But oh! the unheard of and incredible thing [that Constantine did]! I remember asking some one, when I was a youth, who wrote the book of Job; and when he answered, “Job himself,” I rejoined, “How then would he mention his own death?” And this can be said of many other books, discussion of which is not appropriate here. For how, indeed, can that be narrated which has not yet been done; and how can that which [the speaker] himself admits was done after the burial, so to say, of the records, be contained in the records? This is nothing else than saying that “the page of the privilege” was dead and buried before it was born, and yet never returned from death and burial; and saying expressly that it was confirmed before it had been written, and not with one hand alone at that, but with both of the Caesar’s hands! And what is this “confirming”? Was it done with the signature of the Caesar, or with his signet ring? Surely, hard and fast that,—more so by far than if he had entrusted it to bronze tablets! But there is no need of bronze inscription, when the charter is laid away above the body of the blessed Peter. But why do you here suppress Paul, though he lies with Peter, and the two could guard it better than if the body of one alone were present? You see the malicious artfulness of the cunning Sinon![499] Because the Donation of Constantine cannot be produced, therefore he said that the “privilege” is not on bronze but on paper records; therefore he said that it lies with the body of the most holy apostle, so that either we should not dare to seek it in the venerable tomb, or if we should seek it, we would think it rotted away. But where then was the body of the blessed Peter? Certainly it was not yet in the temple where it now is, not in a place reasonably protected and safe. Therefore the Caesar would not have put the “page” there. Or did he not trust the “page” to the most blessed Sylvester, as not holy enough, not careful nor diligent enough? O Peter! O Sylvester! O holy pontiffs of the Roman church! to whom the sheep of the Lord were entrusted, why did you not keep the “page” entrusted to you? Why have you suffered it to be eaten by worms, to rot away with mold? I presume that it was because your bodies also have wasted away. Constantine therefore acted foolishly. Behold the “page” reduced to dust; the right conferred by the “privilege” at the same time passes away into dust.