The Donation of Constantine: The Great Forgery

The Donation of Constantine has not been held up as legitimate since corrupt Roman popes of medieval times. It was, however, a shock to Martin Luther to discover that the Donation of Constantine (and the Isidorian Decretals) were forgeries. It led him to debate whether the pope was antichrist himself.

The Donation gives authority of the western Roman empire to the bishop of Rome, specifically to Sylvester. It mentions Rome, Italy, and "all the western regions." Then it adds that Constanine was returning to Constantinople to rule the east, since there is no point in a secular emperor ruling where God has planted the head of the Church.

Anyone with any knowledge of the emperor Constantine the Great would have to know the Donation could not be accurate. Constantine fought hard to unite the empire under his rule, only accomplishing that in 324, halfway through his reign. He called the Council of Nicea to ensure that his empire would not be split by the division of the Church. It is hardly likely that he would give away the western half of the Roman empire to a bishop that just two decades earlier was part of a growing but small and illegal religion.

The Donation of Constantine confers several other privileges on Sylvester that it's likely he would not have accepted had it been real—things such as the right to wear an imperial robe.

By the time of the Council of Nicea, in the middle of both Constantine's reign and Sylvester's tenure as bishop, Christians were still quite used to avoiding the pomp and circumstance of secular government. Tertullian had written a tract explaining why Christians don't wear crowns (De Corona) just a century earlier. Even as late as the Council of Nicea itself, Christians were forbidden military service (Canon 12).

The Donation goes on to say that Constantine led a horse with the pope on it. It says he was baptized in Rome by Sylvester and that he was cured of leprosy when it happened.

Basically, in every way, it claims that Constantine gave Sylvester, bishop of Rome, all the pomp and authority that popes had in medieval times.

Even the Roman Catholics admit it's a forgery. I even got a lot of the description of the Donation of Constantine itself from the Catholic Encyclopedia.

The Donation of Constantine: Passing off a Forgery

Such a document would go nowhere today, but in medieval times, disparagingly but accurately called The Dark Ages (which is generally what a religious government will provide), it was easy to pass it off as true.

It's not really known when this document was created. Best guess is between 750 and 850. It was not exposed until 1440, when Lorenzo Valla's writings exposed it.

The Donation of Constantine and Papal History

Many grand claims were made by Roman Catholic popes of the middle ages, and most of them are still made today. Not only is the Donation of Constantine a forgery, but the current history of the papacy proposed by the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) is a known falsehood.

I suppose I could be nicer or less "biased" in saying that, but suggesting that there is anything apostolic about the sort of authority the RCC claims for the pope is simply dishonest. No one who looks at the issue can miss the obvious facts.

• Clement of Rome's letter, A.D. 96, suggests there were multiple bishops in Rome all the equivalent of elders, which was typical of Paul and Peter's churches.
• Ignatius wrote a letter in A.D. 110; he mentions no bishop in Rome, despite emphasis on the bishop in his other letters.
• Irenaeus' does give a succession of bishops in Rome back to the apostles in his Against Heresies, but he states that he's only doing this to prove the apostles' preaching has been preserved there. He also states he could have done the same with Ephesus, Smyrna, or any other apostolic church, but he didn't have time.

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• Cyprian is one of the most quoted early Christian authors by the RCC because he did believe Peter passed the keys of the kingdom on to the bishops of the Church, saying they were all one. However, he makes it clear that he didn't consider the Roman bishop to possess those keys himself by holding a Council in 257 of 87 bishops specifically to say otherwise. They rebuked Stephen, the bishop of Rome, for claiming to be "bishop of bishops" and said no bishop has authority over any other.
• At the Council of Nicea, Canon 6 says that the bishop of Rome would have "similar" authority to the bishop of Alexandria. The bishop of Alexandria is said to have authority over all of Egypt plus a couple provinces.
• The Great Schism of 1054 happened because the patriach of Constantinople, in agreement with other patriarchs given authority by the Council of Nicea (Alexandria and Antioch), rejected the papal claims of the bishop of Rome.

The evidence against the claims of the Donation of Constantine are so overwhelming that even the Roman Catholic Church has had to admit it's a forgery. They have, however, relinquished none of the papal claims, and historically, they are just as much a forgery.