No one exerted himself so much in seconding Dr. Eck as the master of the sacred palace, Sylvester Mazzolini De Prierio, who had just published a work, in which he maintained, that not only to the pope alone appertained the infallible decision of all debateable points, but also that papal ascendancy was the fifth monarchy of Daniel, and the only true monarchy; that the pope was the prince of all ecclesiastical, and the father of all secular princes, the chief of the world, and even in substance the world itself.[218] In another writing he affirmed, that the pope is as much superior to the emperor as gold is to lead;[219] that the pope can appoint and depose emperors and electors, establish and annul positive rights; and that the emperor, with all the laws and all the nations of Christendom, cannot decide the smallest matter contrary to the pope's will. Such was the voice which came forth from the palace of the sovereign pontiff, such the monstrous fiction which, in union with scholastic dogmas, aimed at suppressing reviving truth. Had this fiction not been unmasked, as it has been, and that even by learned members of the Catholic Church, there would have been neither true history nor true religion. The papacy is not merely a lie in regard to the Bible, it is also a lie in regard to the annals of nations. And hence the Reformation, by destroying its fascinating power, has emancipated not only the Church, but also kings and nations. The Reformation has been described as a political work, and in this secondary sense it truly was so. [218] Caput orbis et consequenter orbis totus in virtute (De juridica et irrefragabili veritate Romanæ Ecclesiæ. Bibl. Max. xix, cap. iv.) [219] Papa est imperatore major dignitate plus quam aurum plombo. (De Papa et ejus potestate, p. 371.) [Sidenote: NO MUTILATION OF TRUTH. ZWINGLE PLEADS FOR LUTHER.]