperor as an apostate from true
religion. … In Italy, the Roman pontiffs, Gregory II. and
Gregory III., were the principal authors of the revolt. …
The Romans and the other people of Italy who were subjects of
the Greek empire, violated their allegiance, and either
massacred or expelled the viceroys of Leo. Exasperated by
these causes, the emperor contemplated making war upon Italy,
and especially upon the pontiff: but circumstances prevented
him. Hence in the year 730, fired with resentment and
indignation, he vented his fury against images and their
worshippers, much more violently than before. For having
assembled a council of bishops, he deposed Germanus, bishop of
Constantinople, who favoured images, and substituted
Anastasius in his place; commanded that images should be
committed to the flames, and inflicted various punishments
upon the advocates of them. The consequence of this severity
was, that the Christian church was unhappily rent into two
parties; that of the Iconoduli or Iconolatrae, who adored and
worshipped images, and that of the Iconomachi or Iconoclastae,
who would not preserve but destroyed them; and these parties
furiously contended with mutual invectives, abuses, and
assassinations. The course commenced by Gregory II. was warmly
prosecuted by Gregory III., and although we cannot determine
at this distance of time the precise degree of fault in either
of these prelates, thus much is unquestionable, that the loss
of their Italian possessions in this contest by the Greeks, is
to be ascribed especially to the zeal of these two pontiffs in
behalf of images. Leo's son Constantine, surnamed Copronymus
by the furious tribe of Image-worshippers, after he came to
the throne, A. D. 741, trod in his father's steps; for he
laboured with equal vigour to extirpate the worship of images,
in opposition to the machinations of the Roman pontiff and the
monks. Yet he pursued the business with more moderation than
his father had done: and being, aware that the Greeks were
governed entirely by the authority of councils in religious
matters, he collected a council of eastern bishops at
Constantinople in the year 754, to examine and decide this
controversy. By the Greeks this is called the seventh general
council. The bishops pronounced sentence, as was customary,
according to the views of the emperor; and therefore condemned
images. … Leo IV., who succeeded to the throne on the death
of Constantine, A. D. 775, entertained the same views as his
father and grandfather. For when he saw, that the abettors of
images were not to be moved at all by mild and gentle
measures, he coerced them with penal statutes. But Leo IV.
being removed by poison, through the wickedness of his
perfidious wife Irene, in the year 780, images became
triumphant. For that guilty woman, who governed the empire
during the minority of her son Constantine, with a view to
establish her authority, after entering into a league with
Hadrian the Roman pontiff, assembled a council at Nice in
Bithynia in the year 786, which is known by the title of the
second. Nicene council. Here the laws of the emperors,
together with the decrees of the council of Constantinople,
were abrogated; the worship of images and of the cross was
established. … In these contests most of the Latins,—as the
Britons, the Germans, and the French, took middle ground
between the contending parties; for they decided, that images
were to be retained indeed, and to be placed in the churches,
but that no religious worship could be offered to them without
dishonouring the Supreme Being. In particular Charlemagne, at
the suggestion of the French bishops who were displeased with
the Nicene decrees, caused four Books concerning images to be
drawn up by some learned man, and sent them in the year 790 to
the Roman pontiff Hadrian, with a view to prevent his
approving the decrees of Nice. In this work, the arguments of
the Nicene bishops in defence of image-worship, are acutely
and vigorously combated. But Hadrian was not to be taught by
such a master, however illustrious, and therefore issued his
formal confutation of the book. Charlemagne next assembled, in
the year 794, a council of 300 bishops, at Frankfort on the
Maine, in order to re-examine this controversy. This council
approved the sentiments contained in the Books of Charlemagne,
and forbid the worship of images."
_J. L. von Mosheim,
Institutes of Ecclesiastical History,
book 3, century 8, part 2, chapter 3 (volume 2)._
ALSO IN:
_P. Schaff,
History of the Christian Church,
volume 4, chapter 10, section 101._
_E. Gibbon,
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,
chapter 49._
_G. Finlay,
History of the Byzantine Empire,
book 1._
_H. F. Tozer,
The Church and the Eastern Empire,
chapter 6._
See, also,
PAPACY: A. D. 728-774.