concealed a various collection of false or genuine, of corrupt or
suspicious, acts, as they tended to promote the interest of the
Roman church. Before the end of the eighth century, some
apostolic scribe, perhaps the notorious Isidore, composed the
decretals, and the donation of Constantine, the two magic pillars
of the spiritual and temporal monarchy of the popes. This
memorable donation was 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 Constantine. ^68
According to the legend, the first of the Christian emperors was
healed of the leprosy, and purified in the waters of baptism, by
St. Silvester, the Roman bishop; and never was physician more
gloriously recompensed. His royal proselyte withdrew from the
seat and patrimony of St. Peter; declared his resolution of
founding a new capital in the East; and resigned to the popes the
free and perpetual sovereignty of Rome, Italy, and the provinces
of the West. ^69 This fiction was productive of the most
beneficial effects. The Greek princes were convicted of the
guilt of usurpation; and the revolt of Gregory was the claim of
his lawful inheritance. The popes were delivered from their debt
of gratitude; and the nominal gifts of the Carlovingians were no
more than the just and irrevocable restitution of a scanty
portion of the ecclesiastical state. The sovereignty of Rome no
longer depended on the choice of a fickle people; and the
successors of St. Peter and Constantine were invested with the
purple and prerogatives of the Caesars. 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.
^70 The emperors, and the Romans, were incapable of discerning a