Evidences of fraud are to be found in the uniformity of language, the impurity of style, the use of words of a late origin for an earlier period, many clumsy anachronisms, the total absence of all proof of the authenticity of the early decretals, the evident effort to meet contemporary prejudice, and the fact that there is no knowledge of the existence of the forged letters until incorporated in this collection. Many absurdities also appear: for instance, Roman bishops of the second and third centuries write in Frankish Latin of the ninth century in the spirit of post-Nicene orthodoxy and about the mediæval relationship of the Church and state. These early bishops quote the Vulgate of Jerome as amended under Charles the Great. Pope Victor (202) writes a letter to Bishop Theophilus of Alexandria (383) about a second-century controversy. Pope Anacletus speaks of patriarchs, metropolitans, and primates long before they arose. Pope Melchiades, who died in 314, mentions the Nicene Council which was held in 325. Pope Zephyrinus (218) appeals to the laws of Christian Emperors before Constantine was born. Just how soon they were discovered to be forgeries, is a question that has aroused considerable discussion. Pope Nicholas I. must have known that they were false, but they suited his purpose so well that he sanctioned them. Some of the Latin bishops saw through the forgery, but, for various reasons, kept silent. A few of the Frankish bishops denounced them and objected to their reception as law. Even Hincmar, although he did so much to establish them, declared them to be spurious and called them a "mouse-trap" and a "cup of poison with the brim besmeared with honey." The synod of Rheims in 991 opposed the Isidorian principles. Stephen of Tournai (d. 1203) called them into question. Peter Comester in his _Historia Scholastica_ (twelfth century) granted the ingeniousness of the author. Dante alluded to the fiction and grumbled about the "Donation of Constantine" in these words: Ah, Constantine! of how much ill the cause-- Not thy conversion, but those rich domains That the first wealthy Pope received of thee.[332:1]