they follow the pontiffs, scribes and Pharisees who, when Christ refused to obey them in all things, said: "It is not lawful for us to put any man to death," and then delivered him over to the secular tribunal. Are they not murderers? Truly they are worse murderers than Pilate. The Saviour bore witness and said to Pilate: "He who delivered me to thee hath the greater sin." These are they to whom Peter spoke when he said: "Ye denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted unto you and killed the Prince of Life," Acts 3:14.
Then the doctors add: "It is fixed for every one of the faithful that the Roman church is the place which the Lord hath chosen, where the Lord placed the headship of the whole church. And the high priest who presides there is the pope, the true and manifest successor of Peter, and the cardinals are the priests of the tribe of Levi." In this statement, the doctors heap together many things that they do not prove. For when did they prove that it is fixed for every one of the faithful to accept that legal loaf of theirs?—brodium—[see DuCange, Glossarium, vol. 1]. For many of their party are without doubt among the faithful and know nothing about Rome, the pope, and the cardinals, and especially whether the pope is the true successor of Peter, and the cardinals the priests of the order of Levi. But these doctors call the church perhaps that place of which the Saviour prophesied when he said: "When ye see the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place (let him that heareth understand)" Matt. 24:15. Or the doctors call the Roman church a place, the basilica of St. Peter, or the apostolical dignity, for in these two senses "the place" in their statement may be understood, for there the Lord located the chief government—principatus—of the whole church because he wanted the apostles Peter and Paul to undergo their chief sufferings there, men who were appointed to be the spiritual rulers over the whole church and in whom, after Christ's
