The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-14

Of vandalism perpetrated there last Tuesday
meant to signslize their hatreds not Of French
victory, but of imperialism. So, again, the |
Puritan zealots who smashed cruoi6xes and |
images of the saints did not, we must pre-
sumo, wish to assail the sacred personages re-
presented-at all events as regards the cru |
cihx-but what they considered an objection |
able method of honoring them. But icono-
clasm implies feelings and tends to
produce results very much beyond |
what the iconoclasts themselves are think |
ing of. This may be iIlusirated by two
comments which have been made, from
very opposite points of view yon the great
iconoclastic controversy of the eighth and
ninth centuries, which ended in the use of
images as distinct from pictures-we need
not trouble ourselves here with the point of
this somewhat fanciful contrast-being pro-
.scrlbed in the Eastern Church, and aathori-
atively sanctioned in the West. The bitter
ess of feeling which it evoked may be
j, idged from the opprobrious sobriquet of
@ Copronymus bestowed on the Greek Emperor
who had made himself most notorious as a
le,,der of the iconoclast party. Yet why
sh, ould the question between images and
''itons," as the Greeks called their pictures,
so violently embitter those who had
no disagreement in their belief about
what their symbol represented? 1t was
hint ed at the time, and has often been said
since, by Latin writers, that the doctrine of
the Incarnation was at stake, and that the
dislike 20 images Of Christ was prompted by
a repulsion Of the subtle Greek intellect from
the authropomorphic side of Christianity.
| There i0probably some fierce in the criticism,
| but the Easterns certainly had no conscious
intention of dispaZaging the Incarnation, and
| the first decree against images was imme-
| diately prompted by the rsproache3 of the Ma
hometans against the idolatry of the Christian
| Church. On She other hand, modern writers
havespohen, not without reason of the Greek
| Church rejecting in her prohibition of images
| the Influences of Christian art and civiliza-
ton, and hava contrastsd her conduct with
that of Rome. in accepting the Renaissance
It is certainly true that The close of the icoDo-
elastic controversy marks the period of the
decadenoe, of all religious and intellectual en-.
ergy in the East. We need not adopt Mr..
| Froudes extreme, not to say extravagant,
view that the Eastern Christians stood on an
immeasurably lower level than. their Ma
hometan assailants, hut there can be no
doubt that Eastern Christianity, for the
last thousand ye&ts, has. presented
very. much tho appearance of @. sterite
petrifaotion of its former self. Yet it
would be absurd to suppose shat the
iconoclastio Emperors and 3ynodS> of the
eighth century had any conscious insentioa of
repudiating art, and tie civili4ing influences
which it indicates or effects. But the ieono-
elastic instinct though it has its nobler side,
and has,not unfrequently beoa the vehicle of
righteous indignation against falsehood and
oppression, is in itself essentially narrow and
debasing. Ii belongs to the lower, not the
higher, part of our nature, and inclines us
directly not SO much to reject the evil as to
refuse to recognize what is good.
The religious narrowness of icon oclhsm was
illustrated at the Reformation in the reckless
demolition of all outward adjunots of devo-
ton, because somsof them had been per-
x&ol& 49, 4 Ia
tical narrowness Is not the exclusive badge
of any one party, though, for reasons already
: refersed to, it has natural affinity with the
| violenes of domestic agi5ators. Napoleon 1,
l whose statue has Just fallen in Paris, dis
played an almost puerile Ettieness in his
anxiety to effscs every visible memorial OF
. the ancient monarchy of France. The statue
, of Louis XIV had indeed fallen already, but
his stringent orders TO oblibeFate the .feetrS
t de U.s., wherever found, were hardly less ab
3 surd than the attempt to expunge from
Q French literature all mention oi
f the former state of things, as though
q he really thought it would be possible to
:, make Frenohmen forget that they had any
t history before the Is Brunaire. This is ne
b doubt an extreme, but it is also a highly
o characteristic, instance of ssthe genuine spiri
y of iconoclasm. As there can be no image
/. worship without images, 50 there can be no
Q iconoclasn without images to break. 1t il
It essentially protest against what has hitherto
J. been held In honor, and its radical vice is ths
# resolve to break with the past, because in th,
r past there have been errors and abuses, al
!, though forsooth the present or the future
d were at all more likely to be free from them
1t No doubt there are some idols which deserv,
Il to be utterly abolished, but it is not oftel
,, that the outward symbol even of rejecte,
y creed or jastly dispossessed sovereignty ha
d no historic or artistic interest which
II gives il claim to live. The most arden
h Christian would hardly think it discredit t.
20 the Popes that they have done their best t
l. preserve the relics of Pagan and Imperis
at Rome, although the Paganism was coars
1T and heartless superstition, and the Empire
I'd gigantic system of tyranny and corruption
IS To make clean sweep of the past is an uu
IL hopeful augury for the future. The life @
IS nations, as of individuals, is made up of thei
Is accumulated experiences, and France can a
s. little divest herself of the traditions of th
O. monarchy or of the Empire as England can is
le more the elements of national life which th
re Stuart reigns or the Commonwealth have bt
BY queathed to her. We should have more fait
n in the stability of some future Governmer
as in France if she had shown less eageYnes
Is in effacing all traces of those which are passe