156 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
Italy, with two hundred prelates, had each only a single vote, while England, with only three prelates, had a vote. God, he affirmed, dealt with individuals and not with nations. He also raised the objection that married laymen had votes at the side of prelates, and John Huss had not been put on trial, though he had been condemned by the University of Paris.
To the envoys who, Jound John at JireisacJi, April 23, he gave his promise to return with them to Constance the next morning ; but with his usual duplicity, he attempted to escape during the niglit, and was let down from the castle by a ladder, disguised as a peasant. He was soon seized, and ultimately handed over by Sigismund to L(^viis HI., of the Palatinate, for safe-keeping^.
In the meantime the council forbade any of the delegates to leave Constance before the end of the proceedings, on pain of excommunication and the loss of dignities. J[ts fourth and fifth sessions, beginning April 6, 1415, mark an epoch in the history of ecclesiastical statement. The council declared that, being assembled legitimately in the Holy Spirit,it was an (jecumenical council and representing the whole Church, had its authority immediately from Christ«.and that to it the. pope and persons of every grade owed obedience in things pertaining to the faith and to the reformation of the Church in head and members. It was superior to all other ecclesiastical tribunals.! This declaration, stated with more precision than the one of Pisa, meant a vast departure from the papal theory of Innocent III. and Boniface VIII.
Gerson, urging this position in his sermon before the council, March 23, 1415, said^ the gates of hell had prevailed against popes, but not against the Church. Joseph was set to guard his master's wife, not to debauch her, and when the
1 Hardt, IV. 89 sq. , and Mansi, XXVII. 585-590. The deliverance runs : hcec sancta sj/nodus Constantiensis primo dedarat nt ipsa synodus in S. Spiritu legitihie congregata, generate concilium faciens, eccles. cathoUcam militnntem representans, potestalem a Christo immediate habeat, cut quilihet cujnsmodi status vel dignitatis, etiamsi papalis existat, obedire tenetur in his quoR pertinent ad fidem et exstirpationem prcesentis schismatis et reformationem eccles. in capite et membris.
•^ Hardt, II. 265-273 ; Du Pin, II. 201 sqq.
§ 16. THE COUNCIL OF CONSTANCE. 1414-1418. 157
pope turned aside from his duty, the Church had authority to punish him. A council has the right by reason of the vivifying power of the Holy Spirit to prolong itself, and may, under certain conditions, assemble without call of pope or his consent.
The conciliar declarations reaffirmed the principle lai^ down-by Nieheim on the eve of the council in the tract entitled the Union of the Church and its Reformation, and by other writers. 1 The Church, Nieheim affirmed, whose head is Christ, cannot err, but the Church as a commonwealth, — respublica, — controlled by pope and hierarchy, may err. And as a prince who does not seek the good of his subjects may be deposed, so may the pope, who is called to preside over the whole Church. . . . The pope is born of man, born in sin — clay of clay — limus de limo. A few days ago the son of a rustic, and now raised to the papal throne, he is not become an impeccable angel. It is not his office that makes him holy, but the grace of God. He is not infallible ; and as Christ, who was without sin, was subject to a tribunal, so is the pope. It is absurd to sa}'- that a mere man has power in heaven and on earth to bind and loose from sin. For he may be a simoniac, a liar, a fornicator, proud, and worse than the devil — pejor quam diaholus. As for a council, the pope is under obligation to submit to it and, if necessary, to resign for the common good — utilitatem communem. A general council may be called by the prelates and temporal rulers, and is superior to the pope. It may elect, limit, and depose a pope — and from its decision there is no appeal — potest papam eligere^privare et deponere. A tali concilio nullus potest appellare. Its canons are immutable, except as they may be set aside by another oecumenical council.
These views were revolutionary, and show that Marsiglius of Padua, and other tractarians of the fourteenth century, had not spoken in vain.
Havingaffirmed its superiority over the pope, the council pro-
1 Hardt, vol. I., where it occupies 175 pp. Du Pin, II., 162-201. This tract, formerly ascribed to Gerson, Leiiz and Finke give reason for regarding as the work of Nieheim.