16 THE HISTORY OF THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE
Leo III issued the first edict against images, which in the
Greek Church was directed specifically against the icons.
Under Constantine V the struggle became more embittered,
and in 765 a fierce persecution was set on foot. In 787 the
Empress Irene, an Athenian by birth, succeeded in re-
establishing the cult of images, but an Iconoclast reaction
under three Emperors of Asiatic origin (8 I3~42^renewed,
though with more limited scope, the measures of Leo and
Constantine. In 843 the images were finally restored.
The Iconoclast movement can be treated neither in
isolation from the secular reforms, nor as subordinate to
them. In its later stages the attack was directed primarily
against the power and influence of the monasteries, as being
the strongholds of the cult of images; and the monks reta-
liated by boldly challenging the Emperor's constitutional
supremacy in Church affairs. But the Isaurians were neither
rationalist anti-clericals nor dogmatic innovators. The use
of images had not been favoured by the Early Church, and
puritan tendencies had appeared sporadically in the fourth
and sixth centuries. Asia Minor was their particular centre
at this time, and Jewish or Muslim hostility in these parts
to a religious use of an art of representation may not have
been without effect, as the abusive epithet * Saracen-minded',
hurled at Leo III by his opponents, possibly indicates.
Christological issues were deeply involved on either side,
and it must always be emphasized that for the Byzantines
the question was primarily a theological one. Popular
feeling and the immense power of tradition were ultimately
the deciding factors. The triumph of the icon-defenders
was a victory for popular religion and popular ways of
thought. The defeat, on the other hand, of the movement
towards a separation between the spheres of State and
Church reflected no less accurately the Byzantine conviction
of the indissolubility of civil and religious government.
The reign of Irene, first as regent, and later as Empress
after the deposition and blinding of her son, appears at first
sight to be merely an interlude between two periods of
Iconoclasm. Actually, however, the Second Council of
Nicaea (787), which temporarily restored the images,
formulated the theory of icon-worship with such success