not to bear in mind the circumstances of the times, which forced upon him and others questions altogether new. Confidence in the supreme office of the See and Successor of Peter, in matter of faith, had been rudely shaken by the disputed election of two and of three claimants to that supreme power. Though it was not logical, it was only too natural that the doubts should spread from the election to the office, and that the contending Obediences should endeavour not only to prevail over their opponents, but to protect, as they thought, the authority of the Church and the integrity of the Faith from dangers inseparable from the co-existence of two and three claimants to the supreme office of Judge in doctrinal causes. A good and a prudent motive can be supposed for this error. In denying the infallibility of the Pontiff, and in affirming the infallibility of Councils, Gerson no doubt thought to provide a broader and surer basis for the faith of Christendom. So much it is but justice to suppose. Nevertheless, his opinions are erroneous, even to the verge of heresy, and have scattered the seeds of a wide growth of heretical errors from that day to this. It is no wonder that Protestants have claimed Gerson as a forerunner and an authority. Villiers, a Protestant writer, in his book called 'Influence of the Reformation of Luther,' says that Gerson and Richer were the leaders of the religious revolution in France.[1]
In the last analysis, the great Western schism is no more than the rivalry and contention of Na-
- ↑ Bouix, De Papa et de Concil. Œcum. tom. i. 493. Paris, 1869.
