Page:The Church, by John Huss.pdf/38

xxxiv papers, had it not been for the fact that it confirmed Louis the Fair of France in his opposition to the temporal absolutism of the papal throne and united his kingdom around him in this interest. Groups of pamphleteers in Italy and France attacked now the claims of the papacy to secular authority, as Dante, and now its spiritual claims, as Peter Dubois and Marsiglius of Padua. These men agreed in repudiating Constantine's donation on the ground that Constantine had no right to bestow upon the Roman pontiff any such power; and Marsiglius went far along the line of making the claims which the Protestant Reformers afterwards united in making. This keen critic, who was anathematized by John XXII for asserting that Peter was not the head of the church, also asserted that the distinction between bishops and priests is not founded in Scripture and that the church has no authority to coerce by physical measures. Contemporary with him, Ockam was also affirming that Christ did not appoint a primacy at Rome and that the pope is not essential to the church but is of human appointment—ex ordinatione humana. This English Schoolman defined the church as "the community of the faithful comprehending clerics and laymen." It may be reduced to one person as it was to Mary when the disciples fled. A generation before, Philip the Fair had proudly reminded Boniface that the church was made up of laymen as well as priests.

The removal of the papacy to Avignon and the papal schism which followed, 1377–1415, were adapted to intensify the controversy over the nature and functions of the church,