Pseudo-Isidorus was no doubt a sincere believer in the hierarchical system; nevertheless
his Collection is to a large extent a conscious high church fraud, and must as such be traced to the
father of lies. It belongs to the Satanic element in the history of the Christian hierarchy, which has
as little escaped temptation and contamination as the Jewish hierarchy.
§ 61. Nicolas I., April, 858-Nov. 13, 867.
I. The Epistles of Nicolas I. in Mansi’s Conc. XV., and in Migne’s Patrol. Tom. CXIX. Comp. also
Jaffé, Regesta, pp. 237–254.
Hincmari (Rhemensis Archiepiscopi) Oper. Omnia. In Migne’s Patrol. Tom. 125 and 126. An older
ed. by J. Sirmond, Par. 1645, 2 vols. fol.
Hugo Laemmer: Nikolaus I. und die Byzantinische Staatskirche seiner Zeit. Berlin, 1857.
A. Thiel: De Nicolao Papa. Comment. duae Hist. canonicae. Brunzberg, 1859.
Van Noorden: Hincmar, Erzbischof von Rheims. Bonn, 1863.
Hergenröther (R.C. Prof at Wurzburg, now Cardinal): Photius. Regensburg, 1867–1869, 3 vols.
Comp. Baxmann II. 1–29; Milman, Book V. ch.4 (vol. III. 24–46); Hefele, Conciliengesch. vol.
IV., (2nd ed.), 228 sqq; and other works quoted § 48.
By a remarkable coincidence the publication of the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals synchronized
with the appearance of a pope who had the ability and opportunity to carry the principles of the
Decretals into practical effect, and the good fortune to do it in the service of justice and virtue. So
long as the usurpation of divine power was used against oppression and vice, it commanded
veneration and obedience, and did more good than harm. It was only the pope who in those days
could claim a superior authority in dealing with haughty and oppressive metropolitans, synods,
kings and emperors.
Nicolas I. is the greatest pope, we may say the only great pope between Gregory I. and
Gregory VII. He stands between them as one of three peaks of a lofty mountain, separated from
the lower peak by a plane, and from the higher peak by a deep valley. He appeared to his younger
contemporaries as a "new Elijah," who ruled the world like a sovereign of divine appointment,
terrible to the evil-doer whether prince or priest, yet mild to the good and obedient. He was elected
less by the influence of the clergy than of the emperor Louis II., and consecrated in his presence;
he lived with him on terms of friendship, and was treated in turn with great deference to his papal
dignity. He anticipated Hildebrand in the lofty conception of his office; and his energy and boldness
of character corresponded with it. The pope was in his view the divinely appointed superintendent
of the whole church for the maintenance of order, discipline and righteousness, and the punishment
of wrong and vice, with the aid of the bishops as his executive organs. He assumed an imperious
tone towards the Carolingians. He regarded the imperial crown a grant of the vicar of St. Peter for
the protection of Christians against infidels. The empire descended to Louis by hereditary right,
but was confirmed by the authority of the apostolic see.
The pontificate of Nicolas was marked by three important events: the controversy with
Photius, the prohibition of the divorce of King Lothair, and the humiliation of archbishop Hincmar.
In the first he failed, in the second and third he achieved a moral triumph.
Nicolas and Photius.