1 The translation that follows is of an appendix to the third controversy in the first volume of St. Robert Bellarmine’s famous Disputations about Controversies of the Christian Faith against the Heretics of this Age, first published at Ingolstadt in 1581- 1593 and republished several times thereafter. The translation is in progress. The Latin text can be downloaded from Google books: http://books.google.com/books?id=vqJaa8h_teQC&pg=PP22&dq=bellarmini+contro versiae&hl=en&sa=X&ei=5ZGvUcO9HtS44APBqoHgAg&ved=0CDkQ6AEwAjgU The third controversy itself in the first volume, about the Papacy, is not translated here. A translation has however been published by the Liberty Fund https://catalog.libertyfund.org/natural-law/on-temporal-and-spiritual-authority- paperback-detail.html and also by Mediatrix Press http://mediatrixpress.com/?s=bellarmine Peter L P Simpson July 2016 2 Appendix to Volume One: On the Transfer of the Empire from the Greeks to the Germans In Three Books Contents: Book One: The Roman Empire was transferred from the Greeks to the Franks by Authority of the Roman Pontiff Preface: Argument and Division of this Book Chapter One: Twelve Contradictions in Illyricus are Uncovered. [Chapter Two: The Lies of Illyricus Chapter Three: The Prolegomena of Illyricus are Refuted] Chapter Four: That the Roman Empire was transferred from the Greeks to the Franks by authority of the Supreme Pontiffs is demonstrated by the testimonies of Historians 3 Robert Bellarmine’s Controversies Appendix to Volume One: On the Transfer of the Empire from the Greeks to the Germans In Three Books Book One: The Roman Empire was Transferred from the Greeks to the Franks by Authority of the Roman Pontiff Preface: Argument and Division of this Book As I am about to write of the transfer of the Roman Empire from the Greeks to the Germans against a most lying book, which Matthias Flaccius Illyricus produced a few years ago on the same topic, I thought it would be worth my while if, just as he himself stated some prolegomena by way of preface, so I too should, in place of prolegomena, state a few things by way of preface both about the contradiction and about the manifest and most crass lies of the same Illyricus. For in this way I hope that, once the instability and impudence of the man have been laid open, a way for the truth will made open also at the same time in the ears and minds of those whom falsity has perhaps already seized upon and whom he has overwhelmed with darkness by his arts and by the much confusion and varying of his histories. Next I will enter upon the matter in the following order. For since Illyricus, being inconstant and varying, teaches in one place that the Roman Empire was not transferred by the authority of the Roman Pontiff from the Greeks to the Franks or Germans, and in another place confesses the fact indeed but affirms it was done unjustly and impiously, and that this transfer was an especial miracle of Antichrist, I will for this reason first try to demonstrate that the transfer was truly done by authority of the Supreme Pontiff, and I will take up arguments from the consensus of all the historians, from the consensus of the Emperors and other Princes, from the testimonies of the old Roman Pontiffs, and lastly from refutation of all the rights or titles that the adversaries put forward. For I will show with most certain reasons that Charlemagne, who neither Illyricus nor anyone else denies was Roman Emperor, did not reach this dignity by right of war and arms, or by immediate call from God, or by hereditary succession, or by gift of the Greeks, or lastly by election of the Senate and People of Rome; that therefore either Charlemagne had the Empire from the Pontiff or he did not have it at all. Then I will make it plain that what the Supreme Pontiff did in this transfer of the Empire was done correctly and by right. Lastly, so that as not to seem to have passed over any of the things Illyricus treats of, I will add something about the transfer (if however if should be called a transfer) of the Empire from the family of Charlemagne to the Saxons, and about the institution of the Seven Imperial Electors. 4 Chapter One: Twelve Contradictions are uncovered in Illyricus Our Illyricus, then (to begin from what was proposed first), is accustomed, for his weight and constancy in asserting opinions, to consider not so much what is the case in reality as what may most serve his purpose. Therefore, if affirming something is useful for the cause he defends, he confidently affirms it; if again he thinks denying that very thing conduces to his business, he boldly denies it. He bothers all too little whether his writings cohere with themselves or fight with themselves, and whether one remark gives support to another or whether instead, as in civil war, one is overthrown by another. I. In the book he recently published about the transfer of the Empire, he everywhere calls figments and fables what is generally believed, that the Roman Empire was transferred from the Greeks to the Germans by authority of the Supreme Pontiff. And, to note one particular place, the title of the second part of the first chapter is, ‘That the transfer of the Empire from the Greeks to the Germans was not done by the Popes’. But astonishingly, when he was writing this, he had forgotten what he had written a little before. For when explaining the marks of the Antichrist in the book against the primacy of the Pope, almost at the end, he puts in the fifth place this mark about the transfer of the Empire, and indeed in these words, “Antichrist will appear when the Roman Kingdom will be failing, and he will give the Romans freedom, but under his own name. This happened before the year 700 when the Roman Empire was falling and something was begun by the Pope, not as Caesar, Dictator, Consul, or Senator, but as Roman Pope; for then the Pope propagated his power and empire. So Revelation 13, ‘The wounded beast was honored by another beast, similar to a lamb’.” Illyricus affirms this not only in this book but also in his Centuries. For thus does he write, Century 8.10 col.751, “And so (Leo III) transferred the Roman Empire to Charles and the Franks, and yet he reserved for himself the right of ruling the Franks, and so it happened from then on that whoever received the scepter of Empire was installed by the Pope, and this transfer is preeminent among the miracles of Antichrist, Revelation 13 & 17.” What here will you choose, Illyricus? If the Roman Pontiff transferred the Empire to the Franks, your whole book about the transfer of the Empire collapses; if he did not transfer it, no small part collapses, both from your book against the Primacy and from the Centuries of your History. Indeed rather, whether the Roman Pope transferred the Empire to the Franks or did not, your book about the transfer of the Empire collapses. For indeed you think, in the places above cited, that you have proved by a most effective argument drawn from the word of God that the Pope is Antichrist, because namely the Pope, when he inaugurated the Western Empire, cured the wound of the beast (as you interpret it), which is a miracle and preeminent mark of Antichrist, Revelation 13 & 17. Therefore when, in the book about the transfer of the Empire, you contend so sharply that the Pope is not the author of the Western Empire, what else do you contend for than to cause us to believe false that demonstration of yours by which you wanted to prove, from the word of God, that the Pope is Antichrist? And yet in this very book you repeat, for the third time as well, that the Pope is Antichrist – the book in which you yourself 5 make totter the chief demonstration that you believe establishes the Pope to be Antichrist. But let us proceed to other things. II. In this very book about the transfer of the Empire, in the dedicatory epistle, Illyricus affirms that the Germans acquired the right to the Roman Empire 1500 years ago, namely when, under the leadership of Arminius, they seized two Eagles from the Romans, and that as sign of this thing the Germans carry forward on their insignia a two-headed Eagle. “To this,” he says, “you can refer the fact that under Augustus, not long after Julius, the Germans carried off two Eagles from the Romans in a most just war.” And later, “Whenever therefore the Roman sacrificing priest and others jealous of empire wish to know the origin and right of the monarchy of the Germans, let them only gaze on and contemplate its glorious insignia displaying the two-headed Eagle, and these insignia will soon abundantly teach them about their origin and right and convince them even against their will.” His words. But these dreams, which we will refute below in chapter 6, are refuted even by the same Illyricus himself when in Centuries 9.16 col.621 he speaks as follows, “The Roman Eagle at the beginning of this century (the century from 800 to 900) was divided into two heads. For by the Pontiff Leo, with the consent of the Senate and people of Rome, Charlemagne, in a solemn rite, was installed as Emperor of the West in the year 801.” How, I ask, do these things cohere, that 1500 years ago the two-headed Eagle and right and origin of the German Empire began, and yet that the Roman Eagle was first divided 700 years ago in the year 801 when Charlemagne was first installed as Emperor of the West by the Pontiff Leo? III.