Note 17 — Part I

The Rev. J. S. Black says, in his article on "Images," above referred to, that even as early as the fourth or fifth centuries there is evidence of the tendency to enlist art in the service of the Church, while Woltmann and Woermann (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 167) quote the following instance: "When St. Nilus (A.D. 450) was consulted about the decoration of a church, he rejected as childish and unworthy the intended design of plants, birds, animals, and a number of crosses, and desired the interior to be adorned with pictures from the Old and New Testaments, with the same motive that Gregory II expressed afterwards...."