There had been from very early times an extensive though not universal feeling in the Church, against the use of painting or sculpture in {96} Divine Worship. This feeling was occasioned partly by dread of the idolatry still prevalent amongst the heathen, and partly, especially in the East, where it was strongest, by the remains of Judaism still lingering in the Church of Christ. [Sidenote: lost in the West, but retained in the East.] As heathenism died out, it was gradually felt in the West that the strong reasons formerly existing against the adornment of Churches with pictures and images had passed away; but the Eastern Church, with that dread of change which distinguishes it to this day, clung as before to the old sentiment. [Sidenote: Image-breaking legislation] In the eighth century, Leo III., "the Isaurian," then reigning at Constantinople, passed a decree for the removal of all images and paintings from Churches, and his violent conduct in the matter occasioned such discontent in the West, that Italy withdrew altogether from the nominal allegiance she had hitherto paid to the emperors, about A.D. 730. [sidenote: dissolved the link between Eastern and Western Empires.] Other emperors were as fanatical in their Iconoclastic (or image-breaking) prejudices as Leo, and their extravagance excited a reaction in the other extreme in the Western empire. [Sidenote: Reactionary decrees in the West.] In A.D. 786, a Council, which was held at Nicaea, not only protested against the violent fanaticism of the East, but sanctioned the veneration of images and pictures to an extent which we find it hard to justify, and which was, in fact, deemed unjustifiable by many in the West, who yet wished for their retention as decorations and aids to devotional feeling. Charlemagne, under the influence of our English Alcuin, opposed the decision of the Council, and held provincial synods (especially one at Frankfort, A.D. 794) {97} to condemn what was, at any rate, very like image-worship. [Sidenote: Charitable supposition regarding them.] Probably dread of Judaism and Mahometanism, with their hatred of our Blessed Lord and of His Image, as well as of all sculpture, had some influence on the decisions of the council of A.D. 786, and we may reasonably hope that it was not really intended to encourage any worship or veneration contrary to the express law of God. At any rate, the Iconoclast controversy aided very strongly to put an end to all political union, and with it to all public ecclesiastical intercourse, between East and West; though the bonds of external communion were not yet broken, and they were still one both in faith and practice. Section 3. _The Controversy respecting the Double Procession of the Holy Ghost._ [Sidenote: Western addition to the Nicene creed.]