1111 the exception of Pope Joan, the fables treated by
Dr. Dollinger, if not always wilfully concocted, were yet all of them distinctly accredited by Church authorities with a perfect con- sciousness of their untruth. They all come within the category of more or less deliberate forgeries for a purpose. In some in- stances their germ may possibly be ascribed to accident, and fabrication may have been restricted to a lying attestation to what was found to be a seasonable delusion. But in other cases we alight on forgeries of so elaborately audacious a nature as to preclude all notion of chance production in the first instance— forgeries whose gross effrontery can be compared only to the un- blushing impudence which characterized the notorious Psalma- nazaes attempts at imposture, but which nevertheless circulated for centuries as almost articles of faith, being freely invoked by grave Churchmen of easy conscience as valuable instruments for working out ambitious ends. Of these acts of forgery the most important without doubt is Constantine's pretended "Deed of Gift," and Dr. Dollinger has displayed an even extra amount of keenness in dealing with the origin of this spurious document. Pope Joan stands by herself as an instance of the length to which credulity can stretch, but the history of Constantine's Gift is an unique example of the practical and permanent conse- quences which can flow at times from a daring employment of , imposture.
• 'DO rapbt Fabeln des lintelatters. Von Dr. J. J. von Diillinger. !Annie). 1863.
There are some centuries penetrated to such a degree, although silently, by one paramount current of feeling as suddenly to pre-_ sent a heap of kindred phenomena starting up with a profusion that looks like spontaneous generation. A period of this nature existed for the Papacy from the seventh to the ninth centuries. In that dark season of anarchy, when the old political society was crumbling away, and the elements of a new order of things lay still in that first phase of convulsive struggle which for contem- poraries seemed fraught with an endless process of internecine conflicts, the Papacy might well float before their eyes with its distinctive pretensions to a holy character as the specific ark for the world's social salvation out of the torments of a blindly self- tearing fury. It is very intelligible that in the state the world then was in the Papacy should have been looked to by intelli- gent minds as the institution exceptionally fitted to save the human race from sinking into hopeless degradation, and the inevitable result of such a conviction under the critical circum- stances of the times would have been to inspire that degree of passion in its behalf which is apt to hurry excited minds into overlooking the landmarks between the strictly lawful and the unlawful. It is by the workings of such heated feelings that we explain the remarkable crop of spurious documents in favour of Papal prerogatives which sprang up in the aforesaid centuries, the most important being Constantine's pretended "Deed of Gift.'
That the first Christian Emperor should become the subject for mythical inventions was inevitable. Everything invited the Christian fancy of that age to dwell on the memory of the con- verted monarch who, by carrying away from Rome the seat of Empire, appeared to have invited the Pope to occupy his vacated metropolis. The historical facts of his life were therefore very early overlaid with a legendary coating. While the Popes found themselves pitted in a life and death struggle with the Lombard Arians, it was out of the question for the popular belief of Papal' Rome to acquiesce in the record of Constantine's baptism by an Arleta prelate. Hence arose the myth of Pope Sylvester, and it is not the least strange amongst the eccentric incidents of Legendarism that for eight centuries the fable should have been universally repeated by chroniclers, although the Fathers of Church History who gave the true account of Constantine's con- version were all the while well known and generally read. Dr. Dol- linger remarks truly that nothing can-be more illustrative of the- worthlessness of ancient evidence when weighed by mere quantity. Constantine was to be turned into a Roman Christian at all costs, and in return the Bishop and Church of Rome were to be decked out with privileges and dignities, falsely represented to-have been conceded by that "Imperator" who, to the eyes of that particular age, was the one recognized fountain of temporal honours. The aim was to invest an object of political predilection with that specific title to precedency and state which alone would appear really legitimate to the population of the day, and accordingly the forgery which purports to be of Constantine's time is unmis- takeably stamped with the characteristic feature of the eighth century. We apprehend that no one will be disposed to dispute Dr. Deillinger's correctness in fixing this date for the deed, and in ascribing its origin to Latin fraud against Baronius's opinion that it was a Greek fabrication. We have no doubt that he is also right in believing that Adrian I. makes allusion to this par- ticular donation, and it is manifest that the existing Greek text is a translation from the Latin. But the really curious point to observe in the document is how manifestly it was inspired by the order of courtly ideas natural to the atmosphere of Byzantine state and pomp. It plainly was the composition of a man pene- trated with a deep sense of the importance of securing to the Roman _ priesthood the right o1. wearing certain recognized badges of court rank, and it is only at the end of an elaborate catalogue of these points at mere ceremonial that the writer has inserted a passing allusion to territorial endowment, which later generations contrived to turn to such grave purposes. As originally penned, the document in question was seriously meant but to establish a claim to points of etiquette. The clauses of the "Deed" were :—That the Pope should preside over the Patriar- chates of Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem, and Constantinople, and decide on all matters appertaining to ritual and doctrine. That instead of the diadem, which, when proffered, the Pope had declined to accept, he should wear the phrygiurn and the Imperial lorum, besides the other Imperial insignia, and coloured robes- That the Roman clergy should share the privileges of the Im- perial Senate, be admissible to the Patriciate and Consulate, and wear the badges proper to Imperial functionaries. That the Roman Church should have the right of appointing Cubicularii, Ostiarii, and Excubitm. That the clergy should ride steeds
decked with white clothes, and wear white sandals like senators. That there should be no legal bar in the way of a senator becom- ing a priest with the Pope's sanction. Finally, Constantine granted to the Pope and his successors the lordship over Rome, the provinces, towns and castles, of Italy, or the Western regions. Such is the epitome of this celebrated forgery. Now Dr. Manger says, and we think with justice, that it would be preposterous to credit a monastic writer of the eighth century with the antiquarian knowledge involved in a correct estimate of what constituted the Western Empire in Constantine's time, and with the presump- tuous ambition to put the Pope in possession of that vast territory. The forger was unmistakeably a Roman monk under the sole sway of the political feelings of his own times, and these made him long rather mournfully than _hopefully to see as much as pos- sible of his specific and beloved country Italy brought out of the grasp of Arian and Longobard devastation, and set under the bene- ficent ascendancy of the Holy See. Therefore, when penning a pious fabrication, the realization of which in this especial point he probably contemplated as a mere aspiration, he added the quali- fying expression so as to define his meaning beyond ambiguity. But in a few centuries the ambition of certain Popes became in- flated to dimensions which made the wording of the clause seem too stringent, and then a correcting band turned or into and, with the view of establishing a presumed title for Imperial suzerainty over all Europe. We have not space to mark the different steps by which Papal pretension sought to advance on the strength of the emendation of a forged deed. But a great start was given to their range in 1091, when Urban II. claimed Corsica on the strange plea that all islands being State domains must fall within Constantine's grant. It was by the same preposterous title that Adrian IV. assumed to invest Henry II. with Ireland, this Pope's friend and, on this occasion, particular counsellor, John of Salisbury, distinctly grounding the transaction on the fact "that all islands belong to the Roman Church by ancient right and the gift of Constantine." Even at the present day this exploded fraud has not been so wholly dikarded by the Court of Rome, but that the echoes of its forgeries can be caught up at times in the official declarations which circulate with authority in the immediate neighbourhood of the Vatican.
Should any one be disposed to accuse us of having gone too far in thinking it possible for the highest dignitaries of the Church to have been guilty of deliberate complicity in a work of forgery, we would point in self-defence to the undeniable facts connected with the falsification of the " History of Pope Liberius." Here the hand can be traced, so to speak, in the actual operation of forgery. In 354 the Emperor Constantine, bent on Arianizing the Western Church, sent Pope liberius into banishment, and attempted to thruit Felix, a creature of his own, into his episcopal chair. But Liberius was the idol of his flock, and Felix, though acknowledged by a small knot of time- serving clergy, soon found himself beset by so decided an oppo- sition, that the Emperor yielded and called Liberius back from exile. That Liberius made some concession at this time to Con- stantius's Arian opinions in the wording of the profession of faith which he made on the occasion of his return is admitted on all hands. In matters of so subtle a nature there is, however, ample morn for much play of ingenious definition without involving any material deviation. It is certain that to the end Liberius was looked upon as the cherished representative of the traditional principles of the Roman Church as against Felix, the minion of Byzantine favouritism and the champion of Arian heresy. But on Liberius's death the two parties came to blows which stood behind these men, the party of Roman Independence, which resented the Imperial pretensions to interfere in Papal elections, and the party of Court Priests, who were willing to accept a
Court. 'nominee. The rival factions, headed by their re- spective candidates for the Papacy, Ursinus and Damasus, fought fiercely in the streets of Raffle, until the Imperial Prefect's intervention secured victory to Damasus, the Court favourite. The see thus won by sheer force was kept. Nevertheless the strong passions of the Romans against Byzantium made it afterwards appear incumbent to obliterate the recollection of the fact that the divine succession of Popes went through one member who, if not an actual renegade, most undoubtedly owed his elevation solely to the helping hand of a schismatical Emperor, and to the fact of his having been the partizan of the heretical intruder Felix. In deference therefore to the political interest of the. Holy See, it was coolly resolved that the history of Liberius should be misrepresented from beginning to end. Liberius had- zealously defended orthodoxy, but then being dead, he was doubtless reaping the meed of virtue in other regions, and
could dispense with truth and justice in this world. The fol- lower of Felix having succeeded in maintaining himself as Pope, it was a point of far greater importance to thorough-going Churchmen that the origin of his title should be whitewashed, than that the memory of a conscientious witness to the orthodox faith should be duly honoured. A batch of spurious documents was therefore set afloat, the biographies of Liberius and Felix in the "Liber Pontificalis," the "Acts of Felix," and the" Acts of St. Eusebius," which were concocted with the one object of palming off upon an ignorant age a Pope and martyr Felix who never existed, and of converting poor Liberius into a persecutor of true believers and an heresiarch condemned by an utterly imaginary synod, while Felix was represented as having stood forth to confront a schismatical Emperor. The practical result of this unblushing hoax has been that in the canonical roll of Popes, in the liturgies and martyrologies, the name of Felix figured as of a legitimate Pope and martyr to the faith. The quick eye of Baranius detected the spuriousness of this assertion. His criticism uncovered the imposture, and Gregory XIII. was actually disposed to proclaim the admission that a sham Pope had beea inadvertently introduced into the current list of St. Peter's successors, when he was persuaded that such admis- sion would injure the claim of the Holy See to infallibility. Just as the authenticity of Pope Felix's existence was under dis- cussion, and seemed on the point of being solemnly repudiated, a monumental slab was announced to have been dug up in the Church of St. Cosines and Darnianus in Rome, with the inscrip- tion," Corpus S. Felicis, Papas et Martyr* qui condemnavit Con- stantium." The intention which dictated this gross forgery was attained. In the revised "Roman Martyrology" the name of Felix, Pope and martyr, was again inserted, and although his title of Pope has been since quietly dropped out of the Ovation in the Breviary, his history is still circulated, and a Bossuet has been led into endorsing the fable with his authority.
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