Page 24 (part 2)

Éliphas Lévi, who rightly sought to vindicate the Church of his childhood, assailed, in the person of one of its sovereign pontiffs, by an unintelligent accusation, but vindicated it badly as usual, took a glance at the history of the time and discovered that during the pontificate of Honorius there was an anti-pope set up by Henry IV. of Germany, and that he was a man of evil life. He immediately conjectured that this personage was the likely author of the objectionable Grimoire. Again there is not a particle of evidence for such a surmise, and it is un bien vilain procédé , as M. Papus might say, to increase, without good reason, the responsibility resting upon the memory of the unhappy prelate in question. If we come to the facts, they are these. The first edition of the Grimoire is said to have appeared in 1629, and it is not likely that it was forged much earlier than the end of the sixteenth century, being, roughly, nine hundred years after the death of its supposed author. The canonical Pope, it must be confessed, was a voluminous writer; his sermons and his vast correspondence have appeared in two large volumes at Paris, under auspices which were unlikely to admit even a contemptuous reference to the forged constitution. There is none, accordingly, which is to be regretted from the standpoint of bibliography. But the editor has further excluded with the same silence another work much more reasonably attributed, and to which no odium can attach. It is one also which is important to our inquiry, and it is entitled Honorii Papæ, adversus tenebrarum Principem et ejus Angelos Conjurationes ex originale Romæ servato , Rome, 1529. The authenticity of this work is evidently questioned by its exclusion, and it is impossible to speak certainly concerning it, as, on account of its extreme rarity, few public libraries, none apparently in England, possess an example. But it is evidently the formularies of exorcism, a rite of the Church and possessing a considerable body of literature, to which even a Pope of past ages might not inconceivably have contributed. However this may be, the attribution in the one case will account for it in the other. The book of Black Magic may be merely a perversion of the orthodox conjurations, and if not that, is a reprisal; it is Sorcery revenging herself on a Pope who cast out devils by representing him as the prince of those who dealt with them. Having said something to justify the Grimoire from groundless condemnation, it is necessary now to add, on the authority of its own evidence, that it is a malicious and somewhat clever imposture, which was undeniably calculated to deceive ignorant persons of its period who may have been magically inclined, more especially ignorant priests, since it pretends to convey the express sanction of the Apostolical Seat for the operations of Infernal Magic and Necromancy. The entire claim is set forth most curiously at the beginning of the pseudo-constitution, and must be cited at considerable length to convey its full force. The Holy Apostolic Chair, unto which the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven were given by those words that Christ Jesus addressed to St. Peter: I give unto thee the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven, and unto thee alone the Power of commanding the Prince of Darkness and his angels, who, as slaves of their Master, do owe him honour, glory and obedience, by those other words of Christ Jesus: Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and Him only shalt thou serve--hence by the Power of these Keys the Head of the Church has been made the Lord of Hell.