denied the intercession of the saints with God—that is, attacked beliefs established in the Church of God. He also impugned thereby the profession of faith which he had made when he assumed the imperial throne, refusing to listen to the judgment of bishops who are chosen by God for guardians of the doctrine which belongs to the faith. Though we have not the letters written by him to Pope Gregory II. about abolishing the sacred images, and the pontiff’s answers to him, yet the sequel plainly shows that he sent to Rome the above-named edict, and that the holy pontiff not only opposed it, but wrote with kindled feelings to the emperor about it, inducing him to give up this sacrilegious design.” Though the letters thus mentioned no longer exist, we possess letters from Pope Gregory II. to the emperor Leo shortly after, which present to us the clearest and most authentic picture of the Iconoclast contest. Both the contention of the emperor and the censure of the pontiff are there expressed in the words used at the very moment of the struggle. I shall follow them accurately and in so much detail as to show the interests which were then at stake. In the person of St. Gregory II., after several Popes of eastern descent, a Roman had again reached the pontificate.(166) He was acquainted with Constantinople, to which place he had accompanied his predecessor, Pope Constantine. His experience in political things was as great as his grasp of theological knowledge was firm. He had dealt with Greeks and Lombards, not only in ecclesiastical affairs, but as counsellor, as arbitrator, and as party concerned in disputes. He adorned the churches of Rome, but he likewise strengthened her fortifications on the Esquiline. When, in the year 717, a considerable portion of the city had been dangerously flooded, and in the quarter of the Via Lata the water had risen eight-feet high, the poor people found support and consolation in the Pope. During many years there had been peace between Church and Empire as also between the Roman See and the patriarchate of the imperial capital. The first years of Leo III. promised nothing but good. Born of low birth in the mountains of Isauria, and destitute of education, he had risen by his valour step by step, and was in command of the Anatolian army when called to succeed Theodosius III. His reign of four and twenty years would have been fortunate had not the dogmatising fancies which seemed to be inherited by the most various natures on the Byzantine throne taken possession of him. Through them he kindled a conflict which set East and West in commotion, and completed the rent between them. It was about the year 727, the twelfth year of his own pontificate, and ten years after the accession of Leo III., when the acts of the eastern emperor caused St. Gregory II. to address the following letter to him.(167)