Concerning this Pope, Anastasius writes:—“Gregory III., a Syrian by nation, son of John. He sat ten years, two months, and twenty days. A man most meek and most wise, well instructed in the holy Scriptures, knowing both the Greek and Latin tongues. He knew all the psalms by heart, in their order, and was exceedingly skilful in their meaning by his long study of them. He was a polished speaker, an exhorter to all good works, a favourite popular preacher, a maintainer of the Catholic and Apostolic faith immutilate, who, by his fatherly warnings, ceased not to strengthen the hearts of the faithful, a fearless and zealous defender of orthodoxy: a lover of poverty, providing solicitously for those in want, not only with piety, but with careful pains. Redeemer of captives, generous supporter of orphans and widows: a lover of the religious life, so, by God’s help, he reached the sacred order of the priesthood. Upon him the Romans, moved from the highest to the lowest by an inspiration from heaven, while he was absorbed in devotion beside the coffin of his predecessor, suddenly laid their hands and chose him for pontiff. It was in the times of the emperors Leo and Constantine, in the midst of that persecution which they set up, for the casting down and destruction of the sacred images of our Lord Jesus Christ and the holy Mother of God, of the apostles, and all saints and confessors. The same most holy man issued writings with the vigour of the Apostolic See, like as his predecessor of holy memory had done, to move them to repentance, and to put away this error.” Anastasius then records how the emperor had imprisoned his messenger in Sicily. “Whereupon the pontiff, with greater zeal, attended by the archbishops of Grado and Ravenna, with other bishops of the western part, to the number of ninety-three, held a Council at the sacred confession of St. Peter’s most holy body, with all the clergy and the people, and passed a decree, that if henceforth there be any who, despising those who faithfully retain the ancient usage of the Apostolic Church, pull down, destroy, profane, or blaspheme the veneration of the Sacred Images, that is, of our God and Lord Jesus Christ, of His Ever-Virgin Mother, the immaculate and glorious Mary, of the blessed apostles, and of all saints, he be debarred from the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, that is, from the unity and structure of the whole Church. This they all solemnly confirmed with their subscriptions.”(178)