THE
PREFACE
The Work, which I now offer to the Public, I undertook some years since at Rome, and brought it down to the Pontificate of Victor, that is, to the close of the Second Century. As I was then a most zealous champion for the Pope’s Supremacy, which was held as an article of Faith by the body I belonged to, my chief design, when I engaged in such a work, was, to ascertain that Supremacy, by shewing, century by century, that, from the Apostles times to the present, it had ever been acknowleged by the Catholic Church. But alas! I soon perceived, that I had undertaken more than it was in my power to perform. Nay, while, in order to support and maintain this cause, I examined, with particular attention, the writings of the Apostles, and of the many pious and learned men who had flourished in the three first centuries of the church, I was so far from finding any thing that seemed the least to countenance such a doctrine, that, on the contrary, it appeared evident, beyond all dispute, that, during the above-mentioned period of time, it had been utterly unknown to the Christian world. In spite then of my endeavours to the contrary, Reason getting the better of the strongest prejudices, I began to look upon the Pope’s Supremacy, not only as a prerogative quite chimerical, but as the most impudent attempt that had ever been made: I say, in spite of my endeavours to the contrary; for I was very unwilling to give up a point, upon which I had been taught by Bellarmine, that the whole of Christianity depended[[1]]; especially in a country, where a man cannot help being afraid even of his own thoughts, since, upon the least suspicion of his only calling in question any of the received opinions, he may depend upon his being soon convinced by more cogent arguments, than any in Mood and Figure. But great is the power of truth; and at last it prevailed: I became a proselyte to the opinion which I had proposed to confute; and sincerely abjured, in my mind, that which I had ignorantly undertaken to defend.
Being thus fully convinced, that the Pope’s so much boasted Supremacy was a bold and ungodly usurpation, I could not help censuring with myself the men of learning, who had countenanced such a pretension, especially the two great champions of the Papal power Bellarmine and Baronius. Did they not see what every man, who but dips into the primitive writers, must see; what is obvious to common sense? The poor shifts they are often put to, their ridiculous evasions and cavils, their unmeaning distinctions, their wresting several passages, contrary to the plain and natural meaning of the authors they quote, and, above all, their unsatisfactory answers to the objections of the adverse party, shew but too plainly, that they wrote not from conviction, nor aimed at truth, but, perhaps, at the red Hat, which was afterwards bestowed upon them, as a reward for betraying the truth. Few have written in defence of the Pope’s Supremacy, that have not been preferred; and none perhaps who had not preferment in view. Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pius II. being asked, before he was raised to the Papal Chair, How it happened, that, in all disputes between the Popes and the Councils, many Divines sided with the former, and very few with the latter? Because the Popes, answered he, have benefices to give, and the Councils have none. Had he been asked the same question after he was Pope, he would not perhaps have returned the same answer; but said, upon his being put in mind of it, as Gregory XIII. did afterwards on a like occasion, that, being raised higher, he saw better and farther. Those therefore who have stood up in defence of the liberty of the Church against Papal Usurpation, cannot be supposed to have had any other inducement to espouse the cause of truth, but truth itself. And this some have had the Christian courage to do even in Italy, and almost in the Pope’s hearing, at the peril of their liberty, of their lives, of all that was dear to them; as I shall have occasion to shew hereafter. But to return, in the mean time, to the present History: I no sooner found myself in a Country where truth might be uttered without danger, than I resolved to resume and pursue, in my native tongue, as soon as I recovered the use of it, the work I had begun in a foreign language. On the one side I saw the only obstruction to an undertaking, which had already cost me no small pains and labour, happily removed; while I flattered myself on the other, that as a complete History of the Popes was still wanting, such a performance might meet with a favourable reception from the public. I am well apprised, that others have, at different times, and in different languages, treated the same subject: but whether any of their several works may deserve the name of a complete, or even of a tolerable History, I leave those to judge who have perused them; and shall only say in respect to myself; that, instead of diverting me from undertaking the same province, they have more than any thing else encouraged me to it. Anastasius and Platina, the two Classics, as they are deemed, in this branch of History, have indeed given us the Lives of the Popes, from the foundation of the See of Rome to their times, but in so broken, imperfect, and unsatisfactory a manner, that from them we learn but very little, even concerning those of whom they have said most. It was not their design to write a History, but only to draw, as it were in miniature, the portraits of the Roman Bishops, by relating, in a summary way, such of their actions, as appeared to them most worthy of being recorded; and, to say the truth, they have both betrayed no less want of discernment in chusing what they should relate, than of exactness in relating what they had chosen.
Anastasius the Monk, surnamed Bibliothecarius, that is, Library-keeper, Secretary, and Chancellor of the Church of Rome (for all these employments antiently centred in one person, and were comprised under the common name of Bibliothecarius) flourished in the ninth century, under Nicolas I. Adrian II. and John VIII. He wrote a succinct account of the Bishops, who governed the Church of Rome, from St. Peter to Nicolas I. who died in 867. But the memoirs he made use of were none of the best. In his time the world was over-run with forged or corrupted Pontificals, Martyrologies, Legends, &c. which were then no less universally received, than they have been since rejected by the learned of all persuasions. However, that from these the Bibliothecarian borrowed the greater part of his materials, at least for the six first centuries, is but too apparent from his overlooking, nay, and often contradicting, the unexceptionable testimonies of contemporary writers; as will be seen in the sequel of the present History. As therefore the records, which he copied, are so justly suspected, and his own authority can be of no weight with respect to those distant times, the reader must not be surprised to find, that, in this History, I have paid no manner of regard to an author, who has been hitherto blindly followed by those, who have written on the same subject. There may indeed be some truth in what he relates; but his frequent mistakes render that truth too precarious to be relied on, unless confirmed by the concurring testimonies of other more credible and less credulous authors. However, in the times less remote from his own, I shall readily allow his authority its due weight; the rather, as he seems not to have written with a design of imposing upon others, but to have been imposed upon himself by frauds and forgeries; for he wrote in an age, when the world lay involved in the thickest mist of ignorance, when superstition and credulity triumphed without controul, and spurious pieces, filled with idle and improbable stories, had thrust every grave writer, nay, and the Gospels themselves, out of doors.
Platina, so called from the Latin name of Piadena, a village in the Cremonese, the place of his nativity (for his true name was Battista, or Bartolomeo Sacchi) flourished six hundred years after Anastasius, that is, in the fifteenth century, under Calixtus III. Pius II. Paul II. and Sixtus IV. Under Pius II. he was Secretary of the Datary, the office where vacant benefices are disposed of; but, being dismissed by Paul II. tho’ he had purchased the place, in the height of his resentment, he appealed to the future Council. What he suffered under that Pope, first in prison, and afterwards on the rack, we shall hear from himself, in a more proper place. Sixtus IV. the successor of Paul, well apprised of his innocence, took him into favour, and, having enlarged, endowed, and enriched the Vatican library with a great number of valuable books, in different languages, he committed the care of them to him. It was probably at this time that he wrote, or rather transcribed, the Lives of the Popes from St. Peter, whom he supposes the founder of that See, to Paul II. who died in 1471. I say transcribed; for, if we except the few Popes who lived in or near his own times, viz. Eugene IV. Nicolas V. Calixtus III. Pius II. and Paul II. he copied, almost verbatim, all he has said of the rest, only interweaving now and then the profane history with the ecclesiastic[[2]]. The Lives of the fourteen succeeding Popes, from Paul II. to Pius V. elected in 1566. were compiled by Onuphrius Panvinius, of the Augustin order, a man more commendable for his learning, than for his candor and veracity. These are, as we may style them, the original compilers of the Lives of the Popes: Platina adopted Anastasius’s concise method of writing, and Panvinius, Platina’s, contenting themselves with bare hints; and thereby putting their readers to the trouble of consulting other writers, in order to gratify the curiosity they had raised. Much has been said of the Popes by other Historians, but very little by their own, as the learned Pagi observed, after comparing the authors I have mentioned, with the contemporary Historians of other nations. I might well add, that the very little they have said has been thought too much; whence some of them, and Platina in particular, have been made, in all their Editions since the middle of the sixteenth century, to speak with more reserve, and to suppress or disguise some truths they had formerly told.
As for those who in later times have engaged in the same province, we need only dip into their works to be satisfied, that to search out truth was not their business. Some are all praise and panegyric, others all satire and gall: some have made it their study to excuse the worst of Popes, others to arraign the best. That many of the Popes have been wicked men, abandonedly wicked, is undeniable, notwithstanding the pains that have been taken to extenuate their crimes; but neither are there wanting some good men among them, of innocent lives, and unblemished characters, whose only crime is their having been Popes; and to misrepresent or misconstrue the virtuous actions of these, as some have done, is no less blameable in an Historian, than to dissemble or gloss over the criminal actions of the others. This partiality may be easily accounted for with respect to one great period of the present History. During the quarrels and wars between the Popes and Emperors, which lasted many years, and occasioned, in seventy-eight battles, the destruction of an infinite number of innocent people, two powerful factions reigned, as is well known, both in Germany and Italy, distinguished by the names of Guelphs and Ghibbelines; the former being zealously attached to the Papal and the latter to the Imperial interest. In the midst of these distractions few writers stood neuter, but, siding, according to their different interests or inclinations, with one party or the other, drew their pens, each against the head of the party he opposed, with more rage than the soldiers did their swords. And hence it is, that we find the same facts related by contemporary authors with such different circumstances; the same persons, the Emperors especially and the Popes, painted in such different colours. Of this very few Writers in the later times have been aware; and therefore have, as their bias led them to favour one cause more than the other, adopted as undoubted truths the many groundless aspersions and undeserved reproaches which party zeal had suggested to the Ghibbelines against the Popes, or to the Guelphs against the Emperors. I wish I could intirely clear an eminent Italian historian of our own times from this imputation.
But, after all, as it was not merely with a view to supply the want of a complete History of the Popes, that I formerly undertook so laborious a task; neither is it now with that view alone I resume it. What I proposed to myself, when I first undertook it, I have said already; but, being convinced that I laboured in vain, and convinced by such evidence as the strongest prejudice could not withstand, I thought it a duty owing to truth, to set it forth to others in the same irresistible light; and to defend, at least with as much zeal, the best of causes, as I had done the worst. A disloyal subject, who had taken up arms against his lawful Sovereign, would not be thought intirely to comply with his duty, by only laying them down: he ought, if actuated by a true spirit of loyalty, and truly convinced of the badness of his cause, to range himself under the banners of his injured Lord, and devote to his service and defence the sword he had drawn against him. By a like obligation, a writer, who has, even ignorantly, combated truth, is bound, not only to lay down his pen, as soon as he finds himself engaged in a bad cause, but, when occasion offers, to turn against error in favour of truth the very weapon he had employed against truth in favour of error.
But to give the reader some account of the History itself, and the method I have pursued in delivering it: I have intituled it, The History of the Popes; but might as well have styled it, The History of Popery; since it not only contains an account of the Lives and Actions of the Popes, but of every Popish tenet; when, by whom, on what occasion, and to serve what purpose, each of them was broached; those more especially which relate to the Pope as Christ’s Vicar upon earth, as the Supreme Head of the Church, as an Infallible Guide to salvation; for these are the prerogatives he claims, as entailed upon, and inseparable from the Roman See. But that no such doctrines were known in the first and purest ages of Christianity; that the Bishop of Rome was then, nay, and thought himself, upon the level with other Bishops; that the Catholic Church acknowleged no power, authority, or jurisdiction in the Bishop of Rome, but what was common to him with all other Bishops, will appear so plain from the following History, that I can hardly conceive it possible for any man, however prejudiced in favour of the Papal Power, and Popish Religion, to peruse it without abjuring the one and the other: I am but too well apprised of the strength of prejudice; but, strong as it is, it can never be proof against plain matter of fact. For who can believe, for instance, in the Pope’s Infallibility, who can help looking upon such an article of belief as the grossest affront that ever was offered to human understanding, when he reads of a Liberius admitting and signing the Arian creed, or confession of faith, declared heretical by all his Successors; of an Honorius condemned by the Fathers of the sixth Oecumenical Council, as an organ of the devil, for holding the heresy of the Monothelites; of John XXII. preaching up and propagating, both by his Missionaries and his Legates a latere, a doctrine, which he himself retracted on his death-bed; of seven Popes[[3]] cursing and damning, in emulation of one anther, all who denied a certain tenet[[4]], and another Pope[[5]] as heartily cursing and damning all who maintained it, nay and recurring to the Ultima Ratio of the later Popes, the Fagot, in order to root out of the Church (these are his very words) so pestilential, erroneous[erroneous], heretical, and blasphemous a doctrine? This occasioned great scandal in the Church, insomuch that some even took the liberty to represent to his Holiness, that the Decrees and Constitutions of one Pope could not be reversed by another. The Pope replied (and what other reply could he make?) That they were mistaken, since it might be proved by innumerable instances, that what had been decreed wrong or amiss by one Pope or Council, could be rectified and amended by another. This answer silenced them at once, says our Historian: And well it might; I am only surprised, that the word Infallibility has ever been since heard of. The Franciscan Friers, who had occasioned the dispute, paid dear[paid dear] for it: As they continued to plead the Infallibility of seven Popes against that of one, and obstinately adhered to their doctrine, Pope John, losing all patience, ordered all to be burnt alive, who did not receive his Constitution; which was done accordingly, and many of those unhappy wretches chose rather to expire in the flames than to yield. These remarkable transactions are related by several contemporary writers of unquestionable authority, and among the rest by Nicolaus Eymericus, who was Inquisitor of the province of Tarragon, and has inserted them in his Directorium Inquisitorum[[6]]. Other facts without number, of the same nature, and alike irreconcileable with the other prerogatives claimed by the Popes, as well as with the chief articles of the Roman Catholic religion, will occur in this History, and all so well attested, that nothing, I think, can withstand the force of Truth thus displayed. Logical arguments and controversial reasoning cannot be well adapted to every understanding, and therefore are not always attended with the desired effect, however skilfully managed; but historical facts lie level to the meanest capacities, and the consequences thence deducible are to the meanest capacities plain and obvious. It is true, the Sticklers for the See of Rome have endeavoured to darken the clearest facts, since they could not deny them, as being vouched by their own approved authors; but they have done it in so aukward a manner, with such absurd, ridiculous, and unintelligible interpretations, comments, distinctions, &c. that, were it not well known it was their interest to defend that cause, one would be apt to think they intended rather to ridicule than defend it.
But if the Popes were originally mere Bishops, upon the level with other Bishops; if they had no power but what was common to them with all other Bishops; by what means could they thus exalt themselves above their Collegues, nay, above all that is called God? What could induce their Collegues, and with them the greater part of the Christian world, to acknowlege such an unheard-of power, and submit to a yoke of all others the most heavy and tyrannical? For an answer to these questions I refer the reader to the following History, where he will find every branch of power, authority, or jurisdiction claimed by the Popes, traced from its first origin, and the various steps pointed out, by which they raised themselves from the lowest beginnings to the highest pitch of greatness; which is opening a school of the most refined policy, that ever was known or practised upon earth. In this respect we must own the Popes to have been, generally speaking, men of extraordinary talents, the ablest Politicians we read of in History, Statesmen fit to govern the world, and equal to the vast dominion they grasped at; a Dominion over the Minds as well as the Bodies and Estates of mankind; a Dominion, of all that ever were formed, the most wide and extensive, as knowing no other Bounds but those of the Earth; nay, and not even those, since these mighty Princes claim to themselves all power in Heaven as well as in Earth, all power over the Dead as well as the Living. To establish the spiritual part of this wondrous Authority upon the Gospel of Christ, which contradicts it in every line, was an undertaking of no little difficulty, and that required no common skill: to establish the temporal dominion without a fleet, without an army; to subject to it not only the ignorant and superstitious multitude, but Kings themselves, nay and to prevail upon them to employ both their arms and their interest in promoting a power evidently derogatory to and inconsistent with their own; was a work not to be accomplished but by men of superior talents, thoroughly acquainted with all the arts of insinuation and address, and steady in pursuing, by the best concerted measures, the great point that they constantly had in their view.