272 FOUETH PERIOD. A. D. 590-1049.
Pseudo-Isidor literally quotes passages from a Paris Council of 829, and agrees in part with the collection of Benedictus Levita, completed in 847 ; on the other hand 'he is first quoted by a French Synod at Chiersy in 857, and then by Hincmar of Rheims repeatedly since 859. All the manuscripts are of French ori gin. The complaints of ecclesiastical disorders, depositions of bishops without trial, frivolous divorces, frequent sacrilege, suit best the period of the civil wars among the grandsons of Charle magne. In Rome the Decretals were first known and quoted in 865 by pope Nicolaus I.1
From the same period and of the same spirit are several col lections of Capitula or Capitularia, i. e., of royal ecclesiastical ordinances which under the Carolingians took the place of synodical decisions. Among these we mention the collection of Ansegis, abbot of Fontenelles (827), of Benedictus Levita of Mayence (847), and the Capitula Angilramni, falsely ascribed to bishop Angilramnus of Metz (d. 701).
6. Significance of Pseudo-Isidor. It consists not so much in the novelty of the views and claims of the mediaeval priesthood, but in tracing them back from the ninth to the third and second centuries, and stamping them with the authority of antiquity.
(Deacon) of Mayence, whose Capitularium of about 847 agrees in several pas sages literally with the Decretals (Blondel, Knust, Walter) ; Kothad of Soissons (Phillips, Gfrorer) ; Otgar, archbishop of Mayence, who took a prominent part in the clerical rebellion against Louis the Pious (Ballerinii, Wasserschleben) ; Ebo, archbishop of Rheims, the predecessor of Hincmar and leader in that rebellion, or some unknown ecclesiastic in that diocese (Weizsacker, von Noorden, Hinschius, Bichter, Baxmann). The repetitions suggest a number of authors and a gradual growth.
1 Nicolai L Epist. ad universes episcopos Galliae, ann. 865 (Mansi xv. p. 694 sq.) : " Decretcdes epistolcs Rom. Pontificum sunt recipiendoe, etiamsi non sunt canonum codici compaginatoe .' quoniam inter ipsos ccinones unwn b. Leonis capitulum constat essc permixtum, quo omnia decretalia constitute sedis apostolicce custodiri mandantur. — Itaque nihil interest, utrum sint omnia, decretalia sedis apost. constituta inter canones conciliorum immixta, cum omnia in uno corpore compaginare non possint, et Ula eis intersint, quae firmitatem his quae desunt et vigorem suum assignet. — Sanctus Gelasius (quoque) non dixit suscipiendas decretales epistolas quae inter canones habentur, nee tantum quas moderni pontifices edideruntf sed quas beatissimi Papce diversis temporibus ab urbe Romti dederunt"
g 61. NICOLAS I., APRIL, 858-NOV. 13, 867. 273
Some of tho leading principles had indeed been already asserted in the letters of Leo I. and other documents of the fifth century, yea the papal <t)u'niu# may he traced to AHctor in the second century and to the Jndai/ing opponents of St. Paul. But in this collection the entire hierarchical and sacerdotal system, which \vus the growth of several centuries, appears as something complete and unchangeable from the very beginning. We have a parallel phenomenon in the Apostolic Constitutions and Canons which gather into one whole the ecclesiastical decisions of the first three centuries, and trace them directly to the apostles or their disciple, Clement of Rome.
Pseudo-Isidorus was no doubt a sincere believer in the hierarchical system ; nevertheless his collection is to a large ex tent a conscious high church fraud, and must as such be traced to the father of lies. It belongs to the Satanic element in the history of the Christian hierarchy, which has as little escaped temptation and contamination as the Jewish hierarchy.
§ 61. Nicolas I., April, 858-Aor. 13, 8GT.
I. The Epistles of NICOLAS I. in Mansi's Com: XV., and in Mignc's
Patrol. Tom. CXIX. Comp. also JAFFE, R'-yesl'i, pp. 237-254. HlNCMAEI (Rhemensis Archiepucopi] Opcr. Omnia. In Milne's Pntrnl.
Tom. 12") and 126. An older ed. by J. Sirmond, Par. 1(545, 2 vols. fol. Hugo LAMMER: Nikolaus I. und die Byzantinische Staatskirche seiner
^ /Ait. Berlin, 1857. A. TIIIEL : DC Nicolao Papa. Comment, ducc hist, canoniccr. Brunzberg,
1850.
VAX NOORDEX: Jfinrmar, Erzb'whnf rnn Rheim*. Bonn, 1863. HERGEXROTHER (R. C. Prof, at Wiirzlmrg, now Cardinal): Photius.
Regensburg, 1867-1 8GO, 3 vols. Comj). BAXMAXX II. 1-20; MILMAX, Book V. ch. 4 (vol. III. 24-56) ;
HEFELE, ConciUengesch. vol. IV., (2nd ed.), 228 sqq ; and other
works quoted $ 48.
By a remarkable coincidence the publication of the Pseudo-
Isidorian Decretals synchronized with the appearance of a pope
who had the ability and opportunity to carry the principles of
the Decretals into practical etfect, and the good fortuue to do it