d
the repeated canons of the church, show, through every age, how much all
forgeries and imposture were always the object of their abhorrence. Pope
Adrian I., in an epistle to Charlemagne, mentions this constant severe
law of the church, and says, that no acts of martyrs are suffered to be
read which are not supported by good vouchers.[10] The council in
Trullo,[11] and many others down to the present age, have framed canons
for this purpose, as F. Honoratus of St. Mary shows.[12] Pope Gelasius
I., in his famous Roman council in 494, condemns the false acts of St.
George, which the Arians had forged,[13] &c. Tertullian[14] and St.
Jerom[15] inform us, that, in the time of the apostles, a certain priest
of Asia, out of veneration for St. Paul and St. Thecla, forged false
acts of their peregrinations and sufferings; but for this crime he was
deposed from the priesthood by St. John the Evangelist. No good end can,
on any account, excuse the least lie; and to advance that pious frauds,
as some improperly call them, can ever be lawfully used, is no better
than blasphemy. All wilful lying is essentially a sin, as Catholic
divines unanimously teach, with St. Austin, against the
Prisciallianists. It is contrary and most hateful to the God of truth,
and a heinous affront and injury offered to our neighbor: it destroys
the very end and use of speech, and the sacred bond of society, and all
commerce among men; for it would be better to live among dumb persons,
than to converse with liars. To tell any lie whatsoever in the least
point relating to religion, is always to lie in a matter of moment, and
can never be excused from a mortal sin, as Catholic divines teach.[16]
Grotius, the Protestant critic, takes notice that forgeries cannot be
charged upon the popes, who, by the most severe canons, forbid them,
punish the authors if detected, and give all possible encouragement to
judicious critics.[17] This also appears from the works of innumerable
learned men among the Catholics, and from the unwearied labors with
which they have given to the public the most correct editions of the
ancient fathers and historians. Good men may sometimes be too credulous
in things in which there appears no harm. Nay, Gerson observes,[18] that
sometimes the more averse a person is from fraud himself, the more
unwilling he is to suspect imposture in others. But no good man can
countenance and abet a known fraud for any purpose whatever. The
pretence of rel