210 THE MIDDLE AGES. A.D. 1294-1517.
would not err — jomm est credere 7ion erraret. As Schwab has said, no one had ever preached in the same way to a pope before. The sermon caused a sensation.
Gerson, thoughnot present_at_the council of Pisa, contril^uted to^ its discussions bj his important trax3ts„on_t_he Uaity of the Church — De unitate ecclesiastica -^and the Removal of aFoi^err-De auferbilitate papoe ah ecclesia. The views set forth were that Christ is the head of the Church, and its monarchical constitution is unchangeable. There must be one jjope, not several, and the bishops are not equal in authority with him. As the pope may separate himself from the Church, so the Church may separate itself from the pope. Such action might be required by considerations of self-defence. The papal office is of God, and yet the pope may be deposed even by a council called without his consent. All Church offices and officials exist for the good of the Church, that is, for the sake of peace which comes through the exercise of love. If a pope has a right to defend himself against, say, the charge of unchastity, why should not the Church have a like right to defend itself? A council acts under tlie immediate authority of Christ and His laws. The council may pronounce against a pope by virtue of the power of the keys which is given not only to one but to the bod}^ — unitati. Aristotle declared that the body has the right, if necessary, to depose its prince. So may the council, and whoso rejects a council of the Church rejects God who directs its action. A pope may be deposed for heresy and schism, as, for example, if he did not bend the knee before the sacrament, and he might be deposed when no personal guilt was chargeable against him, as in the case already referred to, when he was a captive of the Saracens and was reported dead.
At the Council of Constance, where Gerson spnkp aaJ^liP delegate of the Frencli^ king, he advocated these positions again and again with his voice, as in his address March 23, 1415, and in a second address July 21, when he defended the decree which the synod had passed at its fifth session. He reasserted that the pope may be forced to abdicate, that general councils are above the popes and that infallibility only
§ 23. JOHN GERSON. 211
belongs to the Church as a body or its highest representative, a general council. ^
A blot rests upon Gerson's name for the active part he took in the condenmation of John Huss. He was not above his age, and using the laiiguage of Innocent III. called heresy a cancer. 2 He declares that he was as zealous in the proceedings against Huss and Wyclif as any one could be.^ He pronounced the nineteen errors drawn from Huss' work on the Church "notoriously heretical." Heresy, he declared, if it is obstinate, must be destroyed even by the death of its professors.* He denied Huss' fundamental position that nothing is to be accepted as divine truth which is not found in Scripture. Gerson also condemned the appeal to conscience, explicitly assuming the old position of Church authority and canon law as final. The opinions of an individual, however learned he may be in the Scriptures, have no weight before the judgment of a council.^
In the controversy over the withdrawal of the cup from the laity, involved in the Bohemian heresy, Gerson also took an extreme position, defending it by arguments which seem to us altogether unworthy of a genuine theology. In a tract on the subject he declared that, though some passages of Scripture and of the Fathers favored the distribution of both wine and bread, they do not contain a definite command, and in the cases where an explicit command is given it must be understood as applying to the priests who are obliged to commune under both kinds so as to fully represent Christ's sufferings and death. But this is not required of the laity who commune for the sake of the effect of Christ's death and not to set it forth. Christ commanded only the Apostles to partake of both kinds.6 The custom of lay communion was never universal, as is proved by Acts 2 : 42, 46. The essence of
1 See Schwab, pp. 520 sqq. , 668.
2 In a sermon before the Council of Constance, Du Pin, II. 207.
3 Dialog, apologet., Du Pin, II. 387.
* Ad punitionem et exterminationem errantium, Du Pin, II. 277. 5 See Schwab, pp. 599, 601.
^ Contra heresin de communione laicorum sub utraque specie, Du Pin, I. 457-468. See Schwab, p. 604 sqq.