The analysis made by M. Roy must be supplemented by that of J. Richterich,[173] from which it appears beyond question that Nicholas made a very extensive use of spurious documents; as we have found Roman officials doing from the fourth century. Father de Smedt[174] "does not altogether deny" that, as Hinschius says, Nicholas sometimes, in quoting genuine Decretals, alters their meaning in accordance with the Isidorean. Roy himself has to admit that Nicholas goes far beyond the words and meaning of Gelasius in saying that no church may be built without the Pope's permission.[175] He goes equally beyond genuine precedent in claiming that no bishop can be deposed without his authority; hitherto there had been only the vague understanding that "grave cases" were reserved to the Pope. He advances equally beyond precedent in claiming that no council can be held without his sanction. Roy[176] calls this "a pseudo-Isidorean principle," and says that Nicholas nowhere asserted it. But Nicholas plainly asserts it in _Ep._, xii., and is just as plainly straining a vague early claim of Pope Gelasius.[177]
We must conclude that, however beneficent may have been the spiritual centralization which Nicholas so ably elaborated, and however impersonal and religious his aim may have been, he proceeded at times on principles which no cause can sanctify: principles which it was dangerous to bequeath to less spiritual successors. He died in 867, after nine and a half years of heroic work for his ideal: a type of ecclesiastical statesman that it needs a peculiarly balanced judgment to appreciate. The pleasures and thrills of the world he despised, and it would be a deep injustice to conceive him as other than entirely indifferent to the personal prestige of his position. His personality was entirely merged in his office: he was, indeed, not a personality, but the vicar of a greater personality. The phrase which too often in Hadrian's letters is a mere artifice for obtaining wealth and power--"the Blessed Peter"--was to him the expression of a living and awful reality. If the Papacy did not tower above all the other thrones in Christendom, the intention of Christ was made void. Nicholas would have it realized. In that spirit he added strength to the frame of the Papal system. The historian must do justice to his aim and to the salutary tendency of his moral control of Europe; he must be no less candid in denouncing the sentiment that the end justifies the means.