Excursus on the Two
Letters of Gregory II. To the Emperor Leo.
(J. B. Bury, Appendix 14 to Vol. V. of his edition of
Gibbon’s
Rome
. 1898.)
It is incorrect to say that “the two epistles of
Gregory II. have been preserved in the Acts of the Nicene
Council” [as Gibbon does]. In modern collections of the
Acts of Ecclesiastical Councils, they have been printed at the end of
the Acts of the Second Nicene Council. But they first came to
light at the end of the
XVI
th
.
century and were printed for the first time in the
Annales
Ecclesiastici
of Baronius, who had obtained them from Fronton le
Duc. This scholar had copied the text from a Greek
ms.
at Rheims. Since then other
mss.
have been found, the earliest belonging to the
XI
th
., if not the Xth century.
In another case we should say that the external evidence
for the genuineness of the epistles was good. We know on the
authority of Theophanes that Gregory wrote one or more letters to Leo
(
ἐπιστολὴν
δογματικήν
,
sub
a. m
. 6172,
οι
ἐπιστολῶν
,
sub
a. m
. 6221); and we should have no
external reasons to suspect copies dating from about 300 years
later. But the omission of these letters in the Acts of the
Nicene Council, though they are stated to have been read at the
council, introduces a shadow of suspicion. If they were
preserved, how comes it that they were not preserved in the Acts of the
Council, like the letter of Gregory to the Patriarch Germanus?
There is no trace anywhere of the Latin originals.
Turning to the contents, we find enough to convert
suspicion into a practical certainty that the documents are
forgeries. This is the opinion of M. l’abbé Duchesne
(the editor of the
Liber Pontificalis
), M. L. Guérard
(
Mélanges d’Archéologie et d’Histoire
, p.
44
sqq
., 1890); Mr. Hodgkin (
Italy and her Invaders
, Vol.
vi., p. 501
sqq
.). A false date (the beginning of
Leo’s reign is placed in the
XIV
th
. instead of the
XV
th
. indiction), and the false implication that
the Imperial territory of the “Ducatus Romæ”
terminated at twenty-four stadia, or three miles, from Rome, point to
an author who was neither a contemporary of Leo nor a resident in
Rome. But the insolent tone of the letters is enough to condemn
them. Gregory II. would never have addressed to his sovereign the
crude abuse with which these documents teem. Another objection
(which I have never seen noticed) is that in the First Letter the
famous image of Christ which was pulled down by Leo, is stated to have
been in the “Chalkoprateia” (bronzesmith’s quarter),
whereas, according to the trustworthy sources, it was above the
Chalkâ gate of the Palace.
Rejecting the letters on these grounds—which are
supported by a number of smaller points—we get rid of the
difficulty about a Lombard siege of Ravenna before
a.d.
727: a siege which is not mentioned elsewhere
and was doubtless created by the confused knowledge of the
fabricator.