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<h2>forg6</h2>
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<p> 42 page printout, pages 196 to 237 of 322
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CHAPTER VI</p>
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<p> THE CHURCH FORGERY MILL</p>
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<p> "Nevertheless, the forging of papal letters was even more
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frequent in the Middle Ages than in the early Church." (CE. ix,
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203.)</p>
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<p> LYINGLY FOUNDED on forgery upon forgery, as has been made
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manifest by manifold admissions and proofs, the Church of Christ
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perpetuated itself and consolidated its vast usurped powers, and
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amassed amazing wealth, by a series of further and more secular
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forgeries and frauds unprecedented in human history -- faintly
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approximated only by its initial forgeries of the fundamental
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gospels and epistles of the "New Testament of our Lord and Savior
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Jesus Christ," and of the countless other forged religious
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documents which we have so far reviewed. These first relate to the
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infance of the Church -- constitute its false certificates of
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Heavenly birth and of Divine civil status. They are, as it were,
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the livery of heaven with which Holy Church clothed its moral
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nakedness until it attained maturer strength and became adept to
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commit the most stupendous forgeries for its own self-aggrandizement and for the completer domination of mind and soul of
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its ignorant and superstitious subjects.</p>
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<p> The record which we shall now expose is the most sordid in
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human annals, -- of frauds and forgeries perpetrated for the base
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purposes of greed for worldly riches and power, and designed so to
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paralyze and stultify the minds and reason of men that they should
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suffer themselves to be exploited without caring or daring to
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question or complain, and be helpless to resist the crimes
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committed against them. Into this chapter we shall compress in as
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summary manner as possible the revolting record of Christian fraud
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by means of forged title deeds to vast territories, forged
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documents of ecclesiastical power spiritual and temporal, forged
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and false Saints, Martyrs,'Miracles and Relics -- surpassing the
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power of imagination or accomplishment by any other than a divinely
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inspired Church which "has never deceived anyone," and which "never
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has erred" -- in its profound, cynical knowledge and exploitation
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of the degraded depths of ignorance and superstition to which it
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had sunk its victims, and of their mental and moral incapacity to
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detect the holy frauds worked upon them. This was the glorious Age
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of Faith -- the Dark Ages of human benightedness and priestly
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thralldom -- when Holy Church was the Divinely-illumined and unique
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Teacher of Christendom, and when the Christian world was too
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ignorant to be unbelieving or heretic, -- for "unbelief is no sin
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that ignorance was ever capable of being guilty of."</p>
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<p> In those "Dark Ages, as the period of Catholic ascendancy is
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justly called" (Lecky, History of European. Morals, ii, 14), "men
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were credulous and ignorant," says Buckle; "they therefore produced
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a religion which required great belief and little knowledge." Again
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he says: "The only remedy for superstition is knowledge. ...
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Nothing else can wipe out that plague-spot of the human mind." It
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was, indeed, agrees CE. -- (from 432 to 1461) -- "an age of
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terrible corruption and social decadence" (xiv, 318); and of its
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mental state it says: "To such an extent had certain imaginary
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concepts become the common property of the people, that they
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repeated themselves as auto-suggestions and dreams." (CE. ix, 130.)
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But exactly this period -- the "Dark Ages of Catholic ascendancy," </p>
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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196
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.
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FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
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</p>
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<p>-- with centuries before and since, was the heyday of Holy Faith
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and Holy Church: it may well be wondered who was responsible for
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such conditions, when only Holy Church existed, in plentitude of
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power, the inspired Teacher of Christendom? During all these
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centuries, "the overwhelming importance attached to theology
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diverted to it all those intellects which in another condition of
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society would have been employed in the investigations of science."
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(Lecky, History of Rationalism in Europe, i, 275; ef. Bacon, Novum
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Organum, I, 89.) What else could be expected, was possible, when "a
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bountyless intolerance of all divergences of opinion was united
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with an equally boundless toleration of all falsehood and
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deliberate fraud that could favor received opinions?" (Lecky,
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History of European Morals, ii, 15.) Indeed, "few people realize
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the degree in which these superstitions were encouraged by the
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Church which claims infallibility." (Lecky, Hist. Rationalism, i,
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79, n.) It is confessed: "The Church is tolerant of 'pious beliefs'
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which have halved to further <span class="NORP">Christianity</span>"! (CE. xix,341.)</p>
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<p> THE FORGED APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTIONS</p>
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<p> For more than a thousand years, until their fraud was exposed
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by modern historical criticism, these voluminous and most
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commodious forgeries formed the groundwork and foundation of some
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of the most extravagant pretensions of the Church and its most
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potent instrument of establishment and dominion of its monarchical
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government The Apostolic Constitutions, which we have admitted for
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naivete of invention with respect to the Apostolic Prince Peter and
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Simon Magus in their magic contests in Rome, is in fact "a fourth-century pseudo-Apostolic collection. ... It purports to be the work
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of the Apostles, whose instructions, whether given by them
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individually or as a body, are supposed to be gathered and handed
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down by the pretended compiler, [Pope] St. Clement of Rome, the
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authority of whose name gave fictitious weight to more than one
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such piece of early Christian literature. ... The Apostolic
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Constitutions were held generally in high esteem and served as the
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basis for much ecclesiastical legislation. ... As late as 1563 ...
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despite the glaring archaisms and incongruities of the collection
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it was contended that it was the genuine work of the Apostles ...
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could yet pretend, in an uncritical age, to Apostolic origin." (CE.
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i, 636.)</p>
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<p> The Constitutions, pretending to be written by the apostles,
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laid down in minute detail all the intricacies of organization of
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several centuries later; there being elaborate chapters "concerning
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bishops," presbyters, deacons, all kinds of clergy, liturgies, and
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Church proceedings and services, undreamed of by "apostles," or in
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the "apostolic age." The prescriptions regarding the selection of
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bishops are quite democratic, and vastly different from present
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papal practices; the Churches, too, are distinctly episcopal and
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independent. The nature of these provisions, as well as the grossly
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false and fraudulent character of the whole, a vast arsenal of
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papal aggression, may be seen by the following passage in the
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apostolic first person: "Wherefore we, the twelve apostles of the
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Lord, who are now together, give you in charge those divine
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constitutions concerning every ecclesiastical form, there being
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present with us Paul, the chosen vessel, our fellow apostle, and
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James the bishop, and the rest of the presbyters, and the seven </p>
|
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
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197
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.
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FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
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</p>
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<p>deacons. In the first place, therefore, I Peter say, that a bishop
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to be ordained is to be, as we have already, all of us, appointed,
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... chosen by the whole people, who, when he is named and approved,
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let the people assemble, with the presbyters and bishops that are
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present, on the Lord's day, and let them give their consent. ...
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And if they give their consent," etc. (Apost. Const. VIII, 2, iv;
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ANF. vii, 481-482.)</p>
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<p> THE FORGED "APOSTOLIC CANONS"</p>
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<p> From the same pious forging hand, says CE. (i, 637), comes the
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related Apostolic Canons (composed about 400), "a collection of
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ancient ecclesiastical decrees concerning the government and
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discipline of the Church; ... in a word, they are a handy summary
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of the statutory legislation of the primitive Church. ... The claim
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to be the very legislation of the Apostles themselves, at least as
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promulgated by their great disciple Clement. Nevertheless, their
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claim to genuine Apostolic origin is quite false and untenable. ...
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The text passed into Pseudo-Isidore, and eventually Gratian
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included (about 1140) some excerpts of these canons in his
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'Decretum,' whereby a universal recognition and use were gained for
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them in the law schools. At a much earlier date, Justinian (in his
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sixth Novel) had recognized them as the work of the Apostles, and
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confirmed them as ecclesiastical law." (CE. iii, 279, 280.) Here
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the pious priests of God palmed off these self-serving forgeries on
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the great but superstitious Emperor and fraudulently secured their
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enactment into imperial law. In the same article is a description
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of "a larger number of forged documents appearing about the middle
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of the ninth century," among which "the Capitula of Benedict
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Levita, Capitula Angilrammi, Canons of Isaac of Langres, -- above
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all the collection of Pseudo-Isidore" (Ib. 285), which arch-forgery
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we shall describe in its turn.</p>
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<p> THE FORGED LIBER PONTIFICALIS</p>
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<p> This famous, or infamous, official fabrication, "The Book of
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the Popes," is notorious for its spurious accounts of the early and
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mythical "successors of St. Peter." The Liber Pontificalis purports
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|
to be "a history of the popes, beginning with St. Peter and
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|
continued down to the fifteenth century, in the form of
|
|
biographies" of their respective Holinesses of Rome. (CE. ix, 224.)
|
|
It is an official papal work, written and kept in the papal
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|
archives, and preserves for posterity the holy lives and wonderful
|
|
doings of the heads of the Church universal. "Historical
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criticism," says CE., "has for a long time dealt with this ancient
|
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text in an exhaustive way ... especially in recent decades." The
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Liber starts off in a typically fraudulent clerical manner: "In
|
|
most of its manuscript copies there is found at the beginning a
|
|
spurious correspondence between Pope Damasus and St. Jerome. These
|
|
letters were considered genuine in the Middle Ages. ... Duchesne
|
|
has proved exhaustively and convincingly that the first series of
|
|
biographies, from St. Peter to Felix III (IV, died 530) were
|
|
compiled at the latest under Felix's successor, Boniface II
|
|
(530-532). ... The compiler of the Liber Pontificalis utilized also
|
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some historical writings, a number of apocryphal fragments (e.g.
|
|
the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions), the Constitutum Sylvestri, the
|
|
spurious Acts of the alleged Synod of the 275 Bishops under </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
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198
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|
.
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FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
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</p>
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<p>Sylvester, etc., and the fifth century Roman Acts of Martyrs.
|
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Finally, the compiler distributed arbitrarily along his list of
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popes a number of papal decrees taken from unauthentic sources, he
|
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likewise attributed to earlier popes liturgical and disciplinary
|
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regulations of the sixth century. ... The authors were Roman
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ecclesiastics, and some were attached to the Roman Court." (CE. ix,
|
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225.) The general falsity of the Liber is again shown and the
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fraudulent use made of it by the later Church forgers, thus
|
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indicated: For instances, "in the 'Liber' it is recorded that such
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a pope issued a decree that has been lost, or mislaid, or perhaps
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never existed at all. Isidore seized the opportunity to supply a
|
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pontifical letter suitable for the occasion, attributing it to the
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pope whose name was mentioned in the 'Liber."' (CE. v. 774.) Thus
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confessed forgery and fraud taint to the core this basic record for
|
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some five centuries of the official "histories" and Acts of Their
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Holinesses of the primitive and adolescent years of the Holy
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Church. Pope Peter and his "Successors" for a century or more are
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thus again proven pious fictions and frauds.</p>
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<p> THE "CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE" FRAUD</p>
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<p> As several of the most monumental of these holy Church
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forgeries are associated with the first "Christian" Emperor,
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<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, and His contemporary Holiness, Pope Sylvester I
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(314-335), we may first notice the pious forged miracles which
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brought <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> to Christ -- rather to the Christians, and thus
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blightingly changed the history of the world. <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, Augustus
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of Rome, was the bastard son of the Imperator Constantius Chlorus
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and a Bythnian barmaid who became his mistress, and, later, by
|
|
virtue of opulent gifts to the Church, was raised to Heaven as St.
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Helena. <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> was a picturesque "barbarian" <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>, with a
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very bloody record of family -- and other -- murders to his credit,
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|
mostly made to further his political ambitions. He was rival of the
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four Caesars who shared the divided government, against whom he was
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|
engaged in titanic struggle, to win the sole crown of empire. The
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Christians were now become rather numerous in East and West, some
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|
two and a half or three millions out of the hundred millions of the
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Empire, sufficient to make their adherence and support important to
|
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the contestant who could gain control of them. To curry their favor
|
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and support <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> adopted the tactics of his sportive father,
|
|
Constantius, and made show of friendly disposition to them and even
|
|
of possible adoption of the new faith.</p>
|
|
<p> The occasion and the purely selfish and superstitious motive
|
|
for the alliance of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> with the Christians and their God,
|
|
are described by the three noted Church historians of the period,
|
|
-- all writing after his death, -- Eusebius, Socrates and Sozomen,
|
|
all of whom give substantially the following account, here
|
|
abbreviated from Eusebius, "Father of Church History," and an
|
|
intimate of the Emperor, in his ludicrously laudatory Life of
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>:</p>
|
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<p> "Being convinced that he needed some more powerful aid
|
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than his military forces could afford him, on account of the
|
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wicked and magical enchantments which were so diligently
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practiced by the tyrant Maxentius, he sought divine
|
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assistance. ... He considered, therefore, on what God he might
|
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</p>
|
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
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199
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|
.
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FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
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</p>
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<p> rely for protection and assistance. While engaged in this
|
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enquiry, the thought occurred to him, that, of the many
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emperors who had preceded him, who had rested their hopes on
|
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a multitude of gods. ... none had profited at all by the pagan
|
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deities, whom they sought to propitiate ... all had at last
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met with an unhappy end, ... while the God of his father had
|
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given to him, on the other hand, manifestations of his power.
|
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... Reviewing, I may say, all these considerations, he judged
|
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it to be folly indeed to join in the idle worship of those who
|
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were no gods, and therefore felt it incumbent on him to honor
|
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his father's God alone." (Eusebius, Life of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, I,
|
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27; N&PNF. I, 489; cf. Socrates, Eccles. Hist. I, 2; Ib. II,
|
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1-2; Sozomen, Eccles. Hist. I, 3; Ib. p. 241.) So, <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>
|
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chose the Christian's God to offset the "magical enchantments"
|
|
of the <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> gods in favor of his rival, Maxentius. The
|
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Christians flocked to his court and armies, and proud prelates
|
|
of the Church hung around him and flattered his hopes. After
|
|
several military successes aided by the Christians, the rival
|
|
armies faced for decisive contest near the historic Milvian
|
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Bridge, in the environs of Rome, in the year 312. All are
|
|
familiar with the fabulous priestly story of the miraculous
|
|
Fiery Cross said to have been hung out in heaven just before
|
|
the battle in the sight of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> and all his army,
|
|
blazing with the famous device "In Hoc Signo Vinces -- By this
|
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Sign Conquer" -- though it was in Greek and read "En Touto
|
|
Nika," -- and by virtue of which <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> was himself
|
|
conquered for Christ or for His Church.</p>
|
|
<p> Here we may again see the "god in the machine' -- a pious
|
|
Christian fraud in the making, and watch its growth from nothing in
|
|
proportion of wonder from lying Father to Father as it is handed
|
|
on. Very remarkable it is, that Father Bishop Eusebius wholly omits
|
|
this portentous event, though he devotes a large part of Book IX
|
|
and all of Book X of his History of the Church (written in 324), to
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, and enthusiastically describes the Battle of the
|
|
Milvian Bridge. Although he lugs divine intervention by the
|
|
Christian God into every phase of the campaign, he is content with
|
|
this colorful, naive, account: "But the emperor (<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>),
|
|
stimulated by the divine assistance, proceeded against the tyrant,
|
|
and defeating him in the first, second, and third engagements, he
|
|
advanced through the greatest part of Italy, and came almost to the
|
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very gates of Rome. Then God himself drew the tyrant [Maxentius],
|
|
as if bound in fetters, to a considerable distance from the gates
|
|
[i.e. to the Milvian Bridge]; and here He confirmed those
|
|
miraculous events performed of old against the wicked, and which
|
|
have been discredited by so many, as if belonging to fiction and
|
|
fable, but which have been established in the sacred volume, as
|
|
credible to the believer. He confirmed them, I say, as true, by an
|
|
immediate interposition of his power, addressed alike I may say to
|
|
the eyes of believers and unbelievers. As, therefore, anciently in
|
|
the days of Moses, the chariots of Pharaoh and his forces were cast
|
|
into the Red Sea, thus also Maxentius, and his combatants and
|
|
guards about him, sunk into the depths like a stone, when he fled
|
|
before the power of God which was with <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>." And, in
|
|
commemoration of such signal divine aid, <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> "immediately
|
|
commanded a trophy of the Savior's passion [a Cross] to be placed </p>
|
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<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
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200
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|
.
|
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FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
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</p>
|
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<p>in the hand of his own statue" in Rome. (Eusebius, HE. IX, ix, p.
|
|
397-9.) And with all this miraculous embellishment, not a word of
|
|
the Fiery Cross in Heaven, nor of the "miraculous conversion" of
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>.</p>
|
|
<p> The pious fable, whether by him invented or not, is first
|
|
recorded by Father Lactantius, tutor to Constantine's son Crispus
|
|
before the pious father murdered his son; he tells it -- after
|
|
Constantine's death -- in its primitive and more modest form -- a
|
|
simple dream by night, in which Jesus the Christ appeared to
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, and was seen or heard -- or was fabled -- to tell
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> to decorate the shields of his soldiers with the holy
|
|
"sign of the Cross" before they went into the fight; this he did
|
|
and won the battle-post hoc, ergo propter hoc. <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> may
|
|
perhaps quite naturally have had such a dream -- dreams have many
|
|
vagaries, and the priests were ever at his ear. But the "heavenly
|
|
sign," the Labarum or Monogram of Christ, which <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> was by
|
|
divine revelation or priestly suggestion directed to place on the
|
|
shields of his soldiers, was no novel thing requiring a divine
|
|
revelation, even in a dream, to suggest to the Christian priests of
|
|
a <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> emperor; "for it had been a familiar Christian symbol prior
|
|
to his conversion." (CE. viii, 718.) By a similar divine revelation
|
|
or priest-prompting, the Persian Cambyses had tied cats to the
|
|
shields of his soldiers in their campaign in 525 B.C. against the
|
|
cat-worshipping <span class="NORP">Egyptians</span>, who thus dared not strike with their
|
|
swords; the Christians worshipped the Cross of which the <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>s
|
|
were superstitiously afraid, as we have seen from Father
|
|
Lactantius. The result was at least the same, as related by Father
|
|
Lactantius:</p>
|
|
<p> "And now a civil war broke out between <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> and
|
|
Maxentius. ... At length <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> ... led his whole forces
|
|
to the neighborhood of Rome, and encamped them opposite to the
|
|
Milvian Bridge. ... <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> was directed in a dream to
|
|
cause the heavenly sign to be delineated on the shields of his
|
|
soldiers, and to proceed to battle. He did as he had been
|
|
commanded, and he marked on their shields the letter X, with
|
|
a perpendicular line drawn through it and turned round thus at
|
|
the top, being the cipher of Christ. ... The bridge in the
|
|
rear (of Maxentius) was broken down. The hand of the Lord
|
|
prevailed, and the forces of Maxentius were routed." (Lact.,
|
|
On the Death of the Persecutors, ch. xliv; ANF. vii, 318.)</p>
|
|
<p> These Christ-monogram crosses were probably, to the mind's eye
|
|
of Lactantius, simple wooden or painted miniatures like the more
|
|
life-sized one which a modern Holiness specially exorcised and sent
|
|
along as an amulet or pious fetich of success on a recent
|
|
disastrous Polar Expedition. But by the time Bishop Eusebius came
|
|
on to embellish the tale, the model at least was a thing truly of
|
|
beauty and wonder. In his Life of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, the holy Bishop, who
|
|
was on the Emperor's pay-roll, thus in substance relates:</p>
|
|
<p> "<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, having resolved to liberate Rome from the
|
|
tyranny of Maxentius, and having meditated on the unhappiness of
|
|
those who worshipped a multitude of idols, as contrasted with the
|
|
good fortune of his own father Constantius, who had favored
|
|
<span class="NORP">Christianity</span>, resolved to worship the One True God; and while he </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
201
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>was in prayer to God that He would reveal Himself to him, and
|
|
stretch forth His right hand to succor him, he had a vision after
|
|
midday, when the sun was declining, in a luminous forin over the
|
|
sun, and an inscription annexed to it, 'Touto Nika' -- (by this
|
|
conquer), and at the sight of it he and all his forces were
|
|
astounded, who were spectators of the miracle. ... The following
|
|
night, when <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> was asleep, Christ appeared to him with
|
|
that sign, which had been displayed to him in the heavens, and
|
|
commanded him to make a standard according to the pattern of what
|
|
he had seen, and to use it as a defense against his enemies; and as
|
|
soon as it was day <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> called together the workers in gold
|
|
and precious stones, and ordered them to fashion it accordingly" --
|
|
(it being, by his description, certainly rich, if not gaudy). And
|
|
bishop Eusebius states that <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, "a long time after the
|
|
event affirmed with an oath the truth of what the Bishop had
|
|
recorded" of this wonderful unhistorical fact. (Eusebius, Life of
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, I, 26-31; N&PNF. i, 489-491; CE. viii, 717-8;
|
|
Wordsworth, op. cit. i, 358-9.) In a note to the last reference,
|
|
the acute Protestant clerical mind, in eager defense of even the
|
|
most absurd Catholic fables, is seen at play: "It has been objected
|
|
(by Dean Milman and others) that it is incredible that a warlike
|
|
motto on the Cross, converted into a military standard, should be
|
|
suggested by Him who is Prince of Peace. But He Who is Prince of
|
|
Peace is also Lord of Hosts; and Christ is revealed not only in the
|
|
Psalms, but also in the Apocalypse, as a Mighty Warrior going forth
|
|
conquering and to conquer." Clerical persons are really Funny-mentalists!</p>
|
|
<p> The pious Bishop Eusebius, exemplar of Christian historical
|
|
un-veracity to the glory of God and Church, begins his Life of
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> with this rhapsody over <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> dead: "When I raise
|
|
my thoughts even to the arch of heaven, and there contemplate his
|
|
thrice-blessed soul in communion with God himself, freed from every
|
|
mortal and earthly vesture, and shining in a refulgent robe of
|
|
light, honored with an ever-blooming crown, and an immortality of
|
|
endless and blessed existence, I stand as it were without power of
|
|
speech or thought and unable to utter a single phrase, but
|
|
condemning my own weakness, and imposing silence on myself, I
|
|
resign the task of speaking his praises worthily to the immortal
|
|
God, who alone has power to confirm his own sayings." (Eusebius,
|
|
Life, 1, 2; N&PNF. i, 481-2.)</p>
|
|
<p> Here is the thrice-blessed Holy Emperor's record before he was
|
|
"freed from every mortal and earthly vesture," and before his
|
|
blood-stained earthly vestments were exchanged for that refulgent
|
|
robe of light in which he communed with God himself; this record is
|
|
of the one item only of family murderings: Maximian, his wife's
|
|
father, 310; Bassianus, his sister Anastasia's husband, 314;
|
|
Licinianus, his nephew, son of his sister Constantina, 319; Fausta,
|
|
his wife, in a bath of boiling water, 320; Sopater, <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>
|
|
philosopher and his former intimate Counsellor, 321; Licinius, his
|
|
colleague Caesar and his sister Constantine's husband, 325; with
|
|
this last, and the beheading of his own son Crispus, 326, he fitly
|
|
inaugurated and consecrated the celebrated Council of Nicaea, which
|
|
he invoked to settle the famous puzzle, whether Jesus Christ, the
|
|
Son, being born of the Father, were not consequently less ancient
|
|
than his Sire, so that there was a time when the Begotten Son did </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
202
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>not exist, and whether they were "of the same substance," or
|
|
different. It may be noticed, that the devout "Christian" Emperor
|
|
regarded this as a trifling matter of dispute not justifying the
|
|
terrible row which it kicked up among the clericals, splitting the
|
|
subjects of the Empire into throat-cutting factions for four
|
|
centuries. In his opening Address to the Council which he called to
|
|
establish peace among the priests, he turned to Alexander, Bishop
|
|
of Alexandria, and to Arius, his presbyter, and their respective
|
|
howling factions, and declared: "I understand, then, that the
|
|
origin of this controvers is this -- [the question stated by
|
|
Alexander on this point, and the negative reply of Arius]. Let
|
|
therefore both the unguarded question and the inconsiderate answer
|
|
receive your mutual forgiveness. ... For as long as you continue to
|
|
contend about these small and insignificant questions, it is not
|
|
fitting that so large a portion of God's people should be under the
|
|
direction of your judgment, since you are thus divided among
|
|
yourselves"! (Eusebius, Life of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, II, 69-71; N&PNF. i,
|
|
516-7.)</p>
|
|
<p> With respect to the Christian Emperor's murderings, the good
|
|
Bishop Lardner, with truly Christian modern moderation, admits that
|
|
the murderous atrocities of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> above listed "seem to cast
|
|
a reflection upon him"! But the holy Emperor was truly
|
|
conscientious and scrupulously concerned for his soul's salvation
|
|
on account of them; for it is recorded by the Church historian
|
|
Sozomen, that <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> is said to have sought first <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>, then
|
|
Christian, absolution from these murders, first from Sopater, then
|
|
from the Christian bishops. He relates the anxious solicitations of
|
|
the murderer thus: "It is reported by the <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>s that <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>,
|
|
after slaying some of his nearest relations, and particularly after
|
|
assenting to the murder of his own son Crispus, repented of the
|
|
evil deeds, and inquired of Sopater, the philosopher, concerning
|
|
the means of purification from guilt. The philosopher, so the story
|
|
goes, replied that such moral defilement could admit of no
|
|
purification, The Emperor was grieved at this repulse; but
|
|
happening to meet some bishops who told him that he would be
|
|
cleansed from sin, on repentance and on baptism, he was delighted
|
|
with their representations, and admired their doctrines, and became
|
|
a Christian, and led his subjects to the same faith. It appears to
|
|
me that this story was the invention of persons who desired to
|
|
vilify the Christian religion. ... It cannot be imagined the
|
|
philosopher was ignorant that Hercules obtained purification at
|
|
Athens by the celebration of the mysteries of Ceres after the
|
|
murder of his children, and of Iphitus, his guest and friend. That
|
|
the Greeks held that purification from guilt of this nature could
|
|
be obtained, is obvious from the instance I have just alleged, and
|
|
he is a false calumniator who represents that Sopater taught the
|
|
contrary, ... for he was at that period esteemed the most learned
|
|
man in Greece." (Sozomen, i, 5; ii, 242-3.) It is said that the
|
|
rebuff of Sopater denying <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> absolution was the motive of his
|
|
murder by the Christian Emperor. Howbeit, <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> cautiously
|
|
denied himself the saving Christian rite of baptism until he was on
|
|
his deathbed, in Nicomedia, in the year of his forgiving Lord 337.
|
|
(Euseb., Life, iv, 62; Soc., i, 39; Soz., ii, 34; CE. i, 709.) But
|
|
none can deny the superiority of <span class="NORP">Christianity</span> over <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>ism in this
|
|
point of saving grace. The Christian historian, however, clearly
|
|
avers that some of the divinest sacraments of Christian Revelation,</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
203
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>forgiveness of sin by God and absolution per priests, were ancient
|
|
features of the <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> "Mysteries," of which even sinful <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>
|
|
demigods might be the beneficiaries.</p>
|
|
<p> But "the mighty and victorious <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, adorned with every
|
|
virtue of religion, with his most pious son, Crispus Caesar,
|
|
resembling in everything his father," -- as his doxology is sung --
|
|
before the murder of Crisptis -- by good Bishop Eusebius (HE. ix,
|
|
p. 443), -- was rather dubiously a "practicing" Christian; he
|
|
remained until death Pontifex Maximus, or Sovereign Pontiff of the
|
|
<span class="NORP">Pagan</span> religion, a title which the Christian Bishops could not
|
|
arrogate until the Christian Emperors abandoned it; he ordered the
|
|
auspices or divination by inspection of the entrails of birds, and
|
|
on his death, amply baptized with blood and by the deathbed heretic
|
|
Christian rite, he was apotheoisized according to <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> custom and
|
|
raised as a god to heaven -- to rank along with his Christian
|
|
Sainted Mother, St. Helena, of whom more anon.</p>
|
|
<p> In this ecstatic vision of the celestial beatitude of
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, the good Bishop Eusebius was, from the orthodox or
|
|
"right-thinking" viewpoint sadly mistaken. <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> went
|
|
unshriven to Hell and everlasting torment; not indeed for his
|
|
crimes but for his errant creed, as a disbeliever in the Divinity
|
|
of Jesus Christ and in the Holy Trinity -- which, indeed, had not
|
|
been yet invented. The majority of the Council of Niceea had by
|
|
force and terrorism decreed that Jesus Christ was of the "same
|
|
substance" as his father God, co-eternal and coequal, ergo also
|
|
God. But <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> heretically disbelieved this inspired dogma;
|
|
he banished Athanasius and other "Trinitarian?' prelates; even "the
|
|
death of Arius did not stay the plague. <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> now favored
|
|
none but Arians; he was baptized in his last moments by the shifty
|
|
[Arian] prelate of Nicomedia; and he bequeathed to his three sons
|
|
[themselves either <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>s or Arian heretics] an empire torn by
|
|
dissensions which his weakness and ignorance had aggravated." (CE.
|
|
i, 709.) To such a "weak and ignorant" Emperor is due, however, the
|
|
salvation of <span class="NORP">Christianity</span> from oblivion, and upon him is lavished
|
|
the adulations of the now "indefectible Church" which his favor
|
|
alone made possible. As for the pious Bishop Eusebius, he was
|
|
himself an Arian heretic, and from his point of view he may have
|
|
thought that he visioned <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> glorious in Heaven. So much
|
|
for divergent religious standpoints, which at the first Church
|
|
Council "proved a beginning of strife, ... bequeathed an empire
|
|
torn with dissensions, ... [until] the Catholic bishops, the monks,
|
|
the sword of Clovis, and the action of the Papacy, made an end of
|
|
it before the eighth century" (CE. i, 710), -- thus nearly four
|
|
hundred years of throat-cutting and persecutions before <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>
|
|
was finally proved a villainous heretic, the fatal effects of his
|
|
"weakness and ignorance" overcome, and "Catholic Truth" began to
|
|
assume its full sway undisputed through the long intellectual night
|
|
of the Christian Dark Ages of Faith.</p>
|
|
<p> CHRISTIAN FORGERIES FOR POWER AND PELF</p>
|
|
<p> The "league with Death and covenant with Hell" whereby the new
|
|
<span class="NORP">Pagan</span>ism called <span class="NORP">Christianity</span> became the official State religion
|
|
being now signed and sealed, and soon enforced by laws of bloody
|
|
persecution, we shall now admire the most monumental of the holy </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
204
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>forgeries by which the Church consolidated its vast and nefast
|
|
dominion over the minds and bodies of the quickly degraded
|
|
populations under its sway.</p>
|
|
<p> THE "CONSTANTINE" FORGERIES</p>
|
|
<p> A series of Church forgeries of the greatest magnitude and
|
|
most far-reaching evil consequences grew up around the name of
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, forged in his name or falsely associated with it in
|
|
the nefarious work of almost limitless larceny of territorial
|
|
possessions and of papal sovereignty. A bit of historical
|
|
background is necessary to properly appreciate the underground
|
|
workings of Providence in disposing the success of these designs,
|
|
-- whereby, as said by Dr. McCabe, "Pope Adrian I induced
|
|
Charlemagne to found the papal states by producing two of the most
|
|
notorious and most shameless forgeries ever perpetrated: 'The Acts
|
|
of St. Sylvester,' and 'The Donation of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>,' documents
|
|
which mendaciously represented the emperor <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> as giving
|
|
most of Italy to the papacy, and which were fabricated in Rome in
|
|
the eighth century and were used by the popes to maintain this
|
|
gigantic fraud."</p>
|
|
<p> The intricate intriguing and conspiracies of the embryo papacy
|
|
under their Holinesses Zacharias, Stephen II, Adrian I, Leo III,
|
|
and of the semi-barbarian aspirants for the Frankish monarchy,
|
|
Clovis, Charles Martel, Pepin, Charlemagne, cannot be here
|
|
recounted. According to the picturesque account of Bishop St.
|
|
Gregory of Tours -- whose History is a thesaurus of the revolting
|
|
social and moral degradation of the times, Clovis was converted as
|
|
the result of his vow to the God of his Christian wife Clotilda,
|
|
that if victory were granted to him in a great battle against the
|
|
Alemanni, in which he was hard pressed, he would become a
|
|
Christian. Miracles at once attested the Divine favor: "St. Martin
|
|
showed him a ford over the Vienne by means of a hind; St. Hilary
|
|
preceded his armies in a column of fire." (Von Ranke, i, 12.) It
|
|
will be remembered that all the barbarian nations of the time were
|
|
"heretic" Christians of the hated Arian sect, who denied the
|
|
divinity of Christ and derided the Holy Trinity; the Franks thus
|
|
became the only "orthodox" Christians and the defenders of the True
|
|
Faith on behalf of the Popes. Winning the fight, Clovis and 3000 of
|
|
his army were baptized on Christmas day by Bishop St. Remigius of
|
|
Rheims. When this good Bishop came to perform the baptismal
|
|
ceremony on the king in the cathedral of Rheims, "the chrism for
|
|
the baptismal ceremony was missing, and was brought from heaven in
|
|
a vase (ampulla) borne by a dove. This is what is known as the
|
|
Sainte Ampoule of Rheims, preserved in the treasury of the
|
|
Cathedral of that City, and used for the coronation of the kings of
|
|
France from Philip Augustus down to Charles X"! (CE. v, 71.)</p>
|
|
<p> FORGED DEEDS OF EMPIRE</p>
|
|
<p> The Merovingian kings of the Franks had become mere puppets in
|
|
the hands of their "Mayors of the Palace," in league with the
|
|
bishops of Rome. At last "Pepin addressed to the pope the
|
|
suggestive question: 'In regard to the Kings of the Franks who no
|
|
longer possess the royal power, is this state of things proper?'
|
|
... Pope Zacharias replied that such a state of things was not </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
205
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>proper -- [that "he should be king who possessed the royal power"].
|
|
After this decision the place Pepin desired was declared vacant.
|
|
... Still this external cooperation of the pope in the transfer of
|
|
the Kingdom would necessarily enhance the importance of the Church.
|
|
Pepin was also obliged to acknowledge the increased power of the
|
|
Church by calling on it for moral [?] support." (CE. xi, 663.) In
|
|
pay or reward for this "moral support" given by the Church, Pepin,
|
|
it is said, gave to the Church some considerable territories around
|
|
Rome, which at the incitation of the Pope he had wrested by arms
|
|
from the neighboring Lombards.</p>
|
|
<p> THE FORGED LETTER OF ST. PETER</p>
|
|
<p> To this alleged gift Pepin was induced not alone by the
|
|
sentiment of guilty gratitude to Zacharias and Stephen, the latter
|
|
of whom crowned him King of the Franks in 751; for further
|
|
persuasion His Holiness Stephen II procured from the Vatican
|
|
Forgery Mill the identical autograph letter of St. Peter himself,
|
|
prophetically addressed "To the King of the Franks," and so
|
|
mystically worded that: "When Stephen II performed the ceremony of
|
|
anointing Pepin and his son at St. Denis, it was St. Peter who was
|
|
regarded as the mystical giver of the secular power"! (CE. xi,
|
|
663.) This cunning Papal forgery and fraud is thus described by a
|
|
high authority: "The pontiff dictated his letter in the name of the
|
|
apostle Peter, closely imitating his epistles, and speaking in a
|
|
language which implied that he was possessed of an authority to
|
|
anoint or dethrone kings, and to perform the offices, not of a
|
|
messenger, of a teacher sent from God, which is the highest
|
|
characteristic of an apostle, but of a delegated minister of His
|
|
power and justice." (Historians' History of the World, vol. viii,
|
|
p. 557.)</p>
|
|
<p> Also: "The Frankish king received the title of the former
|
|
representative of the Byzantine Empire in Italy, i.e. 'Patricius,'
|
|
and was also assigned the duty of protecting the privileges of the
|
|
Holy See. ... After the acknowledgment of his territorial claims
|
|
the pope was in reality a ruling sovereign, but he had placed
|
|
himself under the protection of the Frankish ruler, and had sworn
|
|
that he and his people would be true to the king" (CE. xi, 663), --
|
|
the divine birthright thus swapped for a mess of political potage:
|
|
for over a thousand years since it has been a mess indeed. Thus by
|
|
conspiracy, fraud, and unrighteous conquest was laid the foundation
|
|
of the sacred "Patrimony of Peter," and the unholy league between
|
|
the papacy and the French kings, which reached full fruition in the
|
|
holy massacres of the Albigenses, of the Vendee, and of St.
|
|
Bartholomew.</p>
|
|
<p> A HOLY CONSPIRATION</p>
|
|
<p> The next step in the progress "conquering and to conquer" of
|
|
Christ's prostituted Church was on a broader stage and with yet
|
|
vaster consequences. Pepin died in 768, dividing his realms between
|
|
his two sons, Carloman and Charles, later "by the Grace of God" and
|
|
great villainy known to fame as Charles the Great or Charlemagne;
|
|
Charles receiving the German part, Carloman the French. On the
|
|
death of Carloman, in 771, Charles seized the Frankish kingdom. The
|
|
widow and young heirs of Carloman fled for protection and aid to </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
206
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>Desiderius, king of the Lombards, part of whose stolen territory
|
|
the pope held for God and Church. Desiderius was also father of the
|
|
repudiated first wife of Charles; the holy matrimonial mess is thus
|
|
defined: "Charles was already, in foro conscientiae, if not in
|
|
Frankish law, wedded to Himiltrude. In defiance of the pope's
|
|
protest, Charles married Desiderata, daughter of Desiderius (770);
|
|
three years later he repudiated her and married Hildegarde, the
|
|
beautiful Swabian. Naturally, Desiderius was furious at this
|
|
insult, and the dominions of the Holy See bore the first brunt of
|
|
his wrath." (CE. iii,.612.) Charles thereupon "had to protect Rome
|
|
against the Lombard"; finally the Lombards were "put to utter
|
|
rout"; Charles proceeded to Rome; and "history records with vivid
|
|
eloquence the first visit of Charles to the Eternal City. ...
|
|
Charles himself forgot pagan Rome and prostrated himself to kiss
|
|
the threshold of the Apostles, and then spent seven days in
|
|
conference with the successor of Peter. It was then that he
|
|
undoubtedly formed many great designs for the glory of God and the
|
|
exaltation of Holy Church, which, in spite of human weaknesses,
|
|
and, still more, ignorance, he did his best to realize." (Ib. 612.)
|
|
The principal fruit of this weakness and ignorance of Charles seems
|
|
to be that he could so easily let himself be duped by His Holiness
|
|
through the enormous forgeries for Christ's sake that were now
|
|
imposed upon him. In 774 Charles finally defeated Desiderius and
|
|
"assumed the crown of Lombardy, and renewed to Adrian [now Holiness
|
|
of Rome] the donation of territory made by Pepin." The "genuineness
|
|
of this donation," as well as of "the original gift of Pepin," have
|
|
been much questioned, says CE., but are "now generally admitted,"
|
|
-- which is none too assuring; but another document, this time
|
|
favorable to Charles, is just the other way: "The so-called
|
|
'Privilegium Hadriani pro Carolo' granting him full right to
|
|
nominate the pope and to invest all bishops, is a forgery." (CE.
|
|
xi, 612). Here is precisely the reason and only effective use of
|
|
this forged "Donation of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>" -- it was the basis for the
|
|
inducement to Charlemagne to win the Lombard territories for the
|
|
Church and to reinstate it in the "Patrimony of Peter," largely
|
|
swollen by the pretended new gifts of the ambitious king, who, in
|
|
the seven days' conference with His Holiness, had, undoubtedly,
|
|
formed together "some great designs for the glory of God and the
|
|
exaltation of Holy Church," now begun to be realized.</p>
|
|
<p> The quarter of a century passed, and much history was made.
|
|
The Roman emperors ruled from Constantinople; Roman popes and kings
|
|
were legitimately their liegemen; "the Emperor of Constantinople,
|
|
legitimate heir of the imperial title," now becomes the victim of
|
|
papal and kingly conspiration, thus brought to its climax: "On
|
|
Christmas Day, 800, took place the principal event of the life of
|
|
Charles. During the Pontifical Mass celebrated before the high
|
|
altar beneath which lay the bodies of Sts. Peter and Paul, the pope
|
|
(Leo III) approached him, placed upon his head the imperial crown,
|
|
did him formal reverence after the ancient manner, saluted him as
|
|
Emperor and Augustus and anointed him," while the Roman rabble
|
|
shouted its approval. Thus, again by collusion and usurpation,
|
|
began that Holy Roman Empire, of nefast history, which Bryce
|
|
qualifies as "neither holy, nor Roman, nor empire"; but the Vicars
|
|
of God were now well started on their way to worldly grandeur and
|
|
moral degradation. Now for their forgeries.</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
207
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> THE POPE SYLVESTER FORGERIES</p>
|
|
<p> The monumental forgeries which were boldly used by their
|
|
Holinesses to dupe Charlemagne and Christendom into recognizing the
|
|
papal claim of right of ownership and sovereignty over a great part
|
|
of Italy are a series of spurious documents harking in pretended
|
|
date and origin back to the "first Christian emperor" <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>
|
|
and to His Holiness Pope St. Sylvester (314-335). About the name of
|
|
Sylvester arose "the Sylvester Legend later surrounded with that
|
|
network of myth, that gave rise to the forged document known as the
|
|
Donation of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>." (CE. xiv, 257.) This fable, says Prof.
|
|
Shotwell, "made its way, gathering volume as it went, reinforced
|
|
eventually by a forged Donation, until it had imposed upon all
|
|
Europe the conception of Sylvester as the potent influence behind
|
|
Constantine's most striking measures and of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> himself as
|
|
the dutiful servant of the See of Peter." (See of Peter, xxvi.) The
|
|
extensive variety but common general nature of these Sylvester
|
|
forgeries is thus indicated:</p>
|
|
<p> "At an early date legend brings Pope St. Sylvester into
|
|
close relationship with the first Christian emperor, but in a
|
|
way that is contrary to historical fact. These legends were
|
|
introduced especially into the 'Vita beati Sylvestri,' and in
|
|
the 'Constitutum Sylvestri' -- an apocryphal account of an
|
|
alleged Roman council which belongs to the Symmachian
|
|
forgeries and appeared between 501 and 508, and also in the
|
|
'Donatio Constantini.' The accounts given in all these
|
|
writings concerning the persecution of Sylvester, the healing
|
|
and baptism of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, the emperor's gift to the pope,
|
|
the rights granted to the latter, and the council of 275
|
|
bishops at Rome, are entirely legendary" (CE. xiv, 370-371).</p>
|
|
<p> THE FORGED "DONATION OF CONSTANTINE"</p>
|
|
<p> "Ah, <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>! to how much ill gave birth,
|
|
Not thy conversion, but that plenteous dewer,
|
|
Which the first wealthy Father gained from thee!"
|
|
Dante, Inferno, xix, 115.</p>
|
|
<p> The Catholic Encyclopedia, artless revealer of the frauds of
|
|
the Church for which it is an authorized spokesman, gives this
|
|
account of the famous Donatio Constantini, which is describes as "a
|
|
forged document of Emperor <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> the Great, by which large
|
|
privileges and rich possessions were conferred on the pope and the
|
|
Roman Church. ... It is addressed by <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> to Pope Sylvester
|
|
I (314-35), and consists of two parts. ... <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> is made to
|
|
confer on Sylvester and his successors the following privileges and
|
|
possessions: the pope, as successor of St. Peter, has the primacy
|
|
over the four Patriarchs of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople,
|
|
and Jerusalem, also over all the bishops in the world. ... The
|
|
document goes on to say that for himself the Emperor has
|
|
established in the East a new capital which bears his name, and
|
|
thither he removes his capital, since it is inconvenient that a
|
|
secular emperor have power where God has established the residence
|
|
of the head of the Christian religion. The document concludes with
|
|
malediction's against all who violate these donations and with the
|
|
assurance that the emperor has signed them with his own hand and
|
|
placed them on the tomb of St. </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
208
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>Peter. This document is without doubt a forgery, fabricated
|
|
somewhere between the years 750 and 850. As early as the 15th
|
|
century its falsity was known and demonstrated. ... Its genuinity
|
|
was yet occasionally defended, and the document still further used
|
|
as authentic, until Baronius in his <span class="ORG">Annals</span> Ecclesiastici admitted
|
|
that the 'Donatio' was a forgery, whereafter it was soon
|
|
universally admitted to be such. It is so clearly a fabrication
|
|
that there is no reason to wonder that, with the revival of
|
|
historical criticism in the 15th century, the true character of the
|
|
document was at once recognized. ... The document obtained wider
|
|
circulation by its incorporation with the 'False Decretals'
|
|
(840-850)." (CE. v, 118, 119, 120.)</p>
|
|
<p> By Lord Bryce a graphic sketch of this notorious fraud is
|
|
given, with comments as to the mental and moral qualities of the
|
|
priestcraft which it reflects. It is, he says, the -- "most
|
|
stupendous of medieval forgeries, which under the name of Donation
|
|
of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> commanded for seven centuries the unquestioning
|
|
belief of mankind. Itself a portentous falsehood, it is the most
|
|
unimpeachable evidence of the thoughts and beliefs of the
|
|
priesthood which framed it, sometime between the middle of the
|
|
eighth and the middle of the tenth century. It tells how
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> the Great, cured of his leprosy by the prayers of
|
|
Sylvester, resolved, on the fourth day of his baptism, to forsake
|
|
the ancient seat for a new capital on the Bosphorus, lest the
|
|
continuance of the secular government should cramp the freedom of
|
|
the spiritual, and how he bestowed therewith upon the Pope and his
|
|
successors the sovereignty over Italy and the countries of the
|
|
West." (Bryce, Holy Roman Empire, Ch. vii, p. 97; Latin text,
|
|
extracts, p. 98.) In addition to these extraordinary investitures,
|
|
all forms of imperial pomp, privileges and dignities were
|
|
spuriously granted to the Pope and his clerics, "all of them
|
|
enjoyed by the Emperor and his senate, all of them showing the same
|
|
desire to make the pontifical a copy of the imperial office. The
|
|
Pope is to inhabit the Lateran palace, to wear the diadem, the
|
|
collar, the purple cloak, to carry the scepter, and to be attended
|
|
by a body of chamberlains. Similarly his clergy are to ride on
|
|
white horses and receive the honors and immunities of the senate
|
|
and patricians," including "the practice of kissing the pope's
|
|
foot, adopted in imitation of the old imperial court." (Ib. pp.
|
|
97-98.)</p>
|
|
<p> The grossness and absurdity of these stupendous forgeries,
|
|
with their pious recitals of Constantine's leprosy cured by
|
|
Sylvester's prayers, the consequent conversion and baptism of the
|
|
Emperor in the Lateran font, and the abandonment of Rome by
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> in order to leave it free for God's Vicar, just up from
|
|
the catacombs, to ape imperial pomp, is made manifest by a moment's
|
|
notice of dates, and recollection of contemporary history.
|
|
Sylvester's Holiness dates from 314, he died in 335; <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> in
|
|
337. Constantine's "conversion" by the "In Hoc Signo" miracle, was
|
|
in 312, before Sylvester became pope; at no time did <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>
|
|
have leprosy, other than moral, therefore no physical cure was
|
|
wrought by Sylvester's prayers, and certainly no moral cleansing
|
|
worthy of note; <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> was not baptized by Sylvester in Rome,
|
|
but heretically received that rite long after Sylvester's death,
|
|
and just before his own, in Nicomedia of </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
209
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>Asia Minor. (CE. i, 709.) But Christians were too sodden in
|
|
ignorance to know these things, and it was only with the "revival
|
|
of historical criticism" which marked the beginning of the end of
|
|
the Ages of Faith, that the truth was disclosed, or could have been
|
|
perceived. In words that blast and sear with infamy the
|
|
perpetrators and the conscious beneficiaries of this monumental
|
|
fraud and forgery, Gibbon says:</p>
|
|
<p> "Fraud is the resource of weakness and cunning; and the
|
|
strong, though ignorant barbarian, was often entangled in the
|
|
net of sacerdotal policy. ... The Decretal and the Donation of
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, the two magical pillars of the spiritual and
|
|
temporal monarchy of the popes. This memorable donation was
|
|
first introduced to the world by an epistle of Adrian the
|
|
first, who exhorts Charlemagne to imitate the liberality, and
|
|
revive the name, of the great <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>. ... So deep was,
|
|
the ignorance and credulity of the times, that the most absurd
|
|
of fables was received, with equal reverence, in Greece and in
|
|
France, and is still enrolled among the decrees of the canon
|
|
law. The emperors, and the Romans, were incapable of
|
|
discerning a forgery, that subverted their rights and freedom.
|
|
... The popes themselves have indulged a smile at the
|
|
credulity of the vulgar; but a false and obsolete title still
|
|
sanctifies their reign; and, by the same fortune which has
|
|
attended the decretals and the Sibylline Oracles, the edifice
|
|
has subsisted after the foundations have been undermined."
|
|
(Gibbon, Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire, ch. xiv, pp. 740,
|
|
741, 742.)</p>
|
|
<p> The falsity of the Donation was first alleged and proved, in
|
|
1440, by the acute Humanist critic Lorenzo Valla, who has the
|
|
exposure of more than one Church forgery to his credit, and who
|
|
narrowly escaped the Holy Inquisition; and yet the document "was
|
|
still used as authentic" by Holy Church until the great Churchman
|
|
critic Baronius forced the confession of the fraud, but the Church
|
|
still for centuries clung to the fruits of its fraud, and would not
|
|
give them up, with their revenues and rotten "sovereignty." The
|
|
ancient forgery of "Donation" was finally canceled by Italian
|
|
patriot bayonets in 1870, and the stolen territories of "Peter's
|
|
Patrimon" restored to United Italy. That these Papal territories
|
|
were not of "divine" right, nor of even forged muniments which can
|
|
be plausibly urged, is thus confessed: "All of this, of course, is
|
|
based upon painstaking deductions since no document has come down
|
|
to us either from the time of Charlemagne or from that of Pepin."
|
|
(CE. xiv, 261.) This is confirmed, and the precarious nature of the
|
|
usurped tenure thus stated: "Nominally, Adrian I (772-775) was now
|
|
monarch of about two-thirds of the Italian peninsula, but his sway
|
|
was little more than nominal. ... It was in no slight degree owing
|
|
to Adrian's political sagacity, vigilance, and activity, that the
|
|
temporal power of the Papacy did not remain a fiction of the
|
|
imagination. ... The temporal power of the popes, of which Adrian
|
|
I must be considered the real founder." (CE. i, 155-156.)</p>
|
|
<p> In a paragraph which gives a word of credit to Valla for his
|
|
exposure of the forgeries of the "Donation" and the immense and
|
|
remarkable "Pseudo-Areopagite" Forgeries, previously mentioned, </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
210
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>the vast extent of the output of the Vatican Forgery-Mill -- and
|
|
the evil persistence of the Church in clinging to them after
|
|
exposure, is thus admitted: "Lorenzo Valla, 1440, counselled
|
|
Engenius IV not to rely on the Donation of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, which he
|
|
proved to be spurious. ... It was Valla who first denied the
|
|
authenticity of those writings which for centuries had been going
|
|
about as the treatises composed by Dionysius the Areopagite. Three
|
|
centuries later the Benedictines of St. Maur and the Bollandists
|
|
were still engaged in sifting out the true from the false in
|
|
patristic literature, in hagiology, in the story of the foundation
|
|
of local churches" (CE. xii, 768), -- such Liars of the Lord were
|
|
the pious parasites of Holy Church.</p>
|
|
<p> THE "SYMMACHIAN FORGERIES"</p>
|
|
<p> Among the sheaf of forged documents above confessed by CE. are
|
|
the so-called "Symmachian Forgeries," forged by or in behoof of His
|
|
Holiness Pope St. Symmachus (498-514), products of the Church
|
|
Forgery Mill operated by the Pope to further papal pretensions of
|
|
the independence of the Bishops of Rome from the just criticisms
|
|
and judgment of ecclesiastical tribunals, and putting them above
|
|
law clerical and secular. Whenever there was need for false
|
|
precedents, a simple turn of the crank of the wheel of the papal
|
|
forgery-mill produced them just to order. Thus, in this instance:
|
|
"During the dispute between Pope St. Symmachus and the anti-pope
|
|
Laurentius, the adherents of Symmachus drew up four apocryphal
|
|
writings called the 'Symmachian Forgeries'. ... The object of these
|
|
forgeries was to produce alleged instances from earlier times to
|
|
support the whole procedure of the adherents of Symmachus, and, in
|
|
particular, the position that the Roman bishop could not be judged
|
|
by any court composed of other bishops." (CE. xiv, 378.) Our
|
|
Confessor is careful twice to impute these confessed forgeries to
|
|
the "adherents" of His Holiness; but they were forged for him,
|
|
used, of course with his knowledge and consent, to further his
|
|
cause in the dispute; they are thus distinctly forgeries by His
|
|
Holiness.</p>
|
|
<p> THE "FALSE DECRETALS" FORGERIES</p>
|
|
<p> A "record of forgery in the interest of the Church which
|
|
resembles nothing else in history," in the words of Dr. McCabe, has
|
|
so far been presented; the climax and capstone is now to be seen in
|
|
what Voltaire terms "the boldest and most magnificent forgery which
|
|
has deceived the world for centuries," the so-called "False
|
|
Decretals of Isidore." While it is true, as said by Reinach, that
|
|
"never yet has the papacy acknowledged that for 1000 years it made
|
|
use of forged documents for its own benefit," yet we have seen a
|
|
thousand confessions of the fact of forgery, and either the
|
|
admission or the inevitable inference, that they were used by the
|
|
Church in the fraudulent obtention of viciously illicit ends. The
|
|
following brief paragraph of further confession from CE., is
|
|
pregnant with suggestion of the moral depravity of popes and
|
|
priests, the whole Church, the sodden ignorance of the votaries of
|
|
Holy Church, cleric and lay, the darkness of the life of mind and
|
|
spirit till at the "Renaissance" men were reborn indeed, and after
|
|
slow and painful growth of learning and of freeing from fear, began
|
|
to expose the Church in its forgeries, </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
211
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>frauds, and vices. The tone of CE. is quite apologetical for this
|
|
particular monument of Church fraud; it seeks palliation in the
|
|
conditions of ignorance of the Middle Ages; but it forgets that
|
|
Holy Church purposely produced this ignorance, and that Popes and
|
|
Church are illumined by the Holy Ghost of their God against all
|
|
ignorance and error so that its "Church never has erred and never
|
|
shall": but maybe this statement is itself an error. CE. now speaks
|
|
for this gigantic fraud of Holy Church, the False Isidorian
|
|
Decretals:</p>
|
|
<p> "Isidorian Decretals is the name given to certain
|
|
apocryphal letters contained in a collection of canon laws
|
|
composed about the middle of the ninth century. ... Nowadays
|
|
every one agrees that these so-called papal letters are
|
|
forgeries. These documents, about 100 in number, appeared
|
|
suddenly in the ninth century and are nowhere mentioned before
|
|
that time. ... The pseudo-Isidore makes use of documents
|
|
written long after the times of the popes to whom he
|
|
attributed them. The popes of the first three centuries are
|
|
made to quote documents that did not appear until the fourth
|
|
or fifth century, etc. Then again there are endless
|
|
anachronisms. The Middle Ages were deceived by this huge
|
|
forgery, but during the Renaissance men of learning and the
|
|
canonists generally began to recognize the fraud. ...
|
|
Nevertheless the official edition of the 'Corpus Juris,' in
|
|
1580, upheld the genuineness of the false decretals." (CE. vi,
|
|
773.) But the God-guided Vicars of God knew they were
|
|
forgeries.</p>
|
|
<p> "Upon these spurious decretals," says Hallam, "was built
|
|
the great fabric of papal supremacy over the different
|
|
national churches; a fabric which has stood after its
|
|
foundations crumbled beneath it; for no one has pretended to
|
|
deny, for the last two centuries, that the imposture is too
|
|
palpable for any but the most ignorant ages to credit."
|
|
(History of the Middle Ages, Bk. VII, ch. ii, 99.) Though on
|
|
their face affecting only matters spiritual and causes
|
|
ecclesiastical, they soon had all Europe strangled as in the
|
|
tentacles of a giant octopus, by a process thus described by
|
|
Lord Bryce: "By the invention and adoption of the False
|
|
Decretals it (the Church) had provided itself with a legal
|
|
system suited to any emergency, and which gave it unlimited
|
|
authority through the Christian world in causes spiritual and
|
|
over persons ecclesiastical. Canonical ingenuity found it easy
|
|
in one way or another to make this include all causes and
|
|
persons whatsoever; for crime is always and wrong is often
|
|
sin, nor can aught be done anywhere which may not affect the
|
|
clergy." (Holy Roman Empire, ch. x, 152.) "The Forgery," says
|
|
Dr. Draper, "produced an immense extension of papal power, it
|
|
displaced the old Church government, divesting it of the
|
|
republican attributes it had possessed, and transforming it
|
|
into an absolute monarchy. It brought the bishops into
|
|
subjection to Rome, and made the pontiff the supreme judge of
|
|
the whole Christian world. It prepared the way for the great
|
|
attempt, subsequently made by Hildebrand, to convert the
|
|
states of Europe into a theocratic priest-kingdom, with the
|
|
pope at its head." (Conflict between Religion and Science, ch.
|
|
x, 271.)</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
212
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> The false pretense back of the huge forgery was that the
|
|
documents included were genuine papal letters and decretals of the
|
|
earliest popes, thus carrying back the Church's late pretensions to
|
|
the very first of the Church and to the pretended and fictitious
|
|
associates and "Successors" of Peter. These spurious documents are
|
|
taken up seriatim by the critical Father Dupin, as outlined in
|
|
ANF., viii, and each in its turn pronounced a forgery. From the
|
|
"Introductory Notice to the Decretals," I think it pertinent to
|
|
quote the following paragraph:</p>
|
|
<p> "These frauds, which, pretending to be a series of 'papal
|
|
edicts' from Clement and his successors during the ante-Niccne
|
|
ages, are, in fact, the manufactured product of the ninth
|
|
century, -- the most stupendous imposture of the world's
|
|
history, the most successful and the most stubborn in its hold
|
|
upon enlightened nations. Like the mason's framework of lath
|
|
and scantlings, on which he turns an arch of massive stone,
|
|
the Decretals served their purpose, enabling Nicholas I to
|
|
found the Papacy by their insignificant aid. That swelling
|
|
arch of vanity once reared, the framework might be knocked
|
|
out; but the fabric stood, and has borne up every weight
|
|
imposed upon it for ages. Its strong abutments have been
|
|
ignorance and despotism. Nicholas produced his flimsy
|
|
framework of imposture, and amazed the whole Church by the
|
|
audacity of the claims he founded upon it. The age, however,
|
|
was unlearned and uncritical; and, in spite of remonstrances
|
|
from France under lead of Hincmar, bishop of Rheims, the West
|
|
patiently submitted to the overthrow of the ancient Canons and
|
|
the Nicene Constitutions, and bowed to the yoke of a new canon
|
|
law, of which these frauds were not only made an integral, but
|
|
the essential, part. The East never accepted them for a
|
|
moment. ... The Papacy created the Western schism, and
|
|
contrived to call it 'the schism of the Greeks.' The Decretals
|
|
had created the Papacy, and they enabled the first Pope to
|
|
assume that communion with himself was the test of Catholic
|
|
communion: hence his excommunication of the Easterns, which,
|
|
after brief intervals of relaxation, settled into the chronic
|
|
schism of the Papacy, and produced the awful history of the
|
|
medieval Church in Western Europe." (ANF. viii, 601.)</p>
|
|
<p> THE FORGED DECRETUM OF GRATIAN</p>
|
|
<p> Great and pernicious as were the influences of the forged
|
|
Isidorian Decretals, there yet remained a step to bring the Forger
|
|
Church to the height of its age-old ambitious scheme to completely
|
|
imitate the olden Roman Empire and dominate the world. "The School
|
|
of Bologna had just revived the study of Roman law; Gratian sought
|
|
to inaugurate a similar study of canon law. But while compilations
|
|
of texts and official collections were available for Roman law, or
|
|
'Corpus juris civilis,' Gratian had no such assistance. He
|
|
therefore adopted the plan of inserting the texts in the body of
|
|
his general treatise; from the disordered mass of canons, collected
|
|
from the earliest days, he selected the law actually in force. ...
|
|
The science of canon law was at length established." (CE. ix, 57.)
|
|
But this disordered mass out of which Gratian selected was very
|
|
largely the old </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
213
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>forged reliances of the Church; thus in making his selections
|
|
"Gratian alleges forged decretals" (CE. iv,), -- including the
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> Donation, the Isidore forgeries, etc. Yet, withal, "the
|
|
'Decretum' of Gratian was considered in the middle of the twelfth
|
|
century as a corpus juris canonici, i.e. a code of ecclesiastic
|
|
laws then in force." (CE. iv, 671.) It clinched the rivets in the
|
|
forged fetters of the Church upon the neck of Christendom, and
|
|
sanctioned the principles which in the next century were invoked to
|
|
found and justify the Holy Inquisition. Of this celebrated
|
|
document, the beginning of the "science" of Church legistic
|
|
sophistry, Draper says: "The most potent instrument of the new
|
|
papal system was Gratian's Decretum, which was issued about the
|
|
middle of the Twelfth Century. It was a mass of fabrications. It
|
|
made the whole Christian world, through the papacy, the domain of
|
|
the Italian clergy. It inculcated that it is lawful to constrain
|
|
men to goodness, to torture and execute heretics, and to confiscate
|
|
their property; that to kill an excommunicated person is not
|
|
murder; that the pope, in his unlimited superiority to all law,
|
|
stands on an equality with the Son of God." (Conflict between
|
|
Science and Religion, ch. x, p. 273.)</p>
|
|
<p> THE FULL FRUITION OF FORGERY</p>
|
|
<p> As said by Dr. McCabe: "There was no need of further
|
|
forgeries. Now securely established on its basis of forged
|
|
donations of temporal power and territory, forged decretals stating
|
|
its spiritual powers, and forged lives of saints and martyrs, the
|
|
papacy was so strong and prosperous that the popes actually dreamed
|
|
of forming a sort of United States of Europe with themselves as
|
|
virtual presidents. Nearly every country was in some ingenious way
|
|
made out to be a fief of the Papacy and bound to recognize the Pope
|
|
as its feudal monarch." (LBB. 1130, 44-5.)</p>
|
|
<p> Founding thus its religion, that newer form of <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>ism called
|
|
<span class="NORP">Christianity</span>, on falsehood and forged "Scripture" documents; its
|
|
pretensions to superiority and "primacy" on gross "interpolations"
|
|
into the forged Scriptures; its spurious claims to territorial
|
|
possessions and temporal sovereignty upon forged title-deeds and
|
|
Donations; its "spiritual" and legal domination upon forged Church
|
|
law and constitutions, -- thus was the visible Church of Christ
|
|
brought to the perfection of its power and degradation. For fifteen
|
|
hundred years every document under which it claimed, it forged; it
|
|
forged until it had no longer need of forgery, for nothing was left
|
|
to forge; forged so long as it could forge with impunity, for with
|
|
the Renaissance its old forgeries began to be discovered and
|
|
exposed, and it could commit undetected no further documentary
|
|
forgeries.</p>
|
|
<p> Such is the objective side, as it were, of the Christian
|
|
religion and its Church. Its subjective side, the subjugation of
|
|
its victims by imposed ignorance and superstition, through
|
|
limitless forgeries of miracles, martyrs, saints and relics,
|
|
remains to be briefly noticed as a sort of by-product of the Holy
|
|
Church Forgery Mill.</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
214
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> THE FRUSTRATED EMS REVOLT</p>
|
|
<p> Not to mention the revolt known as the "Reformation," the
|
|
discovery of the unholy and criminal practices of the Church in the
|
|
matter of its claims of primacy and jurisdiction, as defined in the
|
|
Isidorian False Decretals, led to one tardy and half-way
|
|
ecclesiastical effort of revolt within the Roman Church, which
|
|
might have developed into something worth while to humanity as a
|
|
whole, but that "political considerations" intervened to bring it
|
|
to naught. It is cited simply by way of historical reminder, and as
|
|
suggestive of what may yet be effectively accomplished to the full
|
|
extent of popular repudiation.</p>
|
|
<p> The Congress of Ems, in 1786, was a gathering of the
|
|
representatives of a number of German Archbishops and other clergy,
|
|
"for the purpose of protesting against papal interference in the
|
|
exercise of episcopal powers and fixing the future relations
|
|
between these archbishops and the Roman pontiff. ... On 25 August,
|
|
1786, these archiepiscopal representatives signed the notorious
|
|
'Punctation of Ems,, consisting of twenty-three articles, which
|
|
aimed at making the German archbishops practically independent of
|
|
Rome. Assuming that Christ gave unlimited power of binding and
|
|
loosing to the Apostles and their successors, the bishops, the
|
|
'Punctation' maintains that all prerogatives and reservations which
|
|
were not actually connected with the primacy during the first three
|
|
centuries owe their origin, to the Pseudo-Isidorian decretals,
|
|
universally acknowledged as false, and, hence, that the bishops
|
|
must look upon all interference of the Roman Curia with the
|
|
exercise of their episcopal functions in their own dioceses as
|
|
encroachments on their rights. ... It may easily be seen that the
|
|
articles of the 'Punctation' lower the papal primacy to a merely
|
|
honorary one and advocate an independence of the arch-bishops in
|
|
regard to the pope which is entirely incompatible with the Unity
|
|
and Catholicity of the Church of Christ," -- such are the unctuous
|
|
objections made by Christ's Church. However, the Punctations were
|
|
"ratified by the Archbishops, and sent to Emperor Joseph ii for his
|
|
support. The Emperor was pleased with the articles, and would have
|
|
pledged his unqualified support if his councillors had not for
|
|
political reasons advised him otherwise." (CE. v, 409-10.)
|
|
Rejecting the "assumption," now known to be false and forged, that
|
|
Christ had anything at all to do with Peter and the Rock-and-Keys
|
|
forgery, all may now feel free to discard these primitive
|
|
"Scripture" frauds just as all the others of the Church which have
|
|
been exposed as false and abandoned.</p>
|
|
<p> FORGED SAINTS, <span class="NORP">MARTYRS</span> AND MIRACLES</p>
|
|
<p> "Throughout Church History there are miracles so well
|
|
authenticated that their truth cannot be denied." (CE. x, 345.)
|
|
" ... after the working of Satan with all power and signs and
|
|
lying wonders." (2 Thess. ii, 9.)</p>
|
|
<p> Look we for a moment 'on this picture and on that, the
|
|
counterfeit presentment, to slightly adapt Hamlet, of two modern
|
|
Miracles, published to the world in the Metropolitan press, -- a
|
|
sort of study in what may be called Comparative Credulity. The </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
215
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>first, although they "read it in the paper," no Christian or no
|
|
Infidel will hesitate to laugh at or commiserate as a ridiculous
|
|
superstition, taken advantage of by greedy priests to exploit their
|
|
credulous dupes. Only benighted heathen Buddhists religiously
|
|
believe the following:</p>
|
|
<p> "Peasant says Buddha arose and Cured Him.
|
|
"Chinese Tale of a 'Miracle' by Stone Image Causes Religious
|
|
"Revival at Peking</p>
|
|
<p> "Peking, Sept. 7. A tremendous revival of religious
|
|
superstition is being experienced by the Buddhists of Peking and
|
|
vicinity, because an aged peasant vows that he was cured (last
|
|
week) of a long-standing ailment when one of the stone images of
|
|
the sitting Buddha at Palichwang Pagoda rose to its feet, stepped
|
|
forward, and then raised its arm in sign of benediction.</p>
|
|
<p> "The old peasant, named Chang Chi-kuang, is a farmer, living
|
|
near Palichwang Pagoda [a short distance from the Peking gate of
|
|
the Great Wall]. Chang Chi-kuang, who, his neighbors say, has long
|
|
suffered from lung trouble [passing by with a load of garden-truck
|
|
which he was carrying afoot into the city], became exhausted, and
|
|
stopped for rest and for refuge from the heat in the shade of an
|
|
old tree near the Pagoda, which is thirteen stories high and was
|
|
built 500 years ago, and in the days of the Ming emperors.</p>
|
|
<p> "Chang Chi-kuang, as he lay resting in the shade, found his
|
|
gaze focused on the figure of the sitting Buddha, in the third
|
|
story of the Pagoda. ... The figure rose, Chang says, took two
|
|
steps, and raised its arms with a gesture of blessing. At this
|
|
point, according to Chang, he nearly swooned. He then fell to his
|
|
knees in devout worship, and when he raised his head after a long
|
|
prayer the Buddha had gone back to the place and position of the
|
|
last few hundred years.</p>
|
|
<p> "The story of this miracle has spread rapidly. Every day now
|
|
thousands of pilgrims go to Palichwang from Peking and from the
|
|
villages and farms in this part of the province.</p>
|
|
<p> "Both sides of the road from the Peking gate to the Pagoda are
|
|
now lined with booths where incense is sold, and hundreds of Lama
|
|
priests, with their begging bowls, now reap a rich gathering from
|
|
the pious pilgrims. ... And old Chang swears that he is now in
|
|
better health than he has enjoyed since he was a boy." (Special
|
|
Correspondence of the New York Times, October 14, 1928.)</p>
|
|
<p> The foregoing religious news item is found archived in the
|
|
"Morgue" of the Great "Religious" Daily under the discrediting
|
|
caption "Superstitions"; it will be noticed that the word "Miracle"
|
|
in the headline is printed in quotes. No such skeptical note is to
|
|
be found in its next -- Christian -- report.</p>
|
|
<p> Hundreds of millions of pious priest-ridden Christians do
|
|
believe the following, testified under oath in a military court, --
|
|
other hundreds of millions will regard it as they do the Buddhist
|
|
tale above related, -- and the Christian one below:</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
216
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> "Soldier's Story of a Miracle Saves Him at Court-Martial.</p>
|
|
<p> "Croatian newspapers tell how a miracle figured as a
|
|
determining factor in a court-martial trial. During the
|
|
Austrian invasion of Upper Italy a Croatian soldier was
|
|
suspected of having stolen a pearl necklace from a statue of
|
|
the Holy Virgin in a pilgrims' church and was brought to
|
|
trial. He admitted having taken the necklace. but insisted
|
|
that it was a gift to him.</p>
|
|
<p> "He said that he had gone into the church to pray, and
|
|
had lamented before the statue of the Virgin the sad lot of
|
|
his family, whom he had been compelled to leave destitute.
|
|
Thereupon, he said, the Holy Virgin bowed her head, and took
|
|
the pearls from her neck and handed them to him.</p>
|
|
<p> "The Court could not venture to reject this story
|
|
offhand, as there was general belief in the miracle-working
|
|
power of the statue. So it referred the matter to two Bishops,
|
|
asking them whether such a miracle was within the domain of
|
|
possibility.</p>
|
|
<p> "The Bishops were perplexed. If they answered 'Yes,' they
|
|
might be protecting a rascal. But if they said 'No,' they
|
|
would destroy the repute of that church for miraculous power
|
|
and phenomena. Finally they answered that such a miracle was
|
|
within the range of possibility; and in consequence the
|
|
soldier was acquitted.</p>
|
|
<p> "But the Colonel of the regiment to which the soldier
|
|
belonged was either skeptical or of a most prudent turn of
|
|
mind, for after the verdict of the court had been announced he
|
|
issued his order: 'In future no soldier under my command is
|
|
permitted, under heavy penalty, to accept a gift from
|
|
anybody."' (New York Times, Oct. 10, 1926.)</p>
|
|
<p> It is not reported whether this episcopal pair of men of God
|
|
were unfrocked for perjury and the perversion of justice, or even
|
|
gently chided by His Holiness.</p>
|
|
<p> The "lying wonders" of saints, martyrs and miracles are so
|
|
intimately related, and so inextricably interwoven the one form of
|
|
pious fraud with the others, that they must needs be bunched
|
|
together in this summary treatment of but few out of countless
|
|
thousands, millions perhaps, of them recorded for faith and
|
|
edification in the innumerable "Acts" and "Lives" and wonder-works
|
|
of the Holy Church of God. Those which are here mentioned are
|
|
picked at random from a turning of the pages of the fifteen
|
|
ponderous tomes of CE., where they may be verified under the
|
|
respective names of the Saints. With scarcely an exception they are
|
|
soberly recounted as actual verities of the past and living
|
|
realities of the present.</p>
|
|
<p> The degraded state of mind of the Faithful, and the moral
|
|
depravity of the Church which for nearly two millennia, and yet
|
|
into the twentieth century, peddles these childish fables as
|
|
articles of Christian faith, may be known by the mere fact of the </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
217
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>existence in limitless numbers of these precious myths. Founded by
|
|
Jean Bolland, of Belgium, in the early years of the 1600's, an
|
|
important Church Society, known as the Bollandists, yet exists and
|
|
industriously carries on its labors. "This monumental work, the
|
|
Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, has become the foundation of all
|
|
investigation in hagiography and legend." (CE. ix, 129.) For some
|
|
three centuries its task has been and yet is, to edit and publish
|
|
in official Acta Sanctorum the Lives and "Acts" -- authenticated
|
|
records -- of every Saint in the Holy Roman Calendar. Arranged in
|
|
order of dates of their "feast days," so numerous is this heavenly
|
|
mill-made host that up to the month of October over 25000
|
|
officially authenticated Saints are recorded; the Saint-library of
|
|
the Society has over 150000 saintly volumes. As it costs about
|
|
$50000 to turn out one Saint by canonization, and "not less than
|
|
$20000" for beatification or the bestowal of the title of Blessed
|
|
(CE. ii, 369), -- the Church revenue from this single source is
|
|
seen to have been
|
|
considerable.</p>
|
|
<p> Holy Church is very careful and conscientious in its processes
|
|
of certifying Saints; at least two allegedly genuine and fully
|
|
authenticated miracles must be proven to have been performed by the
|
|
candidate alive or worked by his relics after death, before final
|
|
payment is required and the name certified as a Saint to the
|
|
Calendar. A fairly modern instance showing this clerical
|
|
scrupulosity may be cited, that of the Venerable Mary de Sales, who
|
|
died in 1875 -- "Wishing to save the world over again, Jesus Our
|
|
Lord had to use means till then unknown," that is, "The Way"
|
|
invented by Mary; but no miracles were satisfactorily proved to
|
|
justify making her a Saint; however, her sanctity was proved, and
|
|
she was decreed Venerable; some miracles must later have been
|
|
proved up in her behalf, or the requisite $20000 paid, -- for in
|
|
1897 her Beatification was decreed. (CE. ix, 754.)</p>
|
|
<p> However, even Infallibility may be fooled sometimes, even if
|
|
not all the time. The most notorious instance is that of the holy
|
|
Saint Josaphat, "under which name and due to an odd slip of
|
|
inerrant inspiration, the great Lord Buddha, "The Light of Asia,"
|
|
was duly certified a Saint in the Roman Martyrology (27 Nov.; CE.
|
|
iii, 297). More modernly, in 1802, an old grave was found
|
|
containing a cadaver and a bottle "supposed to contain the blood of
|
|
a martyr"; the relies were enshrined in an altar, and the erstwhile
|
|
owner of the remains was duly and solemnly canonized as Saint
|
|
Philomena; but this was "by mistake"; and thus were fooled two
|
|
infallible Holinesses, Gregory XVI and Leo III. (CE. xii, 25.)</p>
|
|
<p> "SPECULA STULTORUM"</p>
|
|
<p> Before thumbing the wonder-filled pages of CE. to pick out
|
|
from thousands, sundry examples of the inspired and truthful
|
|
histories of Saints and Martyrs, recorded for the moral edification
|
|
and mental stultification of the Faithful of the Twentieth Century,
|
|
-- when only the miracles of Science in benefit of humanity are
|
|
recognized by many as real, -- we may note the comment of that
|
|
Exponent of "Catholic Truth" conscientiously questioning a case or
|
|
two of the certified Saint-</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
218
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>records. With respect to one of the notable female Saints, St.
|
|
Catherine of Alexandria, it is candidly explained: "Unfortunately
|
|
these Acts have been transformed and distorted by fantastic and
|
|
diffuse descriptions which are entirely due to the imagination of
|
|
the narrators -- [a notable one of whom was the great Bossuet of
|
|
France], -- who cared less to state authentic facts than to charm
|
|
their readers by recitals of the marvelous." (CE. iii, 445.)
|
|
Speaking of another case, St. Emmeram: "The improbability of the
|
|
tale, the fantastic details of the Saint's martyrdom, and the
|
|
fantastic account of the prodigies attending his death, show that
|
|
the writer, infected by the pious mania of his time, simply added
|
|
to the facts imaginary details supposed to redound to the glory of
|
|
the martyr." (v, 406.) How often have we heard from this same
|
|
exponent of "Catholic Truth" this same exculpation of priestly
|
|
pious mendacity in wondermongering!</p>
|
|
<p> Questioning a few such instances, implicitly carries with it
|
|
the moral assurance that all the others, related as unquestioned
|
|
fact, are free from such taint of fraud, -- are, indeed, among
|
|
those "miracles so well authenticated that their truth cannot be
|
|
denied." Indeed, the reality and authenticity of very many, for
|
|
example, the bubbling blood of the sixteen-hundred-year-old
|
|
martyred St. Januarius, and its frequent efficacy in stopping
|
|
eruptions of the Volcano Mt. Vesuvius, are explicitly affirmed by
|
|
the Catholic Encyclopedia, which is now to be quoted. It may be
|
|
suspected, however, that even these certified Saint-tales, like so
|
|
many others, are fakes and "belong to the common foundation of all
|
|
legends of saints" (CE. i, 40), the fraud of which is confessed.</p>
|
|
<p> Very portentous is this St. Januarius, "martyred" about 305:
|
|
"His holy blood is kept unto this day in a phial of glass, which
|
|
being set near his head, bubbles up as though it were fresh," in
|
|
the church of St. Januarius at Naples; a long article is replete
|
|
with plenary proofs of this and other miracles of the Saint. He was
|
|
thrown into a fiery furnace, but the flames would not touch him and
|
|
his companions; his executioner was struck blind, but the Saint
|
|
cured him. His holy remains were brought to Naples, and are famous
|
|
on account of many miracles, as recorded in the official papal
|
|
"present Roman Martyrology," a longer account being given in the
|
|
Breviary, as quoted in these words of assurance: "Among these
|
|
miracles is remarkable the stopping of eruptions of Mount Vesuvius,
|
|
whereby both that neighborhood and places afar off have been like
|
|
to be destroyed. It is also well known and is the plain fact, seen
|
|
even unto this day, that when the blood of St. Januarius, kept
|
|
dried up in a small glass phial, is put in sight of the head of the
|
|
same martyr, it is wont to melt and bubble up in a very strange
|
|
way, as though it had but freshly been shed. ... For more than four
|
|
hundred years this liquefaction has taken place at frequent
|
|
intervals"; elaborate tests, the last reported in 1902 and 1904,
|
|
have been unable to account for the phenomenon except as due to
|
|
miracle. "It has had much to do with many conversations to
|
|
Catholicism. Unfortunately, however, allegations have often been
|
|
made as to the favorable verdict expressed by scientific men of
|
|
note, which are not always verifiable. The supposed testimony of
|
|
the great chemist, Sir Humphrey Davy, who is declared to have
|
|
expressed his belief in the genuineness of
|
|
the miracle, is a case in point." (CE. viii, 295-7.)</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
219
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> This Holy Bottle of blood might well be borrowed to stop the
|
|
present eruption of Mt. AEtna in Sicily, which (as this is
|
|
written), is destroying several populous towns and "the most
|
|
intensively cultivated land in Sicily," by a torrent of lava a mile
|
|
in width, against which the local Patron seems impotent: "The lava
|
|
struck Mascali, a town of 10000 inhabitants last night, just after
|
|
the townsfolk had finished celebrating the feast of their patron,
|
|
St. Leonardo, whose statue was carried on the shoulders of four old
|
|
men." (N.Y. Herald-Tribune, Nov. 8, 1928.) But such pious
|
|
thaumaturgies do not seem to be overly potent this year. In this
|
|
unguarded a priori surmise I find myself mistaken, and apologize to
|
|
the gentle reader and to Holy Church. There is no need to borrow
|
|
the Vesuvius-stopping Blood of St. Januarius; Sicily has its own
|
|
local AEtna-stopper, the Holy Veil of St. Agatha, "which, according
|
|
to tradition, has arrested the flow of lava toward Catania in the
|
|
past." This sacred and potent relic, a bit tardily, after several
|
|
large towns have been wiped out, has now "been exposed in the
|
|
cathedral by order of the Archbishop Cardinal Nava, who also issued
|
|
an appeal for prayers by all in the diocese. He exhorted the
|
|
population to remain calm and maintain their faith. On previous
|
|
occasions prayers to St. Agatha were said when an eruption
|
|
occurred, and the lava stopped short before Nicolosi and
|
|
Linguaglossa, twenty-five miles north of Catania." (N.Y. <span class="LOC">Sun</span>, Nov.
|
|
13, 1928.) This tardy exposition of the Relics and order for
|
|
prayers, -- after scientific examinations and airplane explorations
|
|
had shown that the fiery forces were about spent and "the lava
|
|
showing signs of solidification and emissions from the smoking
|
|
mountain lessening," -- is somewhat posthumous, or humorous; the
|
|
devastation was already wrought. If St. Agatha's anti-volcano Veil
|
|
had been gotten out of storage and waved or hung up on the first
|
|
signs of eruption, some of this history, one way or another, would
|
|
have been different. But if the Saint can stop volcanoes after the
|
|
evil deed is done, -- Well, one miracle of prevention is better
|
|
than a larger number of miracles of cure, -- which are ineffective
|
|
to repair the havoc in such cases. Like miracles of 'liquefaction
|
|
of Holy Blood yet occur abundantly, as in the noted cases of
|
|
"'Saints John the Baptist, Stephen, Pantaleone, Patricia, Nicholas,
|
|
Aloysius," et id omne genus; so with the bottled "Milk of our Lady"
|
|
and the canned "fat of St. Thomas Aquinas," on their respective
|
|
Saint-days!. (CE. viii, 297.)</p>
|
|
<p> The sacred Council of Trent, in 1546, decreed: "That the
|
|
saints who reign with Christ offer to God their prayers for men;
|
|
that it is good and useful to invoke them by supplication and to
|
|
have recourse to their aid and assistance in order to obtain from
|
|
God His benefits through His Son and Our Savior Jesus Christ, who
|
|
alone is our Savior and Redeemer." (Session xxv.) But the sacred
|
|
Council, in its preoccupation of combating the nascent outraged
|
|
revolt and protest of Protestantism, which was filching its most
|
|
plausible counterfeits for circulation in a hostile camp, -- seems
|
|
to have overlooked this scrap of forged Scripture: "For there is
|
|
one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ
|
|
Jesus." (I Tim. ii, 5.) The effect, however, of this multiplication
|
|
of saintly mediators is picturesque; it is finely exemplified in
|
|
the great painting "The Intercession of the </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
220
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>Saints," in the Royal Gallery at Naples: In the background is the
|
|
plague-stricken city; in the foreground the people are praying to
|
|
the city authorities to avert the plague; the city authorities are
|
|
praying to the Carthusian monks; the monks are praying to the
|
|
Blessed Virgin; the Virgin prays to Christ; and Christ prays to his
|
|
Father Almighty. The Holy Ghost, who "itself maketh intercession
|
|
for us with groanings which cannot be uttered," is quite left out
|
|
of the picture. Just how good and useful it is to invoke the Saints
|
|
directly, saving Doctor's bills and other inconveniences, will be
|
|
noticed in the catalogue of Saints below inscribed.</p>
|
|
<p> It was in the fifth century, says Dr. McCabe, that "Rome began
|
|
on a large scale the forgery of lives of martyrs. Relics of martyrs
|
|
were now being 'discovered' in great numbers to meet the pious
|
|
demand of ignorant Christendom, and legends were fabricated by the
|
|
thousands to authenticate the spurious bits of bone." (LBB. 1130,
|
|
p. 40.) "Such," says CE., "are the 'Martyrium S. Polycarpi,'
|
|
admitting, though it does, much that may be due to the pious fancy
|
|
of the eye-witness"; also "the 'Acta SS. Perpetuae et Felicitas.'"</p>
|
|
<p> The Saint-mill of Holy Church began operations very early, or
|
|
reached for grist far back into antiquity for the beginnings of its
|
|
Calendar of Saints. The first Saint who greets us among the
|
|
countless hordes of canonized Holy Ones is no less a primitive
|
|
personage that St. Abel, the younger son and second heir of our
|
|
mythical Father Adam, of Eden, who was canonized by Jesus Christ
|
|
himself, we are told, "as the first of a long line of prophets
|
|
martyred for justice's sake," as is the clerical interpretation of
|
|
Matt. xxiii, 34-35, "That upon you may come all the righteous blood
|
|
shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel unto the blood of
|
|
Zacharias," -- a bloody invocation in later centuries peculiarly
|
|
appropriate to the Church of Jesus Christ. This is a genuine
|
|
surprise, for no miracles wrought by St. Abel are recorded, and no
|
|
generous canonization fees seem to have been paid for his account
|
|
into the Treasury of the Lord in Rome.</p>
|
|
<p> OLD <span class="NORP">PAGAN</span> STUFF</p>
|
|
<p> Many of the <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> gods were converted into Christian Saints,
|
|
and seem to have brought over with them the special curative or
|
|
prophylactic attributes for which they were invoked as specifics.
|
|
Indeed, the whole system was purely <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>: "Cures, apparitions,
|
|
prophecies, visions, transfigurations, stigmata, pleasant odor,
|
|
incorruption -- all these phenomena were also known to antiquity.
|
|
Ancient Greece exhibits stone monuments and inscriptions which bear
|
|
witness to cures and apparitions in ancient mythology. History
|
|
tells of Aristeas of Proconnessus, Hermotimus of Claxomenae,
|
|
Epimenides of Crete, that they were ascetics and thereby became
|
|
ecstatic, even to the degree of the soul leaving the body,
|
|
remaining far removed from it, and being able to appear in other
|
|
places." (CE. ix, 129.) The pious plan of temporal salvation in the
|
|
Ages of Faith is thus historically vouched: "The whole social life
|
|
of the Catholic world before the Reformation was animated with the
|
|
idea of protection from the citizens of heaven. There were patrons
|
|
or protectors in various forms of </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
221
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>illness, as for instance: St. Agatha, diseases of the breast;
|
|
Apollonia, toothache; Blaise, sore throat; Clare and Lucy, eyes;
|
|
Benedict, against poison; Hubert, against bites of dogs." (CE. xi,
|
|
566.) "Catania honours St. Agatha as her patron saint, and
|
|
throughout the region around Mt. AEtna she is invoked against the
|
|
eruptions of the volcano, as elsewhere against fire and lightning."
|
|
(i, 204.)</p>
|
|
<p> To the infamous sanctified fable of St. Hugh are imputed
|
|
sundry unholy accusations and persecutions against the Jews, --
|
|
(here only repeated because they are falsely affirmed in the
|
|
inspired Bull of Canonization. A Christian child was lyingly
|
|
alleged to have been crucified by the Jews; the earth refused to
|
|
receive its body, and it was thrown into a well, where it was found
|
|
with the marks of crucifixion upon it; nineteen Jews were
|
|
infamously put to death for the fabulous crime, and ninety others
|
|
were condemned to death but released, for the sake of greed, upon
|
|
payment of large fines; "Copin, the leader, stated that it was a
|
|
Jewish custom to crucify a boy once a year"! (CE. vii, 515);
|
|
similar infamies of falsehood are related in connection with St.
|
|
William of Norwich. (CE. xv, 635.)</p>
|
|
<p> Here is a monumental miracle with every assurance of verity.
|
|
"St. Winefride was a maiden of great personal charm and endowed
|
|
with rare gifts of intellect. The fame of her beauty and
|
|
accomplishments reached the ears of Caradoc, son of the neighboring
|
|
Prince Alen." She refused all his advances; frightened by his
|
|
threats she fled towards the church where her uncle St. Beuno was
|
|
celebrating Mass. "Maddened by a disappointed passion, Caradoc
|
|
pursued her and, overtaking her on the slope above the site of the
|
|
present well, he drew his sword and at one blow severed her head
|
|
from the body. The head rolled down the incline and, where it
|
|
rested, there gushed forth a spring." St. Beuno, hearing of the
|
|
tragedy, left the altar, and accompanied by the parents came to the
|
|
spot where the head lay beside the spring. "Taking up the maiden's
|
|
head be carried it to where the body lay, covered both with his
|
|
cloak, and then re-entered the church to finish the Holy Sacrifice.
|
|
When Mass was ended he knelt beside the Saint's body, offered up a
|
|
fervent prayer to God, and ordered the cloak which covered it to be
|
|
removed. Thereupon Winefride, as if awakening from a deep slumber,
|
|
rose up with no sign of the severing of the head except a thin
|
|
white circle round her neck. Seeing the murderer leaning on his
|
|
sword with an insolent and defiant air, St. Beuno invoked the
|
|
chastisement of heaven, and Caradoc fell dead on the spot, the
|
|
popular belief being that the earth opened and swallowed him.
|
|
Miraculously restored to life, Winefride seems to have lived in
|
|
almost perpetual ecstasy and to have had familiar converse with
|
|
God." The place where this signal miracle occurred was at the time
|
|
called "Dry Hollow," but with its miraculous spring its name was
|
|
changed to Holywell, and it stands there in Wales to this day, a
|
|
bubblingly vocal witness to the verity of this holy yarn. Born in
|
|
600, beheaded and reheaded at sweet sixteen, she died Nov. 3, 660;
|
|
"her death was foreshown to her in a vision by Christ Himself."
|
|
(CE. xv, 656-657.) "For more than a thousand years this Miraculous
|
|
Well has attracted numerous pilgrims; documents preserved in the
|
|
British Museum give us its history, with the </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
222
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>earliest record of the miraculous cures effected by its waters.
|
|
These ancient cures included cases of dropsy, paralysis, gout,
|
|
melancholia, sciatica, cancer, alienation of mind, blood spitting,
|
|
etc. etc., also deliverance from evil spirits." (CE. repeats the
|
|
history of St. Winefride, or Gwenfrewi, in vii, 438.)</p>
|
|
<p> St. Wolfgang, by a unique miracle, "forced the devil to help
|
|
him build a church." -- Et id omne genus -- ad nauseam. Such is a
|
|
handful of the holy chaff of faith, purveyed by Holy Church to all
|
|
Believers to this day. Scores of like saint-lies are here omitted
|
|
to Save space.</p>
|
|
<p> These gross and degrading impostures by forged miracles not
|
|
only went unrebuked and unchecked by the Vicars of God; many of the
|
|
vice-Gods were among the most prolific miracle-mongers of the ages
|
|
of Faith. One of the most notorious wonder-workers and wonder-forgers of Holy Church was no less a personage than His Holiness
|
|
Pope St. Gregory the Great (590-604). He has the doubtful
|
|
distinction of being the author of four celebrated volumes of
|
|
Dialogi, which are a veritable thesaurus of holy wonders. From this
|
|
treasury of nature-fakery we have seen the old <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> example,
|
|
affirmed as Christian fact by Gregory, as quoted by CE., of the man
|
|
carried off by mistake by the Angel of Death, but restored to life
|
|
when the oversight was discovered. He also relates a great flood of
|
|
the Tiber which threatened to destroy Rome, until a copy of His
|
|
Holiness's "Dialogi" was thrown into the swollen waters, which
|
|
immediately subsided, and the Holy City was thus saved. His
|
|
Holiness solemnly records the case of an awful belly-ache suffered
|
|
by a holy nun, which he avers was caused by her having swallowed a
|
|
devil along with a piece of lettuce which she was eating without
|
|
having taken the due precaution of making the sign of the cross
|
|
over it to scare away any lurking imps of Satan; and this devil,
|
|
when commanded by a holy monk to come out of the nun, derisively
|
|
replied: "How am I to blame? I was sitting on the lettuce, and this
|
|
woman, not having made the sign of the cross, ate me along with
|
|
it!" (Dial. lib. i, c. 4.) When elected Pope in 590 the city of
|
|
Rome was afflicted by a dreadful pestilence; the angels of the
|
|
angry God of all mercies were relentlessly flinging fiery darts
|
|
among the devout Christian populace. To conjure away the pestilence
|
|
-- due perhaps primarily to the filth of the Holy City and its
|
|
inhabitants -- His Holiness headed a monkish parade through the
|
|
stricken city, when of a sudden he saw the Archangel Michael
|
|
hovering over the great <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> mausoleum of Hadrian, just in the act
|
|
of sheathing his flaming sword, while three angels with him chanted
|
|
the original verses of the Regina Caeli; the great Pope made the
|
|
Sign of the Cross and broke into Hallelujahs -- (that is, "Praise
|
|
to Yahveh," the old Hebrew war-god). In commemoration of the
|
|
wondrous event, the pious Pope built a Christian chapel, dedicated
|
|
to St. Michael, atop the <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> monument, and over it erected the
|
|
colossal statue of the Archangel in the sword-sheathing act, which
|
|
stands there in Rome to this day -- the Castel Saint' Angelo, in
|
|
enduring proof of the miracle and of the veracity of papal
|
|
narratives. (CE. vi, 782.) The authorship of this monkish Hymn to
|
|
the Queen of Heaven being unknown, pious invention supplied its
|
|
true history: "that St. Gregory the Great heard the first three
|
|
lines chanted by angels on a certain Easter </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
223
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>morning in Rome while he walked barefoot in a great religious
|
|
procession, and that the Saint thereupon added the fourth line."
|
|
(C.E. xii, 719.) Such is ecclesiastical "history."</p>
|
|
<p> The literary attainments of His Holiness Gregory were
|
|
tempered, if not corrupted, by his holy zeal, for "in his
|
|
commentary on Job, Gregory I warns the reader that he need not be
|
|
surprised to find mistakes of Latin <span class="PERSON">Grammar</span>, since in dealing with
|
|
so holy a work as the Bible a writer should not stop to make sure
|
|
whether his cases and tenses are right." (Robinson, The Ordeal of
|
|
Civilization, p. 62.) However, his zeal for more material things
|
|
was not thus hampered: "Pope Gregory I contrived to make his real
|
|
belief in the approaching end of the world yield the papacy about
|
|
1800 square miles of land and a revenue of about $2000000. He
|
|
used bribes, threats and all kinds of stratagems to attain his
|
|
ends." (McCabe, LBB. 1130, p. 40.)</p>
|
|
<p> His Holiness Gregory I was himself one of the greatest
|
|
thaumatur-gists of the Ages of Faith: "the miracles attributed to
|
|
Gregory are very many." (CE. vi, 786.) When Mohammed was forging
|
|
his inspired Book of Koran, the illuminating spirit, in the guise
|
|
of a dove, would perch on his shoulder and whisper the divine
|
|
revelations into his ear, -- a miracle which none but quite devout
|
|
Mohammedans believe. But Peter the Deacon, in his Vita of His
|
|
wonder-working Holiness, records that when St. Gregory was
|
|
dictating his Homilies On Ezekiel: "A veil was drawn between his
|
|
secretary and himself. As, however, the pope remained silent for
|
|
long periods at a time, the servant made a hole in the curtain and,
|
|
looking through, beheld a dove seated on Gregory's head with his
|
|
beak between his lips. When the dove withdrew its beak the holy
|
|
pontiff spoke and the secretary took down his words; but when he
|
|
became silent the secretary again applied his eye to the hole and
|
|
saw that the dove had replaced its beak between his lips." (CE. vi,
|
|
786.) No good Christian can doubt, after this proof, that their
|
|
Holinesses are constantly and directly inspired and guided by the
|
|
Holy Ghost, as Holy Church assures. Wonderful as this bit of
|
|
Gregory's history is, to recommend him to lasting remembrance, "his
|
|
great claim to remembrance lies in the fact that he is the real
|
|
father of the medieval papacy." (Ibid.) These qualities of the Holy
|
|
Father which we have noticed may to an extent explain some of the
|
|
eccentricities of the Medieval Papacy.</p>
|
|
<p> FORGED AND FAKED RELICS</p>
|
|
<p> "Making every allowance for the errors of the most
|
|
extreme fallibility, the history of Catholicism would on this
|
|
hypothesis represent an amount of imposture probably
|
|
unequalled in the annals of the human race."
|
|
Lecky, History of Rationalism, i, 164.</p>
|
|
<p> As loathsome an example as is to be found in the annals of
|
|
Christian apologetics for fraud and imposture is this from CE.,
|
|
following a long and revolting exposition of the Christian frauds
|
|
with respect to holy Relics of the Church:</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
224
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> "Still, it would be presumptuous in such cases to blame
|
|
the action of the ecclesiastical authority in permitting the
|
|
continuance of a cult which extends back into remote
|
|
antiquity. [i. e. into <span class="NORP">Pagan</span>ism.] ...
|
|
"Supposing the relic to be spurious, NO DISHONOR IS DONE
|
|
TO GOD by the continuance of an error handed down in perfect
|
|
good faith for many centuries"! (CE. xii, 387.)</p>
|
|
<p> It may well be that the holy God of the Christians is immune
|
|
to dishonor by worship through lying Christian frauds; but one may
|
|
question the dishonor to the human mind wrought by the impostures
|
|
of God's Vicars and his Church, cozening men into holy faith in
|
|
lies; to say nothing of the shaming dishonor of Church and priest,
|
|
who with utter want of good faith and common honesty created and
|
|
fostered all these degrading Churchly cheats.</p>
|
|
<p> Before viewing some of these priestly impostures, never once
|
|
rebuked or prevented by pope or priest, but, rather, industriously
|
|
stimulated by them for purposes of perpetuating ignorance and
|
|
superstition, and of feeding their own insatiate avarice, CE. will
|
|
be invoked to give a graphic, though clerically casuistic and
|
|
apologetic review of the debauchery of morals and mind which made
|
|
possible these scandalous unholy practices of Holy Church.</p>
|
|
<p> "Naturally it was impossible for popular enthusiasm to be
|
|
roused to so high a pitch in a matter which easily lent itself
|
|
to error, fraud, and greed for gain, without at least the
|
|
occasional occurrence of many, grave abuses. ... In the
|
|
Theodosian Code the sale of relics is forbidden (vii, ix, 17),
|
|
but numerous stories, of which it would be easy to collect a
|
|
long series, beginning with the writings of Pope St. Gregory
|
|
the Great and St. Gregory of Tours, prove to us that many
|
|
unprincipled persons found a means of enriching themselves by
|
|
a sort of trade in these objects of devotion, the majority of
|
|
which no doubt were fraudulent. At the beginning of the ninth
|
|
century the exportation of the bodies of martyrs from Rome had
|
|
assumed the proportions of a regular commerce, and a certain
|
|
deacon, Deusdona, acquired an unenviable notoriety in these
|
|
transactions. What was in the long run hardly less disastrous
|
|
than fraud or avarice, was the keen rivalry between religious
|
|
centers, and the eager credulity fostered by the desire to be
|
|
known as the possessor of some unusually startling relic. In
|
|
such an atmosphere of lawlessness doubtful relics came to
|
|
abound. There was always disposition to regard any human
|
|
remains accidentally discovered near a church or in the
|
|
catacombs as the body of a martyr ... the custom of making
|
|
facsimiles and imitations, a custom which persists to our own
|
|
day in the replicas of the Vatican statue of St. Peter --
|
|
[itself a fraud] or of the Grotto of Lourdes -- all these are
|
|
causes adequate to account for the multitude of unquestionably
|
|
spurious relics with which the treasuries of great medieval
|
|
churches were crowded. ... Join to this the large license
|
|
given to the occasional unscrupulous rogue IN AN AGE NOT ONLY
|
|
UTTERLY UNCRITICAL but often curiously morbid in its realism,
|
|
and it becomes easy to understand the multiplicity and
|
|
extravagance of the entries in the relics inventories of Rome
|
|
and other countries.
|
|
Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
225
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> "Such tests [to secure the Faithful against deception]
|
|
were applied as the historical and antiquarian science of that
|
|
day were capable of devising. Very often, however, this test
|
|
took the form of an appeal to some miraculous sanction, as in
|
|
the well known story repeated by St. Ambrose, according to
|
|
which, when doubt arose which of the three crosses discovered
|
|
by St. Helena was that of Christ, the healing of a sick man by
|
|
one of them dispelled all further hesitation. Nevertheless it
|
|
remains true that many of the more important ancient relics
|
|
duly exhibited for veneration in the great sanctuaries of
|
|
Christendom or even at Rome itself must now be pronounced to
|
|
be either certainly spurious or open to grave suspicion. To
|
|
take one example of the latter class, the boards of the crib
|
|
(Praesaepe) a name which for more than a thousand years has
|
|
been associated, as now, with the basilica of Santa Maria
|
|
Maggiore -- can only be considered to be of doubtful
|
|
authenticity. ... Strangely enough, an inscription in Greek
|
|
uncials of the eighth century is found on one of the boards,
|
|
the inscription having nothing to do with the Crib but being
|
|
apparently concerned with some commercial transaction. It is
|
|
hard to explain its presence on the supposition that the relic
|
|
is authentic. Similar difficulties might be urged against the
|
|
supposed 'Column of the Flagellation' venerated at Rome in the
|
|
church of Santa Prassede, and against many other famous
|
|
relics. ... Neither has the church ever pronounced that any
|
|
particular relic, not even that commonly venerated as the wood
|
|
of the Cross, is authentic; but she approves of honor being
|
|
paid to those relics which with reasonable probability are
|
|
believed to be genuine, and which are invested with due
|
|
ecclesiastical sanctions." (CE. xii, 737.) Such sophistry!</p>
|
|
<p> The pettifogging sophistry of the foregoing argumentation, as
|
|
of that which follows from the same clerical source, needs no
|
|
comment. The Church of God, headed by his own Vicar General on
|
|
earth, divinely guided against all error in matters of faith and
|
|
morals, and which can detect the faintest taint of heresy of belief
|
|
further than the most gifted bird of rapine can scent a carcass,
|
|
can make no apology for permitting these degrading superstitions,
|
|
which it not only tolerates but actively propagates and encourages,
|
|
for the rich revenues they bring in. What a catalogue of its most
|
|
sacred mummeries is branded with the infamy of fraudulent in the
|
|
following:</p>
|
|
<p> "The worship of imaginary saints or relics, devotion
|
|
based upon false revelations, apparitions, supposed miracles,
|
|
or false notions generally, is usually excusable in the
|
|
Worshipper on the ground of ignorance and good faith; but
|
|
there is no excuse for those who use similar means to exploit
|
|
popular credulity for their own pecuniary profit. The
|
|
originators of such falsehoods are liars, deceivers, and not
|
|
rarely thieves; but a milder judgment should be pronounced on
|
|
those who, after discovering the imposture tolerate the
|
|
improper cults [!] ... The Catholic devotions which are
|
|
connected with holy places, holy shrines, holy wells, famous
|
|
relics, etc., are commonly treated as superstitions by non-Catholics. ... It must be admitted that </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
226
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> these hallowed spots and things have occasioned many legends;
|
|
that popular credulity was in some cases the principal cause
|
|
of their celebrity; that here or there instances of fraud can
|
|
be adduced; yet, for all that, the principles which guide the
|
|
worshipper, and his good intentions, are not impaired by an
|
|
undercurrent of error as to facts. [!] Moreover ... the Church
|
|
is tolerant of 'pious beliefs' which have helped to further
|
|
<span class="NORP">Christianity</span> Thus, alleged saints and relies are suppressed as
|
|
soon as discovered, but belief in the private revelations to
|
|
which the feast of Corpus Christi, The Rosary, the Sacred
|
|
Heart, and many other devotions owe their origin is neither
|
|
commanded nor prohibited; here each man is his own judge. ...
|
|
The apparent success which so often attends a superstition can
|
|
mostly be accounted for by natural causes. When the object is
|
|
to ascertain, or to effect in a general way, one of two
|
|
possible events, the law of probabilities gives an equal
|
|
chance to success and failure, and success does more to
|
|
support than failure would do to destroy superstition." (CE.
|
|
xiv, 340, 341.) All these holy cults are thus confessed frauds
|
|
and superstitions fostered by ecclesiastic greed.</p>
|
|
<p> Let us remember that no True Church in Christendom can be
|
|
built and consecrated without a box of dead man's bones or other
|
|
fetid human scraps and relics deposited under the holy altar of
|
|
God. The decree of the second council of Nice, A.D. 787, reaffirmed
|
|
by the Council of Trent in 1546, forbade the consecration of any
|
|
Church without a supply of relics. (CE. xii, 737.) Thus the ancient
|
|
superstition is sanctioned and its observance made mandatory; an
|
|
unceasing demand is created, and the market supply is more than
|
|
equal to the pious demand. Hence the great and valuable, and
|
|
fraudulent, traffic above confessed and clerically palliated.</p>
|
|
<p> THE "INVENTION OF THE CROSS," ET AL</p>
|
|
<p> "The Legend as to the discovering of the Cross of Christ" (CE.
|
|
vii, 203). The Holy City, Jerusalem, was, twice destroyed by the
|
|
Romans, in 70 A.D. by Titus, and again as the result of the
|
|
rebellion of Bar-Cochba, 132-135 A.D. The work was peculiarly
|
|
thorough,; not one stone was left upon another; the site was plowed
|
|
over as a mark of infamy, and the ground is said to have been sown
|
|
with salt so that nothing might ever grow there again: though pious
|
|
myths soon flourished exuberantly. Later a pagan city was
|
|
established on the site, named AElia Capitoline, and a great Temple
|
|
of Venus was erected on a suitable spot. Over two centuries later,
|
|
about 326 A.D., a great and venerated Catholic lady Saint made a
|
|
pious pilgrimage to the Holy City, namely, St. Helena, sainted
|
|
mother of the new "Christian" Emperor <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>. This is the St.
|
|
Helena who got her start as a <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> barmaid in a wild country
|
|
village; she fell into the graces of the Roman Imperator
|
|
Constantius as he marched through the country, became his mistress
|
|
by "concubinatus," and bore unto him who was afterwards the godly
|
|
Emperor <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>. (CE. iv, 300.) Upon the pilgrimage of the
|
|
pious Dowager-mother to Jerusalem, great pomp and ceremony attended
|
|
her visit, under the auspices of </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
227
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>the good Bishop Macarius. By order of the Bishop and in honor of
|
|
the Christian Saint, the Temple of Venus was torn down; it was
|
|
found to have been built over an empty rock grave therefore
|
|
identically the authentic sepulchre of Jesus Christ. is it true,
|
|
that this destroyed Temple of Venus and the inclosed Holy Sepulchre
|
|
were inside the walls of the City, while the Gospels inspiredly
|
|
aver that the grave was outside the walls: a trifling discrepancy
|
|
for Faith.</p>
|
|
<p> Rummaging the ruins, a vaulted underground room or cellar was
|
|
found: its wonderful contents make to pale into triviality the
|
|
lately discovered tomb-treasures of Tut-ankh-Amen. There propped
|
|
against the cellar-wall was the whole apparatus of the
|
|
Crucifiction: the three identical Crosses whereon had hung the
|
|
Christ and the two thieves; the very Nails wherewith they had been
|
|
fastened; the autograph trilingual Inscription set by Pilate over
|
|
the head of the Christ; the precise Spear which had pierced his
|
|
side; the cruel Crown of Thorns which tore his brow; the holy
|
|
Seamless Coat which he had worn and for which the Roman soldiers
|
|
gambled in the hour of death (it's curious that the winner should
|
|
have left it behind); the sacred Shroud in which the dead God was.
|
|
buried. The Pilatic Inscription was not in situ; it had evidently
|
|
been knocked off and lay apart, a "separate piece of wood, on which
|
|
were inscribed in white letters in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, the
|
|
following words: 'Jesus of <span class="GPE">Nazareth</span>, the King of the Jews,'" as
|
|
recorded by Sozomen, the Church historian. (Eccles. Hist, ii, 1;
|
|
N&PNF. II, p. 258.)</p>
|
|
<p> Due to its unfortunate separation from its original position,
|
|
it was for the moment impossible to distinguish the True Cross of
|
|
Christ from those of the thieves. A miracle was vouchsafed,
|
|
however, to identify the real Cross of the Christ: the True Cross
|
|
bowed itself down before the Saintly Empress; or, a sick woman --
|
|
or a sick man -- was cured upon touching the True Cross after
|
|
having tried the other two in vain -- according to which priestly
|
|
version is the more truthful. Sozomen (supra) says that it was "a
|
|
certain lady of rank in Jerusalem who was inflicted with a most
|
|
grievous and incurable disease," whose miraculous curing attested
|
|
the True Cross; "a dead person was also restored to life" by its
|
|
thaumaturgic touch: -- "all as predicted by the prophets and by the
|
|
Sibyl." Some tinge of dubiety may be thrown upon the report of
|
|
Bishop Macarius, who made the wondrous discoveries first recorded
|
|
by the Church historians Socrates, about 439 A.D. (Eccles. Hist. I,
|
|
xvii), and Sozomen, who wrote a little later (Eccles. Hist. II, i),
|
|
by the fact that the earliest Church Historian, the very
|
|
informative and fabling Bishop Eusebius (d. 340), in his Life of
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> (III, iii, and III, xxviii), gives a very
|
|
circumstantial account of the visit of the ex-Empress St. Helena to
|
|
Jerusalem, and of the erection of a Christian Church over the Holy
|
|
Sepulchre, but he is silent as the grave about the discovery of any
|
|
Cross of Christ or any of the other holy marvels. The notable event
|
|
is known, in Church parlance, as "The Invention of the Cross" --
|
|
which exactly it was.</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
228
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> The subsequent "history" of the Cross of Christ is a tangle of
|
|
typically clerical contradictions and impossibilities. "Very
|
|
soon after the discovery of the True Cross, its wood was cut up
|
|
into small relics and scattered throughout Christendom." (CE. iv,
|
|
524.)</p>
|
|
<p> "We learn from St. Cyril of Jerusalem (before 350) that the
|
|
wood of the Cross, discovered about 318, [it was in 326] was
|
|
already distributed throughout the world." (CE. xii, 736.) But
|
|
these assurances of St. Cyril and of CE. seem out of harmony with
|
|
the accredited history of the capture and asportation of the
|
|
reputed integral True Cross by Chosroes (Khosru) II, King of
|
|
Persia, who took Jerusalem in 614, massacring 90000 good
|
|
Christians, captured the Cross of Christ among his booty, and
|
|
carried it off whole in triumph to Persia! (CE. iii, 105), -- with
|
|
results very disastrous to the Faith: "The shock which religious
|
|
men received through this dreadful event can hardly now be
|
|
realized. The imposture of <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> bore bitter fruit; the
|
|
sacred wood which had filled the world with its miracles was
|
|
detected to be a helpless counterfeit, borne off in triumph by
|
|
deriding blasphemers. All confidence in the apostolic powers of the
|
|
Asiatic bishops was lost; not one of them could work a wonder for
|
|
his own salvation in the dire extremity." (Draper, The Intellectual
|
|
Development of Europe, i, 328; Gibbon, p. 451.) The truly
|
|
miraculous nature of this True Cross is thus described by Draper:
|
|
"The wood of the Cross displayed a property of growth, and hence
|
|
furnished an abundant supply for the demands of pilgrims and an
|
|
unfailing source of pecuniary profit to its possessors. In the
|
|
course of subsequent years there was accumulated in the various
|
|
churches of Europe, from this particular relic, a sufficiency to
|
|
have constructed many hundred crosses." (Op. cit. i, 309.) On a
|
|
great porphyry column before the Church of St. Sophia at
|
|
Constantinople, stood a statue of the <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> god Apollo; the face
|
|
was altered into the features of the Emperor <span class="PERSON">Constantine</span>, and the
|
|
Nails of the True Cross, set around like rays, were used to garnish
|
|
the crown upon his head. Another of these holy Nails has for
|
|
centuries adorned and consecrated the crown of the emperors of the
|
|
Holy Roman Empire. The horses of a regiment of cavalry could
|
|
probably be shod with the copious supply of these Holy Nails now
|
|
venerated as sacred relies.</p>
|
|
<p> "It is remarkable," says CE., "that St. Jerome, who expatiates
|
|
upon the Cross, the Title, and the Nails, discovered by St. Helena,
|
|
says nothing either of the Lance or of the Crown. of Thorns, and
|
|
the silence of Andreas of Crete in the eighth century is still more
|
|
surprising." But in due time this oversight was piously repaired.
|
|
Bishop Gregory of Tours, among other faithful Church chroniclers,
|
|
produces the Crown of Thorns, and, as an eyewitness to it, "avers
|
|
that the thorns in the Crown still looked green, a freshness which
|
|
was miraculously renewed every day"; which episcopal assurance,
|
|
skeptically remarks CE., "does not much strengthen the historical
|
|
testimony for the authenticity of the relic." But, "in any case,
|
|
Justinian, who died in 565, is stated to have given a thorn to St.
|
|
Germanus, which was long preserved at Saint-Germain-des-Pres, while
|
|
the Empress Irene sent Charlemagne several thorns which were
|
|
deposited by him at Aachen. ... In 1238 Baldwin II, the Latin
|
|
Emperor of Constantinople, </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
229
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>anxious to obtain support for his tottering empire, offered the
|
|
Crown of Thorns to St. Louis, King of France. It was then actually
|
|
[in pawn] in the hands of the Venetians as security for a heavy
|
|
loan, but it was redeemed and conveyed to Paris, where St. Louis
|
|
built the Sainte Chapelle for its reception." The further history
|
|
of the holy spurious relic is traced in detail; as late as 1896 "a
|
|
magnificent new reliquary of rock crystal was made for it"; but by
|
|
that time the holy relic, like a fighting-cock with his tail-feathers clawed out, was a sorry sight: "The Crown, thus preserved,
|
|
consists only of a circlet of rushes, without any trace of thorns."
|
|
A ray of light on Church fakery is thrown by the closing comment:
|
|
"That all the reputed holy thorns of which notice has survived
|
|
cannot by any possibility be authentic will be disputed by no one;
|
|
more than 700 such relics have been enumerated"! (.CE. iv, 540,
|
|
541.)</p>
|
|
<p> As for the Holy Lance, which pierced the side of the dying
|
|
God, also resurrected by pious diligence of "invention," its
|
|
devious and dubious history is thus traced by our modern
|
|
ecclesiastical mummery" monger: "A spear believed to be identical
|
|
with that which pierced our Savior's body, was venerated at
|
|
Jerusalem at the close of the sixth century. The sacred relics of
|
|
the Passion fell into the bands of the pagans. Many centuries
|
|
afterwards (i.e. in 1241), the point of the Lance was presented by
|
|
Baldwin to St. Louis, and it was enshrined with the Crown of Thorns
|
|
in the Sainte Chapelle. Another part of the Lance is preserved
|
|
under the dome of St. Peter's in Rome. ... Rival lances are known
|
|
to be preserved at Nuremberg, Paris, etc. Another lance claiming to
|
|
be that which produced the wound in Christ's side is now preserved
|
|
among the imperial insignia at Vienna; another is preserved at
|
|
Cracow. Legend assigns the name of Longinus to the soldier who
|
|
thrust the Lance into our Savior's side; according to the same
|
|
tradition, he was healed of ophtbalmia and converted by a drop of
|
|
the precious blood spurting from the wound." (viii, 773-4.)</p>
|
|
<p> There was also timely discovered, by some notable chance or
|
|
miracle, the very stairway, "consisting of twenty-eight white
|
|
marble steps, ... the stairway leading once to the Praetorium of
|
|
Pilate, hence sanctified by the footsteps of Our Lord during his
|
|
Passion," as we are assured by CE. (viii, 505.) This famous relic,
|
|
the "Holy Stairs," which somehow escaped the two destructions of
|
|
Jerusalem and the ravages of time for nearly three centuries, was
|
|
"brought from Jerusalem to Rome about 326 by St. Helena, mother of
|
|
<span class="PERSON">Constantine</span> the Great. ... It is now before the Sancta Sanctorum
|
|
(Holy of Holies) of the Lateran Palace. The Sancta Sanctorum
|
|
receiving its name from the many precious relics preserved there,
|
|
also contains the celebrated image of Christ, 'not made with
|
|
hands,' which on certain occasions used to be carried through Rome
|
|
in procession. ... The Holy Stairs may only be ascended on the
|
|
knees. ... Finally Pius X, on 26 February, 1908, granted a plenary
|
|
indulgence [i.e. a permanent escape from Purgatory] -- to be gained
|
|
as often as the Stairs are devoutly ascended after confession and
|
|
communion." (CE. viii, 505.) It is related that Father Luther was
|
|
performing this holy penitential climb of the "Scala Sancta," when
|
|
suddenly the vast sham and fraud of his religion burst upon his
|
|
consciousness: the </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
230
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>Reformation was a consequence. In passing this famous "Mother of
|
|
Churches," St. John Lateran, we may admire the wonderful portrait
|
|
of Jesus Christ which adorns its sacred walls; the painting of it
|
|
was begun by Dr. St. Luke himself, but being left incomplete, it
|
|
was finished by an angel.</p>
|
|
<p> ANCIENT FAKES YET ACCREDITED</p>
|
|
<p> Think not that these ancient frauds of the Church have been
|
|
discarded in shame by the Church now that their fraudulent origin
|
|
and purpose are exposed to public obloquy and ridicule. In full
|
|
blaze of world attention and publicity of the Twentieth Century,
|
|
God's own Vicar vouches before the world for these tawdry
|
|
impostures, brought forth before the world to lend climax of
|
|
superstitious solemnity to his crazy Crusade of prayer and incited
|
|
pious hatred against the brave efforts of the <span class="NORP">Russians</span> to undo the
|
|
fell work of the Church in that unhappy land. Associated Press
|
|
dispatches from Vatican City announce: "To lend emphasis to the
|
|
protest here, celebrated relics kept at St. Peter's -- a portion of
|
|
the true cross; St. Veronica's Veil, with which Christ is said to
|
|
have wiped His face on His way to Calvary, and the centurion's
|
|
lance which pierced His Side -- will be displayed." (N.Y. Herald Tribune, March 19, 1930.) "After the ceremony those present will
|
|
receive benediction with the sacred relics." (N.Y. <span class="LOC">Sun</span>, Mch. 13,
|
|
1930.) Nearby, "the stones of the pavement on which the Apostles
|
|
[Peter and Paul] knelt in prayer and which are said to contain the
|
|
impression of their knees, are now in the wall of the Church of
|
|
Santa Francesca Romana." (CE. xiii, 797.) Such lying vouchers are
|
|
fit setting for the crusade of unholy lies and hate against a
|
|
people which for centuries has been kept in grossest ignorance and
|
|
superstition by greedy priestcraft, now repudiated by its victims.</p>
|
|
<p> The foregoing solemn vouching for antique fakeries provoked a
|
|
deal of skeptical ridicule throughout the world, even among some of
|
|
the Faithful: so it must needs be emphasized by repetition, with
|
|
some notable other Fake Relics added for "assurance doubly sure."
|
|
So, when the <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> Festival of Easter dawned on the <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> "Day of
|
|
the Venerable <span class="LOC">Sun</span>," His Royal-Holiness came forth in the full
|
|
splendor of the <span class="NORP">Pagan</span> Pontifex Maximum to celebrate the Event, and
|
|
by his Infallible presence to vouch again for the genuineness of
|
|
these holy spurious Relics. Probably he wore and ostentated in the
|
|
joy of its recovery, the celebrated "so-called Episcopal Ring of
|
|
St. Peter, rich with sapphires and diamonds," stolen from the
|
|
Vatican treasury in 1925, and recently recaptured with the thief.
|
|
(Herald-Tribune, Dec. 3, 1929.) It is possible that he sat in state
|
|
in the very Throne or "Chair of St. Peter," which the Fisherman
|
|
Pope used, as dubiously vouched by CE. under that caption. In any
|
|
event, whatever throne he used was planted immediately above the
|
|
grave where lies the headless cadaver of St. Peter himself, for
|
|
"the skulls of Sts. Peter and Paul" were later viewed at the
|
|
Lateran, and there "shown for the adoration of the Faithful." As
|
|
announced in several Press dispatches, an inventory of the holy
|
|
Relies and ceremonials is here recorded. In preparation for the
|
|
Sacred Event in the Twentieth Century: "The major basilicas will
|
|
all have on display their most precious relics. ... The purported
|
|
Cradle of </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
231
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>Bethlehem [made out of an eighth century packing case] will be
|
|
brought forth. Those attending mass at the Lateran will be able to
|
|
view the skulls of Sts. Peter and Paul, and a bit of what is
|
|
believed [by whom, not stated] to be the True Cross -- [carried off
|
|
entire in 614 by the Persians]; ... the reputed Lance of the Roman
|
|
centurion who speared the side of Christ, and the 'Holy Veil' or
|
|
napkin offered to Christ by St. Veronica," -- who is a myth forged
|
|
from "vera icon." (A.P. dispatch, Apl. 19, 1930.) Also: "A fragment
|
|
of the Cross and two Thorns from the crown of the Savior. ... The
|
|
Sancta Scala (Holy Stairs), ... drew the usual Good Friday throngs
|
|
of the Faithful today. ... Processions were held inside the ancient
|
|
edifices to honor the relics, [including] what, according to
|
|
tradition, are the heads of the apostles St. Peter and St. Paul ...
|
|
shown for the adoration of the Faithful." (Herald-Tribune, Apl. 19,
|
|
1930.) Then came the consummation and solemn Infallible accrediting
|
|
of these "most precious relics": -- "Pope Celebrates Easter Mass.
|
|
... Relics of the Passion [surrounded him], -- a reputed fragment
|
|
of the Cross, a piece of the Spear which pierced [reputedly] the
|
|
side of the Savior, and the Veil of St. Veronica. ... were
|
|
displayed from the balcony above the Papal Altar." (Ibid, Apl. 21,
|
|
1930.) Now at last, in Twentieth Century, "Roma locuta est -- causa
|
|
finita est" -- and these originally bogus frauds are genuine and
|
|
authentic Relics -- for the Faithful who may believe it.</p>
|
|
<p> Samples of the "seed of the Serpent" of Eden, the scales that
|
|
fell from the eyes of Elijah's servant, the original wicked flea,
|
|
the two dwarf mummies of Bildad the Shu-hite and Ne-hi-miah, the
|
|
200 Philistine trophies (foreskins) brought in by David as his
|
|
marriage dot (1 Sam. xviii, 25-27), the horn of salvation, and the
|
|
instruments of Cornelius's Italian Band, are about the only honest-to-goodness authentic Biblical relics which seem not to be
|
|
preserved among the countless holy fake treasures of Holy Church.
|
|
The famous juvenile pocket-inventories of Tom Sawyer and
|
|
Huckleberry Finn, and the monstrous fakeries of the late lamented
|
|
Phineas Barnum, are paltry trivialities beside the countless and
|
|
priceless Relic-treasures of Holy Church, religiously guarded for
|
|
"veneration" by True Believers blessed by the privilege of paying
|
|
-- the more you pay the more you merit" is the maxim - to gaze in
|
|
rapt awe at, and to kiss and fondle, these ghastly and ghoulish,
|
|
false and forged, bloody scraps and baubles of perverted piosity.
|
|
The foreskin of the Child Christ miraculously preserved exists to
|
|
this day; enough of his diapers and swaddling-cloths, as of the
|
|
sanitary draperies of his Ever-Virgin Mother, are of record to
|
|
stock a modern department store. During the era of the unholy
|
|
Crusades the soldiers of Christ brought from the Holy Land
|
|
countless numbers of duly certified bottles of the Milk of the
|
|
Virgin Mother of God, and drove a thrifty business selling them to
|
|
churches and superstitious dupes through Europe.</p>
|
|
<p> Yet in existence are several portraits of the Mother of God,
|
|
"said to have been painted by St. Luke; they belong to the Sixth
|
|
century." (CE. xv, 471.) "There is still preserved at Messina a
|
|
letter attributed to the Blessed Virgin, which, it is claimed, was
|
|
written by her to the Messenians when Our Lady heard of their
|
|
conversion by St. Paul" (x, 217; cf. list of several: i, 613.) "The
|
|
Shroud of the Blessed Virgin is preserved in the Church of </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
232
|
|
.
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|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>Gethsemane." (xiv, 775.) The Holy Winding Sheet or shroud of the
|
|
Christ was formerly "exposed for veneration" at Troyes; but the
|
|
Bishop "declared after due inquiry that the relic was nothing but
|
|
a painting and opposed its exposition. Clement VI, by four Bulls
|
|
(1390), approved the exposition as lawful." After being stolen and
|
|
hawked about, this sacred relic "is now exposed and honored at
|
|
Turin." (xv, 67-68.) There must be something wrong about this, for
|
|
"The Diocese of Perigueux has a remarkable The Holy Shroud of
|
|
Christ, brought back after the first crusade. An official
|
|
investigation in 1444 asserted the authenticity of the relic." (xi,
|
|
668.) The Minster treasury of the Cathedral of Aix-la-Chapelle, or
|
|
Aachen, where Charlemagne enshrined the Holy Thorns, "includes a
|
|
large number of relics, vessels, and vestments, the most important
|
|
being those known as the four 'Great Relics,' namely, the cloak of
|
|
the Blessed Virgin, the swaddling-clothes of the infant Jesus, the
|
|
loin-cloth worn by Our Lord on the Cross, and the cloth on which
|
|
lay the head of John the Baptist after his beheading. They are
|
|
exposed every seven years, and venerated by thousands of Pilgrims
|
|
(139628 in 1874, and 158968 in 1881")!
|
|
(i, 92.)</p>
|
|
<p> Without comment we let CE. record for the faith of its
|
|
readers, several of the very notable and most remunerative Relics
|
|
treasured by Holy Church. That they are all impossible, are all
|
|
bogus, all crude forgeries and fakes only possible of credit by the
|
|
most credulous child-minds, needs no comment. The sordid debasement
|
|
of the human mind to the degree of credulity here displayed, the
|
|
crass dishonesty of the false pretenses which give credit to these
|
|
things for purposes of extortion from silly dupes of religion, the
|
|
vastness of the grand larceny thus perpetrated in the name of God,
|
|
-- are beyond orderly comment.</p>
|
|
<p> "The possession of the seamless garment of Christ is claimed
|
|
by the Cathedral of Trier and by the parish church of Argenteuil;
|
|
the former claims that the relic was sent by the Empress St.
|
|
Helena, basing their claim on a document sent by Pope Sylvester to
|
|
the Church of Trier, but this cannot be considered genuine. ... The
|
|
relic itself offers no reason to doubt its genuineness. Plenary
|
|
indulgences were granted to all pilgrims who should visit the
|
|
cathedral of Trier at the time of the exposition of the Holy Coat,
|
|
which was to take place every seven years." (vii, 400-1.) "The
|
|
Church venerates the Holy Innocents, or Martyrs, the children
|
|
massacred by Herod, estimated in various Liturgies as 14000,
|
|
64000, 144000 boys. The Church of Paul's Outside the Walls is
|
|
believed to possess the bodies of several of the Holy Innocents. A
|
|
portion of these relics was transferred by Sixtus V to Santa Maria
|
|
Maggiore. The Church of St. Justina at Padua, the cathedrals of
|
|
Lisbon and Milan, and other Churches also preserve bodies which
|
|
they claim to be those of some of the Holy Innocents. It is
|
|
impossible to determine the day or the year of the death of the
|
|
Holy Innocents, since the chronology of the birth of Christ and the
|
|
subsequent Biblical events is most uncertain"' (CE. vii, 419.)</p>
|
|
<p> In the cathedral of Cologne are preserved the skulls of the
|
|
Three Wise Men who followed the Star of Bethlehem. In the
|
|
neighboring Church of St. Gereon are distributed over the walls </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
233
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>the bones from a whole cemetery, dug up and displayed as those of
|
|
that mythical Saint and his Theban Band of 10000 Martyrs; in
|
|
fitting competition are the spoils of the neighboring graveyard,
|
|
yielding the bones of St. Ursula and her 11000 Virgin Martyrs. The
|
|
miraculous bones of Santa Rosalia in Palermo are the bones of a
|
|
deceased goat!</p>
|
|
<p> "The city of Tarascon has for its patron, St. Martha, who,
|
|
according to the legend, delivered the country from a monster
|
|
called 'Tarasque.' The Church of 'Saintes Marias de la Mer'
|
|
contains three venerated tombs; according to a tradition which is
|
|
attached to the legends concerning the emigration of St. Lazarus,
|
|
St. Martha, St. Mary Magdalene, and St. Maximus, these tombs
|
|
contain the bodies of the three Marys of the Gospels." (CE. i,
|
|
238.)</p>
|
|
<p> The Abbot Martin obtained for his monastery in Alsace the
|
|
following inestimable articles: A spot of the blood of our Savior;
|
|
a piece of the True Cross; the arm of the Apostle James; part of
|
|
the skeleton of John the Baptist; a bottle of the Milk of the
|
|
Mother of God. (Draper, The Intellectual Development of Europe, ii,
|
|
57.) But perhaps none of these impostures surpassed in audacity
|
|
that offered by a monastery in Jerusalem, which presented to the
|
|
beholder ONE OF THE FINGERS OF THE HOLY GHOST! (Draper, Conflict
|
|
between Science and Religion, p. 270.) Also there were displayed
|
|
sundry choice collections of the wing and tail feathers of the said
|
|
Holy Ghost, from time to time shed off or pulled out when, in the
|
|
disguise of a Dove, It (or He or She) came down and perched on
|
|
people. In England at the time of Henry VIII (1501), Our Lady's
|
|
girdle was shown in not less than eleven places, and Our Lady's
|
|
milk, in a condensed form, in eight places. One of these girdles
|
|
the good Queen-mother procured for Catherine of Aragon, on her
|
|
marriage with Henry, to present to her when the expected time
|
|
should come. During the plague of 1531, Henry VIII, for a goodly
|
|
price, bought some precious relic waters to avert the plague from
|
|
himself: a tear which Our Lord shed over Lazarus, preserved by an
|
|
angel who gave it in a phial to Mary Magdalene; and a phial of the
|
|
sweat of St. Michael when he contended with Satan, as recorded in
|
|
the Book of Enoch and vouched for in the sacred Book of Jude.
|
|
(Hackett, Henry VIII, pp. 11, 234.) The Cathedral of Arras, in
|
|
France, possesses some highly venerated and remarkable relies, to
|
|
wit, some of the Holy Manna which fell from Heaven in the year 371
|
|
during a severe famine; and the identical Holy Candle, a wax taper,
|
|
which was presented by the Blessed Virgin to Bishop Lambert, in
|
|
1105, to stop an epidemic. (CE. i, 752.) This same waxen Holy
|
|
Candle has burned continuously from 1105 to at least 1713 without
|
|
being to the slightest degree diminished, as his view of it was
|
|
then reported by Anthony Collins, in his Discourse of Free
|
|
Thinking; he expresses the doubt whether the attendant clergy would
|
|
permit a careful scrutiny to be made of the phenomenon.</p>
|
|
<p> A final job lot of these holy fetishes as recorded by Dr.
|
|
McCabe with some pertinent comments, may be admired: "At Laon the
|
|
chief treasures shown to the public were some milk and hair of the
|
|
Virgin Mary. This was Laon's set-off to the rival attraction at
|
|
Soissons, a neighboring town, which had secured one of the </p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
234
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>milk-teeth shed by the infant Jesus. There seems to have been
|
|
enough of the milk of the Virgin -- some of it was still exhibited
|
|
in Spanish churches in the nine-teenth century -- preserved in
|
|
Europe to feed a few calves. There was hair enough to make a
|
|
mattress. There were sufficient pieces of 'the true cross' to make
|
|
a boat. There were teeth of Christ enough to outfit a dentist (one
|
|
monastery, at Charroux, had the complete set). There were so many
|
|
sets of baby-linen of the infant Jesus, in Italy, France and Spain,
|
|
that one could have opened a shop with them. One of the greatest
|
|
churches in Rome had Christ's manger-cradle. Seven churches had his
|
|
authentic umbilical cord, and a number of churches had his foreskin
|
|
(removed at circumcision and kept as a souvenir by Mary). One
|
|
church had the miraculous imprint of his little bottom on a stone
|
|
on which he had sat. Mary herself had left enough wedding rings,
|
|
shoes, stockings, shirts, girdles, etc. to fill a museum; one of
|
|
her shifts is still in the Chartres cathedral. One church had
|
|
Aaron's rod. Six churches had the six heads cut off John the
|
|
Baptist. ... Every one of these things was, remember, in its
|
|
origin, a cynical blasphemous swindle. Each of these objects was at
|
|
first launched upon the world with deliberate mendacity. ... One is
|
|
almost disposed to ask for an application to the clergy of the law
|
|
about obtaining money under false pretenses." (McCabe, The Story of
|
|
Religious Controversy, p. 353.)</p>
|
|
<p> HOLY OILS, WATERS, AND FETISHES</p>
|
|
<p> These sacred and sanctified wonder-working objects are too
|
|
numerous to more than mention a few of the most celebrated.
|
|
Miraculous "waters" were in great profusion distilled or in some
|
|
weird way extracted from numbers of dead Saints, "blessed" for a
|
|
variety of purposes, and vended under the names of the productive
|
|
Saints; as "The Water of St. Ignatius," of Sts. Adelhaid, Vincent
|
|
Ferrer, Willibrord, etc. That of St. Hubert was notably a specific
|
|
for the bite of mad dogs. The formula for these holy extracts or
|
|
emulsions, with their properties and miraculous effects, are set
|
|
forth in the official "Rituale Romanum." (CE. xv, 564.) The widely
|
|
celebrated "Oil of Saints" was in immense vogue and possessed
|
|
wonderful properties, as vouched by CE. under that title. This holy
|
|
unction was "an oily substance which is said to have flowed, or
|
|
still flows, from the relics or burial places of certain saints,
|
|
and water which has in some way come in contact with their relics.
|
|
These oils are or have been used by the faithful, with the belief
|
|
that they will cure bodily and spiritual ailments the custom
|
|
prevailed of pouring oil over the relics or reliquaries of martyrs
|
|
and then gathering it in vases, sponges or pieces of cloth. This
|
|
oil, oleum martyris, was distributed among the faithful as a remedy
|
|
against sickness. ... At present the most famous of the oils of
|
|
saints is the oil of St. Walburga (Walburgis oleum). It flows from
|
|
the stone slab and the surrounding metal plate on which rest the
|
|
relies of St. Walburga in her church in Eichstadt in Bavaria. The
|
|
fluid is caught in a silver cup and is distributed to the faithful
|
|
for use against diseases of the body and soul. Similarly of the Oil
|
|
of St. Menas, of which thousands of little flasks have recently
|
|
been discovered, found at many Places in Europe and Africa; there
|
|
is also a like Oil of St. Nicholas of Myra, which emanates from his</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
235
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p>relics at Bari in Italy, whither they were brought in 1087. A
|
|
certain substance like flour, is recorded by St. Gregory of Tours,
|
|
to emanate from the sepulchre of St. John the <span class="NORP">Evangelist</span>; also that
|
|
from the sepulchre of the Apostle St. Andrew emanated manna in the
|
|
form of flour and fragrant oil." A list half a column long is given
|
|
of other saints from whose relics or sepulchres oil is said to have
|
|
flowed. (CE. xi, 228-9.)</p>
|
|
<p> THE AGNUS DEI</p>
|
|
<p> "These are discs of wax impressed with the figure of a lamb;
|
|
and blessed at stated seasons by the Pope. The rule still followed
|
|
is that the great consecration of the Agnus Dei takes place only in
|
|
the first year of each pontificate and every seventh year
|
|
afterwards. It seems probable that they had their beginning in some
|
|
pagan usage of charms or amulets, from which the ruder populace
|
|
were weaned by the employment of this Christian substitute [charm
|
|
or amulet] blessed by prayer. The early history of Catholic
|
|
ceremonial affords numerous parallels for this Christianizing of
|
|
pagan rites. ... So the purpose of these consecrated medallions is
|
|
to protect those who wear or possess them from all malign
|
|
influences. In the prayers of blessing, special mention is made of
|
|
the perils from storm and pestilence, from fire and flood, and also
|
|
of the dangers to which women are exposed in childbirth. Miraculous
|
|
effects have been believed to follow the use of these objects of
|
|
piety. Fires are said to have been. extinguished, and floods
|
|
stayed. They were much subject to counterfeit, the making of which
|
|
has been strictly prohibited by various papal bulls," -- (this
|
|
proving the obtaining of money by false pretenses in the papal.
|
|
monopoly of peddling them to the moron Faithful). "There are also
|
|
Agnus Deis made from wax mingled with the dust which is, believed
|
|
to be that of the bones of martyrs; these are called Paste de' SS.
|
|
Martiri, or Martyrs' Paste." (CE. i, 220.) The peddling of these
|
|
frauds has not yet been forbidden by the criminal code, nor by the
|
|
Vicars of God who gain by them. Three pages of a separate article,
|
|
are devoted to the potent prayers in Liturgies, several in doggerel
|
|
Latin verse, on pages 221-223. One of these inspired Papal
|
|
invocations over the sacred amulets is quoted by Dr. White:</p>
|
|
<p> "O God, ... we humbly beseech thee that thou wilt bless
|
|
these waxen forms, figured with the image of an innocent lamb,
|
|
.... that, at the touch and sight of them, the faithful shall
|
|
break forth into praises, and that the crash of hailstorms,
|
|
the blast of hurricanes, the violence of tempests, the fury of
|
|
winds, and the malice of thunderbolts may be tempered, and
|
|
evil spirits flee and tremble before the standard of the holy
|
|
cross, which is graven upon them." (White, Warfare between
|
|
Science and Religion. i, 343.)</p>
|
|
<p> The recurrence in modern times of the above recited
|
|
catastrophes raised by imps of the devil, not unseldom doing damage
|
|
even to the Faithful and to their sacred edifices, must be due to
|
|
the punible neglect to have a supply of these thaumaturgic crackers
|
|
on hand at the time and place of the flagellations of the Evil One.</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
236
|
|
.
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
</p>
|
|
<p> THE TRAGEDY OF THE "MYSTICAL MARRIAGE"</p>
|
|
<p> What to a Rationalist may seem a very inhuman superstition --
|
|
though often attenuated by the clerical formula "With all my
|
|
worldly goods I thee endow," pronounced to his earthly vicar by the
|
|
happy "Bride of Jesus Christ," is the unctuously so-called Mystical
|
|
Marriage, the nuptial ceremony whereby a deluded female enters into
|
|
the joys of her Lord without actually sharing them. This holy
|
|
mummery is thus described by the oft-cited Exponent of Catholic
|
|
Truth:</p>
|
|
<p> "Christian virginity has been considered from the
|
|
earliest centuries as a special offering made by the soul to
|
|
its spouse, Christ. ... In many of the lives of the Saints,
|
|
the mystical marriage consists of a vision in which Christ
|
|
tells a soul that He takes it for His bride, presenting it
|
|
with the customary ring, and the apparition is accompanied by
|
|
a ceremony; the Blessed Virgin Mary, saints and angels are
|
|
present. ... Moreover, as a wife should share in the life of
|
|
her husband, and as Christ suffered for the redemption of
|
|
mankind, the mystical bride enters into a more intimate
|
|
participation of His sufferings, -- [casus omissus being the
|
|
sharing of the nuptial joys also involved in the notion of
|
|
marriage]. Accordingly, in three cases out of four, the
|
|
mystical marriage has been granted to stigmatics. History
|
|
[priest-written, of course] has recorded seventy-seven
|
|
mystical marriages, in connection with female saints, blesseds
|
|
and venerables"; -- a number of whom are named, including,
|
|
appropriately, St. Mary Magdalene dei Pazza -- "of the Crazy
|
|
Ones" -- as were they all. (CE. ix, 703.)</p>
|
|
<p> Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.</p>
|
|
<p> The UNITED STATES of America
|
|
must again become
|
|
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.</p>
|
|
<p> The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
|
|
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
|
|
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
|
|
us, we need to give them back to America.</p>
|
|
<p> You are reading
|
|
FORGERY IN <span class="NORP">CHRISTIANITY</span>
|
|
by
|
|
Joseph Wheliss</p>
|
|
<p> 1930</p>
|
|
<p> Bank of Wisdom
|
|
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
|
237
|
|
</p>
|
|
</body>
|
|
</html>
|