h acknowledged by all authorities worthy of the name,
Catholic as well as Protestant, to be simply--like the Isidorian
Decretals--pious frauds.

Thus arose an atmosphere of criticism very different from the atmosphere
of literary docility and acquiescence of the "Ages of Faith"; thus it
came that great scholars in all parts of Europe began to realize, as
never before, the part which theological skill and ecclesiastical zeal
had taken in the development of spurious sacred literature; thus was
stimulated a new energy in research into all ancient documents, no
matter what their claims. To strengthen this feeling and to intensify
the stimulating qualities of this new atmosphere came, as we have seen,
the researches and revelations of Valla regarding the forged Letter of
Christ to Abgarus, the fraudulent Donation of Constantine, and the late
date of the Apostles' Creed; and, to give this feeling direction toward
the Hebrew and Christian sacred books, came the example of Erasmus.(474)

(474) For very fair statements regarding the great forged documents of
the Middle Ages, see Addis and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, articles
Dionysius the Areopagite and False Decretals, and in the latter the
curious acknowledgment that the mass of pseudo-Isidorian Decretals "is
what we now call a forgery."

For the derivation of Dionysius's ideas from St. Paul, and for the idea
of inspiration attributed to him, see Albertus Magnus, Opera Omnia, vol.
xiii, early chapters and chap. vi. For very interesting details on this
general subject, see Dollinger, Das Papstthum, chap. ii; also his Fables
respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages, translated by Plummer and H. B.
Smith, part i, chap. v. Of the exposure of these works, see Farrar, as
above, pp. 254, 255; also Beard, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 4, 354. For the
False Decretals, see Milman, History of Latin Christianity, vol. ii, pp.
373 et seq. For the great work of the pseudo-Dionysius, see ibid., vol.
iii, p. 352, and vol. vi, pp. 402 et seq., and Canon Westcott's article
on Dionysius the Areopagite in vol. v of the Contemporary Review; also
the chapters on Astronomy in this work.

Naturally, then, in this new atmosphere the bolder scholars of Europe
soon began to push more vigorously the researches begun centuries before
by Aben Ezra, and the next efforts of these men were seen about the
middle of the seventeenth century, when Hobbes, in his Leviathan, and
La Pevrere, in his Preadamites,