Posted on 09/02/2013 9:07:37 AM PDT by bkaycee
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What we now call popes were originally bishops of Rome (one bishop among brother bishops from other cities). Then they became popes, with power over the entire Church. Then they became so powerful that they were able to depose kings and emperors. They became so powerful that they were able to force kings to use their secular might to enforce the Inquisition, which was conducted by Catholic priests and monks. In 1870, the Pope was declared to be infallible. The process of increasing papal power was influenced by forged documents which changed people’s perception of the history of the papacy and of the Church.
I’m just going to briefly summarize some information about these forgeries. At the end of this paper is a link to an on-line article which gives detailed historical information.
One of the most famous forgeries is the “Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals,” which were written around 845 A.D. (They are also known as the “False Decretals”.) They consist of 115 documents which were supposedly written by early popes. [Note 1]
The “Catholic Encyclopedia” admits that these are forgeries. It says that the purpose of these forged documents was to enable the Church to be independent of secular power, and to prevent the laity from ruling the Church. [Note 2 gives the address of an on-line article.] In other words, their purpose was to increase the power of the Pope and the Catholic Church.
In addition to documents which were total forgeries, genuine documents were altered. One hundred twenty-five genuine documents had forged material added to them, which increased the power of the Pope. Many early documents were changed to say the opposite of what they had originally said. [Note 3]
One of the forgeries is a letter which was falsely attributed to Saint Ambrose. It said that if a person does not agree with the Holy See, then he or she is a heretic. [Note 4] This is an example of how papal power was promoted by fraudulently claiming the authority of highly respected Early Fathers.
Another famous forgery from the ninth century was “The Donation of Constantine”. It claimed that Emperor Constantine gave the western provinces of the Roman Empire to the Bishop of Rome. The Pope used it to claim authority in secular matters. [Note 5]
When Greek Christians tried to discuss issues with the Church in Rome, the popes often used forged documents to back their claims. This happened so frequently that for 700 years the Greeks referred to Rome as “the home of forgeries”. [Note 6]
For three hundred years, the “Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals” and other forgeries were used by Roman Popes to claim authority over the Church in the East. The Patriarch of Constantinople rejected these false claims of primacy. This resulted in the separation of the Orthodox Church from the Roman Catholic Church. [Note 7 gives addresses of on-line articles.]
In the middle of the twelfth century, a monk named Gratian wrote the “Decretum,” which became the basis for Canon Law (the legal system for running the Roman Catholic Church). It contained numerous quotations from forged documents. Gratian drew many of his conclusions from those quotations. Gratian quoted 324 passages which were supposedly written by popes of the first four centuries. Of those passages, only eleven are genuine. The other 313 quotations are forgeries. [Note 8]
In the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas wrote the “Summa Theologica” and numerous other works. His writings are the foundation for scholastic theology. Aquinas used Gratian’s “Decretum” for quotations from church fathers and early popes. [Note 9] Aquinas also used forged documents which he thought were genuine. [Note 10]
The importance of Thomas Aquinas’ theology can be seen in the encyclical of Pope Pius X on the priesthood. In 1906, Pius said that in their study of philosophy, theology, and Scripture, men studying for the priesthood should follow the directions given by the popes and the teaching of Thomas Aquinas. [This papal encyclical is available on-line. Note 11 gives addresses.]
William Webster is the author of “The Church of Rome at the Bar of History”. (I recommend this book.) His web site has an article entitled “Forgeries and the Papacy: The Historical Influence and Use of Forgeries in Promotion of the Doctrine of the Papacy”. The article gives detailed information about the “Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals” and other forged documents, showing their influence on the papacy and on the Catholic Church. Four quotations from his article are below. (They are used by permission.)
“In the middle of the ninth century, a radical change began in the Western Church, which dramatically altered the Constitution of the Church, and laid the ground work for the full development of the papacy. The papacy could never have emerged without a fundamental restructuring of the Constitution of the Church and of men’s perceptions of the history of that Constitution. As long as the true facts of Church history were well known, it would serve as a buffer against any unlawful ambitions. However, in the 9th century, a literary forgery occurred which completely revolutionized the ancient government of the Church in the West. This forgery is known as the “Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals,” written around 845 A.D. The “Decretals” are a complete fabrication of Church history. They set forth precedents for the exercise of sovereign authority of the popes over the universal Church prior to the fourth century and make it appear that the popes had always exercised sovereign dominion and had ultimate authority even over Church Councils.”
“The historical facts reveal that the papacy was never a reality as far as the universal Church is concerned. There are many eminent Roman Catholic historians who have testified to that fact as well as to the importance of the forgeries, especially those of “Pseudo-Isidore”. One such historian is Johann Joseph Ignaz von Dollinger. He was the most renowned Roman Catholic historian of the last century, who taught Church history for 47 years as a Roman Catholic.” [Webster quotes extensitely from Dollinger.]
“In addition to the “Pseudo Isidorian Decretals” there were other forgeries which were successfully used for the promotion of the doctrine of papal primacy. One famous instance is that of Thomas Aquinas. In 1264 A.D. Thomas authored a work entitled ‘Against the Errors of the Greeks’. This work deals with the issues of theological debate between the Greek and Roman Churches in that day on such subjects as the Trinity, the Procession of the Holy Spirit, Purgatory and the Papacy. In his defense of the papacy Thomas bases practically his entire argument on forged quotations of Church fathers…. These spurious quotations had enormous influence on many Western theologians in succeeding centuries.”
“The authority claims of Roman Catholicism ultimately devolve upon the institution of the papacy. The papacy is the center and source from which all authority flows for Roman Catholicism. Rome has long claimed that this institution was established by Christ and has been in force in the Church from the very beginning. But the historical record gives a very different picture. This institution was promoted primarily through the falsification of historical fact through the extensive use of forgeries as Thomas Aquinas’ apologetic for the papacy demonstrates. Forgery is its foundation.”
I strongly encourage you to read William Webster’s article. It has an abundance of valuable historical information. The address of the article is:
http://www.christiantruth.com/forgeries.html
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NOTES
[1] William Webster, “The Church of Rome at the Bar of History” (Carlisle, PA: The Banner of Truth Trust, 1995), pages 62-63. Webster is a former Catholic.
Peter de Rosa, “Vicars of Christ” (Dublin, Ireland: Poolbeg Press, 1988, 2000), pages 58-61, 174, 208. De Rosa is a Catholic, and a former Catholic priest. He was able to do historical research in the Vatican Archives.
Paul Johnson, “A History of Christianity” (New York: A Touchstone Book, Simon & Schuster, 1976, 1995), page 195. Johnson is a Catholic and a prominent historian.
[2] “Benedict Levita” in the “Catholic Encyclopedia”. [Benedict Levita is the pseudonym of the author of the “Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals”.]
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02466a.htm
[3] De Rosa, page 59.
[4] De Rosa, page 166.
[5] Johnson, pages 170-172.
[6] De Rosa, page 59.
[7] Orthodox Christian Information Center, “The False Decretals of Isidore”. An excerpt from “The Papacy” by Abbee Guette. The author was a devout Catholic and a historian. As a result of his historical research about the papacy, he eventually joined the Orthodox Church.
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/decretals.htm
“The Great Schism of 1054”. This is a sermon given at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral of St. John the Baptist,in Washington, D.C.
http://www.stjohndc.org/Homilies/9606a.htm
[8] Webster, pages 62-63. De Rosa, page 60.
[9] Webster, page 63. De Rosa, page 60.
[10] William Webster, “Forgeries and the papacy: The Historical Influence and Use of Forgeries in Promotion of the Doctrine of the Papacy”. This gives detailed accounts of Aquinas’ use of forged documents which he wrongly believed to be genuine.
http://www.christiantruth.com/forgeries.html
[11] Pius X, “Pieni l’animo” (“On the Clergy in Italy”), July 28, 1906. (See paragraph 6.)
http://www.ewtn.com/library/ENCYC/P10CLR.HTM
Of course not - I have already discarded the whole lot (your tradition in it's entirety!).
But when one does not take great pains to pare out such infections as best as one can, One should expect the value of what one wants to preserve to go down in value due to it's impure form. Is it I who must trace every quote in Aquinas or Augustine to be certain of the veracity of their claims? It it left to me to ferret out every nuance and supposition to discover their validity? Apparently so... And thus I will not pretend to be impressed, and will move on to something which is maintained with veracity.
And I am well aware of Gratian's Decretum in it's form and function, by the way. I have read it all, or at least a version thereof. And like any such work, it's tendency is to accumulate, not correct.
Despite being the standard textbook for students of canon law during the Middle Ages, the Decretum was never recognized by the Church
Yet another fault - That such a work does not warrant official scrutiny and endorsement should be a warning.
This whole ball 'o wax was made defunct by the very buttoned-up and simplified Code of Canon Law (1917) which replaced it, and the next revision of Canon Law (1983) which replaced that.
And I wonder if the ideas of psuedo-Isadore if not the text itself does not remain... It would not surprise me in the least.
But is it irreparable? No.
But then, is it repaired? No.
When did all this happen? JCBreckenridge had only been gone for maybe 18 hours.
Ouch.
And yet there are others left.....
It is only by God’s Grace that there is so much unity among Christians. Imagine where we’d be without the Nicene Creed. Back in the year 300 with people insisting that Jesus was a spirit and that he only had the appearance of a man. Or that he was created or not eternal.
and here is the “anathema” that was in the original of 325 AD:
[But those who say: ‘There was a time when he was not;’ and ‘He was not before he was made;’ and ‘He was made out of nothing,’ or ‘He is of another substance’ or ‘essence,’ or ‘The Son of God is created,’ or ‘changeable,’ or ‘alterable’—they are condemned by the holy catholic and apostolic Church.]
If it is forged, we are toast.
I fail to see that “history” shows the popes to be more culpable than their adversaries. The papacy is indeed a Court which like all courts has come into being because of the felt need to resolve disputes. That is one basis for Newman’s notion of development. The papacy came into being because there was a need for it. The bishop of Rome became the bishop of bishops because there was a felt need for it, and it has endured because that need remains. Like Peter’s leadership of the disciples, it happened accidentally. It has endured accidentally. The real question why no alternative has appeared which works so powerfully on events, so persuasively on men’s minds.
....it happened accidentally. It has endured accidentally.
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Can you prove this?
Forgery is its foundation. As an institution it was a much later development in Church history, beginning with the Gregorian reforms of pope Gregory VII in the 11th century and was restricted completely to the West. The Eastern Chruch never accepted the false claims of the Roman Church and refused to submit to its insistence that the Bishop of Rome was supreme ruler of the Church. This they knew was not true to the historical record and was a perversion of the true teaching of Scripture, the papal exegesis of which was not taught by the Church fathers (For an analysis of the church father's interpretation of the rock of Matthew 16:18 please refer to the article on that subject on this web page)
This seems to go against the grain of your reference to Aquinas...
Rome's first true pope is Gregory I (590-604). Very little of Rome's glory remained during his papacy. Even the imperial palaces were in sad disrepair. Most of the city's elite left Rome a cultural and urban slum. Gregory still distributed the dole and administered the city. Arian Lombards threatened the city. Gregory raised armies to fight the Lombards and raised funds to repair the city. Still, he did not have the power or prestige later popes would hold.
While I don't endorse the the Nazarene Church denomination (the messenger) they have a lengthy piece here on forgeries of the Catholic religion including forgeries of relics and miracles...Very interesting read...
“That kills truth-seeking at the root, by repelling people and draining out their motivation even to participate.”
A thought I’ve expressed here myself in one form or another a few times.
Culpable of what? We are not talking merely of Latin church "popes" here, for the discussion was concerning that singular ecclesiastical community's "magesterium" concerning "papacy" itself.
If it be culpability of having long misrepresented how singular "papacy" came to be --- then the rest of your reply very much refutes the opening line of your here reply.
The bishop of Rome became the bishop of bishops because there was a felt need for it, and it has endured because that need remains.
There was no need for a Universal Vicar of Christ on Earth. It was a usurpation of power by Rome who used forgeries to impose it's will on the rest Christendom.
The East knew historically, there was no support for Roman supremacy. Rome pushed the issure and caused the Great Schism, among other tragedies.
Why am I given the warning about “making it personal”? The only person I’ve ever discussed is Mary Ann Collins. In her first post to me, metmom refers to me personally with the word “Catholic”. In her second response to me she asks me “Would you accept it?”
I just want to thank you for what you have done here. It’s something I could never have done. I attempted to read the information on the new advent site but you are right, it is an incredibly dry and difficult read.
Thank you for taking the time to break it down for those of us who are not familiar with the documents and explain it in easy to read posts is much appreciated.
It may be lost on those here with axes to grind, but speaking for myself, the time was well spent.
Were you speaking about Mary Ann Collins?
I think that's why you're aghast (I'm aghast too) that there were successful forgeries in the 9th century AD --- successful enough to be inserted into the papal archives by an unscrupulous librarian, and subsequently --- centuries later --- to inadvertently form part of Gratian's multiplex source material (Bible, Roman law, Frankish law, the Acti of synods, collections of caselaw, maxims and quotes) from which Medieval Canon Law developed.
The forged decretals of Pseudo-Isidore? We -- you and I --- are aghast. But scandalized? I tell you, no-- not scandalized. The actual subject material of the canons is not the Deposit of the Faith, not dogmatically-defined Divine and Natural Law, not even exclusively doctrinal or moral in nature, but comprises secular, positive, and administrative matters as well.
It would be some kind of misty-eyed middle-school Idealism --- not Christian, maybe Platonic? --- to expect a human law collection to be without fault; and such illusions always end in disillusionment, since all things human are cracked. All the Divine things in the Church are indefectible; and all the human things are cracked. Please --- as I tell my RCIA students - take that to heart.
I just wrote, and then deleted a whole lot more explanation. But oh heck, no need for me to go into Full Schoolmarm Mode.
Let me just say you have to look at this and see an interplay between human freedom (with its flaws and sins) and divine protection (by which God wills our existence and prevents our annihilation.) This applies to the Church in its human aspects: she is His, but she is not "without spot or wrinkle," until He comes to wash and sanctify her completely, and make her glorious.
It reminds me of what Our Lord said about the Kingdom of Heaven being like, well.. a guy gets a clue that there's a treasure buried in a field, and he sells everything he has to buy that field
When I visualize this parable, I see a wasted urban lot littered with broken cinderblocks, lots of Pepsi cans and styrofoam fast food cartons, parts of various budget-model 1970-era cars -- you know, smashed windows, bumpers, tires --- straggling chicory and Queen-Annes-Lace and plantain sprouting here and there: and you've got to dig down through all that stuff to find the treasure which is worth your total earthly store and much, much more.
That's like the Church. That's like the Truth.
That's like digging through tons of STUFF to find it.
Now I've gotta go make some tuna salad!
Rome was saved by Frankish forces led by Pepin, and it was he--it seems-- who donated the lands in central Europe which Rome would hold until the 19th Century as a source of wealth. Later Charlemagne established a powerful empire which included what is now France, German and the Low countries and northern Italy. It was at this point that the forgeries were done, to create papers that seemed to show that it was Constantine,five hundred years before who had donated these lands to the pope. The aim being to insure the independence of the Papacy.
As I look at the picture of the Church as presented in Acts and by Paul. I certainly do not see any pure vessel. As iimperfect as my local parish is, it is much to be preferred to the Church at Corinth as Paul describes it.
But neither is the Catholic church any better. In the Corinthians church, although it was unheard of for a man to sleep with his father's wife, could you imagine the reaction if any of the book of Acts church leaders had been found molesting little boys?
The Catholic church has NOTHING up on the Corinthian church in terms of purity or morals. It is in no position to point any fingers.
Are you saying that this happens every day? Or are you willing to admit that what these priests did was an abuse of their authority and a violation of their vows and going against the teachings of the Church? As for what church leaders of the first century are concerned, if you real Paul you ought to see how frustrated he is because local leaders HAVE NOT acted with outrage at the behavior of certain local Christians.
I know you’ve seen this series, but just in case you haven’t, please order it and watch it in it’s entirety.
It shows the absolute beauty of the Catholic Church. Catholicism, the Series is already being shown in many RCIA classes around the country.
http://www.catholicismseries.com/
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