Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/296

 274 THE DECLINE AND FALL century^ some apostolical scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the two magic pillars of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes. This memorable donation was introduced to the world by an epistle of Hadrian the First, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the liberality, and revive the name, of the great Con- stantine/'® According to the legend, the first of the Christian emperors was healed of the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism, by St. Silvester, the Roman bishop ; and never was physician more gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte withdrew from the seat and patrimony of St. Peter ; declared his resolution of founding a new capital in the East ; and re- signed to the popes the free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the provinces of the West.^^ This fiction was pro- ductive of the most beneficial effects. The Greek princes were convicted of the guilt of usurpation ; and the revolt of Gregory was the claim of his lawful inheritance. The popes were de- livered from their debt of gratitude ; and the nominal gifts of the Carlovingians were no more than the just and irrevocable restitution of a scanty portion of the ecclesiastical state. The sovereignty of Rome no longer depended on the choice of a fickle people ; and the successors of St. Peter and Constantine were invested with the purple and prerogatives of the Caesars. So deep was the ignorance and credulity of the times that the most absurd of fables was received, with equal reverence, in Greece and in France, and is still enrolled among the decrees of the canon law."*^ The emperors and the Romans were in- capable of discerning a forgery that subverted their rights and freedom ; and the only opposition proceeded from a Sabine monastery, which, in the beginning of the twelfth century, dis- ^^ Piissimo Constantino magno per ejus largitp.tem S. R. Ecclesia elevata et exaltata est, et potestatem in his Hesperiae partibus largiri dignatus est. . . . Quia ecce novus Constantinus his temporibus, &c. (Codex Carolin. epist. 49, in torn. iii. pars ii. p. 195). Pagi (Critica, A. D. 324, No. 16) ascribes them to an impostor of the viiith century, who borrowed the name of St. Isidore : his humble title of Feccator was ignorantly, but aptly, turned into Mercator, his merchandise was indeed profitable, and a few sheets of paper were sold for much wealth and power. ^^ Fabricius (Bibliot. Gr^c. torn. vi. p. 4-7) has enumerated the several editions of this Act, in Greek and Latin. The copy which Laurentius Valla recites and re- futes appears to be taken either from the spurious Acts of St. Silvester or from Gratian's Decree, to which, according to him and others, it has been surreptitiously tacked. '^ In the year 1059, it was believed (was it believed?) by pope Leo IX., cardinal Peter Damianus, &c. Muratori places (Annali d'ltalia, torn. ix. p. 23, 24) the fictitious donations of Lewis the Pious, the Othos, &c. de Donatione Constantini. See a Dissertation of Natalis Alexander, seculum iv. diss. 25, p. 335-350.