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.[1] 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
- ↑ This position is not often favoured by the earlier writers on the subject. Thomas Aquinas (Baumann pp. 128 sq.) insists with as much force as Dante, De Monarchia i. 14, that a good ruler (or a good citizen) and a good man are convertible terms; and one would hardly apply a lower standard to the governor of the church.
