One of the evergreen tropes of Protestantism is the "Donation of Constantine." I've been in a few internet debates where all of sudden my Protestant interlocutor will utter something along the lines of "What about the Donation of Constantine?" and then scurry off as if some telling blow had been landed. My reaction is along the lines of "eh?" or "what?" or "how is that relevant to the price of tea in China?"
As a lifelong Catholic, I know about the "Donation of Constantine" as an interesting bit of history. The Donation of Constantine was fabricated in approximately the 8th Century, probably in France, and probably for the purpose of bolstering the Carolingian claim against the Emperor in Constantinople. The Donation of Constantine was picked up in the 12th Century by papal apologists who used it as a way of supporting the already on-going "papal revolution," which was a fait accompli by way of the reform of canon law, not because of fabricated documents from the 8th Century. (See Harold Berman's Law and Revolution.)
Did the papacy use forgeries? Absolutely, but the papacy did not forge the documents and was taken in by them as much as anyone else. An interesting fact is that the Lorenzo Valla, who famously unmasked the Donation of Constantine as a forgery, subsequently became an apostolic secretary and a favorite of Pope Callixtus. It seems that Valla's historical revisionism did not entirely poison his career with the Vatican, although he did have some rocky moments.
Similarly, St. Thomas Aquinas was apparently taken in by the "False Decretals of Isidore," although presumably at the time they were merely the "Decretals of Isidore," in his "Against the Errors of the Greeks." The Decretals was a series of purported quotations from Eastern Church Fathers that were also created in the 8th Century as part of the project of ramping up Western prestige against the powerful Eastern emperor. However, the fact that the Decretals was itself a forgery, many of the quotes contained in it were authentic, and Aquinas could have sustained his argument by using other quotes from Eastern Fathers. An example of the former is found in Section 33, where he quotes Chrysostom as saying that "he allocated James a determined territory, but he appointed Peter master and teacher of the whole world." Although this was taken from the Decretals, which was a forgery, in fact, Chrysostem did say in his Homily on John that "And if any should say, "how then did James receive the chair at Jerusalem? I would make this reply that He appointed Peter teacher, not of the chair, but of the world." An example of the latter is provided by James Likoudis.
So, the significance of these forgeries seems to be overstated, albeit it seems to have a particulalry strong resonance in the mind of some Protestants for whom it is the dispositive evidence of "perfidious Rome."
Mind you, this is all new to me. I wouldn't have spent time learning this stuff except for the fact that it was brought up on a fever-swamp anti-catholic site on Facebook. Although I pointed out the above, the stated views of the residents - particularly one individual named Dominic Macelli - was that none of this mattered because a forgery is a forgery.
The conversation turned to the issue of the Deuterocanonical texts. As part of this discussion, Macelli quoted the following:
“St. Jerome distinguished between canonical books and ecclesiastical books. The latter he judged were circulated by the Church as good spiritual reading but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries...For example, John of Damascus, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicolas of Lyra and Tostado continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books. According to Catholic doctrine, the proximate criterion of the biblical canon is the infallible decision of the Church. This decision was not given until rather late in the history of the Church at the Council of Trent. The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the Old Testament Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent” (The New Catholic Encyclopedia, The Canon).
That looks like a particularly impressive bit of evidence: the Catholic Encyclopedia appears to be saying that there was no defined canon until Trent in the 16 Century.
But it smelled funny because based on my extensive historical reading it was so wrong.
And there were problems with the quote. First, it is entirely inconsistent with the historical evidence. Second, I couldn't find it in the Catholic Encyclopedia on the New Advent site.
I pressed Macelli for his source. He had consistently taken the position that he would not provide jumplinks for his sources because he was afraid of his interlocutors reading his sources and pointing out his errors. Apparently, people were supposed to take his quotes on "faith alone." After pressing him, he pointed nebulously to a message board.
 |
| "New Catholic Encyclopedia" article on "Canon, Biblical," p. 26. |
Another strange thing was that this quote could only be found on anti-catholic sites.
It turns out that there is a "New Catholic Encyclopedia," which is nowhere to be found online.
So, I went to the local library and looked for the quote, and found out that the anti-catholic apologists had done a "False Decretal of Isidore" number and provided a forged and fabricated quote.
Here is what the relevant passages actually say:
"St. Jerome (A.D. 340 - 420) distinguished between "canonical books" and "ecclesiastical books." The latter, he judged, were circulated by the Church as good "spiritual reading," but were not recognized as authoritative Scripture. St. Augustine, however, did not recognize this distinction. He accepted all the books in the LXX as of equal value, noting that those designated as apocryphal by Jerome were either unknown or obscure origin. Augustine's point of view prevailed and the deuterocanonical books remained in the Vulgate, the Latin version, that received official standing at the Council of Trent.
The situation remained unclear in the ensuing centuries, although the tendency to accept the disputed books was becoming all the time more general. In spite of this trend, some, e.g., John Damascene, Gregory the Great, Walafrid, Nicholas of lyra and Tostado, continued to doubt the canonicity of the deuterocanonical books. St. THOMAS AQUINAS has for a long time been listed as a dissenter because of his supposed doubts about Wisdom and Sirach, but P. Synave has argued convincingly to clear him of this imputation (Revue biblique 212 (1924) 522 - 533). The Council of Trent definitively settled the matter of the OT Canon. That this had not been done previously is apparent from the uncertainty that persisted up to the time of Trent."
Obviously, this text is far different from the fabricated quote being circulated on such anti-catholic sites as "Just for Catholics." I would, however, dissent from the New Catholic Encyclopedia's insinuation as to the level of uncertainty. The deuterocanonical works had been used in the liturgy for over a thousand years by the time of Trent. In De Libero Arbitrio (Discussion of Free Will), Erasmus directs Luther to the text from the Wisdom of Sirach (aka Ecclesiasticus) 15:14 - 18 that:
"God created man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. He added his commands and precepts: if you will keep the commandments, and keep acceptable faith forever, they will keep you. He set water and fire before you; stretch out your hand to whatever you desire. Before man are life and death, good and evil; whatever he pleases shall be given him."
Erasmus follows up his quote from Sirach/Ecclesiasticus with the following:
"I do not suppose that anyone will plead here against the authority of this work that it was not originally in the Hebrew canon (as Jerome points out), seeing that the Church of Christ has unanimously received it into its canon, and I see no reason why the Hebrews should have thought this book ought to be excluded from the canon, given that they accept the Proverbs of Solomon and the Amatory Song."
(See Collected Works of Erasmus, Vol. 76, p. 21 - 22.)
In short, Erasmus - one of the leading scholars of Hebrew, Greek and Latin of his age - was aware of Jerome's dissent as a kind of intellectual abstraction, which did not bear a great deal of weight in the face of the actual practice, which was that Christians had been reading Sirach/Ecclesiasticus as part of the divine liturgy throughout Christian history!
In any event, the irony of the situation is that anti-catholic apologists who condemn the Catholic Church on account of the Donation of Constantine seem to have no problem using fabricated documents of their own.
The final irony was that after I pointed out that Dominick Macelli was probably using a fabricated quote, I was ejected from the Facebook group.
Lorenzo Valla received better treatment.
Posts
