on the right side; iconoclasm was less reprehensible than the 'idolatry' of the Greeks. Those who were hottest in their repudiation of Claudius, used very similar language with regard to the other extreme. (De eccl. rer. exord. viii. Migne 114. 928.) Walafrid Strabo, who became abbat of Reichenau in 842, holds a scrupulous balance in the controversy; and Walafrid had been a pupil of Rabanus Maurus, and was in some sort a representative theologian of his age. How little, too, the style of argument adopted by his antagonist Jonas commends itself to modern catholics may be gathered from the cautions and expostulations with which his Benedictine editors have thought it necessary to accompany him.[1] Claudius was in fact carrying to their logical issues principles which were virtually recognised by the council of Paris in 825, and which even fifty years later were mentioned by the papal librarian Anastasius, in a dedication to John the Eighth, as still holding their ground among certain persons in Gaul[2] at a time when the Greek practice had won nearly universal acceptance in the west. We can therefore hardly take bishop Jonas at his word when he speaks of Claudius as an enemy of (p. 169 C.) all the sincerest churchmen, the most devoted soldiers of Christ, in Gaul and Germany: we know indeed from a friend who was also Claudius's opponent in this respect (Theodemir. epist. ad Claud., ap. F. A. Zachari. Biblioth. Pistor. 60, Turin 1752 folio.), that in spite of his action in the matter of images, his commentaries on the Bible were received with eager enthusiasm by not a few of the highest prelates of Gaul.
Claudius therefore took no pains to defend himself until he had carried on his warfare during a number of years. His Apologetic – a defiant proclamation of his views – he at last addressed to his former friend, the abbat Theodemir, who had warned him of the perilous course he was taking. The answer was a council of bishops held at Lewis's court (Dungal 223 H, Jonas 167 D.), and a condemnation; but Claudius can hardly have been much awed by what he is reported to
