elves to
be corroborated before being accepted and circulated, we should hear
much less of Papal intolerance and of Church opposition to science.
Even a dead Pope must be considered as a man whose reputation one
should not malign without good reason and substantial proof. I must
add that, as with regard to the other Papal documents mentioned, I owe
the copy of this decree to Father Corbett, of St. Charles Borromeo
Seminary, Overbrook, Pennsylvania, and am indebted to him besides for
many helpful suggestions.]

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We quote the decree as it is found in Canon Law:

The Crime of Falsification.

"Alchemies are here prohibited and those who practise them or
procure their being done are punished. They must forfeit to the
public treasury for the benefit of the poor as much genuine gold and
silver as they have manufactured of the false or adulterate metal.
If they have not sufficient means for this, the penalty may be
changed to another at the discretion of the judge, and they shall be
considered criminals. If they are clerics, they shall be deprived of
any benefices that they hold and be declared incapable of holding
others." (See also the Extravagant of the same John which begins
with the word 'Providens' and is placed under the same title.)
[Footnote 15]

[Footnote 15: The decree referred to here was issued by John XXII.
against the counterfeiting of the money of France. The fact that the
two decrees should be considered by canonists as connected in subject
shows just what was thought to be the purport of the first, namely, to
prevent the debasement of the currency by the admixture of adulterate
gold as well as to protect the ignorant from imposition.]

"Poor themselves, the alchemists promise riches which are not
forthcoming; wise also in their own conceit they fall into the ditch
which they themselves have digged. For there is no doubt that the
professors of this art of alchemy make fun of each other because,
conscious of their own ignorance, they are surprised at those who
say anything of this kind about themselves; when the truth sought
does not come to them they fix on a day [for their experiment] and
exhaust all their arts; then they dissimulate [their failure] so
that finally, though there is no such thing in nature, they pretend
to make genuine gold and silver by a sophistic transmutation; to
such an extent does their damned and damnable temerity go that they