Jean Hardouin
1729
translated by Edwin Johnson
1909
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NOTE |
Jean Hardouin (1646-1729) was an eccentric French classical scholar who became convinced that the Roman Empire never existed and all of ancient history, saving a few books like those of Homer and Pliny, was a thirteenth-century forgery by power-mad Benedictine monks to undermine the authority of the Pope. Hardouin discussed his claims in several works from the 1690s to the 1720s, with their most developed form appearing in his posthumous Prolegomena ad censuram veterum scriptorum. Hardouin's work inspired modern deniers of history like Anatoly Fomenko and other chronology revisionists. The Prolegomena is primarily a very dull discussion of Christian literature and dogma, so I have excerpted from it the chapters most directly engaged with the forgery of Antiquity claim.
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PROLEGOMENA TO A CENSURE OF OLD WRITERS
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EPITAPH
HARDOUIN, born at Corisopitum (Quimper) in Bretagne, A.D. 1646, died at Paris, September 2nd, 1729. With felicity, M. de Boze has expressed him to the life in this epitaph:--
IN EXPECTATION OF THE JUDGMENT HERE LIES THE MOST PARADOXICAL OF MEN, BY NATURE A FRENCHMAN, BY RELIGION A ROMAN, THE PORTENT OF THE LITERARY WORLD, THE WORSHIPPER AND THE DESTROYER OF VENERABLE ANTIQUITY. FEVERED WITH LEARNING, HE WOKE TO PUBLISH DREAMS AND THOUGHTS UNHEARD OF. HE WAS PIOUS IN HIS SCEPTICISM, A CHILD IN CREDULITY, A YOUTH IN RASHNESS, AN OLD MAN IN MADNESS. |
CHAPTER I.
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Hardouin attacks the mass of alleged old writers: he defends his conduct in so doing on the ground that they were Atheists. He explains why they have hitherto escaped censure. It was necessary that a Jesuit should undertake the task: because the older Religious Orders have, all of them, forged writings to defend : but especially the Benedictines. He briefly tells how he discovered the frauds in the years 1690-1692.
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Section 1
I here enter upon a very important, but a very invidious undertaking. It is my intention, with the assistance of God, as long as He grants me life, to show that all writings which are commonly thought to be old, are in fact, with certain exceptions to be presently named, supposititious, and the fabrication of an unprincipled crew of literary men.
The exceptions are, the Books held by the Church to be sacred and canonical, and six Profane Writers, four Latin, two Greek. Meanwhile I do not declare war upon other writers, unless upon the enemies of the Almighty, of Christ, of the supreme Pontiff, and of the Royal authority.
Surely we may be as rigid in our criticism and repudiation of false monuments from which in the slightest degree our holy Religion suffers injury, as are judges in a court when they test and reject documents which are concerned with men's fortunes and estates, if any note of falsity appears in them. Now if there be but one faulty notation of time in any instrument, a Court will decisively and with great and just indignation reject and repudiate the instrument. How much more vehemently should we vociferate, and how much more justly, when our holy Religion is assailed and undermined !
Section 2
Religion itself and Christian Piety demand that we should deliver them at some lesser risk from a greater peril. The danger is less, if the falsehood of certain facts or allegations which have hitherto obtained credit is acknowledged; but a greater, nay, by far the greatest danger is, if those alleged facts are left unquestioned, and so our faith is gradually injured and overthrown.
Section 3
Let men, if they will, call the opinions I here advance ravings; I care not, so long as I can discredit the doctrines which I denounce as impious and heretical in those writings; I care not, so long as I can warn and teach my readers to abhor them, what men may think of me; I care only to preserve the faith concerning the true God, concerning Christ, concerning every head and chapter of our holy faith, sound and whole.
Section 4
What matters it, I pray you, that no one before my time has said what I have just said, and that I adduce no authority or witness from the ancients in my support? Supposing that I had had a forerunner, would that affect the question of truth? Or because he had long passed away, would that render him worthier of support? I pray you not to believe in men, but in sound arguments.
Section 5
If I had an equal genius to any of those old writers, if a desire came into my mind to print something under the feigned name of any one of those authors, whose works are believed to have perished; if I were to write it on parchment, with ink specially prepared for the purpose of making the writing appear in the course of a few years some 600 or 800 years old; if I were to transfer into that work certain excerpts from old writers who are commonly supposed to be genuine and sincere, with a view to induce belief in my work and its great age; tell me, would it not be right for any one to try and find out and detect any hidden fraud and impiety that he might suspect? Certainly he would be justified in doing so. And certainly one who is first and foremost a Catholic and a Theologian must be thought at liberty to do the like in reference to all writings which have not yet undergone such censure.
Petavius, for example, was the first to deny that certain works had been written by Athanasius, which the Benedictines ascribe to his authorship (tom. ii. p. 49, and elsewhere), and he was in the right. And they were also justified who revised the works ascribed to Augustine and Bernard, and who cut them down by one half, which they repudiated. They had the acumen to discern that they were not all of the same style and vein. Tell me, am not I to enjoy the same licence, when I use arguments none the less certain, nay, more convincing! The Apostle says to all, Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.
Section 6
It may be asked, How could it be that the ἀθεοότης, the Atheism which I profess to have clearly discovered in these writings, escaped the notice of the Scholastic Theologians of former ages ? But I ask in turn how it could come to pass that in this very age, when we have more theologians, and not less gifted, this iniquity escapes them, especially considering how much clearer our books are, owing to the art of Printing? Doubtless in part the cause of this has been that when the Theologians joined hands against the Heretics, they perused only those heads of Doctrine in the alleged monuments of the “Fathers” on which debate had arisen; they did not arrive at the fountain-head of these Dogmata. All were intent upon the object of making the testimonies opposed to them tell in favour of their own respective parties; for example, on the Eucharist, on Penitence, on the efficacy of Grace, and other controverted heads. In this conflict each thought himself successful in proportion to his ingenuity. But if they had weighed the whole literature with the like care, had they put their fingers on the sources, had they perceived that Atheism was taught by these false “Fathers,” doubtless they would have recognised the whole fraud; they would have seen that from Atheism nothing sound, nothing but what is most alien from the Catholic Faith, in the Eucharist and other heads, could follow. They would have understood that writings which they had treated with great reverence, because they believed them to have come from the “Fathers,” were indeed detestable.
Section 7
It is no wonder that so many impious writings were not in former times suspected of impiety. They lay hid on the shelves of libraries. They were brought out in a furtive and secret manner, and by degrees. Very few men knew anything of them. But now in our day, when a great number of similarly impious writings are in the hands of all, not only in France, but also in Belgium, Germany, England, and elsewhere, shall no one censure them? Can you wonder at the stupor of former ages--from the fourteenth, in which I think these writings were framed—and not wonder at the stupor of our contemporaries! Can you wonder that the Church has not pronounced upon the matter, seeing that the writings in question have never been brought before the tribunal of the Church? Neither the Church—that is the supreme Pontiff nor a Council gives judgment upon books, unless there has been a proper judicial interpellation.
Section 8
I say that before the present time the vast fraud could not be detected. No one could persuade himself or make others believe that all monuments were false and supposititious that had been believed to have been written in some fifteen former ages, unless he had studied them with sedulous attention. The whole system of the impious crew, of which each student took up his own part, could not be understood except by the diligent consideration of each and every part of it. But it is only in our own time that nearly all the writings have been brought forth from the Libraries. There are still some lying hid, but they are few. They are of the same kind with those extant, as will be readily understood by any one who is convinced of the falsity of those in our hands.
Section 9
The Catholics, then, could not readily recognise the impiety in these writings, nor could the Heretics lay open what they had discovered. Both acknowledge the alleged “Fathers." The Catholics were not at liberty altogether to repudiate them; and they sought to ply and bend them to their own opinions, that their Sons might not be said to depart from the “Fathers.” Nor did it occur to the Heretics to cast off writers who supported, as they knew, their own impious hypothesis. Moreover, their object was to show that they were not of recent origin, that they were not the fancies of new doctrines; and they needed the suffrages of these alleged witnesses.
Section 10
Surely Catholic prelates ought to permit me, or and better man, to detect the mystery of iniquity, and bring it into the open light of day. Otherwise they may well fear lest some impious adversary come forward and publish the wicked doctrines in the monuments of the alleged “Fathers," and find support among men, who do not wish to toil as they toiled in getting up Editions, nor to acquire the ill repute connected with evil and impious doctrine, whether it be not understood, or which is worse, championed and defended. Soon, unless God avert the ill, the whole Christian world will become atheist against its will.
Section 11
Assuredly it is all but necessary that a member of the Society of Jesus should detect this wicked craft and malice. For there is scarce another Family of the Priesthood which has not been deceived by some notable book offered to it under the name of some distinguished man in that Family; which book it has forthwith decreed by all means and arts to defend. Thus the Dominicans have “Thomas Aquinas,” “Vincent of Beauvais,” “Moneta, " "Reiner,” and others. The Franciscans have “Bonaventura, Alensis, Scotus." The Carmelites have “Thomas Walden.” Other families have other names.
But the Benedictines have a whole legion of them.
Section 12
Therefore, if at any time the holy Apostolic See would pronounce a judgment on my censure against “Augustine,” “Bernard,” and "Thomas” (these three writers by the help of God I have despatched; also most of the Councils; I am going to deal with other matters in like manner, while life lasts); I say when that day, greatly desired by me, shall come, let not the Holy See admit to consultation members of any Regular Family, which thinks it has produced from its bosom any of those old writers, and which desires to preserve them at any price. Let the Holy See employ Secular Theologians, or men of incorrupt integrity out of those very Families, who will look after the good of Religion alone. Let them desire to preserve her alone, though all else perish.
Section 13
The providence of God has hitherto permitted quarrels of Theologians on the opinions of Augustine, Thomas, etc. God cares little about controversies of that kind so long as the faith continues sound and whole, the faith which is necessary for all to salvation. In this faith neither can He suffer the Roman Church, nor has He suffered the Catholic Theologians to err. Meanwhile, not one of those works has been approved by the Apostolic See ex cathedra,—that is, after examination instituted and the hearing of advocates on either side on the question of the falsity or sincerity of those works. Enough for the Roman Church her own faith, her own tradition, without the help of “Augustine” or any other private person whatever. She derives her authority and her magisterial power from none, except Christ and the Holy Spirit promised to her; she should be taught by none, she should teach all, as Mother and Mistress. Nothing so strongly proves the authority of the Roman Church and the providence of God in conserving the true faith through the Holy Apostolic See, as the fact that she has never been corrupted, and will never suffer herself to be corrupted by so many great names of distinguished writers, whether Greek or Latin.
Section 14
Thirty-six years ago, in the year 1693, and afterwards on more than one occasion I declared that the νοθεία or spuriousness of the “old writers” bad become most plain and obvious to me. Then certain Catholics, good and well-meaning men, but of no large views, raised a cry against me. They did not observe that the Calvinists in Holland or Germany vociferated much more loudly. They, forsooth, well knew that if “Augustine” were snatched from them—if he were convicted of atheism—their famous phrase “All Augustine is ours" would bear this sense-“A scoundrel and a foe of the true Deity is all for us.'' In point of fact, the fellow who assumed and bears the name of "Augustine" teaches absolute atheism under the guise of Christian language.
Section 15
Some one may say, “Are you then wiser than so many men of genius, who read the old writings, and did not observe that they were impious ?” I will answer in the words of one of that wicked crew itself, in those forsooth, of Lactantius, book ii, chapter 8:
“Above all, in a matter that is vital it behoves each man to consult himself and to rely on his own judgment and proper senses for the purpose of considering and investigating the truth, rather than to be deceived by the errors of others, as if himself devoid of reason. God gave to all a measure of wisdom, that they might investigate unheard-of things, and perpend things heard. Because you have had predecessors in time, it does not follow that they have exceeded you in wisdom, which, if it is given equally to all, cannot be wholly enjoyed by those who went before. To be wise, i.e., to seek the truth, is innate in all; and therefore they cease to be wise who, without any judgment, approve what our ancestors invented, and are led like cattle by others. They are deceived in this, that under the influence of the name of “elders and ancestors,” they do not think that they can be wiser, because they are later, or that the others can be foolish, having the name of 'elders.' What hinders that we should take example from themselves; so that even as those who made false inventions handed them down to posterity, so we who find the truth should hand down better things to our posterity?”
To listen to this, nothing assuredly incites us but the desire of seeing the truth, which is contained in the one most holy Catholic Religion.
Section 16
But, it will be asked, “Why are so many literary monuments attacked, which have been received in good faith by so many ages ?” Is there so much good in those errors, or is so much evil feared, if the truth should be laid open, as there is in the fact that Books should be in the hands and before the eyes of all, which have been written by a gang of men, enemies to Catholic truth—and written with no other design than to remove God entirely from the world, and to overthrow the whole of the doctrines of the Christian faith? These books foster, and will foster, endless and interminable quarrels in the Church, until their nature and quality is recognised. If one should make clearer than the light of noon that the rise and birth of them fell within the last 400 years—that is, in the fourteenth century-would this be a light boon to Christendom? Should it not be preferred to any other gain, if any other there could be?
Section 17
Why did God so long delay the exposure of this fraud? The answer is, He suffered it to be committed that He might one day triumph over it; and He delayed to show it to Catholics, until as I have said, all the books, or at least the greater part, and the most important of the books had been brought out of the Libraries, had been fairly edited and could be conveniently read and understood, and tested by the marginal references. This has come to pass in our own time; hardly before. How helpful are these aids to students, students well know. I judge them to be so important that, before they were afforded, I do not believe the designs of the wicked crew could have been detected.
By the providence of God, meantime, most of the Scholastics neglected the reading of those "Fathers." The more firmly did they adhere to Tradition alone, and constantly defend it.
Section 18
It was in the month of August, 1690, that I began to scent fraud in Augustine and his contemporaries; in the month of November I suspected the same in all; and I detected the whole in the month of May, 1692, after I had written down long extracts from particular Greek and Latin writers. In this labour I toiled almost to the point of disgust and weariness, though I had often moments of great delight in the discovery of the truth.
Section 19
On the question of the good faith of “Cyril, Theodore, Augustine, Jerome," and others, special treatises have been published, and the strife is not yet at an end. If one were to make clear that the authors of such strife emerged from the infernal regions into the world about 400 years ago, to pursue their ill design of publishing their impious writings under the names of Saints and others-ought you not to thank such a man, if he proves the point by perspicuous arguments? For who would undertake the advocacy of impious writings?
I here enter upon a very important, but a very invidious undertaking. It is my intention, with the assistance of God, as long as He grants me life, to show that all writings which are commonly thought to be old, are in fact, with certain exceptions to be presently named, supposititious, and the fabrication of an unprincipled crew of literary men.
The exceptions are, the Books held by the Church to be sacred and canonical, and six Profane Writers, four Latin, two Greek. Meanwhile I do not declare war upon other writers, unless upon the enemies of the Almighty, of Christ, of the supreme Pontiff, and of the Royal authority.
Surely we may be as rigid in our criticism and repudiation of false monuments from which in the slightest degree our holy Religion suffers injury, as are judges in a court when they test and reject documents which are concerned with men's fortunes and estates, if any note of falsity appears in them. Now if there be but one faulty notation of time in any instrument, a Court will decisively and with great and just indignation reject and repudiate the instrument. How much more vehemently should we vociferate, and how much more justly, when our holy Religion is assailed and undermined !
Section 2
Religion itself and Christian Piety demand that we should deliver them at some lesser risk from a greater peril. The danger is less, if the falsehood of certain facts or allegations which have hitherto obtained credit is acknowledged; but a greater, nay, by far the greatest danger is, if those alleged facts are left unquestioned, and so our faith is gradually injured and overthrown.
Section 3
Let men, if they will, call the opinions I here advance ravings; I care not, so long as I can discredit the doctrines which I denounce as impious and heretical in those writings; I care not, so long as I can warn and teach my readers to abhor them, what men may think of me; I care only to preserve the faith concerning the true God, concerning Christ, concerning every head and chapter of our holy faith, sound and whole.
Section 4
What matters it, I pray you, that no one before my time has said what I have just said, and that I adduce no authority or witness from the ancients in my support? Supposing that I had had a forerunner, would that affect the question of truth? Or because he had long passed away, would that render him worthier of support? I pray you not to believe in men, but in sound arguments.
Section 5
If I had an equal genius to any of those old writers, if a desire came into my mind to print something under the feigned name of any one of those authors, whose works are believed to have perished; if I were to write it on parchment, with ink specially prepared for the purpose of making the writing appear in the course of a few years some 600 or 800 years old; if I were to transfer into that work certain excerpts from old writers who are commonly supposed to be genuine and sincere, with a view to induce belief in my work and its great age; tell me, would it not be right for any one to try and find out and detect any hidden fraud and impiety that he might suspect? Certainly he would be justified in doing so. And certainly one who is first and foremost a Catholic and a Theologian must be thought at liberty to do the like in reference to all writings which have not yet undergone such censure.
Petavius, for example, was the first to deny that certain works had been written by Athanasius, which the Benedictines ascribe to his authorship (tom. ii. p. 49, and elsewhere), and he was in the right. And they were also justified who revised the works ascribed to Augustine and Bernard, and who cut them down by one half, which they repudiated. They had the acumen to discern that they were not all of the same style and vein. Tell me, am not I to enjoy the same licence, when I use arguments none the less certain, nay, more convincing! The Apostle says to all, Prove all things, hold fast that which is good.
Section 6
It may be asked, How could it be that the ἀθεοότης, the Atheism which I profess to have clearly discovered in these writings, escaped the notice of the Scholastic Theologians of former ages ? But I ask in turn how it could come to pass that in this very age, when we have more theologians, and not less gifted, this iniquity escapes them, especially considering how much clearer our books are, owing to the art of Printing? Doubtless in part the cause of this has been that when the Theologians joined hands against the Heretics, they perused only those heads of Doctrine in the alleged monuments of the “Fathers” on which debate had arisen; they did not arrive at the fountain-head of these Dogmata. All were intent upon the object of making the testimonies opposed to them tell in favour of their own respective parties; for example, on the Eucharist, on Penitence, on the efficacy of Grace, and other controverted heads. In this conflict each thought himself successful in proportion to his ingenuity. But if they had weighed the whole literature with the like care, had they put their fingers on the sources, had they perceived that Atheism was taught by these false “Fathers,” doubtless they would have recognised the whole fraud; they would have seen that from Atheism nothing sound, nothing but what is most alien from the Catholic Faith, in the Eucharist and other heads, could follow. They would have understood that writings which they had treated with great reverence, because they believed them to have come from the “Fathers,” were indeed detestable.
Section 7
It is no wonder that so many impious writings were not in former times suspected of impiety. They lay hid on the shelves of libraries. They were brought out in a furtive and secret manner, and by degrees. Very few men knew anything of them. But now in our day, when a great number of similarly impious writings are in the hands of all, not only in France, but also in Belgium, Germany, England, and elsewhere, shall no one censure them? Can you wonder at the stupor of former ages--from the fourteenth, in which I think these writings were framed—and not wonder at the stupor of our contemporaries! Can you wonder that the Church has not pronounced upon the matter, seeing that the writings in question have never been brought before the tribunal of the Church? Neither the Church—that is the supreme Pontiff nor a Council gives judgment upon books, unless there has been a proper judicial interpellation.
Section 8
I say that before the present time the vast fraud could not be detected. No one could persuade himself or make others believe that all monuments were false and supposititious that had been believed to have been written in some fifteen former ages, unless he had studied them with sedulous attention. The whole system of the impious crew, of which each student took up his own part, could not be understood except by the diligent consideration of each and every part of it. But it is only in our own time that nearly all the writings have been brought forth from the Libraries. There are still some lying hid, but they are few. They are of the same kind with those extant, as will be readily understood by any one who is convinced of the falsity of those in our hands.
Section 9
The Catholics, then, could not readily recognise the impiety in these writings, nor could the Heretics lay open what they had discovered. Both acknowledge the alleged “Fathers." The Catholics were not at liberty altogether to repudiate them; and they sought to ply and bend them to their own opinions, that their Sons might not be said to depart from the “Fathers.” Nor did it occur to the Heretics to cast off writers who supported, as they knew, their own impious hypothesis. Moreover, their object was to show that they were not of recent origin, that they were not the fancies of new doctrines; and they needed the suffrages of these alleged witnesses.
Section 10
Surely Catholic prelates ought to permit me, or and better man, to detect the mystery of iniquity, and bring it into the open light of day. Otherwise they may well fear lest some impious adversary come forward and publish the wicked doctrines in the monuments of the alleged “Fathers," and find support among men, who do not wish to toil as they toiled in getting up Editions, nor to acquire the ill repute connected with evil and impious doctrine, whether it be not understood, or which is worse, championed and defended. Soon, unless God avert the ill, the whole Christian world will become atheist against its will.
Section 11
Assuredly it is all but necessary that a member of the Society of Jesus should detect this wicked craft and malice. For there is scarce another Family of the Priesthood which has not been deceived by some notable book offered to it under the name of some distinguished man in that Family; which book it has forthwith decreed by all means and arts to defend. Thus the Dominicans have “Thomas Aquinas,” “Vincent of Beauvais,” “Moneta, " "Reiner,” and others. The Franciscans have “Bonaventura, Alensis, Scotus." The Carmelites have “Thomas Walden.” Other families have other names.
But the Benedictines have a whole legion of them.
Section 12
Therefore, if at any time the holy Apostolic See would pronounce a judgment on my censure against “Augustine,” “Bernard,” and "Thomas” (these three writers by the help of God I have despatched; also most of the Councils; I am going to deal with other matters in like manner, while life lasts); I say when that day, greatly desired by me, shall come, let not the Holy See admit to consultation members of any Regular Family, which thinks it has produced from its bosom any of those old writers, and which desires to preserve them at any price. Let the Holy See employ Secular Theologians, or men of incorrupt integrity out of those very Families, who will look after the good of Religion alone. Let them desire to preserve her alone, though all else perish.
Section 13
The providence of God has hitherto permitted quarrels of Theologians on the opinions of Augustine, Thomas, etc. God cares little about controversies of that kind so long as the faith continues sound and whole, the faith which is necessary for all to salvation. In this faith neither can He suffer the Roman Church, nor has He suffered the Catholic Theologians to err. Meanwhile, not one of those works has been approved by the Apostolic See ex cathedra,—that is, after examination instituted and the hearing of advocates on either side on the question of the falsity or sincerity of those works. Enough for the Roman Church her own faith, her own tradition, without the help of “Augustine” or any other private person whatever. She derives her authority and her magisterial power from none, except Christ and the Holy Spirit promised to her; she should be taught by none, she should teach all, as Mother and Mistress. Nothing so strongly proves the authority of the Roman Church and the providence of God in conserving the true faith through the Holy Apostolic See, as the fact that she has never been corrupted, and will never suffer herself to be corrupted by so many great names of distinguished writers, whether Greek or Latin.
Section 14
Thirty-six years ago, in the year 1693, and afterwards on more than one occasion I declared that the νοθεία or spuriousness of the “old writers” bad become most plain and obvious to me. Then certain Catholics, good and well-meaning men, but of no large views, raised a cry against me. They did not observe that the Calvinists in Holland or Germany vociferated much more loudly. They, forsooth, well knew that if “Augustine” were snatched from them—if he were convicted of atheism—their famous phrase “All Augustine is ours" would bear this sense-“A scoundrel and a foe of the true Deity is all for us.'' In point of fact, the fellow who assumed and bears the name of "Augustine" teaches absolute atheism under the guise of Christian language.
Section 15
Some one may say, “Are you then wiser than so many men of genius, who read the old writings, and did not observe that they were impious ?” I will answer in the words of one of that wicked crew itself, in those forsooth, of Lactantius, book ii, chapter 8:
“Above all, in a matter that is vital it behoves each man to consult himself and to rely on his own judgment and proper senses for the purpose of considering and investigating the truth, rather than to be deceived by the errors of others, as if himself devoid of reason. God gave to all a measure of wisdom, that they might investigate unheard-of things, and perpend things heard. Because you have had predecessors in time, it does not follow that they have exceeded you in wisdom, which, if it is given equally to all, cannot be wholly enjoyed by those who went before. To be wise, i.e., to seek the truth, is innate in all; and therefore they cease to be wise who, without any judgment, approve what our ancestors invented, and are led like cattle by others. They are deceived in this, that under the influence of the name of “elders and ancestors,” they do not think that they can be wiser, because they are later, or that the others can be foolish, having the name of 'elders.' What hinders that we should take example from themselves; so that even as those who made false inventions handed them down to posterity, so we who find the truth should hand down better things to our posterity?”
To listen to this, nothing assuredly incites us but the desire of seeing the truth, which is contained in the one most holy Catholic Religion.
Section 16
But, it will be asked, “Why are so many literary monuments attacked, which have been received in good faith by so many ages ?” Is there so much good in those errors, or is so much evil feared, if the truth should be laid open, as there is in the fact that Books should be in the hands and before the eyes of all, which have been written by a gang of men, enemies to Catholic truth—and written with no other design than to remove God entirely from the world, and to overthrow the whole of the doctrines of the Christian faith? These books foster, and will foster, endless and interminable quarrels in the Church, until their nature and quality is recognised. If one should make clearer than the light of noon that the rise and birth of them fell within the last 400 years—that is, in the fourteenth century-would this be a light boon to Christendom? Should it not be preferred to any other gain, if any other there could be?
Section 17
Why did God so long delay the exposure of this fraud? The answer is, He suffered it to be committed that He might one day triumph over it; and He delayed to show it to Catholics, until as I have said, all the books, or at least the greater part, and the most important of the books had been brought out of the Libraries, had been fairly edited and could be conveniently read and understood, and tested by the marginal references. This has come to pass in our own time; hardly before. How helpful are these aids to students, students well know. I judge them to be so important that, before they were afforded, I do not believe the designs of the wicked crew could have been detected.
By the providence of God, meantime, most of the Scholastics neglected the reading of those "Fathers." The more firmly did they adhere to Tradition alone, and constantly defend it.
Section 18
It was in the month of August, 1690, that I began to scent fraud in Augustine and his contemporaries; in the month of November I suspected the same in all; and I detected the whole in the month of May, 1692, after I had written down long extracts from particular Greek and Latin writers. In this labour I toiled almost to the point of disgust and weariness, though I had often moments of great delight in the discovery of the truth.
Section 19
On the question of the good faith of “Cyril, Theodore, Augustine, Jerome," and others, special treatises have been published, and the strife is not yet at an end. If one were to make clear that the authors of such strife emerged from the infernal regions into the world about 400 years ago, to pursue their ill design of publishing their impious writings under the names of Saints and others-ought you not to thank such a man, if he proves the point by perspicuous arguments? For who would undertake the advocacy of impious writings?
CHAPTER III.
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The method of the Monkish forgers explained: the necessity of writing a great mass of books in support of their theories: and of various kinds, alleged apocryphal books among them. The interest of the forgers in the Academy of Paris. Their Latinity differs from that of Pliny.
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Section 1
The forgers to whom I refer did what one of their impious band, “Theodoret, book I. Fables of Heretics, chap. xix.,” declares that the Marcionitae did: They wrote a multitude of opinions, and falsely entitled books, to frighten fools!
It was a great undertaking; it required great toil, which was given unsparingly by the Faction. They had in truth, as they hint, χαλκεντέρους, φιλοπόνους, Adamantinos, “unwearied, brazen-bowelled” scribblers. They were bound to forge almost countless literary monuments, that they might oppose an (alleged) written tradition of so many years to the non-written, that is, the Catholic Tradition. A vast number of volumes was prepared, because the wicked forgers knew that the more there were, the more difficult it would be to unravel the fraud. It was as necessary to forge about as many Greek as Latin books; otherwise it would forthwith be suspected that the fraud was done in the Latin world. Moreover, the consent of the Two Churches must be pretended and shown; this was the scheme which they carried out. They gave to Greece, among the first, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom; to Cappadocia, Basil and Gregory of Nyssa; to the East, Theodoret, Eusebius; to Egypt, Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Cyril; to Italy, Ambrose, Leo, Gregory the Great; to Palestine and Syria, Justin, Cyril the second, Damascenus ; to Cyprus, Epiphanius; to Africa, Tertullian, Cyprian, Optatus, Augustine, Fulgentius, etc.—besides almost countless others in various parts of the world.
Section 2
Their design had to be supported by this vast number of volumes, histories, councils, writings of every kind; otherwise it was idle to undertake or attempt it at all. Do not wonder, then, at the multitude and mass of books! It had also to be set forth by means of polemical tracts, and in homilies to the people, and in explanations of the Scriptures, in Epistles, and in histories of various nations of the Christian world-that the form of Religion was that which they taught and handed down; that their opinions, their interpretations of the Scriptures, their solutions of opposites were not the sense of one man, or of one region or age, but of the whole world, and of all ages.
Section 3
Again: it was necessary to produce this vast and massive literature, so that no one might dare to withstand the multitude of alleged "witnesses." If any dared this, he would at once be exposed to the censure of desiring to destroy all tradition. For not one of those volumes, considered separately, can escape condemnation as heretical or atheistic. But when it appears that all the Writers of the Faction agree with each member, even Catholics themselves shrink back; they dare reject none; nay, they feel compelled to admit and embrace the whole.
Section 4
Very many “Fathers” had to be forged. If one only or two, or twenty, or if in Latin only, forthwith the fraud would have been discovered; and so in like manner, if only “Fathers,” and not also historians, both sacred and profane, had been contrived! It was necessary also to invent imaginary adversaries: Manicheans, Arians, Donatists, and a host of others.
Section 5
It was necessary to invent a multitude of questions, decrees, canons, definitions, formulæ of prayers, histories, controversies, etc., so that whatever difficulty might arise in the matter of Religion, whether pertaining to dogma or to discipline, the point might appear to have been long ago defined and laid down according to the principles of atheism and natural religion; and that posterity might not dare to decree otherwise than they read that their ancestors had defined. Everything had to be most diligently foreseen and cared for; no scholastic question of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, of the Sacraments, must escape them; no contention on ecclesiastical discipline must be passed by.
Section 6
It was part of the plan that the writings should be continued through all ages, through each century, lest they should be considered fictions, and the artists should be thought to have stuck fast at the point where they had expounded their whole system. They had to cut it into parts, and to allot a part to each century. They desired to produce the illusory and false impression that gradually in the course of ages, the faith and sense of the faithful concerning the Mysteries, and also their discipline, had grown little by little, and so had arrived at the point at which they were when they devised the whole system.
Section 7
It was the interest of these rogues to toil without ceasing, to persist in forging false monuments of former times and of their own; to load and overwhelm the world with them; so that no others might appear or be read, if possible, except those which were imbued with their own doctrines.
Section 8
But these impostors could not, and dared not, propose the whole of their impiety to their own age, unless by word of mouth in colloquies. They aimed more at tricking and deluding posterity. The Catholic Tradition being openly opposed to them, yet Religion being matter of Tradition, how could they pervert their contemporaries by the immediate production of so many false testimonies? So, as I have said, they had greater hope of deceiving posterity.
Section 9
It was necessary to forge Apocryphal writings, so that the world might believe that they had Critics among them; and that thus other writings might acquire more credit, the fairer or the more severe they seemed to be in noting and denouncing alleged “apocrypha.” But what was the origin of these fictions? Where were the Apocrypha written? Among the Romans especially—as the Clementines, and other writings assigned to Peter, and “Hermas,” or "the Pastor.” Men were not to believe that writings of Rome, or by Romans, had formerly been received with so much reverence as writings by others than the Romans; to which last authority was given by the suffrage of all. Not that those apocryphal writings contain anything pertinent to dogma which they would not have believed; but that they are unwilling to have it believed that doctrines were held to be true, because they came from the Romans. \
Sect. 10-11
Designedly also they produced works which they desired to be considered by many supposititious, at least by the more knowing; and they determined to supply in other writings proofs of the spuriousness of these works. Their interest was to produce these works, because they would please certain churches or districts. So they were produced; but care was taken to insert at least a part of the poison of their false Doctrine. Such are the books of “Dionysius the Areopagite,” which they knew must be greedily accepted by the Greeks, and possibly by the Parisians. Such were the Decretal Epistles of the Popes, which they hoped would be pleasing to the Romans. So they expected to gain their ends, even by those works which more learned men held to be spurious, so long as they were deemed genuine by ignorant persons. I say, the impious crew might hope, if their fraud were not detected in the course of a generation, that they would have patrons, partly men like themselves, atheists, and supporters of their impiety; partly simpletons, incapable of detecting their craft and their fraud.
Section 12
There is a very large number of works which are now considered to be spurious by the erudite; although they had formerly appeared under the great names of “Athanasius, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine," and others, and bear those names in manuscripts. No wonder! The doctrine is the same with that of the others; there is the same turn of thought; they are inspired by the same faction and workshop. Why are they not praised by Ambrose, for example, or by Augustine? Because they were concocted by a literary confederate, in the hope of their appearing under so great a name. But they afterwards appeared to the leading artificer in fiction less worthy of the great name, because they seemed to depart a little from certain of his opinions; or they were a little too bold in the expression of opinions which the leading artificer thought should be dissimulated.
Section 13
Now and again, on the other hand, and not infrequently, the workman so divided his work that it was handed over to two writers; he pretended that the latter contained the writing of the earlier after his death. But the likeness of the style shows that the workman was one and the same in each part. So Robert de Monte is feigned to have continued Sigebert; and there are many other cases of the same device. Mabillon was forced to point out in his work on Monastic Studies (de Stud. Monasticis, p. 301), that disciples imitated the style of their masters, as “Nicolas of Clairvaux” imitated that of “Bernard of Clairvaux." So they multiplied names, and so they appeared to augment the number of writers and of false witnesses !
Section 14
Again: They tried to persuade the world that many works had been lost. There is hardly one of them who does not tell a lying tale about writings of his, which are not to be found. So it is for example, that “Theodoret" adduces in his epistles the titles of books, as he alleges, written by him; and so in almost countless cases.
Section 15
The work was so divided among them that two or three or more writers undertook to work up the writings of one Age. And when two or three wrote on a similar subject or argument, one purposely passed by that which was to be added by the other. For example: -“Epiphanius, Theodoret, Augustine,” and others, wrote on "Heresies." One touches on certain Heresies, neglected by another; one spoke more openly, the other more darkly of some one heresy.
Section 16
That posterity might not wonder or suspect conspiracy and fraud, when they saw that all the "Fathers" treated the same arguments, all of them, and employed the same reasonings and similitudes so that one often seems to copy another; it was necessary to invent Histories by which it might appear that the same “Heresies" had been scattered in the whole world, and must therefore be everywhere assailed. For that reason they planted the Arians in Asia, in Egypt, in Greece, in Africa, in the Gauls, in Spain; the Manichaeans everywhere; the Photinians in Gaul; others elsewhere.
Section 17
Some one may say: “Could men take so much pains in framing so many false books?” As if when the fact is established, you may doubt of the way in which it was done! It is a fact that there were men who wrote these books; and it is manifest by recent examples of heretics, that bad men write many more and thicker volumes to defend error, than Catholics to defend Truth. Compare the monstrous loads, rather than volumes, under the names of Luther, Calvin, Brentius, the Magdeburg theologians, the Fratres Poloni and others. You will understand that the impious faction spared no labour to establish their impiety!
But they also handled the same matter in many ways. You find, for example, the same arguments precisely in “Cyril of Alexandria’s” Commentaries on John and in the Thesaurus, and in the Seven Dialogues; the form alone is slightly changed. "Ambrose" does the like, and so does "Augustine." So easy was it to produce many and great volumes in a short time.
Section 18
Of the Greek and Latin “Fathers” there are not more works than were written within fifty years under the names of Luther, Calvin, and their followers. There are not so many works of “Augustine” as there are of “Tostatus” alone, or “Albertus Magnus” alone! As to Calvin's works, how much more cultivated is the style and manner! How much more abundant in every kind of learning are those of “Albertus Magnus!” If you expunge the constant iterations in Augustine, you will take away at least a fourth part of his works. In our own Society of Jesus there are seven writers, Salmeron, Vasquez, Suarez, Bellarmine, Cornelius à Lapide, Theophilus Raynaud, Petavius, whose books surpass in number and mass the so-called “Latin Fathers.”
There were in the sixteenth century a great number of men of singular learning in Italy-Bembo, Manutius, Politiano, etc. If these men had conspired for some one design, how many works could they have put forth in Greek and Latin, in prose and verse, much more elegant and refined than any of those under the names of “Ambrose,” “Augustine,” and others? Of recent writers, some vie with Tully himself, others with Virgil in literary ability.
Section 19
But the truth is that most of those alleged “old writers” are describers, so to speak, rather than independent writers. They are copyists, as "Rufinus” and “Cyril” of “Augustine,” “Ambrose” of “Philo" or "Basil,” or “Hilary” on Ps. cxviii. "Justin," though he is reckoned earlier, copies “Theodoret," “Theophylact,” “Œcumenius,” and both of them copy “Chrysostom," etc.
They did not, like our Commentators, search for the true and genuine sense of Letters; this is sometimes painful; but they set down whatever allegories came into their heads, very often frigid and senseless, that others might copy them; for nearly all have the same things. It is fearfully tedious, therefore, to read them. And so, almost with running pen, they wrote these works, especially sermons, as they sometimes boast, in the course of one night. Sidonius makes that statement about himself.
“Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Theodoret, Justin,” were really possessors of one library; they praise the same authors, they confute the same stories. And so with others.
Section 20
Amongst these writers, those who desired to be thought the later, more clearly explain controverted points, and others not touched by the alleged earlier writers. They so distributed the task of writing, that something should be reserved for the alleged later ones, to distinguish them from the alleged earlier. For if you except the fuller explanations, you will find that the “later” write precisely the same things with the “earlier.” Something new must be added that the “later” might not be held useless. At the same time it was necessary to repeat what the former had said, and so the volume was thickened; which would otherwise have been slight and meagre.
How came it to pass that from the “Seventh Century” to the “Fifteenth Century” you scarce find seven writers in Spain ? Why, the impious gang would persuade you that all the writers of that period flourished, or taught, or learned what they wrote, at Paris. Their object was to stir up the Academy of Paris, which (they said) was rising during the same period, to defend their writings. Hence they alleged that nearly all Germans, Italians, English, studied or taught at Paris; “Alcuin, Raban, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura,” and countless others.
Those most unprincipled literary craftsmen thought that if they could gain the patronage of the Academy of Paris, the whole of France would follow, and France is the best part of Christendom. From England, I say, from Italy and Germany, they tell how many writers came; but they are said to have studied or even taught at Paris.
Section 21
They who are represented as having written in the “Ninth Century,” and "Bede” in the “Eighth Century,” simply copy alleged earlier writers; little else. They had exhausted their plots and arguments; but to keep up appearances, and to prevent the earlier writings (which were opposed by the traditions from the eighth or ninth century) from appearing mendacious; they mostly copy or augment only the former writings; and they feign new controversies about them.
In the alleged thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it is remarkable how often the like or the same things are copied down on the Holy Spirit, or Unleavened Bread, and other heads of theology, on which the Greeks differ from the Latins. The impious gang were deeply interested that no other records of the controversy about the procession of the Holy Ghost" should appear than their own fictions; that neither God nor the Holy Ghost should seem in those disputes other than they had stated; for they would not acknowledge the true God.
Section 22
The faction had artificers skilled in every style. But their Latinity is always different from that of Pliny, and other old Latin. Their Latin is closely alike in all, betraying that all were of the same age. Nothing but prejudice will suffer you to disbelieve this. Some are nevertheless more accurate and polite than others. All have a bold way of writing; they follow like cadences and like desinences; but they do not equally cultivate elegance and brilliancy (nitor) of composition. Most of them give little heed to good writing; their object is to write quickly. None was delayed in the publication of his work by censors.
Section 23
If all wrote on the same method, the scholastic, for example, there would not have been enough writers for all ages; their material would have been soon exhausted. Therefore the alleged earlier writers were bidden to write Apologies, Epistles, Tractates against Heretics, and Homilies. Those who were alleged to be “Middle Age'' writers were bidden to write Commentaries, and Collectanea from the “Fathers,” that is, from those who had given earlier lucubration. Lastly, they were bidden to frame Theological Summae, and Commentaries on the Summae.
Some writings they allege to be of uncertain authorship—the object being that in a following age they should be attributed to some man of great name, and so authority might be added to the false opinions of the impious faction.
The forgers to whom I refer did what one of their impious band, “Theodoret, book I. Fables of Heretics, chap. xix.,” declares that the Marcionitae did: They wrote a multitude of opinions, and falsely entitled books, to frighten fools!
It was a great undertaking; it required great toil, which was given unsparingly by the Faction. They had in truth, as they hint, χαλκεντέρους, φιλοπόνους, Adamantinos, “unwearied, brazen-bowelled” scribblers. They were bound to forge almost countless literary monuments, that they might oppose an (alleged) written tradition of so many years to the non-written, that is, the Catholic Tradition. A vast number of volumes was prepared, because the wicked forgers knew that the more there were, the more difficult it would be to unravel the fraud. It was as necessary to forge about as many Greek as Latin books; otherwise it would forthwith be suspected that the fraud was done in the Latin world. Moreover, the consent of the Two Churches must be pretended and shown; this was the scheme which they carried out. They gave to Greece, among the first, Gregory of Nazianzus, Chrysostom; to Cappadocia, Basil and Gregory of Nyssa; to the East, Theodoret, Eusebius; to Egypt, Clement, Origen, Athanasius, Cyril; to Italy, Ambrose, Leo, Gregory the Great; to Palestine and Syria, Justin, Cyril the second, Damascenus ; to Cyprus, Epiphanius; to Africa, Tertullian, Cyprian, Optatus, Augustine, Fulgentius, etc.—besides almost countless others in various parts of the world.
Section 2
Their design had to be supported by this vast number of volumes, histories, councils, writings of every kind; otherwise it was idle to undertake or attempt it at all. Do not wonder, then, at the multitude and mass of books! It had also to be set forth by means of polemical tracts, and in homilies to the people, and in explanations of the Scriptures, in Epistles, and in histories of various nations of the Christian world-that the form of Religion was that which they taught and handed down; that their opinions, their interpretations of the Scriptures, their solutions of opposites were not the sense of one man, or of one region or age, but of the whole world, and of all ages.
Section 3
Again: it was necessary to produce this vast and massive literature, so that no one might dare to withstand the multitude of alleged "witnesses." If any dared this, he would at once be exposed to the censure of desiring to destroy all tradition. For not one of those volumes, considered separately, can escape condemnation as heretical or atheistic. But when it appears that all the Writers of the Faction agree with each member, even Catholics themselves shrink back; they dare reject none; nay, they feel compelled to admit and embrace the whole.
Section 4
Very many “Fathers” had to be forged. If one only or two, or twenty, or if in Latin only, forthwith the fraud would have been discovered; and so in like manner, if only “Fathers,” and not also historians, both sacred and profane, had been contrived! It was necessary also to invent imaginary adversaries: Manicheans, Arians, Donatists, and a host of others.
Section 5
It was necessary to invent a multitude of questions, decrees, canons, definitions, formulæ of prayers, histories, controversies, etc., so that whatever difficulty might arise in the matter of Religion, whether pertaining to dogma or to discipline, the point might appear to have been long ago defined and laid down according to the principles of atheism and natural religion; and that posterity might not dare to decree otherwise than they read that their ancestors had defined. Everything had to be most diligently foreseen and cared for; no scholastic question of the Trinity, of the Incarnation, of the Sacraments, must escape them; no contention on ecclesiastical discipline must be passed by.
Section 6
It was part of the plan that the writings should be continued through all ages, through each century, lest they should be considered fictions, and the artists should be thought to have stuck fast at the point where they had expounded their whole system. They had to cut it into parts, and to allot a part to each century. They desired to produce the illusory and false impression that gradually in the course of ages, the faith and sense of the faithful concerning the Mysteries, and also their discipline, had grown little by little, and so had arrived at the point at which they were when they devised the whole system.
Section 7
It was the interest of these rogues to toil without ceasing, to persist in forging false monuments of former times and of their own; to load and overwhelm the world with them; so that no others might appear or be read, if possible, except those which were imbued with their own doctrines.
Section 8
But these impostors could not, and dared not, propose the whole of their impiety to their own age, unless by word of mouth in colloquies. They aimed more at tricking and deluding posterity. The Catholic Tradition being openly opposed to them, yet Religion being matter of Tradition, how could they pervert their contemporaries by the immediate production of so many false testimonies? So, as I have said, they had greater hope of deceiving posterity.
Section 9
It was necessary to forge Apocryphal writings, so that the world might believe that they had Critics among them; and that thus other writings might acquire more credit, the fairer or the more severe they seemed to be in noting and denouncing alleged “apocrypha.” But what was the origin of these fictions? Where were the Apocrypha written? Among the Romans especially—as the Clementines, and other writings assigned to Peter, and “Hermas,” or "the Pastor.” Men were not to believe that writings of Rome, or by Romans, had formerly been received with so much reverence as writings by others than the Romans; to which last authority was given by the suffrage of all. Not that those apocryphal writings contain anything pertinent to dogma which they would not have believed; but that they are unwilling to have it believed that doctrines were held to be true, because they came from the Romans. \
Sect. 10-11
Designedly also they produced works which they desired to be considered by many supposititious, at least by the more knowing; and they determined to supply in other writings proofs of the spuriousness of these works. Their interest was to produce these works, because they would please certain churches or districts. So they were produced; but care was taken to insert at least a part of the poison of their false Doctrine. Such are the books of “Dionysius the Areopagite,” which they knew must be greedily accepted by the Greeks, and possibly by the Parisians. Such were the Decretal Epistles of the Popes, which they hoped would be pleasing to the Romans. So they expected to gain their ends, even by those works which more learned men held to be spurious, so long as they were deemed genuine by ignorant persons. I say, the impious crew might hope, if their fraud were not detected in the course of a generation, that they would have patrons, partly men like themselves, atheists, and supporters of their impiety; partly simpletons, incapable of detecting their craft and their fraud.
Section 12
There is a very large number of works which are now considered to be spurious by the erudite; although they had formerly appeared under the great names of “Athanasius, Chrysostom, Ambrose, Augustine," and others, and bear those names in manuscripts. No wonder! The doctrine is the same with that of the others; there is the same turn of thought; they are inspired by the same faction and workshop. Why are they not praised by Ambrose, for example, or by Augustine? Because they were concocted by a literary confederate, in the hope of their appearing under so great a name. But they afterwards appeared to the leading artificer in fiction less worthy of the great name, because they seemed to depart a little from certain of his opinions; or they were a little too bold in the expression of opinions which the leading artificer thought should be dissimulated.
Section 13
Now and again, on the other hand, and not infrequently, the workman so divided his work that it was handed over to two writers; he pretended that the latter contained the writing of the earlier after his death. But the likeness of the style shows that the workman was one and the same in each part. So Robert de Monte is feigned to have continued Sigebert; and there are many other cases of the same device. Mabillon was forced to point out in his work on Monastic Studies (de Stud. Monasticis, p. 301), that disciples imitated the style of their masters, as “Nicolas of Clairvaux” imitated that of “Bernard of Clairvaux." So they multiplied names, and so they appeared to augment the number of writers and of false witnesses !
Section 14
Again: They tried to persuade the world that many works had been lost. There is hardly one of them who does not tell a lying tale about writings of his, which are not to be found. So it is for example, that “Theodoret" adduces in his epistles the titles of books, as he alleges, written by him; and so in almost countless cases.
Section 15
The work was so divided among them that two or three or more writers undertook to work up the writings of one Age. And when two or three wrote on a similar subject or argument, one purposely passed by that which was to be added by the other. For example: -“Epiphanius, Theodoret, Augustine,” and others, wrote on "Heresies." One touches on certain Heresies, neglected by another; one spoke more openly, the other more darkly of some one heresy.
Section 16
That posterity might not wonder or suspect conspiracy and fraud, when they saw that all the "Fathers" treated the same arguments, all of them, and employed the same reasonings and similitudes so that one often seems to copy another; it was necessary to invent Histories by which it might appear that the same “Heresies" had been scattered in the whole world, and must therefore be everywhere assailed. For that reason they planted the Arians in Asia, in Egypt, in Greece, in Africa, in the Gauls, in Spain; the Manichaeans everywhere; the Photinians in Gaul; others elsewhere.
Section 17
Some one may say: “Could men take so much pains in framing so many false books?” As if when the fact is established, you may doubt of the way in which it was done! It is a fact that there were men who wrote these books; and it is manifest by recent examples of heretics, that bad men write many more and thicker volumes to defend error, than Catholics to defend Truth. Compare the monstrous loads, rather than volumes, under the names of Luther, Calvin, Brentius, the Magdeburg theologians, the Fratres Poloni and others. You will understand that the impious faction spared no labour to establish their impiety!
But they also handled the same matter in many ways. You find, for example, the same arguments precisely in “Cyril of Alexandria’s” Commentaries on John and in the Thesaurus, and in the Seven Dialogues; the form alone is slightly changed. "Ambrose" does the like, and so does "Augustine." So easy was it to produce many and great volumes in a short time.
Section 18
Of the Greek and Latin “Fathers” there are not more works than were written within fifty years under the names of Luther, Calvin, and their followers. There are not so many works of “Augustine” as there are of “Tostatus” alone, or “Albertus Magnus” alone! As to Calvin's works, how much more cultivated is the style and manner! How much more abundant in every kind of learning are those of “Albertus Magnus!” If you expunge the constant iterations in Augustine, you will take away at least a fourth part of his works. In our own Society of Jesus there are seven writers, Salmeron, Vasquez, Suarez, Bellarmine, Cornelius à Lapide, Theophilus Raynaud, Petavius, whose books surpass in number and mass the so-called “Latin Fathers.”
There were in the sixteenth century a great number of men of singular learning in Italy-Bembo, Manutius, Politiano, etc. If these men had conspired for some one design, how many works could they have put forth in Greek and Latin, in prose and verse, much more elegant and refined than any of those under the names of “Ambrose,” “Augustine,” and others? Of recent writers, some vie with Tully himself, others with Virgil in literary ability.
Section 19
But the truth is that most of those alleged “old writers” are describers, so to speak, rather than independent writers. They are copyists, as "Rufinus” and “Cyril” of “Augustine,” “Ambrose” of “Philo" or "Basil,” or “Hilary” on Ps. cxviii. "Justin," though he is reckoned earlier, copies “Theodoret," “Theophylact,” “Œcumenius,” and both of them copy “Chrysostom," etc.
They did not, like our Commentators, search for the true and genuine sense of Letters; this is sometimes painful; but they set down whatever allegories came into their heads, very often frigid and senseless, that others might copy them; for nearly all have the same things. It is fearfully tedious, therefore, to read them. And so, almost with running pen, they wrote these works, especially sermons, as they sometimes boast, in the course of one night. Sidonius makes that statement about himself.
“Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius of Caesarea, Theodoret, Justin,” were really possessors of one library; they praise the same authors, they confute the same stories. And so with others.
Section 20
Amongst these writers, those who desired to be thought the later, more clearly explain controverted points, and others not touched by the alleged earlier writers. They so distributed the task of writing, that something should be reserved for the alleged later ones, to distinguish them from the alleged earlier. For if you except the fuller explanations, you will find that the “later” write precisely the same things with the “earlier.” Something new must be added that the “later” might not be held useless. At the same time it was necessary to repeat what the former had said, and so the volume was thickened; which would otherwise have been slight and meagre.
How came it to pass that from the “Seventh Century” to the “Fifteenth Century” you scarce find seven writers in Spain ? Why, the impious gang would persuade you that all the writers of that period flourished, or taught, or learned what they wrote, at Paris. Their object was to stir up the Academy of Paris, which (they said) was rising during the same period, to defend their writings. Hence they alleged that nearly all Germans, Italians, English, studied or taught at Paris; “Alcuin, Raban, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura,” and countless others.
Those most unprincipled literary craftsmen thought that if they could gain the patronage of the Academy of Paris, the whole of France would follow, and France is the best part of Christendom. From England, I say, from Italy and Germany, they tell how many writers came; but they are said to have studied or even taught at Paris.
Section 21
They who are represented as having written in the “Ninth Century,” and "Bede” in the “Eighth Century,” simply copy alleged earlier writers; little else. They had exhausted their plots and arguments; but to keep up appearances, and to prevent the earlier writings (which were opposed by the traditions from the eighth or ninth century) from appearing mendacious; they mostly copy or augment only the former writings; and they feign new controversies about them.
In the alleged thirteenth and fourteenth centuries it is remarkable how often the like or the same things are copied down on the Holy Spirit, or Unleavened Bread, and other heads of theology, on which the Greeks differ from the Latins. The impious gang were deeply interested that no other records of the controversy about the procession of the Holy Ghost" should appear than their own fictions; that neither God nor the Holy Ghost should seem in those disputes other than they had stated; for they would not acknowledge the true God.
Section 22
The faction had artificers skilled in every style. But their Latinity is always different from that of Pliny, and other old Latin. Their Latin is closely alike in all, betraying that all were of the same age. Nothing but prejudice will suffer you to disbelieve this. Some are nevertheless more accurate and polite than others. All have a bold way of writing; they follow like cadences and like desinences; but they do not equally cultivate elegance and brilliancy (nitor) of composition. Most of them give little heed to good writing; their object is to write quickly. None was delayed in the publication of his work by censors.
Section 23
If all wrote on the same method, the scholastic, for example, there would not have been enough writers for all ages; their material would have been soon exhausted. Therefore the alleged earlier writers were bidden to write Apologies, Epistles, Tractates against Heretics, and Homilies. Those who were alleged to be “Middle Age'' writers were bidden to write Commentaries, and Collectanea from the “Fathers,” that is, from those who had given earlier lucubration. Lastly, they were bidden to frame Theological Summae, and Commentaries on the Summae.
Some writings they allege to be of uncertain authorship—the object being that in a following age they should be attributed to some man of great name, and so authority might be added to the false opinions of the impious faction.
CHAPTER VIII.
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The attacks of the monkish faction on the Popes. The fiction of the “Kingdom of Italy,” and its object. The monkish Roman Empire is a mere fable, refuted by a mass of coins. The theory of Peter and his Successors. The fiction of the distribution of the Provinces among the Apostles. The dignity and power of the Pope is made to rest on Oral Tradition. The monks have endeavoured to overthrow his Primacy.
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Section 1
Among the other designs of the impious conclave, after they had declared war on God, was a violent effort to diminish the authority and power of the supreme Pontiff. They pretended that almost in every age some one of the Popes had erred in faith; in the third century they made out Marcellinus to be an idolater, in the fourth Liberius to be an Arian, in the fifth Zosimus to be a Pelagian, Hovmisdas to be an Arian in the sixth century, and Vigilius an Eutychian; in the seventh Honorius to be a Monothelite. That is, in chief and capital doctrines about Christ those Popes were heretics; and, when a new heresy failed them that they could charge upon the Popes, they created in their "tenth century” prodigiously unchaste Popes!
Section 2
Why did they invent the kingdom of Italy?" Why, that by placing kings in Italy, and emperors at Constantinople, the Bishop of that imperatorial City might contend for the Primacy with the Bishop of Rome; and that there might be no Pope apart from the consent of the kings of Italy. See Anselm of Havelberg, in his third Book.
Section 3
Could any emperor have desired to force Councils to his will, as they pretended in their tales of Constantine and the two Theodosii, unless Roman History had been so made up as to show the emperor in the light of the supreme arbiter of the Roman empire; and that the Republic or Senate had no share of power, but were merely the servile flatterers of the Augusti. having lost their liberty? I say that such a form of Roman Empire is a mere fable; and that on the testimony of coins, more than 1500 in number, I have confuted it.
Section 4
All the Patriarchal Seats are feigned to have had heresiarch bishops, or certainly notable favourers of heresies; the Alexandrine Dioscorus, Petrus Mongus, etc., the Antiochene Paul of Samosata, Petrus Cnapheus, and others; the Roman Honorius and Liberius. They desired that not even the See of Peter anywhere should be thought free from error, or more so at Rome than elsewhere.
Section 5
They who hold the false “Fathers” to be true, and will have the Sacred Scripture understood by their unanimous consent; yet none the less bear themselves as strenuous defenders of the holy Apostolic See, and of the authority and infallibility of the Pope; they, I say, are hard pressed by their adversaries. For the latter very readily approve these words of Christ: Thou art Peter, Feed my sheep, confirm thy brethren, from the unanimous consent of those “Fathers” to mean that Christ does not give the supreme Pontiff the supreme authority over Church and Council, or in defining controversies of faith, the highest power, and the infallibility of which they speak. So is Bellarmine keenly assailed by Launoy in his epistles, tome fifth.
Section 6
The Calvinists and others who clearly saw that Peter never came to Rome used that argument against the Catholics—the argumentum ad hominem, as it is called. “You," said the Calvinists, "have no Roman Pontiff as successor of Peter, unless Peter himself visited Rome.” But I utterly deny the first proposition. The Bishop of Rome is not the successor of Peter, but, as he is wont ever to subscribe in Bulls and Constitutions, Bishop of the Catholic Church. And therefore, as compared with the Pope, who is Bishop of the Catholic Church, the rest of the Bishops stand in the relation of Governors of provinces and cities to a king; and so, compared with the Royal or General Procurator, those who are called his Substitutes or Vicars.
Section 7
In the same design they made up the tale of the allotment of the provinces among the Apostles, that it might be thought no more had been given to Peter than to each of the others; but that Rome fell by lot to him, Jerusalem to James, Ethiopia to Matthew, India to Thomas, and so with the rest. And that this might the more certainly hold with posterity, even in certain Martyrologies they consigned that feast of the Division of the Apostles to the 15th day of July among the Latins. On that day the division of the Apostles for Preaching. The Office of that day is for the same alleged event in the Breviary of Herbipolis (Würzburg).
Section 8
As Peter's care, after the death of Judas, was to have another elected in his place to be the twelfth, and to judge (as Christ had promised) after the descent of the Holy Spirit, the twelve tribes of Israel; so was it necessary on the decease of Peter that from the elders, that is, bishops and presbyters who were in Peter's company, another should be brought in to undertake and sustain the same duty, to confirm the brethren, to hold the keys, and in the universal Church to build up her powers, as Christ had promised. For to Peter alone the other Apostles are to be commended, to be confirmed by the Lord Christ. There will ever be in the Church both heresies, and Bishops who are to be confirmed in the faith. Therefore by some one who is equal in power to Peter this must be done; and also he must be an infallible judge of controversies ; otherwise he could not confirm his brethren in the faith.
Section 9
The surest proof of a perpetual tradition and doctrine in the Church is the dignity and power of the Pope. For if books fail as they must-books framed with the object of bringing in atheism-it cannot afterwards be shown whence or at what time, except from Christ, it began to exist; nor could it be shown by any probable argument that the power of the supreme Pontiff in defining questions of faith was not ever the same that it is now. It is not clear that they had any temporal power before the tenth century; but that they had it at least from that age is clear from old coins.
Section 10
It was impossible, then, utterly to abrogate the primacy of the Pope, who was everywhere recognized with perfect consent at the time that the impious gang took its rise. “Let it be conceded to him,” they said; “but (1) only after it shall have been shown that in former ages of the Church the Greek and Latin 'Fathers,' and the Africans did not concede it; let us say that the concession was made by the Councils, not by Christ. (2) Let us pretend that there were a great many quarrels stirred up about that question, and that they have never been ended. (3) Let us change the supreme power into a Primacy, that is the first place among peers; let us give the second place in dignity and jurisdiction to the Bishop of Constantinople; let us constitute five Patriarchs, peers." Therefore they early, that is, from the fourth and fifth century, attributed like prerogatives to the Bishop of Constantinople, and much more in the ninth century; so that there might be in the last times an opponent of the Roman Pontiff. They added also a contention concerning the faith—namely, the procession of the Holy Spirit, because on matters of that kind dissidences are eternal; other controversies may be arranged on friendly terms. Thus they easily persuaded the Patriarchs of the East to withdraw themselves from the jurisdiction of the Vicar of our Saviour Christ. This was effected by the spurious monuments written by the impious crew; which were either carried hence to the East, or were sedulously read in the Academies and Colleges of Italy by the Easterns, where literature was studied.
Among the other designs of the impious conclave, after they had declared war on God, was a violent effort to diminish the authority and power of the supreme Pontiff. They pretended that almost in every age some one of the Popes had erred in faith; in the third century they made out Marcellinus to be an idolater, in the fourth Liberius to be an Arian, in the fifth Zosimus to be a Pelagian, Hovmisdas to be an Arian in the sixth century, and Vigilius an Eutychian; in the seventh Honorius to be a Monothelite. That is, in chief and capital doctrines about Christ those Popes were heretics; and, when a new heresy failed them that they could charge upon the Popes, they created in their "tenth century” prodigiously unchaste Popes!
Section 2
Why did they invent the kingdom of Italy?" Why, that by placing kings in Italy, and emperors at Constantinople, the Bishop of that imperatorial City might contend for the Primacy with the Bishop of Rome; and that there might be no Pope apart from the consent of the kings of Italy. See Anselm of Havelberg, in his third Book.
Section 3
Could any emperor have desired to force Councils to his will, as they pretended in their tales of Constantine and the two Theodosii, unless Roman History had been so made up as to show the emperor in the light of the supreme arbiter of the Roman empire; and that the Republic or Senate had no share of power, but were merely the servile flatterers of the Augusti. having lost their liberty? I say that such a form of Roman Empire is a mere fable; and that on the testimony of coins, more than 1500 in number, I have confuted it.
Section 4
All the Patriarchal Seats are feigned to have had heresiarch bishops, or certainly notable favourers of heresies; the Alexandrine Dioscorus, Petrus Mongus, etc., the Antiochene Paul of Samosata, Petrus Cnapheus, and others; the Roman Honorius and Liberius. They desired that not even the See of Peter anywhere should be thought free from error, or more so at Rome than elsewhere.
Section 5
They who hold the false “Fathers” to be true, and will have the Sacred Scripture understood by their unanimous consent; yet none the less bear themselves as strenuous defenders of the holy Apostolic See, and of the authority and infallibility of the Pope; they, I say, are hard pressed by their adversaries. For the latter very readily approve these words of Christ: Thou art Peter, Feed my sheep, confirm thy brethren, from the unanimous consent of those “Fathers” to mean that Christ does not give the supreme Pontiff the supreme authority over Church and Council, or in defining controversies of faith, the highest power, and the infallibility of which they speak. So is Bellarmine keenly assailed by Launoy in his epistles, tome fifth.
Section 6
The Calvinists and others who clearly saw that Peter never came to Rome used that argument against the Catholics—the argumentum ad hominem, as it is called. “You," said the Calvinists, "have no Roman Pontiff as successor of Peter, unless Peter himself visited Rome.” But I utterly deny the first proposition. The Bishop of Rome is not the successor of Peter, but, as he is wont ever to subscribe in Bulls and Constitutions, Bishop of the Catholic Church. And therefore, as compared with the Pope, who is Bishop of the Catholic Church, the rest of the Bishops stand in the relation of Governors of provinces and cities to a king; and so, compared with the Royal or General Procurator, those who are called his Substitutes or Vicars.
Section 7
In the same design they made up the tale of the allotment of the provinces among the Apostles, that it might be thought no more had been given to Peter than to each of the others; but that Rome fell by lot to him, Jerusalem to James, Ethiopia to Matthew, India to Thomas, and so with the rest. And that this might the more certainly hold with posterity, even in certain Martyrologies they consigned that feast of the Division of the Apostles to the 15th day of July among the Latins. On that day the division of the Apostles for Preaching. The Office of that day is for the same alleged event in the Breviary of Herbipolis (Würzburg).
Section 8
As Peter's care, after the death of Judas, was to have another elected in his place to be the twelfth, and to judge (as Christ had promised) after the descent of the Holy Spirit, the twelve tribes of Israel; so was it necessary on the decease of Peter that from the elders, that is, bishops and presbyters who were in Peter's company, another should be brought in to undertake and sustain the same duty, to confirm the brethren, to hold the keys, and in the universal Church to build up her powers, as Christ had promised. For to Peter alone the other Apostles are to be commended, to be confirmed by the Lord Christ. There will ever be in the Church both heresies, and Bishops who are to be confirmed in the faith. Therefore by some one who is equal in power to Peter this must be done; and also he must be an infallible judge of controversies ; otherwise he could not confirm his brethren in the faith.
Section 9
The surest proof of a perpetual tradition and doctrine in the Church is the dignity and power of the Pope. For if books fail as they must-books framed with the object of bringing in atheism-it cannot afterwards be shown whence or at what time, except from Christ, it began to exist; nor could it be shown by any probable argument that the power of the supreme Pontiff in defining questions of faith was not ever the same that it is now. It is not clear that they had any temporal power before the tenth century; but that they had it at least from that age is clear from old coins.
Section 10
It was impossible, then, utterly to abrogate the primacy of the Pope, who was everywhere recognized with perfect consent at the time that the impious gang took its rise. “Let it be conceded to him,” they said; “but (1) only after it shall have been shown that in former ages of the Church the Greek and Latin 'Fathers,' and the Africans did not concede it; let us say that the concession was made by the Councils, not by Christ. (2) Let us pretend that there were a great many quarrels stirred up about that question, and that they have never been ended. (3) Let us change the supreme power into a Primacy, that is the first place among peers; let us give the second place in dignity and jurisdiction to the Bishop of Constantinople; let us constitute five Patriarchs, peers." Therefore they early, that is, from the fourth and fifth century, attributed like prerogatives to the Bishop of Constantinople, and much more in the ninth century; so that there might be in the last times an opponent of the Roman Pontiff. They added also a contention concerning the faith—namely, the procession of the Holy Spirit, because on matters of that kind dissidences are eternal; other controversies may be arranged on friendly terms. Thus they easily persuaded the Patriarchs of the East to withdraw themselves from the jurisdiction of the Vicar of our Saviour Christ. This was effected by the spurious monuments written by the impious crew; which were either carried hence to the East, or were sedulously read in the Academies and Colleges of Italy by the Easterns, where literature was studied.
CHAPTER XX.
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Hardouin defends his Censure of the Monastic Books by quoting from Gallonius against the Benedictine of Monte Cassino, Bellotti.
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Section 1
But now to make an end of these general arguments: let me enter upon the Censure of writings which are commonly thought to be of the “Fathers.” I have gone through, with such censure, the case of the writings of Augustine, Bernard, and Thomas, which have been happily described, also of most of the Councils; but I must deal with others while God grants me health and life. I have shown that it was right to institute a censure of this kind, unless I am mistaken; and that erudite and Catholic men think so, may be understood by the reader from the work of a scholar already praised by me, Antonius Gallonius, Presbyter of the Oratorian Congregation in Rome, in his Apology for Cardinal Baronius, against Constantine Bellotti, Benedictine monk of Monte Cassino, published at Rome from the Vatican Typography, 1604, p. 9: “You, Constantine, must be taught that you should be taught by what distinction the holy Roman Church is said to approve books. For not all books (as you suppose) which the Church approves, does she desire to be of the firmest authority, as are the Hagiographa, the Sacred Scripture itself, which consists of books we call canonical. To them alone belongs the privilege that naught of what is written in them may be called into doubt, the Catholic faith being preserved; but it is otherwise with books received by the Church; even if they are of the leading Masters of the Church, whom for their dignity we call Doctors of the Church, as Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, and Gregory.”
Section 2
And on p. 10: "Learn, therefore, Constantine, to what kind of writings that prerogative is due; namely, to the canonical alone, so that nothing in them ought to be made matter of doubt and controversy; concerning the rest, this is by no means the case; so take heed lest you strike again into monstrous errors of that kind; but know that any one's writings are so approved by the Roman Church, as recognized by her, that there must be nothing in them contrary to the Catholic faith and good manners. But if anything false should be in them, she suffers the liberty of proving this to any one that wills.”
Section 3
On p. 11:--“You say a little later, ‘Since therefore the Church approves the writings preserved in her coffers, and thence John derived what he wrote of the blessed Gregory, it is clearer than the day that the Church approved what he wrote at least as far as the credit of history is concerned.' But in saying this, Constantine, you almost make me blush for your sake, for you would make the whole Apostolic coffers a Hagiograph (or sacred repository) so that none of its contents can be argued erroneous, according to your contention. But how about the many surreptitious writings which the Apostolic See against her will has constantly to endure? It is of God alone who beholds the heart, to be free from these; and in all things which are brought before the tribunal of the Church to know and discern falsehood from truth, but who is ignorant that men and even the Pope himself in these matters of fact, are fallible and may be deceived?”
So far then let what I have said suffice as Prolegomena to be read as a preface to my Censure, by which it will clearly appear as I hope, that the contrivers of so many Dogmatic works and of Ecclesiastical History (as they call it) had this object in view, to utterly ruin, if possible, the whole of Religion. From my treatise on the Ancient Coins of the French Kings it appears that this design was taken up by the impious crew and meditated in the reign of Philip Augustus; much more under Philip the Fair, and Philip of Valois; that it afterwards was immensely enlarged through more than one hundred and fifty years.
But now to make an end of these general arguments: let me enter upon the Censure of writings which are commonly thought to be of the “Fathers.” I have gone through, with such censure, the case of the writings of Augustine, Bernard, and Thomas, which have been happily described, also of most of the Councils; but I must deal with others while God grants me health and life. I have shown that it was right to institute a censure of this kind, unless I am mistaken; and that erudite and Catholic men think so, may be understood by the reader from the work of a scholar already praised by me, Antonius Gallonius, Presbyter of the Oratorian Congregation in Rome, in his Apology for Cardinal Baronius, against Constantine Bellotti, Benedictine monk of Monte Cassino, published at Rome from the Vatican Typography, 1604, p. 9: “You, Constantine, must be taught that you should be taught by what distinction the holy Roman Church is said to approve books. For not all books (as you suppose) which the Church approves, does she desire to be of the firmest authority, as are the Hagiographa, the Sacred Scripture itself, which consists of books we call canonical. To them alone belongs the privilege that naught of what is written in them may be called into doubt, the Catholic faith being preserved; but it is otherwise with books received by the Church; even if they are of the leading Masters of the Church, whom for their dignity we call Doctors of the Church, as Augustine, Jerome, Ambrose, and Gregory.”
Section 2
And on p. 10: "Learn, therefore, Constantine, to what kind of writings that prerogative is due; namely, to the canonical alone, so that nothing in them ought to be made matter of doubt and controversy; concerning the rest, this is by no means the case; so take heed lest you strike again into monstrous errors of that kind; but know that any one's writings are so approved by the Roman Church, as recognized by her, that there must be nothing in them contrary to the Catholic faith and good manners. But if anything false should be in them, she suffers the liberty of proving this to any one that wills.”
Section 3
On p. 11:--“You say a little later, ‘Since therefore the Church approves the writings preserved in her coffers, and thence John derived what he wrote of the blessed Gregory, it is clearer than the day that the Church approved what he wrote at least as far as the credit of history is concerned.' But in saying this, Constantine, you almost make me blush for your sake, for you would make the whole Apostolic coffers a Hagiograph (or sacred repository) so that none of its contents can be argued erroneous, according to your contention. But how about the many surreptitious writings which the Apostolic See against her will has constantly to endure? It is of God alone who beholds the heart, to be free from these; and in all things which are brought before the tribunal of the Church to know and discern falsehood from truth, but who is ignorant that men and even the Pope himself in these matters of fact, are fallible and may be deceived?”
So far then let what I have said suffice as Prolegomena to be read as a preface to my Censure, by which it will clearly appear as I hope, that the contrivers of so many Dogmatic works and of Ecclesiastical History (as they call it) had this object in view, to utterly ruin, if possible, the whole of Religion. From my treatise on the Ancient Coins of the French Kings it appears that this design was taken up by the impious crew and meditated in the reign of Philip Augustus; much more under Philip the Fair, and Philip of Valois; that it afterwards was immensely enlarged through more than one hundred and fifty years.
THE END.
Source: Jean Hardouin, The Prolegomena of Jean Hardouin, translated by Edwin Johnson (Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1909).
