THE SEVENTH CLASS OF FACTS — THE PIOUS FRAUDS IN SUPPORT OF THE DOCTRINES AND PRETENSIONS OF THE ROMAN PONTIFFS.

569. THERE is still another class of facts which more than all demands notice, in order to give our argument its greatest force: This faithful preservation of the sacred collection, so surprising in the bloody hands of the Papacy during the twelve hundred and sixty years of its triumphs, will appear to us much more marvellous when we have studied another permanent feature of its history. I refer to its pious frauds — incontestible frauds — frauds enormous, official, and innumerable — frauds continued and multiplied during thirteen centuries with incessant ardour, to sanction in the eyes of the people the doctrines of its schools, and the pretensions of its pontiffs.

False epistles, — false titles, — false acts of councils, — false books of the fathers, — false decrees, — false miracles, — false apparitions, — -false legends!

And let us observe, that all these means have been employed most frequently in connexion with what Paul calls “a zeal of God,” (ζῆλον Θεοῦ) Rom. x. 2, and as the actors believed from holy motives, because in exalting the Church, according to their idea of it, they imagined that they were advancing the salvation of the world, and the glory of God.

570. Certainly, when at the end of thirteen whole centuries of pious frauds practised under all forms, you still see the mighty colossus of the Roman Church, always carrying in its hands the holy and pure collection of the twenty-seven scriptures of the New Testament, you cannot help recognising in this marvellous inviolability, a manifestation of the God of the Scriptures, Certainly you have here before your eyes a splendid miracle of Providence. You see an ingot of silver come out uninjured with all its lustre from an immersion of ages in a corrosive acid, while every other substance, even gold, has been affected by it. We behold as it were Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego again coming forth from the furnace — “upon their bodies the fire has had no power, neither has the smell of fire passed upon them,” (Dan. iii. 277.)

571. But we must study this great fact more closely, to be able to do it justice. We wish, notwithstanding its wide extent, while presenting a clear and precise view of it, to be as brief as possible; for we are led to notice it only by the necessities of our argument; and in recalling the faults of Romanists, we feel almost the same repugnance as we always express whenever we are forced to mention those of Protestants. Besides, we do not forget that we are writing an apologetical and not a controversial work. Only it is needful that every reader should recognise the hand of God in this affair; and in order that he may recognise it, the marvellous contrast in the history of the Papacy must be pointed out to him; on the one hand all those falsehoods, and on the other, that constant and immaculate blamelessness in reference to the canon. This proof is glaring; it would be criminal to shut our eyes to it.

In order to call to mind in a few words these gigantic frauds, we shall cite only eminent Roman authorities and well-authenticated facts.

SECTION FIRST.

THE FALSE DECRETALS.

572. For example, in the first place, the False Decretals, those letters fraudulently attributed to the popes of the three or four first centuries by those of the eighth and tenth; “a falsehood, of which the artifice,” says the illustrious Abbé Fleury,¹ “deceived the whole Latin Church for 800 years.” In the second place, the false donation of the city of Rome to the bishops of that city by Constantine the Great; a donation so often alleged by the popes of the Middle Ages, “and upon which,” Fleury says again, “the popes primarily founded their temporal domination.” Thirdly, the false books attributed to fathers of the Church by the defenders of Rome, but acknowledged by the best authors to be forged. Fourthly, the true books of the fathers, falsified by this same Church in the interest of these new doctrines, and falsified even authoritatively by its official publications and its Index Expurgatorius. Fifthly, the Roman Breviary itself, as well as the false narrations, the false citations, the false books, the false miracles, which we find reproduced in it from year to year, by order of the Popes, to be read every day by the hundred thousand Latin priests who are obliged even at this day, over all the world, and under pain of mortal sin, to repeat it every day word for word, and during the hours, all the sentences, in their daily devotions.

Certainly we see enough here to make all thoughtful men admire the divine fact which we point out. But we must look at it more closely.

573. It is well understood that the Decretals are epistles in which the popes reply to the consultations of bishops. They are called decretals, because in the Church of Rome they have the force of law. And as to the False Decretals, they are letters fraudulently attributed by the popes of the Middle Ages to popes of the three or four first centuries, in order to induce the belief that these first bishops then enjoyed the prerogatives which their successors did not claim till six, seven, or eight hundred years after them. “Never,” it has been said, — “never has the history of mankind presented the example of so gigantic a fraud; gigantic in its boldness, gigantic in its duration, gigantic, above all, in the immensity of its success. This powerful and incomparable falsehood established the domination of Rome throughout the Middle — Ages; and the artifice, — I borrow once more the words of the confessor of Louis XV., the illustrious Abbé Fleury, — “the artifice deceived the whole Latin Church for 800 years, although there is no one,” he adds, “moderately informed in these matters, who may not recognise the falsity in the present day.”² We give here in his own words, but somewhat condensed, the account of it contained in his sixth book: —

“The successor of Fulrad in the Abbey of St Denys was Enguerran, Bishop of Metz. A collection of canons is attributed to him, bearing the name of Pope Hadrian, who gave them to him on September 19, 785. Other copies state that it was Enguerran who presented them to the Pope, which is much more — probable. What distinguishes this from preceding collections is the extracts from the False Decretals of Isidore with which it is filled. And this is the first time we find these decretals made use of.” Such is Fleury’s account.

But we should read again in this author with what arrogance the Popes Nicholas and Hadrian (in 864 and 874) cited these fraudulent acts, to sustain their pretensions, to Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, and to King Charles the Bald.

574, “The collection in which these acts are found” (I again quote Fleury) “bear the name of Isidore Mercator, who appears to have been a Spaniard. He says in the preface that he had been obliged to compile this work by eighty servants of God, and that, next to the canons of the apostles, he had inserted some decretal letters of the Popes Clement, Cletus, and others, down to Sylvester, (in 314.) But he does not say where he found them. They were unknown to. Dionysius Exiguus, who had collected, 200 years before, the decretals of the Popes only since Siricius, (384) Moreover, they bear evident signs of imposture. Their dates are almost all false; all are in the same style — more suited to the eighth century than the three first, — and full of different passages from authors later than the Popes whose names they bear. The contents of these letters equally expose the forgery; they speak of archbishops, primates, and patriarchs, as if these titles had been in use from the first rise of the Church; they prohibit holding any council, even a provincial one, without the Pope’s permission; they represent appeals to Rome as common; they complain of frequent usurpations of the temporal property of the churches, &. The artifice, gross as it was, imposed on the whole Latin Church; the false decretals passed for true during 800 years, and were scarcely given up in the last century. It is true,” adds Fleury, “that, in the present day, there is hardly any man moderately informed in these matters who does not recognise the forgery.³

575. “The decree of Gratian, (in 1551,)” he continues,⁴ “succeeded in confirming and extending the authority of the false decretals which were found scattered everywhere; for, during more than three centuries, no other canons were acknowledged than those in this collection; no others were followed in the schools and in the tribunals. Gratian had even gone beyond these decretals to extend the authority of the Roman Pontiff, maintaining that the Pope was not subject to the canons. This he said of his own head, and without bringing any authoritative proof for it. Thus in the Latin Church a confused idea was formed that the power of the Pope was unlimited,” &c.

“The forgery of the decretals, attributed to the first Popes,” says the learned Dupin, doctor of the Sorbonne, “is in the present day so well known that it is unnecessary to say a word about it.”⁵

And yet he adds, that “they have been cited times without number by the Popes, the councils, and the canonists. As they appeared in a dark age, it is not astonishing that they were received without much hesitation. Yet Hincmar of Rheims and the French bishops had, at first, much difficulty in receiving them; but soon after, they acquired authority, being supported by the Court of Rome, the pretensions of which they favoured.” Thus speak the doctors of Rome.

576. At the view of these impostures, without the aid of which the empire of the Papacy could never have been established, we ask once more, if every one does not see, with profound astonishment, or, shall I not say, with devout admiration, that the bold propagators of these gigantic lies were able, nevertheless, to maintain a fidelity so perfect in preserving intact, during eight centuries, the very books of which, at the same time, they interdicted the reading in the vulgar tongue, under pain of death, to all the nations of the earth!

SECTION SECOND.

THE DONATION OF CONSTANTINE,

577. But what shall we say of the donation of Constantine, of his leprosy, his cure, and his baptism? This audacious imposture must be noticed here separately, on account of the great use the Popes made of it, the immense success they obtained with it, and all that is still to be found about it in the Roman Breviary. Constantine, we are told, had been attacked with a frightful leprosy all over his body; all the remedies applied were inefficacious; the priests of the capitol were consulted. “Let us kill a certain number of young children,” they answered. “We will fill a bath with their blood, still warm; plunge into it, and you will be cured.” Constantine, struck with horror, refused. The following night he saw in a dream the apostles Peter and Paul. “We are sent to thee by Jesus Christ,” they said. “Thou wilt find the Bishop of Rome on Mount Soracte; he has retired into the eaverns of the rocks with his priests, to avoid thy persecutions. Send for him; he will shew thee a bath. Plunge into it three times, and thou wilt be cured. But then purify thyself, forsake thy idols, and serve the true God.” The emperor, alarmed, sought out Pope Sylvester. ‘Who are those gods that visited me last night?” he asked. “They are not gods, but apostles of Jesus Christ; and, better to convince thee, I will cause one of my deacons to bring the images of the two apostles, which they keep for worship” (!!) The emperor, struck with admiration, recognised them, obeyed the Divine call, was baptized by Sylvester, saw at once his leprosy entirely cured, and, under the influence of Sylvester, built several churches, and adorned them with holy images. Such is the gross tale of these impostures, which every priest of the Latin Church is still obliged to recite in his Breviary at every return of the 31st of December.⁶ “Constantinus igitur coelestibus monitis obtemperans Silvestrem diligentissimè conquisitum vocat; a quo apostolorum imagines recognoscens, baptismo sanatur. Itaque auctore Silvestro, multas basilicas aedificavit, quas sacris imaginibus ornavit!”

But let us listen again to the Abbé Fleury. “Leo IX.,” he says, “and the Popes who undertook to repair the ruins of the tenth century, and to restore the splendour of the Roman Church, wished also to re-establish its temporal power, which they founded primarily on the donation of Constantine. Everybody in the present day,” he adds, “knows what this donation amounts to; and its falsity is even more universally acknowledged than that of the decretals of Isidore. But in the time of Gregory VII. and his successors the truth of this story was not questioned; St Bernard himself supposes it to be true; it was known and received from the ninth century; and men’s minds scarcely began to be disabused towards the middle of the fifteenth.⁷ And if you go to Rome to visit, as we have done, the holy church of the Lateran, ‘the principal basilica in Rome and in the world, look on your left, near the left entrance on the north side of the church, at the great marble” which Gregory XI. placed there in 1371, or, on the right of the right entry, at that which Pius V. placed there two centuries later, you will read on either the leprosy of Constantine, his cure and baptism at Rome, although every one knows that he was not baptized before 337, at Nicomedia, according to the unanimous testimony of Eusebius, Ambrose, Socrates, Sozomen, and Theodoret.” (See Muratori, Annal. d'Italia, Ann. 324.)

578. Once more, let every one judge of the danger, almost inevitable, to which the Scriptures were exposed in such days, with such men, in such hands — those Scriptures which were forbidden to the people at a later period, in the name of the Popes, under penalty of death. And yet the danger has been incurred, without the least injury, for more than ten centuries! To whom must the glory be ascribed but to the God of the Scriptures?

But again, what was all this compared with what has been done to alter the works of the fathers, and even to alter them officially?

Certainly, it was here that, in two directions, the perils of the canon appeared to be imminent. On the one hand, false works of the fathers were fabricated in very great numbers, in the bosom of the Roman Church, and even quoted largely by her greatest doctors, to justify her pretensions and her doctrines. On the other hand, the genuine works of the fathers were altered and falsified in the bosom of the same Church, and often by superior orders, in her mysterious Index Expurgatorius.

SECTION THIRD.

FALSE BOOKS OF THE FATHERS FABRICATED OR QUOTED.

579. I say, false books. The world has been deluged with them. If you wish to form an idea of their number, and of the difficulty of separating them from the genuine works of the writers to whom they are ascribed, read, respecting only the writings of Chrysostom and Basil, what their editors, the learned Benedictine monks, tell us.⁸ “The multitude of books which have falsely taken the name of Chrysostom (ementiuntur) is immense, (ingens,)” says Montfaucon. “The pains I have been obliged to take,” says Garnier, “to distinguish the genuine works of Basil from the spurious, are enormous, (vel maxvmum,) since not a small number only, but all have been controverted, (cum adducantur in controversiam non pauca quaedam scripta, sed omnia)” On this subject we refer our readers to the complaints of Thomas James, chief keeper of the Bodleian Library in Oxford University, contained in a very learned work, published first in 1612, and reprinted in London in 1843 with this title: — “A Treatise of the Corruptions of Scripture, Councils, and Fathers, by the Prelates, Pastors, and Pillars of the Church of Rome, for the Maintenance of Popery.” In the first part the author treats of the bastardy of the false fathers; in the second, of the corruption of the true fathers; and in the last, (the fifth,) of three remedies against all manner of Popish corruptions, to restore the genuine texts to the Church of God. In the first part he enumerates in detail 187 treatises charged with being spurious by the most distinguished doctors of the Church of Rome, such as Bellarmin, Baronius, Possevin, Cotton, Coccius,⁹ Pamelius; and he shews, moreover, in very exact and particular tables, that, to uphold the teachings of Rome, these very men have allowed themselves to make use of these spurious writings in their controversial works.

In a list of 103 of these doctrines, he enumerates, upon each of them, those of these 187 spurious books which each of the principal catholic doctors have respectively alleged, and the exact passages in their works in which these citations are made.¹⁰

We are not able, it is evident, to present these details; it would require volumes. We shall content ourselves with some examples, and cite only the Catholic authorities,

580. For example, in order to exalt Mary by a gross anachronism, and to make all the Catholic priests believe, when reciting their Brewary, that, as early as the fourth century, St Augustin called the Virgin Mary the only hope of sinners, it was found convenient, even in the Roman Breviary, (for December 9,)¹¹ to cite a spurious sermon by this father, in which he is made to say, “Through thee we hope for the pardon of our transgressions, because thou art the only hope of sinners, (per te speramus veniam deluctorum, quia tu es spes unica peccatorum.)” But the Benedictine monks, in editing this father, do not hesitate to say that this passage, “though it is read in the Breviary under the name of Augustin, is not his;¹² that it is unworthy even of Jerome, to whom it has been sometimes attributed, and must belong to more recent times, since it is the work of some unskilful forger, (opus quippe est imperiti alicujus consarcinatoris.)”

581. For example, again, to refer, out of these 187 forged writings alleged by James, only to the forged passages of Augustin, (sixty-one in number,) and, among all these, only to those which have been made use of by Baronius and Bellarmin alone, the two most celebrated controversialists of Rome, both cardinals, both librarians of the Vatican, and both twice on the point of being popes.

His treatise De Animâ et Spiritu, acknowledged by the doctors of Louvain not to be genuine, (Lovan., tom. iii.,) is cited by Baronius, (tom. v., p. 587,) and by Bellarmin, (tom. ii, p. 586; tom. iii, p. 1731.)

His treatise De Continentiâ, acknowledged to be spurious by Erasmus, is cited by Bellarmin to prove that lust is not a sin, (tom. iv., pp. 383, 387; tom. vi, p. 1312.)

His Sixteen Epistles to Boniface, acknowledged to be spurious by Bellarmin, Erasmus, and the doctors of Louvain, are made use of by Baronius, (tom. v., pp. 477-479, 482, 485, 501.)

His Epistle ad Laetum, rejected as spurious by Erasmus, is cited by Bellarmin to prove that children may enter a convent without the consent of their parents.¹³

His Liber Hypognosticon, held by Bellarmin not to be his, as Possevin asserts, is made use of by Bellarmin himself, (tom. iv., p. 14.)

His book, Ad Orosium, declared by Bellarmin not to be his, is employed by Bellarmin himself to prove the authenticity of Ecclesiasticus, (tom. i, p. 52.)¹⁴

His book, Quaestiones Veteris et Novi Testamenti, censured by Bellarmin as not being his, but the work of a heretic,¹⁵ is made use of by Baronius, (tom. i, p. 821,) as also by Cotton, to prove that Mary is the queen of heaven, (tom. i, p. 97.)

His Sermo de Sanctis, 35, held to he undoubtedly spurious by Baronius, is made use of by him, (tom. i, p. 415.)

His book De Speculo, which evidently “nec pilum habet Augustini,” according to Erasmus and Possevin,¹⁶ is cited by Bellarmin to prove that Tobit is canonical, (tom. i, p. 143.)

His book, De Utilitate Poenitentiae, condemned both by the doctors of Louvain and by Erasmus as not his; is cited by Bellarmin to prove the sacrament of penance, (tom. iii, p. 1156.)

Lastly, his book, De Urbis Eacidio, pronounced by Erasmus to be the work of an unknown author, is cited by Baronius, (tom. v., pp. 20, 200.)

But why need I give these details when we have in our hands the Roman Breviary?

SECTION FOURTH.

THE BREVIARY.

582. Here it is that we may see in abundance the easy, general, and persevering use made of spurious books in the Roman Church, when the object is to support her doctrines.

What, in fact, is there more official and more sacred than this book of devotion — indispensable all over the world for all the priests of Catholicism — reconstructed (800 years ago) by a decree of the Council of Trent,¹⁷ and by a bull of Paul V., and reprinted from year to year by authority in the middle of the nineteenth century? Take it in your hand. What do you find there? Recitals most manifestly contrary to history, often acknowledged to be false by the most eminent doctors of the Papacy, and taken (at least for the saints of the first ages) either from the Pontifical, (Lives of the Popes,) or from the Forged Decretals, or from the Roman Martyrology. Read from one end to the other the legends of each day, and you will see that the new saints, canonised since the year 993,¹⁸ are far from presenting legends less repulsive or less fantastic than the earlier ones. Read, for November 23, the fable of Pope Clement, — his anchor round his neck, his chapel, and the flowing back of the waters of the Euxine. Read, for April 26, the fable of Pope Marcellinus and the false Council of Senuesse, to establish the dogma that the Pope, or “the supreme see,” is to be “judged by none.” Read, for May 3, the fable of Pope Alexander, fabricated in order to give a divine origin (in the year 109) to the use of holy water, of which there had not been really a trace in the Church for the first five centuries. Read, for January 15, the spurious epistle of Marcellus, of which the Jesuit Labbe himself has acknowledged the fraud, and the intent of which is to demonstrate that the Church of Rome is “the head of the Churches,” and that no lawful council can anywhere be held but by permission of the Roman Pontiff. Read, for December 31, the fable of Pope Sylvester, pretending that Bishop Hosius of Cordova was his legate at the Council of Nice. Read, for September 19, the legend of St Januarius, whose body, being carried to Naples, extinguished the flames of Vesuvius, and whose blood, from the time of Diocletian to our own days, liquifies when brought near his skull. Read, for October 9, the legend of Dionysius the Areopagite, convicted at Athens by Paul, then sent from Rome to Gaul by Pope Clement to preach the gospel, and beheaded at Paris, but walking from that city a distance of two miles, carrying his head in his hands! This legend is written in the Breviary, though, before the ninth century, it had never been mentioned by any one for 700 years.¹⁹

583. Let us check ourselves; for we might cite the legends of the whole book. Certainly, when we reflect that such has been for so many ages the constant and principal discipline in which the priests of Rome have been trained all over the world — when we consider that every day they have to mix with their devotions falsehoods so manifest — acknowledged as such even by their own doctors — we shall receive two strong impressions. On the one hand, we shall be no longer astonished to see such men welcome with eagerness, and by the same means, as being able to serve the same cause, all the most repulsive and absurd modern miracles, apparitions of the Virgin at Salette, or Lourdes, or elsewhere, images which sweat, or weep, or drop blood, saints who, like Liguori, during their prayers, remain suspended in the air, and who have been during their lifetime endowed with ubiquity, shewing themselves at the same time in different places.²⁰ But, on the other hand, how must we be struck with the profoundest admiration at the extreme hazard to which the collection of the Scriptures has been exposed, among such men, during 900 or 1000 years, and yet that this book has come forth unsullied from such hands! Honour, then, to their immutable canon! Honour to their immaculate text of the New Testament! — that is to say, honour and adoration to God who gave them, and who preserves them, even in the midst of such men, because He gave them!

584. We wish to close this argument, which has already occupied too many pages; but, to comprehend the extent of the dangers the canon has escaped under the rule of Rome, and its proceedings relative to books, it is needful not only to notice the forged writings which have been accepted by her; we must also survey the genuine writings that have been officially falsified to promote the interest of papal doctrines. It is then that you will really be able to form a just idea of the protection by which our Scriptures must have been sheltered, in order to reach us in their integrity.

SECTION FIFTH.

THE GENUINE WORKS OF THE FATHERS FALSIFIED,

585. For brevity’s sake we shall confine ourselves to recapitulating what the wise and conscientious James has said on this subject, in his chapters entitled, the one, Corruption of the True Fathers; the other, The Mystery of the Indices Expurgatorii.

This author discusses with much precision, in the course of ninety-five pages, fifty alterations made in the fathers to promote the Roman doctrines. He then demonstrates the fraud, either from editions previously printed, or from the most ancient manuscripts. Let us adduce, for example, the first, which occurs in Cyprian.²¹

586, This father is naturally one of those whose works Rome has taken the greatest pains to expurgate, (to use her own language,) because he wrote in Latin; in addition to which he was a bishop and a martyr. Cardinal Borromeo was specially intrusted by Pope Pius IV. with publishing a new edition, Manutius with printing it at Rome,²² and four cardinals with taking care that the work was properly done. But in the first passage, De Unitate Ecclesic, cap. 4,²³ after these words — “By this the other apostles were invested with the same honour and power as Peter; but the beginning sets out from unity, in order to shew one Church of Christ,” — they have interpolated (in spite of eight or nine editions printed previously to 1564)²⁴ the following words: — “And that one chatr (cathedra) might be shewn, the primacy is given to Peter. And they are all pastors; but one flock is shewn us which all the apostles feed with unanimous consent.”²⁵

Then, to these words of Cyprian, printed at Rome — “Does he who resists the Church believe himself to be in the Church?” — the following words are added in the later edition printed at Anvers: “He who forsakes the chair of Peter, on which the Church 1s founded, must not presume that he is in the Church, (Qui cathedram Petri, supra quam fundata est, deserit, in Ecclesiâ se esse non confidat.)”

Now the editor, Pamelius himself, James says, attests that these changes have been made contrary to not only all the ancient printed editions of Cyprian, but contrary to all the ancient manuscripts, with the single exception of one that was found, according to him, in an old abbey near Haynau, in Silesia.²⁶

587. St James shews, moreover, at some length, many other falsifications of the fathers: for example, in Cyprian again, De Bono Patientiae, contrary to all manuscripts,²⁷ and elsewhere; in Augustin, in seven of his works; in Ambrose, in three of his works; in Chrysostom, in four of his homilies; in the acts of seven councils; in Ignatius, in Cyril, in Jerome, in Gregory, &c.

588. Among others, he instances the thirty-eighth²⁸ epistle of Gregory, which the celebrated bishop Jewel, in one of his sermons, had adduced as announcing that the King of Pride (Antichrist) at his coming would find to assist him a whole army of priests, which their pride prepared for him, (sacerdotum et praeparatur exercitus.) The bishop was immediately assailed and defamed in the University of Oxford for having altered the words of Gregory as they stood in the printed editions. But, on referring to the ancient manuscripts of this father in All Souls” College, it was found that Jewel had quoted the true reading; while his accusers, without being aware, had really patronised a falsified text; for all the Roman editions had expurgated Gregory's text by writing, “Sacerdotum est praeparatus exitus,” thus making him say, on the contrary, that Antichrist would destroy the priests.

589, The same thing happened, though in a more noticeable manner, to the noble Du Plessis Mornay, in his famous disputation with Du Perron, and not long after, in the age of the Reformation, to the learned reformer Peter Martyr, in his controversy with Gardiner. In order to combat transubstantiation, he had quoted a passage of Chrysostom, which he had read at Florence in a manuscript of his Epistle ad Caesarium, at that time unpublished. “The nature of the bread remains the same,” said Chrysostom. Now, after the martyrdom of Cranmer, a copy of this passage of Chrysostom, in the handwriting of the reformer, had been left in the archbishop’s library, and the Roman contro_ versialists had declared that this passage was only an impudent fabrication of P. Martyr, (Vermigli.) But some time after, an honest Frenchman, a Roman Catholic, Emeric Bigot, travelling in Italy, met in a monastery of the Dominicans at Florence with this manuscript, of which Martyr (himself a Florentine) had formerly taken a copy. He transcribed it and took it to Paris, and, delighted with the discovery he had made, caused it to be properly printed in that city. But what happened immediately? The censors of the Sorbonne, who had been informed that the book would shortly appear, obtained an order from the king to stop it. They required Bigot to take out of the work before it was published all this offensive portion of Chrysostom, extending to nine pages, to cancel the title and table of contents in which this epistle was named, and, that the loss might not be perceived, to take care to substitute nine new pages! Nevertheless, as the public were astonished at not seeing the expected epistle, and as some traces still remained of its abstraction, Wake recovered the cancelled pages, and Basnage published them. At last the Jesuits²⁹ were obliged to publish it themselves, and tried to shew that Chrysostom’s words, as Martyr had read them, if properly understood, contained nothing contrary to the orthodox doctrine of Rome.³⁰

590. It is thus, that in the publication of the fathers, the general policy of Rome has always been to subordinate the integrity of their text to the interests of her own dogmas; so that if you happen to discover some ancient manuscript of one of the most esteemed fathers, containing sentences that are not for her advantage, rather than they should be published, the original must be destroyed or corrected, and not printed without undergoing expurgation.

591. The corruption of the text of the fathers, James says again, would have gone much further, if, towards the beginning of the sixteenth century, an Erasmus of Rotterdam had not been found, — if this learned man had not given the first signal of alarm against the barbarous alteration which their books were undergoing, and if the little but noble city of Bale had not laboured so admirably in the faithful reproduction of their best works.

Also the Roman expurgators, since the death of Erasmus,³¹ have busied themselves in publishing new editions of his works, “with so many alterations, that a volume might be made of the passages they have retrenched or corrupted.”³²

592. In a word, if you wish to form an idea, this author adds, of the labour of alterations these expurgators have expended in reproducing the documents of ecclesiastical history, compare the last edition of the Councils published at Rome with the Councils of Binius, the Councils of Binius with those of Nicolinus, those of Nicolinus with those of Sirius, with Zerlin, or with Crabbe, and you will always find that the last editions are the worst; at the same time, the worst are reckoned the best among the Romanists.

But of all these astounding facts, the most significant is the mysterious and powerful institution of the Index Expurgatorius. It is here that we may form an idea of the dangers the canon, humanly speaking, has been exposed to in the Roman Church; it is here we shall see nearer at hand the open or secret acts of violence done to the monuments of ecclesiastical history and to the fathers by the authorities of Rome, and by the Jesuits. In spite of all their bulls and bloody persecutions, the writings of Wickliffe and Luther had deprived them of half Europe, and they found it would be necessary, for the preservation of their power, that these first enterprises against books should be continued on a larger scale; and this gave birth to the bold institution of the Index, of which it now remains for us to speak.

SECTION SIXTH.

THE INDEX EXPURGATORIUS.

593. The origin of the Index must be attributed alike to the Jesuits, the Popes, and the Council of Trent.

The council, considering the dangers with which the Church of Rome would be menaced if all sorts of books had free circulation, urged the Pope to choose the best-qualified of his cardinals, in order to constitute them inquisitors-general for the whole Christian republic; so that all other inquisitors, established by them in every city and province, might take council of them.

They had, besides, deputies, commissaries, and notaries under them, charged to take care that nothing contrary to the Catholic faith should be written or published, and that heretics, of whatever rank, should be punished severely, by the. loss of their dignities and property, and, if requisite, of their life. The council chose at first, from the multitude of bishops of which it was formed, the prelates of the greatest ability to draw up an Index, which marked all the books to be interdicted. Their work, after having been - presented to the council, was submitted to Pope Pius IV., who at last ordered it to be published, with certain regulations, by a bull of March 24, 1564. After that Sixtus V. greatly enlarged both the rules and the expurgations; Pius V. and Gregory XIII. still further increased. the privileges of the cardinal inquisitors; and, lastly, Clement VIII, again taking the Index in hand, named seven cardinals, and a good number of able men, to whom he gave “all the powers necessary,” he said, “to accomplish in reference to books the triple business which had been committed to them, of interdiction, expurgation, and publication.” Thus the bull³³ speaks of books to be interdicted, books to be expurgated, and books to be printed or reprinted. And this affair, in the eyes of the Papal Court, was one of great importance. It therefore took the greatest care in the choice of its inquisitors, and gave them enormous powers over all sorts of persons, and all sorts of writings. It even established all the apparatus of a printing establishment in the palace of the Vatican, in order that the reprinting of works might be carried on under the eyes of the cardinals.

594. “Was it known till of late,” says the learned Mr James,³⁴ “(and that by God’s especial providence,) that at Rome, at Lisbon, in Spain, Naples, and in the Low Countries, there were men appointed for the same purpose, and books printed, to the end that neither in Hebrew, Chaldee, Greek, Latin, nor in any other language, in divinity, humanity, law, physic, philosophy, or any faculty, there should be any proposition, position, book, sentence, word, syllable, or letter, that would impugn the doctrine established by the Court of Rome or the Council of Trent, uncorrected, unamended. Nay, do they not proceed a little further? To correct fathers, Greek or Latin, of the East or West Church? And this reformation or expurgation of all manner of books, doth not only reach unto the printed volumes, but unto the manuscript copies also, as hath been already sufficiently proved elsewhere.” “Ad istos enim quoque purgatio pertinet,” says the Jesuit Possevinus of Mantua.”³⁵

595. Moreover, “if the Papists,,’” Mr James goes on to say, “had any good meaning in framing these catalogues of books prohibited  or purged, why do they make it opus tenebrarum? Why do they hide them so cunningly from the light and sight of men, that few there be of their own religion that do know the mystery of this artifice? The knowledge thereof is too high for them; it is reserved for the inquisitors. These catalogues, when they are printed, are delivered only into their hands; no man can get one of them, be he bachelor, licentiate, or doctor in divinity, unless he be of that office, or fit to be trusted with such a secrecy. . . . And yet all these books are to be seen, with sundry others, brought together by God’s special providence into the public library of Oxford; printed, all of them, beyond the seas, by those that were esteemed true Papists.”³⁶ “The Index of Antwerp was discovered by Junius, who lighted upon it by great hap.³⁷ The Spanish and Portuguese was never known till the taking of Cadiz³⁸ The Roman Index was procured, but with much ado.”

596. “We understand, it is true, that the partisans of the court of Rome pretend in the present day that the alteration of ancient authors was not the object of the Index Purgatorius, and did not enter into the circle of its jurisdiction; but this is a vain excuse, and we have irrefragable proof of the contrary.” First of all, the Index itself ordains very clearly that in such and such a father such a sentence shall be cancelled, (deleatur;) then the avowals of the expurgators, and the high approbation they award themselves for these alterations of the texts; lastly, ipsum factum, their own acts, the books of the fathers actually expurgated, especially those of Ambrose, of Cyprian, and of Gregory, (all printed at Rome.) What reply can be made, if, to prove that the fathers have been purged, we shew the Index that enjoins it, and enjoins it without any other reason than their disagreement with the doctrines of Rome? There exists, we know, two Indices Expurgatorii — one printed a long time ago at Madrid,³⁹ the other very recently at Rome, under the care of the Master of the Sacred Palace.⁴⁰ Now, in these two Indices you will find cancelled sentences of the text of Gregory of Nyssa, of Chrysostom, of Anastasius, of Eucherius, of Procopius, of Agapetus, of Didymus, of Alexander — sentences attacking the worship of images, penances, and the primacy of Peter, or asserting the supremacy of temporal princes. What reply can be made to this first proof, when, for example, for Gregory of Nyssa you read these words in the Index of Spain, that in this sentence, “We have learnt to render our worship only to that nature which is uncreated,” the word only is struck out?⁴¹ Take another example from Chrysostom. We read that, in his discourse on St Philogonius, these words are to be cancelled, “As for me, I assert that if any of us sinners, renouncing our former evil ways, sincerely promises God to return to them no more, God will require nothing more for fuller satisfaction.”⁴²

597. But, after all, what need have we of the Index to prove the mutilation, when we hear the defenders of Rome and her inquisitors avow the duty of correcting the fathers; and when, in fact, they have so largely accomplished their expurgations 4

Cardinal Boromeo and Cardinal Montalto, as well as the Bishop of Venusia, charged with editing the works of Gregory of Rome, all three openly avow having purged Cyprian, Ambrose, and Gregory of all the spots impressed on them by the heretics, to infect the minds of the simple.⁴³ They have even interdicted some of the works of the fathers, (particularly of St Ambrose,) till their labour of correcting was finished — “for fear,” they said, “that, in the editions previously printed, what was given for life, might operate for death.”⁴⁴

SECTION SEVENTH.

CONCLUSION OF THIS CHAPTER.

598, This is sufficient. It was necessary to pass all these facts under a rapid review, that the force of our present argument might be understood; that we might exhibit, on the one hand, the extreme danger which, without the grace of God, the volume of the New Testament would have incurred from the incessant attacks of Rome; and, on the other, the vigilant hand from on high which has never ceased to protect the sacred deposit of the oracles of God.

It would have been unfaithfulness on our part not to recall all these facts; for every one who considers them attentively will be seized with devout astonishment at their Divine contrast. The spectacle of all these priests, prelates, inquisitors, and pontiffs, giving to the world with one hand these legends, their novel dogmas, their forged books, their Breviartes, their Index Expurgatorius; and with the other, as if in spite of themselves, preserving the pure canon of our twenty-seven scriptures in their unalterable integrity!

Let any one say, then, whether such innocence, maintained for ages on this single point, does not reveal a superhuman hand — always active, and always powerful in protecting the Sacred Volume?

Exceptional and involuntary innocence! Innocence inexplicable apart from that invisible hand! Innocence of twelve centuries! You testify silently, but gloriously, to the divinity of our Scriptures! Innocence altogether like that of the Prophet of Pethor, who never, in spite of all the longings of his heart, could curse Israel! Innocence of all those prelates and pontiffs, you confirm, you gladden afresh our faith — you render it glorious; for you, even you, exclaim, as from the summits of Pisgah, “Surely there is no enchantment against Jacob, neither is there any divination against Israel.” “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man that he should repent. He hath said it, and shall he not do it? hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” “According to this time, it shall be said, What hath God wrought?” “How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob, and thy tabernacles, O Israel!”⁴⁵

599. Thus, then, the Holy Word of God, like amianthus, which comes white and pure out of the crucible because it is amianthus — the Holy Word of God, though held as dangerous by all the Popes to our own day,⁴⁶ and though interdicted by them not long ago, under pain of death,⁴⁷ yet it alone, of all books, comes out entire from the furnaces of Rome, because it alone is the Word of God, inspired from on high, and abides for ever! I pass on to the eighth mark.

1) Prior of Argenteuil and Confessor of Louis XV., in his Histoire Eccles., tom. vi., p. 506, and tom, xi., 4me discours,

2) Tom. vi, lib. xliv., in the year 785. See also, for the False Decretals, Gieseler, Kirchengeschichte, ii., § 20. According to this historian, the compilation was of the dates 829 and 845.

3) Labbe, the Jesuit, has himself exposed the imposture. And yet, says G. Finch, the Popes of the Church of Rome have hitherto never condemned the false decretals, (Romish Controv., vol. ii, p. 451. London, 1851.) They remain in the Breviary.

4) Tom. iv., Fourth Discourse on Ecclesiastical History, § 6.

5) Nouvelle Bibliothèque des Auteurs Eccles, p. 215. Utrecht, 1731.

6) Breviarium Romanum, (on the feast of Pope Sylvester, December 31.) Lectio iv. et lectio v.

7) It makes a part of the lying collection of Isidore the merchant, such as the pretended council at Rome, under Sylvester, the letter of Athanasius to Mark, that of Anastasius to the bishops of Germany, &c., &. It is to be found in the Decree of Gratian. Distinct. xcvi. (See Basnage, Annales ad Annum 324, § 7; and Gieseler, ii., § 20, note v.)

8) Joannis Chrysostomi omnia quae extant Opera, B. Bernardi de Montfaucon. Paris, 1839; Præfatio. S. Basilii, Caesareae Archiep., &c., Opera Juliani Garnier, Monachi Benedict.; Preefatio. Paris, 1721.

9) Jodocus.

10) James's Treatise, Appendix, part i., pp. 839-842, Ed. London, 1843.

11) Breviarium Romanorum, ex decr. §. Concilii Trident, restitutum, (Antverpiae 1823.) Pars hiemalis, die ix., Decembris, Serm. Sanct, Augustini Episc.;

12) “Rejiciunt omnino ut falsum Verlinus et Vindingus. Nec injurià sanè, tametsi in Breviario legatur sub Augustini nomine.” The Benedictine fathers put it, they say, for the first time, in their Appendix.

13) Tom. ii., p. 584.

14) “Nec librum illum esse Augustini ut eruditi fatentur,” (Bellar., De Controv., tom. iii.; De Missa, lib. ii., cap. xii, p. 229.) se”

15) Bell., Disp. de Controv., tom. iv.; De Gratia Primi Hominis, cap. 111, pag: 4; De Effect. Savram., tom. iii., lib, il, c. X., p. 37,

16) Possevin, in Apparat., tom. 1., p. 150.

17) Sess. xxv., c. 21.

18) When the first canonisation was made, it is said, by John XV. for Uldaric,

19) The father Richard Simon wrote in 1685: — “The fables, from which the Breviary is not yet thoroughly purged, have never been approved by respectable members of our communion, (the Roman.) But if all of them were taken away, there would be scarcely any ‘ Lives of the Saints ” left.” — Lettres Choises, tom. i., lettre xxvii. Amsterdam, 1770.

20) See The Lives of St Alphonsus Liguori and Four other Saints, Canonised May 26, 1839, a work published first in Rome by Cardinal Pastulatori, and afterwards in London, by Cardinal Wiseman. See the Life of Liguori, pp. 49, 26; of St Frangois Girolano, p. 102; of St Jean-Joseph, p. 150,

21) Treatise, &., p. 75-104.

22) The edition appeared at Rome in 1564.

23) P, 253, 4th ed., Paris, 1574. “Hoc erant utique et caeteri apostoli quod fuit Petrus, pari consortio praediti et honoris et potestatis; sed exordium ab unitate proficiscitur, ut una Christi Ecclesia monstretur.”

24) That of Spires, 1477; that of Bâle, 1520, 1525, 1530; of Cologne, 1520; that of Erasmus, Remboldt, and Grypheus. Pamelius says he had them under his eyes in his revision of Cyprian.

25) “Ut et cathedra una monstretur. Unam cathedram constituit. Et pastores sunt omnes, sed grex unus ostenditur, qui ab apostolis unanimi consentione pascatur.”

26) Abbatiae Cambronensis in Hannoniâ. Pamelius, (James, p. 147.)

27) Treatise, &c., p. 151.

28) St Gregor, lib. iv., p. 88, (Treatise, &c., p. 147.)

29) Father Hardouin.

30) See the whole account detailed in the Catholic Layman, May 19, 1858. See also Buddaeus, Theol. Dogmat., lib. v., v. 1, § 338; and Richard Simon, Lettres Choises, i., 115.

31) In 1536, at the very time when it was in agitation to make him a cardinal. This learned man was allowed, during his lifetime, to publish his satires and denunciations against the abuses of the times and the impostures of the monks; put after his death the influence of his writings was very much dreaded.

32) Treatise, &c., p. 818. There is a list, volume by volume, at the end of the fourth part, entitled, “A Table of the Divinity Books first set forth and approved, then censured, by Papists,” (p. 269.) “The number of corrupted places, not reckoning the corrections of the Spanish Index Expurgatorius, amount,” James says, “to 524, many of which contain from one hundred to two hundred lines,”

33) “Quo facilius negotium, cum prohibitionis tum expurgationis et impressionis librorum, peragatur, eas omnes facultates privilegia et indulta confirmamus, et, quatenus opus est, innovamus,” &c. See Lit. Clem. VIIL., Praefixas Ind. Lib. Prohib. datas Tusculi sub annulo Piscatoris, 1595; Clem. VIIL, in Ind. Lib, Prohib., p. 5.

34) Treatise, &c., p. 236.

35) “The Index Expurgatorius of Rome was published by Jo, Maria, Master of the Sacred Palace, Romae, 1607, in 8vo. The Portuguese Index by Georg. Dalmeida, Archbishop of Lisbon, at Lisbon, 1581, in 4to. The Spanish, by Gaspar Quiroga, Cardinal and Archbishop of Toledo, Madrid, 1584, in 4to. Also that of Naples, by Gregorius Capuccinus; the title is Enchiridion Ecclesiasticum, Ven., 1588, in 8vo. That of the Low Countries, by commandment of the king of Spain and the Duke of Alva, with the especial care and oversight of Arias Montanus, in 4to. Ant., 1571.” (Treatise, &c., p. 236.)

36) The Catalogue of the Public Library at Geneva mentions four of them — among others, that of Spain, by Quiroga; that of Danvers, reprinted at Saumur in 1601, under the care of Du Plessis Mornay; and that of Rome, in 1686.

37) James, Treatise, &c., p. 244.

38) Does Mr James refer to the siege of 1553? Or, perhaps he refers to the taking of Cadiz by the English in 1576?

39) Indices Libror. Expurgandorum, in Studiosorum gratiam confecti, tom. i.,in quo quinquaginta auctorum libri prae caeteris desiderati emendatur Rome, ex Typographia R. Cam., Apost., 1807. Superiorum permissa; in 8vo.

40) Ser. Col., 116, circa finem, in illis verbis: “Eam solummodo naturam quae increata est, colere et venerari didicimus, deleatur dictio solommodo. Quod est ipsissimum verbum Greg. Nyssi.” — Ind. Hisp., p. 30.;

41) “Ego sane assero, quod si unusquisque de nobis peccantibus, relictis prioribus malis, Deo polliceatur vere se non rediturum ad ea, nihil aliud ad pleniorem satisfactionem Deus requisiturus sit. Quae verba sumptae sunt ex 8. Chrys. Orati. de 8. Philogonio,” — Ind. Hisp., p. 20.

42) Apud Alph. Gomezeum, regium Typographum, 1584, in 4to.

43) “Totus in eam curam incubueris,” Boromeo writes, “ut omnia Cypriani scripta mendis antea defermata, nunc in veterem illam integritatem ac speciem restituerentur. — Manutius in Ep. “Obscura explicuimus,” Montalto writes to Gregory XIII., “manca supplevimus, adjecta rejecimus, transposita reposuimus, depravata emendavimus; omnia demum, ut germanam Ambrosii phrasim redolerent, — supposititiis quibuscunque abscissis, pro viribus, studuimus. — Ep. Felic. Card. de Montalto ad Greg. P. XIII. “Praeclara haec Patrum monumenta,” the Bishop of Venusia also wrote, “cum adeo corrupta depromerentur, ut interdum nullam, interdum ineptam, aliquando falsam, nonnunquam a fidei institutis, et ab ipsorum auctorum menti aliquam, efficerent sententiam.” (See also his letter at the head of the works of Gregory and Cyprian.)

44) “Inquisitores S, fidei negotiis praefecti, lectionem illarum (ne quae ad vitam data erant, operarentur mortem) nec omnibus nec absque delectu permittebant.”  — Ep. Card. Montalti, tom. i. Operum Ambrosii,

45) Numbers xxiii. 19-23; xxiv. 5.

46) See the Encyclical Letter of Pius IX.

47) Ever since 1229. See Propp. 560 to 663.