Answer to them, maintains the Authenticity of those Letters, exhorts all, who profess the Catholic Faith, to receive them _with due Veneration_, and claims, in virtue of such sacred and authentic Writings, an uncontrouled Authority over all the Churches of the World, as lodged from the Beginning in his See[N3.2]. And was not this making use of the supposed Authority of those Decretals to promote his own? _Nicolas_ seems to have believed the Letters to be genuine: and, if he did, he was certainly mistaken, and erred in proposing, as he does, spurious Pieces for a _firm and strong Foundation_ of our Belief, as well as our Practice. If he did not believe them to be genuine, and yet endeavoured to persuade the Bishops of _France_ that they were so; nay, and claimed, upon the Authority of such Pieces, a Power over them, and their Churches; a worse Epithet would suit him better than that of _fallible_, which is common to all Men. The first who published these Decretals was, according to _Hincmarus_, _Riculphus_ Bishop of _Mentz_, who was supposed to have brought them from _Spain_; because the Name of _Isidore_ was prefixed to the Collection, and a famous Writer of that Name, _viz._ _Isidore_ Bishop of _Seville_, had flourished in _Spain_ some Centuries before. But such a mean and scandalous Undertaking is altogether unworthy of so great a Prelate; and besides the Author of the supposed Decretals has copied, _verbatim_, some Passages from the Council of _Toledo_ in 675. and from the Sixth Council in 681. whereas _Isidore_ of _Seville_ died in 636. The learned _Ellies du Pin_ lays this Forgery at the Door of some _German_ or _Frenchman_, the Letters being all written in the Style of the _Germans_ and _French_, of the 9th Century, and many of them addressed to Persons of these two Nations. _Hincmarus_ was mistaken, in supposing the forged Decretals to have been first published by _Riculphus_ of _Mentz_; for in some of them are found Fragments of the Council held at _Paris_ in 829. and he died in 814. They were first ushered into the World, and forged too, in all likelihood, by one _Benedict_, Deacon of the Church of _Mentz_, though, in his Preface to that Collection, he would fain make us believe, that _Autcarius_, the Successor of _Riculphus_, found them in the Archives of that Church, and that they had been placed there by _Riculphus_, who had brought them from _Spain_. _Autcarius_, in whose Time _Benedict_ published his Collection, is thought to have been privy to the Imposture. The Name of _Isidore_, which was then very common in _Spain_, was prefixed to it, to persuade the World, that the Decretals were brought from that Country, and not forged at _Mentz_, where they first appeared. However, they were suspected by some, even in that dark Age, and absolutely rejected by _Hincmarus_ of _Rheims_, as Writings of no Authority. But the Popes, whose Pretensions they