Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/234

182 he died there remained three to contend for the papacy, Pope John XXIII, Gregory in Sicily and Benedict in Spain. But from what moving cause this diabolical strife originally came, even the blind can discern, namely, from the dotation. Hence, St. Jerome, in his Lives of the Fathers, wrote: "As the church increased in possessions, she decreased in virtues." And what is set down as a probability by the Chronicles seems clear, as narrated by Castrensis, 4: 86, who describes how, 'at the time of the dotation of the church, an angelic voice was heard in the air, saying, that day poison was infused in the holy church of God. For, however it came to be, this is true: either a good angel or a devil uttered the voice, because it is certain that demons, who rejoice when they do evil, are bound to serve God and to be messengers of the truth, and it becomes God by the mammon of iniquity to announce in advance to the people their danger.' From these things the faithful are able to form a judgment whether any one, by the mere fact that he is called pope, is indeed the chief pontiff of the church and the most blessed father, and in matters of the faith learned above all worshippers of Christ, and whether he is the head of God's holy church.