§ 5. LITERARY ATTACKS AGAINST THE PAPACY. 36
the plenitude of power. This is the supreme pontiff. The priesthood and the papacy are of immediate divine appointment. Earthly kingdoms, except as they have been established by the priesthood, owe their origin to usurpation, robbery, and other forms of violence. ^ In these views ^gidius followed Augustine : De eivitate, IV. 4, and Gregory VII. The state, however, he declared to be necessary as a* means through which the Church works to accomplish its divinely appointed ends.
In the second part of his_tr,a(Ltv--^Egidiiis provas thai, in spite of Numb. 18 : 20, 21, and Luke 10 : 4, the Church has the right to possess worldly goods. The Levites received cities. In fact, all temporal goods are under the control of the Church. 2 As the soul rules the body, so the pope rules over all temporal matters. The tithe is a perpetual obligation. No one has a right to the possession of a single acre of ground or a vineyard without the Church's permission and unless he be baptized.
The fulness of power, residing in the pope, gives him the right to appoint to all benefices in Christendom, but, as God chooses to rule through the laws of nature, so the pope rules through the laws of the Church, but he is not bound by them. He may himself be called the Church. For the pope's power is spiritual, heavenly and divine. iEgidius was used by his successors, James of Viterbo, Augustinus Triumphus and Al varus, and also by John of Paris and Gerson who contested some of his main positions.^
The^cond of these 3K£iters, defending tha^aition of Bpniface YIII's was James of Viterbo.,^ d. 1.^8. He also was an I^^talijtria.])elonged toJihe-Ajugnsti niaji orcl f-a, and gained prominence as a teacher in Pai;^s. In 1302 he was appointed by Boniface archbishop of Ben even tun], and a, few months lat^r archbishop of Napl^g. .His Christian Governmej^t — De regimine christiano — is, after the treatise of iEgidius, the most
1 See Scholz, p. 96 sqq. This author says the de reg inline principum of -(Egidius presents a different view, and following Aristotle, derives the state from the social principle. '^ Sub dominio et potestate ecclesioe.
3 Scholz, p. 124. 4 See Finke, pp. 163-166 ; Scholz, pp. 129-153.
36 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
comprehensive of the papal tracts. It also was dedicated to Boniface VIII., who is addressed as "the holy lord of the kings of the earth." The author distinctly says he was led to write by the attacks made upon the papal prerogative.
To Christ's vicar, James says, royalty and priesthood, regnum et sacerdotium, belong. Temporal authority was not for the first time conferred on him when Constantine gave Sylvester tlie dominion of the West. Constantine did nothing more than confirm a previous right derived from Christ, when he said, " whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven." Priests are kings, and the pQp£_Ls the king of kings, both in mundane and spiritual Jnatters.^ He is the bishop of the earth, the supreme lawgiver. Every soul must be subject to him in order to salvat^Qj].^ By reason of his fulness of power, the supreme pontiff can act according to law or against it, as he chooses.^
Henry of Cassaloci, or Henry of Cremona, as he is usually called from his Italian birthplace, d. 1312, is mentioned, contrary to the custom of the age, by name by John of Paris, as the author of the tract. The Power of the Pope — De potestate papce.^ He was a distinguished authority in canon law and consulted by Boniface. He was appointed, 1302, a member of the delegation to carry to Philip the Fair the two notorious bulls, Salvator mundi and Ausculta fill. The same year he was appointed bishop of Reggio.^ The papal defenders were well paid.
Henry began his tract with the words of Matt. 27 : 18, " All power is given unto me," and declared the attack
1 Scholz, pp. 135, 145, 147. These two prerogatives are c&WeA potestas ordinis. and potestas jti7-isdictio)iis. 2 Scholz, p. 148.
3 Potest agere et secundum leges quas pouit etpraeter illas, ubi opportunum esse judicaverit. Finke, p. 166.
* Finke, pp. 166-170 ; Scholz, pp. 152-165. Finke was the first to use this tract. Scholz describes two MSS. in the National Library of Paris, and gives the tract entire, pp. 459-471.
5 A contemporary notes that the consistory was reminded that the nominee was the author of the De potentate papa:, " a book which proves that the pope was overlord in temporal as well as spiritual matters." Scholz, p. 155. The tract was written, as Scholz thinks, not later than 1301, or earlier than 1298, as it quotes the Liber sextus.