The All Seeing Spirit, in ch. ix. 20, intimates that the "plagues" of the first and second woes were designed to abolish, or punish, the worshippng of daemonial things, and idols or images. There were many other abominations concurrent with these woes not specified; but diamonia, and eidola, things related to daemons, and idols, are especially named, because the ages contemporary with the fifth, and the interval preceding the sixth trumpet, were conspicuous for the legal establishment of the worship of daemonials, and their idolatrous symbols, called images or idols.

The introduction and establishment of daemonial and idol worship as an institution of the catholic apostasy, was progressive. It began with a "voluntary humility and worshipping of angels" -- and intruding into the unseen, and a vain inflation of the mind of the flesh, in the apostolic age, as appears from Col. ii. 17; and was established as early as the end of the sixth century, but more firmly by Greek and Papal authority in the eighth and ninth. In the beginning of the eighth, the idol worship was in full magnitude, and became a striking characteristic of the Laodicean Apostasy; so that with Jews, Saracens, Turkmans, Monguls, and Bible Christians, apocalyptically styled "the Golden Altar," and the "sealed," catholics and idolators were and are but different terms for the same thing.

As I do not write for "the learned," who are supposed to know all about the history of the past, but whose ability to apply it rightly for apocalyptic exposition is at zero; I shall give the reader a brief account, condensed from Gibbon, of the idolatry which brought the judgments of the first and second woes upon "the men" of the Greek and Latin sections of the Roman world.

At the head of certain ecclesiastical phenomena, by which the decline and fall of the Roman empire were materially affected, "We may," says he, "justly rank the Worship of Images, so fiercely disputed in the eighth and ninth centuries;" since this question of popular superstition produced the revolt of Italy from the Greek, or Sixth Dragon-Head of the empire; developed the temporal power of the popes; and the restoration of the Roman empire of the west under its last, or Eighth Head.

Images or idols are symbols. They are symbols which represent the things related to daemons -- ta daimonia. Hence, when a catholic idolator looks upon the statue or image of Jupiter, which he has been taught to regard as the image of Saint Peter, that Saint Peter upon which the catholic church is built, he immediately has before "the mind of his flesh," ho nous tes sarkos autou, a disembodied ghost, with a bunch of keys, at the gates of Paradise, called Saint Peter. He bows before this image and kisses it, as the nearest approach he can make to bowing before the daemon-ghost in the aerial. It is to him not merely an image, but a representative image, or idol, before which certain attitudes are assumed, offerings presented, vows made, prayers repeated, which get no nearer heaven than the eyes, ears, and pockets of the hypocrites who minister before the symbol. The first introduction of this symbolic worship was in the veneration of the cross, and of relics. At first, the experiment of daemonial relic and image worship was made with caution and scruple. By a slow though inevitable progression the honors conferred on the original daemon were transferred to the copy, whether in picture, or in marble, wood, brass, silver or gold the votary prayed before the image of a deified ghost; and the pagan rites of genuflexion, luminaries, and incense, reappeared in the catholic church. The use, and even the worship of images, was ineradicably established before the end of the sixth century. They were fondly cherished by the warm imagination of the Greeks and Asiatics; and the Pantheon and Vatican were adorned with the emblems of the new superstition.

Five hundred years after the crucifixion, a certain bishop "speaking lies in hypocrisy," pretended to have discovered a true image of Christ, which he presented to the devotion of the times. It was enthroned at Edessa in Syria, where it was adored by the catholics as the immediate creation of the divine original. The style and sentiments of a Byzantine hymn will declare how far their worship was removed from the grossest idolatry. "How can we with mortal eyes contemplate this image, whose celestial splendor the host of heaven presumes not to behold? He who dwells in heaven condescends this day to visit us by his venerable image. He who is seated on the cherubim visits us this day by a picture, which the Father has delineated with his immaculate hand, which he has formed in an ineffable manner, and which we sanctify by adoring it with fear and love." Before the end of the sixth century, these acheiropoietal images (images made without hands) were propagated in the camps and cities of the Eastern Third; they were the objects of worship, and the instruments of miracles. The fruitful precedent was speedily transferred to the Virgin Mary, and the daemonials of the catholic air; not very godlike, doubtless, being but faintly and flatly delineated by monkish artists in the last degeneracy of taste and genius.

In the beginning of the eighth century, in the full magnitude of the abuse, many of the Greeks were awakened to the conviction, that under the name of christianity they had restored the idolatry of their fathers; and they heard, with grief and impatience, from Mohammedans and Jews the incessant charge of worshipping daemonials images, which were incapable of defending themselves, much less the cities which superstition had placed under their protection. In ten years, the Saracens had subdued all the daemonially protected cities of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt, by which conquest, in their opinion, the Lord of hosts had pronounced a decisive judgment between the adoration and contempt of their mute and inanimate idols. In this season of distress and dismay, when the worshippers sought death, but found it not; and desired to die, and the death fled from them (ix. 6) the eloquence of the monks was exercised in the defence of images. "But," says the historian, "they were now opposed by the murmurs of many simple or rational christians, who appealed to the evidence of texts, and of the primitive times, and secretly desired the reformation of the church."

This reformation was attempted by Leo III, surnamed Iconoclast, who ascended the throne of the Eastern Third, A.D. 726. After ten years, he proscribed the existence, as well as the use of religious pictures; the church-bazaars of Constantinople were cleansed from idolatry; the images of Christ, "the Virgin, and the saints," were demolished, or a smooth surface of plaster was spread over the walls of the edifice. For these things, Leo the Isaurian, and his party, were styled Iconoclasts, or Image breakers; by whom under six emperors, the East and West were involved in a noisy conflict of one hundred and twenty years. They held a synod in Constantinople, A.D. 754, which, after a session of six months, decreed, that all visible symbols of Christ, except in the eucharist, were either blasphemous or heretical; that image-worship was a corruption of christianity and a renewal of paganism; that all such monuments of idolatry should be broken or erased; and that those who should refuse to deliver the objects of their private superstition were guilty of disobedience to the authority of the church and of the emperor.

The execution of the imperial edict was resisted by frequent tumults in Constantinople and the provinces; the person of Leo was endangered, his officers were massacred, and the popular enthusiasm was quelled by the strongest efforts of the civil and military power. Of the Archipelago, or Holy Sea, the numerous islands were filled with images and monks; and their votaries abjured the emperor, without scruple, as the enemy of Christ, his mother, and the saints. They sallied forth in armed boats and galleys against the capital, depending upon the succor of a miracle for success. But monkish miracles were inefficient against Greek fire, which wrapped their fleet in a sheet of flame, and gave victory to the image breakers; who forthwith suppressed the monks, ever the faithful slaves of the superstition to which they owed their riches and influence; dissolved their fraternities; converted their monasteries into magazines, or barracks; and confiscated their lands, movables, and cattle, to the use of the state. With the habit and profession of monks, the public and private worship of images was rigorously prescribed; and a solemn abjuration of idolatry was exacted from the clergy of the Eastern Third of the Roman orb.

The patient east abjured, with reluctance, her sacred images; while they were fondly cherished, and vigorously defended, by the Italians. Their popes were the chief advocates of "the daemonials and idols." It is agreed, that in the eighth century, their dominion was founded on rebellion, and that the rebellion was produced and justified by the heresy of the Iconoclasts. In the epistle of Pope Gregory II to the Emperor Leo, A.D. 727, he says: "You now accuse the catholics of idolatry; and by the accusation you betray your own impiety and ignorance. To this ignorance we are compelled to adapt the grossness of our style and arguments: the first elements of holy letters are sufficient for your confusion; and were you to enter a grammar school, and avow yourself the enemy of our worship, the simple and pious children would be provoked to cast their horn books at your head." After this very episcopal salutation, he maintains a distinction between the idols of antiquity and the catholic images. The former were the fanciful representations of phantoms or daemons; while the latter are the genuine forms of Christ, his mother, and his saints, who have approved by a crowd of miracles the innocence and merit of this relative worship; and falsely asserts the perpetual use of images from the apostolic age. Then addressing Leo, he continues: "You assault us, O Tyrant! with a carnal and military hand; unarmed and naked, we can only implore the Christ, the prince of the heavenly host, that he will send unto you a devil, for the destruction of your body and the salvation of your soul. You declare with foolish arrogance, I will despatch my orders to Rome, I will break in pieces the image of St. Peter; and Gregory, like his predecessor Martin, shall be transported in chains, and in exile, to the foot of the imperial throne. Incapable as you are of defending your Roman subjects, the maritime situation of the city may perhaps expose it to your depreciations; but we can remove to the distance of four and twenty stadia, to the first fortress of the Lombards, and then -- you may pursue the winds. Are you ignorant that the popes are the bond of union, the mediators of peace (daimones daemons, in the sense of ch. xviii. 2), between the east and west? The eyes of the nations are fixed on our humility ("pride that apes humility"); and they revere, as a God upon earth, the apostle Saint Peter, whose image you threaten to destroy. The barbarians have submitted to the yoke of the gospel, while you alone are deaf to the voice of the shepherd. These pious barbarians are kindled into rage: they thirst to avenge the persecution of the east. Abandon your rash and fatal enterprise; reflect, tremble, and repent. If you persist, we are innocent of the blood that will be spilt in the contest; may it fall on your own head."

When Leo’s proscriptive edict arrived in Italy, the catholics trembled for their domestic deities; the images of Christ and the Virgin, of the angels, martyrs, and saints, were abolished in all the church-bazaars of the country; and a strong alternative was proposed to the pope, the imperial favor of the Dragon Chief as the price of compliance, or degradation and exile as the penalty of disobedience. Gregory refused to submit, and gave the signal of revolt. The Italians swore to live and die in the defence of the pope, and the holy images. They destroyed the statues of Leo, withheld the tribute of Italy, and put to an ignominious death the officials who undertook to enforce his decree. To punish these flagitious deeds, and to restore the dominion of the Dragon in Italy, Leo sent a fleet and army into the Adriatic gulf. In a hard fought day, the invaders were defeated, and the worship of images vindicated in a baptism of blood. Amidst the triumph of the idolators, their Chief Pontiff, with the consent of a synod hastily convened, pronounced a general excommunication against all who by word or deed should attack the traditions of the fathers and the images of the saints. They spared, however, the relics of the Byzantine dominion. They delayed and prevented the election of a new emperor, and exhorted the Italians not to separate from the body of the Roman monarchy: and till the imperial coronation of Charlemagne, A.D. 799, the government of Rome and Italy was administered in the name of the successors of Constantine.

While the popes established in Italy their freedom and dominion, the images, the first cause of their revolt, were restored in the eastern empire. The tree of superstition had been hewn down, but the stump was still enrooted in the soil. The idols were secretly cherished by the monks and women, whose fond alliance obtained a final victory over the reason and authority of man. The ambitious empress Irene, A.D. 780, undertook the ruin of the Iconoclasts. In her restoration of the monks, a thousand images were exposed to the public veneration; and a thousand lying legends invented of their sufferings and miracles. The seventh general council was convened at Nice, A.D. 787. The legates of the Roman God, and the eastern patriarch, sat in the synod of three hundred and fifty bishops, who unanimously decreed, that the worship of images is agreeable to scripture and reason, to the fathers and council of the church. The acts of this council are still extant; a curious monument of superstition and ignorance, of falsehood and folly. The comparative merit of image worship and morality in the judgment of these bishops, is illustrated by the following anecdote. A monk had concluded a truce with the daemon of fornication on condition of interrupting his daily prayers to a picture that hung in his cell. His scruples prompted him to consult the Abbot. "Rather than abstain from adoring Christ and his Mother in their holy images, it would be better for you," said he, "to enter every brothel, and visit every prostitute in the city."

The final victory of "the daemonials and idols" was achieved by a second female, the empress Theodore, who was left guardian of the empire A.D. 842. Her measures were bold and decisive. She ordered the Iconoclast patriarch to be whipped with two hundred lashes. Upon this the bishops trembled, the monks shouted, and idolatry reigned supreme. The churches of France, Germany, England, and Spain, steered a middle course between the adoration and the destruction of the idols, which they admitted into their temples, not as objects of worship, but as lively and useful memorials of faith and history. Among the barbarians of the west the worship of idols advanced with silent and insensible progress, because among them were "nourished the Woman and the Remnant of her seed" (xii. 14-17); but a large atonement is made for their hesitation and delay, by the gross idolatry of the ages which precede the protestant modification of Romanism, and of the countries, both in Europe and America, which are still immersed in the gloom of daemonial superstition.

Thus, having become inveterate idolators "the inhabitants of the earth" were given over to their delusions, and nothing remained but to inflict upon them the sanguinary judgments of the three woes, or fifth, sixth, and seventh trumpets. As I have said, the second woe ended in A.D. 1794; and since then, the third woe has been doing its work upon the daemonialists and image worshippers of the European and American sections of the globe. Its judgments have not yet ceased; for "the rest of the men" have "not changed from the works of their hands, that they should not worship the daemonials and idols;" nor have they of the "religious world" abandoned murder, sorcery, fornication, and theft. Therefore the judgments of the third woe will not cease, until all the catholic, protestant, and sectarian systems of Daemonialism shall be destroyed; and Yahweh be alone exalted as Elohim and King over all the earth in a peaceful and glorious reign of one thousand years (v. 10; xx. 4,6).