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The Prophetic Faith of Our Fathers, vol. 1

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    V. FORGED “DECRETAL EPISTLES” AFFORDS SUPREMACY OVER KINGS

    Papal ambition had heretofore been directed to the establishment of ecclesiastical supremacy. But in the ninth and tenth centuries this, as noted, was extended to embrace a new realm of conquest. Already richly endowed by Pepin and Charlemagne, the empire and the Papacy entered a tremendous struggle for supremacy. At first the popes submitted to the authority of the emperor, with excommunication as the weapon commonly wielded in their struggle with the world’s great potentates. Gibbon significantly observes, “Under the sacerdotal monarchy of St. Peter, the nations began to resume the practice of seeking, on the banks of the Tiber, their kings, their laws, and the oracles of their fate.” 73Gibbon, op. clt., chap. 49, vol. 5, p. 268.PFF1 537.1

    1. PAPAL SUPREMACY BUILT ON FABRICATION OF DECRETALS

    But the boldest of Rome’s growing claims had their basis in the False Decretals, or the Decretals of the Pseudo-Isidore, the second of two notorious forgeries. (The first was, of course, the Donation of Constantine.) The effect of these forgeries was tremendous in advancing the temporal rulership and ecclesiastical supremacy of the popes—the Donation of Constantine forwarding the one, and the False Decretals the other. 74See Migne, PL, vol. 130; also Decretates Pseudo-lsidorianae, edited by Hinschius. Two authorities on Rome will suffice.PFF1 537.2

    “Before the end of the eighth century, some apostolical scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the two magic pillars of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes.” 75Gibbon, op. cit., chap. 49, vol. 5, pp. 273, 274.PFF1 537.3

    “Upon these spurious decretals was built the great fabric of papal supremacy over the different national churches; a fabric which has stood after its foundation crumbled beneath it; for no one has pretended to deny, for the last two centuries, that the imposture is too palpable for any but the most ignorant ages to credit.” 76Henry Hallam, View of the State of Europe During the Middle Ages, vol. 2, p. 164.PFF1 537.4

    Ignorance of the true history of the past has been bolstered up by these carefully devised fictions. The forged Donation of Constantine came to be regarded as indisputable as the canons of the Council of Nicaea, and the fabricated decretals of Isidore lay at the basis of all papal law. 77Charles Beard. The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, p. 4.PFF1 538.1

    The False Decretals were brought forward about 850 by a compiler who used the pseudonym of Isidor Mercator. These purported rescripts, or decrees, contained everything necessary for the establishment of full spiritual supremacy of the popes over the sovereigns of Christendom. Probably no volume ever published has exercised a more injurious influence on both church and state. The False Decretals were the alleged judgments of the popes of former ages, in avowedly unbroken succession from the first century, in answer to various matters submitted to them. Rome was set forth therein as a court of appeal to protect bishops from the tyranny of metropolitans or of civil authorities. These decretals supplied the popes with the means of establishing the superior jurisdiction of Rome and her authority over the faith and practices of Christendom. 78Pennington, Epochs, pp. 607 ff.; Salmon, The Infallibility of the Church, pp. 447 ff.PFF1 538.2

    2. EXALTED POPE, DEBASED MONARCHS, AND ABSOLVED SUBJECTS

    The author or authors of the volume are unknown, but consummate skill was shown in its construction, as seven genuine papal epistles are included—just enough to give credence to the surrounding sixty-five forgeries 79Pennington, Epochs, p. 64. Popes of the first three centuries are made to quote documents that did not appear until the fourth and fifth centuries, and sixth-century popes from documents belonging to the seventh, eighth, and early ninth centuries. 80Lewis Saltet, “False Decretals,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 5, p. 773.PFF1 538.3

    This forgery was brought into active use by Pope Nicholas I (858-867), who pressed the issue of the Roman supremacy to the point of absolute monarchy. 81Salmon, Infallibility, pp. 449, 450. And the Decretal Epistles were declared by this pope to be on an equality with Scripture. 82Pennington, Epochs, p. 60. In the exercise of this supremacy, the pope was to exalt or debase monarchs, and absolve subjects from oaths of allegiance. As Gregory and the Roman Synod of 1080 declared: “We desire to show the world that we can give or take away at our will kingdoms, duchies, earldoms, in a word, the possessions of all men; for we can bind and loose.” 83Mansi, op. cit., vol. 20, col. 535, anno 1080, translated rather freely in Dollinger, The Pope and the Council, p. 110.PFF1 538.4

    3. DECRETALS MAIN PILLAR OF GREGORY’S STRUCTURE

    The authority of the Decretal Epistles was supreme until the Reformation, when they were subjected to searching criticism. The fraud was then recognized by learned divines of the Reformed churches, including Bishop Jewel, as well as by antecedent scholars. For a time Catholic controversialists struggled to maintain its authenticity. But the evidence was so overwhelmingly against them that they were at last obliged to admit its imposture, the fraud even being admitted by Pius VI in 1789. Thus they stand condemned by the united voice of Christendom.PFF1 539.1

    Nevertheless, it was on this fraudulent decretal foundation that Gregory VII (1073-85)-the first to assert the authority of overthrowing kings as belonging to the pope—was to build his superstructure, seeking to weld together the states of Europe into a priestly kingdom, of which he should be head, reigning over all. 84Dollinger. The Pope and the Council, p. 109. Gregory VII, however, apparently never quoted the Donation of Constantine in his struggle for the control of the secular power, though Leo IX did, as did also Urban II, in 1091. (See Coleman, Constantine the Great and Christianity, p. 178: Dollinger, Fables, pp. 134, 135; Ferdinand Gregorovius, History of the City of Rome in the Middle Ages, vol. 4, part 1, pp. 175 ff.; Kirsch, op. cit., p. 121.) Dollinger goes so far as to say, “Without the pseudo-Isidore there would have been no Gregory VII.” 85Dollinger, The Pope and the Council, p. 105.PFF1 539.2

    Weapons are never forged to rust in arsenals; the temptation is too great to use them in order to prove their effectiveness. Thus, the popes began to use these ninth-century Decretals Of Pseudo-Isidore in making increasingly bolder claims, fortifying their demands with threats of their alleged authority which they were supposed to derive from these decretals. But at times they ventured too far, and overstepped their boundaries, causing an outcry from fearless men within the church, and drawing upon them the epithets which had been set forth in the inspired writings, as men began to recognize the real nature of this power. Here is a classic episode of the tenth century.PFF1 539.3

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