It was not long now before there appeared in Christendom two distinct parties: (1) The Iconolatræ, or image worshippers, who were composed of the leading churchmen like Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, and John of Damascus in the East; the monks, the common clergy, and the masses of the common people in the East, and Pope Gregory II. and the powerful Church of the West. (2) The Iconoclasti, or image breakers, who included the Emperor and his civil officers; his army, made up mostly of barbarians and Asiatic heretics[277:2]; a few churchmen like Anastasius, who succeeded the deposed Germanus, actuated by political motives; and the Carolingian rulers in the West. The conflict was begun by Leo III., the Isaurian, a soldier of fortune, who through ability as a warrior had won the imperial crown,--a powerful ruler in falling Greece,--active, sincere, illiterate, honest, despotic, and unwise. Ambition to convert the Jews, Mohammedans, and Montanists made him feel keenly the sting of their sarcastic attacks on images.[277:3] One of his advisers, Beser, was a converted Mohammedan, who had held numerous interviews with Islam leaders. As a zealous supporter of the Catholic Church, Leo no doubt sincerely desired to restore the primitive simplicity of Christian worship. As monarch and priest, he believed himself called upon by God to root out idolatry. He was undoubtedly a noble puritan in his purposes and motives and called himself a second Josiah. In 726, he issued the first edict against images, authorising their destruction[278:1] and the next year the exarch promulgated it in Ravenna and the West. This was opposed by the patriarch, Germanus, and most of the clergy; hence, it was enforced only in a few places where the bishops supported the Emperor. The following incident will illustrate the popular indignation. Imperial officers were sent to destroy a fine image of Jesus above the bronze gate of Constantinople, which the people regarded with unusual reverence. A ladder was put up and a soldier mounted it to take the figure down. A crowd of women watching the act begged that the image might be given to them. Instead, the soldier struck the figure in the face with a hatchet. The women were enraged, pulled down the ladder, and killed the soldier. The Emperor sent troops to quell the tumult and to carry off the image, and in its place he had a cross set up with these words on it: "The Emperor could not suffer a dumb and lifeless figure of earthly materials, smeared over with paint, to stand as a representative of Christ. He has, therefore, erected here the sign of the cross."[278:2]