192 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
Following Duns Scotus, _OckaiiL__taiiglit — ^^^^rminisna God's absolute_j\vill_ makes thing^s what they are. Christ might have become wood or stone if God had so chosen. In spite of Aristotle, a body might have different kinds of motion at the same time. In the department of morals, what is now bad might have been good, if God had so willed it.
In the department of civil government, Ockam, advocating the position taken by the electors at Rense, 1338, declared the_emperor did-oot- ja^i^d-ihe confirmation of thp popg. The imperial office is derived immediately from God.^ The Church is a priestly institution, administers the sacraments and shows men the way of salvation, but has no civil jurisdiction,^ joo^gstas coactiva.
The final seat of_authority, this thinker found in the Scriptures^ Truths such as the Trinity and the incarnation cannot be deduced by argument. The being of God cannot be proven from the so-called idea of God. A plurality of gods may be proven by the reason as well as the existence of the one God. Popes and comicils maj^eJO'. The Bible alone is inerran^. A J^liristian cannot be held to believe anything not in th^ Scriptures.^
TheChurch is the commiinihy of tlm f^yjtlifiil — eommimitas^ or congregatio fidelium.^ The^omag Church is ""t idpint.ip.ijj with i|, and this body of Christians may exist independently of the Roman Church. If the pope had plenary power, the law of the Gospel would be more galling than the law of jNIoses.
Werner, III. 115. The expression objective in mente is equivalent to our word subjective.
1 Imperialis dignitas et potcstas est immediate a solo Deo. Goldast, IV, 90, Frankf. ed. See also Dorner, p. 675.
2 Kropatscheck, p. 55 sq., Matt. 30:25 sqq. Clement YI. declared Ockam had sucked his political heresies from Marsiglius of Padua.
3 See Riezler, p. 273, and Seeberg, pp. 271, 278, Christianvs de necessitate salutis non tenetur ad credendum nee credere quod nee in biblia continetur nee ex solis contentis in biblia potest conseqnentia necessaria et manifesta inferri.
* Bomnnn ecclesia est distincta a conyrerjatione fidelinm et potest contra fidem errare. Ecclesia autem universalis errare 7ion potest. See Kropatscheck, p. 65 sqq., and also Dorner, p. 696.
§ 20. OCKAM AND THE DECAY OF SCHOLASTICISM. 193
All would then be the pope's slaves.^ The papacy is not a necessary institution.
In the doctrine of the eucharist, Ockam represents the traditional view as less probable than the view that Christ's body is at the side of the bread. This theory of impanation, which Rupert of Deutz taught, approached Luther's theory of consubstantiation. However, Ockam accepted the Church's view, because it was the less intelligible and because the power of God is unlimited. John of Paris, d. 1308, had compared the presence of Christ in the elements to the co-existence of two natures in the incarnation and was deposed from his chair at the University of Paris, 1304. Gabriel Biel took a similar view.^
Ockam's views on the authority of the civil power, papal errancy, the infallibility of the Scriptures and the eucharist are often compared with the views of Luther.^ The German reformer spoke of the English Schoolman as " without doubt the leader and most ingenious of the Schoolmen" — scholasticorum doctorum sine diihio princeps et ingeniosissimus. He called him his " dear teacher," and declared himself to be of Ockam's party — sum Occamicce factionis.^ The two men were, ♦however, utterly unlike. Ockam was a theorjst. not a reformer^ and in spite of his bold sayings, remained a child of the mediaeval age. He started no party or school in theological matters. Luther exalted personal faith in the living Christ. He discovered new principles in the Scriptures, and made them the active forces of individual and national belief and practice. We might think of Luther as an Ockam if he had lived in the fourteenth century. We cannot think of Ockam as a reformer in the sixteenth century. He would scarcely have renounced monkery. Ockam's merit consists in this that, in common with Marsiglius and other leaders of
1 See Werner, III. 120, who quotes Scaliger as saying of Ockam, omnium mortalium subtillissimus, cujus ingenium Vetera subvertit, nova ad invictas insanias et incomprehensibiles subtilitates fabricavit et conformavit.
2 See Werner, D. hi. Thomas, III. Ill; Harnack, Dogmengesch., III. 494; Seeberg, 276.
3 For example, Kropatscheck, especially p. 66 sqq. , and Seeberg, p. 289.
4 Weimar, ed. VI. 183, 195, 600, as quoted by Seeberg.
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