THE "DONATION OF CONSTANTINE" -- THE SOCIAL BASIS OF EUROPEAN MEDIEVAL POLITICAL RELIGION
A Medieval Fresco Depicting the Donation of Constantine
Church of Santi Quattro Coronati, Rome
"I am the Vicar of Jesus Christ, the successor of Peter, and I am placed between God and man, less than God, but greater than man: I judge all men, but I can be judged by none" (Innocent III, 1198-1216)
"The king is the last of the gods as a whole, but the first of human beings" (Corpus Hermeticum III Fragment XXIV, 3 ed. Nock-Festugiere, 53; 2nd cent. Egypt)
In the name of the Holy and Undivided Trinity.
The Emperor Caesar Flavius Constantinus in Christ Jesus (our Savior and our God, a Member of the same Holy Trinity), the faithful, merciful, great, beneficent, conqueror of the Alamanni, Goths, Sarmatians, Germans, Britons and Huns, pious, fortunate, victor and conqueror, ever august:
To the most holy and blessed Father of fathers, Sylvester, Bishop of the City of Rome and Pope, and to all his successors, the Pontiffs who shall occupy the See of the blessed Peter until the end of time; also to all the most reverend and God-loved Catholic bishops, subjected by this our Imperial enactment to the same most holy Roman Church throughout the whole world, to all who have been appointed now or who will be appointed at any future time;
Grace, peace, love, joy, long-suffering, and mercy from God the Father Almighty and Jesus Christ His Son and the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Our most merciful Serenity desires to bring to the knowledge of peoples throughout the whole world in a clear narrative, through the page of this our Imperial enactment, the things which the Savior and Redeemer our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the Most High Father, has deigned miraculously to work through His holy Apostles Peter and Paul by the intervention of our father Sylvester, Supreme Pontiff and universal Pope. But first we put forward with a sincere confession of the heart, for the instruction of your minds, our faith, which we learnt from the above-mentioned most blessed father, our confessor, Sylvester the Universal Pontiff, and then at last we announce the mercy of God which has been poured forth upon us:
[The document goes on to a lengthy statement of Christian belief and then resumes]
Our Lord God Himself, having pity on me a sinner, sent His holy Apostles to visit us and shed the light of His splendor upon us. Therefore rejoice with me that I have been rescued from darkness and brought into the true light and knowledge of truth. For while a powerful and sordid leprosy had taken possession of all the flesh of my body, and after I had received the attention of many assembled physicians, obtaining no cure from any of them, the priests of the Capitol came here, telling me that I ought to make a bath in the Capitol and fill it with the blood of innocent children and that I could be cleansed by bathing in it when it was warm. According to their instructions many innocent children were assembled, but when the unholy pagan priests were about to slaughter them and fill the bath with their blood, our Serenity noticed the tears of their mothers and immediately was seized with horror at the outrage. Having mercy on them, I ordered their sons to be restored to them and sent them back to their own homes with transport provided and with presents.
At the end of that same day, when the silence of night had fallen upon us, when the time of sleep had come, the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul appeared, saying to me: "Since you have put a stop to your crimes and have shunned the shedding of innocent blood, we have been sent by Christ our Lord God to give you advice on the recovery of your health. Hear our injunctions, therefore, and do whatever we tell you. Sylvester, Bishop of the City of Rome, has fled from your persecutions to Mount Serapte, and has found an obscure hiding-place with his clergy in the caverns of the rocks. When you have summoned him to you, he will show you a holy pool, in which he will immerse you three times and then all the strength of the leprosy will leave you. When this has been done, make this recompense to your Savior, that all the churches throughout the world may be restored by your order and that you purify yourself in this respect that, laying aside all vain worship of idols, you adore and worship the living and true God, who is alone true; in this way you will succeed in doing His Will."
Arising from sleep, I immediately carried out what I had been instructed to do by the holy Apostles. I summoned the excellent and beneficent father, our enlightener Sylvester, Universal Pope, and told him all the words imparted to me by the holy Apostles and I asked him who were these gods Peter and Paul. But he said they were not really to be called gods, but Apostles of our Savior the Lord God Jesus Christ. And again we began to ask that same most blessed Pope, whether he had any accurate picture of those Apostles, so that we might learn from the picture that they were those whom revelation had shown to us. Then the venerable father commanded that the pictures of those Apostles should be shown by his deacon. When I looked at them I recognized the faces of those, whom I had seen in my dream, depicted in those pictures, and I confessed with a great cry in the presence of all my satraps that they were those which I had seen in my dream.
At this the most blessed Sylvester our father, Bishop of the City of Rome, placed upon us a period of penance within our Lateran palace in a hair shirt, so that we might beg pardon from our Lord God Jesus Christ by watching, fasting, tears and prayers for everything which had been wickedly performed and unjustly commanded by us. Then after the clergy had laid their hands on me I came to the Bishop himself. There, renouncing the pomps of Satan and his works and all idols made with hands, I freely acknowledged before all the people that I believed in God the Father, Almighty Creator of heaven and earth, of things visible and invisible, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord, who was born of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary. Then, after the font had been blessed, the water of salvation purified me with a triple immersion. There, when I was placed in the depths of the font, I saw with my own eyes a hand from heaven touch me. Learn that when I rose from the font I was cleansed from all the filthiness of leprosy. And after I had been raised from the venerable font the Bishop put on white vestments and- administered to me the sign of the sevenfold Holy Spirit, the unction of the Holy Oil and he traced the emblem of the Holy Cross on my brow, saying: "God seals you with the sign of His faith in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in recognition of your faith." All the clergy replied: "Amen." The Bishop added: "Peace be with you."
On the first day, then, after receiving the mystery of holy Baptism and after the cure of my body from the filth of leprosy I recognized that there was no other God except the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, whom the most blessed Pope Sylvester preaches, Trinity in Unity, Unity in Trinity. For all the gods of the heathen which up to now I have worshipped, have been proved to be demons, the hand-made work of men. That same venerable father told very plainly to us the great power in heaven and earth which our Saviour had committed to the blessed Apostle Peter when, finding him faithful under questioning, he said: "Thou art Peter and upon this rock I will build my Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." Take note, O mighty sovereigns, and incline the attention of your heart to what the good Master and Lord gave in addition to His disciple when He said: "And I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatsoever thou shaft bind on earth shall be bound also in heaven and whatsoever thou shaft loose on earth shall be loosed also in heaven." It is a very wonderful and glorious thing to bind and loose on earth and to have that sentence of binding and loosing carried out in heaven.
While the blessed Sylvester was preaching these things I understood them and found that I was restored to full health by the beneficence of the same blessed Peter. So we, together with all our satraps and the whole Senate and all the nobles and the whole Roman people which is subject to the glory of our Empire, judged it in the public interest that, because St. Peter was made Vicar of the Son of God on earth, the Pontiffs also, who arc the successors of the same Prince of the Apostles, may obtain from us and our Empire greater governmental power than the earthly clemency of our Imperial serenity has so far conceded to them; thus we chose the same Prince of the Apostles and his Vicar to be our powerful patrons with God. And because our Imperial power is earthly, we have decided to honor reverently his most holy Roman Church, and to exalt the most holy See of blessed Peter in glory above our own Empire and earthly throne, ascribing to it politer and glorious majesty and strength and Imperial honor.
And we command and decree that he should have primacy over the four principal Sees of Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople and Jerusalem, as well as over all the Churches of God throughout the whole world; and the Pontiff who occupies at any given moment the See of that same most holy Roman Church shall rank as the highest and chief among all the priests of the whole world and by his decision all things are to be arranged concerning the worship of God or the security of the faith of Christians. For it is just that the holy law should have its centre of government at the place where the institutor of the holy laws, our Saviour, commanded blessed Peter to set up the chair of his apostolate, where also, bearing the agony of the cross, he received the cup of a holy death and appeared as an imitator of his Master and Lord; there also it should be that the Gentiles should bow their necks in acknowledgment of the name of Christ where their teacher blessed Paul the Apostle stretched out his neck for Christ and was crowned with martyrdom; let them until the end seek their teacher there, where the holy body of that teacher rests; and there, where they proudly acted as slaves to the empire of an earthly king, let them, prostrate and humble, carry out the service of the King of Heaven, our God and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Meanwhile we wish all the people of every race and nation throughout the whole world to know that we have built from its foundations, together with a baptistery, a church consecrated to that same Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ, within our Lateran palace, and you are to know that we have carried on our own shoulders twelve baskets heavy with soil from the foundations according to the number of the twelve Apostles; we decree that this most holy church is to be called, honored, venerated and proclaimed as the head and summit of all the churches in the whole world, just as we have ordered by other Imperial decrees. We have built also the churches of blessed Peter and Paul, princes of the Apostles, and have enriched them with gold and silver; there also we have buried with great honour their most holy bodies and have made the coffins of amber, against which no elemental force may prevail. And we have placed on each of their coffins a cross of purest gold and adorned with precious stones and we have locked them with golden keys. We have bestowed on these churches the revenues of estates to provide lights, and have enriched them in various respects. And through our sacred Imperial orders we have conceded to them lands in the East as well as in the West and even on the northern and southern coasts, that is to say in Judaea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, Africa and Italy and the various islands under the condition that all shall be governed by the instrumentality of our most blessed father Sylvester the Pontiff and his successors.
Let every people and the nations of the Gentiles in all the world rejoice therefore with us; we exhort you all that you return thanks abundantly to our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, because He is God in Heaven above and on earth beneath, Who, visiting us through His holy Apostles made us worthy to receive the holy Sacrament of Baptism and bodily health. In recompense for this we concede to those same holy Apostles, my lords the most blessed Peter and Paul and through them also to blessed Sylvester our father, Supreme Pontiff and Universal Pope of the City of Rome, and to all his successors,. the Pontiffs who will preside over the See of blessed Peter until the end of the world, and by this present document we confer, our Imperial palace of the Lateran, which surpasses and excels all palaces in the whole world, then a diadem which is the crown of our head, and at the same time the tiara; also the shoulder covering, that is the strap which is wont to surround our Imperial neck; also the purple cloak and the crimson tunic and all our Imperial garments. They shall also receive the rank of those who preside over the Imperial cavalry. We confer on them also the Imperial scepters and at the same time the spears and standards, also the banners and various Imperial decorations and all the prerogatives of our supreme Imperial position and the glory of our authority.
We decree that those very reverend men, the clerics who serve the most holy Roman Church in various orders, shall have the same dignity, distinction, power and pre-eminence, by the glory of which our Senate is decorated; and we decree that the clergy of the most holy Roman Church shall be adorned as are the soldiers of the Empire; and just as the Imperial power receives dignity from various offices, chamberlains, doorkeepers and all the guards, so also we wish the holy Roman Church to be adorned; and so that the Pontifical dignity may shine forth more clearly, we decree this also, that the clerics of the same holy Roman Church shall decorate their horses with saddle-cloths of linen of the very whitest colour, and thus the horses are to be equipped for riding; and just as our Senate uses sandals with fur covering, so let the clerics be distinguished by their very white linen,; then shall terrestrial as well as celestial things be adorned to God's glory. Above all, in addition, we grant to the same our most holy father Sylvester, Bishop of the City of Rome and Pope, and to all the most blessed Pontiffs who shall come after him in succession for ever, for the honour and glory of Christ our God, to add to the numbers in that same great Catholic and Apostolic Church of God any one from our court who shall wish of his own free choice to become a cleric, and to add any to the number of monastic clergy. Let no one presume to act arrogantly in all these matters.
So we have decreed this also, that our venerable father Sylvester, the Supreme Pontiff, and all his successors should use and wear upon their heads to the praise of God for the honour of blessed Peter a diadem, that is a crown of purest gold and precious gems, a crown which we have transferred from our own head; but the most holy Pope would by no means allow that golden crown to be worn above the crown of the priesthood, which he wears to the glory of the blessed Peter, so we placed upon his most holy head, with our own hands, a sparklingly bright tiara depicting the Lord's glorious Resurrection. And, holding the bridle of. his horse, we performed the office of groom for him, decreeing that all the Pontiffs, his successors, might alone use that tiara in processions.
To correspond to our own Empire and so that the supreme Pontifical authority may not be dishonored, but may rather be adorned with glorious power greater than the dignity of any earthly empire, behold, we give to the often-mentioned most holy Pontiff, our father Sylvester, the Universal Pope, not only the abovementioned palace, but also the city of Rome and all the provinces, districts and cities of Italy and the Western regions, relinquishing them to the authority of himself and his successors as Pontiffs by a definite Imperial grant. We have decided that this should be laid down by this our divine, holy and lawfully framed decree and we grant it on a permanent legal basis to the holy Roman Church.
Therefore we have seen it to be fitting that our Empire and the power of the kingdom should be transferred and translated to the Eastern regions and that in the province of Byzantium in the most suitable place a city should be built in our name and our Empire established there; because it is not just that an earthly Emperor should exercise authority where the government of priests and the Head of the Christian religion have been installed by the heavenly Emperor.
We decree also that all the things, which we have established and approved by this our holy Imperial edict and by other divine decrees shall remain uninjured and unbroken until the end of the world; so, in the presence of the living God, Who ordered us to reign, and in the presence of His terrible judgment, we solemnly warn, by this our Imperial enactment, all our successors as Emperors and all our nobles, the satraps, the most honorable Senate and all people throughout the world, now and in the future and in all times previously subject to our Empire, that none of them will be permitted in any way to oppose or destroy or to take away any of these privileges, which have been conceded by our Imperial decree to the most holy Roman Church and to its Pontiffs. But if any one (which we do not believe) does show himself as bold or presumptuous in this matter, he shall be handed over to undergo eternal condemnation, and he shall feel the hostility of the Saints of God, the Princes of the Apostles, Peter and Paul, against him in this life and the next, and he shall perish with the devil and all the wicked by burning in the lowest hell.
We have confirmed the parchment of this Imperial decree with our own hands and have placed it over the venerable body of blessed Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, promising to that same Apostle of God that we will observe inviolably all things stated in it, and that we will hand down in our commands to our successors instructions to preserve it. We then handed it over to our most blessed father Sylvester, the Supreme Pontiff and Universal Pope, and through him to all the Pontiffs who succeed him, to be possessed in perpetuity and happiness, with the consent of our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ.
The Imperial signature follows: May the Godhead preserve you for many years, most holy and blessed fathers.
Given at Rome on the third day before the Kalends of April, when our lord Flavius Constantinus the Emperor (in his fourth term of office) and Galliganus, those most illustrious men, were consuls.
[Taken from: Sidney Z. Ehler and John B. Morrall (trans. and eds.) Church and State Through the Centuries. London: Burns & Oates, 1954, pp. 15-22; for a critical edition of the original: Schafer Williams, "The Oldest Text of the 'Constitutum Constantini'" Traditio 20 (1964) 448-61.]