Introductory Notice to the Decretals
Introductory Notice to the Decretals
The learned editors of the Edinburgh series have given us only a specimen of these frauds, which, pretending to be a series of "papal edicts" from Clement and his successors during the ante-Nicene ages, are, in fact, the manufactured product of the ninth century,-the most stupendous imposture of the world's history, the most successful and the most stubborn in its hold upon enlightened nations. Like the mason's framework of lath and scantlings, on which he turns an arch of massive stone, the Decretals served their purpose, enabling Nicholas I. to found the Papacy by their insignificant aid. That swelling arch of vanity once reared, the framework might be knocked out; but the fabric stood, and has borne up every weight imposed upon it for ages. Its strong abutments have been ignorance and despotism. Nicholas produced his flimsy framework of imposture, and amazed the whole Church by the audacity of the claims he founded upon it. The age, however, was unlearned and uncritical; and, in spite of remonstrances from France under lead of Hincmar, bishop of Rheims, the West patiently submitted to the overthrow of the ancient Canons and the Nicene Constitutions, and bowed to the yoke of a new canon-law, of which these frauds were not only made an integral, but the essential, part. The East never accepted them for a moment: her great patriarchates retain the Nicene System to this day. But, as the established religion of the "Holy Roman Empire," the national churches of Western Europe, one by one, succumbed to this revolt from historic Catholicity. The Eastern churches were the more numerous. They stood by the Constitutions confirmed by all the Oecumenical Synods; they altered not a word of the Nicene Creed; they stood up for the great Catholic law, "Let the ancient customs prevail; "and they were, and are to this day, the grand historic stem of Christendom. The Papacy created the Western schism, and contrived to call it "the schism of the Greeks." The Decretals had created the Papacy, and they enabled the first Pope to assume that communion with himself was the test of Catholic communion: hence his excommunication of the Easterns, which, after brief intervals of relaxation, settled into the chronic schism of the Papacy, and produced the awful history of the mediaeval Church in Western Europe.
In naming Nicholas I. as the founder of the Papacy, and the first Pope, I merely reach the logical consequence of admitted facts and demonstrated truths. I merely apply the recognised principles of modern thought and scientific law to the science of history, and dismiss the technology of empiricism in this science, as our age has abolished similar empiricisms in the exact sciences. For ages after Copernicus, even those who basked in the light of the true system of the universe went on in the old ruts, talking as if the Ptolemaic theory were yet a reality: and so the very historians whose lucid pages explode the whole fabric of the Papal communion, still go on, in the language of fable, giving to the early Bishops of Rome the title of "Popes; "counting St. Peter as the first Pope; bewildering the student by many confusions of fact with fable; and conceding to the modern fabric of Romanism the name of "the Catholic Church," with all the immense advantages that accrue to falsehood by such a surrender of truth, and the consequent endowment of imposture with the raiment and the domain of Apostolic antiquity.
The student of this series must have noted the following fundamental facts:-
1. That the name papa was common to all bishops, and signified no pre-eminence in those who bore it.
2. That the Apostolic Sees were all equally accounted matrices of unity, and the roots of other Catholic churches.
3. That, down to the Council of Nicaea, the whole system of the Church was framed on this principle, and that these were the "ancient customs" which that council ordained to be perpetual.
4. That "because it was the old capital of the empire," and for no other reason (the Petrine idea never once mentioned), the primacy of honour was conceded to Old Rome, and equal honour to New Rome, because it was the new capital.(1) It was to be named second on the list of patriarchates, but to be in no wise inferior to Old Rome; while the ancient and all-commanding patriarchate of Alexandria yielded this credit to the parvenu of Byzantium only on the principle of the Gospel, "in honour preferring one another," and only because the imperial capital must be the centre of Catholic concourse.
Now, the rest of the story must be sought in post-Nicene history. The salient points are as follows:-
1. The mighty centralization about Constantinople; the three councils held within its walls; the virtual session of the other councils under its eaves; the inconsiderable figure of "Old Rome" in strictly ecclesiastical history; her barrenness of literature, and of great heroic sons, like Athanasius and Chrysostom in the East, and Cyprian and Augustine in the West; and her decadence as a capital,-had led Leo I., and others after him, to dwell much upon "St. Peter," and to-favour new ideas of his personal greatness, and of a transmitted grandeur as the inheritance of his successors. As yet, these were but "great swelling words of vanity; "but they led to the formulated fraud of the Decretals.
2. Ambition once entering the pale of Catholicity, we find a counter idea to that of the councils at the root of the first usurpation of unscriptural dignity. John "the Faster," bishop of New Rome, conceived himself not merely equal (as the councils had decreed) to the bishop of Old Rome, but his superior, in view of the decrepitude of the latter, and its occupation by the Goths, while the imperial dignity of Constantinople was now matured. He called himself "Oecumenical Bishop."
3. Gregory was then bishop of "Old Rome," and that was the time to assert the principle of the Decretals, had any such idea ever been heard of. How did he meet his brother's arrogance? Not appealing to decretals, not by asserting that such was his own dignity derived from St. Peter, but by protesting against such abasement of all the other patriarchs and all other bishops (who were all equals), and by pronouncing the impious assumption of such a nefarious title to denote a "forerunner of Antichrist." Plainly, then, there was no "Pope" known to Christendom at the close of the sixth century.
4. But hardly was Gregory in his grave when court policy led the Emperor Phocas (one of the most infamous of men) to gratify the wicked ambition of the new Bishop of Rome by giving to him the titular honour of being a "forerunner of Antichrist." Boniface III. (607 a.d.) assumed the daring title of "Universal Bishop." But it was a mere court-title: the Church never recognised it; and so it went down to his successors as mere "sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal" till the days of Charlemagne.
5. In his times the Petrine fable had grown upon the Western mind. All Western Europe had but one Apostolic See. As "the Apostolic See" it was known throughout the West, just as "the Post-Office" means that which is nearest to one's own dwelling. What was geographically true, had grown to be theologically false, however; and the Bishop of Rome began to consider himself the only inheritor of Apostolic precedency, if not of all Apostolic authority and power.
6. The formation of the Western Empire favoured this assumption: but it did not take definite shape while Charlemagne lived, for he regarded himself, like Constantine, the "head of the Church; "(2) and in his day he acted as supreme pontiff, called the Council of Frankfort, overruled the Roman bishop, and, in short, was a lay-Pope throughout his empire. That nobody refused him all he claimed, that Adrian "couched like a strong ass" under the burden of his rebukes, and that Leo paid him bodily "homage," demonstrated that no such character as a "Pope" was yet in existence. Leo III. had personally "adored" Charlemagne with the homage afterwards rendered to the pontiffs, and Adrian had set him the example of personal submission.
7. But, Charlemagne's feeble sons and successors proving incapable of exercising his power, the West only waited for an ambitious and original genius to come to the See of Rome, to yield him all that Charlemagne had claimed, and to invest him with the more sacred character of the Apostolic head to the whole Church.
8. Such a character arose in Nicholas I. He found the Decretals made to his hand by some impostor, and he saw a benighted age ready to accept his assumptions. He therefore used them, and passed them into the organic canon-law of the West. The "Holy Roman Empire" reluctantly received the impious frauds(3) the East contemptuously resisted. Thus the Papacy was formed on the base of the "Holy Roman Empire," and arrogated to itself the right to cut off and anathematize the greater part of Christendom, with the old patriarchal Sees. So we have in Nicholas the first figure in history in whose person is concentrated what Rome means by the Papacy. No "Pope" ever existed previously, in the sense of her canon-law; and it was not till two centuries longer that even a "Pope" presumed to pronounce that title peculiar to the Bishop of Rome.(4)
Such, then, are the historical facts, which render vastly important some study of the Decretals. I shall give what follows exclusively from "Roman-Catholic" sources. Says the learned Dupin:(5) -
1. All these Decretals were unknown to all the ancient Fathers, to all the Popes and all the ecclesiastical authors that wrote before the ninth century. Now, what rational man can believe that so vast a number of letters, composed by so many holy Popes, containing so many important points in relation to the discipline of the Church, could be unknown to Eusebius, to St. Jerome, to St. Augustine, to St. Basil, and, in short, to all those authors that have spoken of their writings, or who have written upon the discipline of the Church? Could it possibly happen that the Popes, to whom these epistles are so very favourable, would never have cited and alleged them to aggrandize their own reputation? Who could ever imagine that the decisions of these Decretals should be never so much as quoted in any council or in any canon? He that will seriously consider with himself, that, since these Decretals have been imposed upon the world, they have been cited in an infinite number of places by Popes, by councils, and as often by canonists, will be readily convinced that they would have acquired immense credit, and been very often quoted by antiquity, if they had been genuine and true.
Here I must direct attention to the all-important fact, that whatever may have been the authorship of these forgeries, the Roman pontiffs, and the "Roman Catholic" communion as such, have committed themselves over and over again to the fraud, as Dupin remarks above, and that, long after the imposture was demonstrated and exposed; in proof of which I cite the following, from one whose eyes were opened by his patient investigation of such facts, but who, while a member of the Roman communion, wrote to his co-religionist Cardinal Manning as follows :(6) -
Is it credible that the Papacy should have so often appealed to these forgeries for its extended claims, had it any better authorities-distinctive authorities-to fall back upon? Every disputant on the Latin side finds in these forgeries a convincing argument against the Greeks. `To prove this, 'the universal jurisdiction of the Pope, said Abbot Barlaam, himself converted by them from the Greek Church, to convert his countrymen, `one need only look through the decretal epistles of the Roman pontiffs from St. Clement to St. Sylvester.' In the twenty-fifth session of the Council of Florence the provincial of the Dominicans is ordered to address the Greeks on the rights of the Pope, the Pope being present. Twice he argues from the pseudo-decretal of St. Anacletus, at another time from a synodical letter of St. Athanasius to Felix, at another time from a letter of Julius to the Easterns, all forgeries. Afterwards, in reply to objections taken by Bessarion, in conference, to their authority, apart from any question of their authenticity, his position in another speech is, `that those decretal epistles of the Popes, being synodical epistles in each case, are entitled to the same authority as the Canons themselves.' Can we need further evidence of the weight attached to them on the Latin side?
"Popes appealed to them in their official capacity, as well as private doctors; (1) Leo IX., for instance, to the pseudo-donation in the prolix epistle written by him, or in his name, to Michael Cerularius, patriarch of Constantinople, on the eve of the schism. (2) Eugenius IV. to the pseudo-decretals of St. Alexander and Julius, during the negotiations for healing it, in his instructions to the Armenians. (3) But why, my lord, need I travel any further for proofs, when in the Catechism of the Council of Trent, that has been for three. centuries the accredited instructor of the clergy themselves, recommended authoritatively by so many Popes, notwithstanding the real value of these miserable impostures had been for three centuries before the world, I find these words:(7) `On the primacy of the Supreme Pontiff, see the third epistle (that is, pseudo-decretal) of Anacletus'! Such is, actually, the authority to which the clergy of our own days are referred, in the first instance, for sound and true views on the primacy. (4) Afterwards, when they have mastered what is said there, they may turn to three more authorities, all culled likewise from Gratian, which they will not fail to interpret in accordance with the ideas they have already imbibed. Nor can I refrain from calling attention to a much more flagrant case. On the sacrament of confirmation there had been many questions raised by the Reformers, calculated to set people thinking, and anxious to know the strict truth respecting it. On this the Catechism proceeds as follows:(8) -
"`Since it has been already shown how necessary it would be to teach generally respecting all the sacraments, by whom they were instituted, so there is need of similar instruction respecting confirmation, that the faithful may be the more attracted by the holiness of this sacrament. Pastors must therefore explain that not only was Christ our Lord the author of it, but that, on the authority of the Roman pontiff St. Fabian (i.e., the pseudo-decretal attributed to him), He instituted the rite of the chrism, and the words used by the Catholic Church in its administration.'
"Strange phenomenon, indeed, that the asseverations of such authorities should be still ordered to be taught as Gospel from our pulpits in these days, when everybody that is acquainted with the merest rudiments of ecclesiastical history knows how absolutely unauthenticated they are in point of fact, and how unquestionably the authorities cited to prove them are forgeries.
"Absolutely, my lord, with such evidence before me, I am unable to resist the inference that truthfulness is not one of the strongest characteristics of the teaching of even the modern Church of Rome; for is not this a case palpably where its highest living authorities are both indifferent to having possible untruths preached from the pulpit, and something more than indifferent to having forgeries, after their detection as such, adduced from the pulpit to authenticate facts?
"This, again, strongly reminds me of a conversation I had with the excellent French priest who received me into the Roman-Catholic Church, some time subsequently to that event. I had, as an Anglican, inquired very laboriously into the genuineness of the Santa Casa: and having visited Nazareth and Loretto since, and plunged into the question anew at each place, came back more thoroughly convinced than ever of its utterly fictitious character, notwithstanding the privileges bestowed upon it by so many Popes. On stating my convictions to him, his only reply was: `There are many things in the Breviary which I do not believe, myself.' Oh the stumbling-blocks of a system in the construction of which forgeries have been so largely used, in which it is still thought possible for the clergy to derive edification from legends which they cannot believe, and the people instruction from works of acknowledged imposture!
Further, Dupin remarks:(9) -
The first man that published them, if we may believe Hincmar, was one Riculphus, bishop of Mentz, who died about the ninth century. It is commonly believed, seeing the collection bears the name of Isidore, that he brought them from Spain. But it never could have been composed by the great Archbishop of Seville; and there is great reason to believe that no Spaniard, but rather some German or Frenchman, began this imposture,
"It likewise seems probable that some of these Decretals have been foisted in since the time of Riculphus. Benedict, a deacon of the church of Mentz, who made a collection of canons for the successors of Riculphus, may have put the last hand to this collection of false Decretals attributed to one Isidore, a different person from the famous Bishop of Seville, and surnamed Peccator, or Mercator. About his time a certain Isidore did come from Spain, along with some merchants, and then withdrew to Mentz. Not improbably, therefore, this man's name was given to the collection, and it was naturally believed that it was brought from Spain.
"And since these letters first appeared in an unlearned, dark age, what wonder is it that they were received with very little opposition? And yet Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims, with other French bishops, made great difficulty in accepting them, even in that time. soon after, however, they acquired some authority, owing to the support of the court of Rome, the pretensions of which they mightily favoured.
On the twin imposture of the "Donation of Constantine," it may be well to cite the same learned authority. But this shall be found elsewhere.(10)
Let me now recur to the same candid Gallican doctor, Dupin, who remarks as follows:-
2. The imposture of these letters is invincibly proved from hence: because they are made up of a contexture of passages out of Fathers, councils, papal epistles, and imperial ordinances, which have appeared after the third century, down to the middle of the ninth.
" 3. The citations of Scripture in all these letters follow the Vulgate of St. Jerome, which demonstrates that they are since his time (a.d. 420), and consequently do not proceed from Popes who lived long before St. Jerome.
" 4. The matter of these letters is not at all in keeping with the ages when those to whom they are attributed were living.
" 5. These Decretals are full of anachronisms. The consulships and names of consuls mentioned in them are confused and out of order; and, moreover, the true dates of the writers themselves, as Bishops of Rome, do not agree with those assumed in these letters.
"6 Their style is extremely barbarous, full of solecisms; and in them we often meet with certain words never used till the latter ages. Also, they are all of one style! How does it happen that so many different Popes, living in divers centuries, should all write in the same manner?
Dupin then goes on to examine the whole series with learning and candour, showing that every single one of them "carries with it unequivocal signs of lying and imposture." To his pages let the student recur, therefore. I follow him in the following enumeration of the frauds he calmly exposes with searching logic and demonstration:-
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