Cap. XI - Of Nicolinus his Tomes

Summary

Of Nicolinus his Tomes, and their Contents for the first 420 years. His Testimony concerning the sixth Council of Carthage.

Nicolinus is printed in five Volumes, Sixti V. Pont. Max. fælicissimis Auspiciis, as himself phraseth it: I think he means, By the favourable Permission and Authority of Pope Sixtus V. He dedicates his Tomes to the same most Holy Lord Sextus, &c. which were printed at Venice, An. 1585.

Among other things in which I should say he is peculiar, had not Merlin in his Isidore done the same, he sets a counterfeit Epistle of Aurelius, Archbishop of Carthage, to Damasus the Pope, and the Popes Answer, in the Front of his Work. The Epistle requesteth a Copy of all the Decretals that were made by the Bishops of Rome, from S. Peter downwards. The Answer intimates a Copy, commanding him to preach and publish the same.

In both these Collectors the Epistles are displaced above 300 years out of their due order, meerly that they might face the Forgeries with the great Authorities of Aurelius and Damasus, who were both dead 300 or 400 years before the Counterfeits were made: Howbeit, the Pageant does well to adorn the Scene; it entertains the Spectators as a fit Præludium, to make the way more fair for these disguized Masquers.

In the last of these Epistles, the Counterfeit Decrees are Fathered on the Holy Ghost, and whosoever speaketh against them, is charged with Blasphemy.

Yet for all this, though the Epistles were desired by Aurelius, and sent by Damasus, and commanded to be preached and published throughout the world, they were never heard of by the space of 700 or 800 years after their first Authors, nor for 300 or 400 years after this Damasus and Aurelius; though pretended to be the Canons of the Holy Fathers, so Sacred, and so Divinely inspired by the Holy Ghost.

This is that Damasus upon whom the Famous Pontifical is Fathered: He sate in the Chair An. 370. The Forgeries were unknown till about the year 800.

This Aurelius is he who tasted the Decrees of Zozimus, and had experience of their sincerity, when he resisted the Encroachments of the Roman Chair.