ENGLISH:
Herman of Alaska was a Russian Orthodox monk from Valaam Monastery in Russia who traveled with eight other monks in 1793 to bring the Gospel to the native Aleuts and Eskimos in the Aleutian Islands. As part of the Russian colonization of the Americas, Russians had been exploring and trading there since at least 1740. Thus, he marks the first arrival of Orthodox Christian missionaries in North America. He built a school for the Aleutians, and he often defended them from the injustices and exploitation of the Russian traders. He was known to them as Apa which means "Grandfather." He lived most of his life as the sole resident of Spruce Island, a tiny wooded island near Kodiak Island.
St. Herman's Orthodox Theological Seminary (Kodiak, Alaska) is named in his honor. A portion of his relics are enshrined at the St. Ignatius Chapel at the Antiochian Village, where he is regarded as one of their patron saints.
Quote: "But do you love God?" asked the Old Man. And they all responded: "Of course we love God. How can we not love God?" "And I, a sinner, have tried to love God for more than forty years, and I cannot say that I love him perfectly," Father Herman replied, and began to explain how one must love God. "If we love someone," he said, "then we always think of that someone, we strive to please him; day and night our hearts are concerned for that someone. Is this how you love God, gentlemen? Do you often turn to him Do you always remember him, do you always pray to him and do you fulfill his holy commandments?" We had to admit no. "For our own good, for our happiness," concluded the Old Man, "let us at least make ourselves a vow that from this day, from this hour, from this minute, we will strive above all else to love God and fulfill His Holy Will. "Saint Herman of Alaska
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ESPAÑOL:
Germán de Alaska era un monje ortodoxo ruso del Monasterio de Valaam en Rusia que viajó con otros ocho monjes en 1793 para llevar el Evangelio a los nativos aleutianos y esquimales en las islas Aleutianas. Como parte de la colonización rusa de las Américas, los rusos habían estado explorando y comerciando allí desde al menos 1740. Por lo tanto, marca la primera llegada de misioneros cristianos ortodoxos en América del Norte. Construyó una escuela para los aleutianos, y a menudo los defendió de las injusticias y la explotación de los comerciantes rusos. Era conocido por ellos como Apa, que significa "abuelo". Vivió la mayor parte de su vida como el único residente de la isla Spruce, una pequeña isla boscosa cerca de la isla Kodiak.
El seminario teológico ortodoxo de San Germán (Kodiak, Alaska) se nombra en su honor. Una parte de sus reliquias están consagradas en la Capilla de San Ignacio en la Aldea Antioqueña, donde es considerado como uno de sus santos patronos.
Cita:
"¿Pero amáis a Dios?", preguntó el Anciano. Y todos respondieron: "Claro que amamos a Dios. ¿Cómo no vamos a amar a Dios?". "Y yo, pecador, he intentado amar a Dios durante más de cuarenta años, y no puedo decir que le ame perfectamente", respondió el Padre Herman, y comenzó a explicar cómo hay que amar a Dios. "Si amamos a alguien -dijo-, entonces pensamos siempre en ese alguien, nos esforzamos por agradarle; día y noche nuestro corazón está preocupado por ese alguien. ¿Es así, señores, como amáis a Dios? ¿Os volvéis a menudo a Él, os acordáis siempre de Él, le rezáis siempre y cumplís sus santos mandamientos?". Tuvimos que admitir que no. "Por nuestro bien, por nuestra felicidad", concluyó el Anciano, "al menos hagámonos el voto de que desde este día, desde esta hora, desde este minuto, nos esforzaremos por encima de todo por amar a Dios y cumplir Su Santa Voluntad."San Germán de Alaska
Juan 8:44 Vosotros sois de vuestro padre el diablo, y los deseos de vuestro padre queréis hacer; él ha sido homicida desde el principio, y no permaneció en la verdad porque no hay verdad en él. Cuando habla mentira, de suyo habla, porque es mentiroso y padre de mentira.
Las Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianas (o Falsas Decretales) son un conjunto de falsificaciones medievales extensas e influyentes escritas por un erudito (o grupo de eruditos) conocido como Pseudo-Isidoro. El principal objetivo de los falsificadores era emancipar a los obispos de la influencia de los arzobispos, los sínodos y el poder secular al exaltar la supremacía papal.
Los autores, utilizando el seudónimo de Isidoro Mercator, probablemente fueron un grupo de clérigos francos que escribieron en el segundo cuarto del siglo IX. Para defender la posición de los obispos contra los metropolitanos y las autoridades seculares, crearon documentos supuestamente escritos por los primeros papas y documentos del consejo.
Trasfondo histórico
El Imperio Carolingio en el segundo cuarto del siglo IX preparó el escenario para los falsificadores. Aunque Luis I el Piadoso fue depuesto por sus hijos a principios de los años 830, pronto recuperó el trono. Los arzobispos y los obispos jugaron papeles importantes, imponiendo penitencia a Louis por su vida supuestamente pecaminosa y allanando el camino para su expulsión. Cuando Louis recuperó el trono, algunos dignatarios de la iglesia fueron despojados de sus obispados y exiliados.
Contenido: Las decretales pseudoisidorianas y las cartas ficticias de Clemente a Gregorio Magno se incorporaron en una colección de cánones del siglo IX supuestamente por el seudónimo Isidoro Mercator. Las colecciones de cánones se hicieron comúnmente agregando materia nueva a la antigua; Los falsificadores de la colección Pseudo-Isidoro tomaron como base de su trabajo la Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis, interpolando sus falsificaciones con el material genuino para proporcionar credibilidad por asociación. El Liber Pontificalis se utilizó como guía histórica y proporcionó algunos temas. La colección Pseudo-Isidoriana incluye una falsificación anterior (no Pseudo-Isidoriana), la Donación de Constantino.
Los textos principales son: La adición de material falsificado a una colección española auténtica anterior con textos de consejos y cartas papales de los siglos IV al VIII. El nombre de Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis deriva de un manuscrito una vez en la ciudad francesa de Autun (latín Augustodunum)
Una colección de legislación falsificada por gobernantes francos (capitularios), supuestamente de los siglos VI al IX, la Capitularia Benedicti Levitae, llamada así por el supuesto autor de la introducción de la colección: diácono (levita latina) Benedictus. El autor alega que ha completado y actualizado la colección del abad Ansegisus de Fontanelle (fallecido alrededor de 833)
Una breve colección sobre procedimientos penales, la Capitula Angilramni, presuntamente entregada al obispo Angilram de Metz por el papa Adriano I
Una colección de unas 100 cartas papales falsificadas, supuestamente escritas por obispos romanos durante los primeros tres siglos de nuestra era. En su prefacio, el autor se hace llamar obispo Isidorus Mercator (de ahí el nombre del complejo). Además de las letras falsificadas, la colección tiene una gran cantidad de textos del consejo genuinos y parcialmente falsificados y cartas papales de los siglos IV al VIII. El material interpolado auténtico deriva predominantemente de la Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis.
Además de estas cuatro piezas principales, hay otras falsificaciones menores del mismo taller:
Los extractos de gestos Chalcedonensis concilii
Algunas falsificaciones en el manuscrito Hamilton 132 en la Biblioteca Estatal de Berlín
The Collectio Danieliana
El autor de una sección se identifica a sí mismo como Benedictus Levita. Su Capitularia Benedicti Levitae no trata con la iglesia primitiva y las cartas papales como lo hacen los demás, sino con capitulares falsos sobre asuntos religiosos y teológicos por gobernantes carolingios (especialmente Carlomagno) que proporcionan la supuesta autoridad del falsificador. Todavía se desconoce si Capitularia Benedicti Levitae, estructurada y escrita de manera diferente, fue ligeramente anterior e inspiró a los autores de las falsas decretales o si todas fueron falsificadas simultáneamente.
El trabajo general probablemente fue realizado por varios autores bajo el control editorial de un hombre erudito. Aunque cierta identificación de los compiladores y falsificadores es probablemente imposible, Klaus Zechiel-Eckes ha demostrado que utilizaron manuscritos de la biblioteca monástica de Corbie. Zechiel-Eckes ha compilado evidencia de que un abad en Corbie, Paschasius Radbertus (abad 842-847) podría haber sido uno de los responsables de las falsificaciones. Los falsificadores probablemente trabajaron en la provincia eclesiástica de Reims, y el complejo se completó en su mayoría en 847-852; La primera referencia conocida al texto fue en 852. Su principal compositor pudo haber sido ordenado ilegalmente por Ebbo, arzobispo de Reims, durante su breve e ilegal reincorporación (840-41). Mientras que Zechiel-Eckes ha abogado por una fecha de composición en los años 830 o principios de los 840 basada en evidencia centrada en el Consejo de Thionville, Eric Knibbs ha abogado recientemente por una fecha de composición posterior en los años 840 o principios de los 850, sobre la base del lenguaje en las decretales que parecen dirigidas a apoyar a Ebbo después de su traducción al obispado en Hildesheim en 845.
Las Falsas Decretales de Isidoro, piedra angular del papado
Un extracto de El papado
por Abbe Guette
"Los falsos decretos hacen, como si fuera el punto de división entre el papado de los primeros ocho y el de los siglos siguientes. En esta fecha, las pretensiones de los papas comienzan a desarrollarse y toman cada día un carácter más distinto".
Ahora hemos llegado a los últimos años del siglo VIII. El imperio oriental, liberado de Copronimo y su hijo Leo IV., Volvió a respirar bajo el reinado de Constantino e Irene.
Carlomagno reinó en Francia, Adrián I. era obispo de Roma; Tarasio, un gran y santo patriarca, gobernó en Constantinopla. Antes de dar su consentimiento para su elección, Tarasio dirigió a la corte y al pueblo de Constantinopla un discurso del cual citamos el siguiente pasaje: "Esto es lo que principalmente temo (al aceptar el episcopado :) Veo a la iglesia dividida en Oriente; tenemos diferentes idiomas entre nosotros, y muchos están de acuerdo con Occidente, que nos anatematiza a diario. La separación (anatema) es una cosa terrible; expulsa del reino de los cielos y conduce a la oscuridad exterior. Nada es más agradable para Dios que la unión, que nosotros una Iglesia Católica, como confesamos en el credo. Por lo tanto, les pido, hermanos, lo que creo que es también su voluntad, ya que tienen temor de Dios: pido que el Emperador y la Emperatriz convoquen un consejo cumenical, para para que podamos hacer un solo cuerpo bajo un solo Jefe, que es Jesucristo. Si el Emperador y la Emperatriz me conceden esta solicitud, me someto a sus órdenes y sus votos; si no, no puedo consentir. Hermanos, qué respuesta Vas a." [1]
Todos menos unos pocos fanáticos aplaudieron el proyecto de un consejo, y luego Tarasio consintió en ser ordenado e instituido obispo. Inmediatamente dirigió sus cartas de comunión a las iglesias de Roma, Alejandría, Antioquía y Jerusalén. [2] En estos hizo como de costumbre su profesión de fe, e invitó a esas iglesias al consejo que el Emperador estaba a punto de reunir. La emperatriz regente y su hijo le escribieron al papa Adrián que habían resuelto reunir un consejo ecuménico; le rogaron que fuera, prometiéndole recibirlo con honores; o enviar representantes si no puede aceptar personalmente su invitación.
La respuesta de Adrián al Emperador y la Emperatriz es un documento muy importante con respecto a la pregunta que estamos examinando. Encontramos en él un estilo que los obispos de Roma no habían permitido hasta ahora adoptar hacia los emperadores.
Roma, celosa de Constantinopla, pronto coronaría al Emperador Carlomagno de Occidente y, por lo tanto, rompería todos los lazos políticos con Oriente. El Papa disfrutó de una gran autoridad temporal en esa ciudad bajo la protección de los reyes francos; era rico y ambicioso para rodear su sede con aún mayor magnificencia y esplendor. Por lo tanto, Adrián respondió con arrogancia a la carta respetuosa que recibió de la corte de Constantinopla. Insistió en ciertas condiciones, como un poder que trata con otro, y particularmente en este punto: que el patrimonio de San Pedro en el Este, confiscado por los emperadores iconoclastas, debe ser restaurado in toto. Citaremos de su carta lo que dice respecto al Patriarca de Constantinopla: "Estamos muy sorprendidos de ver que en su carta le da a Tarasio el título de Patriarca ecuménico. El Patriarca de Constantinopla no tendría ni siquiera el segundo rango SIN EL CONSENTIMIENTO DE NUESTRO VER; si él es ecuménico, ¿no debe por lo tanto tener también la primacía sobre nuestra iglesia? Todos los cristianos saben que esta es una suposición ridícula ".
Adrián pone ante el emperador el ejemplo de Carlos, rey de los francos. "Siguiendo nuestro consejo", dice, "y cumpliendo nuestros deseos, ha sometido a todas las naciones bárbaras de Occidente; ha dado a la Iglesia romana a perpetuidad provincias, ciudades, castillos y patrimonios que fueron retenidos por los lombardos, y que por derecho pertenecen a San Pedro; no deja de ofrecer diariamente oro y plata por esta luz y sustento de los pobres ".
Aquí hay un lenguaje bastante nuevo por parte de los obispos romanos, pero en adelante destinado a convertirse en habitual con ellos. Data de 785; es decir, desde el mismo año en que Adrián entregó a Ingelramn, obispo de Metz, la colección de los falsos decretos. [3] Hay algo muy significativo en esta coincidencia. ¿Fue Adrián mismo quien autorizó este trabajo de falsificación? No sabemos; pero es un hecho incontestable que fue en Roma misma bajo el pontificado de Adrián, y en el año en que escribió tan altivamente al Emperador de Oriente, que este nuevo código del Papado se menciona por primera vez en la historia. Adrián es el verdadero creador del papado moderno. Al no encontrar en las tradiciones de la Iglesia los documentos necesarios para respaldar sus ambiciosos puntos de vista, los apoyó en documentos apócrifos escritos para adaptarse a la ocasión y para legalizar todas las usurpaciones futuras de la sede romana. Adrián sabía que las Decretales contenidas en el código de Ingelramn eran falsas. Porque ya le había dado, diez años antes, a Charles, rey de los francos, un código de los antiguos cánones, idéntico a la colección generalmente recibida de Dionisio Exiguus. Fue, por lo tanto, entre los años 775 y 785 que se compusieron las falsas decretales.
El tiempo fue favorable a tales inventos. En las invasiones extranjeras que habían inundado todo el oeste de sangre y cubierto de ruinas, las bibliotecas de las iglesias y monasterios fueron destruidas; el clero se sumió en la más profunda ignorancia; Oriente, invadido por los musulmanes, apenas tenía relaciones con Occidente. El Papado se benefició de estas desgracias y construyó un poder mitad político y mitad religioso sobre estas ruinas, sin encontrar faltas de aduladores que no se sonrojaron para inventar y propagar secretamente sus falsificaciones para dar un carácter divino a una institución que tiene ambición. por su única fuente.
Las falsas decretales constituyen el punto de división entre el papado de los primeros ocho y el de los siglos siguientes. En esta fecha, las pretensiones de los Papas comienzan a desarrollarse y toman cada día un carácter más distintivo. La respuesta de Adrián a Constantino e Irene es el punto de partida.
Los legados del Papa y los de las iglesias patriarcales de Alejandría, Antioquía y Jerusalén, después de haber ido a Constantinopla, fueron nombrados como el lugar de reunión del concilio. La primera sesión tuvo lugar el veinticuatro de septiembre de 787. Este segundo Concilio de Nicea es considerado el séptimo ecuménico, tanto por las iglesias orientales como occidentales. [4] Adrián fue representado por el Arcipreste Pedro y por otro Pedro, Abad del monasterio de San Sabas en Roma. Los obispos de Sicilia fueron los primeros en hablar y dijeron: "Consideramos que es aconsejable que el Santísimo Arzobispo de Constantinopla abra el consejo". Todos los miembros estuvieron de acuerdo con esta propuesta, y Tarasio les hizo una asignación en el deber de seguir las antiguas tradiciones de la Iglesia en las decisiones que estaban a punto de tomar. Luego se introdujeron aquellos que se oponían a estas tradiciones, para que el concilio escuchara una declaración de su doctrina. Luego se leyeron las cartas traídas por los legados de los obispos de Roma, Alejandría, Antioquía y Jerusalén, con el propósito de determinar cuál podría ser la fe de Oriente y Occidente. El obispo de Ancira había compartido el error de los iconoclastas. Ahora se presentó ante el concilio para hacer su confesión de fe, y comenzó con las siguientes palabras, bien dignas de ser citadas: "Es la ley de la Iglesia que los que se convierten de una herejía, deben abjurarla por escrito, y confesar la fe católica. Por lo tanto, yo, Basilio, obispo de Ancira, deseando unirme con la Iglesia, con el papa Adrián, con el patriarca Tarasio, con las sedes apostólicas de Alejandría, Antioquía y Jerusalén, y con todos los obispos católicos y sacerdotes, hagan esta confesión por escrito y preséntenla a ustedes, que tienen poder por autoridad apostólica ".
Este lenguaje más ortodoxo demuestra claramente que en ese momento el Papa de Roma no era considerado como el único centro de unidad, la fuente de la autoridad católica; esa unidad y autoridad solo se reconocieron en la unanimidad del cuerpo sacerdotal.
La carta de Adrián al Emperador y la Emperatriz, y la que se le había escrito a Tarasio, fueron leídas, pero solo en la medida en que trataban las preguntas dogmáticas. Sus quejas contra el título de ecuménico y sus demandas sobre el patrimonio de San Pedro, fueron pasadas en silencio. Tampoco insistieron los legados de Roma. El concilio declaró que aprobaba la doctrina del Papa. A continuación se leyeron las cartas de las vistas patriarcales de Oriente cuya doctrina coincidía con la de Occidente. Esa doctrina se comparó con la enseñanza de los Padres de la Iglesia, para verificar no solo la unanimidad actual, sino la perpetuidad de la doctrina; y también se examinó la cuestión de si los iconoclastas tenían de su lado alguna tradición católica verdadera. Después de este doble examen preparatorio, el concilio hizo su profesión de fe, decidiendo que de acuerdo con la doctrina perpetua de la Iglesia, las imágenes deben ser veneradas, reservando solo para Dios la Latria o adoración, propiamente llamada.
Los miembros del consejo se retiraron a Constantinopla, donde la última sesión tuvo lugar en presencia de Irene y Constantino y todo el pueblo.
Las Actas del séptimo concilio ecuménico, como las de los anteriores, prueban claramente que el Obispo de Roma fue el primero en honor en la Iglesia; que su testimonio no tenía peso doctrinal, excepto en la medida en que podría considerarse como el de la Iglesia occidental; que todavía no había autoridad individual en la Iglesia, sino solo una autoridad colectiva, de la cual el cuerpo sacerdotal era el eco y el intérprete.
Esta doctrina es diametralmente opuesta al sistema romanista. Agreguemos que el séptimo consejo ecuménico, como los seis que lo precedieron, no fue convocado, presidido ni confirmado por el Papa. Estuvo de acuerdo en ello por sus legados, y Occidente estuvo de acuerdo de la misma manera, por lo que adquirió su carácter ecuménico.
Pero esta concurrencia de Occidente no fue al principio unánime, al menos en apariencia, a pesar de la conocida concurrencia del Papa; lo que prueba que incluso en Occidente esa autoridad doctrinal no se le otorgó al Papa, como sus partidarios ahora reclaman por él. Siete años después del Concilio de Nicea, es decir, en 794, Carlomagno reunió en Frankfort a todos los obispos de los reinos que había conquistado. En este consejo se discutieron varias preguntas dogmáticas, y particularmente las relativas a las imágenes. Por las decisiones allí dictadas, el consejo pretendía rechazar el del segundo consejo de Nicea, que los obispos francos no habían entendido completamente. Estos obispos le reprocharon al Papa su acuerdo en esa decisión, y Adrián se disculpó por ello.
Reconoció, es cierto, la ortodoxia de las doctrinas profesadas por el concilio, pero alegó que otros motivos lo habrían impulsado a rechazar ese concilio, si no hubiera temido que su oposición pudiera interpretarse como una adhesión a la herejía condenada. "Hemos aceptado el concilio" [5], escribió Adrián, "porque su decisión está de acuerdo con la doctrina de San Gregorio; temiendo que si no lo recibiéramos, los griegos podrían regresar a su error, y seremos responsables de la pérdida de tantas almas. Sin embargo, todavía no hemos respondido al Emperador sobre el tema del concilio. Al exhortarlos a restablecer imágenes, les advertimos que restablecieran a la Iglesia Romana su jurisdicción sobre ciertos obispados y arzobispados, y los patrimonios de los cuales estábamos privados en el momento en que se abolieron las imágenes. Pero no hemos recibido ninguna respuesta, lo que demuestra que se convierten en un punto, pero no en los otros dos. Por lo tanto, si lo cree conveniente, cuando agradeceremos al Emperador por el restablecimiento de las imágenes, también lo presionaremos más sobre el tema de la restitución de los patrimonios y la jurisdicción, y, si se niega, lo declaramos hereje ".
Los ataques de los obispos francos contra Adrián, aunque injustos, prueban abundantemente que no reconocieron en el papado la autoridad que reclama hoy en día. Los falsos decretales aún no habían podido prevalecer por completo sobre los usos antiguos. Adrián respondió a estos ataques con una modestia que es fácil de explicar, cuando reflexionamos sobre cuánto necesitaba que los francos y su rey Carlomagno establecieran las bases del nuevo papado. Lejos de mencionar esa supuesta autoridad que tan orgullosamente se esforzó por imponer sobre Oriente, estaba dispuesto, con respecto a los francos, a desempeñar el papel de prisionero en el bar. Les hizo avances hasta el punto de proponer que el Emperador de Constantinopla fuera un hereje por una mera cuestión de posesiones temporales o de una jurisdicción en disputa. Pero encontramos en Adrián, bajo esta humilde muestra de sumisión, una prodigiosa astucia al crear ocasiones para aumentar su poder. Si los francos le hubieran pedido que declarara al heredero del emperador de Constantinopla como un hereje, habrían reconocido en él una jurisdicción soberana y universal, y así sentarían un precedente que el papado no habría descuidado.
Adrián I murió en 796, y fue sucedido por Leo III., Quien siguió la misma política que su predecesor. Inmediatamente después de su elección, se le enviará a Carlomagno el estandarte de la ciudad de Roma y la clave de la confesión de San Pedro. A cambio, el rey franco le envió costosos regalos de un embajador, que debía llegar a un acuerdo con él sobre todo lo que se refería a "la gloria de la Iglesia y el fortalecimiento de la dignidad papal y del patriciado romano dado a los francos". Rey. [6]
León tuvo una relación con Oriente con motivo del divorcio del emperador Constantino. Dos santos monjes, Platón y Teodoro Studites, se declararon con una energía especial contra la conducta adúltera del Emperador. Theodore solicitó ayuda a varios obispos contra las persecuciones que su oposición al Emperador les había provocado. Las cartas de Teodoro Studites [7] están repletas de elogios de aquellos a quienes escribe. Los teólogos romanos han elegido notar solo los cumplidos dirigidos al obispo de Roma. Con un poco más de honestidad, podrían haber notado con la misma facilidad aquellos, a menudo aún más enfáticos, que se encuentran en sus otras cartas; y luego deben haber concluido que ninguna fuerza dogmática podría atribuirse al lenguaje prodigado sin distinción de opiniones, según las circunstancias, y con el evidente propósito de halagar a aquellos a quienes se dirigieron las cartas para hacerlas favorables a la causa que Theodore abogado Los romanistas no han estado dispuestos a notar un hecho tan obvio. Han citado las abundantes alabanzas de Theodore como testimonio dogmático a favor de la autoridad papal, y no han elegido ver que si tienen un valor tan dogmático en el caso del obispo de Roma, tampoco deben tenerlo menos en nombre de el obispo de Jerusalén, por ejemplo, a quien llama "el primero de los cinco patriarcas", u otros, a quienes se dirige con tanta extravagancia. En estos términos, deberíamos tener en la Iglesia a varios Papas que disfruten, cada uno de ellos, de la autoridad suprema y universal. Esta conclusión no sería adecuada para los teólogos romanos; pero se sigue necesariamente si las cartas de Teodoro Studites tienen el valor dogmático que Roma les daría para su propio beneficio. Además, si Teodoro Studites ocasionalmente alababa pomposamente al obispo de Roma, también podría hablar de él con muy poco respeto, como podemos ver en su carta a Basilio, abad de San Sabas de Roma. [8]
Al comienzo de su pontificado, León III. tuvo que soportar una oposición violenta por parte de los familiares de su predecesor, Adrian. Amontonaron acusaciones atroces sobre él.
Carlomagno, que llegó a Roma (800) como patricio de esa ciudad, reunió un consejo para juzgar al Papa. Pero Leo estaba seguro de antemano de que prevalecería. Había recibido a Carlomagno en triunfo, y el poderoso rey no fue desagradecido por las atenciones del pontífice. [9] Los miembros del concilio declararon en consecuencia con una sola voz: "No nos atrevemos a juzgar la sede apostólica, que es la cabeza de todas las iglesias; ¡tal es la antigua costumbre!" 'Los hombres no eran excesivos en aquellos días en materia de erudición. Por el uso antiguo, el Obispo de Roma debía ser juzgado como cualquier otro obispo; pero las doctrinas de los falsos decretos sin duda habían comenzado a extenderse. Ingelramn de Metz, que los había usado en su demanda en Roma, fue el capellán de Carlomagno y uno de sus primeros consejeros. Según este nuevo código de un nuevo papado, la sede apostólica, que podía juzgar a todos, no podía juzgarse por ninguno. Roma no desaprovechó ninguna oportunidad de establecer este principio fundamental de su poder, cuya consecuencia inevitable es la infalibilidad papal e incluso la impecabilidad. Estas consecuencias no se desarrollaron de inmediato, pero el principio se insinuó hábilmente en una ocasión favorable. León III se justificó por juramento. Algunos días después, el día de Navidad, 800 dC, cuando Carlomagno fue a San Pedro, el Papa colocó sobre su cabeza una rica corona y la gente exclamó: "Larga vida y victoria para el augusto Carlos, coronado de la mano de ¡Dios, gran y pacífico emperador de los romanos! " Estas aclamaciones fueron repetidas con entusiasmo tres veces; después de lo cual el Papa se arrodilló ante el nuevo emperador y lo ungió a él y a su hijo Pipino con el aceite sagrado.
Así se restableció el imperio romano de Occidente. Roma, que siempre había visto con celos la destitución de la sede del gobierno a Constantinopla, se encontraba en transportes de alegría; el papado, complaciendo sus deseos lujuriosos secretos, ahora estaba investido de un poder que nunca antes había poseído. La idea de Adrian fue lograda por su sucesor. Se estableció el papado moderno, una institución mixta mitad política y mitad religiosa; Estaba comenzando una nueva era para la Iglesia de Jesucristo, una era de intrigas y luchas, despotismo y revoluciones, innovaciones y escándalos.
2. See all the documents In Labbe's Collection of the Council, 7th vol.
3. Here are some details regarding the False Decretals:
It appears from the acts of the Council of Chalcedon in 451, that the Church
had already a Codex Canonum, or collection of the laws of the Church.
Several of these laws are held to have emanated from the Apostles themselves.
What they had commenced the councils continued, and, as soon as the Church began
to enjoy some little tranquility, these venerable laws were collected and formed
the basis of ecclesiastical discipline; and, as they were mostly in Greek, they
were translated into Latin for the use of the Western churches.
At the beginning of the sixth century Dionysius surnamed Exiguus, a monk at
Rome, finding this translation incorrect, made another at the request of Julian,
curate of St. Anastasia at Rome, and a disciple of Pope Gelasius. Dionysius
collected, besides, whatever letters of the Popes he could discover in the
archives, and published in his collection those of Stricius Innocent, Zosimus,
Boniface, Celestine, Leo, Gelasius and Anastastius, under which last he lived.
The archives of Rome at that time possessed nothing prior to Siricius—that is,
to the end of the fourth century.
At the beginning of the seventh century, Isidore of Seville undertook to
complete the collection of Dionysius. He added the canons of some national or
provincial of a few of the Popes, going back no farther than to Damasus, who
died in 844, and was the predecessor of Siricius. This collection of Isidore of
Seville begins with the canons of the Council of Nicea. He used the old
translation and not that of Dionysius for the Greek canons.
His collection was but little known, and in history we do not meet it until
785, and then disfigured and interpolated by an unknown forger, giving his name
as Isidore Mercator. This collection contained, beside the pieces contained in
the collection Isidore of Seville, certain Decretals which he ascribed to
the Popes of the first three centuries. Several scholars make Isidore Mercator
and Isidore of Seville separate writers, while others think that the latter had
added, through humility, the word Peccator to his name, which was
corrupted to Mercator. However this may be, the best Ultramontane critics as
well as the Gallicans, agree that the Decretals ascribed to the Popes of
the first centuries in the collection of Isidore Mercator, are spurious.
Marchetti himself admits their spuriousness. "Learned men of great
piety," he adds, " have declared against this false collection, which
Cardinal Bona frankly calls a pious fraud." "Baronius does not as
frankly regard them as a fraud; nevertheless, he would not use them in his
Ecclesiastical Annals, lest it should be believed that the Roman Church needed
suspicious documents to establish her rights."
The Ultramontanes cannot openly sustain these Decretals as true, for it has
been abundantly proved that they were manufactured partly from ancient
canons, with extracts from the letters of the Popes of the fourth and fifth
centuries. Entire passages, particularly from St. Leo and Gregory the Great, are
found in them. The whole is strung together in bad Latin, which for even the
least critical scholar has all the characteristics of the style of the eighth
and ninth centuries.
The collection of Isidore Mercator was disseminated chiefly by Riculf,
Archbishop of Mayence, who took that see in 787. Several critics have concluded
from this that this collection first appeared at Mayence, and even that Riculf
was its author.
Were these False Decretals fabricated In Spain, Germany, or Rome? We
he nocertainty on the subject. The oldest copies tell us that it was
Ingelramn who brought this collection to Rome from Metz, when he had a lawsuit
there in 785; but other copies tell us that it was Pope Adrian who, upon that
occasion, delivered it to Ingelramn, September nineteenth, A.D. 785. Certain it
is, that at Rome we find the first mention of it. Yet Adrian knew that
these Decretals were false, since, ten years before, he had given Charlemagne a
COPY of the canons, which was no other than that of Dionysius Exiguus.
The False Decretals were so extensively circulated in the West, that
they were everywhere received, and particularly at Rome, as authentic.
The Ultramontanes, while they do not dare to maintain the authority of the
writings ascribed to the Popes of the first three centuries, nevertheless
indirectly sustain them. Several works have been written with this object
against Fleury, who justly asserted and abundantly proved that they changed the
ancient discipline. We will quote among these Ultramontane works those of
Marchetti, of Father de Housta, and Father Honore de Sainte-Marie:
"We may conjecture," says Marchetti, "that Isidore gathered
the Decretals of ancient Popes which the persecutions of the first centuries had
not permitted to be collected, and that animated by a desire to
transmit the Collection to posterity, he made such haste that he overlooked some
faults and chronological errours which were afterward corrected by more exact
criticism."
Thus, then, the Decretals of the first three centuries are false;
nevertheless they are substantially true. Such is the Ultramontane system. It
only remains to say, to make the business complete, that the texts of St. Leo
and St. Gregory the Great, which are found in these Decretals, do not belong to
those fathers, who, in that case, must have copied them from the Decretals of
their predecessors. It would be quite as reasonable to maintain this opinion, as
to say that we only find in the False Decretals a few faults and chronological
errours.
To this first system of defence, the Ultramontanes add a second. They make a
great display of eloquence to prove that an unknown person without any authority
could never have introduced a new code in the Church. We think so too. But there
is one great fact of the very highest importance which our Ultramontanes have
left out of sight, that, at the time when the False Decretals appeared,
the see of Rome had for about two centuries taken advantage of every occurrence
to increase her influence and to put into practice what the False Decreta1s lay
down as the law. Every one knows that after the fall of the Roman empire,
most of the Western nations were essentially modified by the invasion of new
races; that the Church seriously felt this change; that the pursuit of learning
was abandoned, and that after the seventh century the most deplorable ignorance
reigned in the Western churches. From that time the Bishops of Rome began to
take part directly in the government of individual churches, which frequently
lay in the hands of only half-Christianized conquerors. They sent missionaries
to labour for the conversion of the invading tribes; and these missionaries,
like St. Boniface of Mayence, retained for the Popes who sent them, the feelings
of disciples for their masters. The churches newly founded by them, remained
faithful to these sentiments. It would not, therefore, be surprising if the
fabricator of the False Decretals lived in or near Mayence. He composed
that work of fragments from the councils and the Fathers, and added regulations
which were in perfect harmony with the usages of the see of Rome at the end of
the eighth century, and which Rome, doubtless, inspired.
This coincidence, joined to the ignorance which then prevailed, explains
sufficiently how the False Decreta1s could be accepted without protest—the
see of Rome using all its influence to spread them. As most of the churches had
been accustomed for two centuries to feel the authority of the Bishops of Rome,
they accepted without examination documents which seemed to be no more than the
sanction of this authority. The False Decretals did not therefore create
a new code for the Western churches; they only came in aid of a regime which,
owing to political disturbances, the Popes themselves had created.
Thus the Romanists have their labour for their pains, when they seek to
defend the Decretals by saying that an unknown author without authority could
not have established a new code.
Here are the objections that Fleury makes to the False Decretals: "The
subject matter of these letters [Hist. Eccl. liv. xliv.] reveals their
spuriousness. They speak of archbishops, primates, patriarchs, as if these
titles had existed from the birth of the Church. They forbid the holding of any
council, even a provincial one, without permission from the Pope, and represent
appeals to Rome as habitual. Frequent complaints therein made of usurpations of
the temporalities of the Church. We find there this maxim, that bishops falling
into sin may, after having done penance, exercise their functions as before.
Finally, the principal subject of these Decretals is that of complaints
against bishops; there is scarcely one that does not speak of them and give
rules to make them difficult. And Isidore makes it very apparent in his preface
that he had this matter deeply at heart."
The object of the forger in this last matter is evident. It was to diminish
the authority of the metropolitans, who, from time immemorial, had enjoyed the
right to convoke the council of their province to hear complaints against a
bishop of that province in particular, and judge him. The forger, whose object
it was to concentrate all authority at Rome, would naturally first endeavour to
check the authority of the metropolitan, and make the appeals to Rome seem to
offer greater guarantees and to be more consonant with episcopal dignity.
One must be utterly ignorant of the history of the first three centuries, not
to know that at that period the Church had no fixed organization; that it was
not divided into dioceses until the reign of Constantine and by the Council of
Nicea; that it was this council that recognized in the sees of Rome, Alexandria,
and Antioch a superiority common to them all over a certain number of churches
to which they had given birth, and over which, according to custom, they
exercised a special supervision. But the forger does not hesitate for all this
to bring into play archbishops, primates, and patriarchs during the first three
centuries, and ascribes to the first Bishops of Rome, as rights, prerogatives,
which the councils had never recognized, and which these bishops had usurped in
the West since the invasions of the barbarians had overthrown the ancient Roman
polity.
After our deep study of the history of the Church, we feel at liberty to
assert that it is impossible to accumulate more errours than the Ultramontanes
have done, to defend the alleged legal force of the False Decretals; that
the False Decretals established in the ninth century a new code
completely opposed to that of the first eight Christian centuries; and that the
forger had no other object than to sanction the encroachments of the court of
Rome during the two centuries preceding the composition of his work. We have
carefully studied what has been said pro and contra upon this
subject. The writings of the Romanists have convinced us that this forger of the
ninth century has never been defended but by arguments worthy of him; that is to
say, by the most shameful misrepresentations. The works of the Gallicans are
more honest, and show deeper research. Yet even in them we perceive a certain
reticency which injures their cause, and even now and then a forced and
unnatural attitude concerning Papal prerogatives, which they do not dare to
deny. (See the works of Hincmar of Rheims, and the Annals of Father Lecointe.)
4. See its transactions In Labbe's Collection, vol. viii.
5. Resp. ad. Lib. Carolin. in Labbe's Collection, vol. viii.
6. Alcuin Ep. 84.
7. Theod. Stud. Ep. 15.
8. Theod. Stud. Ep. 28.
9. Sismondi alleges that this mock trial and the subsequent capital
punishment of Leo's accusers were prearranged, together with the coronation
mentioned in the text, during Leo's visit to Charlemagne a short time previous
at Paderborn. Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xvii.—[Editor.]
From The Papacy, by Abbe Guette. (New York, NY: Minos
Publishing Co., MDCCCLXVI), pp. 256-269. The Editor's Preface notes that the
author is not a Protestant but rather a French Roman Catholic clergyman, reared
in the communion of Rome, whose honest research led him to disavow the Papacy.
This resulted in his being placed "under the ban" by the Pope. This is
noteworthy because it "gives assurance of [the author's] ability to treat
the subject of the Papacy with the most intimate knowledge of its practical
character," and in an unbiased way.
John 8:44 You are of your father the devil: and the desires of your father you will do. He was a murderer from the beginning: and he stood not in the truth, because truth is not in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof.
The Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals (or False Decretals) are a set of extensive, influential medieval forgeries written by a scholar (or group of scholars) known as Pseudo-Isidore. The forgers' main object was to emancipate bishops from the influence of archbishops, synods, and secular power by exalting papal supremacy.
The authors, using the pseudonym of Isidore Mercator, were probably a group of Frankish clerics writing in the second quarter of the 9th century. To defend the position of bishops against metropolitans and secular authorities, they created documents purportedly authored by early popes and council documents.
Historical background
The Carolingian Empire in the second quarter of the 9th century set the stage for the forgers. Although Louis I the Pious was deposed by his sons in the early 830s, he soon regained the throne. Archbishops and bishops played important roles, imposing penance on Louis for his allegedly-sinful life and paving the way for his removal. When Louis regained the throne, some church dignitaries were stripped of their bishoprics and exiled.
Content:The Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals and fictitious letters from Clement to Gregory the Great were incorporated in a 9th-century collection of canons purportedly by the pseudonymous Isidore Mercator. Collections of canons were commonly made by adding new matter to old; the forgers of the Pseudo-Isidore collection took as the basis of their work the Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis, interpolating their forgeries with the genuine material to provide credibility by association. The Liber Pontificalis was used as a historical guide, and furnished some subject matter. The Pseudo-Isidorian collection includes an earlier (non-Pseudo-Isidorian) forgery, the Donation of Constantine.
The principal texts are: The addition of forged material to an earlier, authentic Spanish collection with texts from councils and papal letters from the 4th through the 8th centuries. The Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis' name derives from a manuscript once in the French city of Autun (Latin Augustodunum)
A collection of falsified legislation by Frankish rulers (capitularies), allegedly from the 6th to the 9th centuries, the Capitularia Benedicti Levitae, named for the alleged author of the collection's introduction: deacon (Latin levita) Benedictus. The author alleges that he has completed and updated the collection by the abbot Ansegisus of Fontanelle (died around 833)
A brief collection on criminal procedure, the Capitula Angilramni, allegedly given to Bishop Angilram of Metz by Pope Hadrian I
A collection of about 100 forged papal letters, most allegedly written by Roman bishops during the first three centuries AD. In its preface, the author calls himself bishop Isidorus Mercator (hence the name of the complex). In addition to the forged letters, the collection has a large number of genuine and partially-falsified council texts and papal letters from the 4th to the 8th centuries. The authentic interpolated material derives predominantly from the Hispana Gallica Augustodunensis.
In addition to these four main pieces are other minor forgeries from the same workshop:
The Excerptiones de gestis Chalcedonensis concilii
Some falsifications in the Hamilton 132 manuscript in the Berlin State Library
The Collectio Danieliana
Authorship: Much of the work is attributed to "Isidore Mercator", but this is almost certainly a pseudonym created by conflating the names of the respected ecclesiastical scholars Isidore of Seville and Marius Mercator.The work probably originated in the Kingdom of the Franks. The forgers' main object was to emancipate bishops from secular power and the influence of archbishops and synods, partially by exalting papal supremacy.
The author of one section identifies himself as Benedictus Levita. His Capitularia Benedicti Levitae deal not with early church and papal letters as the others do, but with forged capitularies on religious and theological matters by Carolingian rulers (most notably Charlemagne) who provide the forger's alleged authority. It is still unknown if the differently-structured and -written Capitularia Benedicti Levitae slightly predated and inspired the authors of the false decretals or all were forged simultaneously.
The overall work was probably done by several authors under the editorial control of a learned man. Although certain identification of the compilers and forgers is probably impossible, Klaus Zechiel-Eckes has demonstrated that they used manuscripts from the monastic library at Corbie. Zechiel-Eckes has compiled evidence that an abbot at Corbie, Paschasius Radbertus (abbot 842-847) might have been one of those responsible for the forgeries. The forgers probably worked in the ecclesiastical province of Reims, and the complex was mostly complete by 847-852; the earliest known reference to the text was in 852. Its chief composer may have been ordained illegally by Ebbo, archbishop of Reims, during his brief and unlawful reinstatement (840-41). Whereas Zechiel-Eckes has argued for a date of composition in the 830's or early 840's based on evidence centring on the Council of Thionville, Eric Knibbs has recently argued for a later composition date in the 840's or early 850's, on the basis of language in the decretals which appear targeted to support Ebbo after his translation to the bishopric at Hildesheim in 845.
The False Decretals of Isidore, Cornerstone of the Papacy
An excerpt from The Papacy
by Abbe Guette
"The False Decretals make as it were the dividing point between the Papacy of the first eight and that of the succeeding centuries. At this date, the pretensions of the Popes begin to develop and take each day a more distinct character."
We have now come to the last years of the eighth Century. The Eastern empire, delivered from Copronymus and his son Leo IV., breathed again under the reign of Constantine and Irene.
Charlemagne reigned in France, Adrian I. was Bishop of Rome; Tarasius, a great and saintly Patriarch, ruled at Constantinople. Before consenting to his election Tarasius addressed to the court and people of Constantinople a discourse from which we quote the following passage: "This is what I principally fear, (in accepting the episcopate:) I see the church divided in the East; we have different languages among us, and many agree with the West, which anathematizes us daily. Separation (anathema) is a terrible thing; it drives from the kingdom of heaven and leads to outer darkness. Nothing is more pleasant to God than union, which makes us one Catholic Church, as we confess in the creed. I therefore ask you, brethren, that which I believe is also your will, since you have the fear of God: I ask that the Emperor and Empress assemble an cumenical council, in order that we may make but one body under a Single Chief, who is Jesus Christ. If the Emperor and Empress grant me this request, I submit to their orders and your votes; if not, I cannot consent. Give me, brethren, what answer you will." [1]
All but a few fanatics applauded the project of a council, and then Tarasius consented to be ordained and instituted bishop. He at once addressed his letters of communion to the churches of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem. [2] In these he made as usual his profession of faith, and invited those churches to the council which the Emperor was about to assemble. The Empress-regent and her son wrote to Pope Adrian that they had resolved to assemble an Ecumenical council; they begged him to come to it, promising to receive him with honors; or to send representatives if he could not personally accept their invitation.
Adrian's answer to the Emperor and Empress is a very important document, in regard to the question we are examining. We find in it a style which the Bishops of Rome had not hitherto allowed themselves to adopt toward the emperors.
Rome, jealous of Constantinople, was soon to crown Charlemagne Emperor of the West, and thus to break all political ties with the East. The Pope enjoyed great temporal authority in that city under the protection of the Frankic kings; he was rich, and he was ambitious to surround his see with still greater magnificence, and splendor. Adrian therefore replied arrogantly to the respectful letter he bad received from the court of Constantinople. He insisted upon certain conditions, as one power dealing with another, and particularly upon this point: that the patrimony of St. Peter in the East, confiscated by the iconoclastic emperors, must be restored in toto. We will quote from his letter what he says respecting the Patriarch of Constantinople: "We are very much surprised to see that in your letter you give to Tarasius the title of ecumenical Patriarch. The Patriarch of Constantinople would not have even the second rank WITHOUT THE CONSENT OF OUR SEE; if he be cumenical, must he not therefore have also the primacy over our church? All Christians know that this is a ridiculous assumption."
Adrian sets before the Emperor the example of Charles, King of the Franks. "Following our advice," he says, "and fulfilling our wishes, he has subjected all the barbarous nations of the West; he has given to the Roman Church in perpetuity provinces, cities, castles, and patrimonies which were withheld by the Lombards, and which by right belong to St. Peter; he does not cease daily to offer gold and silver for this light and sustenance of the poor."
Here is language quite new on the part of Roman bishops, but henceforth destined to become habitual with them. It dates from 785; that is, from the same year when Adrian delivered to Ingelramn, Bishop of Metz, the collection of the False Decretals. [3] There is something highly significant in this coincidence. Was it Adrian himself who authorized this work of forgery? We do not know; but it is an incontestable fact that it was in Rome itself under the pontificate of Adrian, and in the year in which he wrote so haughtily to the Emperor of the East, that this new code of the Papacy is first mentioned in history. Adrian is the true creator of the modern Papacy. Not finding in the traditions of the Church the documents necessary to support his ambitious views, he rested them upon apocryphal documents written to suit the occasion, and to legalize all future usurpations of the Roman see. Adrian knew that the Decretals contained in the code of Ingelramn were false. For he had already given, ten years before, to Charles, King of the Franks, a code of the ancient canons, identical with the generally received collection of Dionysius Exiguus. It was, therefore, between the years 775 and 785 that the False Decretals were composed.
The time was favorable to such inventions. In the foreign invasions which had deluged the entire West with blood and covered it with ruins, the libraries of the churches and monasteries bad been destroyed; the clergy were plunged in the deepest ignorance; the East, invaded by the Mussulman, had now scarcely any relations with the West. The Papacy profited by these misfortunes, and built up a power half political and half religious upon these ruins, finding no lack of flatterers who did not blush to invent and secretly propagate their forgeries in order to give a divine character to an institution that has ambition for its only source.
The False Decretals make as it were the dividing point between the Papacy of the first eight and that of the succeeding centuries. At this date, the pretensions of the Popes begin to develop and take each day a more distinct character. The answer of Adrian to Constantine and Irene is the starting point.
The legates of the Pope and those of the Patriarchal churches of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, having gone to Constantinople, Nicea was appointed as the place of assembling the council. The first session took place September twenty-fourth, 787. This second Council of Nicea is reckoned the seventh Ecumenical, both by the Eastern and Western churches. [4] Adrian was represented by the Archpriest Peter, and by another Peter, Abbot of the monastery of St. Sabas at Rome. The Bishops of Sicily were the first to speak, and said, "We deem it advisable that the most holy Archbishop of Constantinople should open the council." All the members agreed to this proposition, and Tarasius made them an allocution upon the duty of following the ancient traditions of the Church in the decisions they were about to make. Then those who opposed these traditions were introduced, that the council might hear a statement of their doctrine. Then were read the letters brought by the legates of the Bishops of Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, for the purpose of ascertaining what the faith of the East and the West might be. The Bishop of Ancyra had shared the errour of the iconoclasts. He now appeared before the council to make his confession of faith, and commenced with the following words, well worthy of being quoted: "It is the law of the Church, that those who are converted from a heresy, should abjure it in writing, and confess the Catholic faith. Therefore do I, Basil, Bishop of Ancyra, wishing to unite myself with the Church, with Pope Adrian, with the Patriarch Tarasius, with the Apostolic sees of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and with all Catholic bishops and priests, make this confession in writing, and present it to you, who have power by apostolic authority."
This most orthodox language clearly proves that at that time the he Pope of Rome was not regarded as the sole centre of unity, the source of Catholic authority; that unity and authority were only recognized in the unanimity of the sacerdotal body.
The letter of Adrian to the Emperor and Empress, and the one be had written to Tarasius were then read, but only in so far as they treated of dogmatic questions. His complaints against the title of cumenical and his demands concerning the patrimony of St. Peter, were passed over in silence. Nor did the legates of Rome insist. The council declared that it approved of the Pope's doctrine. Next were read the letters from the Patriarchal sees of the East whose doctrine agreed with that of the West. That doctrine was compared with the teaching of the Fathers of the Church, in order to verify not only the present unanimity, but the perpetuity of the doctrine; and the question was also examined, whether the iconoclasts had on their side any true Catholic tradition. After this double preparatory examination, the council made its profession of faith, deciding that according to the perpetual doctrine of the Church, images should be venerated, reserving for God alone the Latria or adoration, properly so called.
The members of the council then adjourned to Constantinople, where the last session took place in the presence of Irene and Constantine and the entire people.
The Acts of the seventh Ecumenical council, like those of the preceding ones, clearly prove that the Bishop of Rome was only first in honour in the Church; that his testimony had no doctrinal weight, except in so far as it might be regarded as that of the Western Church; that there was as yet no individual authority in the Church, but a collective authority only, of which the sacerdotal body was the echo and interpreter.
This doctrine is diametrically opposed to the Romish system. Let us add, that the seventh Œcumenical council, like the six that preceded it, was neither convoked, presided over, nor confirmed by the Pope. He concurred in it by his legates, and the West concurred in the same way, whereby it acquired its Œcumenical character.
But this concurrence of the West was not at first unanimous, at least in appearance, notwithstanding the well-known concurrence of the Pope; which proves that even in the West such doctrinal authority was not then granted to the Pope, as his supporters now claim for him. Seven years after the Council of Nicea, that is, in 794, Charlemagne assembled at Frankfort all the bishops of the kingdoms he had conquered. In this council several dogmatic questions were discussed, and particularly that concerning images. By the decisions there rendered, the council intended to reject that of second council of Nicea, which had not been thoroughly understood by the Frankic Bishops. These Bishops reproached the Pope with his concurrence in that decision, and Adrian in a manner apologized for it.
He recognized, it is true, the orthodoxy of the doctrines professed by the council, but alleged that other motives would have impelled him to reject that council, had he not feared lest his opposition might be construed into an adherence to the heresy condemned. "We have accepted the council," [5] wrote Adrian, "because its decision agrees with the doctrine of St. Gregory; fearing lest if we did not receive it, the Greeks might return to their errour, and we be responsible for the loss of so many souls. Nevertheless, we have not yet made any answer to the Emperor on the subject of the subject of the council. While exhorting them to reestablish images, we warned them to restore to the Roman Church her jurisdiction over certain bishoprics and archbishoprics, and the patrimonies of which we were bereft at the time when images were abolished. But we have received no answer, which shows that they are converted upon one point, but not upon the other two. Therefore, if you think fit, when we shall thank the Emperor for the reestablishment of images, we will also press him further upon the subject of the restitution of the patrimonies and the jurisdiction, and, if he refuse, we pronounce him a heretic."
The attacks of the Frankic Bishops against Adrian, although unjust, prove abundantly that they did not recognize in the Papacy the the authority it claims to-day. The False Decretals had not yet been able completely to prevail over the ancient usages. Adrian replied to these attacks with a modesty that is easy of explanation, when we reflect how much he needed the Franks and their King Charlemagne to establish the basis of the new Papacy. Far from mentioning that alleged authority which he so proudly strove to impose upon the East, he was willing, in respect to the Franks, to play the part of prisoner at the bar. He made advances to them to the extent of proposing to pronounce the Emperor of Constantinople a heretic for a mere question of temporal possessions, or of a disputed jurisdiction. But we find in Adrian, under this humble show of submission, a prodigious shrewdness in creating occasions for increasing his power. If the Franks had asked him to declare the Emperor of Constantinople a heretic, they would thereby have recognized in him a sovereign and universal jurisdiction, and laid thus a precedent which would not have been neglected by the Papacy.
Adrian I. died in 796, and was succeeded by Leo III., who pursued the same policy as his predecessor. Immediately after his election, be sent to Charlemagne the standard of the city of Rome and the key of the confession of St Peter. In return the Frankic King sent him costly presents by an ambassador, who was to come to an understanding with him upon all that concerned "the glory of the Church, and the strengthening of the Papal dignity, and of the Roman patriciate given to the Frankic King. [6]
Leo had some intercourse with the East upon the occasion of the divorce of the Emperor Constantine. Two holy monks, Plato and Theodore Studites, declared themselves with special energy against the adulterous conduct of the Emperor. Theodore applied to several bishops for aid against the persecutions which their opposition to the Emperor had drawn upon them. The letters of Theodore Studites [7] are replete with fulsome praises of those to whom he writes. The Romish theologians have chosen to notice only the compliments addressed to the Bishop of Rome. With a little more honesty they might as easily have noted those, often still more emphatic, that are to be found in his other letters; and they must then have concluded that no dogmatic force could be attached to language lavished without distinction of sees, according to circumstances, and with the evident purpose of flattering those to whom the letters were addressed in order to render them favourable to the cause which Theodore advocated. The Romanists have not been willing to notice so obvious a fact. They have quoted the fulsome praises of Theodore as dogmatic testimony in favour of Papal authority, and have not chosen to see that if they have such a dogmatic value in the case of the Bishop of Rome, they must also have it no less in behalf of the Bishop of Jerusalem, for example, whom he calls "first of the five Patriarchs," or others, whom he addresses with as much extravagance. On these terms we should have in the Church several Popes enjoying, each of them, supreme and universal authority. This conclusion would not suit the Romish theologians; but it follows necessarily if the letters of Theodore Studites have the dogmatic value that Rome would give them to her own advantage. Moreover, if Theodore Studites occasionally gave pompous praise to the Bishop of Rome, he could also speak of him with very little respect, as we may see in his letter to Basil, Abbot of St. Sabas of Rome. [8]
At the commencement of his pontificate, Leo III. had to endure a violent opposition on the part of the relatives of his predecessor, Adrian. They heaped atrocious accusations upon him.
Charlemagne having come to Rome (800) as a patrician of that city, assembled a council to judge the Pope. But Leo was sure beforehand that he would prevail. He had received Charlemagne in triumph, and the powerful king was not ungrateful for the attentions of the pontiff. [9] The members of the council accordingly declared with one voice: "We dare not judge the Apostolic see, which is the head of all the churches; such is the ancient Custom!" 'Men were not overnice in those days in matters of erudition. By the ancient usage the Bishop of Rome was to be judged like any other bishop; but the doctrines of the False Decretals had no doubt begun to spread. Ingelramn of Metz, who had used them in his lawsuit at Rome, was the chaplain of Charlemagne, and one of his first councilors. According to this new code of a new Papacy, the Apostolic see, which could judge all, could be judged of none. Rome neglected no chance to establish this fundamental principle of her power, of which the inevitable consequence is Papal infallibility and even impeccability. These consequences were not developed at once, but the principle was now skillfully insinuated upon one favourable occasion. Leo III. justified himself upon oath. Some days later, on Christmas-day, A.D. 800, Charlemagne having gone to St. Peter's, the Pope placed upon his head a rich crown, and the people exclaimed, "Long life and victory to the august Charles, crowned by the hand of God, great and pacific Emperor of the Romans!" These acclamations were thrice enthusiastically repeated; after which the Pope knelt before the new Emperor and anointed him and his son Pepin with the holy oil.
Thus was the Roman empire of the West reestablished. Rome, who had always looked with jealousy upon the removal of the seat of government to Constantinople, was in transports of joy; the Papacy, pandering to her secret lusts, was now invested with power such as she had never before possessed. The idea of Adrian was achieved by his successor. The modern Papacy, a mixed institution half political and half religious, was established; a new era was beginning for the Church of Jesus Christ—an era of intrigues and struggles, despotism and revolutions, innovations and scandals.
2. See all the documents In Labbe's Collection of the Council, 7th vol.
3. Here are some details regarding the False Decretals:
It appears from the acts of the Council of Chalcedon in 451, that the Church
had already a Codex Canonum, or collection of the laws of the Church.
Several of these laws are held to have emanated from the Apostles themselves.
What they had commenced the councils continued, and, as soon as the Church began
to enjoy some little tranquility, these venerable laws were collected and formed
the basis of ecclesiastical discipline; and, as they were mostly in Greek, they
were translated into Latin for the use of the Western churches.
At the beginning of the sixth century Dionysius surnamed Exiguus, a monk at
Rome, finding this translation incorrect, made another at the request of Julian,
curate of St. Anastasia at Rome, and a disciple of Pope Gelasius. Dionysius
collected, besides, whatever letters of the Popes he could discover in the
archives, and published in his collection those of Stricius Innocent, Zosimus,
Boniface, Celestine, Leo, Gelasius and Anastastius, under which last he lived.
The archives of Rome at that time possessed nothing prior to Siricius—that is,
to the end of the fourth century.
At the beginning of the seventh century, Isidore of Seville undertook to
complete the collection of Dionysius. He added the canons of some national or
provincial of a few of the Popes, going back no farther than to Damasus, who
died in 844, and was the predecessor of Siricius. This collection of Isidore of
Seville begins with the canons of the Council of Nicea. He used the old
translation and not that of Dionysius for the Greek canons.
His collection was but little known, and in history we do not meet it until
785, and then disfigured and interpolated by an unknown forger, giving his name
as Isidore Mercator. This collection contained, beside the pieces contained in
the collection Isidore of Seville, certain Decretals which he ascribed to
the Popes of the first three centuries. Several scholars make Isidore Mercator
and Isidore of Seville separate writers, while others think that the latter had
added, through humility, the word Peccator to his name, which was
corrupted to Mercator. However this may be, the best Ultramontane critics as
well as the Gallicans, agree that the Decretals ascribed to the Popes of
the first centuries in the collection of Isidore Mercator, are spurious.
Marchetti himself admits their spuriousness. "Learned men of great
piety," he adds, " have declared against this false collection, which
Cardinal Bona frankly calls a pious fraud." "Baronius does not as
frankly regard them as a fraud; nevertheless, he would not use them in his
Ecclesiastical Annals, lest it should be believed that the Roman Church needed
suspicious documents to establish her rights."
The Ultramontanes cannot openly sustain these Decretals as true, for it has
been abundantly proved that they were manufactured partly from ancient
canons, with extracts from the letters of the Popes of the fourth and fifth
centuries. Entire passages, particularly from St. Leo and Gregory the Great, are
found in them. The whole is strung together in bad Latin, which for even the
least critical scholar has all the characteristics of the style of the eighth
and ninth centuries.
The collection of Isidore Mercator was disseminated chiefly by Riculf,
Archbishop of Mayence, who took that see in 787. Several critics have concluded
from this that this collection first appeared at Mayence, and even that Riculf
was its author.
Were these False Decretals fabricated In Spain, Germany, or Rome? We
he nocertainty on the subject. The oldest copies tell us that it was
Ingelramn who brought this collection to Rome from Metz, when he had a lawsuit
there in 785; but other copies tell us that it was Pope Adrian who, upon that
occasion, delivered it to Ingelramn, September nineteenth, A.D. 785. Certain it
is, that at Rome we find the first mention of it. Yet Adrian knew that
these Decretals were false, since, ten years before, he had given Charlemagne a
COPY of the canons, which was no other than that of Dionysius Exiguus.
The False Decretals were so extensively circulated in the West, that
they were everywhere received, and particularly at Rome, as authentic.
The Ultramontanes, while they do not dare to maintain the authority of the
writings ascribed to the Popes of the first three centuries, nevertheless
indirectly sustain them. Several works have been written with this object
against Fleury, who justly asserted and abundantly proved that they changed the
ancient discipline. We will quote among these Ultramontane works those of
Marchetti, of Father de Housta, and Father Honore de Sainte-Marie:
"We may conjecture," says Marchetti, "that Isidore gathered
the Decretals of ancient Popes which the persecutions of the first centuries had
not permitted to be collected, and that animated by a desire to
transmit the Collection to posterity, he made such haste that he overlooked some
faults and chronological errours which were afterward corrected by more exact
criticism."
Thus, then, the Decretals of the first three centuries are false;
nevertheless they are substantially true. Such is the Ultramontane system. It
only remains to say, to make the business complete, that the texts of St. Leo
and St. Gregory the Great, which are found in these Decretals, do not belong to
those fathers, who, in that case, must have copied them from the Decretals of
their predecessors. It would be quite as reasonable to maintain this opinion, as
to say that we only find in the False Decretals a few faults and chronological
errours.
To this first system of defence, the Ultramontanes add a second. They make a
great display of eloquence to prove that an unknown person without any authority
could never have introduced a new code in the Church. We think so too. But there
is one great fact of the very highest importance which our Ultramontanes have
left out of sight, that, at the time when the False Decretals appeared,
the see of Rome had for about two centuries taken advantage of every occurrence
to increase her influence and to put into practice what the False Decreta1s lay
down as the law. Every one knows that after the fall of the Roman empire,
most of the Western nations were essentially modified by the invasion of new
races; that the Church seriously felt this change; that the pursuit of learning
was abandoned, and that after the seventh century the most deplorable ignorance
reigned in the Western churches. From that time the Bishops of Rome began to
take part directly in the government of individual churches, which frequently
lay in the hands of only half-Christianized conquerors. They sent missionaries
to labour for the conversion of the invading tribes; and these missionaries,
like St. Boniface of Mayence, retained for the Popes who sent them, the feelings
of disciples for their masters. The churches newly founded by them, remained
faithful to these sentiments. It would not, therefore, be surprising if the
fabricator of the False Decretals lived in or near Mayence. He composed
that work of fragments from the councils and the Fathers, and added regulations
which were in perfect harmony with the usages of the see of Rome at the end of
the eighth century, and which Rome, doubtless, inspired.
This coincidence, joined to the ignorance which then prevailed, explains
sufficiently how the False Decreta1s could be accepted without protest—the
see of Rome using all its influence to spread them. As most of the churches had
been accustomed for two centuries to feel the authority of the Bishops of Rome,
they accepted without examination documents which seemed to be no more than the
sanction of this authority. The False Decretals did not therefore create
a new code for the Western churches; they only came in aid of a regime which,
owing to political disturbances, the Popes themselves had created.
Thus the Romanists have their labour for their pains, when they seek to
defend the Decretals by saying that an unknown author without authority could
not have established a new code.
Here are the objections that Fleury makes to the False Decretals: "The
subject matter of these letters [Hist. Eccl. liv. xliv.] reveals their
spuriousness. They speak of archbishops, primates, patriarchs, as if these
titles had existed from the birth of the Church. They forbid the holding of any
council, even a provincial one, without permission from the Pope, and represent
appeals to Rome as habitual. Frequent complaints therein made of usurpations of
the temporalities of the Church. We find there this maxim, that bishops falling
into sin may, after having done penance, exercise their functions as before.
Finally, the principal subject of these Decretals is that of complaints
against bishops; there is scarcely one that does not speak of them and give
rules to make them difficult. And Isidore makes it very apparent in his preface
that he had this matter deeply at heart."
The object of the forger in this last matter is evident. It was to diminish
the authority of the metropolitans, who, from time immemorial, had enjoyed the
right to convoke the council of their province to hear complaints against a
bishop of that province in particular, and judge him. The forger, whose object
it was to concentrate all authority at Rome, would naturally first endeavour to
check the authority of the metropolitan, and make the appeals to Rome seem to
offer greater guarantees and to be more consonant with episcopal dignity.
One must be utterly ignorant of the history of the first three centuries, not
to know that at that period the Church had no fixed organization; that it was
not divided into dioceses until the reign of Constantine and by the Council of
Nicea; that it was this council that recognized in the sees of Rome, Alexandria,
and Antioch a superiority common to them all over a certain number of churches
to which they had given birth, and over which, according to custom, they
exercised a special supervision. But the forger does not hesitate for all this
to bring into play archbishops, primates, and patriarchs during the first three
centuries, and ascribes to the first Bishops of Rome, as rights, prerogatives,
which the councils had never recognized, and which these bishops had usurped in
the West since the invasions of the barbarians had overthrown the ancient Roman
polity.
After our deep study of the history of the Church, we feel at liberty to
assert that it is impossible to accumulate more errours than the Ultramontanes
have done, to defend the alleged legal force of the False Decretals; that
the False Decretals established in the ninth century a new code
completely opposed to that of the first eight Christian centuries; and that the
forger had no other object than to sanction the encroachments of the court of
Rome during the two centuries preceding the composition of his work. We have
carefully studied what has been said pro and contra upon this
subject. The writings of the Romanists have convinced us that this forger of the
ninth century has never been defended but by arguments worthy of him; that is to
say, by the most shameful misrepresentations. The works of the Gallicans are
more honest, and show deeper research. Yet even in them we perceive a certain
reticency which injures their cause, and even now and then a forced and
unnatural attitude concerning Papal prerogatives, which they do not dare to
deny. (See the works of Hincmar of Rheims, and the Annals of Father Lecointe.)
4. See its transactions In Labbe's Collection, vol. viii.
5. Resp. ad. Lib. Carolin. in Labbe's Collection, vol. viii.
6. Alcuin Ep. 84.
7. Theod. Stud. Ep. 15.
8. Theod. Stud. Ep. 28.
9. Sismondi alleges that this mock trial and the subsequent capital
punishment of Leo's accusers were prearranged, together with the coronation
mentioned in the text, during Leo's visit to Charlemagne a short time previous
at Paderborn. Sismondi, Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xvii.—[Editor.]
From The Papacy, by Abbe Guette. (New York, NY: Minos
Publishing Co., MDCCCLXVI), pp. 256-269. The Editor's Preface notes that the
author is not a Protestant but rather a French Roman Catholic clergyman, reared
in the communion of Rome, whose honest research led him to disavow the Papacy.
This resulted in his being placed "under the ban" by the Pope. This is
noteworthy because it "gives assurance of [the author's] ability to treat
the subject of the Papacy with the most intimate knowledge of its practical
character," and in an unbiased way.
