Page:Illustrations of the history of medieval thought and learning.djvu/240

222 by Augustin Trionfo, dedicated to that same pontiff, John the Twenty-Second, who put forward the claims to which we have just adverted. The substance of Trionfo's view is that the pope is in all respects the representative and plenipotentiary vicegerent of God. If he says, adoration is reserved for God alone, worship belongs to the pope, equal to that due to the saints, greater than that to the angels, in proportion to the universality of his prerogative. The spiritual and temporal sway, symbolised by the two swords of Scripture, pertains so inseparably to the successor of saint Peter, by whom the one part of it is committed to secular princes to administer, that d even if he be personally a bad man, his power is none the less of God. Neither the emperor nor the laity have any right in his election; nor can any one depose him. f A general council may indeed declare his deposition in the event of his falling into heresy; but then it is not the sentence of the council that is operative against him, but ethe act of heresy, by virtue of which he ceases ipso facto to be pope. Except in this single instance he calls for universal and unquestioning obedience. ^From his will there is no appeal, not even to the judgement of God; for the utterance of the pope is identical with God's. An appeal to God is there fore worse than futile, it convicts the appellant of rebellion against the divine government of the universe.

Being thus raised high above all earthly conditions, it is evident that the authority of the papacy altogether transcends that of the empire. The pope, says Trionfo, has the right not only of deposing the emperor but also of choosing one at his own discretion, supposing that there is a want of unanimity or other defect in the election, that the object of his choice is marked out by pre-eminent merit, or that the head of the church is able