Chapter 36
Section 36 of History of Rome and the Popes in the Middle Ages, Volume 3, by Hartman Grisar. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chapter 2. The End of Roman Culture, Chronicles, Forgeries, and Legends, Part 6. The Roman so-called Samachian Forgeries. A number of narratives and documents, which have since become famous, but which are all of them fictitious, are met with in Rome
under the pontificate of Pope Samacus. These documents, long since recognized as spurious, were forged in support of this pope during the attacks of which he was the object, and in later times, owing to their frequent citation, they secured quite undeservedly a high position in canon law. At the same time, it would be unjust to assert, as some moderns have done, that they were purposely devised to enhance the authority of the Papal Sea. On the contrary, their character
is private, and no proof is forthcoming that they were ever used officially or publicly on behalf of Samacus. The date of their composition is, however, of historical interest, in that it shows how dim the recollection of the 4th century had become to allow of so distorted a version of what had happened being penned at the beginning of the 6th. The style also betrays the decline in language and culture. The Latin, for instance, is abominable. What is said is vague and disconnected,
and occasionally it is scarcely possible to seize the writer's meaning. The forgeries thus contrast, most unfavorably, with the genuine documents of the Roman Curia and other official productions of that date. We have already described how Pope Samacus was persecuted by the anti-Pope Lawrence, how he was harassed by the interference of the civil court, and falsely charged with simony and immorality. For a long while, he was unable to enter into possession of the papal residence
in the Lateran and was compelled to exercise his authority and even to administer baptism in the Vatican Basilica. Such was the situation when an unknown forger, in the hope of proving of some assistance, produced the documents which have since borne the name of Samacus, and which contained an echo of the Pope's experiences. In what follows we shall discuss in detail the contents of the whole group of fictitious legends, first dealing with the deeds
of Pope Liberius and deeds of Pope Marcellinus, or history of the Synod of Sinousa. The fabulous deeds of Pope Liberius make their hero linger in exile outside Rome, indeed, yet not at the distance required by history. So near to the city was his place of banishment that he could baptize in the Church of St. Agnes, and afterwards, with added solemnity, in the Vatican, where his priest Damasus conveyed the necessary water to a new baptistry.
Just as Liberius, in spite of the persecution to which he was subjected, remained the rightful and venerated pope, so it is easy to see that the author wishes his readers to draw a similar inference with regard to Pope Symmachus. It is curious to note how two details of the legend afford us some insight into the methods of its inventor. One is the description of the work undertaken by the priest Damasus for the building of the baptistry. It coincides entirely with the
account given by Pope Damasus in a metrical description, of which we possess the original, of what he did as pope to bring water for baptism into the baptistry he had erected in St. Peter's. Evidently, the forger was acquainted with the inscription and simply recast it in prose form. It is no rare thing for legends to draw upon real monuments and inscriptions, but seldom indeed do they follow the original as faithfully as here.
The other detail is connected with the baptism of Constantine the Great. Regarding this, the writer gives his entire credence to the already existing fable of the emperor's baptism at Rome by Pope Sylvester. The tale is, however, at variance with the clear and unquestionable narrative of Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, Constantine's contemporary and friend. According to him, the emperor was baptized neither in Rome nor by Sylvester, but by Eusebius of Nicomedia
in a villa near Nicomedia at the very end of his life, that is, after the demise of Sylvester. In Jerome's chronicle, the same correct account is found, and even the name of the villa, namely Ancyron, is given. With these facts before him, what did our author do? His ingenuity was sufficient to carry him over the difficulty. He too tells of a baptism conferred by Eusebius, the bishop at Nicomedia, in a villa to which he gives the name of Aquilon, evidently a reminiscence
of Ancyron. The person baptized, according to the forger, was, however, Constans or Constantius, Constantine's son, whom in addition he mistakenly describes as a nephew of the great emperor. It is worth mentioning here that this legend of the persecution of Pope Liberius was made use of some 20 years later by the compiler of the Liber Pontificalis, though he again freely remodels it. He utilizes it in his chapter on Liberius,
though in such a way as to show that he had not the slightest confidence in it. This writer actually degrades Liberius to the extent of making him a mere tool of the heretic Constantius and a persecutor of the Catholics of Rome. On the other hand, Felix, who, as is well known, was really the antipope who, during Liberius' exile, was weak enough to allow himself to be promoted to the papacy by the Arian emperor Constantius, is glorified as a saint and valiant
confessor. Here we have again a mass of historical errors betraying the state of anarchy into which history fell during the decline of Roman civilization. Evidently such mistakes could arise only from popular confusion. By some process, the people have come to identify the antipope Felix with a saintly martyr of the same name venerated in Rome. We find also a trace of this mistaken identification of two different persons, both in the date and in the place of
burial. The martyr Felix, the most prominent among the Roman martyrs of this name, was buried on the Via Portuensis, and his interment was celebrated on July 29th. Now the Liber Pontificalis will also have it that the other Felix, the antagonist of Liberius, finally retired to the Via Portuensis, where he expired on an estate belonging to him, likewise on July 29th. It is a matter of fact, according to the testimony of a contemporary, Felix the Antipope died on November 22nd.
The second so-called Samachian forgery, the deeds of Pope Marcellinus, contains things no whit less extraordinary. It deals with the life of this Pope, who seems to have been suspected of having offered sacrifice to idols and with the Synod of Sinuesa. Throughout the Middle Ages, the account of this singular trial at the Synod was in the main accepted as truthful and was instanced by historians, theologians, and lawyers. According to this narrative, to consider the case of
Marcellinus, 300 bishops and numerous clergy assembled in council, first in the cave near Sinuessa, and then in the little town itself. Exclaiming that the Supreme See can be judged by no one, after much trouble, they induced Marcellinus to confess his sacrifice to idols, and then to pronounce his own sentence of deposition. Here likewise, the bearing of these proceedings on Samacus, during whose lifetime the tale was invented, is clear. The author wishes
to demonstrate that Samacus can be judged by no one, but to prove the well-known saying that the Pope as Supreme Judge is subject to no human tribunal. There was certainly no need of inventing so absurd a tale as that of the 300 bishops solemnly assembling in council in the very thick of the Diocletian persecution when no Christian was secure. To add to the improbability, after the business had been settled, the writer quite aimlessly makes them remain in council
until Diocletian sends special directions from Persia, when most of them are put to death. The axiom regarding the position of the Pope as Supreme Judge had long since been acknowledged in the Church and had already then assumed the form given it by the forger and which it has ever since retained. Three other Samachian forgeries still remain to be considered. In the purgation of Zistus III, it is related how this pope, on being charged with immorality by Bassus, had cleared
himself by an oath, upon which no further legal procedure was considered necessary. Real history knows nothing of the kind concerning Zistus, and it is difficult to find in his life anything which could in any way have given rise to such a story. All that can be alleged is the suspicion which may have been excited by his excessive gentleness towards the Pelagians. The tales told about Polychronius, Bishop of Jerusalem, the leading figure in the book, present an even more serious
difficulty, for Polychronius had never existed. According to the story, he had, however, been charged with simony, and his fate was evidently intended by the writer to be read in connection with the case of Symmachus, simony as well as immorality having been one of the false charges hurled against this pope. Finally, we have the two documents dealing with Pope Sylvester, later on often quoted as genuine by ecclesiastical authors and canonists. They comprise a collection
of 20 rules, usually called the Constitutum Silvestri, and the decrees of the Synod said to have been held by Sylvester with 275 bishops. The fiction of Constantine's baptism by Sylvester and his subsequent recovery from leprosy is also interwoven with these various documents. The latter legend, once started, took the fancy of the Romans, and as it seemed to redound to the honor of the Roman Church, it could scarcely be omitted in speaking of Sylvester. It thus came
to be used first by the less educated, and then even in cultured and official circles. The main point the author of the spurious constitutum silvestri has in view is to adduce decrees which might serve the cause of Symmachus, to press home the need of observing the traditional forms of the ecclesiastical courts, to show that the clergy are not to be summoned before civil judges, and that the supreme bishop may be judged by no one. Not one of the twenty ordinances of the
constitutum, which Sylvester is supposed to have sanctioned at a council, really had him for its author. In spite of this, the constitutum, in time, found its way into the papal decretals. It is, in fact, the first false decretal known in history, and was a forerunner of the later spurious papal decretals intended to settle disputed points of church discipline, which are numerous enough to form a kind of literature apart. The fictitious council of 275 bishops
presided over by Pope Sylvester and held in Constantine's presence, principally for the ratification of the Council of Nicaea, is unluckily made to take place in a time, in 325, when Constantine was not staying in Rome and in a place, that is Trajan's Thermae, which had never served for holding councils, and which could not well have been used for the purpose, seeing that the Babs were still resorted to. It also enacted impossible decrees, for instance,
its Paschal decree, which is in flagrant contradiction with that of Nicaea, and another which requires 46 years service in the church before a man may be admitted to the priesthood. This synod under Pope Sylvester was alleged to have ratified solemnly the Nicene Council, though our real historical sources are quite silent about any such solemn confirmation. Athanasius and Hillary were both unacquainted with it, though they both deal at length with
the synods of the period. It is needless to labor the point further. The forger of these curious synodal acts was merely endeavoring by his inventions to place the case of Pope Symmachus in the light he wished. The attitude of the 6th century towards these so-called Symmachian forgeries is made clear in the earliest Western collections of canons compiled not long after. The oldest collection, that of Dionysius Exeguus, says never a word concerning them so
that we may infer that in Rome, where he wrote, not the slightest authority was attached to them. They had not found their way even into that addition of the Dionysian canons sent by Pope Hadrian to Charles the Great and the Franks. The author of the later pseudo-Isidorean collection likewise refrained from incorporating these apparently so important canonical acts. In the 6th century they do, however, appear in a less celebrated Italian collection of canonical
decrees, which recent research has discovered in a 6th century manuscript of St. Blasius and a Vatican copy made in the 9th century. This Italian collection has the dubious merit of having first set the Samachian forgeries in circulation. In the 6th century likewise, the author of the Liber Pontificalis also helped on their cause. Not indeed that he makes use of all the documents, and even where he does lay them under contribution, he treats them with such freedom that he can
really have given them scant credit. He welcomes, however, the disciplinary regulations in the documents of Pope Sylvester and ascribes them airily to divers popes without examining whether historically they fit the circumstances of these popes. To Sylvester himself, he leaves very little, nor does he hesitate to alter the decrees when it pleases him, so as to bring them into conformity with the customs prevailing in his own time. End of section 36.
