apart from Him and His law.[327] It has pleased God to choose only one perfection, sufficient to all people, and He has not established nor chosen any other laws under which the many hordes could justify their divisions, customs, interpretations, and deeds.
We have spoken about the many hordes, existing under the disguise of faith, that have strayed from the law of God and torn the net of faith, only by lip-service professing their belief, hiding behind sacred symbols of the glory of faith and so completely covered up by them that they appear like Christians when, in fact, they are the domestic enemies of faith and of the chosen ones of God.
CHAPTER 15
THE POPE’S GUILT IN THE TRANSACTION
CALLED “DONATIO CONSTANTINI”
We shall consider every one of the wicked hordes separately, about how they offend the law of God, and in what particular way – distinctive from the techniques of other hordes – they rend the net of faith. But first of all let us look at the two mighty whales which have done the greatest damage to the net of faith and which still keep on tearing it, namely, the chief spiritual lord[328] and the chief earthly lord.[329]
First, consider the spiritual lord, how he has pressed himself into the affairs of this earth and into the pagan play of power, presuming withal to follow the apostolic faith or the apostolic office, while actually desiring to rule over both the world and the faith. This High Priest offended the law of Christ for the first time when he abandoned the honesty and innocence of the apostolic state which he was bound by faith to maintain until death, that is, to remain in poverty and to continue working, preaching, and in any other service appertaining to the apostolic vocation. Therefore, to abandon this laboriousness, simplicity, poverty, and humility is no easy transgression of the law of God and the apostolic state. He could not have offended the divine law and the apostolic state to profoundly had he not at the same time been sitting in the place of the apostles, carrying out their office.
Furthermore, he could not have offended the law of God by giving up simplicity, poverty, humility, and work, had he not been bound to keep these qualities until death by the law of God. To abandon the law of God, to do things reprehensible to it – that is, insulting it! We find it clearly written in the Gospel that the apostolic man is bound to poverty, humility, and work, in imitation of the example of Christ and his apostles to whom he said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”[330] They accepted the words of Christ and kept them until their death, not owning any business, estate, or temporal fief. They kept his commandment. Sylvester was duty bound to keep it, too. And he is guilty of transgression because he did not abide by his obligation.
The High Priest has offended the law of Christ and the apostolic office for the second time when he brought distasteful additions into the apostolic state; he thinks to increase the dignity of the apostolic office by accepting imperial domains and worldly honors superior to the Emperor. He is burdened with a
