Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/229

Rh have ratified errors and heresies, for they were heretics themselves.

Hence the text, Dist. 24, in nomine Domini (Friedberg, 1: 78], describes how the pope laments because that [apostolical] seat has often been smitten with the frequent din of simoniacal heresy. Therefore, wishing to provide a remedy for the future, he [ Nicolas II ] decreed that, at the pope's death, the cardinals, the religious, clerics and laymen, shall meet together for the election of a suitable pope from the bosom of that church or from the bosom of some other, wherever the most fit might happen to be found, and that the privilege of the emperor, Henry, should always be honored, namely, that he and his successors shall have the right to be present at the pope's election. But a true pope being elected, he shall have before his consecration, following the example of St. Gregory, power to dispose of the goods of the church, and every one who should hinder this ordinance he might anathematize as a most wicked antichrist. Here the Glossa ordinaria says, that at this point is plainly touched upon what is read in the Chronicles, how Benedict, who succeeded Stephen, was ejected from the pontifical office, and for a money consideration John, bishop of Sabina, was made pope, to whom the name Sylvester was given. But he in turn was cast down and Benedict restored, and Benedict was again ejected and the papacy given to John, archpriest at the Latin Gate, on whom was imposed the name Gregory. And he was cast down by the emperor Henry and transferred beyond the mountains; and these things all happened in a single year. On account of these things that privilege was given to Henry. Thus much the Glossa of the Decretum.