"Donation of Constantine"

[Lukaris]

Anyone familiar with this forged document that was used as a rationale for Papal supremacy vs. other patriarchs? It is called the Donation of Constantine and was used as justification of the creation of the western Holy Roman emperor & for the seizure of Greek Orthodox communities in Italy prior & up to the 1054 schism. According to author Harry J Magoulias in his book: Byzantine Christianity: Emperor, Church and the West,this document said that, "Constantine the great; suffering from leprosy, was miraculously cured through the intercession of the Bishop of Rome, Sylvester I (314-335), and in gratitude,the emperor was baptized at the hands of his benefactor. Actually, Constantine was baptized on his deathbed by Eusebius....The Donation..decrees that all ecclesiastics are subject to the bishop of Rome to whom the emperor transfers "the city of Rome and all the provinces, districts and cities of Italy and of the regions of the west.This amazing document then claims that the pope is supreme arbiter of the universal church as well as temporal overlord of the entire western half of the empire...."the Donation...was shown to be a blatant forgery by Cardinal Nicholas of Cues in 1433 and by the papal secretary Lorenzo Valla in 1440." (Magoulias, p.94) . Roman Catholic site www.newadvent.org (http://www.newadvent.org) also attests to the forgery of this doc although with a little spin. Just posting as a food for thought item.

[buzuxi02]

Yes, this was a major document used to further the papal supremacy. Notice that even in the 8th century when this document first surfaced, the bishop of Rome did not try to convince the East that his authority came from the Apostle Peter through divine right- but was granted to him by the emperor!

Abee Guetee in his book 'the Papacy' makes a convincing argument that the first Pope to ever use this forgery- Pope Adrian in 785 a.d. was also its author. Who spread them in the west and handed them to canonists (and such) which explains their widespread circulation without anyone questioning their authenticity for centuries.

[Macarius]

According to Michael Whelton, author of Popes and Patriarchs, this document was revealed to be a forgery in the 1400's by pointing out that certain concepts weren't invented until the 8th century. The document calls a city "Constantinople" - but at the claimed time of authorship the city was still Byzantium. Also, it refers to 'satraps' - a late Byzantine term for governors not in use until the 7th century. There are other errors in it.

It was used exhaustively during the zenith of papal authority in Europe - essentially the early 800's, then from the late 900's to the 1300's. After the Great Papal Schism of the early 1400's and the Avignon Papacy of the late 1300's, the rise of Conciliarism (despite its quick fall), and the beginning of the Renaissance with its questioning of tradition, the papacy began to weaken.

The rise of nation states and the reformation cut a swath through papal authority in europe, such that by the 1800's it was quite weak. You'll notice that much of the fall of the papacy occurs shortly after the discovery that this document is a forgery. That is suggestive that it, along with numerous other forgeries used to suggest papal authority (which were also unveiled during the later half of the 2nd millenium), did have a direct impact on Western European church life. That's not to say they were exclusively formative to it, but that there was a correlation and, probably, some degree of causation.

It is extremely interesting to note that the West began its hard push to empower the papacy over the East immediately after the forging of this document. We could, I think reasonably, blame it for a significant amount of the friction during the so-called Photian Schism (the Nicholas-Schism :P).

This is why I prefer not to use isolate proof-texts from church fathers when discussing the papacy. They often are surrounded by textual controversy, and MANY have been unveiled as forgeries.

I prefer to look at the history of the Church in how it has ACTED and OPERATED, rather than at theological writings. For example, the Church excommunicated Popes via council during the 5th and 6th ecumenical councils. That, to me, demonstrates the Church's authority over the Pope, and not the other way around. The Photian schism, where two significantly larger councils upheld the Photian interpretation of papal authority and the filioque opposed the small (120 or so bishop) anti-photian council sandwiched between them...

Indeed, one might ask, "If the East was the innovating party in the late 1st millenium, the one that decided to defy the papacy, then when did that change in their theology occur and whence did it occur?" I can point to a growth of papal authority in the West, and can point to documents like the Donation of Constantine and political situations like the rise of the Carolignian dynasty which caused it.

I struggle to do so in the East, unless you go back to Constantinople II and the elevation of Constantinople to the 2nd rank after Rome in Church polity. Even still, the sheer strength of the Photian resistance to Nicholas II (undermined only be a new emperor who wanted Rome's political support) doesn't seem out of character or new whereas Rome's claim to be able to judicate over the East and it's attempt to exercise that claim certainly DO seem new.

In practice, the East routinely did its own thing, often electing bishops to Patriarchal sees at the strict objection of Rome. John Chrysostom was made a deacon by a man whom Rome did not want as Antioch's bishop, and as a result there was a brief schism during the late 4th century.

Anyhow, I digress from the topic at hand.

The Donation of Constantine supported, indeed was the principle support, for the papacy's claims to temporal authority over kings and its episcopal authority over the Roman Empire of the east (Byzantium, the successor to Constantine the Great's empire). Once discovered as a forgery, the document fanned the flames of the Renaissance and Conciliarism, and through that was an early cause of the Reformation and the decreased influence of the papacy (reaching its nadir shortly before Vatican I).

In Christ,
Macarius

[nikolayalexandroff]

[Deleted}
(http://history.hanover.edu/texts/vallatc.html)

[nikolayalexandroff]

[Deleted]
(http://history.hanover.edu/texts/vallatc.html)

[nikolayalexandroff]

[Deleted]
(http://history.hanover.edu/texts/vallapart2.html)

[nikolayalexandroff]

[Deleted]

[nikolayalexandroff]

[Deleted]
(http://history.hanover.edu/texts/vallatc.html)

[nikolayalexandroff]

See Lorenzo Valla's work here:http://history.hanover.edu/texts/vallatc.html
[It was a very strange bug, indeed:scratch:. I couldn't see my post with all my browsers (3), I when I reloaded TAW main page, there wasn't no sings of my post either...]