 There were a number of strands in conciliarist thought. One important influence was the tradition of canon law, in which it had been acknowledged that a pope could be judged and deposed if he became a heretic or notorious sinner (Tierney 1955). Ockham had likewise argued that “on occasion” anyone able to do so could rightly do whatever was necessary to preserve the Church, for example by deposing a pope who had become a heretic or notorious sinner. An unacknowledged influence was Marsilius, who had argued that the ultimate authority in the Church was the Christian people, that councils should be convened by the secular ruler and that a council could not err in matters of  faith.[75]  Many conciliarists held that Christ’s commission  (Mark 16:15,  “Go ye into the whole world, and preach the gospel to every creature”) was primarily to the Church as a whole, and held either that the authority of the whole Church is vested in the pope, or in the council when papal power is obstructed or abused, or else that the authority of the whole Church is normally vested in a council (while a council is in session). On either view, the council could depose an unsatisfactory pope, but on the second view the council is the chief organ of Church authority even in normal circumstances. Ockham’s view was that the normal constitution of the Church is monarchical (according to Ockham, Christ had appointed Peter as sole head of the Church), and a council or indeed someone else may acquire power over a pope, or in place of a pope, only in exceptional  circumstances.[76] 