The second tome of homilies of such matters as were promised, and entitled in…The second tome of homilees of such matters as were promised, and intituled in…

The cause why the Empress Irene thus used her father in law, was, for that he when he was alive had destroyed images, and had taken away the sumptuous ornaments of Churches, saying that Christ, whose temples they were, allowed poverty, and not pearls and precious stones. Afterward the said Irene, at the persuasion of Adrian bishop of Rome, & Paul the patriarch of Constantinople & his successor Tharasius, assembled a council of ⟨p. 71⟩the bishops of Asia and Greece, at the city Nicaea, where the bishop of Romes legates, being presidents of the council, and ordering all things as they listed: the council which was assembled before under the Emperor Constantine the fifth, and had decreed that all images should be destroyed, was condemned as an heretical council and assemble: And a decree was made, that images should be set up in all the Churches of Greece, and that honour and worship also ¹should be given unto the said images. And so the Empress, sparing no diligence in setting up of Images, nor cost in decking them in all churches, made Constantinople within a short time altogether like Rome it self. And now you may see that come to pass which Bishop Serenus feared, and Gregory the first forbade in vain: to wit, that Images should in no wise be worshipped. For now not only the simple and unwise (unto whom Images, as the scriptures teach, be specially a snare) but the bishops and learned men also, fall to idolatry by occasion of images, yea and make decrees and laws for the maintenance of the same. So hard is it, and in deed impossible any long time to have images publicly in churches & temples without idolatry, as by the space of little more then one hundred years betwixt Gregory the first, forbidding most straitly the worshipping of images, and Gregory the third, Paul, and Leo the third, Bishops of Rome, with this council commanding and decreeing that images should be worshipped, most evidently appeareth.

The cause why the Empresse Hyrene thus vsed her father in lawe, was, for that he when he was alyue had destroyed images, and had taken away the sumptuous ornamentes of Churches, saying that Christ, whose temples they were, allowed pouertie, and not pearles and pretious stones. Afterward the said Hyrene, at the perswasion of Adrian bishop of Rome, & Paul the patriarch of Constantinople & his successour Tharasius, assembled a councel of ⟨p. 71⟩