Page:The spiritual venality of Rome.djvu/95

74 now^ not known,* It is^ however^ generally admitted to refer to the copy in the Centum Gravamina ; as if this were the only edition^ or none had proceeded from Rome and else- where^ or were not known ! But let us follow the progress of this singular condemnation. With apparent misgiving, and possibly with some fear, that, in its simple form, it might involve what the papacy knew to be its own spring^ the next Index pnhUshed by papal authority in Rome, that of 1696, by Clement VIII. adds — ab baereticis depravata. In the edition by Pius VI. in 1786, it is still further slightly, probably with some intention, altered — <;um ab hsereticis sit depravata. It is the same in Pins VII/s, in 1806, and in 1819. By this specification the condemnation is li- mited ; but it is a virtual admission, that some copy, or copies, existed, which were not so depraved. It would have been charitable to point ont, how they were depraved. In fiu^t, in another, and more important sense, the un- doubted editions of this work were deprai^ enough. And this dilatory, ambiguous, con- demnation of a poor solitary non*descript is to tion, pp. 74, 5.
 * See liteiBiy Poli^ of the Ghudi of lUme^ fte. 2d edi-