Page "Pope Gregory II" Paragraph 20

” You say: ‘ We worship stones and walls and boards .’ But it is not so, O Emperor ; but they serve us for remembrance and encouragement, lifting our slow spirits upwards, by those whose names the pictures bear and whose representations they are.

And we worship them not as God, as you maintain, God forbid !...

Even the little children mock at you.

Go into one of their schools, say that you are the enemy of images, and straightway they will throw their little tablets at your head, and what you have failed to learn from the wise you may pick up from the foolish ...

In virtue of the power which has come down to us from St. Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, we might inflict a punishment upon you, but since you have invoked one on yourself, have that, you and the counsellors you have chosen ... though you have so excellent a high priest, our brother Germanus, whom you ought to have taken into your counsels as father and teacher.

The dogmas of the Church are not a matter for the emperor, but for the bishops .”