O you scoundrel! Were there in Rome churches, that is, temples, dedicated

to Peter and Paul? Who had constructed them? Who would have dared to

build them, when, as history tells us, the Christians had never had

anything but secret and secluded meeting-places? And if there had been

any temples at Rome dedicated to these apostles, they would not have

called for such great lights as these to be set up in them; they were

little chapels, not sanctuaries; little shrines, not temples; oratories

in private houses, not public places of worship. So there was no need to

care for the temple lights, before the temples themselves were provided.

And what is this that you say? You make Constantine call Peter and Paul

blessed, but Sylvester, still living, “most blessed”; and call his own

mandate, pagan as he had been but a little while before, “sacred”! Is so

much to be donated “for the providing of the lights” that the whole world

would be impoverished? And what are these “landed estates,” particularly

“landed estates of possessions”? The phrase “possessions of landed

estates” is good usage; “landed estates of possessions” is not. You give

landed estates, and you do not explain which landed estates. You have

enriched “with different objects,” and you do not show when nor with

what objects. You want the corners of the earth to be administered by

Sylvester, and you do not explain how they are to be administered. You

say these were granted earlier? Then why do you say that you have now

begun to honor the Roman church, and to grant it a “privilege”? Do you

make the grant now; do you enrich it now? Then why do you say “we have

granted” and “we have enriched”? What are you talking about; what is in

your mind, you beast? (I am speaking to the man who made up the story,

not to that most excellent ruler, Constantine.)

But why do I ask for any intelligence in you, any learning, you who are

not endowed with any ability, with any knowledge of letters, who say

“lights” for lamps, and “be transferred in the regions of the east”

instead of “be transferred to the regions of the east,” as it should be?

And what next? Are these “quarters” of yours really the four quarters of

the world? What do you count as eastern? Thrace? It lies to the north,

as I have said. Judea? It looks rather toward the south, for it is next

to Egypt. And what do you count as western? Italy? But these events

occurred in Italy and no one living there calls it western; for we say

the Spains are in the west; and Italy extends, on one hand to the south

and on the other to the north, rather than to the west. What do you

count as north? Thrace? You yourself choose to put it in the east. Asia?

This alone includes the whole east, but it includes the north also, like

Europe. What do you count as southern? Africa, of course. But why do you

not specify some province? Perhaps you think even the Ethiopians were

subject to the Roman Empire! And anyway Asia and Africa do not come into

consideration when we divide the earth into four parts and enumerate

the countries of each, but when we divide it into three, Asia, Africa,

Europe; that is, unless you say Asia for the province of Asia, and Africa

for that province which is next to the Gaetuli, and I do not see why

they, especially, should be mentioned.

Would Constantine have spoken thus when he was describing the four

quarters of the earth? Would he have mentioned these countries, and not

others? Would he have begun with Judea, which is counted as a part of

Syria and was no longer “Judea” after the destruction of Jerusalem (for

the Jews were driven away and almost exterminated, so that, I suppose,

scarcely one then remained in his own country, but they lived among other

nations)? Where then was Judea? It was no longer called Judea, and we

know that now that name has perished from the earth. Just as after the

driving out of the Canaanites the region ceased to be called Canaan and

was renamed Judea by its new inhabitants, so when the Jews were driven

out and mixed tribes inhabited it, it ceased to be called Judea.

You mention Judea, Thrace, and the islands, but you do not think of

mentioning the Spains, the Gauls, the Germans, and while you speak of

peoples of other tongues, Hebrew, Greek, barbarian, you do not speak

of any of the provinces where Latin is used. I see: you have omitted

these for the purpose of including them afterwards in the Donation.

And why were not these many great provinces of the East sufficient to

bear the expense of providing the lights without the rest of the world

contributing!

I pass over the fact that you say these are granted as a gift, and

therefore not, as our friends say, in payment for the cure of the

leprosy. Otherwise,—well, any one who classes a gift as a payment is

ill-bred.

“To the blessed Sylvester, his [Peter’s] vicar, we by this

present do give our imperial Lateran palace, then the diadem,

that is, the crown of our head, and at the same time the tiara

and also the shoulder-band,—that is, the strap that usually

surrounds our imperial neck; and also the purple mantle and

scarlet tunic, and all the imperial raiment; and the same rank

as those presiding over the imperial cavalry; conferring also

on him the imperial scepters, and at the same time all the

standards and banners and the different imperial ornaments, and

all the pomp of our imperial eminence, and the glory of our

power.

“And we decree also, as to these men of different rank, the

most reverend clergy who serve the holy Roman church, that they

have that same eminence of distinguished power and excellence,

by the glory of which it seems proper for our most illustrious

Senate to be adorned; that is, that they be made patricians,

consuls,—and also we have proclaimed that they be decorated

with the other imperial dignities. And even as the imperial

militia stands decorated, so we have decreed that the clergy

of the holy Roman church be adorned. And even as the imperial

power is ordered with different offices, of chamberlains,

indeed, and door-keepers and all the bed-watchers, so we wish

the holy Roman church also to be decorated. And, in order that

the pontifical glory may shine forth most fully, we decree also

that the holy clergy of this same holy Roman church may mount

mounts adorned with saddle-cloths and linens, that is, of the

whitest color; and even as our Senate uses shoes with felt

socks, that is, they [the clergy] may be distinguished by white

linen, and that the celestial [orders] may be adorned to the

glory of God, just as the terrestrial are adorned.”

O holy Jesus! This fellow, tumbling phrases about in his ignorant

talk,—will you not answer him from a whirlwind? Will you not send the

thunder? Will you not hurl avenging lightnings at such great blasphemy?

Will you endure such wickedness in your household? Can you hear this, see

this, let it go on so long and overlook it? But you are long-suffering

and full of compassion. Yet I fear lest this your long-suffering may

rather be wrath and condemnation, such as it was against those of whom

you said, “So I gave them up unto their own hearts’ lust: and they

walked in their own counsels,”[471] and elsewhere, “Even as they did not

like to retain me in their knowledge, I gave them over to a reprobate

mind, to do those things which are not convenient.”[472] Command me, I

beseech thee, O Lord, that I may cry out against them, and perchance they

may be converted.

O Roman pontiffs, the model of all crimes for other pontiffs! O wickedest

of scribes and Pharisees, who sit in Moses’ seat and do the deeds of

Dathan and Abiram! Will the raiment, the habiliments, the pomp, the

cavalry, indeed the whole manner of life of a Caesar thus befit the vicar

of Christ? What fellowship has the priest with the Caesar? Did Sylvester

put on this raiment; did he parade in this splendor; did he live and

reign with such a throng of servants in his house? Depraved wretches!

They did not know that Sylvester ought to have assumed the vestments of

Aaron, who was the high priest of God, rather than those of a heathen

ruler.

But this must be more strongly pressed elsewhere. For the present,

however, let us talk to this sycophant about barbarisms of speech; for by

the stupidity of his language his monstrous impudence is made clear, and

his lie.

“We give,” he says, “our imperial Lateran palace”: as though it was

awkward to place the gift of the palace here among the ornaments, he

repeated it later where gifts are treated. “Then the diadem;” and as

though those present would not know, he interprets, “that is, the crown.”

He did not, indeed, here add “of gold,” but later, emphasizing the same

statements, he says, “of purest gold and precious gems.” The ignorant

fellow did not know that a diadem was made of coarse cloth or perhaps

of silk; whence that wise and oft-repeated remark of the king, who,

they say, before he put upon his head the diadem given him, held it and

considered it long and exclaimed, “O cloth more renowned than happy! If

any one knew you through and through, with how many anxieties and dangers

and miseries you are fraught, he would not care to pick you up; no, not

even if you were lying on the ground!” This fellow does not imagine but

that it is of gold, with a gold band and gems such as kings now usually

add. But Constantine was not a king, nor would he have dared to call

himself king, nor to adorn himself with royal ceremony. He was Emperor

of the Romans, not king. Where there is a king, there is no republic.

But in the republic there were many, even at the same time, who were

“imperatores” [generals]; for Cicero frequently writes thus, “Marcus

Cicero, imperator, to some other imperator, greeting”: though, later on,

the Roman ruler, as the highest of all, is called by way of distinctive

title the Emperor.

“And at the same time the tiara and also the shoulder-band,—that is the

strap that usually surrounds our imperial neck.” Who ever heard “tiara”

[phrygium] used in Latin? You talk like a barbarian and want it to seem

to me to be a speech of Constantine’s or of Lactantius’. Plautus, in the

Menaechmi, applied “phrygionem” to a designer of garments; Pliny calls

clothes embroidered with a needle “phrygiones” because the Phrygians

invented them; but what does “phrygium” mean? You do not explain

this, which is obscure; you explain what is quite clear. You say the

“shoulder-band” is a “strap,” and you do not perceive what the strap

is, for you do not visualize a leather band, which we call a strap,

encircling the Caesar’s neck as an ornament. [It is of leather], hence we

call harness and whips “straps”: but if ever gold straps are mentioned,

it can only be understood as applying to gilt harness such as is put

around the neck of a horse or of some other animal. But this has escaped

your notice, I think. So when you wish to put a strap around the Caesar’s

neck, or Sylvester’s, you change a man, an Emperor, a supreme pontiff,

into a horse or an ass.

“And also the purple mantle and scarlet tunic.” Because Matthew says “a

scarlet robe,” and John “a purple robe,”[473] this fellow tries to join

them together in the same passage. But if they are the same color, as

the Evangelists imply, why are you not content, as they were, to name

either one alone; unless, like ignorant folk today, you use “purple”

for silk goods of a whitish color? The “purple” [pupura], however, is

a fish in whose blood wool is dyed, and so from the dye the name has

been given to the cloth, whose color can be called red, though it may

rather be blackish and very nearly the color of clotted blood, a sort of

violet. Hence by Homer and Virgil blood is called purple, as is porphyry,

the color of which is similar to amethyst; for the Greeks call purple

“porphyra.” You know perhaps that scarlet is used for red; but I would

swear that you do not know at all why he makes it “coccineum” when we say

“coccum,” or what sort of a garment a “mantle” [chlamys] is.

But that he might not betray himself as a liar by continuing longer

on the separate garments, he embraced them all together in a single

word, saying, “all the imperial raiment.” What! even that which he is

accustomed to wear in war, in the chase, at banquets, in games? What

could be more stupid than to say that all the raiment of the Caesar

befits a pontiff!

But how gracefully he adds, “and the same rank as those presiding over

the imperial cavalry.” He says “seu” [“or” for “and”].[474] He wishes to

distinguish between these two in turn, as if they were very like each

other, and slips along from the imperial raiment to the equestrian rank,

saying—I know not what! He wants to say something wonderful, but fears to

be caught lying, and so with puffed cheeks and swollen throat, he gives

forth sound without sense.

“Conferring also on him the imperial sceptres.” What a turn of speech!

What splendor! What harmony! What are these imperial sceptres? There is

one sceptre, not several; if indeed the Emperor carried a sceptre at all.

Will now the pontiff carry a sceptre in his hand? Why not give him a

sword also, and helmet and javelin?

“And at the same time all the standards and banners.” What do you

understand by “standards” [signa]? “Signa” are either statues (hence

frequently we read “signa et tabulas” for pieces of sculpture and

paintings;—for the ancients did not paint on walls, but on tablets) or

military standards (hence that phrase “Standards, matched eagles”[475]).

In the former sense small statues and sculptures are called “sigilla.”

Now then, did Constantine give Sylvester his statues or his eagles? What

could be more absurd? But what “banners” [banna[476]] may signify, I do

not discover. May God destroy you, most depraved of mortals who attribute

barbarous language to a cultured age!

“And different imperial ornaments.” When he said “banners,” he thought he

had been explicit long enough, and therefore he lumped the rest under a

general term. And how frequently he drives home the word “imperial,” as

though there were certain ornaments peculiar to the Emperor over against

the consul, the dictator, the Caesar!

“And all the pomp of our imperial eminence, and the glory of our power.”

“He discards bombast and cubit-long words,”[477] “This king of kings,

Darius, the kinsman of the gods,”[478] never speaking save in the

plural! What is this imperial “pomp”; that of the cucumber twisted in

the grass, and growing at the belly? Do you think the Caesar celebrated

a triumph whenever he left his house, as the Pope now does, preceded

by white horses which servants lead saddled and adorned? To pass over

other follies, nothing is emptier, more unbecoming a Roman pontiff

than this. And what is this “glory”? Would a Latin have called pomp

and paraphernalia “glory,” as is customary in the Hebrew language? And

instead of “soldiers” [milites] you say soldiery [militia[479]] which we

have borrowed from the Hebrews, whose books neither Constantine nor his

secretaries had ever laid eyes on!

But how great is your munificence, O Emperor, who deem it not sufficient

to have adorned the pontiff, unless you adorn all the clergy also! As

an “eminence of distinguished power and excellence,” you say, they are

“made patricians and consuls.” Who has ever heard of senators or other

men being made patricians? Consuls are “made,” but not patricians.

The senators, the conscript fathers, are from patrician (also called

senatorial), equestrian, or plebeian families as the case may be. It is

greater, also, to be a senator than to be a patrician; for a senator

is one of the chosen counsellors of the Republic, while a patrician is

merely one who derives his origin from a senatorial family. So one who

is a senator, or of the conscript fathers, is not necessarily forthwith

also a patrician. So my friends the Romans are now making themselves

ridiculous when they call their praetor “senator,” since a senate cannot

consist of one man and a senator must have colleagues, and he who is now

called “senator” performs the function of praetor. But, you say, the

title of patrician is found in many books.[480] Yes; but in those which

speak of times later than Constantine; therefore the “privilege” was

executed after Constantine.

But how can the clergy become consuls?[481] The Latin clergy have

denied themselves matrimony; and will they become consuls, make a levy

of troops, and betake themselves to the provinces allotted them with

legions and auxiliaries? Are servants and slaves made consuls? And are

there to be not two, as was customary; but the hundreds and thousands

of attendants who serve the Roman church, are they to be honored with

the rank of general? And I was stupid enough to wonder at what was said

about the Pope’s transformation! The attendants will be generals; but

the clergy soldiers. Will the clergy become soldiers or wear military

insignia, unless you share the imperial insignia with all the clergy? [I

may well ask,] for I do not know what you are saying. And who does not

see that this fabulous tale was concocted by those who wished to have

every possible license in the attire they were to wear? If there are

games of any kind played among the demons which inhabit the air I should

think that they would consist in copying the apparel, the pride and the

luxury of the clergy, and that the demons would be delighted most by this

kind of masquerading.

Which shall I censure the more, the stupidity of the ideas, or of the

words? You have heard about the ideas; here are illustrations of his

words. He says, “It seems proper for our Senate to be adorned” (as though

it were not assuredly adorned), and to be adorned forsooth with “glory.”

And what is being done he wishes understood as already done; as, “we

have proclaimed” for “we proclaim”: for the speech sounds better that

way. And he puts the same act in the present and in the past tense; as,

“we decree,” and “we have decreed.” And everything is stuffed with these

words, “we decree,” “we decorate,” “imperial,” “imperial rank,” “power,”

“glory.” He uses “extat” for “est,” though “extare” means to stand out or

to be above; and “nempe” for “scilicet” [that is, “indeed” for “to wit”];

and “concubitores” [translated above, bed-watchers] for “contubernales”

[companions or attendants]. “Concubitores” are literally those who sleep

together and have intercourse; they must certainly be understood to

be harlots. He adds those with whom he may sleep, I suppose, that he

may not fear nocturnal phantoms.[482] He adds “chamberlains”; he adds

“door-keepers.”

It is not an idle question to ask why he mentions these details. He is

setting up, not an old man, but a ward or a young son, and like a doting

father, himself arranges for him everything of which his tender age has

need, as David did for Solomon! And that the story may be filled in in

every respect, horses are given the clergy,—lest they sit on asses’ colts

in that asinine way of Christ’s! And they are given horses, not covered

nor saddled with coverings of white, but decorated with white color. And

what coverings! Not horse-cloths, either Babylonian or any other kind,

but “mappulae” [translated above, saddle-cloths] and “linteamina” [linen

cloths or sheets, translated above, linen]. “Mappae” [serviettes] go with

the table, “linteamina” with the couch. And as though there were doubt

as to their color, he explains, “that is to say, of the whitest color.”

Talk worthy of Constantine; fluency worthy of Lactantius; not only in the

other phrases, but also in that one, “may mount mounts”!

And when he had said nothing about the garb of senators, the broad

stripe, the purple, and the rest, he thought he had to talk about their

shoes; nor does he specify the crescents [which were on their shoes],

but “socks,” or rather he says “with felt socks,” and then as usual he

explains, “that is, with white linen,” as though socks were of linen! I

cannot at the moment think where I have found the word “udones” [socks],

except in Valerius Martial, whose distich inscribed “Cilician Socks” runs:

“Wool did not produce these, but the beard of an ill-smelling goat.

Would that the sole in the gulf of the Cinyps might lie.”[483]

So the “socks” are not linen, nor white, with which this two-legged ass

says, not that the feet of senators are clad, but that senators are

distinguished.

And in the phrase “that the terrestrial orders may be adorned to the

glory of God, just as the celestial,” what do you call celestial, what

terrestrial? How are the celestial orders adorned?[484] You may have seen

what glory to God this is. But I, if I believe anything, deem nothing

more hateful to God and to the rest of humanity than such presumption of

clergy in the secular sphere. But why do I attack individual items? Time

would fail me if I should try, I do not say to dwell upon, but to touch

upon them all.

“Above all things, moreover, we give permission to the blessed

Sylvester and his successors, from our edict, that he may make

priest whomever he wishes, according to his own pleasure and

counsel, and enroll him in the pious number of the religious

clergy [i.e., regular clergy; or perhaps cardinals]: let

no one whomsoever presume to act in a domineering way in

this.”[485]

Who is this Melchizedek that blesses the patriarch Abraham? Does

Constantine, scarcely yet a Christian, give to the man by whom he was

baptized and whom he calls blessed, authority to make priests? As

though Sylvester had not and could not have done it before! And with

what a threat he forbids any one to stand in the way! “Let no one,

whomsoever, presume to act in a domineering way in this matter.” What

elegant diction, too! “Enroll in the pious number of the religious”; and

“clericare,” “clericorum,” “indictu,” and “placatus”!

And again he comes back to the diadem:

“We also therefore decreed this, that he himself and his

successors might use, for the honor of the blessed Peter, the

diadem, that is the crown, which we have granted him from our

own head, of purest gold and precious gems.”

Again he explains the meaning of diadem, for he was speaking to

barbarians, forgetful ones at that. And he adds “of purest gold,” lest

perchance you should think brass or dross was mixed in. And when he has

said “gems,” he adds “precious,” again fearing lest you should suspect

them of being cheap. Yet why did he not say most precious, just as he

said “purest gold”? For there is more difference between gem and gem,

than between gold and gold. And when he should have said “distinctum

gemmis,” he said “ex gemmis.” Who does not see that this was taken from

the passage, which the gentile ruler had not read, “Thou settest a crown

of precious stone on his head”?[486] Did the Caesar speak thus, with

a certain vanity in bragging of his crown, if indeed the Caesars were

crowned, but cheapening himself by fearing lest people would think that

he did not wear a crown “of purest gold and precious gems,” unless he

said so?

Find the reason why he speaks thus: “for the honor of the blessed Peter.”

As though, not Christ, but Peter, were the chief corner-stone on which

the temple of the church is built; an inference he later repeats! But if

he wanted to honor him so much, why did he not dedicate the episcopal

temple at Rome to him, rather than to John the Baptist?

What? Does not that barbarous way of talking show that the rigmarole was

composed, not in the age of Constantine, but later; “decernimus quod

uti debeant”[487] for the correct form “decernimus ut utantur”? Boors

commonly speak and write that way now; “Iussi quod deberes venire” for

“Iussi ut venires.” And “we decreed,” and “we granted,” as though it were

not being done now, but had been done some other time!

“But he himself, the blessed Pope, did not allow that crown of

gold to be used over the clerical crown which he wears to the

glory of the most blessed Peter.”

Alas for your singular stupidity, Constantine! Just now you were saying

that you put the crown on the Pope’s head for the honor of the blessed

Peter; now you say that you do not do it, because Sylvester refuses it.

And while you approve his refusal, you nevertheless order him to use

the gold crown; and what he thinks he ought not to do, that you say his

own successors ought to do![488] I pass over the fact that you call the

tonsure a crown, and the Roman pontiff “Pope,” although that word had not

yet begun to be applied to him as a distinctive title.

“But we placed upon his most holy head, with our own hands, a

glittering tiara of the most dazzling white, representing the

Lord’s resurrection. And holding the bridle of his horse, out

of reverence for the blessed Peter, we performed for him the

duty of squire; decreeing that all his successors, and they

alone, use this same tiara in processions in imitation of our

power.”

Does not this fable-fabricator seem to blunder, not through imprudence,

but deliberately and of set purpose, and so as to offer handles

for catching him? In the same passage he says both that the Lord’s

resurrection is represented by the tiara, and that it is an imitation

of Caesar’s power; two things which differ most widely from each other.

God is my witness, I find no words, no words merciless enough with which

to stab this most abandoned scoundrel; so full of insanity are all the

words he vomits forth. He makes Constantine not only similar in office

to Moses, who at the command of God honored the chief priest, but also

an expounder of secret mysteries, a most difficult thing even for those

long versed in the sacred books. Why did you not make Constantine supreme

pontiff while you were about it, as many emperors have been, that he

might more conveniently transfer his attire to the other high priest? But

you did not know history. And I give thanks to God on this very score,

that he did not permit this utterly vicious scheme to be suggested save

to an exceedingly stupid man. Subsequent considerations also show this.

For he suggests the fact that Moses performed for Aaron, seated on a

horse, the duty of squire [dextratoris], and that in the midst not of

Israel, but of the Canaanites and the Egyptians, that is, of an heathen

state, where there was not so much a secular government as one of demons

and demon-worshipping peoples.

“Wherefore, in order that the supreme pontificate may not

deteriorate, but may rather be adorned with glory and power

even more than is the dignity of an earthly rule; behold,

we give over and relinquish to the most blessed pontiff and

universal Pope, Sylvester, as well our palace as also the city

of Rome and all the provinces, places and cities of Italy

or[489] of the western regions; and by our pragmatic sanction

we have decreed that they are to be controlled by him and by

his successors, and that they remain under the law of the holy

Roman church.”

We have already, in the oration of the Romans and that of Sylvester,

said a good deal about this.[490] Here it is in place to say that no one

would have thought of including all the nations in a single word of a

grant; and that a man who had earlier followed out the minutest details

of straps, the shoes, the linen horse-cloths, would not have thought

of omitting to cite by name provinces which now have separate kings or

rulers equal to kings, and more than one to each. But this forger, of

course, did not know which provinces were under Constantine, and which

were not. For certainly not all were under him. When Alexander died, we

see all the countries enumerated one by one in the division among the

generals. We see the lands and rulers which were under the government of

Cyrus, whether voluntarily or by conquest, named by Xenophon. We see the

names of the Greek and barbarian kings, their lineage, their country,

their bravery, their strength, their excellence, the number of their

ships and the approximate number of their men, included by Homer in his

catalog. And not only did many Greeks follow his example, but our Latin

authors also, Ennius, Virgil, Lucan, Statius, and others. By Joshua and

Moses, in the division of the promised land, even all the little villages

were described. And you refuse to enumerate even provinces! You name

only the “western provinces.”[491] What are the boundaries of the west;

where do they begin; where do they end? Are the frontiers of west and

east, south and north, as definite and fixed as those of Asia, Africa and

Europe? Necessary words you omit, you heap on superfluous ones. You say,

“provinces, places and cities.” Are not provinces and cities, “places”?

And when you have said provinces you add cities, as though the latter

would not be understood with the former. But it is not strange that a man

who gives away so large a part of the earth should pass over the names of

cities and of provinces, and as though overcome with lethargy not know

what he says. “Of Italy or of the western regions,” as though he meant

“either ... or” when he means “both”;[492] speaking of “provinces ... of

the ... regions,” when it should rather be the regions of the provinces;

and using the gerundive, “permanendas,” for the future infinitive

(permansuras).

“Wherefore we have perceived it to be fitting that our empire

and our royal power should be transferred in the regions of the

East; and that in the province of Byzantia [_sic_], in the most

fitting place, a city should be built in our name; and that our

empire should there be established.”

I pass over the fact that in saying “a city should be built” [he uses

the word for “the state” instead of “the city”], and cities, not states,

are built; and the fact that he says “the province of Byzantia.”[493]

If you are Constantine, give the reason why you should choose that as

the best place for founding your city. For that you should “transfer”

yourself elsewhere after giving up Rome, was not so much “fitting” as

necessary. You should neither call yourself Emperor when you have lost

Rome and deserved least from the Roman name whose meaning you destroy;

nor call yourself “royal,” for no one before you has done so,—unless you

call yourself a king because you have ceased to be a Roman.[494] But you

allege a reason sound and honorable:

“For where the chief of [all] priests and the head of the

Christian religion has been established by the heavenly

Emperor, it is not right that there an earthly Emperor should

have jurisdiction.”

O stupid David, stupid Solomon, stupid Hezekiah, Josiah, and all the

other kings, stupid all and irreligious, who persisted in dwelling in

the city of Jerusalem with the chief priests, and did not yield them the

whole city! Constantine in three days is wiser than they could be in

their whole life. And you call [the Pope] a “heavenly Emperor” because

he accepts an earthly empire; unless by that term you mean God (for you

speak ambiguously) and mean that an earthly sovereignty of priests was by

him established over the city of Rome and other places, in which case you

lie.

“We decreed, moreover, that all these things which through this

sacred imperial [charter] and through other godlike decrees we

establish and confirm, remain inviolate and unshaken unto the

end of the world.”

A moment ago, Constantine, you called yourself earthly; now you call

yourself divine and sacred. You relapse into paganism and worse than

paganism. You make yourself God, your words sacred, and your decrees

immortal; for you order the world to keep your commands “inviolate and

unshaken.” Do you consider who you are: just cleansed from the filthiest

mire of wickedness, and scarcely fully cleansed? Why did you not add,

“Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass

from this ‘privilege’”?[495] The kingdom of Saul, chosen by God, did not

pass on to his sons; the kingdom of David was divided under his grandson,

and afterward destroyed. And by your own authority you decree that the

kingdom which you give over without God, shall remain even until the end

of the world! Whoever taught you that the world is to pass away so soon?

For I do not think that at this time you had faith in the poets, who

alone bear witness to this. So you could not have said this, but some one

else passed it off as yours.

However, he who spoke so grandly and loftily, begins to fear, and to

distrust himself, and so takes to entreating:

“Wherefore, before the living God, who commanded us to reign,

and in the face of his terrible judgment, we entreat all the

emperors our successors, and all the nobles, the satraps also

and the most glorious Senate, and all the people in the whole

world, likewise also for the future, that no one of them,

in any way, be allowed either to break this, or in any way

overthrow it.”

What a fair, what a devout adjuration! It is just as if a wolf should

entreat by his innocence and good faith the other wolves and the

shepherds not to try to take away from him, or demand back, the sheep

which he has taken and divided among his offspring and his friends. Why

are you so afraid, Constantine? If your work is not of God it will be

destroyed; but if it is of God it cannot be destroyed. But I see! You

wished to imitate the Apocalypse, where it says: “For I testify unto

every man that heareth all the words of the prophecy of this book, If any

man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that

are written in this book: And if any man shall take away from the words

of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the

book of life, and out of the holy city.”[496] But you had never read the

Apocalypse; therefore these are not your words.

“If any one, moreover—which we do not believe—prove a scorner

in this matter, he shall be condemned and shall be subject to

eternal damnation; and shall feel the holy apostles of God,

Peter and Paul, opposed to him in the present and in the future

life. And he shall be burned in the lower hell and shall perish

with the devil and all the impious.”

This terrible threat is the usual one, not of a secular ruler, but of

the early priests and flamens, and nowadays, of ecclesiastics. And so

this is not the utterance of Constantine, but of some fool of a priest

who, stuffed and pudgy, knew neither what to say nor how to say it,

and, gorged with eating and heated with wine, belched out these wordy

sentences which convey nothing to another, but turn against the author

himself. First he says, “shall be subject to eternal damnation,” then

as though more could be added, he wishes to add something else, and to

eternal penalties he joins penalties in the present life; and after he

frightens us with God’s condemnation, he frightens us with the hatred

of Peter, as though it were something still greater. Why he should add

Paul, and why Paul alone, I do not know. And with his usual drowsiness

he returns again to eternal penalties, as though he had not said that

before. Now if these threats and curses were Constantine’s, I in turn

would curse him as a tyrant and destroyer of my country, and would

threaten that I, as a Roman, would take vengeance on him. But who would

be afraid of the curse of an overly avaricious man, and one saying a

counterfeit speech after the manner of actors, and terrifying people in

the rôle of Constantine? This is being a hypocrite in the true sense, if

we press the Greek word closely; that is, hiding your own personality

under another’s.

“The page,[497] moreover, of this imperial decree, we, confirming

it with our own hands, did place above the venerable body of the

blessed Peter.”[498]

Was it paper or parchment, the “page” on which this was written? Though,

in fact, we call one side of a leaf, as they say, a page; for instance, a

pamphlet[?] has ten leaves, twenty pages.

But oh! the unheard of and incredible thing [that Constantine did]! I

remember asking some one, when I was a youth, who wrote the book of

Job; and when he answered, “Job himself,” I rejoined, “How then would

he mention his own death?” And this can be said of many other books,

discussion of which is not appropriate here. For how, indeed, can that

be narrated which has not yet been done; and how can that which [the

speaker] himself admits was done after the burial, so to say, of the

records, be contained in the records? This is nothing else than saying

that “the page of the privilege” was dead and buried before it was born,

and yet never returned from death and burial; and saying expressly that

it was confirmed before it had been written, and not with one hand

alone at that, but with both of the Caesar’s hands! And what is this

“confirming”? Was it done with the signature of the Caesar, or with

his signet ring? Surely, hard and fast that,—more so by far than if

he had entrusted it to bronze tablets! But there is no need of bronze

inscription, when the charter is laid away above the body of the blessed

Peter. But why do you here suppress Paul, though he lies with Peter, and

the two could guard it better than if the body of one alone were present?

You see the malicious artfulness of the cunning Sinon![499] Because the

Donation of Constantine cannot be produced, therefore he said that the

“privilege” is not on bronze but on paper records; therefore he said that

it lies with the body of the most holy apostle, so that either we should

not dare to seek it in the venerable tomb, or if we should seek it, we

would think it rotted away. But where then was the body of the blessed

Peter? Certainly it was not yet in the temple where it now is, not in a

place reasonably protected and safe. Therefore the Caesar would not have

put the “page” there. Or did he not trust the “page” to the most blessed

Sylvester, as not holy enough, not careful nor diligent enough? O Peter!

O Sylvester! O holy pontiffs of the Roman church! to whom the sheep of

the Lord were entrusted, why did you not keep the “page” entrusted to

you? Why have you suffered it to be eaten by worms, to rot away with

mold? I presume that it was because your bodies also have wasted away.

Constantine therefore acted foolishly. Behold the “page” reduced to dust;

the right conferred by the “privilege” at the same time passes away into

dust.

And yet, as we see, a copy of the “page” is shown. Who then was so bold

as to take it from the bosom of the most holy apostle? No one did it,

I think. Whence then the copy? By all means some ancient writer ought

to be adduced, one not later than the time of Constantine. However,

none such is adduced, but as it happens some recent writer or other.

Whence did he get it? For whoever composes a narrative about an earlier

age, either writes at the dictation of the Holy Spirit, or follows

the authority of former writers, and of those, of course, who wrote

concerning their own age. So whoever does not follow earlier writers will

be one of those to whom the remoteness of the event affords the boldness

to lie. But if this story is to be read anywhere, it is not consistent

with antiquity any more than that stupid narrative of the glossator

Accursius about Roman ambassadors being sent to Greece to get laws agrees

with Titus Livius and the other best writers.

“Given at Rome, on the third day before the Kalends of April,

Constantine Augustus consul for the fourth time, and Gallicanus

consul for the fourth time.”[500]

He took the next to the last day of March so that we might feel that this

was done in the season of holy days, which, for the most part, come at

that time. And “Constantine consul for the fourth time, and Gallicanus

consul for the fourth time.” Strange if each had been consul thrice, and

they were colleagues in a fourth consulship! But stranger still that the

Augustus, a leper, with elephantiasis (which disease is as remarkable

among diseases, as elephants are among animals), should want to even

accept a consulship, when king Azariah, as soon as he was affected with

leprosy, kept himself secluded, while the management of the kingdom was

given over to Jotham his son;[501] and almost all lepers have acted

similarly. And by this argument alone the whole “privilege” is confuted

outright, destroyed, and overturned. And if any one disputes the fact

that Constantine must have been leprous before he was consul, he should

know that according to physicians this disease develops gradually, that

according to the known facts of antiquity the consulate is an annual

office and begins in the month of January; and these events are said to

have taken place the following March.

Nor will I here pass over the fact that “given” is usually written on

letters, but not on other documents, except among ignorant people. For

letters are said either to be given one (illi) or to be given to one (ad

illum); in the former case [they are given to] one who carries them, a

courier for instance, and puts them in the hand of the man to whom they

are sent; in the latter case [they are given] to one in the sense that

they are to be delivered to him by the bearer, that is [they are given

to] the one to whom they are sent. But the “privilege,” as they call it,

of Constantine, as it was not to be delivered to any one, so also it

ought not to be said to be “given.” And so it should be apparent that he

who spoke thus lied, and did not know how to imitate what Constantine

would probably have said and done. And those who think that he has told

the truth, and defend him, whoever they are, make themselves abetters and

accessories in his stupidity and madness. However, they have nothing now

with which to honorably excuse their opinion, not to speak of defending

it.

Or is it an honorable excuse for an error, to be unwilling to acquiesce

in the truth when you see it disclosed, because certain great men have

thought otherwise? Great men, I call them, on account of their position,

not on account of their wisdom or their goodness. How do you even know

whether those whom you follow, had they heard what you hear, would have

continued in their belief, or would have given it up? And moreover it is

most contemptible to be willing to pay more regard to man than to Truth,

that is, to God. [I say this] for some men beaten at every argument are

wont to answer thus: “Why, have so many supreme pontiffs believed this

Donation to be genuine?” I call you to witness, that you urge me where I

would not, and force me against my will to rail at the supreme pontiffs

whose faults I would prefer to veil. But let us proceed to speak frankly,

inasmuch as this case cannot be conducted in any other way.

Admitting that they did thus believe and were not dishonest; why wonder

that they believed these stories where so much profit allured them,

seeing that they are led to believe a great many things, in which no

profit is apparent, through their extraordinary ignorance? Do you not, at

Ara Coeli, in that most notable temple and in the most impressive place

see the fable of the Sibyl and Octavian[502] depicted by the authority,

they say, of Innocent III, who wrote it and who also left an account of

the destruction of the Temple of Peace on the day of the Savior’s birth,

that is, at the delivery of the Virgin?[503] These stories tend rather

to the destruction of faith, by their falsity, than to the establishment

of faith, by their wonders. Does the vicar of Truth dare to tell a lie

under the guise of piety, and consciously entangle himself in this sin?

Or does he not lie? Verily, does he not see that in perpetrating this

he contradicts the most holy men? Omitting others; Jerome cites the

testimony of Varro that there were ten Sibyls, and Varro wrote his work

before the time of Augustus. Jerome also writes thus of the Temple of

Peace: “Vespasian and Titus, after the Temple of Peace was built at Rome,

dedicated the vessels of the temple [of the Jews] and all manner of gifts

in her shrine, as the Greek and Roman historians tell.” And this ignorant

man, alone, wants us to believe his libel, barbarously written at that,

rather than the most accurate histories of ancient and most painstaking

authors!

Since I have touched on Jerome, I will not suffer the following insult to

him to be passed by in silence. At Rome, by the authority of the Pope,

with the candles ever burning, as though for a relic of the saints, is

shown a copy of the Bible, which they say is written in the hand of

Jerome. Do you seek proof? Why, there is “much embroidered cloth and

gold,” as Virgil says, a thing which indicates rather that it was not

written by the hand of Jerome. When I inspected it more carefully, I

found that it was written by order of a king, Robert, I think, and in

the handwriting of an inexperienced man.

Similarly,—there are indeed ten thousand things of this sort at

Rome,—among sacred objects is shown the panel portrait of Peter and

Paul, which, after Constantine had been spoken to by these apostles in

his sleep, Sylvester produced in confirmation of the vision. I do not

say this because I deny that they are portraits of the apostles (would

that the letter sent in the name of Lentulus about the portrait of

Christ were as genuine, instead of being no less vicious and spurious

than this “privilege” which we have refuted), but because that panel was

not produced for Constantine by Sylvester. At that story my mind cannot

restrain its astonishment.

So I will briefly discuss the Sylvester legend, because the whole

question hinges on this; and, since I have to do with Roman pontiffs,

it will be in order to speak chiefly of the Roman pontiff so that from

one example an estimate of the others may be formed. And of the many

absurdities told in this [legend] I shall touch upon one alone, that of

the serpent,[504] in order to show that Constantine had not been a leper.

And verily the Life of Sylvester (Gesta Silvestri), according to the

translator, was written by Eusebius,[505] a Greek, always the readiest

people at lying, as Juvenal’s satirical judgment runs:

“Whatever in the way of history a lying Greek dares tell.”[506]

Whence came that dragon? Dragons are not engendered in Rome. Whence, too,

his venom? In Africa alone, on account of its hot climate, are there said

to be pest-producing dragons. Whence, too, so much venom that he wasted

with pestilence such a spacious city as Rome; the more remarkable that

the serpent was down in a cavern so deep that one descended to it by

a hundred and fifty steps? Serpents, excepting possibly the basilisk,

inject their poison and kill, not with their breath, but with their bite.

Cato, fleeing from Caesar through the very midst of the African deserts

with such a large force as he had, did not see any of his company slain

by the breath of a serpent, either on the march or in camp; nor do the

natives think the air pestilential on account of serpents. And if we

believe at all in the stories, the Chimaera, the Hydra and Cerberus have

all often been seen and touched without injury.

Why hadn’t the Romans already slain it instead [of waiting for

Sylvester]? They couldn’t, you say? But Regulus killed a much larger

serpent in Africa on the banks of the Bagradas. And it was very easy

indeed to kill the one at Rome; for instance, by closing the mouth of

the cavern. Or didn’t they want to? Ah, they worshipped it as a god, I

suppose, as the Babylonians did? Why then, as Daniel is said to have

killed that serpent,[507] had not Sylvester killed this one when he had

bound him with a hempen thread, and destroyed that brood forever? The

reason the inventor of the legend did not want the dragon slain was that

it might not be apparent that he had copied the narrative of Daniel. But

if Jerome, a most learned and accurate translator, Apollinaris, Origen,

Eusebius and others affirm the story of Bel to be apocryphal, if the Jews

in their original of the Old Testament do not know it; that is, if all

the most learned of the Latins, most of the Greeks, and certain of the

Hebrews, condemn that as a legend, shall I not condemn this adumbration

of it, which is not based on the authority of any writer, and which far

surpasses its model in absurdity?

For who had built the underground home for the beast? Who had put it

there and commanded it not to come out and fly away (for dragons fly, as

some say; even though others deny it)? Who had thought out that kind of

food for him? Who had directed that women, virgins at that, devoted to

chastity, go down to him, and only on the Kalends? Or did the serpent

remember what day was the Kalends? And was he content with such scant and

occasional food? And did not the virgins dread such a deep cavern, and a

beast so monstrous and greedy? I suppose the serpent wheedled them, as

they were women, and virgins, and brought him his victuals; I suppose

he even chatted with them. What if, pardon the expression, he even had

intercourse with them; for both Alexander and Scipio are said to have

been born by the embrace of a dragon, or a serpent, with their mothers!

Why, if food were afterward denied him, would he not have come out then,

or have died?

O the strange folly of men who have faith in these senile ravings! How

long now had this been going on? When did the beginning occur? Before the

advent of the Savior, or after? As to this, nothing is known. We should

be ashamed! We should be ashamed of these silly songs, and this frivolity

worse than dangerous! A Christian, who calls himself a son of truth and

light, should blush to utter things which not only are not true, but are

not credible.

But, they say, the demons obtained this power over the heathen, so as

to mock them for serving the gods. Silence, you utter ignoramuses, not

to call you utter rascals, you who always spread such a veil over your

stories! True Christianity does not need the patronage of falsehood; it

is maintained satisfactorily by itself, and by its own light and truth,

without those lying and deceitful fables,—unmitigated insults to God,

to Christ, and to the Holy Spirit. Would God thus have given the human

race over into the power of demons, to be seduced by such evident, such

imposing miracles, that he might well-nigh be accused of the injustice of

turning sheep over to wolves, and that men should have good excuse for

their errors? But if so much license was once given demons, even more

would be given them now among infidels; which is by no means the case,

nor are any legends of this sort told by them.

Passing by other peoples, I will speak of the Romans. Among them the

miracles reported are few, and they early and obscure. Valerius Maximus

tells that that chasm in the middle of the forum, when Curtius, armed

and spurring on his horse, plunged into it, closed again, and returned

forthwith to its former state.[508] Again, the [effigy of] Juno Moneta,

when it was asked, in jest, by a certain Roman soldier at the capture of

Veii, whether it wanted to move to Rome, replied that it did.[509]

Titus Livius, an earlier and more authoritative writer, knows neither of

these stories. For he has it that the chasm was permanent, not a sudden

opening but an old one, there before the founding of the city, and called

Curtius’ Pond, because Mettius Curtius, a Sabine, fleeing from an attack

by the Romans, had hidden in it; and that the Juno did not reply, but

nodded assent, and it was added to the story afterwards that she had

spoken.[510] And about the nod also, it is evident that they lied, either

by interpreting the movement of the image when they pulled it away as

made by its own accord, or by pretending in the same joking way in which

they asked the question that the hostile, conquered, stone goddess nodded

assent. Indeed, Livy does not say that she nodded, but that the soldiers

exclaimed that she nodded. Such stories, too, good writers do not defend

as facts, but excuse as tradition. For even as this same Livy says,

“This indulgence is to be granted antiquity, that by mingling the human

and the divine it may make the beginnings of cities more august.”[511]

And elsewhere: “But in connection with events of such ancient times, if

probabilities should be accepted as facts, no harm would be done. These

stories are more suited to the display of a stage which delights in

wonders, than to sober belief; it is not worth while either to affirm or

to refute them.”[512]

Terentius Varro, an earlier, more learned and, I think, more

authoritative writer than these two, says there were three accounts of

Curtius’ Pond given by as many writers; one by Proculus, that this pond

was so called for a Curtius who cast himself into it; another by Piso,

that it was named for Mettius the Sabine; the third by Cornelius, and he

adds Luctatius as his associate in the matter, that it was for Curtius

the consul, whose colleague was Marcus Genutius.[513]

Nor should I have concealed that Valerius cannot be altogether criticised

for speaking as he does, since a little later he earnestly and seriously

adds; “And I do not ignore the fact that as to human eyes and ears

perceiving the movement and the voice of immortal gods, our judgment

is rather confused by wavering opinion; but because what is said is

not new but the repetition of traditions, the authors may lay claim to

credence.”[514] He spoke of the voice of the gods on account of the Juno

Moneta,[515] and on account of the statue of Fortune which is represented

to have twice spoken in these words, “With due form have you seen me,

matrons; with due form have you dedicated me.”[516]

But our own story-tellers every once in a while bring in talking idols of

which the heathen themselves, and the worshippers of the idols; do not

speak; rather they deny them more earnestly than the Christians affirm

them. Among the heathen the very few wonders which are told make their

way not by the belief of writers, but by the sanction of their antiquity,

as something sacred and venerable; among our writers wonders more recent

are narrated, wonders of which the men of those times did not know.

I neither disparage admiration for the saints, nor do I deny their divine

works, for I know that faith, as much of it as a grain of mustard seed,

is able even to remove mountains. Rather I defend and uphold them, but I

do not allow them to be confused with ridiculous legends. Nor can I be

persuaded that these writers were other than either infidels, who did

this to deride the Christians in case these bits of fiction handed out by

crafty men to the ignorant should be accepted as true, or else believers

with a zeal for God, to be sure, but not according to knowledge, men

who did not shrink from writing shameless accounts not only of the

acts of the saints but even of the mother of God, and indeed of Christ

himself, nor from writing pseudo-gospels. And the supreme pontiff calls

these books apocryphal as though it were no blemish that their author

is unknown, as though what was told were credible, as though they were

sacred, tending to establish religion; so that now there is no less fault

on his part in that he approves evils, than on the part of the one who

devised them. We detect spurious coins, we pick them out and reject them;

shall we not detect spurious teaching? Shall we retain it, confuse it

with the genuine and defend it as genuine?

But I, to give my frank opinion, deny that the Acts of Sylvester is an

apocryphal book; because, as I have said, a certain Eusebius is said to

have been its author; but I think it is false and not worth reading,

in other parts as well as in what it has to say about the serpent, the

bull,[517] and the leprosy, to refute which I have gone over so much

ground. For even if Naaman was leprous, should we forthwith say that

Constantine also was leprous? Many writers allude to it in Naaman’s

case; that Constantine the head of the whole earth had leprosy no one

mentioned; at least none of his fellow citizens, but perhaps some

foreigner or other, to be given no more credence than that other fellow

who wrote about wasps building their nest in Vespasian’s nostrils, and

about the frog taken from Nero at birth, whence they say the place was

called the Lateran, for the frog (rana) is concealed (latere) there in

its grave.[518] Such stuff neither the wasps themselves, nor frogs, if

they could speak, would have uttered! [I pass over the statement that

boys’ blood is a remedy for leprosy, which medical science does not

admit;[519]] unless they attribute this to the Capitoline gods, as though

they were wont to talk and had ordered this to be done!

But why should I wonder that the pontiffs are not informed on these

points, when they do not know about their own name! For they say that

Peter is called Cephas because he was the head of the apostles, as though

this noun were Greek, from κεφαλή, and not Hebrew, or rather Syriac;

a noun which the Greeks write κηφᾶς, and which with them means rock

(Petrus), and not head! For “petrus,” “petra,” (rock) is a Greek noun.

And “petra” is stupidly explained by them through a Latin derivation, as

from “pede trita” (trodden by foot)! And they distinguish “metropolitan”

from “archbishop,” and claim that the former is so called from the size

of the city, though in Greek it is not called μετρόπολις but μητρόπολις,

that is, the mother-state or city. And they explain “patriarch” as “pater

patrum” (father of fathers); and “papa” (pope) from the interjection

“pape” (indeed); and “orthodox” as from the words meaning “right glory”;

and they pronounce “Simonem” (Simon) with a short middle vowel, though it

should be read with a long one, as are “Platonem” (Plato) and “Catonem”

(Cato). And there are many similar instances which I pass, lest for the

fault of some of the supreme pontiffs I should seem to attack all. These

instances had to be given so that no one should wonder that many of the

Popes have been unable to detect that the Donation of Constantine was

spurious; though, in my opinion, this deception originated with one of

them.

* * * * *

But you say, “Why do not the Emperors, who were the sufferers from

this forgery, deny the Donation of Constantine, instead of admitting

it, confirming it and maintaining it?” A great argument! a marvellous

defense! For of which Emperor are you speaking? If of the Greek one,

who was the true Emperor, I will deny the admission; if of the Latin, I

will confess it, and with pleasure. For who does not know that the Latin

Emperor was gratuitously established by a supreme pontiff, Stephen I

think, who robbed the Greek Emperor because he would not aid Italy, and

established a Latin Emperor; so the Emperor thus received more from the

Pope than the Pope from the Emperor?[520] Oh, of course, Achilles and

Patroclus divided the Trojan spoils between themselves alone on some

such terms. The words of Louis [the Pious] seem to me to imply just this

when he says, “I, Louis, Roman Emperor, Augustus, ordain and grant,

by this compact of our confirmation, to you, blessed Peter, prince of

the apostles, and through you to your vicar, the supreme pontiff, lord

Paschal [I], and to his successors forever, to hold, just as from our

predecessors until now you have held, under your authority and rule, the

Roman state with its duchy, with all its towns and villages, its mountain

districts, sea coasts and harbors, and all cities, forts, walled towns,

and estates in the districts of Tuscany.”[521]

Do you, Louis, make a pact with Paschal? If these are yours, that is, the

Roman Empire’s, why do you grant them to another? If they are his and

are held in his own possession, what sense is there in your confirming

them? How little of the Roman Empire will be yours if you lose the very

head of the Empire? From Rome the Roman Emperor takes his name. What!

Are your other possessions yours or Paschal’s? Yours, you will say, I

suppose. Therefore, the Donation of Constantine is not valid at all;

that is, if you possess what was given by him to the pontiff. If it is

valid, by what right does Paschal give you the rest [of the Empire],

retaining for himself only what he possesses? What does your excessive

prodigality toward him at the expense of the Roman Empire mean, or his

toward you? Therefore, deservedly do you call it a “compact,” something

like collusion.

“But what shall I do?” you will say. “Shall I try to recover

by force what the Pope has in his possession? But he, alas,

has now become more powerful than I. Shall I seek to regain it

by law? But my right is only such as he is willing for it to

be. For I came to the throne, not through an inherited title,

but by a compact that if I wish to be Emperor I should promise

the Pope in turn such and such considerations. Shall I say

that Constantine did not give away any of the Empire? But that

way I should be arguing the cause of the Greek Emperor, and I

should rob myself of all imperial dignity. For the Pope says

he makes me Emperor with this very thing in view, as a kind of

vicar of his; and unless I bind myself, he will not make me

Emperor; and unless I obey I shall have to abdicate. If only

he gives me the throne I will acknowledge everything, I will

agree to everything. Only; take my word for it, if I had Rome

and Tuscany in my possession, I would act quite differently and

Paschal would sing me that old song of the Donation, spurious

in my opinion, in vain. As things are, I yield what I neither

have nor hope to have. To question the right of the Pope is not

my concern but that of the Emperor yonder at Constantinople.”

I quite excuse you, Louis, and every other ruler similarly placed.

What must we suspect of the compact of other Emperors with the supreme

pontiffs, when we know what Sigismund did, a ruler otherwise most

excellent and courageous, but at that time affected and weakened by age?

We saw him, hedged in throughout Italy, with a few retainers, living from

day to day at Rome, and he would, indeed, have perished with hunger, had

not Eugenius fed him,—but not for nothing, for he extorted the Donation

from him. When he had come to Rome to be crowned Emperor of the Romans,

he could not get the Pope to crown him, except by confirming the Donation

of Constantine and by granting anew all that it contained. What more

contradictory than for him to be crowned Roman Emperor who had renounced

Rome itself, and that by the man whom he both acknowledges and, so far

as he can, makes master of the Roman Empire; and [for the Emperor] to

confirm the Donation which, if genuine, leaves none of the Empire for

the Emperor! It is a thing which, as I think, not even children would

have done. So it is not strange that the Pope arrogates to himself the

coronation of the Caesar, which ought to belong to the Roman people.

If you, O Pope, on the one hand can deprive the Greek Emperor of Italy

and the western provinces, and on the other you create a Latin Emperor,

why do you resort to “compacts”? Why do you divide the Caesar’s estate?

Why do you transfer the Empire to yourself?

Wherefore, let whoever is called Emperor of the Romans know that in my

judgment he is not Augustus, nor Caesar, nor Emperor, unless he rules at

Rome; and unless he takes up the recovery of the city of Rome, he will

plainly be forsworn. For those earlier Caesars, and Constantine first

of them, were not forced to take the oath by which the Caesars are now

bound; but rather the oath that, so far as it lay in human power, they

would not diminish the extent of the Roman Empire, but would diligently

add to it.

Yet not for this reason are they called Augusti, namely that they

ought to augment the Empire, as some think whose knowledge of Latin is

imperfect; for he is called Augustus, as consecrated, from “avium gustus”

(the taste, or appetite, of the birds), a customary step in consulting

the omens: and this derivation is supported by the language of the

Greeks, among whom the Augustus is called Σεβαστός, from which Sebastia

gets its name. Better might the supreme pontiff be called Augustus from

“augere” (to augment), except for the fact that when he augments his

temporal he diminishes his spiritual power. Thus it is a fact that the

worse the supreme pontiff is, the more he exerts himself to defend this

Donation. Take the case of Boniface VIII, who deceived Celestine by

means of pipes fixed in the wall.[522] He both writes concerning the

Donation of Constantine, and he despoils the French king; and, as though

he wished to put the Donation of Constantine in execution, he decrees

that the kingdom itself belonged to and was subject to the Roman church.

This decretal his successors, Benedict and Clement, revoked outright, as

wicked and unjust.

But what is the significance of your anxiety, Roman pontiffs, in

requiring each Emperor to confirm the Donation of Constantine, unless it

be that you distrust its legality? But you are washing bricks [you labor

in vain], as they say; for that Donation never existed, and since it does

not exist it cannot be confirmed; and whatever the Caesars grant, their

acts are due to deception as to the precedent of Constantine; and they

cannot grant the Empire.

* * * * *

However, let us grant that Constantine made the Donation and that

Sylvester was at one time in possession, but afterwards either he himself

or another of the Popes lost possession. (I am speaking now of that of

which the Pope is not in possession; later on I will speak of that of

which he is in possession.) What more can I grant you than to concede

the existence of that which never was and never could be? But even so, I

say that you cannot effect a recovery either by divine or by human law.

In the ancient law it was forbidden that a Hebrew be a Hebrew’s slave

more than six years, and every fiftieth year also everything reverted

to the original owner. Shall a Christian, in the dispensation of grace,

be oppressed in eternal slavery by the vicar of the Christ who redeemed

us from our servitude? What do I say! Shall he be recalled to servitude

after he has been set free and has long enjoyed his freedom?

How brutal, how violent, how barbarous the tyranny of priests often is,

I do not say. If this was not known before, it has lately been learned

from that monster of depravity, John Vitelleschi, cardinal and patriarch,

who wore out the sword of Peter, with which [the apostle] cut off the ear

of Malchus, with the blood of Christians. By this sword he himself also

perished.[523] But is it true that the people of Israel were permitted

to revolt from the house of David and Solomon whom prophets sent by God

had anointed, because their impositions were too heavy; and that God

approved their act? May we not revolt on account of such great tyranny,

particularly from those who are not kings, and cannot be; and who from

being shepherds of the sheep, that is to say, of souls, have become

thieves and brigands?

And to come to human law, who does not know that there is no right

conferred by war, or if there is any, that it prevails just as long as

you possess what you have gotten by war? For when you lose possession,

you have lost the right. And so ordinarily, if captives have escaped

no one summons them into court: and so also with plunder if the former

owners have recovered it. Bees and any other kind of winged creatures, if

they have flown away far from my property and have settled on another’s,

cannot be reclaimed. And do you seek to reclaim men, who are not only

free creatures, but masters of others, when they set themselves free by

force of arms, [reclaim them] not by force of arms, but by law, as though

you were a man, and they sheep?

Nor can you say, “The Romans were [considered] just in waging wars

against the nations, and just in depriving them of liberty.” Do not

drag me into that discussion, lest I be forced to speak against my

fellow Romans. However, no fault could be so serious that people should

merit everlasting servitude therefor. And in this connection [one must

remember also] that people often waged a war for which a prince or some

important citizen in the Republic was to blame, and, being conquered,

were undeservedly punished with servitude. There are everywhere abundant

examples of this.

Nor in truth does the law of nature provide that one people should

subjugate another people to itself. We can instruct others, we can urge

them; we cannot rule them and do them violence, unless, leaving humanity

aside, we wish to copy the more savage beasts which force their bloody

rule upon the weaker, as the lion among quadrupeds, the eagle among

birds, the dolphin among fish. Yet even these creatures do not vaunt

authority over their own kind, but over an inferior. How much more ought

we to act thus, and as men have due regard for men, since in the words

of Marcus Fabius there is no beast upon the earth so fierce that his own

likeness is not sacred to him?

Now there are four reasons why wars are waged: either for avenging a

wrong and defending friends; or for fear of incurring disaster later, if

the strength of others is allowed to increase; or for hope of booty; or

for desire of glory. Of these the first is rather honorable, the second

less so, and the last two are far from honorable. And wars were indeed

often waged against the Romans, but after they had defended themselves,

they waged war against their assailants and against others. Nor is

there any nation which yielded to their sway unless conquered in war

and subdued; whether justly, or for what cause, they themselves could

judge. I should be unwilling to condemn them as fighting unjustly or to

acquit them as fighting in a just cause. I can only say that the Roman

people waged wars against others for the same reason as other peoples

and kings did, and that it was left open even to those who were attacked

and conquered in war to revolt from the Romans just as they revolted

from other masters; lest perchance (and none would agree to this) all

authority should be imputed to the oldest people who were first masters;

that is, to those who were the first to take possession of what belonged

to others.

And yet the Roman people had a better right over nations conquered in

war than had the Caesars in their overthrow of the Republic. Wherefore,

if it was right for the nations to revolt from Constantine, and, what is

far more, from the Roman people, purely it will be right to revolt from

him to whom Constantine gave his authority. And to put the matter more

boldly, if the Roman people were free either to drive Constantine out,

as they did Tarquinius, or to slay him, as they did Julius Caesar, much

more will the Romans or the provinces be free to slay him, who at any

time has succeeded Constantine. But though this is true, yet it is beyond

the scope of my argument, and so I want to restrain myself and not press

anything I have said further than this, that it is folly to adduce any

verbal right, where the right of arms prevails, because that which is

acquired by arms, is likewise lost by arms.

This, indeed, the more, that other, new, peoples as we have heard in the

case of the Goths, who were never subject to Roman rule, after putting

to flight the earlier inhabitants, seized upon Italy and many provinces.

What justice, pray, is there in restoring these to a servitude which they

have never experienced; especially as they are the conquering peoples;

and to servitude perchance under the conquered peoples? And if at this

time any cities and nations, deserted by the Emperor at the arrival of

the barbarians, as we know to have been the case, had been compelled to

elect a king under whose leadership they then won victory, is there any

reason why they should later depose this ruler? Or should they bid his

sons, popular it may be for their father’s praise, it may be for their

own valor, become private citizens, that they might again become subjects

of a Roman prince, even though they were greatly in need of their

assistance and hoped for no aid elsewhere? If the Caesar himself, or

Constantine, returned to life, or even the Senate and Roman people should

call them before a general court such as the Amphictyony was in Greece,

[the plaintiff] would at once be ruled out at his first plea because he

was reclaiming to bondage and slavery those who once had been abandoned

by him, their guardian, those who for a long time had been living under

another ruler, those who had never been subject to a foreign-born king,

men, in conclusion, who were free-born and proclaimed free by their

vigor of mind and body. How clear it should be, that if the Caesar, if

the Roman people, is thus debarred from recovering control, much more

decidedly is the Pope! And if the other nations which have been subject

to Rome are free either to appoint a king for themselves or to maintain

a republic, far more are the Roman people themselves free to do this,

especially against the innovation of papal tyranny.

* * * * *

Estopped from defending the Donation, since it never existed and, if

it had existed, it would now have expired from lapse of time, our

adversaries take refuge in another kind of defense; figuratively

speaking, the city being given up for lost, they betake themselves to

their citadel,—which forthwith they are constrained by lack of provisions

to surrender. “The Roman church,” they say, “is entitled by prescription

to what it possesses.” Why then does it lay claim to that, the greater

part, to which it has no title by prescription, and to which others are

entitled by prescription; unless others cannot act toward it as it can

act toward them?

The Roman church has title by prescription! Why then does it so often

take care to have the Emperors confirm its right? Why does it vaunt

the Donation, and its confirmation by the Caesars? If this alone is

sufficient, you seriously weaken it by not at the same time keeping

silent about the other title [by prescription]. Why don’t you keep silent

about that other? Obviously because this is not sufficient.

The Roman church has prescribed! And how can it have entered a

prescription where no title is established but only possession through

bad faith? Or if you deny that the possession was a case of bad faith, at

least you cannot deny that the faith [in the Donation] was stupid. Or, in

a matter of such importance and notoriety, ought ignorance of fact and

of law to be excused? Of fact, because Constantine did not make a grant

of Rome and the provinces; a fact of which a man of the common people

might well be ignorant, but not the supreme pontiff. Of law, because

they could not be granted; which any Christian ought to know. And so,

will stupid credulity give you a right to that which, had you been more

conscientious, would never have been yours? Well! Now, at least, after

I have shown that you held possession through ignorance and stupidity,

do you not lose that right, if it was such? and what ignorance unhappily

brought you, does not knowledge happily take away again? and does not

the property revert from the illegal to the legal master, perchance even

with interest? But if you continue to keep possession in the future, your

ignorance is henceforth changed into malice aforethought and into deceit,

and you become a fraudulent holder.

The Roman church has entered a prescription! O simpletons, O ignoramuses

in divine law! No length of years whatever can destroy a true title. Or

indeed, if I were captured by barbarians and supposed to have perished,

and should return again home after a hundred years of captivity, as a

claimant of my paternal inheritance, should I be excluded? What could be

more inhuman! And, to give another example, did Jephthah, the leader of

Israel, when the Ammonites demanded back the land from “the borders of

Arnon even unto Jabbok and unto Jordan,” reply, “Israel has prescribed

this now through three hundred years’ occupation”? Or did he not show

that the land which they demanded as theirs, had never been theirs, but

had been the Amorites’? And the proof that it did not belong to the

Ammonites was that they had never in the course of so many years claimed

it.[524]

The Roman church has prescribed! Keep still, impious tongue! You transfer

“prescription,” which is used of inanimate, senseless objects, to man;

and holding man in servitude is the more detestable, the longer it lasts.

Birds and wild animals do not let themselves be “prescribed,” but however

long the time of captivity, when they please and occasion is offered,

they escape. And may not man, held captive by man, escape?

Let me tell why the Roman pontiffs show fraud and craft rather than

ignorance in using war instead of law as their arbiter,—and I believe

that the first pontiffs to occupy the city [of Rome] and the other

towns did about the same. Shortly before I was born, Rome was led by an

incredible sort of fraud, I call those then present there to witness,

to accept papal government or rather usurpation, after it had long been

free.[525] The Pope was Boniface IX, fellow of Boniface VIII in fraud

as in name,—if they are to be called Boniface (benefactor) at all, who

are the worst malefactors. And when the Romans, after the treachery

had been detected, stirred up trouble, the good Pope, after the manner

of Tarquinius, struck off all the tallest poppies with his stick.[526]

When his successor, Innocent [VII], afterwards tried to imitate this

procedure he was driven out of the city. I will not speak of other Popes;

they have always held Rome down by force of arms. Suffice it to say

that as often as it could it has rebelled; as for instance, six years

ago,[527] when it could not obtain peace from Eugenius, and it was not

equal to the enemies which were besieging it, it besieged the Pope within

his house, and would not permit him to go out before he either made peace

with the enemy or turned over the administration of the city to the

citizens. But he preferred to leave the city in disguise, with a single

companion in flight, rather than to gratify the citizens in their just

and fair demands. If you give them the choice, who does not know that

they would choose liberty rather than slavery?

We may suspect the same of the other cities, which are kept in servitude

by the supreme pontiff, though they ought rather to be liberated by him

from servitude. It would take too long to enumerate how many cities taken

from their enemies the Roman people once set free; it went so far that

Titus Flaminius [Flamininus] set free the whole of Greece, which had been

under Antiochus,[528] and directed that it enjoy its own laws. But the

Pope, as may be seen, lies in wait assiduously against the liberty of

countries; and therefore one after another, they daily, as opportunity

affords, rebel. (Look at Bologna just now.) And if at any time they

have voluntarily accepted papal rule, as may happen when another danger

threatens them from elsewhere, it must not be supposed that they have

accepted it in order to enslave themselves, so that they could never

withdraw their necks from the yoke, so that neither themselves nor those

born afterwards should have control of their own affairs; for this would

be utterly iniquitous.

“Of our own will we came to you, supreme pontiff, that you

might govern us; of our own will we now leave you again, that

you may govern us no more. If you have any claim against us,

let the balance of debit and credit be determined. But you

want to govern us against our will, as though we were wards of

yours, we who perhaps could govern you more wisely than you do

yourself! Add to this the wrongs all the time being committed

against this state either by you or by your magistrates. We

call God to witness that our wrong drives us to revolt, as

once Israel did from Rehoboam. And what great wrong did they

have? What [a small] part of our calamity is the [mere] payment

of heavier taxes! What then if you impoverish the Republic?

You _have_ impoverished it. What if you despoil our temples?

You _have_ despoiled them. What if you outrage maidens and

matrons? You _have_ outraged them. What if you drench the city

with the blood of its citizens? You _have_ drenched it. Must

we endure all this? Nay, rather, since you have ceased to be

a father to us, shall we not likewise forget to be sons? This

people summoned you, supreme pontiff, to be a father, or if it

better pleases you, to be their lord, not to be an enemy and a

hangman; you do not choose to act the father or the lord, but

the enemy and the hangman. But, since we are Christians, we

will not imitate your ferocity and your impiety, even though

by the law of reprisal we might do so, nor will we bare the

avenging sword above your head; but first your abdication

and removal, and then we will adopt another father or lord.

Sons may flee from vicious parents who brought them into the

world; may we not flee from you, not our real father but an

adopted one who treats us in the worst way possible? But do you

attend to your priestly functions; and don’t take your stand

in the north, and thundering there hurl your lightning and

thunderbolts against this people and others.”

But why need I say more in this case, absolutely self-evident as it is? I

contend that not only did Constantine not grant such great possessions,

not only could the Roman pontiff not hold them by prescription, but

that even if either were a fact, nevertheless either right would have

been extinguished by the crimes of the possessors, for we know that the

slaughter and devastation of all Italy and of many of the provinces

has flowed from this single source. If the source is bitter, so is

the stream; if the root is unclean, so are the branches; if the first

fruit is unholy, so is the lump.[529] And _vice versa_, if the stream is

bitter, the source must be stopped up; if the branches are unclean, the

fault comes from the root; if the lump is unholy, the first fruit must

also be accursed. Can we justify the principle of papal power when we

perceive it to be the cause of such great crimes and of such great and

varied evils?

Wherefore I declare, and cry aloud, nor, trusting God, will I fear men,

that in my time no one in the supreme pontificate has been either a

faithful or a prudent steward, but they have gone so far from giving food

to the household of God that they have devoured it as food and a mere

morsel of bread! And the Pope himself makes war on peaceable people,

and sows discord among states and princes. The Pope both thirsts for

the goods of others and drinks up his own: he is what Achilles calls

Agamemnon, Δημοβόρος βασιλεύς, “a people-devouring king.” The Pope not

only enriches himself at the expense of the republic, as neither Verres

nor Catiline nor any other embezzler dared to do, but he enriches himself

at the expense of even the church and the Holy Spirit as old Simon

Magus himself would abhor doing. And when he is reminded of this and is

reproved by good people occasionally, he does not deny it, but openly

admits it, and boasts that he is free to wrest from its occupants by any

means whatever the patrimony given the church by Constantine; as though

when it was recovered Christianity would be in an ideal state,—and not

rather the more oppressed by all kinds of crimes, extravagances and

lusts; if indeed it can be oppressed more, and if there is any crime yet

uncommitted!

And so, that he may recover the other parts of the Donation, money

wickedly stolen from good people he spends more wickedly, and he supports

armed forces, mounted and foot, with which all places are plagued, while

Christ is dying of hunger and nakedness in so many thousands of paupers.

Nor does he know, the unworthy reprobate, that while he works to deprive

secular powers of what belongs to them, they in turn are either led by

his bad example, or driven by necessity (granting that it may not be a

real necessity) to make off with what belongs to the officers of the

church. And so there is no religion anywhere, no sanctity, no fear of

God; and, what I shudder to mention, impious men pretend to find in the

Pope an excuse for all their crimes. For he and his followers furnish

an example of every kind of crime, and with Isaiah and Paul, we can say

against the Pope and those about him: “The name of God is blasphemed

among the Gentiles through you, you who teach others, but do not teach

yourselves; who preach against stealing and yourselves are robbers; who

abhor idols, and commit sacrilege; who make your boast of the law and

the pontificate, and through breaking the law dishonor God, the true

pontiff.”[530]

But if the Roman people through excess of wealth lost the well-known

quality of true Romans; if Solomon likewise fell into idolatry through

the love of women; should we not recognize that the same thing happens in

the case of a supreme pontiff and the other clergy? And should we then

think that God would have permitted Sylvester to accept an occasion of

sin? I will not suffer this injustice to be done that most holy man, I

will not allow this affront to be offered that most excellent pontiff,

that he should be said to have accepted empires, kingdoms, provinces,

things which those who wish to enter the clergy are wont, indeed, to

renounce. Little did Sylvester possess, little also the other holy

pontiffs, those men whose presence was inviolable even among enemies, as

Leo’s presence overawed and broke down the wild soul of the barbarian

king, which the strength of Rome had not availed to break down nor

overawe.[531] But recent supreme pontiffs, that is, those having riches

and pleasures in abundance, seem to work hard to make themselves just as

impious and foolish as those early pontiffs were wise and holy, and to

extinguish the lofty praises of those men by every possible infamy. Who

that calls himself a Christian can calmly bear this?

However, in this my first discourse I do not wish to urge princes and

peoples to restrain the Pope in his unbridled course as he roams about,

and compel him to stay within bounds, but only to warn him, and perhaps

he has already learned the truth, to betake himself from others’ houses

to his own, and to put to port before the raging billows and savage

tempests. But if he refuses, then I will have recourse to another

discourse far bolder than this.[532] If only I may sometime see, and

indeed I can scarcely wait to see it, especially if it is brought about

by my counsel, if only I may see the time when the Pope is the vicar of

Christ alone, and not of Caesar also! If only there would no longer be

heard the fearful cry, “Partisans for the Church,” “Partisans against the

Church,” “The Church against the Perugians,” “against the Bolognese”!

It is not the church, but the Pope, that fights against Christians; the

church fights against “spiritual wickedness in high places.”[533] Then

the Pope will be the Holy Father in fact as well as in name, Father of

all, Father of the church; nor will he stir up wars among Christians, but

those stirred up by others he, through his apostolic judgment and papal

prerogative, will stop.[534]