The
Decretals of Pseudo-Isidore
While the Donation of Constantine was mostly concerned
with promoting the temporal power of the papacy, the Decretals of
Pseudo-Isidore were directed at establishing its claim to supreme universal
authority over the Church. This collection of genuine and spurious material
bears the appellation Pseudo-Isidore
because the forgers attributed the collection to St. Isidore of Seville. The
Decretals date from the ninth century and appear to have been used for the
first time at the Council of Soissons in 835.
The first part of this three-part collection is,
according to the Cambridge Medieval
History, “completely spurious,” containing seventy forged letters
“attributed to Popes before the Council of Nicaea” (325). Also included were
“two spurious letters of Clement, which were already in circulation.” The
majority of the second part of the collection, containing the canons of
councils, is genuine, the notable exception being the famous Donation of
Constantine. The third part of the collection contains a skillful blending of
false and genuine decretals.
Germany’s greatest Roman Catholic historian, Johan Josef
Ignaz von Dollinger (1799–1890), was professor of canon law and church history
at Munich University and president of the Bavarian Royal Academy of Sciences.
He was regarded by his peers as one of the greatest historical scholars in
Europe. In commenting on the Decretals, von Dollinger wrote that it was “filled
through and through with forgery and error … it entered like a mighty wedge
into the older structural organization of the Church and split it apart.”
Rome’s acceptance and use of these fabrications ultimately severed her ties
with the Eastern Church by destroying the shared, conciliar system of
government (government by councils) and replacing it with a monarchical
bishopric claiming complete universal jurisdiction over the entire Church.
The most influential book produced by the Roman Catholic
Church was her code of canon law known as the Decretum, compiled by a Benedictine monk named Gratian in the tenth
century. This code contained numerous forgeries. In fact, out of 324 papal
quotations, only 11 are genuine. “Gratian misquoted the 36th canon of the Sixth
Oecumenical Council which, giving to the patriarch of Constantinople equal
rights with the patriarch of Rome, made it say the very opposite. Misquoting
the synod of Carthage of 418, which forbade appeals across the sea, Gratian
made the synod say the very opposite.” Johann von Dollinger comments as
follows:
The effect of the False Decretals was great in the Middle
Ages.… By incorporation and quotation in the Decretum of Gratian, the False Decretals received a definite
authority in textbooks of canon law in the Middle Ages. The False Decretals
have gained their chief fame because they were one of the great forgeries of
history. Included in the collection are 60 letters or decrees of popes from
Clement I to Melchiades (d. 314), of which 58 are forged … and a collection of
papal letters from the 4th to 8th cent., of which the majority are
authentic. Even in these sections, however, there has been tampering with the
text. The forgeries are supported by liberal interlading with quotations from
authentic letters and by attribution to popes whose letters were known to be
lost. Even many of the genuine letters in the collection show evidence of
tampering. The False Decretals were completely exposed in the 16th
cent.
The great nineteenth-century Catholic layman Lord Acton
was a German-trained historian who, as Regius Professor of Modern History at
Cambridge University, planned the twelve-volume Cambridge Modern History. On the subject of the False Decretals,
Lord Acton writes:
Religious knowledge in those days suffered not only from
ignorance and the defect of testimony, but from an excess of fiction and
falsification. Whenever a school was lacking in proofs for its opinions it
straightway forged them, and was sure not to be found out. A vast mass of
literature arose, which no man, with medieval implements, could detect, and
effectually baffled and deceived the student of tradition. At every point he
was confronted by imaginary canons and constitutions of the apostles, acts of
Councils, decretals of early Popes, writings of the Fathers from St. Clement to
St. Cyril, all of them composed for the purpose of deceiving.
Writing in the same vein, Lord Acton adds:
The passage from the Catholicism of the Fathers to that
of the modern Popes was accomplished by willful falsehood; and the whole
structure of traditions, laws and doctrines that support the theory of
infallibility and the practical despotism of the Popes stands on a basis of
fraud.
In addition to the False Decretals, other forgeries made
their way into the works of the famous St. Thomas Aquinas. In order to show
that the Eastern Fathers had always recognized the authority of Rome, a forger
created a collection of mixed genuine and forged quotations attributed to St.
John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria, and St. Maximus the Confessor. This
work carried the title, Thesaurus of
Greek Fathers.
St. Thomas Aquinas, in his book, Against the Errors of the Greeks, completed in 1264, unwittingly
relied on this forged material to build his case against the Eastern Church for
the supreme authority of the papacy. The enormous reputation of Aquinas
afforded these forgeries an almost infallible status. The following three
chapters employing the spurious material are from Aquinas’s work, Against the Error of the Greeks, as
cited in Roman Catholic apologist James Likoudis’s book, Ending the Byzantine Greek Schism:
Chapter
thirty-five
That
he enjoys the same power conferred on Peter by Christ.
It is also shown that Peter is the Vicar of Christ and
the Roman Pontiff is Peter’s successor enjoying the same power conferred on
Peter by Christ. For the canon of the Council of Chalcedon says: “If any bishop
is sentenced as guilty of infamy, he is free to appeal the sentence to the
blessed bishop of old Rome, whom we have as Peter the rock of refuge, and to
him alone, in the place of God, with unlimited power, is granted the authority
to hear the appeal of a bishop accused of infamy in virtue of the keys given
him by our Lord.” And further on: “And whatever has been decreed by him is to
be held as from the vicar of the apostolic throne.”
Likewise, Cyril, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, says,
speaking in the person of Christ: “You for a while, but I without end will be
fully and perfectly in sacrament and authority with all those whom I shall put
in your place, just as I am also with you.” And Cyril of Alexandria in his Thesaurus says that the Apostles “in the
Gospels and Epistles have affirmed in all their teaching that Peter and his
Church are in the place of the Lord, granting him participation in every
chapter and assembly, in every election and proclamation of doctrine.” And
further on: “To him, that is, to Peter, all by divine ordinance bow the head,
and the rulers of the world obey him as the Lord Jesus himself.” And
Chrysostom, speaking in the person of Christ, says: “Feed my sheep (John
21:17), that is, in my place be in charge of your Brethren.”
The quotations attributed to the Council of Chalcedon,
Cyril of Jerusalem, and Cyril of Alexandria are spurious; John Chysostom’s is
genuine. In fact, nowhere in the canons or creeds of the Seven Ecumenical
Councils is there any reference to the supreme universal jurisdiction of the
bishop of Rome.
Chapter
thirty-six
That
to him belongs the right of deciding what pertains to faith.
It is also demonstrated that to the aforesaid Pontiff
belongs the right of deciding what pertains to faith. For Cyril in his Thesaurus says: “Let us remain as
members in our head on the apostolic throne of the Roman Pontiffs, from whom it
is our duty to seek what we must believe and what we must hold.”
This quotation is a complete forgery.
Chapter
thirty-seven
That
he is superior of the other patriarchs.
It is also clear that he is superior of the other
patriarchs from this statement of Cyril: “It is his”, namely, of the Roman
Pontiffs of the apostolic throne, “exclusive right to reprove, correct, enact,
resolve, dispose and bind in the name of Him who established it.” And
Chrysostom commenting on the Acts of the Apostles says that “Peter is the most
holy summit of the blessed, apostolic choir, the good shepherd.” And this also
is manifest on the authority of the Lord, in Luke 22:32 saying: “you, once converted,
confirm your brethren.”
The statement attributed to Cyril is spurious, while that
attributed to Chrysostom is genuine.
In his book, The
Pope and the Council (published under the pseudonym “Janus”), Johann von
Dollinger comments on the forgeries of Pseudo-Isidore that found their way into
the works of Thomas Aquinas:
In theology, from the beginning of the fourteenth
century, the spurious passages of St. Cyril and forged canons of Councils
maintained their ground, being guaranteed against all suspicion by the
authority of St. Thomas.… To ignore the authority of St. Thomas is … bad
enough, but to slight the testimony of St. Cyril is intolerable. The Pope is
infallible; all authority of other bishops is borrowed or derived from his.
Decisions of Councils without his consent are null and void. These fundamental
principles … are proved by spurious passages of Anacletus, Clement, the Council
of Chalcedon, St. Cyril, and a mass of forged or adulterated testimonies.
It is obvious that if there existed abundant evidence
attesting to the supreme authority of the pope in the canons, creeds, and
councils of the Church and in the writings of the Fathers, there would be no
necessity to forge it. The numerous forgeries were an attempt at revisionist
history. Their very existence is damning evidence that the authority claimed by
the papacy was not recognized by the early Church or by the Eastern Fathers of
any era. (Michael Whelton, Popes and Patriarchs: An Orthodox Perspective on
Roman Catholic Claims [Chesterton, Ind.: Ancient Faith Publishing, 2006],
148-54)
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