Retorsion on popes and councils: their authority is likewise doubtful
When Rome's doctors locate that church authority chiefly in councils and popes, the same argument turns on them.
I prove that papal and conciliar authority is not first and supreme by the same token: it is doubtful and uncertain.
Some popes were intruders, irregularly created. Often several antipopes excommunicated one another and branded one another Antichrists. Councils that called themselves ecumenical and gathered in Christ's name favored heretics and were not lawful — Ariminum for the Arians; the second Ephesine for the Eutychians.
Second Nicaea and Frankfurt under Charlemagne cannot both be lawful: one banned the worship of images, the other commanded it under anathema — so one of them erred.
In the later Roman Church of these past centuries many councils have each styled themselves ecumenical, yet some were rejected, some approved, some half accepted and half refused. Their own doctors quarrel sharply over certain ones.
Bellarmine signs the Lateran under Leo X; the Gallican Church refuses its decisions, because it set the Roman pontiff above the whole Church and a universal council. Constance, which many in France receive whole, Bellarmine and others reject as to its first canons, because it set the council above the pope. Some Roman doctors revere Basel; others brand it a mere conciliabulum.
Latin
XVII. Cum vero Doctores Ecclesiae Romanae Ecclesiasticam illam authoritatem praecipue residere velint in Conciliis & Pontificibus, hac quoque in parte potest eorum argumentum valide retorqueri. Nam Pontificum & Conciliorum authoritatem primam & supremam non esse inde quoque probabo, quod eorum authoritas dubia & incerta est. Quidam enim Pontifices fuerunt intrusi & vitio creati. Et saepe plures fuerunt Antipapae qui se mutuo excommunicabant & Antichristos declarabant. Multa quoque Concilia quae se Oecumenica, & in nomine Christi congregata dixerunt, faverunt haereticis, neque fuerunt legitima, ut Concilium Ariminense quod Arianis favit, & Ephesinum secundum in quo superiores fuerunt Eutychiani. Nicenum vero secundum, & Francofordiense sub Carolo magno legitima simul esse non possunt, sed alterutrum errasse necesse est. Cum unum adorationem & cultum imaginum vetuerit & prohibuerit, alterum vero jusserit sub Anathematis poena. Imo in nupera Ecclesia Romana, qualis est ab aliquot saeculis, multa Concilia fuerunt quae singula se Oecumenica vocant, quorum tamen quaedam reprobata sunt, alia vero approbata, alia in parte probata & in parte rejecta. Et de quorundam authoritate acriter certatur inter Doctores Pontificios. Ita Concilio Lateranensi sub Leone X. subscribit Bellarminus, Ecclesia vero Gallicana Concilii istius decisiones non admittit. Quandoquidem definivit Pontificem Romanum esse supra Ecclesiam totam, & Concilium universale. Et vicissim Constantiense, quod in Gallia multi integrum recipiunt, quoad primos Canones a Bellarmino & aliis rejicitur: quoniam definivit Concilium esse supra Pontificem. Sic quoque Basileense Concilium venerati sunt inter Pontificios alii, alii vero tanquam Conciliabulum diffamant.