11 (return) [ See Ducange, in Gloss. Graec. et Lat. The subject is treated with equal learning and bigotry by the Jesuit Gretser, (Syntagma de Imaginibus non Manu factis, ad calcem Codini de Officiis, p. 289-330,) the ass, or rather the fox, of Ingoldstadt, (see the Scaligerana;) with equal reason and wit by the Protestant Beausobre, in the ironical controversy which he has spread through many volumes of the Bibliotheque Germanique, (tom. xviii. p. 1-50, xx. p. 27-68, xxv. p. 1-36, xxvii. p. 85-118, xxviii. p. 1-33, xxxi. p. 111-148, xxxii. p. 75-107, xxxiv. p. 67-96.)] 12 (return) [ Theophylact Simocatta (l. ii. c. 3, p. 34, l. iii. c. 1, p. 63) celebrates it; yet it was no more than a copy, since he adds (of Edessa). See Pagi, tom. ii. A.D. 588 No. 11.] 13 (return) [ See, in the genuine or supposed works of John Damascenus, two passages on the Virgin and St. Luke, which have not been noticed by Gretser, nor consequently by Beausobre, (Opera Joh. Damascen. tom. i. p. 618, 631.)] 14 (return) [ “Your scandalous figures stand quite out from the canvass: they are as bad as a group of statues!” It was thus that the ignorance and bigotry of a Greek priest applauded the pictures of Titian, which he had ordered, and refused to accept.] The worship of images had stolen into the church by insensible degrees, and each petty step was pleasing to the superstitious mind, as productive of comfort, and innocent of sin. But in the beginning of the eighth century, in the full magnitude of the abuse, the more timorous Greeks were awakened by an apprehension, that under the mask of Christianity, they had restored the religion of their fathers: they heard, with grief and impatience, the name of idolaters; the incessant charge of the Jews and Mahometans, 15 who derived from the Law and the Koran an immortal hatred to graven images and all relative worship. The servitude of the Jews might curb their zeal, and depreciate their authority; but the triumphant Mussulmans, who reigned at Damascus, and threatened Constantinople, cast into the scale of reproach the accumulated weight of truth and victory. The cities of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had been fortified with the images of Christ, his mother, and his saints; and each city presumed on the hope or promise of miraculous defence. In a rapid conquest of ten years, the Arabs subdued those cities and these images; and, in their opinion, the Lord of Hosts pronounced a decisive judgment between the adoration and contempt of these mute and inanimate idols. 1511 For a while Edessa had braved the Persian assaults; but the chosen city, the spouse of Christ, was involved in the common ruin; and his divine resemblance became the slave