(Pius II.)

A letter which Pope Pius II wrote to the sultan, Mahomet II, has much employed the controversial writers. Mr du Plessis Mornai was the aggressor in these words: Du Plessis, Mystery of Iniquity, pag. 541. ¹¹⁹ “The ambition of Pius II cannot be better known than by his epistle 396, wherein he offers and promises the Grecian empire to Mahomet sultan of the Turks, provided he would turn Christian, and succour the church, that is, his own party, and assist him to rend Christendom in pieces, as he did

by continual wars, giving him to understand, that it was in his gift, and that thus his predecessors had granted the empire of Germany to Charlemagne.”

Coëffeteau filled all the sails of his eloquence, or rather of his anger, in answering this passage of Du Plessis. “Is it possible,” says he, Coëffet, Answer to the Mystery of Iniquity, pag. 1197. ¹²⁰ “that heresy should so far extinguish all ingenuousness, as to make us condemn what is most commendable in the actions of those we have a mind to defame? There can be nothing so learned and eloquent, nothing so solid and nervous, nothing so humble and Christian, nothing so pious and religious, as this epistle; and yet Du Plessis alleges it as a signal mark of the insolence of its author. Does any spark of modesty, any sense of justice, remain with him? Here are the words, from which he would infer the ambition of Pius. 'If you desire,' says this pope to Mahomet, ‘ to enlarge your empire among the Christians, and render your name glorious, you need neither gold nor silver, nor armies, nor ships to do it. One little thing may render you the greatest, the most powerful, the most famous, of all men that live this day. You will ask what it is? It is not difficult to find it, and you need not search far for it; it is to be met with in all parts of the world; it is only a little water, to baptise you, that you may embrace the Christian religion,and believe the gospel. If you do this, no prince in the world will exceed you in glory, or equal you in power. We will call you the emperor of the Greeks, and of the East; and what you now possess by violence and injustice, you shall then possess by right and equity. All Christians will honour you, and make you arbitrator of their differences, &c. And again, if you were baptized, and would go with us into the house of the Lord, the people would no longer dread your empire, nor would we assist them against you; but rather we would implore your aid

against those, who sometimes usurp what belongs to the Roman church, and lift up their horns against their mother. And as our predecessors, Stephen, Adrian, and Leo, called in to their assistance Pepin and Charlemagne against Astulphus and Desiderius, kings of the Lombards, and, after they had by them been delivered from the oppression of tyrants, transferred to their deliverers the empire of the Greeks; so we would make use of your assistance, and we would not be ungrateful for the benefit we should receive.’ Can a reader, who considers these things without passion, discover any appearance of ambition in this epistle? was it not rather his zeal, that made him write thus, to influence the pride and courage of this barbarian? And does he promise Mahomet any thing, but what all Christendom would have consented to, if this barbarian had been willing to embrace these conditions, which Pius proposed to him?”

Rivet, answering for Du Plessis, confesses, that the long letter of Pius II to Mahomet contains very good things against the belief of the Turks, in confirmation of the Christian faith; but, adds he, Rivet’s Remarks upon the Answer to the Mystery of Iniquity, part ii, pag. 617. ¹²¹ “Besides that it appears to be a very useless design, that of converting this prince by an epistle, which was no ways probable, there is a diabolical malice in it. For, instead of shewing that the poor Christian Greeks under the empire of this barbarian, raised the compassion of the Christians in these parts, and exhorting him to treat them civilly, he seems to have written this epistle on purpose to blacken them as false Christians, and to discover, that their loss does not affect the Latins. Our history adds, as a mark of ambition, that he proposes to Mahomet, provided he would be baptized, the peaceable empire of all he had usurped, and promises him, that ‘ all will make him judge of their debates, and that the whole world will appeal to

his ‘decision,’ (you may judge whether the princes, who had been a long time Christians, were not mightily obliged to him); ‘that many of themselves would submit to him, and to his sentence, &c.’ He adds, ‘ that the charity of the Romish church will not only be towards him what it is to other kings, but so much greater, as he is higher than they.’ Observe this stroke. ‘ In fine, he represents to him, that the Romish church would implore his aid against the undutiful children that rose up against their mother.' And in fine, having boasted, that the Popes had transferred the empire of the Greeks to the French, he promises, that, in consideration of his services done to the church, he would do the like by him, in return for his benefits. There is wanting a long commentary on this discourse. In a few words, this way of converting men by promising them the empire of the world is not apostolical. It is a ridiculous thing to promise a foreign and potent prince, what he is already possessed of. It is contrary to charity, which is no respecter of persons, to be greater toward those who are more highly advanced. It is against the same charity, to discover to an infidel die miseries of Christendom, and to desire his conversion, on purpose to make use of him against princes already Christians. Lastly, it is vanity, ambition, and presumption, to boast, that the empire of Charlemagne is a reward from the Pope, and to pretend, that he could reward, after the same manner, him to whom he speaks: let the reader judge, whether this discourse becomes him, who says he is seated in the chair of St Peter: Is this a discourse humble, Christian, modest, and pious? Would these conditions and promises have been approved by all Christendom?"

It seems not possible to reply any thing very material to the remarks of Rivet; but, on the contrary, it seems very possible to make them more unanswerable; for what can be more horrible, and shameful to

the Christian religion, than to see Mahomet II, one of the greatest criminals that ever lived, a man, who had shed so much blood, and robbed so many persons of their estates by a continual train of cruelties and injustices, become lawful possessor of all his usurpations; provided he would be baptized? What becomes of that inviolable law of Christian morality, that the first step of repentance that expiates a robbery, is the restitution of the ill-gotten goods? What should we say, if a Jew, guilty of a fraudulent bankruptcy for three millions, should obtain, by the mere ceremony of baptism, without being obliged to make any restitution, a full absolution of his crimes, and a right to possess those three millions? Would not the Infidels have very good reason to defame Christianity as the pest of equity and natural morality? And yet this procedure with respect to the bankrupt would be only a peccadillo, in comparison of the offers, which Pius II made to Mahomet, to make him lawful possessor of his conquests, by means of a few drops of water sprinkled upon bis face. What would the apostles say at the sight of such a dispensation, and such a use of the keys? Is this agreeable to what St Paul says, or even to what Ovid a Heathen poet says:

O niminium faciles qui tristia crimina cædis
Fluminea tolli posse putatis aqua.

Fools! to believe, that water, duly spilt,
Can wash away the crimson stains of guilt.

Some persons believe, that the letter of Pius II was not written with the design of being sent to Mahomet. I shall add nothing to the words which I borrow from a Catholic writer. “Here we must add a word about the long letter, which Francesco Sansovino has published, under the name of Pope Pius to Sultan Mahomet. For it appears by it, that this Pope wrote it at the time, when the conquest of Sinope

and Trebizonde made the Latin princes fear the like effort from the Ottoman arms. It shews at large the advantages of the Christian religion above the Mahometan, and pretends to invite the Sultan to baptism by great examples, representing to him how glorious it was for Constantine the great, to have been the first of the Roman emperors, who became a Christian, and to Clovis to have been also the first of the French kings, who embraced the Gospel, and that it would be no less honourable for him to be the first of the Ottoman monarchs, who embraced our faith. There are many, who, reflecting upon the inaccessible and morose humour of Mahomet, do not think it probable, that a letter, on so nice a subject, was ever delivered to him, or that any durst wait for an answer to it. They add, that at least it would have found the Sultan very little inclined to the proposal, and that, unless by a miracle, his conversion could not be the effect of the remonstrances of a letter. Thus when the Italians would express the little hopes there is of success in any matter, they say pleasantly in their language ' La penna non toglie il filo alla spada: that the pen does not blunt the edge of the sword.’ It is probable therefore, that it was published among the western nations, after the taking of Trebizonde, as a manifesto, to justify the arms of the Crusade, and to awake the ardor of the warriors in Christendom, after they had seen, that the Pope had endeavoured in vain to divert the arms of the Sultan in the peaceable way of remonstrance.”— Art. Mahomet II.