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path, is judged by the spiritual, whose executive is the pope. He is subject alone to the judgment of God. Going beyond this assertion of jurisdiction over princes, Boniface declared that for the salvation of every human creature it is altogether necessary that each be subject to the Roman pontiff.

The prerogatives asserted by the popes were buttressed with theological arguments by the corypheus of the Schoolmen, Thomas Aquinas, d. 1274. He took the position that as to Christ himself, so all princes and kings are subject to his vicar, the Roman pontiff, and it is necessary to salvation to yield submission to the pope.^[1] The language used by Boniface was simply other terminology for what the great theologian had advocated.

This bull was a battle-ground of discussion for the next two centuries and its twofold assertion the bomb which helped to shatter the medieval theory of authority. Wyclif, Huss and other writers referred to it again and again to contest its truth and condemn its audacity.

If the absolutism of the papacy was doubted and discredited after 1300, likewise was the theory of the church as elaborated by the Schoolmen. According to them, the church is a visible institution for dispensing salvation. Its boundaries are the boundaries of the kingdom of heaven on earth and are as distinctly marked as were the boundaries of the republic of Venice. The sacraments, which it is in the power of the church to administer, have an efficiency in themselves and, like drugs and food, impart to the sinner spiritual life and continue to maintain him in life. They introduce him into the kingdom of the faithful, nourish him during his earthly pilgrimage, and with the viaticum and the cleansing of the oil of extreme unction send him on the way to the other country. This sacramental efficiency is dependent upon the

 

1. Quod subesse Romano pontifici sit de necessitate salutis.—Schaff, V, 1: 674, 777. Döllinger says that Thomas was the first theologian to discuss the theory of papal infallibility as an integral part of systems of theology.