Edward Bouverie Pusey · 11 of 21

Main Body · Part 11

Many at that time shared the feeling of Du Pin. “The whole town [Paris] rings of an union,” reported Beauvoir to Archbishop Wake, “and many openly declare that they wish it.”

Du Pin’s decease, the change of political relations, the ascendency of the Jesuits, quenched the hope of the restoration of Union. But Du Pin’s work of charity was like “bread cast upon the waters,” to be found “after many days.”

The reconciliation of the whole Church I used to look to as an ultimate end, which might lie, as I trusted, in the secrets of God’s Providence.

With this hope I looked at the storms which have been gathering around the Roman Church, if so be she might, when imperilled, be willing to return to the relative position which she occupied in the fourth or fifth century. It is alleged that the Papal power has been the centre of unity. Christendom was united, when it was persecuted by Emperors, proscribed, and as they thought annihilated; when the Bishop of Rome had a precedence of dignity, not of power; and “the Church was connected and joined together by the cement of Bishops mutually cleaving to each other,” “each Bishop ordering and directing his own proceedings, having hereafter to give account of his intentions to the Lord.” One of the saddest parts of modern controversy, is the thought, how much is owing to forged writings; to what extent the prevailing system as to the B. V. came in upon the authority of writings which Roman Catholic critics now own to have been wrongly ascribed to the great Fathers whose names they bear; to what extent the present relation of Rome to the Eastern Church and to ourselves is owing to the forged Decretals.

The subject is of so much moment, as bearing on the relation both of our own and of the Greek Church to the Roman, that I will set down the changes in the discipline of the Church, which Fleury ascribes to the forged Decretals. What he draws out at length is stated in summary not by English writers, but by Divines or Canonists in the Roman

Communion, as Archbishop de Marca, Van Espen, Constant, &c. Fleury then writes:

“Those who have read with some attention what I have given of this history, have doubtless remarked a great difference between the discipline of the first ten and that of the three following centuries. It was in truth greatly weakened from the tenth century, but this was hardly ever but from ignorance, and by actual transgressions, which were condemned immediately that men opened their eyes to recognize them. It was ever a settled point that the Canons and ancient tradition were to be followed. It is only from the twelfth century that new foundations have been built on, and principles unknown to antiquity followed. Even then antiquity was believed to be followed, while it was departed from: the evil is come from an error of fact, and from having taken for ancient that which was not so. For in general it has always been taught in the Church, that the tradition of the first centuries was to be kept to, as well for discipline as for doctrine. I have spoken of the false Decretals attributed to the Popes of the first three centuries, which are found in the collection of Isidore Mercator, and which appeared at the end of the eighth century, and I have marked the proofs which demonstrate their falsity. He was the source of the evil: ignorance of history and of criticism caused these Decretals to be received, and the new principles they contain to be taken for the doctrine of the purest antiquity. Bernald, Priest of Constance, writing towards the end of the eleventh century, says on the faith of these Decretals, that, according to the discipline of the Apostles and their successors, Bishops ought never or very hardly to be accused; admitting still that this discipline does not agree with the Nicene Council, And allowing that this Council has forbidden the translations of Bishops, he opposes to it, as more ancient, the Popes Euaris -tus, Callistus, and Anteros, who permitted them.

“After the Roman Church had groaned a hundred and fifty years under many unworthy Popes who profaned the Holy See, God, casting a look of kindness on that first of Churches, gave to it Leo IX., whom his virtue has caused to be ranked in the number of the Saints, and who was followed, during the rest of the eleventh, and the whole ensuing century, by many other virtuous Popes, zealous for the restoration of discipline, as Gregory VII., Urban II., Pascal II, Eugenius III., Alexander III. But the best intentions without enlightenment cause great faults; and the faster one runs on a dark road, the more frequent and dangerous are one’s falls. These great Popes, finding the authority of the false Decretals so established that nobody thought of contesting it any longer, believed themselves obliged in conscience to maintain the principles which they read there, persuaded that it was the purest dis cipline of the Apostolic times and of the golden age of Christianity. But they did not perceive that they contain many principles contrary to those of genuine antiquity.

“It is said in the false Decretals, that it is not allowable to hold a Council without the order, or at least permission, of the Pope. You, who have read this history, have you seen there any thing like it, I do not say in the first three centuries, but up to the ninth? I know that the authority of the Pope has always been necessary for General Councils, and thus is to be understood what the historian Socrates says, that there is a Canon which forbids the Churches to make any rule without the consent of the Bishop of Rome: and Sozomen says that the care of all the Churches belongs to him on account of the rank of his See. But as to Provincial and ordinary Councils, the Roman correctors of Gratian’s Decretum have admitted, that the authority of the Pope is not necessary for them. In fact, is there the least trace of permission or consent of

the Pope in all those Councils of which Tertullian, S. Cyprian, and Euse-bius make mention, whether about Easter, the Reconciliation of penitents, or the baptism of heretics? Was there mention of the Pope in those three great Councils of Alexandria, which were held on the matter of Arius before the Nicene Council? Was there mention of him in the Council of Constantinople, convoked by the Emperor Theodosius in 381? And yet the Pope S. Damasus and all the West consented to its decisions; so that it is counted for the second (Ecumenical Council. And I speak not of so many national Councils held in France, principally under the kings of the second race, and in Spain under the Gothic kings. When the Nicene Council ordered two Councils to be held yearly in each Province, did it suppose that they would send to Rome to ask permission? And how could one have sent so frequently thither from the furthest points of Asia or Africa? The holding of Provincial Councils was counted among the ordinary practices of religion, just as the celebration of the holy Sacrifice every Sunday. Nothing but the violence of persecutions interrupted the course of it; as soon as the Bishops found themselves at liberty, they recurred to it as the most efficacious means of maintaining discipline. Yet, in consequence of that new principle, scarcely any Councils have been held from the twelfth century save those at which Papal Legates have presided, and the custom of holding Councils has insensibly gone out.

“It is said in the false Decretals that Bishops cannot be judged definitively save by the Pope alone, and that principle is often repeated there. Nevertheless you have seen a hundred examples of the contrary; and to take one of the most illustrious, Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, the first See of S. Peter, and the third city of the Roman Empire, was judged and deposed by the Bishops of the East and the neighbouring Provinces, without the participation of the Pope, whom they contented themselves with informing of it after it was done, as is seen by their synodal letter; and the Pope did not complain of it. Nothing is more frequent in the first nine centuries than the accusations and depositions of Bishops: but their trial took place in Provincial Councils, which were the ordinary tribunal for all Ecclesiastical causes. One must be absolutely ignorant of the history of the Church, to imagine that at any time or in any country it has ever been impossible to judge a Bishop without sending to Rome, or causing a commission to come from the Pope. “Without even knowing the facts, it only wants a little good sense to see that the thing was impossible. From the fourth century there was a prodigious number of Churches in Greece, in Asia, in Syria, in Egypt, and in Africa, without speaking besides of the West: and the greater number of Bishops were poor and unable to make great journeys: so that the Emperors defrayed their costs for the General Councils. How could one have made them come to Rome, and not them only, but their accusers and the witnesses, for the most part yet poorer? This, however, is what the author of the false Decretals must have supposed; and the absurdity of the supposition has appeared clearly, when the Popes wished to reduce it to practice. For instance, Gregory VII., sincerely persuaded that he alone was the competent judge of all Bishops, made them come daily from the end of Germany, France, or England. They had to quit their Churches for whole years, in order to go to Rome at great expense, to defend themselves against accusers who often did not appear there: delay was granted upon delay: the Pope gave commissions to take information on the spot, and after many journeys and long procedures he issued his definitive judgment, against which they came back under another pontificate. Often likewise the Bishop cited to Rome did not obey, either through incapacity to make the journey by sickness, poverty, or other impediment, or because he felt himself guilty: he despised the censures pronounced against him, and if the Pope chose to give him a successor, he defended himself by force. You have seen examples of this; and here are the inconveniences of wishing to reduce to practice what has never been practised, nor practicable. “It is true that, on rare occasions of a manifest oppression or a crying injustice, Bishops condemned by their Councils could have recourse to the Pope, as the superior of all Bishops and maintainer of the Canons: and this is the order of the Council of Sardica. But it directs that the Pope, whether he send a Legate or not, make the cause be reheard on the spot, because it is easy to impose on a distant judge. This is what S. Cyprian set forth in speaking of Basilides, a Spanish Bishop, who, having been deposed in his Province, had obtained from Pope S. Stephen, by concealing from him the truth, letters for his restoration, to which the Council of Africa paid no regard. And some years before, the same S. Cyprian, writing to

Pope S. Cornelius respecting the schismatic Fortunatus, says these remarkable words: ‘It is a rule among us that every guilty person be examined on the spot where the crime has been committed. Those then who are under us must not run hither and thither, and put disunion between the Bishops; let them plead their cause on the spot where they can have accusers and witnesses.’ Thus it is that S. Cyprian speaks to the Pope himself, to whom Fortunas had carried his complaints. After all this, recourse to the Pope, permitted by the Council of Sardica, regarded chiefly extraordinary matters, and the Bishops of the greatest Sees, as S. Athanasius, S. John Chrysostome, S. Flavian of Constantinople, who had no other superior to whom to address themselves.

“It is further the false Decretals, which have attributed to the Pope alone the right to translate Bishops from one See to another. Nevertheless the Council of Sardica and the rest, which have so strictly forbidden translations, have made no exception in favour of the Pope; and when, in very rare cases, some translation has been made for the evident utility of the Church, it was made by the authority of the Metropolitan and the Council of the Province. We have an illustrious example of this in the person of Euphronius of Colonia, whom S. Basil translated to the See of Nicopolis. Far from the Pope authorizing translations, the Roman Church was the most faithful in observing the canons which forbad them: during nine hundred years we do not find any Bishop translated to the See of Rome: Formosus was the first; and this was one of the pretexts for disinterring him after his death. But since the false Decretals have been followed, translations have been frequent in the West where they were unknown; and the Popes only condemned them when they were made without their authority, as we see in the letters of Innocent III.

“It is the same with the erection of new Bishoprics: according to the false Decretals this belongs to the Pope alone: according to the ancient discipline it belonged to the Council of the Province, and there is an express Canon for it in the Councils of Africa. ‘It is agreed that places, which have never had Bishops of their own, are not to receive them, save it be decreed by a plenary Council of each Province and the Primate, and with the consent of him to whose diocese the said Church belonged.’ And certainly, to consider only the progress of religion and the advantage of the faithful, it was much more reasonable to refer it to the Bishops of the country, to judge of the cities which had need of new Bishops, and to choose the proper persons, than to refer the judgment to the Pope, so distant and so little able to inform himself well of it. It is all very well to name commissioners, and take informations as to utility and inutility: these proceedings are never worth ocular inspection, and knowledge acquired by oneself. So when S. Augustine caused the new See of Fussala to be erected, he did not send to Rome, he only addressed himself to the Primate of Numidia: and if the Pope heard about it, it was only on account of the personal faults of the Bishop Antonius: but he did not complain that the erection of this Bishopric had been made without his participation. Nor had S. Eemi any more recourse to the Pope to found the Bishopric of Laon: but he did it, says Hincmar, by the authority of the Council of Africa, that is to say, of the Canon I have quoted. The reason is, that the Decretals, which gave this right to the Pope, were not yet fabricated.

“As to the union or extinction of Bishoprics, I see no other reason for attributing them to the Pope alone, “but certain authorities of S. Gregory alleged by Gratian. But he did not observe that Gregory only acted so in the southern part of Italy, of which Rome was the metropolis; or in Sicily and the other islands, which depended particularly on the Holy See.

“In the first centuries Metropolitan Sees were rare in proportion to the number of Bishoprics, in order that the Councils might consist of large numbers; for the principal function of Metropolitans was to preside in them. But since the Popes have been in possession of the power to found them, they have created, principally in Italy, a great number of Metropolitans without necessity, merely to honour certain cities. The Nicene Council, which doubtless had power to assign new prerogatives to Churches, says simply that their privileges shall be preserved according to ancient custom. This shows that the distinction of Metropolitan Sees and Patriarchal Churches had already been confirmed by a long possession. The

Popes since the eleventh century have not only made Metropolitans, but even Patriarchs and Primates—all on the foundation of the false Decretals, that is, of the first letter attributed to S. Clement, of the second and third of Pope Anacletus, where it is said that the Apostles and their successors established Patriarchs and Primates in the cities, where, according to the civil government, the chief magistrates lived, and where the pagans had their archflamens, a barbarous title only found in these Decretals. Now you have seen that in the first centuries even the title of Archbishop was unknown: men said, the Bishop of Rome, or of Alexandria, as of the least city, and in their letters they treated each other as brethren with a perfect equality, as is seen by the inscriptions of the letters of S. Cyprian. In pro portion as charity grew cold, titles and ceremonies increased. The Bishop of Alexandria was the first, as is believed, who took the name of Archbishop, the Bishop of Antioch took that of Patriarch, and the name of Primate was peculiar to Africa. But the author of the false Decretals did not know so much, and he makes no mention of the title of Exarch so famous in Asia.

“Nevertheless it was on the faith of this author that Gregory VII. established, or rather confirmed, the Primacy of Lyons, since he quotes in his Bull the words of the Decretal of Anacletus. It is on this same foundation that other Popes have pretended to found so many other Primacies, in France, in Spain, and elsewhere; supposing them ancient by an error of fact, as I have shown of each in particular. These erections being contrary to the ancient possession have produced great contests. You have seen with what vigour the Bishops of France rejected the Primacy which John VIII. had given to Ansegisus Archbishop of Sens; you have seen how they resisted afterwards the Primacy of Lyons, which a long possession has at length established: and how the Bishops of Spain opposed those of Toledo and Braga, which have never been well authorized. So it is not to be imagined that a Bull given without knowledge of the cause, as that of Calistus II. for the Primacy of Vienne, is sufficient to change at once the ancient state of Churches, in spite of the parties interested.

“One of the greatest wounds which the false Decretals have inflicted on the discipline of the Church is that they have extended infinitely appeals to the Pope. It appears that the forger had this point greatly at heart, by the care he has taken to diffuse through all his work the maxim, that not only every Bishop, but every Priest, and generally every person, who finds himself harassed, may on every occasion appeal directly to the Pope. He has made as many as nine Popes speak on the subject, Anacletus, the first and second Sixtus, Fabian, Cornelius, Victor, Zephyrinus, Marcellus, and Julius. But S. Cyprian, who lived in the time of S. Fabian and S. Cornelius, not only opposed appeals, he has further shown solid reasons for not yielding to them; and in the time of S. Augustine the Church of Africa did not yet receive them, as it appears by the letter of the Council held in 426 to Pope Celestine. In fine, down to the ninth century, few examples are seen of these appeals in virtue of the Council of Sardica, save, as I have said, on the part of Bishops of the great Sees who had no other superiors beside the Pope. “But, since the false Decretals became known, nothing but appeals were seen through all the Latin Church. Hincmar, better instructed than the rest in the ancient discipline, vigorously opposed that novelty, maintaining that this remedy ought not to be granted but to Bishops at the most, not to Priests. You have seen afterwards the complaints of Ivo of Chartres, and of S. Bernard, against this abuse, which in their times had already reached its height. They showed that this liberty of appealing to the Pope in all matters, and at every of the cause, utterly enervated discipline: that bad Priests, and other impenitent offenders, had thereby a sure means to elude correction, or at least to defer it: that the Pope was often ill-informed, and obliged to retract the judgments which he had given by surprise: in fine, that the Bishops, repelled by, the length of the proceedings, by the expense and the fatigue of journeys, and by so many other difficulties, lost courage, and endured the disorders they could not hinder. The Popes found even themselves incommoded by that liberty of appeal on every occasion, which often retarded the execution of their orders; and hence comes the clause, ‘notwithstanding appeal,’ which passed into a phrase in their Bulls. “If S. Bernard rose with such vigour against that abuse, while supposing the necessity of appeals, what would he not have said had he known that their use was novel and founded on false documents? How much more strongly would he have spoken against that multitude of business with which the Pope was overwhelmed. He knew that, according to the maxims of the Gospel, a Bishop and a successor of the

Apostles ought to be disengaged from temporal affairs, to give his time to prayer and the instruction of the people; but the authority of custom held him back, and for want of sufficient acquaintance with antiquity, and of knowing how the Popes had fallen into that embarrassment of business, he dared not speak out, and advise Eugenius to revert to the simplicity of the first centuries.

“Nevertheless the description which this holy Doctor has left us of the court of Rome, makes us see, how much this new jurisprudence of the false Decretals had injured the holy See, under pretence of extending its authority. For S. Bernard represents to us the consistory of Cardinals as a parliament, or a sovereign tribunal, occupied with judging processes from morning to evening; and the Pope who presided there so overwhelmed with business, that he had scarcely a moment to breathe: the court of Rome full of advocates, solicitors, pleaders, impassioned, artful, and interested, seeking only to surprise each other, and enrich themselves at the expense of others. We form the same notion of it by the history of the Popes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries and by their letters, especially those of Innocent III., where we see so prodigious a detail of the affairs of all Christendom. These letters alone were a terrible occupation: for even if the Pope did not compose them himself, it was at least necessary for him to have account of them given him, and to take cognizance of the most important matters. And how could a Pope so occupied find time for prayer, for the study of the holy Scriptures, for preaching, and the other essential duties of the Episcopate? I do not speak here of the cares which his rank as a temporal prince gave him: I shall come to that in course.

“I see well that, by extending without measure the authority of the Pope, it was believed that a great advantage was gained for him, and his Primacy made to tell the more. One must have been then absolutely ignorant of the history of the Church, or have supposed that the greatest Popes, as S. Leo and S. Gregory, had neglected their rights, and suffered their dignity to be undervalued. For it is very certain in fact that they never exercised the authority marked in the Decretals of Isidore. But let us go a little deeper into things. Had not those holy Popes good reasons to act so? Had they not higher thoughts and a more perfect knowledge of religion, than Gregory VII. and Innocent III.? Vulgar men only seek their private interests: philosophers, who carry their thoughts further, see by merely natural reason that in every society the interest of each individual, even of him who governs, ought to yield to the interests of the whole society. Now we may not think that Jesus Christ established His Church on principles less pure than those of the pagan philosophers: so He has not proposed to those who govern His flock faithfully any advantage in. this life, but only an eternal recompense proportioned to their charity.

“Let us all then candidly admit, that the Popes of the five or six first centuries had reason to consider the advantage of the Church Universal preferably to that which might appear serviceable to their person or their See. Let us further admit, that the advantage of the Church required, that all matters should be judged on the spot by those who could do it with the greatest knowledge and facility; that the Bishops, especially their chief, should be turned aside as little as was possible from their spiritual and essential functions; and that each one of them should remain fixed in the Church where God had put him, given up continually to instruct and sanctify his people. Can one compare to such real goods the sad advantage of rendering the Pope terrible through all the earth; and of causing to come to Rome from all sides Bishops and Clergy, either through fear of censures, or for hope of favours?

“I know that that crowd of Prelates and other foreigners, whom divers interests drew to Rome, brought thither great riches, and that its people fattened at the expense of all others; but I am ashamed to mention such an advantage in a matter of religion. Was then the Pope established at Rome to make it rich, or to make it holy? And did not S. Gregory fulfil the duty of common Father better, when by his alms he spread so abundantly through all the Provinces the immense revenues of the Roman Church? Now those Popes who made Rome rich did not make it holy; it even seems that they despaired of being able to do it, according to the frightful picture which S. Bernard has given us of the Roman people in his day. Nevertheless it was the first duty of a Pope, as their Bishop, to labour for their conversion; and he was more obliged to this, than to judge so many processes between foreigners.

“Gratian’s Decretum completely established and extended the authority of the false Decretals, which are found scattered everywhere there; for during more than three centuries no other Canons than those of this collection were known, no others were followed in the schools and tribunals. Gratian had even

gone beyond these Decretals, to extend the authority of the Pope, maintaining that he was not subject to the Canons; which he says out of his own head, and without adducing any proof of authority. Thus was formed in the Latin Church a confused idea that the power of the Pope was without limits; that principle once laid down, many corollaries have been drawn from it beyond the points formally expressed in the false Decretals, and the new theologians have not sufficiently distinguished these opinions from the essential of the Catholic Faith, touching the Primacy of the Pope, and the rules of the ancient discipline.

“Besides what regards the Pope, Gratian has put into his Decretum new maxims respecting the immunity of Clerks, who cannot, as he maintains, be judged by the laity in any case; and to prove it he cites several articles of the false Decretals, and the pretended law of Theodosius adopted by Charlemagne to extend excessively the jurisdiction of Bishops. He joins to them a maimed citation from a novelle of Justinian, which, when complete, asserts just the reverse. Nevertheless, this constitution so altered was the principal ground on which S. Thomas of Canterbury resisted the king of England with a firmness which drew upon him persecution, and at length martyrdom. The principle was false at the bottom, but it passed for true with the most skilful Canonists.

“You have just seen into what inconveniences men fell from having believed in false documents. It became a custom besides to receive without selection all sorts of narrations, for want of principles to distinguish them; and thence came so many fabulous legends, so many false miracles, so many visions, and frivolous stories, as we see amongst others in the dialogues of the monk Cesarius.

“The principles cited by Gratian touching the immunity of Clerks are the foundation of the answer, which Pope Innocent III. made to the Emperor of Constantinople at the commencement of his pontificate, and from which is drawn a celebrated Decretal. In this letter the Pope gives forced explanations to the passage of S. Peter, alleged by the Emperor to show that all Christians without exception ought to be subject to the temporal power. The Apostle, he says, spoke thus to excite the faithful to humility: the king is sovereign, but only of those who receive from him temporal things, that is to say, the laity: as if the Church had not also received her temporalities from the secular power. The Pope continues: that the prince has not received the power of the sword over all the wicked, but only over those who, using the sword, are subject to his jurisdiction. By which he understands still laymen alone, to procure for criminal Clerks exemption from temporal punishments, that is to say, impunity. He adds that no one ought to judge the servant of another, supposing that Clerks are not the servants of the prince. In fine he cites the allegory of the two great luminaries which God has placed in the heaven, to signify, says he, the two great dignities, the pontifical and the royal: as if in a serious discussion it was allowable to advance as a principle an arbitrary allegory, which one has only to deny in order to refute. It is thus that the most formal authorities of the Scriptures were eluded, in order to support prejudices drawn from the false Decretals.