FALSE
775
FALSE
tne lay element in the Church. Success, even when it
came, had its drawbacks. In order to devote them-
selves to political questions the bishops had to neglect
their spiritual duties. They were to be seen more
often on the embassies than on visitations. .\s sup-
plies in their dioce.ses they had to call in auxiliaries
known as chore fnaco pi. \\'hat wonder, then, that these
abides gave rise to complaints? Especially after 829
the bishops were clamouring for ecclesiastical liberty,
for legal guarantees, for immunity of church property,
for regularity of church administration, for the de-
crease of the ninnber of ehorepiscopi and of their privi-
leges. But all in vain; the t'arlovingian nobles, who
profited by these abuses, were opposed to reform.
Powerless to better itself, could the Prankish Church
cnimt on Rome? At this verj' time the situation of
the papacy was by no means inspirhig; the Church at
Rome was largely subject to the lay power in the
liands of the imperial missi. Sergius II (844-847) has
not escaped the reproach of Simony. Leo IV ( 847-855)
had to defend his person just like any simple Prank-
ish bishop. In the face of such a wretched situation
the juridical prescriptions of Isidore are ideal.
C.^NO.N L.\w According to the P.\lse Decretals. — We are not here concerned with the whole collection, but only with the laws contained in the forged docu- ments. At the outset, let it be noted that Isidore's prescriptions have to do with a verj- limited number of cases and recur over and over again under slightly varying forms. Yet the forger's legal system is far from having any perfect cohesion. Inconsistencies, and even contradictions, are to be met within it. In the following sj-nopsis, which is necessarily short, no notice is taken of these legal stumbling of Isidore ; we are content to simply sum up the teachings of the false decretals, imder their principal headings.
In matters concerning the relations of the political and ecclesia-stical powers, Isidore sets forth the ordi- nar)' ideas of his time as to the supremacy of the spiri- tual over the temporal authority. Of his own author- ity alone, the ruler cannot assemble a regular synod ; he must have pontifical authorization to do so (p. 228). Th.at is a new requirement. A bishop may be neither accu.sed nor condemned before a secular tri- bunal (pp. 98, 485). The Theodosian Code, from which the forger borrows in this matter, granted the ■privikgium fori only for minor faults. In such mat- ters the Prankish law was not very explicit and was open to various interpretations. What is novel in Isidore is the general character of the law withdraw- ing bishops from the secular courts. Then again he recognizes in bishops a certain jurisdiction in secular matters. Roman law had already recognized this. He goes on to deal with the immunity of church prop- erty, which cannot be diverted from its original pur- pose without sacrilege. The evangelization of Chris- tendom is a complex story which modern criticism has retold for us, by showing the slow onward march of the Paith. But Isidore's ideas thereon were those of his time, and therefore for the most part legendary. .\ccording to him, the organization of parishes was laiti down by Clement of Rome, as early as the close of the first century, and was to be modelled on the eccle- siastical divisions of Rome and of the catacombs. This meant that dioceses were also a primitive institu- tion, and that metropolitan divisions also existed in primitive times. The Apostles were thought to have accepted the territorial divisions of the Roman Em- pire, which had been handed down since then as eccle- siastical provinces. There is not much historical basis for such an explanation. It stands to reason that in Isidore we must clearly distinguish between this fan- tastic view of history and his explanation of hier- archical organization. On all essential points the forger reproduces the current ideas of his time. But he disserves attention when he speaks of ehorepiscopi, or tho.se auxiliary bishops we have already referred to.
According to him they are usurpers ; so far as power of
order goes, they have priestly orders and nothing
more. Every episcopal function exercised by them is
null ; all their sacramental acts ought to be reiterated.
As a matter of fact, Isidore was wrong; ehorepiscopi
had full power of order and might validly administer
both confirmation and ordination. Isidore forged
theology as well as letters. He strongly affirms the
authority of the bishops. That is his great concern.
With him nothing else counts (pp. 77, 117, 145, 243).
The bishop is monarch in his own diocese, but he does
not stand alone ; bonds unite him to his neighbours,
and thus we have the metropolitan idea. The capital
of each ecclesiastical province has a juridical right or
title to be a centre of assembly for the bLshops; this
right Ls derived from the primitive division made by
the popes. The province is to be governed by the
provincial council, presided over by the metropolitan.
On the prerogatives of this dignitary Isidore repro-
duces the prescriptions of the ancient law prior to the
eighth century. After the middle of the eighth cen-
tury the metropolitans had increased their preroga-
tives, and Isidore tries to ignore this de facio situation;
for him nothing counts but canonical texts; the
metropolitan is primus inter pares, and he can do
nothing without the consent of hLs colleagues. The
forger goes on to mention higher jurisdictions, those
of primates and of patriarchs. But on these matters
he shows but a slight knowledge of church govern-
ment in .\frica and in the East, and we have one of the
most glaring examples of his incoherence.
The Authority of the Pope. — In the many_ texts where the pope is in question Isidore is true to his task of plagiarizing. ^'erJ' often he copies passages bor- rowed from ancient sources. This fact alone helps in a great measure to explain his insistence on the rights of the papacy. In many cases Isidore is but the mouthpiece repeating the sayings of the earlier popes, and we know how clear and uncompromising those early popes were on the question of their prerogatives. Por example, call to mind the popes between Innocent I (401—417) and Hormisdas (514-523) and the series of their declarations. All that was well known in the ninth century, at least in theorj% And it was all em- bodied by Isidore. But on the relations between pope and bishops he shows a certain inconsistency. Following the traditional teaching, he declaresthat the .\postolate and the episcopate were directly insti- tuted by Jesus Christ. Yet at times he seems to be on the point of denying the potestas onliniiria of the bishops. He makes" Pope Vigilius (p. 712) say: " Ipsa namque ecclesia quee prima est ita reliquis ecclesiis vices suas credidit largiendas ut in partem sint vocatffi soUicitudinis non in plenitudinem potestatis."
Taking this passage strictly and by itself, it would seem to deny the pote.stas ordinaria of the bishops. But nevertheless the sentence is not an intentional forgery; it is merely another case where Isidore is a plagiarist. He had got hold of a famous text by St. Leo (Migne, P. L., LIV, 671), addressed to the Bi.shop of Thessalonica. From the end of the fourth century this bishop had been named by the prpes as their representative in the province of Illyricum. Hence the Bishop of Thessalonica exercised by delega- tion certain rights belonging to the popes in the.se countries by reason of their title of Patriarch of the West. About 446, St. Leo had to find fault with the Bi.shop of Thessalonica, not in his character of bishop, hut as legate, or vicar, of the Holy See. And on that occasion the pope pointed out to his vicar in Illyricum that he had received merely a partial delegation, not a plenitude of power. It is clear, then, that the text in (piestion referred to a peculiar relation between the pope and a special bishop. Addressed to the vicar of Illyricum, St. Leo's words are quite accurate; but. ap- plied to all bLshops, they cease to be so, and might easily create much confusion. Isidore further de-
