Vasilief, A History of the Byzantine Empire

The Iconoclastic epoch (717-867)

Religious controversies and the first period of Iconoclasm 

Page 7

And while, on the one hand, the worship of ordinary and miraculous icons and relics confused many people who had grown up under the prevailing influences of the period, the excessive development of monachism and the rapid growth of monasteries, on the other hand, clashed with the secular interests of the Byzantine state. In view of the fact that large numbers of healthy young men embraced the spiritual life, the Empire was losing necessary forces from its army, agriculture, and industry. Monachism and the monasteries frequently served as a refuge for those who wished to escape governmental duties; hence many of the monks were not men who had been prompted to retire from worldly affairs by a sincere desire to follow higher ideals. Two aspects in the ecclesiastical life of the eighth century should be distinguished, the religious and the secular.

The iconoclastic emperors, born in the East, were well acquainted with the religious views prevalent in the eastern provinces; they grew up with these views and were closely identified with them. Upon ascending the Byzantine throne they brought their views to the capital and made them the basis of their church policy. These emperors were neither infidels nor rationalists, as used to be maintained. On the contrary, they were men of a sincere and convinced faith, and desired to purge religion of those errors which permeated it and diverted it from its true original course. From their point of view, image-worship and the adoration of relics were both survivals of paganism which had to be abolished at all costs in order to restore the Christian faith to its original pure form. I am emperor and priest, wrote Leo III to Pope Gregory II. With this claim as a point of departure, Leo III considered it his legal right to make his own religious views compulsory for all his subjects. This attitude cannot be viewed as an innovation. It was the accepted caesaro-papistic view of the Byzantine emperors particularly prevalent in the time of Justinian the Great, who had also considered himself the sole authority in spiritual as well as in temporal matters. Leo III, too, was a convinced representative of the idea of Caesaropapism.

The first nine years of Leo's reign, devoted to repelling external enemies and to establishing the security of the throne, were not marked by any measures with regard to images. The ecclesiastical activity of the Emperor during this period was expressed only in his demand that the Jews and the eastern sect of Montanists be baptized.

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