The reason assigned for the bestowal of this magnificent donation was gratitude on the part of Constantine, for having been cured of leprosy through the administration of the rite of baptism at the hands of Pope Sylvester. But it is historically established that Constantine did not receive the rite of baptism until a late hour in his last sickness; that when he did receive it, it did not cure his malady; and that the rite was administered, not by the Pope of Rome, but by an Arian bishop. Whatever donations of crowns, kingdoms and cities were bestowed on the bishop who officiated on the occasion, were unquestionably granted to a heretical sectary; and if Rome does not wish to confess herself an Arian, she cannot consistently claim their gifts. But even had the case been otherwise, how could Constantine bestow on the pope all the cities of Western Italy, and of all other countries, when he did not possess them himself? As the gift of a donor is worthless unless he has an actual right in what he bestows, the pretensions of the pope on the ground of Constantine's gift, are an actual nullification of all his claims to temporal sovereignty. It is generally conceded that Constantine allowed the pope the use of some buildings in Rome; but it is denied that he ever invested him with a title to them as lord paramount. This limited indulgence was the pope's precedent for holding real estate, and formed the basis of his claim to all the crowns and kingdoms of the world. But like the rapacious dog, who, with his mouth full of meat, lost all he had by snapping at the shadow of more in a river, the pope, by attempting through forged documents to grasp at all the world, has lost his title, to any part of it. Although the decretal letter attributed to Constantino was palpably spurious, yet such was the general ignorance of the times, the respect for the sanctity and infallibility of the pope, and the danger of provoking the wrath of the inquisition by questioning a dogma of the church, that its validity was not called into question. At length, however, in a legal proceedings of a monastery at Sabine, its fraudulent character was attempted to be substantiated. The bold criticisms of Laurentius Valla, in the fifteenth century, gave the first decisive blow to its credibility, and in the succeeding age it sunk into public contempt, beneath the scorn of historians, the ridicule of poets, and the concessions of theologians. But notwithstanding its universally acknowledged spurious character, such is the reluctance of the popes to yield a point, that it still continues to remain a portion of the canon law of the holy Catholic church.