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The Puritans as a body, more intellectual than the mass of the Episcopalians, were led away by the imposing and entangling dialectics of the scholastic Calvin, and came unfortunately to attach as much importance to such subjects as free-will and predestination questions most complicated as they did to "the weightier matters of the law;" and when pushed by the logic of opponents to the decretum horribile, have been compelled to fall back on the Catholic doctrine of mysteries, as something which could never be explained or comprehended, but which it is a Christian duty to accept as a mystery.
The names or titles, often abbreviated, of commentators whom he quotes are frequently appended to their notes, e.g. About 1238 the compilation of John the German was revised and enlarged by Bartholomew of Brescia, who also added comments from other writers, e.g. The cross-references, in the comments below, are left untranslated. They are mainly citations of other passages in the Decretum itself.
Quod ad me attinet, jam pridem mihi decretum est, neque exercitus neque ducis terga tuta esse. Proinde et honesta mors turpi vita potior; et incolumitas ac decus eodem loco sita sunt: nec inglorium fuerit, in ipso terrarum ac naturae fine cecidisse."
Among the students and admirers of the pandects was Gratian, a monk of Bologna, who conceived the idea of compiling a digest of the canon law on the model of that favorite work; and soon afterwards, having incorporated with his own labors the collections of former writers, he gave his "decretum" to the public in 1151.
Among all these the Decretum of Gratian was the great innovation which first marked out Canon Law as a distinct field of learning, separate from both Theology and Roman Law. It was written as a text-book; "it was one of those great text-books which take the world by storm."
This forgery was intended to work on the Frankish kings, to impress them with a correct idea of their inferiority, and to show that, in the territorial concessions they made to the Church, they were not giving but only restoring what rightfully belonged to it. The most potent instrument of the new papal system was Gratian's Decretum, which was issued about the middle of the twelfth century.
"Hæc et alia hujusmodi cum protulissem, non valere, nisi eousque, ut decretum sit, si impetrare pacem potuissem vitæ parceretur. Sed non potuit filii stultitia, qui dum jactat opes quæ non sunt, illi quod non erat exigunt." De Vita Propria, ch. x. p. 34. De Vita Propria, ch. x. p. 33.
You will not marry, but all the maids and matrons of New France will lament your fate with tears, and from your death shall spring up the salvation of your native land how, I see not; but decretum est, Jumonville, ask me no more!" A thrill like a stream of electricity passed through the company.
The greatness of human reason was never more forcibly shown than in these deductions; but they were carried so far as to insult reason itself and mock the consciousness of mankind; so that mankind rebelled against the very force of the highest reasonings of the human intellect, because they pushed logical sequence into absurdity, or to dreadful conclusions: Decretum quidem horribile fateor, said the great master himself.
The revival of the study of civil law was followed by a new scientific study of Canon law; and a recognized code was for the first time developed, as well as a minute system of legal procedure, when Gratian published in 1151 the Decretum, a great text-book of ecclesiastical law.
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