2. Isidore of Seville, early in the seventh century, made a second collection, very much like the first one just described.
3. Then Isidore Mercator, about the middle of the ninth century put out a third collection which embraced those by Exiguus and Isidore of Seville and included all the forgeries. This last collection opens with a preface, then has a spurious letter from Aurelius to Damasus, and a forged answer; a selection from the fourth council of Toledo; a list of councils; and two spurious letters from Jerome to Damasus, with replies. After these documents the collection proper begins. It consists of three parts. The first includes the fifty
Apostolic Canons; fifty-nine spurious decretals from Clement to Melchiades (90-314); a treatise On the Primitive Church and the Council of Nicæa; and the spurious "Donation of Constantine."[331:1] The second part opens with a genuine quotation from the Spanish collection of the decretals of the Greek, African, Gallic, and Spanish councils down to 683. The third part also begins with a quotation from the Hispania and then gives the decretals of the Popes from Sylvester (d. 335) to Gregory II. (d. 731), of which thirty-five are forged and others contain many interpolations; and, finally, the Capitula Angilramni.
Evidences of fraud are to be found in the uniformity of language, the impurity of style, the use of words of a late origin for an earlier period, many clumsy anachronisms, the total absence of all proof of the authenticity of the early decretals, the evident effort to meet contemporary prejudice, and the fact that there is no knowledge of the existence of the forged letters until incorporated in this collection. Many absurdities also appear: for instance, Roman bishops of the second and third centuries write in Frankish Latin of the ninth century in the spirit of post-Nicene orthodoxy and about the mediæval relationship of the Church and state. These early bishops quote the Vulgate of Jerome as amended under Charles the Great. Pope Victor (202) writes a letter to Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria (383) about a second-century controversy. Pope Anacletus speaks of patriarchs, metropolitans, and primates long before they arose. Pope Melchiades, who died in 314, mentions the Nicene Council which was held in 325. Pope Zephyrinus (218) appeals to the laws of Christian Emperors before Constantine was born.
Just how soon they were discovered to be forgeries, is a question that has aroused considerable discussion. Pope Nicholas I. must have known that they were false, but they suited his purpose so well that he sanctioned them. Some of the Latin bishops saw through the forgery, but, for various reasons, kept silent. A few of the Frankish bishops denounced them and objected to their reception as law. Even Hincmar, although he did so much to establish them, declared them to be spurious and called them a "mouse-trap" and a "cup of poison with the brim besmeared with honey." The synod of Rheims in 991 opposed the Isidorian principles. Stephen of Tournai (d. 1203) called them into question. Peter Comester in his Historia Scholastica (twelfth century) granted the ingeniousness of the author. Dante alluded to the fiction and grumbled about the "Donation of Constantine" in these words:
Ah, Constantine! of how much ill the cause—
Not thy conversion, but those rich domains
That the first wealthy Pope received of thee.[332:1]
Nicholas of Cusa questioned their authenticity.[332:2] Chancellor Gerson of the University of Paris, boldly asserted that the Papacy was founded on fraud.[332:3] Marsiglio of Padua[332:4] and Wiclif took the same view. Johannus Turrecrenta was skeptical about them.[332:5] Erasmus pronounced against them. The authors of the Magdeburg Centuries conclusively proved in detail their
fraudulent character. Calvin took the same view,[333:1] and De Moulin and Le Conte helped to establish the fact of forgery. David Blondel, a Reformed divine, made the exposure unquestionable against the attempted vindication of the Jesuit, Torres. Still since it is so difficult to separate the true from the false, their influence was perpetuated beyond this period. It was not an easy thing for an infallible Church to abandon ground once assumed. The fruits of the forgery could not be surrendered. Catholic and Protestant historians alike now agree, however, that they were for the most part fictitious.